If a concept is exceptionally difficult--i. e.,
exceptionally hard to express clearly in words--then it is wont to
receive many names, e. g., "die," and the confusion and strife are
increased; but words alone render it possible to form and to make
clear concepts of a higher sort. They favor the formation of new
ideas, and without them the intellect in man remains in a lower stage
of development just because they are the most trustworthy and the most
delicate means of expression for ideas. If ideas are not expressed at
all, or not intelligibly, their possessor can not use them, can not
correct or make them effective. Those ideas only are of value, as a
general thing, which continue to exist after being communicated to
others. Communication takes place with accuracy (among human beings)
only by means of words. It is therefore important to know how the
child learns to speak words, and then to use them.
I have above designated, as the chief difficulty for the child in the
formation of words, the establishment of a connection between the
central storehouse for sense-impressions--i. e., the sensory centers
of higher rank--with the intercentral path of connection between the
center-for-sounds and the speech-motorium. After the establishment of
these connections, and long after ideas have been formed, the
sound-image of the word spoken by the mother, when it emerges in the
center-for-sounds directly after the rise of a clear idea, is now
repeated by the child accurately, or, in case it offers insurmountable
difficulties of articulation for pronunciation, inaccurately.
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