youth and sex dangers and safeguards for girls and boys by mary scharlieb, m.d., m.s., and f. arthur sibly, m.a., ll.d. 1919 contents. part i.: girls. by mary scharlieb, m.d., m.s. introduction i. changes observable during puberty and adolescence in girls ii. our duties towards adolescent girls iii. care of the adolescent girl in sickness iv. mental and moral training v. the final aim of education part ii.: boys. by f. arthur sibly, m.a., ll.d. preface to the second edition introductory note i. prevalence of impurity among boys: the author's own experience ii. prevalence of impurity among boys: the opinions of canon lyttelton, dr. dukes and others iii. causes of the prevalence of impurity among boys iv. results of youthful impurity v. sex knowledge is compatible with perfect refinement and innocence vi. conditions under which purity teaching is best given: remedial and curative measures note to correspondents part i.: girls. by mary scharlieb, m.d., m.s. introduction. probably the most important years in anyone's life are those eight or ten preceding the twenty-first birthday. during these years _heredity_, one of the two great developmental factors, bears its crop, and the seeds sown before birth and during childhood come to maturity. during these years also the other great developmental force known as _environment_ has full play, the still plastic nature is moulded by circumstances, and the influence of these two forces is seen in the manner of individual that results. this time is generally alluded to under two heads: (1) puberty, (2) adolescence. by puberty we understand the period when the reproductive organs are developed, the boy or girl ceasing to be the neutral child and acquiring the distinctive characteristics of man or woman. the actual season of puberty varies in different individuals from the eleventh to the sixteenth year, and although the changes during this time are not sudden, they are comparatively rapid. by adolescence we understand the time during which the individual is approximating to the adult type, puberty having been already accomplished. adolescence corresponds to the latter half of the developmental period, and may be prolonged even up to twenty-five years. chapter i. changes observable during puberty and adolescence in girls. 1. changes in the bodily framework.--during this period the girl's skeleton not only grows remarkably in size, but is also the subject of well-marked alterations and development. among the most evident changes are those which occur in the shape and inclination of the pelvis. during the years of childhood the female pelvis has a general resemblance to that of the male, but with the advent of puberty the vertical portion of the hip bones becomes expanded and altered in shape, it becomes more curved, and its inner surface looks less directly forward and more towards its fellow bone of the other side. the brim of the pelvis, which in the child is more or less heart-shaped, becomes a wide oval, and consequently the pelvic girdle gains considerably in width. the heads of the thigh bones not only actually, in consequence of growth, but also relatively, in consequence of change of shape in the pelvis, become more widely separated from each other than they are in childhood, and hence the gait and the manner of running alters greatly in the adult woman. at the same time the angle made by the junction of the spinal column with the back of the pelvis, known as the sacro-vertebral angle, becomes better marked, and this also contributes to the development of the characteristic female type. no doubt the female type of pelvis can be recognised in childhood, and even before birth, but the differences of male and female pelves before puberty are so slight that it requires the eye of an expert to distinguish them. the very remarkable differences that are found between the adult male and the adult female pelvis begin to appear with puberty and develop rapidly, so that no one could mistake the pelvis of a properly developed girl of sixteen or eighteen years of age for that of a boy. these differences are due in part to the action of the muscles and ligaments on the growing bones, in part to the weight of the body from above and the reaction of the ground from beneath, but they are also largely due to the growth and development of the internal organs peculiar to the woman. all these organs exist in the normal infant at birth, but they are relatively insignificant, and it is not until the great developmental changes peculiar to puberty occur that they begin to exercise their influence on the shape of the bones. this is proved by the fact that in those rare cases in which the internal organs of generation are absent, or fail to develop, there is a corresponding failure in the pelvis to alter into the normal adult shape. the muscles of the growing girl partake in the rapid growth and development of her bony framework. sometimes the muscles outgrow the bones, causing a peculiar lankiness and slackness of figure, and in other girls the growth of the bones appears to be too rapid for the muscles, to which fact a certain class of "growing pain" has been attributed. another part of the body that develops rapidly during these momentous years is the bust. the breasts become large, and not only add to the beauty of the girl's person, but also manifestly prepare by increase of their glandular elements for the maternal function of suckling infants. of less importance so far as structure is concerned, but of great importance to female loveliness and attractiveness, are the changes that occur in the clearing and brightening of the complexion, the luxuriant growth, glossiness, and improved colour of the hair, and the beauty of the eyes, which during the years which succeed puberty acquire a new and singularly attractive expression. the young girl's hands and feet do not grow in proportion with her legs and arms, and appear to be more beautifully shaped when contrasted with the more fully developed limb. with regard to the internal organs, the most important are those of the pelvis. the uterus, or womb, destined to form a safe nest for the protection of the child until it is sufficiently developed to maintain an independent existence, increases greatly in all its dimensions and undergoes certain changes in shape; and the ovaries, which are intended to furnish the ovules, or eggs (the female contribution towards future human beings), also develop both in size and in structure. owing to rapid growth and to the want of stability of the young girl's tissues, the years immediately succeeding puberty are not only those of rapid physiological change, but they are those during which irreparable damage may be done unless those who have the care of young girls understand what these dangers are, how they are produced, and how they may be averted. with regard to the bony skeleton, lateral curvature of the spine is, in mild manifestation, very frequent, and is too common even in the higher degrees. the chief causes of this deformity are: (1) the natural softness and want of stability in the rapidly growing bones and muscles; (2) the rapid development of the bust, which throws a constantly increasing burden on these weakened muscles and bones; and (3) the general lassitude noticeable amongst girls at this time which makes them yield to the temptation to stand on one leg, to cross one leg over the other, and to write or read leaning on one elbow and bending over the table, whereas they ought to be sitting upright. unless constant vigilance is exerted, deformity is pretty sure to occur--a deformity which always has a bad influence over the girl's health and strength, and which, in those cases where it is complicated by the pathological softness of bones found in cases of rickets, may cause serious alteration in shape and interfere with the functions of the pelvis in later life. 2. changes in the mental nature.--these are at least as remarkable as the changes in the bodily framework. there is a slight diminution in the power of memorising, but the faculties of attention, of reasoning, and of imagination, develop rapidly. probably the power of appreciation of the beautiful appears about this time, a faculty which is usually dormant during childhood. more especially is this true with regard to the beauty of landscape; the child seldom enjoys a landscape as such, although isolated beauties, such as that of flowers, may sometimes be appreciated. as might be anticipated, all things are changing with the child during these momentous years: its outlook on life, its appreciation of other people and of itself, alter greatly and continuously. the wonderfully rapid growth and alterations in structure of the generative organs have their counterpart in the mental and moral spheres; there are new sensations which are scarcely recognised and are certainly not understood by the subject: vague feelings of unrest, ill-comprehended desires, and an intense self-consciousness take the place of the unconscious egoism of childhood. the processes of nature as witnessed in the season of spring have their counterpart in the changes that occur during the early years of adolescence. the earth warmed by the more direct rays of the sun and softened by recurring showers is transformed in a few weeks from its bare and dry winter garb into the wonderful beauty of spring. this yearly miracle fails to impress us as it should do because we have witnessed it every year of our lives, and so, too, the great transformation from child to budding woman fails to make its appeal to our understanding and sympathy because it is of so common occurrence. if it were possible for adults to really remember their own feelings and aspirations in adolescent years, or if it were possible for us with enlightened sympathy to gain access to the enchanted garden of youth, we should be more adequate guides for the boys and girls around us. as it is we entirely fail to appreciate the heights of their ambitions, hopes, and joys, and we have no measure with which to plumb the depths of their fears, their disappointments, and their doubts. the transition between radiant joy and confident hope in the future to a miserable misinterpretation of sensations both physical and psychical are rapid. it is the unknown that is terrible to us all, and to the child the changes in its body, the changes in its soul and spirit, which we pass by as commonplace, are full of suggestions of abnormality, of disaster, and of death. young people suffer much from the want of comprehension and intelligent sympathy of their elders, much also from their own ignorance and too fervid imagination. the instability of the bodily tissues and the variability of their functions find a counterpart in the instability of the mental and moral natures and in the variability of their phenomena. adolescents indeed "never continue in one stay;" left to themselves they will begin many pursuits, but persevere with, and finish, nothing. youth is the time for rapidly-succeeding friends, lovers, and heroes. the schoolfellow or teacher who is adored to-day may become the object of indifference or even of dislike to-morrow. ideas as to the calling or profession to be adopted change rapidly, and opinions upon religion, politics, &c., vary from day to day. it is little wonder that there is a special type of adolescent insanity differing entirely from that of later years, one in which, owing to the want of full development of mental faculties, there are no systematised delusions, but a rapid change from depression and melancholy to exaltation bordering on mania. those parents and guardians who know something of the peculiar physical and mental conditions of adolescence will be best prepared both to treat the troubles wisely, and by sympathy to help the young people under their care to help themselves. one of the phenomena of adolescence is the dawn of the sexual instinct. this frequently develops without the child knowing or understanding what it means. more especially is this true of young girls whose home life has been completely sheltered, and who have not had the advantage, or disadvantage, of that experience of life which comes early to those who live in crowded tenements or amongst the outspoken people of the countryside. the children of the poorer classes have, in a way, too little to learn: they are brought up from babyhood in the midst of all domestic concerns, and the love affairs of their elders are intimately known to them, therefore quite early in adolescence "ilka lassie has her laddie," and although the attraction be short-lived and the affection very superficial, yet it is sufficient to give an added interest to life, and generally leads to an increased care in dress and an increased desire to make the most of whatever good looks the girl may possess. the girl in richer homes is probably much more bewildered by her unwonted sensations and by the attraction she begins to feel towards the society of the opposite sex. probably in these days, when there is more intermingling of the sexes, the girl's outlook is franker, and, so far as this is concerned, healthier, than it was forty or fifty years ago. it is very amusing to elders to hear a boy scarcely in his teens talking of "his best girl," or to see the little lass wearing the colour or ornament that her chosen lad admires. it is true that the "best girl" varies from week to week if not from day to day, but this special regard for a member of the opposite sex announces the dawn of a simple sentiment that will, a few years later, blossom out into the real passion which may fix a life's destiny. the mental and moral changes that occur during the early years of adolescence call for help and sympathy of an even higher order than do the changes in physical structure and function. some of these changes, such as shyness and reticence, may be the cause of considerable suffering to the girl and a perplexity to her elders, but on the whole they are comparatively easy of comprehension, and are more likely to elicit sympathy and kindness than blame. it is far otherwise with such changes as unseemly laughter, rough manners, and a nameless difference in the girl's manner when in the presence of the other sex. a girl who is usually quiet, modest, and sensible in her behaviour may suddenly become boisterous and self-asserting, there is a great deal of giggling, and altogether a disagreeable transformation which too frequently involves the girl in trouble with her mother or other guardian, and is very frequently harshly judged by the child herself. in proportion as self-discipline has been taught and self-control acquired, these outward manifestations are less marked, but in the case of the great majority of girls there are, at any rate, impulses having their origin in the yet immature and misunderstood sex impulse which cause the young woman herself annoyance and worry although she is as far from understanding their origin as her elders may be. the remedies for these troubles are various. first in order of time and in importance comes a habit of self-control and self-discipline that ought to be coeval with conscious life. fathers and mothers are themselves to blame if their girl lapses from good behaviour when they have not inculcated ideals of obedience, duty, and self-discipline from babyhood. it seems such a little thing to let the child have its run of the cake-basket and the sweet-box; it is in the eyes of many parents so unimportant whether the little one goes to bed at the appointed time or ten minutes later; they argue that it can make no difference to her welfare in life or to her eternal destiny whether her obedience is prompt and cheerful or grudging and imperfect. one might as well argue that the proper planting of a seed, its regular watering, and the influences of sun and wind make no difference to the life of a tree. we have to bear carefully in mind that those who sow an act reap a habit, who sow a habit reap a character, who sow a character reap a destiny both in this world and in that which is eternal. it is mere selfishness, unconscious, no doubt, but none the less fatal, when parents to suit their own convenience omit to inculcate obedience, self-restraint, habits of order and unselfishness in their children. youth is the time when the soul is apt to be shaken by sorrow's power and when stormy passions rage. the tiny rill starting from the mountainside can be readily deflected east or west, but the majestic river hastening to the sea is beyond all such arbitrary directions. so it is with the human being: the character and habit are directed easily in infancy, with difficulty during childhood, but they are well-nigh impossible of direction by the time adolescence is established. those fathers and mothers who desire to have happiness and peace in connection with their adolescent boys and girls must take the trouble to direct them aright during the plastic years of infancy and childhood. all natural instincts implanted in us by him who knew what was in the heart of man are in themselves right and good, but the exercise of these instincts may be entirely wrong in time or in degree. the sexual instinct, the affinity of boy to girl, the love of adult man and woman, are right and holy when exercised aright, and it is the result of "spoiling" when these good and noble instincts are wrongly exercised. all who love their country, all who love their fellow men, and all who desire that the kingdom of god should come, must surely do everything that is in their power to awaken the fathers and mothers of the land to a sense of their heavy responsibility and of their high privilege. in this we are entirely separated from and higher than the rest of the animal creation, in that on us lies the duty not only of calling into life a new generation of human beings, but also the still higher duty, the still greater privilege and the wider responsibility of bringing up those children to be themselves the worthy parents of the future, the supporters of their country's dignity, and joyful citizens of the household of god. another characteristic of adolescence is to be found in gregariousness, or what has been sometimes called the _gang spirit_. boys, and to almost as great a degree girls, form themselves into companies or gangs, which frequently possess a high degree of organisation. they elaborate special languages, they have their own form of shorthand, their passwords, their rites and ceremonies. the gang has its elected leader, its officers, its members; and although it is liable to sudden disruption and seldom outlasts a few terms of school-life, each succeeding club or company is for the time being of paramount importance in the estimation of its members. the gang spirit may at times cause trouble and lead to anxiety, but if rightly directed it may be turned to good account. it is the germ of the future capacity to organise men and women into corporate life--the very method by which much public and national work is readily accomplished, but which is impossible to accomplish by individual effort. 3. changes in the religion of the adolescent.--the religion of the adolescent is apt to be marked by fervour and earnest conviction, the phenomenon of "conversion" almost constantly occurring during adolescence. the girl looks upon eternal truths from a completely new standpoint, or at any rate with eyes that have been purged and illuminated by the throes of conversion. from a period of great anxiety and doubt she emerges to a time of intense love and devotion, to an eager desire to prove herself worthy, and to offer a sacrifice of the best powers she possesses. unfortunately for peace of mind, the happy epoch succeeding conversion not unfrequently ends in a dismal time of intellectual doubt and spiritual darkness. just as the embryonic love of the youthful adolescent leads to a time when the opposite sex is rather an object of dislike than of attraction, so the fervour of early conversion is apt to lead to a time of desolation; but just as the incomplete sex love of early adolescence finds its antitype and fine flower in the later fully developed love of honourable man and woman, so does the too rapturous and uncalculating religious devotion of these early years revive after the period of doubt, transfigured and glorified into the religious conviction and devotion which makes the strength, the joy, and the guiding principle of adult life. much depends on the circumstances and people surrounding the adolescent. her unbounded capacity for hero-worship leads in many instances to a conscious or unconscious copying of parent, guardian, or teacher; and although the ideals of the young are apt to far outpace those of the adult whose days of illusion are over, yet they are probably formed on the same type. one sees this illustrated by generations in the same family holding much the same religious or political opinions and showing the same aptitude for certain professions, games, and pursuits. much there is in heredity, but probably there is still more in environment. chapter ii. our duties towards adolescent girls. these may be briefly summed up by saying that we have to provide adolescent girls with all things that are necessary for their souls and their bodies, but any such bald and wholesale enunciation of our duty helps but little in clearing one's ideas and in pointing out the actual manner in which we are to perform it. first, with regard to the bodies of adolescent girls; their primary needs, just like the primary needs of all living beings, are food, warmth, shelter, exercise and rest, with special care in sickness. food.--in spite of the great advance of knowledge in the present day, it is doubtful whether much practical advance has been made in the dietetics of children and adolescents, and it is to be feared that our great schools are especially deficient in this most important respect. even when the age of childhood is past, young people require a much larger amount of milk than is usually included in their diet sheet. it would be well for them to begin the day with porridge and milk or some such cereal preparation. coffee or cocoa made with milk should certainly have the preference over tea for breakfast, and in addition to the porridge or other such dish, fish, egg, or bacon, with plenty of bread and butter, should form the morning repast. the midday meal should consist of fresh meat, fish, or poultry, with an abundance of green vegetables and a liberal helping of sweet pudding. the articles of diet which are most deficient in our lists are milk, butter, and sugar. there is an old prejudice against sugar which is quite unfounded so far as the healthy individual is concerned. cane sugar has recently been proved to be a most valuable muscle food, and when taken in the proper way for sweetening beverages, fruit, and puddings, it is entirely good. the afternoon meal should consist chiefly of bread and butter and milk or cocoa, with a fair proportion of simple, well-made cake, and in the case where animal food has been taken both at breakfast and dinner, the evening meal might well be bread and butter, bread and milk, or milk pudding with stewed or fresh fruit. but it is different in the case of those adolescents whose midday meal is necessarily slight, and who ought to have a thoroughly good dinner or supper early in the evening; one would have thought it unnecessary to mention alcohol in speaking of the dietary of young people were it not that, strange to say, beer is still given at some of our public schools. it is extraordinary that wise and intelligent people should still give beer to young boys and girls at the very time when what they want is strength and not stimulus, food for the growing frame and nothing to stimulate the already exuberant passions. an invariable rule with regard to the food of children should be that their meals should be regular, that they should consist of good, varied, nourishing food taken at regular hours, and that nothing should be eaten between meals. the practice of eating biscuits, fruit, and sweets between meals during childhood and adolescence not only spoils the digestion and impairs the nutrition at the time, but it is apt to lay the foundation of a constant craving for something which is only too likely to take the form of alcoholic craving in later years. it is impossible for the stomach to perform its duty satisfactorily if it is never allowed rest, and the introduction of stray morsels of food at irregular times prevents this, and introduces confusion into the digestive work, because there will be in the stomach at the same time food in various stages of digestion. warmth.--warmth is one of the influences essential to health and to sound development, and although artificial warmth is more urgently required by little children and by old people than it is by young adults, still, if their bodies are to come to their utmost possible perfection, they require suitable conditions of temperature. this is provided in the winter partly by artificial heating of houses and partly by the wearing of suitable clothing. ideal clothing is loose of texture and woven of wool, although a fairly good substitute can be obtained in materials that are made from cotton treated specially. this is not the time or place in which to insist on the very grave dangers that accompany the use of ordinary flannelette, but a caution must be addressed in passing to those who provide clothing for others. in providing clothes it is necessary to remember the two reasons for their existence: (1) to cover the body, and (2) as far as possible to protect a large area of its surface against undue damp and cold. adolescents, as a rule, begin early to take a great interest in their clothes. from the time that the appreciation of the opposite sex commences, the child who has hitherto been indifferent or even slovenly in the matter of clothing takes a very living interest in it; indeed the adornment of person and the minute care devoted to details of the toilet by young people of both sexes remind one irresistibly of the preening of the feathers, the strutting and other antics of birds before their mates. girls especially are apt to forget the primary object of clothing, and to think of it too much as a means of adornment. this leads to excesses and follies such as tight waists, high-heeled shoes, to the ungainly crinoline or to indecent scantiness of skirts. direct interference in these matters is badly tolerated, but much may be accomplished both by example and by cultivating a refined and artistic taste in sumptuary matters. sleep.--amongst the most important of the factors that conduce to well-being both of body and mind must be reckoned an adequate amount of sleep. this has been made the subject of careful inquiry by dr. dukes of rugby and miss alice ravenhill. both these trained and careful observers agree that the majority of young people get far too little rest and sleep. we have to remember that although fully-grown adults will take rest when they can get it in the daytime, young people are too active, and sometimes too restless, to give any repose to brain or muscle except during sleep. in the early years of adolescence ten hours sleep is none too much; even an adult in full work ought to have eight hours, and still more is necessary for the rapidly-growing, continually-developing, and never-resting adolescent. it is unfortunately a fact that even in the boarding schools of the well-to-do the provision of sleep is too limited, and for the children of the poor, whose homes are far from comfortable and who are accustomed to doing pretty nearly as their elders do, the night seldom begins before eleven or even twelve o'clock. it is one of the saddest sights of london to see small children dancing on the pavement in front of the public-houses up to a very late hour, while groups of loafing boys and hoydenish girls stand about at the street corners half the night. there is little wonder that the morning finds them heavy and unrefreshed, and that schoolwork suffers severely from want of the alert and vigorous attention that might be secured by a proper night's sleep. great harm is done by allowing children to take work home with them from school; if possible, the day's work should finish with school hours, and the scanty leisure should be spent in healthy exercise or in sleep. overcrowding.