=B. Symbolic Imitation.=--If we note the imitative acts of a child of from four to six years of age, we may find that a new factor is often entering into the process. At this stage the child, instead of merely copying the acts of others, further clothes objects and persons with fancied attributes through a process of imagination. By this means, the little child becomes a mother and the doll a baby; one boy becomes a teacher or captain, the others become pupils or soldiers. This form has already been referred to as symbolic imitation. Frequent use is made of this type of imitation in education, especially in the kindergarten. Through the gifts, plays, etc., of the kindergarten, the child in imagination exemplifies numberless relations and processes of the home and community life. The educative value of this type consists in the fact that the child, by acting out in a symbolic, or make-believe, way valuable social processes, though doing them only in an imaginative way, comes to know them better by the doing.
=C. Voluntary Imitation.=--As the child's increasing power of attention gives him larger control of his experiences, he becomes able, not only to distinguish between the idea of an action and its reproduction by imitation, but also to associate some further end, or purpose, with the imitative process. The little child imitates the language of his fellows spontaneously; the mimic, for the purpose of bringing out certain peculiarities in their speech. When first imitating his elder painting with a brush, the child imitates merely in a spontaneous or unconscious way the act of brushing. When later, however, he tries to secure the delicate touch of his art teacher, he will imitate the teacher's movements for the definite purpose of adding to his own skill. Because in this type the imitator first conceives in idea the particular act to be imitated, and then consciously strives to reproduce the act in like manner, it is classified as conscious, or voluntary, imitation.
=Use of Voluntary Imitation.=--Teachers differ widely concerning the educational value of voluntary imitation. It is evident, however, that in certain cases, as learning correct forms of speech, in physical and manual exercises, in conduct and manners, etc., good models for imitation count for more than rules and precepts. On the other hand, to endeavour to teach a child by imitation to read intelligently could only result in failure. In such a case, the pupil, by attempting to analyse out and set up as models the different features of the teachers reading, would have his attention directed from the thought of the sentence. But without grasping the meaning, the pupil cannot make his reading intelligent. In like manner, to have a child learn a rule in arithmetic by merely imitating the process from type examples worked by the teacher, would be worse than useless, since it would prevent independent thinking on the child's part. The purpose here is not to gain skill in a mechanical process, but to gain knowledge of an intelligent principle.