Page:First steps in mental growth (1906).djvu/70

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DRAWING
51

Fifth Stage.—The up and down, round and round, back and forth motion described above was displaced gradually by a circular or oval movement somewhat awkwardly executed and producing an irregularly shaped figure—yet bearing some resemblance to circles or ovals (Fig. 1, No. 6). At first this figure was made for its own sake, in play, without any idea of representing anything by it. But it soon came to stand for whatever object the child said he was drawing—a horse, a ball, or a man. So whether marking merely for the fun of marking, or when "drawing," the circular or elliptical figure was the dominant one in the first six months of the third year.

At this time—first half of third year—R.'s drawings, except of O, had not the slightest resemblance to the things he was supposed to be drawing, being merely scratches from right to left, up and down, round and round—most frequently the last. What did he mean then by asking for pencil and paper, and saying, as well as he could, that he wanted to "make O," or "baw," or "mum"? What did "make O," etc., mean to him? Did he think that "making" one of these figures is merely making marks on paper? Did he ask for pencil and paper, at the same time naming a given subject for drawing (horse, ball, or a letter) with the intention of trying to make a representation of it? or did he mean merely that he wanted to make marks? Did he have a mental image of the thing named—even a vague one—which he wanted to project on paper? or was his image, such as it was, merely of scribbling on paper,

    which her subject (twenty months old) wanted to "make" was a cat; another found that a child of twenty-two months wanted to make "Bowser," a favorite dog.

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