He divides childhood into three--including the fetus, four--stages. But, since the “child before birth has no peculiar individuality, none related in a particular way to particular objects,” there is no education proper here. “At birth it passes from vegetative to animal existence.” He has the most finely organized, infinitely adaptable body of all animals. The growth is not only quantitative, but qualitative. And together with its physical growth goes the mental development, this first stage of infant life being “the time in which the human being learns most. Now the child is made a confidant of all the senses. The outer world becomes a reality to him. He advances from sensation to perception.... He projects his world about himself” (3: pp. 119-120). “The transition stage from infancy to boyhood has the following characteristics: The child’s activity is directed more and more upon the outer world; and along with his sense of the reality of the outer world he begins to be a real person, and to feel himself as such. This feeling is joined with the practical tendency to make all sorts of experiments upon his surroundings. For this practical activity, the child is fitted by the coming of his teeth, by his learning to stand, walk, and speak” (3: pp. 120-121). Standing is the first requirement by the exercise of volition. But “a still freer relation to the outer world is attained by man through his power of walking.” The development of speech, on the other hand, enables him to grasp things in generalized concepts. It also leads him to the consciousness of his own constant and total subject--to the “comprehension of his ego.” The conscious independence of self from the nonself now dawns. “This dawning independence first expresses itself in play with material objects.” Hegel, however, does not like to linger long here, and hastens to the next stage, boyhood, which constitutes “the passage of the child from play to serious study.” “In this transition stage children begin to be full of curiosity. They especially delight in stories. They seek rare and strange ideas. Above all is the awakening feeling that they are not yet what they are to be, and the ardent wish to become like the grown-up people about them. Out of this springs the child’s desire to imitate” (3: p. 121).