This is the more important since the child sees few persons, and sees them constantly.

It is not only likely--it is inevitable--that he _make up his personality_, under limitations of heredity, by imitation, out of the "copy" set in the actions, temper, emotions, of the persons who build around him the social enclosure of his childhood.

It is only necessary to watch a two-year-old closely to see what members of the family are giving him his personal "copy"-- to find out whether he sees his mother constantly and his father seldom; whether he plays much with other children, and what in some degree their dispositions are; whether he is growing to be a person of subjection, equality, or tyranny; whether he is assimilating the elements of some low unorganized social personality from his foreign nurse.

The boy or girl is a social "monad," to use Leibnitz's figure in a new context, a little world, which reflects the whole system of influences coming to stir his sensibility.

And just in so far as his sensibilities are stirred, he imitates, and forms habits of imitating; and habits ?--they are character! 2.