--in considering the question of adequate sleep it would be well to think of the conditions of healthy sleep. for sleep to be refreshing and health-giving, the sleeper ought to have a comfortable bed and an abundant supply of fresh air. unfortunately the great majority of our people both in town and country do not enjoy these advantages. in both town and country there is a great deficiency of suitable dwellings at rents that can be paid with the usual rate of wages. in consequence families are crowded into one, two, or three rooms, and even in the case of people far above the status of day labourers and artisans it is the exception and not the rule for each individual to have a separate bed. the question of ventilation is certainly better understood than it was a few years ago, but still leaves much to be desired, and there is still an urgent necessity for preaching the gospel of the open window. exercise.--in considering the question of the exercise of adolescents, one's thoughts immediately turn to athletics, games, and dancing. as a nation the english have always been fond of athletics, and have attributed to the influence of such team games as cricket and football not only their success in various competitions but also their success in the sterner warfare of life. this success has been obtained on the tented field and in the work of exploring, mountaineering, and other pursuits that make great demand not only on nerve and muscle but also on strength of character and powers of endurance. team games appear to be the especial property of adolescents, for young children are more or less individualistic and solitary in many of their games, but boys and girls alike prefer team games from the pre-adolescent age up to adult life. it is certain that no form of exercise is superior to these games: they call into play every muscle of the body, they make great demands on accuracy of eye and coordination, they also stimulate and develop habits of command, obedience, loyalty, and _esprit de corps_. in the great public schools of england, and in the private schools which look up to them as their models, team games are played, as one might say, in a religious spirit. the boy or girl who attempts to take an unfair advantage, or who habitually plays for his or her own hand, is quickly made to feel a pariah and an outcast. among the greatest blessings that are conveyed to the children of the poorer classes is the instruction not only in the technique of team games but also in the inoculation of the spirit in which they ought to be played. it is absolutely necessary that the highest ideals connected with games should be handed down, for thus the children who perhaps do not always have the highest ideals before them in real life may learn through this mimic warfare how the battle of life must be fought and what are the characters of mind and body that deserve and ensure success. it has been well said that those who make the songs of a nation help largely to make its character, and equally surely those who teach and control the games of the adolescents are making or marring a national destiny. among the means of physical and moral advancement may be claimed gymnastics. and here, alas, this nation can by no means claim to be _facile princeps_. not only have we been relatively slow in adopting properly systematised exercises, but even to the present day the majority of elementary schools are without properly fitted gymnasia and duly qualified teachers. the small and relatively poor scandinavian nations have admirably fitted gymnasia in connection with their _folkschule_, which correspond to our elementary schools. the exercises are based on those systematised by ling; each series is varied, and is therefore the more interesting, and each lesson commences with simple, easily performed movements, leading on to those that are more elaborate and fatiguing, and finally passing through a descending series to the condition of repose. the gymnasia where such exercises are taught in england are relatively few and far between, and it is lamentable to find that many excellent and well-appointed schools for children, whose parents pay large sums of money for their education, have no properly equipped gymnasia nor adequately trained teachers. when the question is put, "how often do you have gymnastics at your school?" the answer is frequently, "we have none," or, "half an hour once a week." exercises such as ling's not only exercise every muscle in the body in a scientific and well-regulated fashion, but being performed by a number of pupils at once in obedience to words of command, discipline, co-operation, obedience to teachers, and loyalty to comrades, are taught at the same time. the deepest interest attaches to many of the more complex exercises, while some of them make large demands on the courage and endurance of the young people. in scandinavia the state provides knickerbockers, tunics, and gymnasium shoes for those children whose parents are too poor to provide them; and again, in scandinavia there is very frequently the provision of bathrooms in which the pupils can have a shower bath and rub-down after the exercises. these bathrooms in connection with the gymnasia need not necessarily be costly; indeed many of them in stockholm and denmark merely consist of troughs in the cement floor, on the edge of which the children sit in a row while they receive a shower bath over their heads and bodies. the feet get well washed in the trough, and the smart douche of water on head and shoulders acts as an admirable tonic. another exercise which ought to be specially dear to a nation of islanders is swimming, and this, again, is a relatively cheap luxury too much neglected amongst us. certainly there are public baths, but there are not enough to permit of all the elementary school children bathing even once a week, and still less have they the opportunity of learning to swim. there is much to be done yet before we can be justly proud of our national system of education. we must not lose sight of the ideal with which we started--viz. that we should endeavour to do the best that is possible for our young people in body, soul, and spirit. the three parts of our nature are intertwined, and a duty performed to one part has an effect on the whole. chapter iii. care of the adolescent girl in sickness. if measured by the death-rate the period of adolescence should cause us little anxiety, but a careful examination into the state of health of children of school age shows us that it is a time in which disorders of health abound, and that although these disorders are not necessarily, nor even generally, fatal, they are frequent, they spoil the child's health, and inevitably bear fruit in the shape of an injurious effect on health in after life. that the health of adolescents should be unstable is what we ought to expect from the general instability of the organism due to the rapidity of growth and the remarkable developmental changes that are crowded into these few years. rapidity of growth and increase of weight are very generally recognised, although their effects upon health are apt to be overlooked. on the other hand, the still more remarkable development that occurs in adolescence is very generally ignored. as a general rule the infectious fevers, the so-called childish diseases--such as measles, chicken-pox, and whooping-cough--are less common in adolescence than they are in childhood, while the special diseases of internal organs due to their overwork, or to their natural tendency to degeneration, is yet far in the future. the chief troubles of adolescents appear to be due to overstress which accompanies rapid development, to the difficulty of the whole organism in adapting itself to new functions and altered conditions, and no doubt in some measure to the unwisdom both of the young people and of their advisers. this is not the place for a general treatise on the diseases of adolescents, but a few of the commonest and most obvious troubles should be noted. the teeth.--it is quite surprising to learn what a very large percentage of young soldiers are refused enlistment in the army on account of decayed or defective teeth, and anyone who has examined the young women candidates for the civil service and for missionary societies must have recognised that their teeth are in no way better than those of the young men. in addition to several vacancies in the dental series, it is by no means unusual to find that a candidate has three or even five teeth severely decayed. the extraordinary thing is that not only the young people and their parents very generally fail to recognise the gravity of this condition, but that even their medical advisers have frequently acquiesced in a state of things that is not only disagreeable but dangerous. a considerable proportion of people with decayed teeth have also suppuration about the margins of the gums and around the roots of the teeth. this pyorrhoea alveolaris, as it is called, constitutes a very great danger to the patient's health, the purulent discharge teems with poisonous micro-organisms, which being constantly swallowed are apt to give rise to septic disease in various organs. it is quite probable that some cases of gastric ulcer are due to this condition, so too are some cases of appendicitis, it has been known to cause a peculiarly fatal form of heart disease, and it is also responsible for the painful swelling of the joints of the fingers, with wasting of the muscles and general weakness which goes by the name of rheumatoid arthritis. in addition to this there are many local affections, such as swollen glands in the neck, that may be due to this poisonous discharge. one would think that the mere knowledge that decayed teeth can cause all this havoc would lead to a grand rush to the dentist, but so far from being the case, doctors find it extremely difficult to induce their patients to part with this unsightly, evil-smelling, and dangerous decayed tooth. the throat.--some throat affections, such as diphtheria and quinsy, are well known and justly dreaded; and although many a child's life has been sacrificed to the slowness of its guardians to procure medical advice and the health-restoring antitoxin, yet on the whole the public conscience is awake to this duty. far otherwise is it with chronic diseases of the tonsils: they may be riddled with small cysts, they may be constantly in a condition of subacute inflammation dependent on a septic condition, but no notice is taken except when chill, constipation, or a general run-down state of health aggravates the chronic into a temporary acute trouble. and yet it is perhaps not going too far to say that for one young girl who is killed or invalided rapidly by diphtheria there are hundreds who are condemned to a quasi-invalid life owing to this persistent supply of poison to the system. another condition of the throat which causes much ill-health is well known to the public under the name of adenoids. unfortunately, however, many people have an erroneous idea that children will "grow out of adenoids." even if this were true it is extremely unwise to wait for so desirable an event. adenoids may continue to grow, and during the years that they are present they work great mischief. owing to the blocking of the air-passages the mouth is kept constantly open, greatly to the detriment of the throat and lungs. owing to the interference with the circulation at the back of the nose and throat, a considerable amount both of apparent and real stupidity is produced, the brain works less well than it ought, and the child's appearance is ruined by the flat, broad bridge of the nose and the gaping mouth. the tale of troubles due to adenoids is not even yet exhausted; a considerable amount of discharge collects about them which it is not easy to clear away, it undergoes very undesirable changes, and is then swallowed to the great detriment of the stomach and the digestion. the removal of septic tonsils and of adenoids is most urgently necessary, and usually involves little distress or danger. the change in the child's health and appearance that can thus be secured is truly wonderful, especially if it be taught, as it should be, to keep its mouth shut and to breathe through the nose. in the course of a few months the complexion will have cleared, the expression will have regained its natural intelligence, digestion will be well performed, and the child's whole condition will be that of alert vigour instead of one of listless and sullen indifference. errors of digestion.--from the consideration of certain states of the nose, mouth, and throat, it is easy to turn to what is so often their consequence. many forms of indigestion are due to the septic materials swallowed. it would not, however, be fair to say that all indigestion is thus caused; not infrequently indigestion is due to errors of diet, and here the blame must be divided between the poverty and ignorance of many parents and the self-will of adolescents. the foods that are best for young people--such as bread, milk, butter, sugar, and eggs--are too frequently scarce in their dietaries owing to their cost; and again, in the case of many girls whose parents are able and willing to provide them with a thoroughly satisfactory diet-sheet, dyspepsia is caused by their refusal to take what is good for them, and by their preference for unsuitable and indigestible viands. a further cause of indigestion must be sought in the haste with which food is too often eaten. the failure to rise at the appointed time leads to a hasty breakfast, and this must eventually cause indigestion. the food imperfectly masticated and not sufficiently mixed with saliva enters the stomach ill-prepared, and the hasty rush to morning school or morning work effectually prevents the stomach from dealing satisfactorily with the mass so hastily thrust into it. there is an old saying that "those whom the gods will destroy they first make mad," and in many instances young people who fall victims to the demon of dyspepsia owe their sorrows, if not to madness, at any rate to ignorance and want of consideration. the defective teeth, septic tonsils, discharging adenoids, poverty of their parents and their own laziness, all conspire to cause digestive troubles which bear a fruitful crop of further evils, for thus are caused such illnesses as anã¦mia and gastric ulcer. constipation claims a few words to itself. and here again we ought to consider certain septic processes. the refuse of the food should travel along the bowels at a certain rate, but if owing to sluggishness of their movements or to defects in the quality and amount of their secretion, the refuse is too long retained the masses become unduly dry, and, constantly shrinking in volume, are no longer capable of being urged along the tube at the proper rate. in consequence of this the natural micro-organisms of the intestine cease to be innocent and become troublesome; they lead in the long run to a peculiar form of blood-poisoning, and to so many diseased conditions that it is impossible to deal with them at the present moment. the existence of constipation is too often a signal for the administration of many doses of medicine. the wiser, the less harmful, and the more effectual method of dealing with it would be to endeavour to secure the natural action of the bowels by a change in the diet, which should contain more vegetable and less animal constituents. the patient should also be instructed to drink plenty of water, either hot or cold, a large glassful on going to bed and one on first awaking, and also if necessary an hour before each meal. steady exercise is also of very great service, and instead of starting so late as to have no time for walking to school or work, a certain portion of the daily journey should be done on foot. further, in all cases where it is possible, team games, gymnastics, and dancing should be called in to supplement the walk. headache.--headache may be due to so many different causes that it would be impossible in this little book to adequately consider them, but it would not be fair to omit to mention that in many cases the headache of young people is due to their want of spectacles. the idea that spectacles are only required by people advanced in life is by this time much shaken, but even now not only many parents object to their children enjoying this most necessary assistance to imperfect vision, but also employers may be found so foolish and selfish as to refuse to employ those persons who need to wear glasses. the folly as well as selfishness of this objection is demonstrated by the far better work done by a person whose vision has been corrected, and the absolute danger incurred by all who have to deal with machinery if vision is imperfect. among other causes for headache are the defects of mouth, throat, stomach, and bowels already described, because in all of them there is a supply of septic material to the blood which naturally causes headache and other serious symptoms. abnormalities of menstruation.--the normal period should occur at regular intervals about once a month. its duration and amount vary within wide limits, but in each girl it should remain true to her individual type, and it ought not to be accompanied by pain or distress. as a rule the period starts quite normally, and it is not until the girl's health has been spoiled by over-exertion of body or mind, by unwise exertion during the period, or by continued exposure to damp or cold, that it becomes painful and abnormal in time or in amount. one of the earliest signs of approaching illness--such as consumption, anã¦mia, and mental disorder--is to be found in the more or less sudden cessation of the period. this should always be taken as a danger-signal, and as indicating the need of special medical advice. another point that should enter into intimate talk with girls is to make them understand the co-relation of their own functions to the great destiny that is in store. a girl is apt to be both shocked and humiliated when she first hears of menstruation and its phenomena. should this function commence before she is told about it, she will necessarily look upon it with disgust and perhaps with fear. it is indeed a most alarming incident in the case of a girl who knows nothing about it, but if, before the advent of menstruation, it be explained to her that it is a sign of changes within her body that will gradually, after the lapse of some years, fit her also to take her place amongst the mothers of the land, her shame and fear will be converted into modest gladness, and she will readily understand why she is under certain restrictions, and has at times to give up work or pleasure in order that her development may be without pain, healthy, and complete. chapter iv. mental and moral training. the years of adolescence, during which rapid growth and development inevitably cause so much stress and frequently give rise to danger, are the very years in which the weight of school education necessarily falls most heavily. the children of the poor leave school at fourteen years of age, just the time when the children of the wealthier classes are beginning to understand the necessity of education and to work with a clearer realisation of the value and aim of lessons. the whole system of education has altered of late years, and school work is now conducted far more intelligently and with a greater appreciation of the needs and capacities of the pupils than it was some fifty years ago. work is made more interesting, the relation of different studies to each other is more adequately put in evidence, and the influence that school studies have on success in after life is more fully realised by all concerned. the system of training is, however, far from perfect. in the case of girls, more particularly, great care has to be exercised not to attempt to teach too much, and to give careful consideration to the physiological peculiarities of the pupils. it is impossible for girls who are undergoing such rapid physiological and psychical changes to be always equally able and fit for strenuous work. there are days in every girl's life when she is not capable of her best work, and when a wise and sympathetic teacher will see that it is better for her to do comparatively little. and yet these slack times are just those in which there is the greatest danger of a girl indulging in daydreams, and when her thoughts need to be more than usually under control. these times may be utilised for lighter subjects and for such manual work as does not need great physical exertion. it is not a good time for exercises, for games, for dancing, and for gardening, nor are they the days on which mathematics should be pressed, but they are days in which much supervision is needed, and when time should not be permitted to hang heavily on hand. just as there are days in which consideration should be shown, so too there are longer periods of time in which it is unwise for a girl to be pressed to prepare for or to undergo a strenuous examination. the brain of the girl appears to be as good as that of the boy, while her application, industry, and emulation are far in advance of his, but she has these physiological peculiarities, and if they are disregarded there will not only be an occasional disastrous failure in bodily or mental health, but girls as a class will fail to do the best work of which they are capable, and will fail to reap the fullest advantage from an education which is costly in money, time, and strength. it follows that the curriculum for girls presents greater difficulties than the curriculum for boys, and that those ladies who are responsible for the organisation of a school for girls need to be women of great resource, great patience, and endowed with much sympathetic insight. the adolescent girl will generally do little to help her teachers in this matter. she is incapable of recognising her own limitations, she is full of emulation, and is desirous of attaining and keeping a good position not only in her school but also in the university or in any other public body for whose examination she may present herself. the young girl most emphatically needs to be saved from herself, and she has to learn the lessons of obedience and of cheerful acquiescence in restrictions that certainly appear to her simply vexatious. one of the difficulties in private schools arises from the necessity of providing occupation for every hour of the waking day, while avoiding the danger of overwork with its accompanying exhaustion. in the solution of this problem such subjects as gymnastics, games, dancing, needlework, cooking, and domestic economy will come in as a welcome relief from the more directly intellectual studies, and equally as a relief to the conscientious but hard-pressed woman who is trying to save her pupils from the evils of unoccupied time on the one hand and undue mental pressure on the other. boys, and to a less extent girls, attending elementary schools who leave at fourteen are not likely to suffer in the same way or from the same causes. one of the difficulties in their case is that they leave school just when work is becoming interesting and before habits of study have been formed, indeed before the subjects taught have been thoroughly assimilated, and that therefore in the course of a few years little may be left of their painfully acquired and too scanty knowledge. free education has been given to the children of the poor for nearly fifty years, and yet the mothers who were schoolgirls in the seventies and eighties appear to have saved but little from the wreck of their knowledge except the power to sign their names and to read in an imperfect and blundering manner. here, too, there are many problems to be solved, one among them being the great necessity of endeavouring to correlate the lessons given in school to the work that the individual will have to perform in after life. it would appear as if the girls of the elementary schools, in addition to reading, writing, and simple arithmetic, sufficient to enable them to write letters, to read books, and to keep simple household accounts, ought to be taught the rudiments of cookery, the cutting out and making of garments, and the best methods of cleansing as applied to houses, household utensils and clothing. in addition, and as serious subjects, not merely as a recreation, they should be taught gymnastics, part singing and mother-craft. no doubt in individual schools much of this modification of the curriculum has been accomplished, but more remains to be done before we can be satisfied that we have done the best in our power to fit the children of the country for their life's work. another of the great problems connected with the children in elementary schools, a problem which, indeed, arises out of their leaving at fourteen, is that of the continuation school or evening school, and the system which is known as "half-timing." it is well known that although young people from fourteen to sixteen years of age are well able to profit by continued instruction, they are, with very few exceptions, not at all well adapted for commencing their life's work as industrials. the general incoherency and restlessness peculiar to that age frequently lead to a change of employment every few months, while their general irresponsibility and want of self-control lead to frequent disputes with foremen and other officials in factories and shops, in consequence of which the unfortunate child is constantly out of work. in proportion to the joy and pride caused by the realised capacity to earn money and by the sense of independence that employment brings, is the unhappiness, and in many cases the misery, due to unemployment, and to repeated failures to obtain and to keep an independent position. the boy or girl out of work has an uneasy feeling that he or she has not earned the just and expected share towards household expenses. the feeling of dependence and well-nigh of disgrace causes a rapid deterioration in health and spirits, and it is only too likely that in many instances where unemployment is continuous or frequently repeated, the unemployed will quickly become the unemployable. so far as the young people themselves are concerned, it would be nearly always an unmixed benefit that they should pass at fourteen into a technical school or continuation school, as the case may be. among the great difficulties to the solution of this problem is the fact that in many working-class households the few weekly shillings brought into the family store by the elder children are of very real importance, and although the raising of the age of possible employment and independence would enable the next generation to work better and to earn higher and more continuous wages, it is difficult for the parents to acquiesce in the present deprivation involved, even though it represents so much clear gain in the not distant future. at the present time there are evening schools, but this system does not work well. all busy people are well aware that after a hard day's work neither brain nor body is in the best possible condition for two or three hours of serious mental effort. the child who has spent the day in factory or shop has really pretty nearly used up all his or her available mental energy, and after