In fact, the correct _repeating_ of a sound heard, of a syllable, and, finally, of a word pronounced by another person, is the surest proof of the establishment and practicability of the entire impressive, central, and expressive path. It, however, proves nothing as to the _understanding_ of the sound or word heard and faultlessly repeated. As the term "understanding" or "understand" is ambiguous, in so far as it may relate to the ideal content (the meaning), and at the same time to the mere perception of the word spoken (or written or touched)--e. g., when any one speaks indistinctly so that we do not "understand" him--it is advisable to restrict the use of this expression. _Understand_ shall in future apply only to the _meaning_ of the word; _hear_--since it is simply the perceiving of a word through the hearing that we have in view--will relate to the sensuous impression. It is clear, then, that all children who can hear but can not yet speak, repeat many words without understanding them, and understand many words without being able to repeat them, as Kussmaul has already observed. But I must add that the repeating of what is not understood begins only after some word (even one that can not be repeated) has been understood. Now it is certain that the majority, if not all, of the children that have good hearing develop the understanding more at first, since the impressive side is practiced more and sooner than the expressive-articulatory. Probably those that imitate early and skillfully are the children that can speak earliest, and whose cerebrum grows fastest but also soonest ceases to grow; whereas those that imitate later and more sparingly, generally learn to speak later, and will generally be the more intelligent. For with the higher sort of activity goes the greater growth of brain. While the other children cultivate more the centro-motor portion, the sensory, the intellectual, is neglected. In animals, likewise, a brief, rapid development of the brain is wont to go along with inferior intelligence. The intelligence gets a better development when the child, instead of repeating all sorts of things without any meaning, tries to guess the meaning of what he hears. Precisely the epoch at which this takes place belongs to the most interesting in intellectual development. Like a pantomimist, the child, by means of his looks and gestures, and further by cries and by movements of all sorts, gives abundant evidence of his understanding and his desires, without himself speaking a single word. As the adult, after having half learned a foreign language from books, can not speak (imitate) it, and can not easily understand it when he hears it spoken fluently by one that is a perfect master of it, but yet makes out _single_ expressions and understands them, and divines the meaning of the whole, so the child at this stage can distinctly hear single words, can grasp the purport of them, and divine correctly a whole sentence from the looks