"There were two sisters, one of three years old, the other of five. The child of three could hardly be said to exist as an individual, so minutely did she imitate her elder sister; for example, the elder child had a blue pencil and the little one was not happy till she too had a blue pencil; when the elder sister ate bread and butter, whatever the little one had of a different kind, she would touch nothing but bread and butter, and so on. This child took no interest in anything in the school, but merely followed her sister, imitating everything she did. One day the little one became interested in the pink cubes, built up the tower with the liveliest interest, repeated the exercise several times, and completely forgot her sister. The older girl was so astonished at this, that she called her little sister and said to her: 'How is it that while I am filling in a circle you are building the tower?' From that day the younger child became a personality; she began to develop independently, and was no longer merely the shadow or reflection of her sister." These interesting facts concerning the spontaneous development of qualities which hitherto were non-existent in the individual, and which exploded _after_ the fundamental phenomenon--of intense and prolonged interest in a task--had manifested itself, have been confirmed by repeated experiments in a great variety of places made by persons who had had no sort of communication one with another. Thus, for instance, Miss Dufresne speaks of a little girl of four years old, who seemed quite incapable of carrying a glass of water even only half full, without spilling it; so much so that she turned away from such a task, knowing she could not accomplish it. One day she became absorbed in work with one or other of the objects, and after this, she began to carry glasses of water with the greatest ease; and as some of her companions were now painting with water-colors, it became her great delight to carry water to them all without spilling a single drop. Another most significant fact is related by Miss Barton, an Australian teacher. Among her pupils was a little girl who had not yet developed articulate speech, and only gave utterance to inarticulate sounds; her parents had had her examined by a doctor to find out if she were normal; the doctor declared the child to be perfectly normal, and considered that though she had not as yet developed speech, she would do so in time. This child became interested in the solid insets, and amused herself for a long time taking the cylinders out of the cavities and putting them back in their places; and after repeating the work with intense interest, she ran to the teacher, saying: "Come and see!"