Certainly one who begins to observe children with a vague notion that their actions, after the first few months, are almost all mechanically imitative, is likely to be surprised. I had this notion, derived, perhaps without much warrant, from a slight acquaintance with writings on child-study current previous to 1893, when my first child was born. He was a boy—I will call him R.—in whom imitativeness, as ordinarily understood, happened to be unusually late in its development. Until he was more than two years and a half old all that I noticed that was obviously imitative, in the sense of a visible or audible repetition of the acts of others, was the utterance of about six words that he learned to say during his second year. It is likely that very close observation, assisted by the clearer notion of what to look for that comes by experience, would have discovered more: but no more was obvious to ordinary expectant attention. The obvious thing was his constant use of experiment and reflection, and the slow and often curious results that he attained in this manner. At two and a half he had learned, for instance, to use a fork quite skilfully. The wish to use it was perhaps an imitative impulse, in a sense, but his methods were original and the outcome of a long course of independent and reflective experiment. His skill was the continuation of a dexterity previously acquired in playing with long pins, which he ran into cushions, the interstices of his carriage, etc. The fork was apparently conceived as an interesting variation upon the hat-pin, and not, primarily, as a means of getting food or doing what others did. In creeping or walking, at which he was very slow, partly on account of a lame foot, he went through a similar series of devious experiments, which apparently had no reference to what he saw others do. He did not begin to talk—beyond using the few words already mentioned—until over two years and eight months old; having previously refused to interest himself in it, although he understood others as well, apparently, as any child of his age. He preferred to make his wants known by grunts and signs; and instead of delighting in imitation he evidently liked better a kind of activity that was only indirectly connected with the suggestions of others.