Besides all this, the child learns _to trace lines_ determining figures. There will come a day in which, with still greater surprise and pleasure, he will trace graphic signs determining words.
After this, he begins the work which directly prepares for the formation of the muscular mechanism relative to the holding and manipulation of the instrument of writing. With a coloured pencil of his own selection, held as the pen is held in writing, he _fills in_ the figure which he has outlined. We teach him not to pass outside the contour, and in doing so we attract his attention to this contour, and thus _fix_ the idea that a line may determine a figure.
The exercise of filling in one figure alone, causes the child to perform repeatedly the movement of manipulation which would be necessary to fill ten copy-book pages with vertical strokes. And yet, the child feels no weariness, because, although he makes exactly the muscular co-ordination which is necessary to the work, he does so freely and in any way that he wishes, while his eyes are fixed upon a large and brightly coloured figure. At first, the children fill pages and pages of paper with these big squares, triangles, ovals, trapezoids; colouring them red, orange, green, blue, light blue, and pink.
Gradually they limit themselves to the use of the dark blue and brown, both in drawing the figure and in filling it in, thus reproducing the appearance of the metal piece itself. Many of the children, quite of their own accord, make a little orange-coloured circle in the centre of the figure, in this way representing the little brass button by which the metal piece is to be held. They take great pleasure in feeling that they have reproduced exactly, like true artists, the objects which they see before them on the little shelf.
Observing the successive drawings of a child, there is revealed to us a duplicate form of progression:
_First._ Little by little, the lines tend less and less to go outside the enclosing line until, at last, they are perfectly contained within it, and both the centre and the frame are filled in with close and uniform strokes.
_Second._ The strokes with which the child fills in the figures, from being at first short and confused, become gradually _longer, and more nearly parallel_, until in many cases the figures are filled in by means of perfectly regular up and down strokes, extending from one side of the figure to the other. In such a case, it is evident that the child is _master of the pencil_. The muscular mechanism, necessary to the management of the instrument of writing, _is established_. We may, therefore, by examining such designs, arrive at a clear idea of the maturity of the child in the matter of _holding the pencil or pen in hand_. To vary these exercises, we use the _outline drawings_ already described. Through these designs, the manipulation of the pencil is perfected, for they oblige the child to make lines of various lengths, and make him more and more secure in his use of the pencil.