the evening meal is naturally heavy, stupid, irritable, and altogether in a bad condition for further effort. the evenings ought to be reserved for recreation, for the gymnasium, the singing class, the swimming bath, and even for the concert and the theatre. the system of "half-timing" during ordinary school life does not work well, and it would be a great pity should a similar system be introduced in the hope of furthering the education of boys and girls who are just entering industrial life. there is reason to hope that a great improvement in education will be secured by mr. hayes fisher's bill. another subject to which the attention of patriots and philanthropists ought to be turned is the sort of employment open to children at school-leaving age. the greatest care should be taken to diminish the number of those who endeavour to achieve quasi-independence in those occupations which are well known as "blind alleys." in england it is rare that girls should seek these employments, but in scotland there is far too large a number of girl messengers. in this particular, the case of the girl is superior to that of the boy. the "tweeny" develops into housemaid or cook; the young girls employed in superior shops to wait on the elder shopwomen hope to develop into their successors, and the girls who nurse babies on the doorsteps are, after all, acquiring knowledge and dexterity that may fit them for domestic service or for the management of their own families a few years later. the girls of the richer classes have not the same difficulties as their poorer sisters. they generally remain at school until a much later age, and subsequently have the joy and stimulus of college life, of foreign travel, of social engagements, or of philanthropic enterprise. still, a residue remains even of girls of this class whose own inclinations, or whose family circumstances, lead to an aimless, purposeless existence, productive of much injury to both body and mind, and only too likely to end in hopeless ennui and nervous troubles. it should be thoroughly understood by parents and guardians that no matter what the girl's circumstances may be, she ought always to have an abundance of employment. the ideas of obligation and of duty should not be discarded when school and college life cease. the well-to-do girl should be encouraged to take up some definite employment which would fill her life and provide her with interests and duties. any other arrangement tends to make the time between leaving school or college and a possible marriage not only a wasted time but also a seed-time during which a crop is sown of bad habits, laziness of body, and slackness of mind, that subsequently bear bitter fruit. it is quite time for us to recognise that unemployment and absence of duties is as great a disadvantage to the rich as it is to the poor; the sort of employment must necessarily differ, but the spirit in which it is to be done is the same. one point that one would wish to emphasise with regard to all adolescents is that although occupation for the whole day is most desirable, hard work should occupy but a certain proportion of the waking hours. for any adolescent, or indeed for any of us to attempt to work hard for twelve or fourteen hours out of the twenty-four is to store up trouble. it is not possible to lay down any hard and fast rule as to the length of hours of work, because the other factors in the problem vary so greatly. one person may be exhausted by four hours of intellectual effort, whereas another is less fatigued by eight; and further, the daily occupations vary greatly in the demand that they make on attention and on such qualities as reason, judgment, and power of initiation. those who teach or learn such subjects as mathematics, or those who are engaged in such occupations as portrait-painting and the higher forms of musical effort, must necessarily take more out of themselves than those who are employed in feeding a machine, in nursing a baby, or in gardening operations. chapter v. the final aim of education. the great problem before those who have the responsibility for the training of the young is that of preparing them to take their place in the world as fathers, mothers, and citizens, and among the fundamental duties connected with this responsibility must come the placing before the eyes of the young people high ideals, attractive examples, and the securing to them the means of adequate preparation. as a nation it seems to be with us at present as it was with the people of israel in the days of eli: "the word of the lord was precious (or scarce) in those days; there was no open vision." we seem to have come to a time of civilisation in which there is much surface refinement and a widespread veneer of superficial knowledge, but in which there is little enthusiasm and in which the great aim and object of teaching and of training is but too little realised. in the endeavour to know a little of all things we seem to have lost the capacity for true and exhaustive knowledge of anything. it would appear as if the remedy for this most unsatisfactory state of things has to commence long before the years of adolescence, even while the child is yet in its cradle. the old-fashioned ideas of duty, obedience, and discipline must be once more household words and living entities before the race can enter on a period of regeneration. we want a poet with the logic of browning, the sweetness of tennyson, and the force of rudyard kipling, to sing a song that would penetrate through indifference, sloth, and love of pleasure, and make of us the nation that we might be, and of which the england of bygone years had the promise. speaking specially with regard to girls, let us first remember that the highest earthly ideal for a woman is that she should be a good wife and a good mother. it is not necessary to say this in direct words to every small girl, but she ought to be so educated, so guided, as to instinctively realise that wifehood and motherhood is the flower and perfection of her being. this is the hope and ideal that should sanctify her lessons and sweeten the right and proper discipline of life. all learning, all handicraft, and all artistic training should take their place as a preparation to this end. each generation that comes on to the stage of life is the product of that which preceded it. it is the flower of the present national life and the seed of that which is to come. we ought to recognise that all educational aims and methods are really subordinate to this great end; if this were properly realised by adolescents it would be of the greatest service and help in their training. the deep primal instinct of fatherhood and motherhood would help them more than anything else to seek earnestly and successfully for the highest attainable degree of perfection of their own bodies, their own minds, and their own souls. it is, however, impossible to aim at an ideal that is unseen and even unknown, and although the primal instinct exists in us all, its fruition is greatly hindered by the way in which it is steadily ignored, and by the fact that any proclamation of its existence is considered indiscreet and even indelicate. how are children to develop a holy reverence for their own bodies unless they know of their wonderful destiny? if they do not recognise that at least in one respect god has confided to them in some measure his own creative function, how can they jealously guard against all that would injure their bodies and spoil their hopes for the exercise of this function? there is, even at the present time, a division of opinion as to when and in what manner children are to be made aware of their august destiny. we are indeed only now beginning to realise that ignorance is not necessarily innocence, and that knowledge of these matters may be sanctified and blessed. it is, however, certain that the conspiracy of silence which lasted so many years has brought forth nothing but evil. if a girl remains ignorant of physiological facts, the shock of the eternal realities of life that come to her on marriage is always pernicious and sometimes disastrous. if, on the other hand, such knowledge is obtained from servants and depraved playfellows, her purity of mind must be smirched and injured. even among those who hold that children ought to be instructed, there is a division of opinion as to when this instruction is to begin. some say at puberty, others a few years later, perhaps on the eve of marriage, and yet others think that the knowledge will come with less shock, with less personal application, and therefore in a more natural and useful manner from the very beginning of conscious life. these last would argue--why put the facts of reproduction on a different footing from those of digestion and respiration? as facts in the physical life they hold a precisely similar position. upon the due performance of bodily functions depends the welfare of the whole organism, and although reproduction, unlike the functions of respiration and digestion, is not essential to the life of the individual, it is essential to the life of the nation. the facts of physiology are best taught to little children by a perfectly simple recognition of the phenomena of life around them--the cat with her kittens, the bird with its fledgelings, and still more the mother with her infant, are all common facts and beautiful types of motherhood. instead of inventing silly and untrue stories as to the origin of the kitten and the fledgeling, it is better and wiser to answer the child's question by a direct statement of fact, that god has given the power to his creatures to perpetuate themselves, that the gift of life is one of his good gifts bestowed in mercy on all his creatures. the mother's share in this gift and duty can be observed by, and simply explained to, the child from its earliest years; it comes then with no shock, no sense of shame, but as a type of joy and gladness, an image of that holiest of all relations, the eternal mother and the heavenly child. somewhat later in life, probably immediately before puberty in boys and shortly after puberty in girls, the father's share in this mystery may naturally come up for explanation. the physiological facts connected with this are not so constantly in evidence before children, and therefore do not press for explanation in the same way as do those of motherhood, but the time comes soon in the schoolboy's life when the special care of his own body has to be urged on him, and this knowledge ought to come protected by the sanction that unless he is faithful to his trust he cannot look to the reward of a happy home life with wife and children. in the case of the girl the question as to fatherhood is more likely to arise out of the reading of the bible or other literature, or by her realisation that at any rate in the case of human parenthood there is evidently the intermediation of a father. the details of this knowledge need not necessarily be pressed on the adolescent girl, but it is a positive cruelty to allow the young woman to marry without knowing the facts on which her happiness depends. another way in which the mystery of parenthood can be simply and comfortably taught is through the study of vegetable physiology. the fertilisation of the ovules by pollen which falls directly from the anthers on to the stigma can be used as a representation of similar facts in animal physiology. it is very desirable, however, that this study of the vegetable should succeed and not precede that of the domestic animals in the teaching of boys and girls. viewed from this standpoint there is surely no difficulty to the parent in imparting to the child this necessary knowledge. we have to remember that children have to know the mysteries of life. they cannot live in the world without seeing the great drama constantly displayed to them in family life and in the lives of domesticated animals. they cannot read the literature of greece and rome, nay, they cannot study the book of books, without these facts being constantly brought to mind. a child's thirst for the interpretation of this knowledge is imperative and unsatiable--not from prurience nor from evil-mindedness, but in obedience to a law of our nature, the child demands this knowledge--and will get it. it is for fathers and mothers to say whether these sublime and beautiful mysteries shall be lovingly and reverently unveiled by themselves or whether the child's mind shall be poisoned and all beauty and reverence destroyed by depraved school-fellows and vulgar companions. in the hope of securing the purity, reverence and piety of our children, in the hope that they may grow up worthy of their high destiny, let us do what we may to keep their honour unsmirched, to preserve their innocence, and to lead them on from the unconscious goodness of childhood to the clear-eyed, fully conscious dignity of maturity, that our sons may grow up as young plants, and our daughters as the polished corners of the temple. part ii.: boys. by f. arthur sibly, m.a., ll.d. preface to the second edition. my contribution to this little book was originally intended for the eyes of parents, scoutmasters, and other adults. since 1913, when the book was first published, it has been my privilege to receive from these so many letters of warm appreciation that it seems needless to retain the apologetic preface which i then wrote. the object which i had in view at that time was the hastening of a supremely important reform. i have to-day the very deep joy of knowing that my words have carried conviction to many adults and have given help to countless boys. one result of this publication was entirely unlooked for. it did not occur to me, as i wrote, that the book would be read by boys and young men. it was not written at all for this purpose. in some respects its influence over them has, however, been increased by this obvious fact. in this book boys have, as it were, overheard a confidential conversation about themselves carried on by adults anxious for their welfare, and some at least are evidently more impressed by this conversation than by a direct appeal--in which they are liable to suspect exaggeration. i have received hundreds of letters from boys and young men. these confirm in _every_ way the conclusions set forth in this book, and prove that the need for guidance in sex matters is acute and universal. the relief and assistance which many boys have experienced from correspondence with me, and the interest which i find in their letters have caused me--spite of the extreme preoccupation of a strenuous life--to issue a special invitation to those who may feel inclined to write to me. great diversity of opinion exists as to the best method of giving sex instruction, and those who have had experience of one method are curiously blind to the merits of other methods, which they usually strongly denounce. while i have my own views as to the best method to adopt, i am quite sure that each one of very many methods can, in suitable hands, produce great good, and that the very poorest method is infinitely superior to no method at all. some are for oral teaching, some for the use of a pamphlet, some favour confidential individual teaching, others collective public teaching. some would try to make sex a sacred subject; some would prefer to keep the emotional element out and treat reproduction as a matter-of-fact science subject. some wish the parent to give the teaching, some the teacher, some the doctor, some a lecturer specially trained for this purpose. good results have been obtained by every one of these methods. during recent years much additional evidence has accumulated in my hands of the beneficent results of such teaching as i advocate in these pages, and i am confident that of boys who have been wisely guided and trained, few fail to lead clean lives even when associated with those who are generally and openly corrupt. i must, however, emphasise my belief that the cleanliness of a boy's life depends ultimately not upon his knowledge of good and evil but upon his devotion to the right. "self-reverence, self-knowledge, self-control, these three alone lead life to sovereign power." where these are not, it is idle to inculcate the rarest and most difficult of all virtues. f. arthur sibly. wycliffe, stonehouse, glos. _september 1918._ introductory note. the term puberty will so often be used in the following chapters that a brief account of the phenomena of puberty may appropriately be given at the outset of this work. puberty is a name given to the age at which a boy becomes capable of being a father. in temperate climates this age is reached at about fifteen years, though some boys attain it at twelve and some not until seventeen. the one obvious and invariable sign of puberty is a change of pitch in the voice, which assumes its bass character after an embarrassing period of squeaky alternations between the high and low tones. the age is a critical one, as several important changes take place in body and in mind. the reproductive organs undergo considerable development and become sensitive to any stimulus, physical or mental. the seminal fluid, which in normal cases has hitherto been secreted little, if at all, is now elaborated by the testicles, and contains spermatazoa--minute organisms which are essential to reproduction. under the stimulus of sexual thoughts this fluid is secreted in such quantity as to give rise to involuntary discharge during sleep. these nocturnal emissions are so often found among boys and young men that some physiologists consider them to be quite normal. my experience leads me to doubt this conclusion. another physical change associated with puberty is the growth of hair on the pubes and on the face: in this latter situation the growth is slow. with the capacity for fatherhood comes a very strong awakening of the sexual instinct, which manifests itself in passion and in lust--the unconscious and the conscious sex hunger. the passion shows itself in a ludicrously indiscriminate and exaggerated susceptibility to female attractions--a susceptibility the sexual character of which is usually quite unrecognised. among boys who have sex knowledge there is also a tendency to dwell on sexual thoughts when the mind is not otherwise occupied. passion and lust do not at once develop their full strength; but, coming at a time when self-control is very weak, and coming with all the attraction of novelty, they often dominate the mind even in normal cases, and may become tyrannous when the reproductive system has been prematurely stimulated. a heightened self-consciousness and an antagonism to authority so often follow the attainment of puberty that they are usually considered to be its results. my own experience with boys satisfies me that this conclusion is not correct. self-consciousness, when it occurs in boyhood, is usually the result of an unclean inner life. puberty merely increases the self-consciousness by intensifying its cause. when the mind is clean there is no marked change in this respect at puberty. the antagonism to authority so often observed after puberty is the product of unsatisfactory external influences. with puberty the desire to stand well with others, and in particular the desire to seem manly, increases. if a debased public opinion demands of a boy the cheap manliness of profanity, tobacco, and irreverence, the demand creates a plentiful supply, while it also suppresses as priggish or "pi" any avowed or suspected devotion to higher ideals. a healthy public opinion, working in harmony with a boy's nobler instincts, calls forth in him an earnest devotion to high ideals, and causes him to exercise, on the development of his powers and in a crusade against wrong, the new energies which a wholesome puberty places at his disposal. chapter i. prevalence of impurity among boys: the author's own experience. of the perils which beset the growing boy all are recognised, and, in a measure, guarded against except the most inevitable and most fatal peril of all. in all that concerns the use and abuse of the reproductive organs the great majority of boys have hitherto been left without adult guidance, and have imbibed their ideas from the coarser of their companions and from casual references to the subject in the bible and other books. under these conditions very few boys escape two of the worst dangers into which it is possible for a lad to fall--the artificial stimulation of the reproductive organs and the acquisition of degraded ideas on the subject of sex. that many lives are thus prematurely shortened, that many constitutions are permanently enfeebled, that very many lads who might otherwise have striven successfully against the sexual temptations of adult life succumb--almost without a struggle--to them, can be doubted by no one who is familiar with the inner life of boys and men. of these two evils, self-abuse, though productive of manifold and disastrous results, is distinctly the less. many boys outgrow the physical injuries which, in ignorance, they inflict upon themselves in youth; but very few are able wholly to cleanse themselves from the foul desires associated in their minds with sex. these desires make young men impotent in the face of temptation. under their evil dominance, even men of kind disposition will, by seduction, inflict on an innocent girl agony, misery, degradation, and premature death. they will indulge in the most degrading of all vices with prostitutes on the street. they will defile the atmosphere of social life with filthy talk and ribald jest. even a clean and ennobling passion can do little to redeem them. the pure stream of human love is made turbid with lust. after a temporary uplifting in marriage the soul is again dragged down, marriage vows are broken and the blessings of home life are turned into wormwood and gall. that a system so destructive of physical and of spiritual health should have lasted almost intact until now will, i believe, shortly become a matter for general amazement; for while evidence of the widespread character of youthful perversion is a product of quite recent years, the assumptions on which this system has been based are unreasonable and incapable of proof. since conclusive evidence of the prevalence of impurity among boys is available, i will not at present invite the reader to examine the assumptions which lead most people to a contrary belief. when i do so, i shall hope to demonstrate that we might reasonably expect to find things precisely as they are. in the first and second chapters we shall see to what conclusions teachers who have actual experience in the matter have been led. there are several teachers whose authority in most matters stands so very much above my own that it might seem presumptuous to begin by laying my own experiences before the reader; but i venture to take this course because no other teacher, as far as i know, has published quite such definite evidence as i have done; and i think that the more general statements of such eminent men as canon lyttelton, mr. a.c. benson, and dr. clement dukes will appeal to the reader more powerfully when he has some idea of the manner in which conclusions on this subject may be reached. i have some reason, also, for the belief that the paper i read in 1908 at the london university before the international congress on moral education has been considered of great significance by very competent judges. by a special decision of the executive of the congress it--alone of all sectional papers--was printed _in extenso_ in the official report. later on, it came under the notice of sir r. baden-powell, at whose request it was republished in the _headquarters gazette_--the official organ of the boy scout movement. it certainly did require some courage at the time to put my results before the public, for i was not then aware that men of great eminence in the educational world had already made equally sweeping, if less definite, statements. emboldened by this fact and by the commendations above referred to, i venture to quote the greater part of this short paper. "the opinions i am about to put forward are based almost entirely on my own twenty years' experience as a housemaster. my house contains forty-eight boys, who vary in age from ten to nineteen and come from comfortable middle-class homes. "private interviews with individual boys in my study have been the chief vehicle of my teaching and the chief source of my information. my objects in these interviews have been to warn boys against the evils of private impurity, to supply them with a certain amount of knowledge on sexual subjects in order to prevent a prurient curiosity, and to induce them to confide to me the history of their own knowledge and difficulties. in my early days i interviewed those only who appeared to me to be obviously suffering from the effects of impurity, and, of late years, the extreme pressure of my work has forced me very reluctantly to recur to this plan. "for several years, however, i was accustomed to interview every boy under my care during his first term with me. very rarely have i failed in these interviews so to secure a boy's confidence as to learn the salient facts of the history of his inner life. sunday afternoon addresses to the sixth form on the sexual dangers of late youth and early manhood have resulted at times in elder boys themselves seeking an interview with me. such spontaneous confidences have naturally been fuller, and therefore more instructive, than the confidences i have invited. "many people are inclined to look upon the instruction of boys in relation to adolescence as needless and harmful; needless because few boys, they imagine, awake to the consciousness and problems of sex until manhood; harmful because the pristine innocence of the mind is, they think, destroyed, and evils are suggested of which a boy might otherwise remain unconscious. to one who knows what boys really are such ideas are nothing less than ludicrous. "boys come to our school from many different classes of preparatory and secondary schools. almost every such school seems to possess a few boys who delight to initiate younger boys into sexual knowledge, and usually into knowledge of solitary vice. the very few boys who have come to me quite ignorant of these matters have come either straight from home at ten or eleven, or from a school in which a few young boys are educated with girls. of boys who have come under my care as late as twelve i have known but two who even professed total ignorance on sexual subjects, and in one of these cases i am quite sure that no such ignorance existed. "in a large majority of cases solitary vice has been learned and practised before a boy has got into his teens. the lack of insight parents display in relation to these questions is quite phenomenal. the few who mention the subject to me are always quite satisfied of the complete 'innocence' of their boys. some of the most precocious and unclean boys i have known have been thus confidently commended to me. boys are wholly unsuspicious of the extent to which their inner life lies open to the practised eye, and they feel secure that nothing can betray their secrets if they themselves do not. "in no department of our life are george eliot's words truer than in this department: 'our daily familiar life is but a hiding of ourselves from each other behind a screen of trivial words and deeds, and those who sit with us at the same hearth are often the farthest off from the deep human soul within us--full of unspoken evil and unacted good.' we cannot prevent a boy's obtaining information on sexual questions. our choice lies between leaving him to pick it up from unclean and vulgar minds, which will make it guilty and impure, and giving it ourselves in such a way as to invest it from the first with a sacred character. "another idea which my experience proves to be an entire delusion is the idea that a boy's natural refinement is a sufficient protection against defilement. some of the most refined boys i have had the pleasure of caring for have been pronounced victims of solitary sin. that it is a sin at all, that it has, indeed, any significance, either ethical or spiritual, has not so much as occurred to most of them. on what great moral question dare we leave the young to find their own way absolutely without guidance? in this most difficult and dangerous of all questions we leave the young soul, stirred by novel and blind impulses, to grope in the darkness. is it any wonder if it fails to see things in their true relations? "again, it is sometimes thought that the consequences of secret sin are so patent as to deter a boy from the sin itself. so far is this from being the case that i have never yet found a single boy (even among those who have, through it, made almost complete wrecks physically and mentally) who has of himself connected these consequences with the sin itself. i have, on the other hand, known many sad cases in which, through the weakening of will power, which this habit causes, boys of high ideals have fallen again and again after their eyes have been fully opened. this sin is rarely a conscious moral transgression. the boy is a victim to be sympathised with and helped, not an offender to be reproved and punished." i desire to call the attention of the reader to two points in the foregoing extract. i was particular in giving my credentials to state the character and limitations of my experience. everywhere in life one finds confident and sweeping generalisations made by men who have little or no experience to appeal to. this is specially the case in the educational world, and perhaps most of all in discussions on this very subject. some men, at least, are willing to instruct the public with nothing better to guide them than the light of nature. it would greatly assist the quest of truth if everyone who ventures to address the public on this question would first present his credentials. there is danger lest the reader should discount the significance of the statements i make in the foregoing paper by falling into the error of supposing that the facts stated apply, after all, to one school only. this is not by any means so. the facts have been collected _at_ one school; but those which refer to the prevalence of sex knowledge and of masturbation have reference solely to the condition of boys when they first entered, and are significant of the conditions which obtain at some scores of schools and in many homes. i venture here to quote and to warmly endorse canon lyttelton's opinion: "it is, however, so easy to be misunderstood in this matter that i must insert a caution against an inference which may be drawn from these words, viz. that school life is the _origin_ of immorality among boys. the real origin is to be found in the common predisposition to vicious conceptions, which is the result of neglect. nature provides in almost every case an active curiosity on this subject; and that curiosity must be somehow allayed; and if it were not allayed at school, false and depraved ideas would be picked up at home.... so readily does an ignorant mind at an early age take in teaching about these subjects that there are no conceivable conditions of modern social life not fraught with grave peril to a young boy, if once he has been allowed to face them quite unprepared, either by instruction or by warning. and this manifestly applies to life at home, or in a day-school, or in a boarding-school to an almost equal degree."