To find the interpretation of children's desires we must study them scientifically, for their desires are often unconscious. They are the inner cry of life, which wishes to unfold according to mysterious laws. We know very little of the way in which it unfolds. Certainly the child is growing into a man by force of a divine action similar to that by which from nothing he became a child.
Our intervention in this marvelous process is _indirect_; we are here to offer to this life, which came into the world by itself, the _means_ necessary for its development, and having done that we must await this development with respect.
Let us leave the life _free_ to develop within the limits of the good, and let us observe this inner life developing. This is the whole of our mission. Perhaps as we watch we shall be reminded of the words of Him who was absolutely good, "Suffer the little children to come unto Me." That is to say, "Do not hinder them from coming, since, if they are left free and unhampered, they will come."
The child who has completed all the exercises above described, and is thus _prepared_ for an advance towards unexpected conquests, is about four years old.
He is not an unknown quantity, as are children who have been left to gain varied and casual experiences by themselves, and who therefore differ in type and intellectual standard, not only according to their "natures," but especially according to the chances and opportunities they have found for their spontaneous inner formation.
Education has _determined an environment_ for the children. Individual differences to be found in them can, therefore, be put down almost exclusively to each one's individual "nature." Owing to their environment which offers _means_ adapted and measured to meet the needs of their psychical development, our children have acquired a fundamental type which is common to all. They have _coordinated_ their movements in various kinds of manual work about the house, and so have acquired a characteristic independence of action, and initiative in the adaptation of their actions to their environment. Out of all this emerges a _personality_, for the children have become little men, who are self-reliant.