At first many of the children only succeed in placing the insets after many attempts, trying for example to place a triangle in a trapezoid, then in a rectangle, etc. Or when they have taken a rectangle, and recognise where it should go, they will still place it with the long side of the inset across the short side of the opening, and will only after many attempts, succeed in placing it. After three or four successive lessons, the child recognises the geometric figures with _extreme_ facility and places the insets with a security which has a tinge of nonchalance, or of _slight contempt for an exercise that is too easy_. This is the moment in which the child may be led to a methodical observation of the forms. We change the forms in the frame and pass from contrasted frames to analogous ones. The exercise is easy for the child, who habituates himself to placing the pieces in their frames without errors or false attempts.
The first period of these exercises is at the time when the child is obliged to make repeated _trials_ with figures that are strongly contrasted in form. The _recognition_ is greatly helped by associating with the visual sense the muscular-tactile perception of the forms. I have the child touch[12] the contour of the piece with the _index finger_ of _his right hand_, and then have him repeat this with the contour of the frame into which the pieces must fit. We succeed in making this a _habit_ with the child. This is very easily attained, since all children love to _touch_ things. I have already learned, through my work with deficient children, that among the various forms of sense memory that of the muscular sense is the most precocious. Indeed, many children who have not arrived at the point of recognising a _figure by looking at it_, could recognise it by _touching it_, that is, by computing the movements necessary to the following of its contour. The same is true of the greater number of normal children;--confused as to where to place a figure, they turn it about trying in vain to fit it in, yet as soon as they have touched the two contours of the piece and its frame, they succeed in placing it perfectly. Undoubtedly, the association of the _muscular-tactile_ sense with that of _vision_, aids in a most remarkable way the perception of forms and fixes them in memory.
