the teeth come through of themselves, and the child is weaned
almost imperceptibly. Peasants have usually very good digestions,
and they are weaned with no more ado.

From the very first children hear spoken language; we speak to
them before they can understand or even imitate spoken sounds. The
vocal organs are still stiff, and only gradually lend themselves to
the reproduction of the sounds heard; it is even doubtful whether
these sounds are heard distinctly as we hear them. The nurse may
amuse the child with songs and with very merry and varied intonation,
but I object to her bewildering the child with a multitude of
vain words of which it understands nothing but her tone of voice.
I would have the first words he hears few in number, distinctly
and often repeated, while the words themselves should be related to
things which can first be shown to the child. That fatal facility
in the use of words we do not understand begins earlier than we
think. In the schoolroom the scholar listens to the verbiage of his
master as he listened in the cradle to the babble of his nurse. I
think it would be a very useful education to leave him in ignorance
of both.

All sorts of ideas crowd in upon us when we try to consider the
development of speech and the child's first words. Whatever we
do they all learn to talk in the same way, and all philosophical
speculations are utterly useless.

To begin with, they have, so to say, a grammar of their own, whose
rules and syntax are more general than our own; if you attend
carefully you will be surprised to find how exactly they follow
certain analogies, very much mistaken if you like, but very regular;