The period from six to eleven is that of the primary school years. It is characterized by the first formal schooling, and could as well be called later childhood. For the first time the child begins to spend much of his waking hours with a number of other individuals of his own generation. This is for him a new part of the environment and it makes its own demands in terms of adaptation. The development of the human individual from infancy to maturity involves processes which exhibit both discreteness and continuity. The continuity is plain enough, for there are no absolutely separated stages in the growth process ; but discreteness occurs in maturational steps when old habits tend to disappear and new ones first come into prominence.