And this does not usually lend itself to experiments; its movements are, on the contrary, often inconveniently capricious. 214. So long as there can be no fixed time for the analytic lessons woven into answers to the questions of children, analytic instruction is coincident with the guidance of the child’s attention, with his social intercourse, with his occupations and the consequent cultivation of habits, with hardening exercises, ethical judgments, and the earliest religious impressions; in some measure also with reading exercises. 215. To the latter portion of this period belong the first steps in synthetic instruction, reading, writing, ciphering, the simplest modes of arrangement, and the first observation exercises. If the child is as yet incapable of uniform attention during a whole hour, the teacher will be satisfied with smaller divisions of time; the degree of attention is more important than its duration. Note that the subjects enumerated fall into different groups. Counting, arranging, observing, are different phases of the natural development of the mind. Instruction does not create these activities; its business is merely to accelerate them. At the beginning, therefore, our mode of procedure must be as much as possible analytic. On the other hand, reading and writing can be taught only synthetically, although on the basis of an antecedent analysis of speech sounds. (1) Arranging--commonly neglected, though wrongly so--is an exceedingly easy exercise in itself, and facilitates the performance of many other tasks. It is therefore appropriate for children. That three objects may change places from right to left (from front to rear, from above to below) and _vice versa_--this is the beginning. The next step is to show that three objects admit of six permutations in a straight line. To find how many pairs can be formed out of a given number of objects, is one of the easiest problems. How far to go, is a matter to be determined by circumstances. Not letters, however, but objects,--the children themselves,--should be changed about, permuted, and varied in position. The teaching of a subject like this must in a measure have the semblance of play. (2) The first observation exercises begin with straight lines drawn vertically or cross-wise. Use may be made also of knitting needles variously placed, side by side or across each other, of domino checks, and of similar objects. Next comes the circle, subdivided and presented in manifold ways. (3) For arithmetic, likewise, concrete objects are needed,--coins, for example, which are counted and arranged in different groups to illustrate sums, differences, and products. At first the highest number employed should not exceed, say, twelve or twenty.