Page 19. These are my plane insets. Here are the blue tablets. I must fit them into the frames, which have just enough room for them. I run two fingers, the fore-finger and the middle-finger, around the edge of the tablet, and then around the edge of the frames. Next I fit the tablet into its proper place. After a little practise I can put the six tablets in their places even with my eyes blindfolded.
Page 20. With the plane insets I have learned to recognize many figures: the square, the circle, the rectangle, the ellipse, the triangle, the oval, the pentagon, the hexagon, the heptagon, the octagon, the enneagon, the decagon. I learned all these hard names very easily because the insets are so amusing!
Interpretations
Reading with the object of interpretation is conducted as in the first experiments of the "Children's House," with cards. From the graduated series we have prepared the child selects a card. He reads it mentally and then executes the action indicated on the card. Our later experiments became very interesting when they were based upon a more rigorous method. When we gave a card describing two actions to a child of five years, he would execute only one of the actions. Take the following for example:
—She leaned over the back of a chair.
—She covered her face with her hands and wept.
The child would act out either the first sentence (She leaned over the back of the chair) or the second (She covered her face with, her hands and wept). In spite of the fact that this child seemed extraordinarily eager to get the cards into his hands and to interpret them, those containing two sentences always aroused in him less enthusiasm than those containing a single sentence or indicating a single action (for instance, The boy ran away as fast as he could). In this latter case the enthusiasm of the little ones, their care in interpreting the action vividly, their eagerness to repeat it, their flushed faces and shining eyes, told us that at last we had the reading adapted to their psychology.
Our first series of readings accordingly is entirely "tested" or experimental. It is made up of simple sentences something like those analyzed in the lessons on grammar (Verb to Pronoun).
Series I
—She gazed slowly around the room.
—He looked at them out of the corners of his eyes.
—The boy ran away as fast as he could.
—She threw herself on her knees before him.
—The man paced slowly up and down the room.
—The little girl stood with lowered head.
—The teacher nodded her approval.
—The little child sat with folded arms.
—He started rapidly toward the door.
—He began to walk to and fro about the room.
—His mother tenderly stroked his head.
—She motioned to him to keep away.
—He whispered in her ear.
—She placed her hand on his shoulder.
—They knocked at the door.
—The little girl frowned.
The children carry out the indicated action after they have read mentally, but they put what amounts to artistic expression into their interpretations, which are never executed listlessly. For them it becomes a real "interpretation." They often "study" the action, trying it over and over again, as though rehearsing for a play. Their aptitude for this is something remarkable. Furthermore the words have, for the most part, already been studied in the grammatical exercises, so that the meaning of each word is becoming more and more clear. This helps in the interpretation. For example, the sentence The little girl stood with lowered head does not mean simply "she lowered her head." If the child has understood he will stand for some time with lowered head in an attitude more or less expressive according to the vividness of his feeling of the situation. In the sentence She threw herself on her knees before him there will not be a simple act of kneeling, but something more dramatic. The child will assume the kneeling posture with some indication of emotion. The children take no end of interest in each other's interpretations.