Indeed, with my methods, the teacher teaches _little_ and observes _much_, and, above all, it is her function to direct the psychic activity of the children and their physiological development. For this reason I have changed the name of teacher into that of directress.
At first this name provoked many smiles, for everyone asked whom there was for this teacher to direct, since she had no assistants, and since she must leave her little scholars _in liberty_. But her direction is much more profound and important than that which is commonly understood, for this teacher directs _the life and the soul_.
_Second._ _The education of the senses has, as its aim, the refinement of the differential perception of stimuli by means of repeated exercises._
There exists a _sensory culture_, which is not generally taken into consideration, but which is a factor in esthesiometry.
For example, in the mental _tests_ which are used in France, or in a series of tests which De Sanctis has established for the _diagnosis_ of the intellectual status, I have often seen used _cubes of different sizes placed at varying distances_. The child was to select the _smallest_ and the _largest_, while the chronometer measured the time of reaction between the command and the execution of the act. Account was also taken of the errors. I repeat that in such experiments the factor of _culture_ is forgotten and by this I mean _sensory culture_.
Our children have, for example, among the didactic material for the education of the senses, a series of ten cubes. The first has a base of ten centimetres, and the others decrease, successively, one centimetre as to base, the smallest cube having a base of one centimetre. The exercise consists in throwing the blocks, which are pink in colour, down upon a green carpet, and then building them up into a little tower, placing the largest cube as the base, and then placing the others in order of size until the little cube of one centimetre is placed at the top.
The little one must each time select, from the blocks scattered upon the green carpet, "the largest" block. This game is most entertaining to the little ones of two years and a half, who, as soon as they have constructed the little tower, tumble it down with little blows of the hand, admiring the pink cubes as they lie scattered upon the green carpet. Then, they begin again the construction, building and destroying a definite number of times.