[a] [footnote a: _training of the young in relation to sex, p. 1 et seq_.] one of the facts which i always tried to elicit from boys was the source of their information, or rather the character of that source, for i was naturally anxious not to ask a boy to incriminate any individual known to me. in many cases, information came first to the boy at _home_ from a brother, or cousin, or casual acquaintance, or domestic servant. in one of the worst cases i have known the information was given to a boy by another boy--an entire stranger to him--whom he happened to meet on a country road when cycling. since boys meet one another very much more at school than elsewhere and spend three-fourths of their lives there, of course information is more often obtained at school than at home. my own experience leads me to think that in this respect the day-school--probably on account of its mixed social conditions--is worse than the boarding-school. before passing from matters of personal experience, it may interest the reader if i give particulars of a few typical cases to illustrate some points on which i have insisted. _case a._--the father and mother of a boy close on thirteen came to see me before entering the lad. they had no idea that i was specially interested in purity-teaching; but they were anxious to ascertain what precautions we took against the corruption of small boys. they struck me as very good parents. i was specially pleased that they were alive to the dangers of impurity, and that the mother could advert openly to the matter without embarrassment. i advised them to give the boy explicit warning; but they said that they were anxious to preserve his innocence as long as possible. he was at present absolutely simple, and they hoped that he would long remain so. it was a comfort to them that i was interested in the subject, and they would leave the boy with confidence in my care. as soon as i saw the boy, i found it difficult to believe in his innocence; and i soon discovered that he was thoroughly corrupt. not merely did he begin almost at once to corrupt other boys, but he actually gave them his views on brothels! in a private interview with me he admitted all this, and told me that he was corrupted at ten years of age, when he was sent, after convalescence from scarlet fever, to a country village for three months. there he seems to have associated with a group of street boys, who gave him such information as they had, and initiated him into self-abuse. since then he had been greedily seeking further information and passing it on. _case b._--a delicate, gentle boy of eleven, an only son, was sent to me by an intellectual father, who had been his constant companion. the lad was very amiable and well-intentioned. a year later he gave me particulars of his corruption by a cousin, who was three years older than he. since that time--particularly of late--he had practised masturbation. he had not the least idea that it was hurtful or even unrefined, and thought that it was peculiar to himself and his cousin. he knew from his cousin the chief facts of maternity and paternity, but had not spoken to other boys about them. he was intensely anxious to cleanse himself entirely, and promised to let me know of any lapse, should it occur. in the following vacation he developed pneumonia. for some days his life hung in the balance, and then flickered out. his father wrote me a letter of noble resignation. terribly as he felt his loss, he was greatly consoled, he said, by the knowledge that his boy had died while his mind was innocent and before he could know even what temptation was. it is needless to add that i never hinted the real facts to the father; and--without altering any material detail--i am disguising the case lest it should possibly be recognised by him. i have often wondered whether, when the lad's life hung in the balance, it might not have been saved if death's scale had not been weighted by the child's lowered vitality. _case c._--a boy of fourteen came to me. he was a miserable specimen in every way--pale, lethargic, stupid almost beyond belief. he had no mother; and the father, though a man of leisure, evidently found it difficult to make the lad much of a companion. i felt certain from the first that the boy was an exceptionally bad victim of self-abuse; and this i told his father, advising him to investigate the matter. he was horrified at my diagnosis, and committed the great indiscretion of taxing the boy with self-abuse as though it were a conscious and grave fault. the father wrote during the vacation saying that he found i was entirely mistaken: not, content with the lad's assurance, he had watched him with the utmost care. as soon as the boy returned to school i interviewed him. he admitted readily that he had long masturbated himself daily--sometimes oftener. he had first--as far as he could remember, at about six--had his private parts excited by his nurse, who apparently did this to put an irritable child into a good temper! my warning had little effect upon him, as he had become a hopeless victim. he was too delicate a boy for us to desire to keep; and after a brief stay at school, during which we nursed him through a critical illness, he left to finish his education under private tuition at home. _case d._--this boy came to me at thirteen. he was always a conscientious and amiable boy, but was nervous and dull. by fifteen his dullness had increased, and he complained of brain-strain and poorness of memory. finally he began to develop st. vitus's dance. i sent him to our school doctor, who returned him with a note saying that his condition was serious--that he must stop all work, &c. &c. i was in my study when the lad came back, and i at once told him what was the matter. he frankly admitted frequent self-abuse, which he had learned from an elder brother. he had not the least suspicion that the habit was injurious; but was very apprehensive about his future until i reassured him. he wanted me to write at once and warn a younger brother who had fallen into the habit. by great effort he got himself rapidly under control. his nervous twitchings disappeared, his vitality improved, the brain-fag gradually ceased; and when he left, eighteen months later, he was fairly normal. his improvement continued afterwards, and he is now a successful man of business and a married man. _case e._--this boy entered at twelve. he was very weak physically and highly nervous--owing, his people thought, to severe bullying at a previous school. he was an able boy, of literary and artistic tastes, and almost painfully conscientious. he was very shy; always thought that he was despised by other boys; and was a duffer at games, which he avoided to the utmost. with my present experience i should have known him to be a victim of self-abuse. then, i did not suspect him; and it was not until he was leaving at eighteen for the university that we talked the matter over, on his initiative. then i found that he had been bullied into impurity at eleven, and was now a helpless victim. after two years at the university he wrote me that, though the temptation now came less frequently, he seemed absolutely powerless when it did come; that he despised himself so much that the impulse to suicide often haunted him; but that the cowardice which had kept him from games at school would probably prevent his taking his life. with the assistance of an intense and devoted religious life he gradually began to gain self-mastery. it is some years now since he has mentioned the subject to me. these are merely specimen cases. cases a, b, and c illustrate my assertions that parents are wonderfully blind; cases b and e, that quite exceptional refinement in a boy gives no protection from temptation to impurity; case d, that a boy, even in an extreme case, does not know that the habit is injurious. in respect of their severity, c, d, and e are not normal but extreme cases. the reader must not imagine that boys ordinarily suffer as much as these did. chapter ii. prevalence of impurity among boys: the opinions of canon lyttelton, dr. dukes, and others. i propose now to make clear to the reader the fact that the conclusions i have reached as to the existence of sexual knowledge among boys, and as to the prevalence of self-abuse, are entirely borne out by the opinion of the most distinguished teachers and medical men. canon lyttelton writes with an authority which no one will question. educated at eton, he was for two years an assistant master at wellington college; then, for fifteen years, headmaster of haileybury college, and has now been headmaster of eton for over six years. he has intimate knowledge of boys, derived, as regards the question of purity, from confidential talks with them. the quotations which follow are from his work _training of the young in laws of sex_. canon lyttelton does not think it needful to make statements as to the prevalence of impurity among boys. he rather assumes that this prevalence is obvious and, under present conditions, inevitable. i have already quoted one passage which involves this assumption, and now invite the reader to consider two others. "in the school life of boys, in spite of very great improvements, it is _impossible_ that sexual subjects should be wholly avoided in common talk.... though, in preparatory schools of little boys under fourteen, the increasing vigilance of masters, and constant supervision, combined with constant employment, reduce the evil of prurient talk to a minimum, yet these subjects _will_ crop up.... it should be remembered that the boys who are talkative about such subjects are just those whose ideas are most distorted and vicious. in the public school, owing not only to freer talk and more mixed company but to the boy's own wider range of vision, sexual questions, and also those connected with the structure of the body, come to the fore and begin to occupy more or less of the thoughts of all but a peculiarly constituted minority of the whole number. "men, as i have shown, have been severely dealt with by nature in this respect: she has forced them, at a time of life when their minds are ill compacted, their ideas chaotic, and their wills untrained, to face an ordeal which demands above all things reverence based on knowledge and resolution sustained by high affections. an _enormously large proportion_ flounder blindly into the mire before they know what it is, not necessarily, but very often into the defilement of evil habit, but, still more often, into the tainted air of diseased opinion, and after a few years _some of them_ emerge saved, but so as by fire."[b] [footnote b: pages 4 _et seq._: the italics are mine.] the following are quotations from the _upton letters_, written by mr. a.c. benson. mr. benson is one of the most distinguished of modern teachers: he has had long experience of public-school life both as a boy and as a master: he has that insight into the heart of boyhood which can come only to one who has affectionate sympathy with boys and has been the recipient of their confidences. it will be abundantly evident from the passages which follow that in mr. benson's opinion no boy is likely to preserve his "innocence" in passing through a public school. "the subject is so unpleasant that many masters dare not speak of it at all, and excuse themselves by saying that they don't want to put ideas into boys' heads. i cannot conscientiously believe that a man who has been through a big public school himself can honestly be afraid of that." "the standard of purity is low: a vicious boy does not find his vicious tendencies by any means a bar to social success." this, of course, assumes that the vicious tendencies are a matter of notoriety. a similar implication is involved in the following: "i do not mean to say that there are not many boys who are both pure-minded and honest; but they treat such virtues as a secret preference of their own, and do not consider that it is in the least necessary to interfere with the practice of others or even to disapprove of it." he further gives it as his opinion that "the deadly and insidious temptation of impurity has, as far as one can learn, increased," and tells us "an innocent-minded boy whose natural inclination to purity gave way before perpetual temptation and even compulsion might be thought to have erred, but would have scanty, if any, expression of either sympathy or pity from other boys; while if he breathed the least hint of his miserable position to a master and the fact came out, he would be universally scouted.... one hears of simply heart-rending cases where a boy dare not even tell his parents of what he endures." it would thus appear that in some of the premier schools of the world impurity is a matter of notoriety, sometimes of compulsion; and that, to a boy's own strong inclination to concealment, is superadded, by the public opinion of the school, an imperious command that this concealment shall, even in heart-rending cases, be maintained. no one, i think, will maintain that private schools _as a class_ are in the least degree lees corrupt than public schools; while there are, i am sure, at least a few schools in which public opinion condemns _open_ impurity, and will not tolerate impure talk. and while i am confident that it is possible, not merely to attain this condition in a school, but also to reduce private impurity to a negligible quantity, impurity--in one form or another--is, in general, so widely spread in boys' schools of every type, that it is difficult to understand how anyone familiar with school life can doubt its prevalence. let us now consider the opinion of dr. clement dukes, the medical officer of rugby school and the greatest english authority on school hygiene. in the preface to the fourth edition of his well-known work _health at school_, dr. dukes writes: "i have studied children in all their phases and stages for many years--two years at the hospital for sick children in 61 ormond street, london, followed by thirty-three years at rugby school--a professional history which has provided me with an almost unique experience in all that relates to the health and disease of childhood and youth, and has compelled constant and steady thought upon every aspect of this problem." in an earlier work, _the preservation of health_, dr. dukes gives his estimate of the prevalence of masturbation, and quotes the opinion of other authorities whose credentials he has verified; in this work, on page 150, he writes of masturbation: "i believe that the reason why it is so widespread an evil--amounting, i gather, although from the nature of the case no complete evidence can ever be accurately obtained, to somewhere _about 90 to 95 per cent. of all boys at boarding-schools_--is because the boy leaves his home in the first instance without one word of warning from his parents ... and thus falls into evil ways from his innocence and ignorance alone.... this immorality is estimated by some at 80 per cent., by others at 90 per cent. another says that not 10 per cent. are innocent. another that it has always begun at from eight to twelve years of age. others that it is always worst amongst the elder boys. others that 'it is universal.'" professor stanley hall, in his great work on _adolescence_, after a similar and exhaustive review of the numerous works on this subject in different languages, concludes: "the whole literature on the subject attests that whenever careful researches have been undertaken the results are appalling as to prevalence." and yet there are people who deprecate purity-teaching for boys because they feel that a boy's natural modesty is quite a sufficient protection, and that there is danger of destroying a boy's innocence by putting ideas into his head! to hear such people talk, and to listen to the way in which they speak of self-abuse as though it implied monstrous moral perversion, one would think that the condition of morals when they were young was wholly different. the great novelist thackeray gives little countenance to this opinion when he writes in _pendennis_: "and, by the way, ye tender mothers and sober fathers of christian families, a prodigious thing that theory of life is as orally learned at a great public school. why if you could hear those boys of fourteen who blush before mothers and sneak off in silence in the presence of their daughters, talking among each other--it would be the woman's turn to blush then. before he was twelve years old little pen had heard talk enough to make him quite awfully wise upon certain points--and so, madam, has your pretty rosy-cheeked son, who is coming home from school for the ensuing holidays. i don't say that the boy is lost, or that the innocence has left him which he had from 'heaven, which is our home,' but that the shades of the prison-house are closing fast over him, and that we are helping as much as possible to corrupt him." before concluding this chapter i would caution the reader against the error of supposing that the opinions expressed by canon lyttelton and dr. dukes are indicative merely of the conditions they have met at haileybury, eton, and rugby. they are equally significant of the conditions which obtain in the innumerable schools from which haileybury, eton, and rugby are recruited; and as there is no reason why other preparatory schools should differ from these, they are significant of the almost universal condition of boys' schools. chapter iii. causes of the prevalence of impurity among boys. the evidence i have adduced in the previous chapters will convince most of my readers that few boys retain their innocence after they are of school age. there may, however, be a few who find it impossible to reconcile this conclusion with their ideas of boy nature. i will therefore now examine current conceptions on this subject and expose their fundamental inaccuracy. there are some people who imagine that a boy's innate modesty is quite sufficient protection against defilement. does experience really warrant any such conclusion? those who know much of children will recognise the fact that even the cardinal virtues of truthfulness and honesty have often to be learned, and that ideas of personal cleanliness, of self-restraint in relation to food, and of consideration for others have usually to be implanted and fostered. among people of refinement these virtues are often so early learned that there is danger lest we should consider them innate. the susceptibility of some children to suggestions conveyed to them by the example and precept of their elders is almost unlimited. hence a child may, at two, have given up the trick of clearing its nostrils with the finger-nail, and may, before five, have learned most of the manners and virtues of refined people. the majority, however, take longer to learn these things, so that a jolly little chap of ten or twelve is often by no means scrupulously clean in hands, nails, ears, and teeth, is often distinctly greedy, and sometimes far from truthful. that cleanliness and virtue are acquired and not innate is obvious enough from the fact that children who grow up among dirty and unprincipled people are rarely clean and virtuous. were it possible for the child of refined parents to grow up without example or precept in relation to table manners and morals, except the example and advice of vulgar people, who would expect refinement and consideration from him? is there anyone who has such faith in innate refinement that he would be content to let a child of his own, grow up without a hint on these matters, and with such example only as was supplied by association with vulgar people? yet this is precisely what we do in relation to the subject of personal purity. the child has no good example to guide him. the extent to which temptation comes to those whom he respects, the manner in which they comport themselves when tempted, the character of their sex relations are entirely hidden from him. he is not only without example, he is without precept. no ideals are set before him, no advice is given to him: the very existence of anything in which ideals and advice are needful is ignored. if in conditions like these we should expect a boy to grow up greedy, we may be certain that he will grow up impure. at puberty there awakes within him by far the strongest appetite that human nature can experience--an appetite against which some of the noblest of mankind have striven in vain. the appetite is given abnormal strength by the artificial and stimulating conditions under which he lives. the act which satisfies this appetite is also one of keen pleasure. he has long been accustomed to caress his private parts, and the pleasure with which he does this is greatly enhanced. he does not suspect that indulgence is harmful. this pleasure, unlike that of eating, costs him nothing, and is ever available. his powers of self-control are as yet undeveloped. he can indulge himself without incurring the least suspicion. he probably knows that most boys, of his age and above, indulge themselves. the result is inevitable. he finds that sexual thoughts are keenly pleasurable, and that they produce bodily exaltation. he has much yet to learn on the subject of sex, and he enjoys the quest. wherever he turns he finds it now--in his bible, in animal life, in his classics, in the encyclopã¦dia, in his companions, and in the newspaper. day and night the subject is ever with him. it is inevitable. and at this juncture comes along the theorist who is aghast at our destroying the lad's "innocence," and at our "suggesting evils to him which otherwise he would never have thought of." "the boy's innate modesty is quite a sufficient protection"! to me the wonderful thing is the earnestness with which a boy sets about the task of cleansing his life when once he has been made to realise the real character of the thoughts and acts with which he has been playing. boys, as i find them, rarely err in this matter, or in any other, from moral perversity, but merely from ignorance and thoughtlessness. severe rebukes and punishments are rarely either just or useful. the disposition which obliges the teacher to use them in the last resort, and the rebellion against authority which is said to follow puberty, arise almost invariably from injudicious training in the home or at school. boys who have received a fair home training, and who find themselves in a healthy atmosphere at school, are almost invariably delightful to deal with; and even those who have been less fortunate in their early surroundings adapt themselves in most cases to the standards which a healthy public opinion in the school demands. it may be thought that the mere reticence of adults about reproduction and the reproductive organs would impress the child's mind with the idea that it is unclean to play with his private parts or to talk about their functions with his companions. this is a psychological error. for some years past adults have avoided any allusion to the subject of excretion, and the child assumes that _public_ attention to bodily needs and _public_ reference to these needs are alike indelicate. he does not, however, conclude that excretion in private is an indelicate act, nor does any sense of delicacy oblige him to maintain, with regard to companions of his own sex and age, the reticence which has become habitual to him in his relations with adults. why should the child think it "dirty" to fondle and excite his private parts or to talk about them with his boy friends? the knowledge which makes us feel as we do is as yet hidden from him. the same thing is certainly true of conversation about the facts of reproduction when those who converse are uncorrupted. another element, however, at once appears when these facts are divulged by a corrupt boy, because his manner is irresistibly suggestive of uncleanness as well as of secrecy. similarly when self-abuse is fallen into spontaneously by a boy who is otherwise clean, no sense of indecency attaches itself to the act. when, however, it is taught by an unclean boy, there is a feeling of defilement from the first. in boys under the age of puberty this feeling may overpower the temptation; in boys above that age it is, as a