This book is based upon the theory that we use language as a means of organizing a representation of the world--each for himself--and that the representation so created constitutes the world we operate in, the basis of all the predictions by which we set the course of our lives. Chapter 1 discusses this theory; Chapter 2 relates what is relevant to language in the home from a child's birth to the time he goes to school; Chapter 3 presents a theory which stresses the differences between two kinds of language-using behavior; Chapter 4 has as its theme the child in the primary school, taking up each of the principal school activities related to language development; Chapter 5 traces the development of cognitive processes, looks at the cognitive-cum-affective organization found in the arts and applies the principles found here to more commonplace uses of language; and Chapter 6 discusses work in secondary schools and the adolescent wherever he may be. (Author/DB)