The child is indeed quite apt to acquire a precise knowledge of the natural objects around him, of flowers and plants and to some extent of animals, objects which to the savage also are of absorbing interest. In this way, under wise guidance, the caprices of his imagination may be indirectly restrained and the lessons of life taught, while at the same time he is thus being directly prepared for the serious studies which must occupy so much of his later youth. The child, we thus have to realize, is, from the educational point of view of social hygiene, a being of dual nature, who needs ministering to on both sides. On the one hand he demands the key to an imaginative paradise which one day he must leave, bearing away with him, at the best, only a dim and haunting memory of its beauty. On the other hand he possesses eager aptitudes on which may be built up concrete knowledge and the sense of human relationships, to serve as a firm foundation when the period of adolescent development and discipline at length arrives. FOOTNOTES: [163] De Quincey in his _Confessions of an Opium Eater_ referred to the power that many, perhaps most, children possess of seeing visions in the dark. The phenomenon has been carefully studied by G.L. Partridge (_Pedagogical Seminary_, April, 1898) in over 800 children. He found that 58.5 of them aged between thirteen and sixteen could see visions or images at night with closed eyes before falling asleep; of those aged six the proportion was higher. There seemed to be a maximum at the age of ten, and probably another maximum at a much earlier age. Among adults this tendency is rudimentary, and only found in a marked form in neurasthenic subjects or at moments of nervous exhaustion. See also Havelock Ellis, _The World of Dreams_, chap. II. [164] G. Stanley Hall, "The Contents of Children's Minds on Entering School," _Pedagogical Seminary_, June, 1891. [165] "The mother's face and voice are the first conscious objects as the infant soul unfolds, and she soon comes to stand in the very place of God to her child. All the religion of which the child is capable during this by no means brief stage of its development consists of these sentiments--gratitude, trust, dependence, love, etc.--now felt only for her, which are later directed towards God. The less these are now cultivated towards the mother, who is now their only fitting if not their only possible object, the more feebly they will later be felt towards God. This, too, adds greatly to the sacredness of the responsibilities of motherhood." (G. Stanley Hall, _Pedagogical Seminary_, June, 1891, p. 199). [166] J. Morse, _American Journal of Religious Psychology_, 1911, p. 247. [167] Lobsien, "Kinderideale," _Zeitschrift fuer Paed. Psychologie_, 1903.