The candles on it had been lighted for
three evenings. On the third evening, when only one of its many lights
was burning, the child could not leave it, but kept taking a position
before it and saying with earnest tone, _gunna-itz-boum_, i. e., "Gute
nacht, Christbaum!" The most of his sentences still consist of two
words, one of which is often a verb in the infinitive. Thus, _helle
mama_, _helle mami_, i. e., "helfen (help) Mama, Marie!" and _bibak
tommen_, i. e., "der Zwieback soll kommen" (let the biscuit come); or
_tsee machen_ (make _c_)--on the piano the keys _c_, _d_, _e_, had often
been touched separately by the little fingers accidentally, and the
applause when in response to the question, "Where is _c_?" the right key
was touched, excited the wish for repetition; _roth_, _druen machen_
(make red or green)--the child was instructed by me in the naming of
colors; and _dekkn pilen_, i. e., "Verstecken spielen" (play hide and
seek). In quite short narratives, too, the verbs appear in the
infinitive only. Such accounts of every-day occurrences--important to
the child, however, through their novelty--are in general falling into
the background as compared with the expression of his wishes in words as
in the last-mentioned cases. Both kinds of initiatory attempts at
speaking testify more and more plainly to awakening intellect, for, in
order to use a noun together with a verb in such a way as to correspond
to a wish or to a fact experienced, there must be added to the imitation
of words heard and to the memory of them something which adapts the
sense of them to the outward experiences at the time and the peculiar
circumstances, and associates them with one another.
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