The child's feelings are still self-centered, yet development of the social and altruistic feelings is apparent. Children enjoy companionship more than in earlier years, but the longing for others does not reach the intensity which demands the club and gang until later. A feeling of sympathy and desire to help must still be awakened by definite cases of need, plus the influence of parent or teacher, as the child does not yet know life's hard experiences well enough to read their meaning and give response to them of himself. If nurture has met its opportunity in the preceding period, the child's love for God and confidence in Him have grown stronger. The Heavenly Father will be as real to him as an earthly friend, and His help a living experience. "How is it that you always have a perfect spelling lesson at school?" a primary teacher asked of one of her boys. "Why, don't you know that Jesus sits in the seat with me every day and helps me?" he replied. The teacher's face betokened her surprise, and the child emphatically reiterated, "He truly does sit with me and help me." Would that God's older children could live as actually in the Presence that was promised for "all the days." Actions continue to be largely impulsive, carried out according to the strongest present desire, and though right and wrong are more clearly understood than formerly, they do not often determine an act unsupported by other considerations. This is evident in the matter of obedience, whose strengthening into a habit is one of the most imperative tasks of nurture during childhood. Abstract laws and principles of right, so weighty in middle adolescence, have but slight influence over the child, unless joined with them is a strong personality whom the child loves or fears, and whose favor he desires to win through obeying. There are certain modifications of earlier characteristics, which demand more than a passing notice, because they necessitate greater change in the methods of nurture. ACTIVITY Though the restlessness of the preceding period is still in evidence, more and more activity is becoming purposeful and willed. While the child continues to love activity for itself, he is more interested in what it will accomplish than formerly, but an end is not yet sufficiently attractive in itself to hold him to an unpleasant activity for its achievement. For example, he enjoys both the weaving and the basket, the pasting and the scrap-book, but if pasting and weaving were laborious and difficult, he would not voluntarily go through them to obtain the basket or the scrap-book.