The art-impulse of children lends itself particularly well to observation. No doubt, as we shall see, there are difficulties for the observer here. It may sometimes be a fine point to determine whether a childish action properly falls under the head of genuine art-production, though I do not think that this is a serious difficulty. On the other hand, the art-impulse where it exists manifests itself directly, and for the most part in so characteristic an objective form that we are able to study its features with special facility. In its narrow sense as a specialised instinct prompting its possessor to follow a definite line of production, as drawing of the artistic sort, or simple musical composition, the art-impulse is a particularly variable phenomenon of childhood. Some children, who afterwards take seriously to a branch of art-culture, manifest an innate bent by a precocious devotion to this line of activity. Many others, I have reason to believe, have a passing fondness for a particular form of art-activity. On the other hand, there are many children who display almost a complete lack, not only of the productive impulse, but of the æsthetic sense of the artist. So uncertain, so sporadic are these appearances of a rudimentary art among children that one might be easily led to think that art-activity ought not to be reckoned among their common characteristics. To judge so, however, would be to judge erroneously by applying grown-up standards. It is commonly recognised that art and play are closely connected. It is probable that the first crude art of the race, or at least certain directions of it, sprang out of play-like activities, and however this be the likenesses of the two are indisputable. I shall hope to bring these out in the present study. This being so, we are, I conceive, justified in speaking of art-impulses as a common characteristic of childhood. Although we shall find many interesting points of analogy between crude child-art and primitive race-art, we must not, as pointed out above, expect a perfect parallelism. In some directions, as drawing, concerted dancing, the superior experience, strength and skill of the adult will reveal themselves, placing child-art at a considerable disadvantage in the comparison. Contrariwise, the intervention of the educator’s hand tends seriously to modify the course of development of the child’s æsthetic aptitudes. His tastes get acted upon from the first and biassed in the direction of adult tastes.