Children's Ways / Being selections from the author's "Studies of childhood," with some additional matter

The Human Mind : a Text-book of Psychology. 2 vols. 8vo, 21s.
Outlines of Psychology. Crown 8vo, 9s.
The Teacher's Handbook of Psychology. Crown 8vo, 5s.
Studies of Childhood. 8vo, 10s. 6d.
The kindly welcome accorded by the press to my volume Studies of Childhood has suggested to me that there was much in it which might be made attractive to a wider class of readers than that addressed in a psychological work. I have, accordingly, prepared the following selections, cutting out abstruse discussions, dropping as far as possible technical language, and adapting the style to the requirements of the general reader. In order to shorten the work the last two chapters— Extracts from a Father's Diary and George Sand's Childhood —have been omitted. The order of treatment has been altered somewhat, and a number of stories has been added. I hope that the result may succeed in recommending what has long been to myself one of the most delightful of subjects to many who would not be disposed to read a larger and more difficult work, and to draw on a few of these, at least, to a closer and more serious inspection of it.
PART I.—AT PLAY.
PART II.—AT WORK.

One of the few things we seemed to be certain of with respect to child-nature was that it is fancy-full. Childhood, we all know, is the age for dreaming; for living a life of happy make-believe. Even here, however, we want more accurate observation. For one thing, the play of infantile imagination is probably much less uniform than is supposed. There seem to be very serious children who rarely, if ever, indulge in a wild fancy. Mr. Ruskin has recently told us that when a child he was incapable of acting a part or telling a tale, that he never knew a child whose thirst for visible fact was at once so eager and so methodic .
One may, nevertheless, safely say that a large majority of the little people are, for a time at least, fancy-bound. A child that did not want to play and cared nothing for the marvels of storyland would surely be regarded as queer and not just what a child ought to be.