No doubt it is annoying to his elders while it lasts, but the only wise course is to try to thwart as little as we can his legitimate desire to hold and grasp the objects, and even to assist him in every way possible. But the mother must assist him only by allowing free play to his attempts. To hand him the object is to deprive the exercise of most of its value. Incidentally she may teach him the virtue of putting things back in their proper places, an accomplishment in which he will soon grow to take a proper pride. If she attempts continually to turn him from his purpose, reproving him and snatching things from him, she prolongs the grasping phase beyond its usual limits. And she does a worse thing at the same time. Lest the quicker hands of his nurse should intervene to snatch the prize away before he has grasped it, he too learns to snatch, with a sudden clumsy movement that overturns, or breaks, or spills. If left to himself he will soon acquire the dexterity he desires. He may overturn objects at first, or let them fall, but this he regards as failure, which he soon overcomes. A child of twenty months, whose development in this particular way has not been impeded by unwise repression, will pick out the object on which he has set his heart, play with it, finger it, and replace it, and he will do it deliberately and carefully, with a clear desire to avoid mishap. Dr. Montessori, who has developed into a system the art of teaching young children to learn precision of movement and to develop the nerve centres which control movement, tells in her book a story which well illustrates this point.[1] [Footnote 1: _The Montessori Method_, pp. 84, 85.] "The directress of the Casa del Bambini at Milan constructed under one of the windows a long, narrow shelf, upon which she placed the little tables containing the metal geometric forms used in the first lesson in design. But the shelf was too narrow, and it often happened that the children in selecting the pieces which they wished to use would allow one of the little tables to fall to the floor, thus upsetting with great noise all the metal pieces which it held. The directress intended to have the shelf changed, but the carpenter was slow in coming, and while waiting for him she discovered that the children had learned to handle these materials so carefully that in spite of the narrow and sloping shelf, the little tables no longer fell to the ground. The children, by carefully directing their movements, had overcome the defect in this piece of furniture."