Later the mother and the father and other devoted members of the family have to interpret the child's language to all others until he gets accustomed to this difficult art.
In learning to walk it is the desire to get closer to those most beloved that helps the child to balance on his feet and try the fearful voyage across the room to where father or mother waits to welcome his approach.

And here in most families the mother has the practice in hand far more hours in the day than any one else in the family.

Yet for talking and walking in families where there are several children the most efficient instruction of the youngest is often given by the older brothers and sisters.

The first child has all to do or to try to do alone; the only child has to pioneer all through childhood and youth so far as his own family life is concerned, but the child in a family of several children learns almost by unconscious absorption from those just a step in advance of his own attempts.
Where there are children too near in age the inevitable jealousy or unhappiness of the baby too soon pushed from his throne defeats this end of easy accomplishment through imitation.

Where there are too many children in the family for the father to properly support, or the mother to healthfully or happily care for, the nearness of age often means friction and not comradeship.