rule, totally inadequate as a safeguard. many people imagine that a boy who is impure must betray himself, and that if no overt acts of indecency are observed the innocence of a boy's mind may be safely inferred. knowledge on these subjects has, however, been almost invariably gained under conditions of the utmost secrecy, and the behaviour of adults has effectively fostered the idea of concealment. hence we might expect that the secret would be jealously guarded and that any overt act of impurity would be avoided in the presence of adults with even greater circumspection than the public performance of an excretory act. the habit of self-abuse, moreover, is practised usually under the double cover of darkness and the bed-clothes. the temptation occurs far less by day than by night, and a boy who yields to it in the day invariably chooses a closet or other private place in which he feels secure from detection. to many people it is inconceivable that a lad can harbour impure feelings and habits without obvious deterioration; but even if a child's lapses into these things were associated with conscious guilt, does our knowledge of human nature justify us in supposing that evil in the heart is certain to betray itself in a visible degradation of the outer life? if we believe the language of the devout, we must admit that the most spiritual of men hide in their heart thoughts of which they are heartily ashamed. it is not into the mouth of the reprobate but into the mouth of her devoted members as they enter upon their sacramental service that the church puts the significant prayer, "almighty god, unto whom all hearts be open, all desires known, and from whom no secrets are hid; cleanse the thoughts in our hearts by the inspiration of thy holy spirit." inconsistency in adults is far too well recognised to need proof. in children it is even more obvious, and for this reason that, looked at aright, it is the faculty of maintaining the general health of the soul, spite of local morbid conditions--a faculty which is strongest in the simpler and more adaptable mind of the child. impurity as a disease has a long incubation period. when he contracts the disease, its victim is often wholly unconscious of his danger; and, both because the disease is an internal one and is slow in development, it is a very long time before obvious symptoms appear. meanwhile a corruption may have set in which will ultimately ruin the whole life. chapter iv. results of youthful impurity. it is difficult to exaggerate the evils which result from the present system under which boys grow to manhood without any adult guidance in relation to the laws of sex. it has already been stated that the immediate physical results of self-abuse are small evils indeed compared with the corruption of mind which comes from perverted sex ideas. they are, however, by no means negligible; and are, in some cases, very serious. the great prevalence of self-abuse among boys, combined with the inevitable uncertainty as to the degree of a boy's freedom from, or indulgence in, this vice, makes it very difficult to institute a reliable comparison between those who are chaste and those who are unchaste. greater significance attaches, i think, to a comparison in individual cases of a boy's condition during a period of indulgence in masturbation and his condition after its total, or almost total, relinquishment. i have no hesitation in saying that the difference in a boy's vitality and spiritual tone after relinquishing this habit is very marked. the case _d_ quoted in chapter i. is, in this respect, typical. in my pamphlet, _private knowledge for boys_, i have quoted a striking passage from acton on the reproductive organs, in which he contrasts the continent and the incontinent boy. but in the case of men like dr. acton--specialists in the diseases of the male reproductive organs--it must be remembered that it is mostly the abnormal and extreme cases which come under their notice: a fact which is liable to affect their whole estimate. the book can be recommended to adults who wish to see the whole subject of sex diseases dealt with by a specialist who writes with a high moral purpose. my own estimate is given in the pamphlet already referred to. after quoting dr. acton's opinion, i add:-"you will notice that dr. acton is here describing an extreme case. i want to tell you what are the results in a case which is not extreme. my difficulty is that these results are so various. the injury to the nerves and brain which is caused by sexual excitement and by the loss of semen leaves nothing in the body, mind or character uninjured. the _extent_ of the injury varies greatly with the strength of a boy's constitution and with the frequency of his sin. the _character_ of the injury varies with the boy's own special weaknesses and tendencies. if he is naturally shy and timid, it makes him shyer and more timid. if he is stupid and lazy, it makes him more stupid and lazy. if he is inclined to consumption or other disease, it destroys his power of resisting such disease. in extreme cases only does it actually change an able boy into a stupid one, an athletic boy into a weak one, and a happy boy into a discontented one; but in all cases it _weakens_ every power a boy possesses. its most prominent results are these: loss of will-power and self-reliance, shyness, nervousness and irritability, failure of the reasoning powers and memory, laziness of body and mind, a diseased fondness for girls, deceitfulness. of these results, the loss of will-power leaves the boy a prey not only to the temptations of impurity, but to every other form of temptation: the deceitfulness destroys his self-respect and turns his life into a sham." of incomparably greater importance than acton's wide but abnormal experience and my own narrow but normal experience is the experience of dr. clement dukes, which is very wide and perfectly normal. no man has probably been in so good a position for forming an estimate as he has been. dr. dukes thus sums up his opinion: "the harm which results is moral, intellectual, and physical. _physically_ it is a frequent drain at a critical time of life when nature is providing for growth and development, and is ill able to bear it; it is a powerful nervous shock to the system ill-prepared to meet it.... it also causes muscular and mental debility, loss of spirit and manliness, and occasional insanity, suicide and homicide. moreover it leads to further uncontrollable passions in early manhood.... further, this vice enfeebles the _intellectual_ powers, inducing lethargy and obtuseness, and incapacity for hard mental work. and last, and most of all, it is an _immorality_ which stains the whole character and undermines the life." in this passage dr. dukes refers to the intellectual and moral harm of self-abuse as well as to its physical consequences. intimately connected as these are with one another, i am here attempting to give them separate treatment. it is, however, impossible to treat perverted sex-knowledge and self-abuse separately; for though in young boys they are found independently of one another, and sometimes co-exist in elder boys without any intimate conscious association, their results are identical. in the following pages, therefore, i shall refer to them jointly as impurity. the earliest evil which springs from impurity is the destruction of the intimacy which has hitherto existed between the boy and his parents. closely associated with this is that duplicity of life which results from secrets which may be shared with the coarse but must be jealously concealed from everyone who is respected. untold harm follows these changes in a lad. hitherto he has had nothing to conceal from his mother--unless, indeed, his parents have been foolish enough to drive him into deception by undue severity over childish mistakes, and accidents, and moral lapses. every matter which has occupied his thoughts he has freely shared with those who can best lead him into the path of moral health. henceforth all is changed. the lad has his own inner life which he must completely screen from the kind eyes which have hitherto been his spiritual lights. concealment is soon found to be an easy thing. acts and words are things of which others may take cognisance; the inner life no one can ever know. a world is opened to the lad in which the restraints of adult opinion are not felt at all and the guidance and inspiration of a father's or mother's love never come. how completely this is the case in regard to impurity the reader will hardly doubt if he remembers that all parents believe their boys to be innocent, and that some 90 per cent. of them are hopelessly hoodwinked. but this double life is not long confined to the subject of purity. the concealment which serves one purpose excellently can be made to serve another; and henceforth parents and adult friends need never know anything but what they are told. it is a sad day for the mother when first she realises that the old frankness has gone; it is a very, very much sadder day for the boy. there is no fibre of his moral being but is, or will be, injured by this divorce of home influences and by this ever-accumulating burden of guilty memories. "his mother may not know why this is so," writes canon lyttelton; "the only thing she may be perfectly certain of is that the loss will never be quite made up as long as life shall last." another injury done by impurity to the growing mind of the lad is that, in all matters relating to sex, he learns to look merely for personal enjoyment. in every other department of life he is moved by a variety of motives: by the desire to please, the desire to excel, by devotion to duty, by the love of truth, and by many other desires. even in gratifying the appetite most nearly on the same plane as the sexual appetite--namely, that of hunger--he has more or less regard for his own well-being, more or less consideration for the wishes of others, and a constant desire to attain the standard expected of him. meanwhile, as regards the sexual appetite--the racial importance of which is great; and the regulation of which is of infinite importance for himself, for those who may otherwise become its victims, for the wife he may one day wed, and for the children, legitimate or illegitimate, that he may beget--his one idea is personal enjoyment. one deplorable result of this idea will be adverted to in the next chapter. when boyish impurity involves a coarse way of looking at sexual relations, as it always must when these are matters of common talk and jest, the boy suffers a loss which prejudicially affects the whole tone of his mind and every department of his conduct--i mean the loss of reverence. it is those things alone which are sacred to us, those things about which we can talk only with friends, and about which we can jest with no one, that have inspiration in them, that can give us power to follow our ideals and to lay a restraining hand on the brute within us. fortunately the self-control which manifests itself in heroism, in good form, and in the sportsmanlike spirit is sacred to almost all. to most, a mother's love is sacred. to many, all that is implied in the word religion. to a few, sexual passion and the great manifestations of human genius in poetry, music, painting, sculpture, and architecture. exactly in proportion as these things are profaned by jest and mockery, is the light of the soul quenched and man degraded to the level of the beast. considering how large a part the sex-passion plays in the lives of most men and women; considering how it permeates the literature and art of the world and is--as the basis of the home--the most potent factor in social life, its profanation is a terrible loss, and the habit of mind which such profanation engenders cannot fail to weaken the whole spirit of reverence. i must confess that the man who jests over sex relations is to me incomparably lower than the man who sustains clean but wholly illegitimate sex relations; and while i am conscious of a strong movement of friendship towards a lad who has admitted impurity in his life but retains reverence for purity, it is hard to feel anything but repulsion towards one who profanes the subject of sex with coarse and ribald talk. as a result of the two evils of which i have now spoken, together with the physical effects of masturbation, young men become powerless to face the sexual temptations of manhood; and many, who in all other relations of life are admirable, sink in this matter into the mire of prostitution or the less demoralising, but far crueller, sin of seduction. thrown on the streets, usually through no fault of her own, often merely from an over-trustful love, the prostitute sinks to the lowest depths of degradation and despair. it is not merely that she sells to every comer, clean or bestial, without even the excuse of appetite or of passion, what should be yielded alone to love; but it is also that to do this she poisons body and mind with spirit-drinking, leads a life of demoralising indolence and self-indulgence, is cut off from all decent associations, and sinks, under the combined influence of these things and of fell disease, into a loathsome creature whom not the lowest wants; sinks into destitution, misery, suicide, or the outcast's early grave. writing of the young man who is familiar with london, the headmaster of eton says: "he cannot fail to see around him a whole world of ruined life--a ghastly varnish of gaiety spread over immeasurable tracts of death and corruption; a state of things so heart-rending and so hopeless that on calm consideration of it the brain reels, and sober-minded people who, from motives of pity, have looked the hideous evil in the face, have asserted that nothing in their experience has seemed to threaten them so nearly with a loss of reason." into the contamination of this inferno, into active support of this cruel infamy, many and many a young man is led by the impurity of his boyhood. such at least is the conclusion of some who know boys best. thus dr. dukes writes: "this evil, of which i have spoken so long and so freely, is, i believe, _the root of the evil of prostitution_ and similar vices; and if this latter evil is to be mitigated, it can only be, to my mind, by making the life of the schoolboy purer. "how is it possible to put a stop to this terrible social evil? how is it possible to _elevate women_ while the demand for them for base purposes is so great? we must go to the other end of the scale and make men better; we must train young boys more in purity of life and chastity before their passions become uncontrollable. "whereas the cry of every moralist and philanthropist is, 'let us put a stop to this prostitution, open and clandestine.' this cannot be effected at present, much as it is to be desired; the demand for it is too great, even possibly greater than the supply. if we wish to eradicate it, we must go to the fountainhead and make those who create the demand purer, so that, the demand falling off, the supply will be curtailed."[c] [footnote c: _the preservation of health_, p. 161.] to this i venture to add that by teaching chastity we not merely decrease the demand for prostitutes, but we greatly diminish the supply. few girls, if any, take to the streets until they have been seduced; and the antecedents of seduction are the morbid exaggeration of the sexual appetite, the lack of self-control, and the selfish hedonism which youthful impurity engenders. the selfishness, and consequent blindness to cruelty, of which i write, manifests itself quite early. a boy of chivalrous feeling, whose blood would boil at any other form of outrage on a girl, will read a newspaper account of rape or indecent assault with a pleasure so intense that indignation and disgust are quite crowded out of his mind. if, repelled by the coarseness of the streets, the young man allows lust or passion to lead him into seduction, he commits a crime the consequences of which are usually cruel in the extreme; for in most cases the seduced girl sinks of necessity into prostitution. so blind, so callous does impurity make even the refined and generous, that many a young man who can be a good son, a good brother, a noble friend, a patriotic citizen, will doom a girl whose only fault is that she is physically attractive--and possibly too affectionate and trusting--to torturing anxiety, to illness, to the horrible suffering of undesired travail, to disgrace, and in nineteen cases out of twenty to ostracism and the infamy of the streets. murder is a small thing compared with this. who would not rather that his daughter were killed in her innocence than that she should be doomed to such a fate? many young men are ignorant of the fact that sexual relations with prostitutes frequently result in the foulest and most terrible of diseases. venereal diseases, as these are called, commence in the private parts themselves, but the poison which they engender soon attacks other parts of the body and often wrecks the general health. it gives rise to loathsome skin disease, to degeneration of the nervous system and paralysis, to local disease in the heart, lungs, and digestive organs, and to such lowering of vitality as renders the body an easy prey to disease generally. no one is justified in looking upon this risk as a matter of merely private concern. health is of supreme importance not merely to the personal happiness and success of the man himself, but also to the services he can render to his friends, to his nation, and to humanity. even if a young man is foolish enough to risk his happiness and success for the sake of animal enjoyment, he cannot without base selfishness and disloyalty disregard the duties he owes to others. further, the man who suffers from venereal disease is certain to pass its poison on to his wife and children--cursing thus with unspeakable misery those whom of all others it is his duty to protect and bless. one cannot help feeling at times that the blessings of home--and of the monogamy which makes home possible--are terribly discounted by a condition of things which offer a young man no other alternatives to chastity than these terrible evils. now that year by year the rising standard of living and the increased exactions which the state makes on the industrious and provident cause marriage to be a luxury too expensive for many, and delayed unduly for most, the problem of social purity becomes ever greater and more urgent. the instruction of the young in relation to sex provides the only solution, and is, i venture to think, incomparably the most important social reform now needed. i am confident that a boy who receives wise training and sex guidance from his early days will never find lust the foul and uncontrollable element which it is to-day in the lives of most men; that in a few generations our nation could be freed from the seething corruption which poisons its life; and that, while freer scope could be given to the ineffable joys of pure sexual love, very much could be done to diminish the awful misery and degradation engendered by lust. if children had from their infancy an instinctive and growing desire for alcohol, with secret and unrestrained means of gratifying it; if by its indulgence this desire grew into an overmastering craving; if throughout childhood they received no word of warning or guidance from the good, but were tempted and corrupted by the evil, we should have a nation in which most men and women were drunkards, ready to break all laws--human and divine--which stood in the way of an imperious need; a nation in which, among those who declined to yield to iniquity, the craving for drink caused unceasing and life-long struggle. on the young man of to-day we lay a burden which no ordinary man was ever yet able to bear. his boyhood and youth become, through ignorance, the prey of lust; his passions become tyrannous; his will is enslaved. even if he contracts marriage, his troubles are not at an end, for man, _as an animal_, is neither monogamous nor wholly constant. his neglected sex-education makes him far more susceptible to physical attractions than to those qualities which make a wife a good companion, a good housekeeper, and a good mother; and but too often, as a result, the beneficent influence of marriage is transient; the domestic atmosphere ceases to be congenial; both husband and wife become susceptible to other attachments, and the old struggle begins all over again. chapter v. sex knowledge is compatible with perfect refinement and innocence. the reader who has followed me through the preceding chapters will, i hope, feel that, whatever objections there may be to giving explicit instruction on sex matters to the young, such instruction is immensely to be preferred to the almost inevitable perversion which follows ignorance. if we had to choose between a state of "innocence" and a state of reverent knowledge, many people would doubtless incline to the former. no such option exists. our choice lies between leaving a lad to pick up information from vulgar and unclean minds, and giving it ourselves in such a manner as to invest it from the first with sacredness and dignity. even if the reader is still inclined to think that sex-knowledge is, at best, an unholy secret, he will hardly doubt that it can be divulged with less injury by an adult who is earnestly anxious for the child's welfare than by coarse and irreverent lips. i am not content to leave the reader in this dilemma. i am confident that the following words of canon lyttelton spring from the truest spiritual insight: "to a lover of nature, no less than to a convinced christian, the subject ought to wear an aspect not only negatively innocent, but positively beautiful. it is a recurrent miracle, and yet the very type and embodiment of law; and it may be confidently affirmed that, in spite of the blundering of many generations, there is nothing in a normally-constituted child's mind which refuses to take in the subject from this point of view, provided that the right presentation of it is the first." nothing more forcibly convicts the present system of the evil which lies at its door than the current beliefs on this subject. at present, sexual knowledge is picked up from the gutter and the cesspool; and no purification can free it entirely in many minds from its original uncleanness. "love's a virtue for heroes!--as white as the snow on high hills, and immortal as every great soul is that struggles, endures, and fulfils." this is the prophet's belief, and yet, putting on one side those who actually delight in uncleanness, there appear to be many people who look upon the marriage certificate as a licence to impurity, and upon sexual union as a form of animal indulgence to which we are so strongly impelled that even the most refined are tempted by it into an act of conscious indelicacy and sin. such people read literally the psalmist's words: "behold, i was shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me." it is surely some such feeling as this which makes parents shrink from referring to the subject, which underlies the constant use of the word "innocence" as the aptest description of a state of mind which precedes the acquisition of sexual knowledge. that individuals, at least, have risen to a loftier conception than this is certain; and the only possible explanations of the prevalence of the current idea are that sex-knowledge has almost always been obtained from a tainted source; and that, while the coarse have not merely whispered their views in the ear in the closet, but have, in all ages, proclaimed them from the house-tops, the refined have hardly whispered their ideas, much less discussed them publicly. children growing up with perverted views have listened to the loud assertions of disputants on the one side, have witnessed the demoralisation which so often attends the sexual passion, but have received no hint of what may be said on the other side of the question. an instructed public opinion would be horrified at our sovereign's taking shares in a slave-trading expedition as queen elizabeth did. we are aghast at the days when crowds went forth to enjoy the torture at the stake of those from whom they differed merely on some metaphysical point. we have even begun to be restless under man's cruel domination over the animal creation. but we have made far less advance in our conceptions on sexual matters; and we are content here with ideas which were current in elizabethan days. but for this, no passion for conservatism, no reverence for a liturgy endeared by centuries of use, could induce us to tell every bride as she stands before god's altar that it is one of her functions to provide an outlet for her husband's passion and a safeguard against fornication. lust is at least as degrading in married life as it is outside it. no legal contract, no religious ceremony, can purify, much less sanctify, what is essentially impure. those who desire to assist in the uplifting of humanity cannot afford to be silent and to allow judgment to go against them by default. courage they will need; for a charge of indecency is sure to be levelled against them by the indecent, and they may be misjudged even by the pure. this is not the place in which so delicate a matter can be fully discussed, nor does space permit; but if the movement towards sex instruction is not to be stultified by the very ideas which evidence the need for it, the subject cannot be wholly ignored here, and i venture to throw out a few suggestions. are we indeed to believe that the noblest and most spiritual of men will compromise themselves in the eyes of the woman they love best, and whose respect they most desire, by committing in her presence and making her the instrument of an indelicate act? a great poet, who remained an ardent lover and a devoted companion until his wife died in his arms--blissfully happy that she might die so--has written: "let us not always say, 'spite of the flesh to-day i strove, made head, gained ground upon the whole.' as the bird wings and sings, let us cry, 'all good things are ours, nor soul helps flesh more, now, than flesh helps soul.'" again: are we, who believe in a divine government of the world, able to imagine that god has made the perpetuation of the race dependent upon acts of sin or of indelicacy? did he who graced with his presence the marriage at cana in galilee really countenance a ceremony which was a prelude to sin? did he who took the little children in his arms and blessed them know, as he said "for of such is the kingdom of heaven," that not one of them could have existed without indelicacy, and that they were but living proof of their fathers' lapses and their mothers' humiliation? is he whom we address daily as "our father" willing to be described by a name with which impurity is of necessity connected? and has he implanted in us as the strongest of our instincts that which cannot elevate and must debase? again: it needs no wide experience of life, nor any very indulgent view of it, to feel some truth at least in the words tennyson puts into the mouth of his ideal man: "indeed i knew of no more subtle master under heaven than is the maiden passion for a maid not only to keep down _the base in man_, but teach high thought, and amiable words, and courtliness, and the desire for fame, and love of truth, and all that makes a man." and yet this passion is indisputably sexual passion, and the chastest of lovers has bodily proof that the most spiritual of his kisses is allied to the supreme embrace of love. our body is the instrument by which all our emotions are expressed. the most obvious way of expressing affection is by bodily contact. the mother fondles her child, kisses its lips and its limbs, and presses it to her breast. young children hold hands, put their arms round one