The Discovery Of The Child

178 THE DISCOVERY OF THE CHILD

thus formed corresponding figures of wood, provided with a
brass knob so that the handling of them might be easier, were
made.

Seguin used a star, a rectangle, a square, a triangle and a
circle, differently coloured, so that colour and form were combined;
the sockets were all in the same wooden frame.

In my school for defectives I increased the number of exam-
ples, separating those to be used for colours from those to be used
for shapes. The insets used for colours were all circular plates,
whereas those for form were all of the same colour (blue). I
provided a large number of frames with many colours, graded,
always grouping more figures into the same rigid frame which
kept them together.

But in my new experiments with normal children, I com-
pletely excluded flat insets for colours, because such material
affords no control over error, the child having to cover up the
colour needed for comparison.

DEFINITE MATERIAL

I retained the flat insets illustrating form, but I modi-
fied the material, separating one figure from another, so as
to give to every object to be inset a simple border, one with
the piece, almost like what carpenters make in exact joined con-
structions, which form the first test of the workman's skill.

Every one of the various shapes (squares, rectangles, circles,
triangles, trapeziums, ovals, etc.) was painted a bright blue colour,
whilst the various borders belonging to each piece were square in
shape, all of the same dimensions and yellow in colour. Thus
the pieces when separated could be arranged in different combi-
nations for increasing the number of groupings, it being an easy
matter to place the square frames side by side.

In order to keep the groups together, I used wooden con-
tainers, or frames, large enough to take six squares, and therefore
to kokt six figures in two rows of three each. The blue background