In your play with the child make it a point to choose some game which
will develop his senses and faculties. You can amuse him as easily
and at the same time be accomplishing a great good. Do not put this
matter off "until you have more time." Use a little time each day, if
only five minutes. You are bound to experience to some extent the same
result as a friend who said: "I started in with this thing for the good
of the kids, but I find the kid who gets the most out of it is dad."
Rudyard Kipling, in his book "Kim," gives an instance of the
Observation Game played by Kim and a trained native youth. Lurgan
Sahib exposes to the sight of the two boys a tray filled with jewels
and gems, allowing them to gaze upon it a few moments before it is
withdrawn from sight. Then the competition begins, as follows: "There
are under that paper five blue stones, one big, one smaller, and three
small," said Kim in all haste. "There are four green stones, and one
with a hole in it; there is one yellow stone that I can see through,
and one like a pipe stem. There are two red stones, and--and--give me
time."
But Kim had reached the limit of his powers. Then came the turn of the
native child.
"First are two flawed sapphires, one of two ruttees and one of four, as
I should judge. The four ruttees sapphire is chipped at the edge. There
is one Turkestan turquoise, plain with green veins, and there are two
inscribed--one with the name of God in gilt and the other being cracked
across, for it came out of an old ring, I cannot read. We have not the
five blue stones; four flamed emeralds there are, but one is drilled in
two places, and one is a little carven."
"Their weight?" said Lurgan Sahib, impassively.
"Three, five, five and four ruttees, as I judge it. There is one piece
of old greenish amber, and a cheap cut topaz from Europe. There is
one ruby of Burma, one of two ruttees, without a flaw. And there is a
Ballas ruby, flawed, of two ruttees. There is a carved ivory from China
representing a rat sucking an egg; and there is last--ah ha! a ball of
crystal as big as a bean set in a gold leaf."
"Kim is mortified at his bad beating, and asks the secret." The answer
is: "By doing it many times over, till it is done perfectly, for it is
worth doing."
=Conscious and accurate sense impressions are essential for
definite knowledge.=
="He who knows and knows that he knows, he is wise, follow him."=