Valuable as such statistical investigation undoubtedly is, it is no substitute for the careful methodical study of the individual child. This seems to me the greatest desideratum just now. Since the teacher needs for practical reasons to make a careful study of individuals he might well assist here. In these days of literary collaboration it might not be amiss for a kindergarten teacher to write an account of a child’s mind in co-operation with the mother. Such a record if well done would be of the greatest value. The co-operation of the mother seems to me quite indispensable, since even where there is out-of-class intercourse between teacher and pupil the knowledge acquired by the former never equals that of the mother. II. THE AGE OF IMAGINATION. _Why we call Children Imaginative._ One of the few things we seemed to be certain of with respect to child-nature was that it is fancy-full. Childhood, we all know, is the age for dreaming, for decking out the world as yet unknown with the gay colours of imagination; for living a life of play or happy make-believe. So that nothing seems more to characterise the ‘Childhood of the World’ than the myth-making impulse which by an overflow of fancy seeks to hide the meagreness of knowledge. Yet even here, perhaps, we have been content with loose generalisation in place of careful observation and analysis of facts. For one thing, the play of infantile imagination is probably much less uniform than is often supposed. There seem to be matter-of-fact children who cannot rise buoyantly to a bright fancy. Mr. Ruskin, of all men, has recently told us that when a child he was incapable of acting a part or telling a tale, that he never knew a child “whose thirst for visible fact was at once so eager and so methodic”.[11] We may accept the report of Mr. Ruskin’s memory as proving that he did not idle away his time in day-dreams, but, by long and close observation of running water, and the like, laid the foundations of that fine knowledge of the appearances of nature which everywhere shines through his writings. Yet one may be permitted to doubt whether a writer who shows not only so rich and graceful a style but so truly poetic an invention could have been _in every respect_ an unimaginative child. ----- Footnote 11: _Præterita_, p. 76. -----