another and kiss; and, although later we become less demonstrative, we still take our friend's arm, press his hand with ours, and lay a hand upon his shoulder; we pat our horse or dog and stroke our cat. the lover returns to the spontaneous and unrestrained caresses of his childhood. these become more and more intimate until they find their consummation in the most intimate and most sacred of all embraces. from first to last these caresses--however deep the pleasure they bestow--are sought by the mother or the lover, not _for the sake of_ that pleasure, but as a means of expressing emotion. he only who realises this fact and conforms to it can enter on married life with any certainty of happiness. the happiness of very many marriages is irretrievably shattered at the outset through the craving for sexual excitement which, in the absence of wise guidance, grows up in every normal boy's heart, and by the contemplation of sexual intercourse as an act of physical pleasure. and once again: it is the experience of those who have given instruction in sex questions to the young that by those whose minds have never been defiled the instruction is received with instant reverence, as something sacred; not with shame, as something foul. i venture once more to quote canon lyttelton, who sets forth his experience and my own in language the beauty of which i cannot imitate: "there is something awe-inspiring in the innocent readiness of little children to learn the explanation of by far the greatest fact within the horizon of their minds. the way they receive it, with native reverence, truthfulness of understanding, and guileless delicacy, is nothing short of a revelation of the never-ceasing bounty of nature, who endows successive generations of children with this instinctive ear for the deep harmonies of her laws. people sometimes speak of the indescribable beauty of children's innocence, and insist that there is nothing which calls for more constant thanksgiving than that influence on mankind. but i will venture to say that no one quite knows what it is who has foregone the privilege of being the first to set before them the true meaning of life and birth and the mystery of their own being." to the arguments thus briefly indicated it is no answer to say that sexual union is essentially physical, and that to regard it in any other way is transcendental. among primitive men eating and drinking were merely animal. we have made them, in our meals, an accompaniment to social pleasures, and in our religious life we have raised them to a sacramental level. chapter vi. conditions under which purity teaching is best given: remedial and curative measures. we have now seen that impurity is almost universal among boys who have been left without warning and instruction; that, under these conditions, it is practically inevitable; that its direct results are lowered vitality and serious injury to character, its indirect results an appalling amount of degradation and misery; finally, that there is nothing in sex knowledge, when rightly presented, which can in the least defile a child's mind. all that now remains is for us to consider by whom and under what circumstances instruction on this subject should be given, and what assistance can be rendered to boys who desire to lead chaste lives. without doubt, instruction should be given to a boy by his parents in the home. when young children ask questions with regard to reproduction, parents should neither ignore these question nor give the usual silly answers. if the occasion on which the question is asked is not one in which an answer can appropriately be given, the child should be gently warned that the question raised is one about which people do not openly talk, and the promise of an answer hereafter should be made. then, at the first convenient hour, the child can either be given the information he seeks or told that he shall hear all about the matter at some future specified time, as for example, his sixth or eighth birthday. in the absence of questions from a child, the ideal thing would be for the child, at the age of six, seven, or eight, to learn orally from his mother the facts of maternity and to receive warning against playing with his private parts. whether at this time it is best to teach him the facts of paternity is, i think, doubtful. canon lyttelton is strongly of opinion that the father's share in the child's existence should be explained when the mother's share is explained, and there is much weight in what he says. if the question of paternity is reserved, it should not be on the ground that there is anything embarrassing or indelicate about the matter, and, when the facts are revealed, the child should clearly understand that they have been withheld merely until his mind was sufficiently developed to understand them. the only safe guide in such matters is experience, and of this as yet we have unfortunately little. the question next arises: should it be the mother or the father who gives this instruction? as regards the earlier part of the instruction a confident reply can be made to this question. the information should be given by the parent whose relations with the child are the more intimate and tender, and whose influence over him is the greater. this will, of course, usually be the mother. the subject of paternity may, if reserved for future treatment, be appropriately given by the father, provided that he and his son are on really intimate terms. if timely warning is given to a child about playing with his private parts, no reference need be made to self-abuse until a boy leaves home for school, or until he is nearing the age of puberty. there are many mothers whose insight and tact will enable them to approach these questions in the best possible way and to say exactly the right thing. there are others--a large majority, i think--who would be glad of guidance, and there are not a few who would certainly leave the matter alone unless thus guided. it was mainly to assist parents in this work that i published last year a pamphlet entitled _private knowledge for boys_.[d] this embodies just what, in my opinion, should be said to an intelligent child, and it has, in my own hands, proved effective for many years past. in the case of _young_ children the teaching should certainly be oral, _provided_ that the mother knows clearly what to say, has sufficient powers of expression to say it well, and can talk without any feeling of embarrassment. unless these conditions co-exist i recommend the use of a pamphlet. as i have found that children often do not know what one means by the "private parts," i make this clear at the outset. [footnote d: to be obtained post free for nine stamps from mr. m. whiley, stonehouse, glos.] some into whose hands this book may come and who have boys of twelve and upwards to whom they have never given instruction, may possibly be glad of advice as to the manner in which the subject can best be dealt with in their case. for boys of this age, i am strongly of opinion that it is better in most cases to make use of a pamphlet than to attempt oral instruction. probably they already have some knowledge on the subject; possibly some sense of guilt. if so, it will be found very difficult to treat the matter orally without embarrassment--a thing to be avoided at all costs. i was interested to find that on receipt of my pamphlet professor geddes--one of the greatest experts on sex--placed it at once in the hands of his own boy, a fact from which his opinion on the relative merits of oral and printed instruction can easily be inferred. many of my readers who have boys of fourteen and upwards to whom they have hitherto given no instruction will, i hope, feel that they must now do this. i venture, therefore, to give a detailed account of the manner in which i should myself act in similar circumstances. i should arrange to be with the lad when there was no danger of interruption, and in such circumstances as would put him at his ease. i should tell him that i was conscious of unwisdom in not speaking to him before about a subject of supreme importance to him; that i took upon myself all blame for anything he might, in ignorance, have said or done; that through ignorance i had myself fallen and suffered, and that i should like him now to sit down and read through this pamphlet slowly and carefully. when he finished i should try by every possible means to make him sensible of my affection for him. i should associate myself in a few words with the sentiments of the writer, and should invite the lad to tell me whether he had fallen into temptation, and if so to what extent. a confidence of this kind assists a boy greatly and establishes a delightful intimacy. there are several points with regard to purity-teaching which need to be emphasised. such teaching can hardly be too explicit. "beating about the bush" is always indicative of the absence of self-possession. the embarrassment manifested is quickly perceived even by a young child, and is certain to communicate itself to the recipient. it is of paramount importance that the child should, from the first, feel that the knowledge imparted is pure; anything which suggests that it is indelicate should be studiously avoided. the introduction of a few science terms is advantageous in several ways: amongst others it relieves the tension which the spiritual aspect of the question may engender, it gives a lad a terminology which is free from filthy contamination. it is important that the information given should be full, otherwise the boy lives in a chronic state of curiosity, which, to his great detriment, he is ever trying to satisfy. if the reader feels that the information is dangerous, and aims, therefore, at imparting as little as possible, he is not fitted to do the work at all. no greater mistake can be made than that of taxing a boy with impurity as though it were a conscious and egregious fault. i have already expressed my strong opinion that, in almost every instance, the boy is a victim to be sympathised with, not a culprit to be punished. this opinion is shared, i believe, by everyone who has investigated the subject. it is certainly the opinion of canon lyttelton and dr. dukes. it is, indeed, easy to exaggerate the conscious guilt even of boys who have initiated others into masturbation. apart from the injustice to the boy of an attitude of severity, it is certain to shut the boy's heart up with a snap. if a pamphlet is used it should, without fail, be taken from a boy when he has read it. much harm may, i fear, result from supplying boys with the cheap pamphlets which well-meaning but inexperienced persons are producing. should the time ever come when parents give timely warning and instruction to boys, a very difficult problem will be solved for the schoolmaster. but in the meantime what ought the schoolmaster to do? the following plan commends itself to some eminent teachers. as soon as a boy is about to enter the school a letter is sent to his parents advising them to give the boy instruction, and a pamphlet is enclosed for this purpose. this plan has the decided advantage of shifting the responsibility on to the shoulders of those who ought to take it. the weakness of the plan arises from the fact that most parents do not believe in the prevalence of impurity among boys, and are quite confident that their own boys need no warning. hence they may do nothing at all, or merely content themselves with some vague and quite useless statement. the traditions of most boys' schools make it impossible for those intimate and respectful relations to exist between masters and boys without which confidential teaching of this kind may be even worse than useless. where masters are invariably referred to disrespectfully if not contemptuously, where a teacher's most earnest address is a "jaw" which the recipient is expected to betray and mock at with his companions; where to shield profanity, indecency, and bullying from detection is the imperative duty of every boy below the sixth; where failure to avert from a moral leper the kindly treatment which might restore him to health and prevent the wholesale infection of others is the one unpardonable sin, only one or two teachers of a generation can hope to do much, and the risk of failure is immense. i can hardly believe that the present race of teachers will long tolerate the system i here advert to. public opinion _can_ be organised and enlisted as strongly on the side of right as it is now, but too often, on the side of evil. mr. a.c. benson is very moderate when he writes: "to take no steps to arrive at such an organisation, and to leave it severely alone, is a very dark responsibility." even in such a school, some good is, i know, done by tactful public references to the existence of masturbation and to its deplorable consequences. the question is not free from difficulty even when the general atmosphere of the school is healthy and helpful. if one dared to leave this instruction until the age of puberty, the lad would be capable of a much deeper impression than he is at an earlier age, and the impression would be fresh just at the time at which it is most needed. in the case of boys who have come to me at nine or ten i have sometimes ventured to defer my interview for four or five years, and have found them quite uncorrupted. on the other hand, within an hour of penning these lines i have been talking to a little boy of eleven who commenced masturbation two years ago while he was under excellent home influence. one such boy may, without guilt, corrupt a whole set, for impurity is one of the most infectious as well as the most terrible of diseases. the ideal state in a school is not reached until periodical addresses on purity can be given to all with the certainty that by all they will be listened to and treated reverently and respectfully. such addresses cannot well be made the vehicle of sex information, but they can be so constructed as to guide those to whom individual instruction has not yet been given, and to strengthen those who, spite of full instruction, periodically need a helping hand. what results may we reasonably expect from adequate and timely instruction? i have so rarely met a case in which this has been given at home that i can only infer what these results might be from the cases in which my own instruction has been given in time. in almost every instance i feel sure that the results have been beneficial, that the temptation to impurity has been little felt, and that a healthy and chaste boyhood has resulted. canon lyttelton writes: "the influences of school life have been found to be impotent to deprave the tone of a boy who has been fortified by the right kind of instruction from his parents." this i can well believe, for, if the schoolmaster can do much, there can be no limit to a power which has been cradled in the sanctity of home and cherished by a mother's love. this appears to be the emphatic opinion also of dr. dukes. of a boy thus favoured, canon lyttelton writes: "he will feel that any rude handling of such a theme, even of only its outer fringe, is like the profaning of the holy of holies in his heart, and he will no more suffer it than he would suffer a stranger to defile the innermost shrine of his feelings by taking his mother's or his sister's name in vain. all the goading curiosity which drives other boys to pry greedily into nature's laws, in blank ignorance of their mighty import, their unspeakable depth, and spiritual unearthly harmonies, has been for him forestalled, enlightened, and purified." it is a sad step down from such a boy to the lad who has been given warning after corruption has begun. most boys feel such shame in confessing to failure that one has to accept with reserve the statements made by even the most truthful of those who are treading the upward path. after making due allowance for this source of error, my experience enables me to say confidently that, if a boy has not been long or badly corrupted, a radical change of attitude may be expected in him at once, and the habit of self-abuse will be instantly or rapidly relinquished. very different is the case of a lad who has long practised masturbation, or who has practised it for some time after the advent of puberty, or who has associated sexual imaginations with the practice. few such boys conquer the habit at once, however much they desire to, and, if the above conditions co-exist, a boy's progress is very slow, and years may pass without anything approaching cure. if in addition to the temptations from within he has foes also without in the form of companions who sneer at his desire for improvement, controvert the statements made to him, and throw temptation in his way, his chance of cure must be enormously decreased. of such cases i know nothing; for my experience lies solely among boys who have, outside their own hearts, little to hinder and very much to help. as i have dealt elsewhere with the question of aids to chastity, i will make only a brief reference to it here. the mind is so much influenced by the body that purity is impossible when the body is unduly indulged. no man exists who could inhale the vapour of chloroform without an irresistible desire to sleep. under these conditions the strongest will would not avail even if the victim knew that by surrender he was sacrificing everything he reverenced and held dear. the lad past the age of puberty who has much stimulating food, who drinks alcohol, who sleeps in a warm and luxurious bed and occupies it for some time before or after sleep, is certain, even if he takes much exercise, to be tempted irresistibly. dr. dukes considers that a heavy meat meal with alcohol shortly before bedtime is in itself sufficient to ensure a lad's fall. meanwhile, no abstinence which it not unduly rigorous, can save a boy from impurity if he gets into the habit of exchanging glances with girls who are socially inferior, if he reads suggestive books, looks at stimulating pictures and sights, and falls into the hopeless folly of entertaining sexual thoughts even momentarily. he who has not the strength to tread out a spark is little likely to subdue a conflagration. the best and most timely teaching will never make carelessness in these matters justifiable, and a boy who has once been corrupted and desires to master his lower nature has no chance of self-conquest unless he gives them his constant and careful attention. it is very important to fill a boy's leisure with congenial occupation. idleness and dullness make a boy specially susceptible to temptation. on the other hand, the fond parent who satisfies a boy's every whim and encourages the lad to think that his own enjoyment is the chief thing in life does his utmost to destroy the lad's chance of purity--or, indeed, of any virtue whatever. can anything be done for boys and young men who have become the slaves of self-abuse to such an extent that they groan in the words of st. paul: "the good that i would i do not, but the evil which i would not, that i do.... i delight in the law of god after the inward man, but i see another law in my members warring against the law of my mind and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. o wretched man that i am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?" can anything be done for the lad who has become so defiled by lustful thoughts that his utmost efforts fail to carry him forward, and even leave him to sink deeper in the mire. there are many, many such cases, alas! for as dr. acton says, "the youth is a dreamer who will open the floodgates of an ocean, and then attempt to prescribe at will a limit to the inundation." yes there is a remedy--i believe a specific--which can rapidly and, i think, finally restore strength to the enfeebled will and order the unclean spirit to come out of the man. it is hypnotic suggestion. let not the reader, however, think that the matter is a simple one. in all ages any great advance in the art of healing has, by the ignorant, been attributed to the powers of darkness. the divine healer himself did not escape from the charge of casting out devils by the prince of the devils, and, while hypnotic suggestion has long been used for therapeutic purposes on the continent and is now practised in government institutions there, the doctor or clergyman or teacher who uses it in england runs great risks; for in this subject, as in all others, it is those who are entirely without experience who are most dogmatic. in the case of the schoolmaster, its use in this connection is practically excluded. if he applies to a parent for permission to use it he probably runs his head against a blank wall of ignorance; for hypnotism, to most people, means a dangerous power by which an unscrupulous, strong-willed svengali dominates an abnormally weak-willed trilby whose will continues to grow weaker until the subject becomes a mere automaton; and most of us would rightly prefer that a boy should be his own master--even if he were rushing to headlong ruin--than that he should be the mere puppet of the most saintly man living. the human will is sacred and inviolable, and we do unwisely if we seek to control it or to remove those obstacles from its way by which alone it can gain divine strength. meanwhile the stimulus by which the mind acquires self-mastery usually comes from without in the form of spiritual inspiration; and to remove from a boy's path an obstacle which blocks it and is entirely beyond his own strength is equally desirable both in the physical and in the spiritual realm. those who think that without this obstacle a boy's power of self-control is likely to receive insufficient exercise will, of course, object to the instruction advocated in this book. if it is unwise to remove this obstacle from a boy's path it is equally unwise so to instruct him as to prevent the obstacle from arising. in _trustworthy_ hands hypnotic suggestion is a beneficent power which has no dangers and no drawbacks, and to decline to use it is to accept a very serious responsibility. for the teacher a further difficulty--not to mention that of time--is that, without betraying a boy's confidence or inducing him to allow his admissions to be passed on to his father, it is impossible to give his parents an idea of the urgency of the case. altogether the time for hypnotic suggestion in education is not yet, but the day must come when its use is recognised not only in physical cases such as nocturnal emissions and constipation, but in all cases in which the will-power is practically in abeyance, as it is in bad cases of impurity. for intelligent parents the difficulties are far less, and if any such care to pursue the subject farther, i would refer them to the volume on _hypnotism_ in the people's books series or to one of the larger medical works on the subject, such as _hypnotism and suggestion_, by dr. bernard hollander. to those who know boys well and love them much, there is something intensely interesting and pathetic about the spiritual struggle through which they have to pass. the path of self-indulgence seems so obviously the path to happiness; self-denial is so hard and self-control so difficult. "the struggle of the instinct that enjoys and the more noble instinct that aspires" is ever there. the young soul reaches out after good, but its grasp is weak. it needs much enlightenment, much encouragement, much inspiration, much patient tolerance of its faults, much hopeful sympathy with its strivings, if it is ever to attain the good it seeks. in the past it has met, without light or aid, unwarned and unprepared, the deadliest foe which can assail the soul. an appetite which has in all ages debased the weak, wrestled fiercely with the strong, and vanquished at times even the noble, is let loose upon an unwarned, unarmed, defenceless child. oh, the utter, the utter folly of it! for life after death the writer has no longing. immortality, if vouchsafed, appears to him to be a gift to be accepted trustfully and humbly, not to be yearned after with a sort of transcendental egoism. but to him the wish to- "join the choir invisible of those immortal dead who live again in minds made better by their presence" grows ever stronger as the inevitable end draws nearer. to save young lives from the needless struggles and failures of my own, to secure healthy motherhood or maiden life to some whom lust might otherwise destroy, to add, for some at least, new sanctity to human passion--these have been my hopes in penning the foregoing pages. it has been my privilege and joy, in my own quiet sphere, to preserve boys from corruption and to restore the impure to cleanness of heart. i am deeply grateful for the opportunity these pages afford of extending this delightful work. when the hand which writes these lines has long been cold in death, may the message which it speeds this day breathe peace and strength into many an eager heart. note to correspondents. to boys. i warmly invite any boy who has read these pages to write to me if he feels inclined to do so. since this book was first published i have received hundreds of letters from boys who have, without any definite invitation, understood that it would please me much to hear from them. many boys feel all the better for frankly confessing their difficulties to a man who fully understands and sympathises with them. some desire advice about their own case. anyone who accepts this invitation will do wisely to give me a full and frank history of his difficulties. his confidences will, of course, be strictly respected. he will also, i hope, remember that i am an extremely busy man with many and urgent claims on my time, and that i cannot always reply as quickly and as fully as i should like to do. to young men. before a young man marries he should always seek advice from a trustworthy source with regard to his conduct as a husband. no satisfactory book is, or perhaps could be, published on this subject; and even if a young man can make up his mind to consult a doctor, it is by no means every doctor who has the needful knowledge on this subject or the best moral outlook. it has been my privilege to help several in this matter, and i am always happy to do this. to boys and young men. i earnestly warn you against those who, by advertisement in the papers, offer to cure young men who are suffering from weakness of the private parts and other ills which impurity entails. many such advertisers are little better than rogues, who are out to make money by trading on the fears of their victims; their "treatment"--quite apart from a far greater cost than at first appears--often does more harm than good. in every case in which disease or weakness exists, or is suspected, a reliable medical man should be at once consulted. if this is done, a cure may generally be looked for. do not write to me; this is a doctor's business, not mine. the unfolding life a study of development with reference to religious training by antoinette abernethy lamoreaux with introduction by marion lawrance 1907 to my precious father and mother, in whose daily ministry i have seen the beauty and learned the meaning of christian nurture, this book is affectionately dedicated. contents chapter i fundamental principles of development ii early childhood iii early childhood--continued iv early childhood--concluded v childhood--six to twelve vi the junior age--nine to twelve vii adolescence viii middle and late adolescence introduction having read with much care the proof sheets of this book, i am prepared to say three things about it, and it gives me pleasure to say them here. 1. the book is well named. "the unfolding life." turn which way we will, we see life unfolding all about us, and yet how faintly are its mysteries understood! and is it not the one thing above all others, which teachers, mothers, fathers and all of us, need to understand? it is well that our attention has been called to this most vital of all themes by a book, whose very name compels attention to its content, and whose content is but its name in fuller treatment. 