"As a means of investigating moral judgments of children, the author analyzes the rules of the game of marbles and the development of respect for rules which children acquire. Piaget traces the consciousness of rules as it develops in children through four stages: (1) A task of simple individual regularity, (2) A motor pleasure egocentrism, (3) A social cooperation idea, (4) An interest in rules for their own sake. Relationships between the child?s respect for the rules of a game and relations between the child and adults are shown. The study of moral values of the child was carried on by observation and interrogation. The origin of judgment of actions is traced to material consequences of an act and to intentions of an act. Moral realism is traced to causes peculiar to the spontaneous thought of the child and to causes brought by constraint by adults. Relations of cooperation tend to limit the constraint and obligatory rules. The theories of Durkheim, Fauconnet, Bovet, and Baldwin are discussed in the analysis of the child?s moral judgments. The conclusions emphasize the need for education where individual experimentation and reflection carried on together aid and balance one another. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)"