In this state of things it might seem well to wait. Possibly by-and-by we shall light on new methods of tapping the childish consciousness. Patients in a certain stage of the hypnotic trance have returned, it is said, to their childish experience and feelings. Some people do this, or appear to do this, in their dreams. I know a young man who revives vivid recollections of the experiences of the third year of life when he is sleepy, and more especially if he is suffering from a cold. These facts suggest that if we only knew more about the mode of working of the brain we might reinstate a special group of conditions which would secure a re-emergence of childish ideas and sentiments. Yet our case is not so hopeless that we need defer inquiry into the child’s mind until human science has fathomed all the mysteries of the brain. We can know many things of this mind, and these of great importance, even now. The naturalist discusses the actions of the lower animals, confidently attributing intelligent planning here, and a germ of vanity or even of moral sense there; and it would be hard were we forbidden to study the little people that are of our own race, and are a thousand times more open to inspection. Really good work has already been done here, and one should be grateful. At the same time, it seems to me of the greatest importance to recognise that it is but a beginning: that the child which the modern world has in the main discovered is after all only half discovered: that if we are to get at his inner life, his playful conceits, his solemn broodings over the mysteries of things, his way of responding to the motley show of life, we must carry this work of noting and interpreting to a much higher point. Now, if progress is to be made in this work, we must have specially qualified workers. All who know anything of the gross misunderstandings of children of which many so-called intelligent adults are capable, will bear me out when I say that a certain gift of penetration is absolutely indispensable here. If any one asks me what the qualifications of a good child-observer amount to, I may perhaps answer, for the sake of brevity, ‘a divining faculty, the offspring of child-love, perfected by scientific training’. Let us see what this includes.