2. the book is well written. such books as this should be read slowly and pondered well; but this book by its fascination will tempt one to read too rapidly. its line of argument is logical; its diction is as pure as the bubbling stream; its truths are evident and compelling. it presents the purest psychology stripped of all mystifying technicalities, and clothed in language which even a child can understand. the reason for this is plain. it is the "beaten oil" drawn from the rich and ripe experience of one of the best students of childhood and teachers of children in our land. 3. the book is well timed. teachers are seeking now as never before to understand the soil in which the living seed of god's word is to be cast. nothing can be more important than this. the author deals largely with the every day problems of the average home and sunday school, thus rendering the highest service to the great army of ordinary teachers and mothers. while this book will be hailed with joy by all such, it will nevertheless command a place by the side of the highest grade books on the subject. there never was a time when any book on any subject was more greatly needed than this book is needed now. it would be a boon indeed to every home, and to every sunday school as well, if all teachers, mothers, yes, and fathers too, would read and re-read "the unfolding life." marion lawrance. chicago, march, 1908. foreword the greatest thing in the world is a human life. the greatest work in the world is the helpful touch upon that life. here and there an artist in soul culture is found at the task, but the many are unskilled and the product of the labor is far from a manhood "perfect in christ." in dealing with things, the vessel marred in the making can be set aside or fashioned anew, but a life is for eternity. the faulty work can not be undone. the mistake can never be wholly rectified, for life never yields up what is given it. the look, the word, the invisible atmosphere of the home and church, the sights and sounds of all the busy days enter the super-sensitive and retentive soul of the child and are woven into life tissue. character has no other from which to fashion itself. therefore its final beauty and worth will be determined in large measure by the quality of the material which entered in. it is with earnest desire to help some parent or teacher in the divine work of soul nurture, that this volume is offered. there is no attempt to add to knowledge in child study or psychology, but rather to interpret certain of their fundamental facts and principles with reference to religious training. chapter i fundamental principles of development. row upon row they stretched, fifteen acres of regal chrysanthemums, roses pink, yellow, white and red, fragile lilies of the valley, carnations and vivid orchids, no two alike, yet all expressions of plant life. skilled gardeners from england and germany were busy with these exquisite flower children, watering, pruning and training upon slender cords, that every bud might come to perfect unfolding. the laws of the plant world and the law of each individual flower were well known to them. they knew that all required sunshine and soil, warmth and moisture, but in varying amount. the chrysanthemums grew in the sunlight, while only a few days before cutting could the lilies of the valley be released from their darkened beds. all needed cultivation but not in the same way. some were massed, while yonder were thousands of carnations, and every one sole monarch of its own little garden plot. painstakingly and completely, day after day, the needs of each frail life were met, until the flowers grown in this greatest of canadian greenhouses have become renowned far across the border for their unsurpassed beauty, coloring and size. the quiet walk between the glorious masses of bloom that october afternoon brought a vision of a greater child garden, with an infinite variety of human plants to be tended, every one with its own individuality, needs, possibilities and a divine purpose for it cherished in the heart of the heavenly gardener. the work of nurture he has given to parents and teachers, longing unspeakably that it shall be so wise and tender that his plan for every life may be realized. but as the earnest soul takes up the task, it seems so bewildering. "three little ones in the home, and every one different! ten boys in the sunday school class and no two alike! where does nurture begin? how is it carried on?" though the differences in human lives are countless, there are certain great likenesses. all have life, needs, possibilities; they all grow and develop in the same general way. from these common likenesses have been formulated a few principles which are as helpful to a child gardener as a knowledge of the laws of plant life to one who nurtures roses and carnations. their understanding is not dependent upon physical parenthood. god will interpret the meaning to any one whom he calls into fellowship with himself in the matchless work of soul culture. i. the first principle deals with the nature of life--what is it? some answer must be given in order to arrive at an aim, a method, and an inspiration for work. if a child is only a beautiful figure upon which to display dainty garments, the mother has a plain pathway marked out for her. if a boy is a capacity to be filled, or a machine to grind out facts or dollars, the teacher's course of action is clear. god's conception of life is surely greater than these, yet he never gave a definition. jesus said it is more than meat, that it is worth more than all the world, that it does not consist in abundance of things, that it is eternal, but he nowhere tells us what it is, for he can not. it is a part of god. he can only make us understand it in any wise by giving its characteristics and values. perhaps these may come to us more clearly through considering first what life is not. 1. life is not merely "plastic clay" to be moulded, or a "block of marble" to be hewn according to the will of the sculptor. this poetic conception emphasizes rightly the tremendous power of environment and personality in shaping character, but it is really a dangerous half truth. if the child were a block of marble, he would be no different from the dead, inert lump that lies in the studio awaiting the will of the sculptor. they would both be things. but a child has life, and the difference between life and thing lies in an inner power or activity which life possesses and uses when and as it will. this activity has to be reckoned with. sun and rain and earth can not make a plant grow if it does not use its own mysterious inner force upon them. no sort of influence can affect a life, if the life does not respond to it. this response will be either receiving or rejecting the influences that come, working with or against them. assuredly this is a condition very different from "plastic clay." two great tasks, therefore, are included in the work of nurture: the first, to see that all that comes to plastic life from the outside is what it ought to be; the second, to somehow arouse the power within to vigorous effort upon the best things. 2. life is not a "pure white page," even in its beginning. there is here also a half truth, and an error. life is unstained by guilt in its early years. it comes innocent from the hand of god, but fingers long since vanished have traced lines that mar the perfect whiteness. there are tendencies away from god as well as toward him, and these are not the result of environment. environment will cultivate tendencies but can not implant them. favoring conditions will make an apple tree produce magnificent apples, but they will never implant in it any tendency to bear roses or produce thorns. failure to recognize the fact of two sets of tendencies in the life will lead to a fatal mistake in nurture. christ will be presented only as an example and not as a savior also, thus setting before a life its pattern and leaving it impotent to reach it. 3. a life in its beginning is not a "little man." the element of truth in this conception is perhaps less than in either of these preceding. it is indeed true that child life is that out of which man life is to come, but the difference is more vital than that of inches or strength. the bulb shelters a lily life, but the difference is greater than size. the chrysalis will bring forth the butterfly, but the two are not identical. childhood will unfold into manhood, but each has its own characteristics and needs, differing in largest degree. the physiologist tells us that it would be hard to find many important points beyond the most fundamental laws in which the infant and the adult exactly resemble each other. (oppenheim.) in bodily proportions, in actual composition of bones, muscles, blood and nerves, in size and development of the organs, the differences are wide. the psychologist proves that there is equal variance in mental conditions. the man has a sense of responsibility to his neighbor and to god, unknown to child life. he thinks and reasons and judges as the child mind can not. his whole outlook upon life is opposite from that of the child. we recognize this difference in caring for the body, and the babe is fed on milk and the boy on meat. but the difference must be recognized as equally important in caring for the soul. just as meat is meat, whether minced or uncut, and therefore unsuited for a tiny life, so doctrine is doctrine, whether stated in words of one syllable or four, and equally unsuited to a beginning life. paul refers to those who need milk and not solid food, spiritually, because they are "without experience of the word of righteousness," clearly indicating a difference in the kind of instruction, not the amount. the subject matter must be adapted to the life, not merely the number of syllables, the method of teaching, as well as the length of the lesson. without this careful adaptation of food and method, the developing life will be under-nourished, and the most vigorous maturity be impossible. but these negative statements only safeguard against mistakes by telling us what to avoid. a real working basis must be found in a positive principle. the study of an unfolding life at any time in its development always reveals two supreme facts, possibilities peculiar to that period, and self activity. the first principle of development combines these two facts and gives us our nearest approach to a definition. "life is a bundle of possibilities and self activity." the block of marble has possibilities, so has molten metal and a tube of paint; but life has possibilities plus inner power. the three imperative "oughts" for the parent or teacher are herein suggested. first, he ought to be able to recognize each possibility as it appears. second, he ought to know how best to deal with it. third, he ought to know how to stimulate the activity to greatest endeavor. ii. the second principle states the relation of nurture to the unfolding of these possibilities. "the direction and degree of development are largely determined by nurture." every possibility in a life, unless it die out, must develop either upward or downward, toward the best or worst. this development, whether in a plant or a boy, depends on what is given the life to work with and the use that is made of it, or, stated in more dignified terms--the development is a result of influences that come to a life and the response made to them by activity. the sort of influences and the sort of response given will determine the sort of development. when some one is consciously endeavoring to make both outer influences and the inner working of the life the best possible, it is called nurture. the responsibility that grows out of this thought of nurture is almost crushing, yet its opportunity is sublime. to make a boy strong for his life work, because the right word was spoken at the critical moment, the encouragement given just when his purpose was faltering, to help a girl reach glorious young womanhood because the inspiration came as she stood at the parting of the ways--surely this, in a very real sense, is working with god. the story of almost every life of marked power, reveals a human touch at the cross roads. is this one meaning in the master's words, "inasmuch as ye did it," or "inasmuch as ye did it not?" "i would have been on the foreign mission field seven years ago," said a splendid young man, "had not my sunday school teacher laughed at me when i told him my new born desire. i expect to go now, but what of those seven years?" if the home and the church should begin at once to obey god's command to nurture the children "in the chastening and admonition of the lord," with all that means, the next generation would see the kingdoms of this world given to christ and the advent of the king. iii. the third principle defines the work of nurture. "nurture must care for both nourishment and activity." 1. the watch care over nourishment. nourishment is the general term for all that upon which the life feeds. it is given both consciously and unconsciously and is absorbed in like manner, but in its effect upon the life, the unconscious nourishment has greater power. (1) unconscious nourishment. (a) the first factor in unconscious nourishment is personality. just as truly as the physical life is nourished by life, so is the mental and the spiritual. standards of living, ideas, a sense of values, opinions, do not come from text-books but fathers and mothers. the lesson from the printed page may fail to gain entrance, but the lesson from the teacher's life, never. this explains the success of many a humble mother and the failure of many an intellectual teacher. it is at the very heart of all work for another. its first message is a personal one. it tells the worker that his life is more compelling than his voice; that the word must again become flesh to give it authority. it tells him further that if he is to be the bread of life to growing souls, his own pasturage must not be things, but in reality, the living christ. the other message applies to his work. while every life that touches his will always carry away something from the contact, the most helpful human life can never suffice for another's nourishment. each soul needs the complete christ for itself. the amazing thing among parents and teachers is their unconcern over his absence from the lives of the children. years pass, and precept, lesson and admonition are given, while christ, the life, is not definitely and personally offered. "according to their pasture so were they filled." is not this the explanation of so many meagre lives? (b) the second factor of unconscious nourishment is environment with its subtle atmosphere. the importance of environment is found in this great law, that life tends to become like that which is around it. so strong is the tendency that the only escape from conformity lies in real struggle. this a little child rarely puts forth, and an adult not always, for it is far easier to follow the line of least resistance and "be like other people." growing out of this power of environment comes the problem of all philanthropic and religious work--how to overcome the influence of harmful surroundings. the need is obvious when the surroundings are vicious, yet the home does not need to be in the slums to injure a growing life. it only needs to be christless. this may seem a very radical statement, but it is nevertheless true. arresting the highest development is as truly an injury as giving to life wrong direction. has not a plant been positively injured when its most beautiful possibilities are unrealized because of unfavoring conditions? is not a body, undersized and stunted because of lack of fresh air and food, as truly deformed as though the back were bent? has not that soul received the most cruel of all injuries, when its divinest possibilities can never be attained either because of spiritual starvation or misdirection? the church and the sunday school attempt to furnish a counteracting environment, but it is infrequent and brief. the only power which can render this temporary, religious environment mote effective in influencing character than a harmful, permanent one, is the divine. a church building or a sunday school session of itself, can accomplish little, placed over against a home. methods of grading and forms of worship are impotent in themselves. it is only a living christ, actually vitalizing the lesson and the sermon and the plan of work who makes them efficacious. if this be so, then the teacher who goes to the home itself to press the claims of a personal savior on the father and mother, has after all reached the heart of the problem of environment. (c) the third factor of unconscious nourishment is the superhuman power. this thought has been suggested in connection with personality and environment, but it demands separate emphasis. it is not an easy thing in the stress of the visible to remember the greater power of the invisible. the most earnest christian worker is sometimes overwhelmed by discouragement or, again, unduly confident because of the perfection of system and method, forgetting that god knows no obstacle, and that he alone can put life into a plan of work. but though god uses men and methods, he does not always so approach a life he deals directly with a soul through the influence of the holy spirit, and life receives its most holy nurture in those sacred hours. therefore, the highest service permitted a sunday school teacher is to pray effectually for the brooding spirit to rest upon the pupils in his class. the mother can do nothing which shall mean so much for the precious life in her arms as learning, herself, the secret of prevailing prayer, for, "if we ask anything according to his will, he heareth us; and if we know that he heareth us, whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions which we have asked of him." therefore, o lord, "teach us to pray." (2) conscious nourishment. this is definite instruction so given to a life that it is appropriated. a large part of attempted instruction is never taken in. "i have told you over and over again," says the despairing mother, but telling does not always involve receiving. placing nourishing food before the boy does not necessarily mean stronger muscle and purer blood. he must eat and digest it. teaching, to be nourishment, requires first, careful adaptation of the subject matter, then presentation in such a way that the mind will voluntarily reach out, lay hold upon and assimilate it. god again gives the key to real teaching in the word "engraft." its process in the physical and mental world is identical. first, the delicate adjustment, then a vital union, and lastly, new life resulting. 2. the watch care over activity. we have considered nurture in its work of supplying the best nourishment to growing souls, and now its care for activity must be noted. since the subject will be discussed more fully in a succeeding chapter, only the necessity for the nurture will be considered here. this necessity appears in the four-fold result of activity. (1) new experiences. this is the first result to the child from ceaseless movement of hands and feet and eager eyes. in early life he is not conscious of seeking the new experience, he only wants to be in motion. in later life, energy is definitely put forth for some desired end. but whatever the motive, experiences helpful or harmful, according to the sort of activity, result, and they enter character at par value. (2) growth or increase in size. activity is necessary before anything given to the body or the soul can become a part of life. food must be acted upon by the digestive, circulatory and assimilative organs to make it bone and muscle and nerve. the mind must think upon the fact in order to add it to the store of knowledge. the heavenly vision must be obeyed before christian experience is enlarged by it. but there is another aspect of this same thought. just as truly as activity must precede assimilation, so truly does assimilation follow activity. it may be stated more simply in this way. nothing can become a part of the life until it has been acted upon; when it has been acted upon it can not be taken out of the life. when digestion is finished and the food is bone and muscle, it can not be withdrawn. when the idea has been thought in or acted upon, it has by that process become a part of the life, and though it may fade from memory its influence is abiding. (3) development or increase of power and skill. every muscle exercised gains greater freedom. every knotty problem mastered means increased mental ability. every victory means greater power in resisting temptation. whatever the action, whether good or bad, helpful or harmful, greater skill and power in that direction follows it. this other very important fact needs to be clear, that no amount of energy put forth for another will mean development for him. he must exercise his own arm for strength and solve his own problem. development only comes through the effort of each individual for himself; hence the best teacher is the one who can rouse the pupil to the greatest endeavor. (4) habit formation. it is impossible to act, physically, mentally or spiritually, without making it easier to repeat the action, and soon ease passes to tendency, then tendency to compulsion, and life is in the grip of a habit. this is the inevitable outcome of activity, until "nine-tenths of life is lived in the mould of habit." if it be true that habit is "ten times second nature," the importance of directing activity toward the formation of right habits needs no discussion. iv. the fourth principle of unfolding life deals with its crises. "the crucial points in development are those times when new possibilities begin to unfold." the life comes from god complete in its possibilities, but at the beginning all is in germ. as life progresses, development of these possibilities proceeds, but it is not uniform. the body acquires ability to control the larger muscles before it can adjust the finer and more complex ones, as instanced in the child's ability to walk before he can thread a needle. the mind is able to imagine before it can reason clearly. the feelings center on self before they reach out to the world around. as every new possibility begins to develop, two serious facts must be remembered: (1) direction must be given in the beginning before tendencies are fixed. a beginning is always a time of easy adjustment and flexibility. business corporations can readily alter a course of action before a policy has been established. the nurseryman can easily secure the straight trunk of the mature tree in the yielding sapling. the law is just as true when it touches human life. the trend of any possibility is determined largely in the beginning of its unfolding. after that time has gone by, conditions are practically fixed, and he that is unjust will be unjust still, and he that is holy will be holy still. (2) future strength and vigor are largely determined in the beginning of development. it is well nigh impossible to overcome the effect of early neglect. if the culture of the growing stalk is passed over, the corn in the ear can not be full. if the bodily needs of the boy are unmet, he can not reach his full development as a man. if his budding intellectual life, his awakening feeling life, or the delicate unfolding of his spiritual life is neglected, a complete, rounded out maturity is impossible. a starved childhood is always the prophecy of a stunted manhood, while life nourished in its beginning foretells vigorous maturity. v. the very important question now arises, "how may these crucial times be recognized?" the answer is given in the fifth principle. "a new interest always accompanies an awakening possibility." the increasing love of a story discloses a growing imagination. the passionate hero worship of a boy's heart reveals the fact of a budding ideal. the interest in clubs and desire for companionship tell of awakening social feelings. life is always the exponent of its own need to one who cares to know, and it further reveals what should be given it, and how. vi. the sixth principle has already been touched upon in the preceding discussion, but it needs the emphasis of special statement, because of its importance. "development is from within, out, through what is absorbed, not from without, in, through external application without absorption." if development were a matter of external application, the post would grow and the stone and the stick, because they have earth and air and moisture around them. if it came from without, in, the most admonished child would be the best, the most talked to pupil the wisest, but the reverse is usually true. that which adheres simply to the surface of rock and child is veneer, which the testing circumstance will rub off. only that which is assimilated is of any value to the life. these are the great principles revealed in the development of life from infancy to maturity. the factor of human contact appears in every one. the question, "what is my touch upon this unfolding life?" can not be evaded. the stonecutter takes the marble and hews out the rough block; the sculptor finds its hidden soul. the artisan takes the canvas and the common sign appears; the artist makes it immortal. but god gives life to parents and teachers to fashion. will hands clumsy and unskilled, miss the perfect beauty, or the touch of master workmanship bring forth a likeness to the christ? chapter ii early childhood the first period of life, early childhood, includes the years from birth to about six or, in sunday school phraseology, the "cradle roll," from birth to three, and the "beginners," from three to six. it is a temptation to note at length the marvelous achievements of a little life in its earliest years, as it comes, "out from the shore of the great unknown, blind and wailing and alone, into the light of day. * * * * *. "from the unknown sea that reels and rolls, specked with the barks of little souls, barks that were launched on the other side, and slipped from heaven on an ebbing tide." the wealth of material, however, clustering around each period of developing life is so great that selection must be made. therefore only those facts illuminating the chosen theme of religious nurture will be considered. the baby's world is a "big, blooming, buzzing confusion," according to james, but gradually, cosmos emerges from chaos. the senses, clouded at first, become clear and active. adjustment and voluntary control of the larger muscles are secured. the art of walking is mastered, and the great feat of learning a language practically unaided, is well under way. the awakening mind learns to know certain objects and simplest relationships within a very limited sphere, and through ceaseless activity, new experiences are constantly coming in to the soul. guided by instinct and impulse, responding to any wind that blows, sensitive and retentive as the plate of a camera, "just a-yearning to be learning anything at all," can any religious nurture be given to this tiny little bundle of possibilities? manifestly, it will not be through precept and admonition, for they are meaningless, yet never will life be more open to the influences of impression and atmosphere than at this time. the child can not understand their import as they come, but he will feel them. he does not understand love, but he feels it. he can not comprehend personality, but his restless little body grows quiet in the tender arms of a strong father. he responds to the fretfulness or gentleness