197. As far as safety permits, the spontaneous activity of the child should have free play, primarily that he may get practice in the use of every limb, but also in order that by his own attempts his observations of objects and their changeableness may be enlarged. 198. Unpleasant, repellent impressions of persons, whoever they are, must be most carefully guarded against. No one can be allowed to treat a child as a plaything. 199. On the other hand, no one must allow himself to be ruled by a child, least of all when the child becomes importunate. Otherwise, wilfulness will be the inevitable consequence, a result almost unavoidable with sickly children, by reason of the attention demanded by their sufferings. 200. A child must always feel the superiority of adults, and often his own helplessness. The necessary obedience is founded on this feeling. With consistent treatment, persons constantly about the child will secure obedience more readily than others who are rarely present. Outbursts of passion must be given time to subside unless circumstances urgently require a different course. 201. On rare occasions there may be an exhibition of force inspiring enough fear to make a threat effective and to check an excess of animal spirits. For if government is to escape the extremely harmful necessity of severe disciplinary measures later on, it must become firmly established during the earliest years of childhood. 202. The language of children demands scrupulous attention from the beginning, in order to prevent the formation of incorrect and careless habits of speech, which at a later period it usually requires much trouble and loss of time to eradicate. But literary forms of expression that are beyond the comprehension of children are to be strictly avoided. CHAPTER II =The Ages from Four to Eight= 203. The real boundary line is fixed not by age, but by that stage of development when the helplessness of the first stage is superseded by control of the limbs and a connected use of language. And the mere fact that children are now able to free themselves from much momentary discomfort carries with it greater calmness and cheerfulness. 204. In proportion as the child learns to help himself, assistance from without must be withdrawn. At the same time government must increase in firmness, and with many children in severity, until the last traces of that wilfulness vanish, which the former period does not as a rule wholly escape. But this presupposes that no one provoke the child unnecessarily to any kind of resistance. The firmer the established order of things about the child, the readier his compliance. 205. The child must be given as much freedom as circumstances will permit, one purpose being to induce frank self-expression, and to obtain data for a study of his individuality. Still, the main thing at this age is to guard against bad habits, especially such as are connected with objectionable tendencies of disposition.