The ascendant trait of the imaginative period is the faculty of make-believe. It is the ability of the mind to create mental images of objects previously perceived by the senses. It involves the power to reconstruct and recombine materials, already known, into others of like symbolic purport. It is exhibited when Johnny mounts a broomstick, shouting, “Get up, horsie!” and “Whoa!” The imagination builds up a mental image of a real horse, which he has seen, out of the stick-and-string substitute. Through fancy, he endows the counterfeit with all the attributes of the original and for the time being the broomstick is a real, living, bucking horse. Such make-believe is an important factor in the development and coördination of ideas and the acquisition of knowledge. And so in the innumerable instances of make-believe plays, whether he pretends in fancy to be papa, a ravenous bear, a soldier, a policeman, or what not, he temporarily lives the part he is playing and merges his personality into the assumed character with an abandon which should excite the envy of an actor.
Witness also the imagination displayed by Mary when she builds a house with a line of chairs, and peoples it with imaginary friends with whom she carries on extended conversations, and takes the several parts in the dialogue when the absence of playmates renders such expedient necessary. Impersonation is grounded in imagination. Every little girl impersonates her mother, with a doll as her make-believe self, and spends many hours in pretending to care for its physical needs, teaching it mentally, and even correcting its morals with some form of punishment with which she herself is acquainted, whether corporal or otherwise.
The stolid, dull child exhibits less of fancy and imagination than his keen bright companion and therefore is less frequently engaged in the numberless activities prompted by imagination, which require supervision. His very stolidity keeps him out of many acts termed “mischief” and therefore he is more easily “managed” in the sense that he does not require such continuous oversight and direction. The stolid one must be set going by being told how, what, and when to play, while the imaginative one, without aid, conjures up many fanciful dramas in which he plays the leading rôle and thus occupies the years of infancy. These figments of the brain give rise to stories and fanciful tales which are called “lies” by adults who fail to understand their psychology. These are of sufficient importance to warrant their discussion in a separate chapter of this volume.
It is during this period that the mother, with her Heaven-sent gift of love, sympathy, tenderness, and insight into the soul of childhood, is the effective teacher. Coming home one evening, I found a neighbor’s son of six years sitting on his front steps awaiting his mother’s return. He was sobbing to himself. I approached him and inquired, “Well, Robbie! What’s the matter?”
He replied, through a mist of tears, “I fell down and bumped my head.”
“Does it hurt you?” I continued, in my helpless way, unable to fathom the soul-depths of his disaster. “No,” was the response, “it don’t hurt, but I want muvver so I can cry in her arms, an’ it will be well.”
He needed first aid to his feelings—not to his body—and only mother with her infinite love, sympathy, and understanding could apply it. With a deep consciousness of the limitations of his sex, the author withdrew to await the balm of mother-love—that unfailing remedy for the physical and mental hurts of childhood.
Blest hour of childhood! then, and then alone,
Dance we the revels close round pleasure’s throne,
Quaff the bright nectar from her fountain-springs,