The Importance of the PreSchool Years The years before a child embarks upon regular schooling are, it is generally recognized, the most im-Jporint in its life, and this not feast because in those pre-school days it is unconsciously fitting itself to be a pupil.
How the child reacts te lessons Jof information, as school education may be called, depends entirely on jthe way in which its mind and behaviour have been prepared and. trained beforehand. It may be naturally intelligent, yet through ack of having for its first six or Jseven years ever concentrated on Jany single occupation may find itself lagging Sehind the other jehildren in the school because unable to apply its intelligence to the willing pupil, yet never having absorbed the principles of discipline in the nursery it will readily become ithe "bad hat" of the schoolroom! constant thorn in the teacher's flesh, and in consequence find itself a perpetual disadvantage. There fare other ways, too, in which the neglect or foolishness of early training affect the child adversely when it arrives at school age; and such faults as extreme selfishness with its possessions, spitefulness to other children, lies, and other mean.
[nesses to avoid punishment—all of which faults are easily acquired by Jan only child, but which make it unpopular amongst its peers and therefore miserable at school—may be directly taid at the door of whatever grown-ups were responsible during its years of infancy and early childhood,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.