p. 12 | The Important Period by E. M. Barrett

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Washington, D. C. · Apr 21, 1904

The Important Period

By E. M. Barrett

THE first seven years of a child’s life are the most important in his entire existence as far as his future mental development is concerned. The normal child not only gains physically, in this time, one half his adult height and one third his adult weight, but has gained more knowledge of the external, material world than he will gain at any other period of his existence. This is a destructive as well as a constructive age, with instincts which nature has provided for the purpose of coming in contact with the material world. The intelligent, sympathetic mother and father can do more in the way of intellectual awakening at this period in nature’s school, than all the teachers in the common schools in later years. In fact, the teacher is handicapped unless the child has been trained to observation before school age. Thus instructed, the childish instincts have had their day, and he has stored away a host of impressions for future use.—E. M. Barrett.