At this stage the completion of an entire cycle will exercise an influence more and more far-reaching on the personality of the child. Not only is he spurred on to a work of intimate concentration immediately after his culminating effort; he preserves a permanent attitude of thought, of internal equilibrium, of sustained interest in his environment. He becomes a personality who has reached a higher degree of evolution. This is the period when the child begins to be "master of himself" and enters upon that characteristic phenomenon I have called the "phenomenon of obedience." He _can obey_, that is, he can control his actions, and therefore can direct them in accordance with the desires of another person. He can break off a piece of work when interrupted, without becoming disorderly or showing symptoms of fatigue. Moreover, work has become his habitual attitude, and the child can no longer bear to be idle. When, for instance, we call some of the children who are in this stage to the lessons for teachers, in which they are to serve as the "subjects of study," they lend themselves with ready docility to that which we ask of them, they submit to the measurements of height, heads, etc., and they perform the exercises we suggest, responding always with _interest_, and not merely with resignation, as if they were conscious of collaborating with us. But when they have to _wait_, seated on one side till they are called forward, they cannot sit idle; they work at something. Inactivity has become intolerable to them. Very often, while I am giving the lesson, the children take the lacing or tying frames, or cover the floor with words made with the movable letters; and where this is feasible, some of the children will draw or paint in these moments of waiting. All these things have now become expressions of intelligent activity, which form part of their psychical organism. But to ensure the continuance of this attitude and of the development of personality it is essential that _some real task_ should be performed each day; for it is from the completed cycle of an activity, from methodical concentration, that the child develops equilibrium, elasticity, adaptability, and the resulting power to perform the higher actions, such as those which are termed acts of obedience. This makes one think of the method prescribed by the Catholic religion for the preservation of the forces of spiritual life: that is, a period of "spiritual concentration," which opens up the possibility of acquiring "moral powers." It is from methodical "meditation" that moral personality must draw its powers of solidification, without which the "inner man," incoherent and unbalanced, fails to possess itself and dispose of itself for noble ends. Children have always need of the period of concentration, and serious work from which they derive the capacity for final development. The following diagram represents a very lofty stage of childish development: