A wise provision of nature has made the acquisition of knowledge pleasant and agreeable. It prompts the boy to fire continuous volleys of questions and has caused him to be described as the human interrogation mark. He looks on every adult as a wellspring of knowledge whose stream of information can be started flowing by tapping it with a question. The knowledge received and digested from the answers to his questions supplies him with food by which he grows intellectually. This inquisitiveness exhibits itself, before puberty, in frank, naïve questions--even of the most personal nature. On one occasion the author appeared in evening dress at a meeting of his troop of Boy Scouts preparatory to a later attendance upon a social function. He was immediately surrounded by that part of the troop of preadolescent age who subjected his wearing apparel to minute examination, during which they felt the cloth, inquired its cost, and commented freely, frankly, and unreservedly on matters pertaining to material, cut, style, price, and workmanship, with never a thought of giving offense. While one who is the object of such attention would ordinarily feel a degree of embarrassment at such familiarity, the author recognized it as a manifestation of the curiosity inherent in the preadolescent age, as well as evidence of a complete confidence and _rapport_ which could be possible only toward one with whom they were on terms of sympathetic and understandable companionship. The sages say, Dame Truth delights to dwell, Strange mansion! in the bottom of a well. Questions are, then, the windlass and the rope That pull the grave old gentlewoman up. --Dr. Walcot’s PETER PINDAR. During this age the imitative faculty is born, reaches its development, and is carried over into the heroic period. He follows companions in the kind of games and the seasons when they are played. If a playmate is the possessor of a sled, a bicycle, or a pair of skates, he must needs have their duplicates. He begins to follow closely the opinions, pastimes, games, and even the style of dress affected by others of his own class. If it is the fashion of his set, he will, with a persistency worthy of a better cause, wear the brim of his hat turned down and decorated with a multicolored hat band. He revels in a riot of color because æsthetics is an unexplored and unsuspected world. His proximity to the savage state is reflected in his love of the garish colors which are affected by savage peoples.