ABSTRACT
Looking at pictures plays indeed a very privileged part in early years. At the same time pictures offer the advantage, in case of need, of providing material for testing experimentally sight-perception; they can be shown in any order and in conjunction with definite questions and exercises. It also includes their presentation can be repeated at different ages or with different children for the purpose of comparison; and simple representations can be drawn to order in the child's presence. And also from a purely psychological point of view the picture occupies an interesting special role in the child's psychic development; it is almost, if not entirely, independent of sensory-motor activity. Pictures have the peculiarity of giving a direct idea of active life without setting in motion any active response. These motor-reactions become by degrees so much less apparent that, in the looking at pictures and in that alone, we can follow with comparative clearness the growth of sight-perception.