of the mother, the noisy confusion or peace of the home. these multitudinous impressions become his life, though he can not grasp their meaning. just as surely does he drink in impressions which have the divine element. what they speak to him only god knows, but some message is theirs. the picture of the "good shepherd," of "jesus blessing little children," of the "madonna and child," perform their silent ministry to his soul. he is peculiarly sensitive to the reverence and worship in lofty music. in the evening tide of a sabbath day, a father was seated at the piano, while the two older children stood near, and a wee one of two and a half years listened from his mother's arms. the songs used in sunday school were sung one after the other, and then came the baby voice, "papa, sing about dod." "do you mean, 'holy, holy, holy is the lord'?" he asked. "yes," was the answer, and in the hush of the twilight, the worship of the children blended with the worship of the angels, and who shall say they did not all behold the father's face? the nurture of these years is as silent as that of the dewdrop upon the blade of grass, but it is as real. god's voice is the still, small voice that ever speaks in quietness. the stillness of the moment at the mother's knee, the prayer repeated in the reverent, low tone of the mother's voice, the earnest prayer for him offered in his presence, the christ-like living in the home, all carry their holy influence to his soul. he feels god, without knowing him. but there shall come a day when the voice that has gently called him will be recognized, and he will say, "speak, lord, for thy servant heareth." but general nurture must be supplemented by the definite nurture of each growing possibility. though the principles underlying this careful watch care and training are stated in connection with early childhood, they are applicable to every succeeding period where the same power is developing. physical activity the most marked characteristic of the entire period of early childhood is physical activity, manifesting itself largely in restlessness. the nervous force which later will be used in complex mental processes, now seeks expression through hands and feet and tireless body. in early infancy activity is entirely purposeless and unwilled, merely the instinctive movement of every part of the body. gradually, however, through the contact with different objects brought about by his restlessness, the baby learns to reach out for what he wants, and purpose in the activity begins to appear. later, play affords an outlet for the constant flow of this pent-up power, and the child lives over again those activities of the busy life around which appeal to him. from the previous discussion of activity, we know that the child is bringing about far-reaching results, all unconscious to himself, through this never ceasing restlessness of every waking moment. he is growing, through the kneading process of constant movement; he is developing freer use of his muscles; he is building new experiences into character, and he is forming habits of life. how then may this great force be nurtured so that greatest results shall follow? the law of activity must first be understood. it has been very succinctly stated, "activity must act, explode or cease to generate." if it cease to generate entirely it means death, for every organ of the body is using it. if it lessen in amount, it means lowered vitality, and indicates illness or abnormal conditions in some way. the over-strained mother who says to a little one of this age, "i wish you could keep still for five minutes," does not realize what she is expressing. it has been demonstrated in scientific tests, that the perfectly normal child under six can keep absolutely still but few consecutive seconds, therefore the desire could only be fulfilled through some disturbed physical condition which would lessen the amount of life itself. any diminution is everywhere felt, for the same activity which impels hands and feet, impels also the hungry senses, the eager curiosity and every part of a growing mental life. fortunately for the child, god's finger is on the dynamo of his life, and as long as he wills the activity can not cease to generate. there are but two alternatives left, an action or an explosion, for activity can no more be confined than steam in an engine. if the explosion has occurred, it has resulted from successful repression. the stopper, "don't," has been inserted in the last opening through which the nervous force could expend itself, and after a moment of dangerous calm, the inevitable occurs, and the happiness and peace of the entire home is for the time destroyed. the result is just as sure as that of confining an expanding gas, while its disaster is wrought in the mental and moral as well as the physical realms. fortunately again for the well-being of the child, it is difficult to secure the last outlet, so fertile is his busy brain. but without the explosion, the results that come to a child from a policy of repression are very serious. briefly stated, they are first, irritability and nervousness. the refinement of cruelty is dealt to a little child, compelled by superior force to act contrary to god's law for him and "keep quiet." activity which should normally be expended, when confined, reacts upon the cells of the body so that soon there are physical reasons beyond the child's control for his nervousness and crossness. second, friction, in which defiance and stubbornness appear. the severest test which could be imposed upon adults would be a constant and apparently arbitrary thwarting of their desires. is it to be wondered at that a little, unreasoning life which hears "don't" by the scores of times from morning till night, grows rebellious, vindictive and obstinate? third, unhappiness and a sense of alienation. sympathy between two persons is impossible when they are at cross purposes, and happiness which is god's gift to childhood can never be realized when souls are out of touch. further, discouragement and consequent loss of incentive to effort must inevitably overwhelm a little life that never does anything right. fourth, weakened will and character. this is the most serious result of all. one of the great principles already stated makes it clear that development can come only through the activity of the individual himself. if the child is constantly withheld from doing by the word "don't," he can not reach the fullest development of character. furthermore, character is not built negatively but positively. a building can never be erected by merely keeping out of it all unworthy material. there must be an actual putting together of brick and mortar, and the great truth is evident that whenever a place is filled by the good, the bad is in that very act kept out, whether in buildings or character. the motive back of many a "don't" is worthy, and often there may be no alternative but to instantly check an action, but for the effect on character building there is a more excellent way than repression. it lies in the expression suggested in the law of activity, but expression under direction. some parents realize the necessity of allowing the child's activity to be expended, but fail to see the other side of the matter, namely, that while activity means development, the sort of development that follows will depend on the character of the activity. it is important that a boy's energy be given an outlet, but it is more important whether it make of him a gentleman or a hoodlum. the guidance or neglect of the activity will determine which it is to be. too frequent emphasis can not be put upon the fact that every outgoing activity traces a little deeper some pathway that tends toward a habit. the mistake is often made of thinking that habits can be formed only by "taking thought." it is true that some of the finest habits of life are built into character with painstaking effort, but untidiness and selfishness and irreverence and all their kin reach fullest unfolding in the thoughtless outflow of activity, when no one is attending. but activity, untrammeled, means more than wrong habits. it means lawlessness and undisciplined character. the child who has learned no higher authority for his acts than his own erratic whims, has laid good foundation for future disregard of the laws of man and god. the converse of all that has been said concerning both repression and neglect of activity characterizes its wise direction. when the child, ignorant and unskilled, hears a voice saying, "this is the way, walk ye in it," his willing response means activity going out in right channels or the formation of right habits. it means a dual joy for him, the joy of activity itself and also the joy from the approval and sympathy of the parent or teacher. under encouragement he puts forth greater effort, which means constant development of greater power. yet more than all, it means that he is learning the greatest lesson of early life, obedience. obedience is only activity under law. it begins with submission to the will of the parent, but when at last it is a response of the whole life to the will of god and rendered of voluntary and loving choice, it has reached its highest unfolding. this is the goal toward which all nurture of activity must be directed, else no life is safe after it goes out from the restraints of the home. in the heart of the parent who is a seer, the mere closing of the door or putting away of the toy in response to a request is not the thing most desired, for that is external and true obedience is internal. the father, possessing insight, wants the heart as well as the hand of the boy to close the door or put away the toy. without this, no victory is gained. the act itself is the least of all. "sacrifice and offering thou didst not desire. ... then said i, lo, i come. ... i delight to do thy will, o my god; yea, thy law is within my heart." this attitude of voluntary heart acquiescence to the will of another is never the product of compelling power, else god would force his children to obey, since obedience is the thing he most desires. force can sway the hand but not the heart. paul, whose tireless activity spent itself out under the direction of his master, discloses the great secret when he says, "the love of christ constraineth us." the eternal father says to his child, "i have loved thee with an everlasting love; therefore with loving kindness have i drawn thee." it is by love, by words of approval, by patient encouragement and help, and also by experiencing the consequences of each act, whether joyous or painful, that the child is led to follow the one who points out the path for his activity. soon he faces the words, "right," and "wrong," and though knowing only at first that "right" is the thing permitted, and "wrong," the thing denied, he feels the difference in the results of each. then he learns that the pathway of the thing called "right," is not an arbitrary one laid down by mother or teacher, but the pathway traced by god himself, wherein we all must walk, parent and child, teacher and pupil alike. when with dimmest understanding but loving heart, he first sets faltering foot in that path, because he catches glimpse of its shining light, that "shineth more and more unto the perfect day," the one who has nurtured him will hear god's voice speaking to his soul, "well done, good and faithful servant." hungry senses hungry senses, directed in their quest by a hungrier mind, mark the second great characteristic of early childhood. these are the channels through which the world around comes into the life of the child. the sights and sounds of the physical realm, when carried beyond the portals of the senses, under the marvelous transmutation of god's touch, become ideas. the process, in so far as its secret has been revealed, will not be discussed at this point, but rather the relation of these impressions to character. in early years the senses are undiscriminating as far as the real worth of an impression is concerned. the vulgar picture will be admired as quickly as the beautiful one, if its colors are attractive. the impure word is caught as readily as the pure. there is no standard of values; even taste is not yet formed, and eyes and ears hungrily reach out for anything to satisfy their voracious appetite. each sensation which is reported to the mind through the senses and intricate nervous system, supplies an idea, embodying itself. it is with these that all the thinking of the child is done, these rouse his feelings and prompt his actions and, finally, mean character. manifestly, then, his life can be no better than the things he sees and hears, handles and tastes, for he lives in a world of sensations and not of ideas. this was the thought of the mother who said, "i never wash my little children's faces at night, and put them to bed all sweet and clean on the outside, that i don't think that i would give all the world if i could somehow get inside and wash that too." but the inner cleansing from the influence of sight and sound no hand can perform. god forgives sin, but even his touch does not remove the impression of the picture or the word which memory has put away. the only hope of beautiful character lies in bringing to the unfolding life helpful influences which shall be stronger in their power than the vitiating. when some definite counteracting impression is needed, it is in the sacred confidences of the twilight hour, and at the confessional of a mother's knee, that it can be most effectively given. aside from the moral import of the impressions, there is a vital relationship between the senses and the quality of the intellectual life. since knowledge can come to the child only through his senses, the amount of knowledge, as well as its sort, depends upon the story the senses tell. if they be dull, the knowledge is meagre and life has little with which to build. if they be defective, the impression is either falsely reported or not at all. tests have revealed the amazing fact that over fifty per cent of children have imperfect sight and hearing. this means that the first idea given through eye or ear may be wrong; consequently each subsequent idea growing out of it is wrong, at least in part, and ultimately, false conceptions and mistaken courses of action appear, all traceable directly to the ear that did not hear accurately and the eye that told a false tale. there is also a direct connection between defective senses and conduct. naturally, the boy who can't see the blackboard, pays no attention to the work placed upon it, and the child partially deaf, disregards the words of the teacher. the overwhelming number of personally observed cases of difficult discipline, disclosed the unvarying fact of defect, either in the senses or the body itself. therefore a teacher or parent should be very sure that the "bad boy problem" is not physical rather than moral, lest cruel injustice be done. while the dull senses call for limitless patience, that life be not pitifully narrow, and the defective senses call for wise and remedial attention, the normal, keen, wide-awake senses exact the most from the conscientious parent or teacher. eternal vigilance is the price of beautiful building material for the character in such an unfolding life. each day adds to the store put away in the brain, to reappear later. "we must soon be careful what we do before the baby," says the mother who half grasps the connection between impressions and character building, not realizing that the work is already far under way, that foundations are in. nurture of the senses must begin with the first dim reaching out for impressions, that only the best may enter, that right tastes may be formed, and self control in this fiercest battle-field of life be learned. chapter iii the period of early childhood--continued. as we come to consider the soul of the child, using this term not in its religious sense, but to include all of life but the physical, we understand that in reality it is indivisible. there are no separate parts or faculties possessing unique powers such as reasoning, remembering, feeling or willing. the whole soul remembers, feels and wills. however, for the sake of clearness and convenience, when it is reasoning, we are accustomed to speak of soul power in that direction as reason, or imagining as imagination or willing as will. we must understand, also, that the soul of the child is as complete in its possibilities as the soul of the adult, only they are undeveloped. as life and environment grow more complex, new needs arise and these new needs awaken soul power in a new direction. the expression "i didn't know he had it in him," is frequently heard, as some one has shown unexpected ability under sudden pressure of circumstances. every brain has millions of undeveloped cells, scientists affirm, signifying that every life is infinitely poorer than it might be. the need is something to arouse its latent power. curiosity the little child is at first in a world of total mystery. sights, sounds, sensations from contact come to him and all are unintelligible. as they are carried to his brain, somewhere, somehow, they awaken a desire to know their meaning, and as the tiny fingers are extended toward objects the soul is reaching also. this soul reaching is curiosity, one of god's most gracious and wonderful provisions for the life, but so often its significance is misunderstood. if there were no curiosity, there would never be any eager attempt to explore the field of knowledge. the disciplined spirit of inquiry that makes for the world's progress, is only a fuller development of the untutored and disastrous effort of the child to find out about things. we forget that before there can be a flower there must be a bud. before there can be a scientist who shall pick the rock to pieces to learn its secret, there must be a child who picks a doll to pieces to see what is inside. the pathos of childhood is its bowed head and mute lips under the blow and the stinging word, because judgment is passed, not on motives, as the parent demands for himself, but on the external appearance of the act. we look into our heavenly father's face, out of the wreckage and mistakes of a day, and say, "i meant to do it aright, but i am so ignorant," and we are comforted that he looks at the heart and understands. can we be less pitifully tender toward his little ones? there are three marked manifestations of curiosity during this period of childhood. (1) questions. in the wordless years of earliest life, mysteries around the child can receive only partial solution. but the day comes when language gives him a key whereby to unlock the doors, and he begins to ask, "what is it," then "why," and "where," and "how." this questioning period commences about the age of three, and is in strong evidence for some time. the answers involve for the most part nouns and verbs, not adjectives nor adverbs, signifying that the child is not yet ready for abstract qualities and characteristics. simple facts only are sought at first. questions concern the names of things, activities connected with them, causes and ends and the age-long mystery of origins. passing by reluctantly any further discussion of this most fascinating subject of children's questions, four great facts bearing upon nurture must be noted. 1. repression of the sincere questioning of a child tends to weaken his effort to acquire knowledge. 2. questions reveal a need felt by the child, and are a guide to the kind of instruction he is ready to receive. 3. a question not only reveals a need, but is also an assurance that the instruction given will be received, for what the mind wants to learn, it will learn. 4. a sincere question demands a sincere answer. this statement would seem superfluous, if its need were not apparent in questions dealing with the origin of life. god gives to the mother, first, the sacred privilege of investing these most holy mysteries with purity and sanctity, and through this confidence drawing the life of the child into closer fellowship with her own. if the opportunity be cast away through the evasive or untruthful answer, the facts may come with a taint upon them which can never be wholly removed. (2) mischief. (3) destructiveness. a word must suffice upon these other manifestations of curiosity. when truly understood, they reveal only an eager mind trying to obtain new experiences to add to knowledge. it is not total depravity that leads a child to pull the articles from the workbasket, or tear the book, or demolish the toy. he merely wants to see the object under as great a variety of conditions as possible, to find out all he can about it. it is identical with the spirit of the scientist who essays new combinations to see what the results may be, only in its inception it is crude and unskilled. assuredly, instead of dealing harshly with an instinct which in later years may make the whole world richer, it would be wiser to give it legitimate outlet. toys and blocks which admit of being taken apart and readjusted may begin the training of an edison or a stephenson. interests just as in the realm of the physical, appetite for one sort of food may be greater than for another, even in hunger, so a varying appetite appears in connection with the soul hunger of curiosity. it is strongest in the direction of that in which the life is naturally interested at any given time. the interests of early childhood are primarily in things which exhibit or suggest activity and in simplest relationships, found in the little world bounded by home, neighborhood, kindergarten and sunday school. nature makes strong appeal, not on the aesthetic side of tint and shadow, but through the charm of her multiform movements and family life akin to the child's. the bird's nest fascinates because there is connected with it the story of the building and the hungry little brood it sheltered. tales of animals, fairies and real folk, busy in simple and familiar occupations hold him entranced, and he will watch with rapt attention the performance of most common tasks. it is noteworthy that his interest in all this is not so much in the end to be accomplished, as in the activity itself. even in his play, the preparations are often more delightful and satisfying than the game which follows. all this has a deep meaning for one who is trying to help the little life in its unfolding. 1. "wise education takes the tide at the flood," says james. these interests reveal the fact that in this period, instruction should deal with things, not with statements of ideas, apart from things, or, in other words, with the concrete, not the abstract. 2. the greater the knowledge of things gained while interest attaches to them, the greater the resources for clear, broad thinking as life matures. 3. when instruction is in line with interests, attention and consequent learning are assured. 4. the child's religious interests will be identical in character with the other interests of this period. he will not be interested in the being or attributes of god, but god in his great activities as creator and wonder-worker, and in his relation as father. jesus will make appeal, not in his discourses, but in his acts of helpfulness and power, and his love. the great law of teaching is here involved, that interest in and knowledge of the unknown can come only through interest in and knowledge of something which is like it. paul says in romans, "for the invisible things of him since the world began are clearly seen, being perceived through the things that are made, even his everlasting power and divinity." therefore the first definite religious instruction which the child receives, must be upon spiritual truths illustrated in his own known world of interests. imitation the result of the efforts of curiosity, senses and activity is a constantly increasing store of ideas in the child's mind, relating to these things in which he is interested. as these ideas enter his mind, applying this term to the "intellectual function of the soul," he immediately wants to act upon them, according to a law inborn that an idea always tends to go out into action, unless it is held back. adults have fixed habits of expressing ideas that come to them, but not so the child. an interesting activity is always a suggestion to him to reproduce it exactly, if possible. this difference between habit and suggestion in action is illustrated in the case of a long-suffering kitten in the hands of a resourceful child. the sight will arouse in another child an irresistible impulse to try the same experiment, while it always leads his mother to attempt a rescue. this tendency to exact reproduction of activity is the instinct of imitation, and is a marked characteristic of childhood. as these words are written, a glance through the window discloses surveyors at work with tape and red chalk. following in their wake is a five year old with diminutive string and piece of red crayon, laying out distances and taking measurements, in exact copy of his predecessors, a genuine "pocket edition" of the original. while such elaborate exactness characterizes imitation in this period of childhood alone, the impulse to conform is never entirely lost. the desire grows more complex and general as the years go on, and from reproduction of definite acts, the life tries to emulate the spirit and achievements of its hero, and later to be in some harmony, at least, with public opinion. brave, indeed, is the soul that dares to be a nonconformist in regard to the standards "they" have established. the results of imitation are profoundly important in character building. 1. when a child re-enacts what he sees, he comes to a better understanding of its meaning. this is one purpose of the imitation of common activities in kindergarten games. 2. the idea which is acted upon becomes an inseparable part of the life. 3. habit is the outcome of repeated imitation. 4. life grows like what it imitates. with these facts in view, the application to the work of nurture is too obvious for discussion. imagination the child is not content alone to imitate activities. he likes to transform objects and make over familiar situations. this he does through that power of his soul called imagination. the imagination of this period is "fancy-full," crude, and unbridled by reason or will. the child lives in a world of make believe. he sees whole menageries in the back yard, and performs exploits worthy of a david or samson. he gives soul to inanimate objects, and endows them with feelings like his own. he plays with companions of his own creation, and peoples the dark with weird forms. things are changed at will to suit his whims, the stick becoming the untamed steed and the rocking chair the storm-tossed boat. the magic of his alchemy may extend to himself, and make him for days another person, or even an animal. this world of make believe is as real to him as the world which is seen through his eyes, and often he can not distinguish between the two. many a little heart has quivered over the punishment inflicted for "lying", when willful misrepresentation was not in his thoughts. however, harsh treatment of a vivid imagination may result in real deception later on, for the child can not help "seeing things," too wonderful to be enjoyed alone, and then, perforce, there must be deliberate planning to escape the punishment. this harshness also begins to raise an invisible barrier between the child and parent. it was felt by a little maiden of rare fancy, who said in a whisper at the conclusion of one of these marvellous tales, "but don't tell mamma." the impassable wall between many a mother and daughter in later years, once consisted of but a scattered stone here and there. passing by the play life of the child where the imagination has fullest scope, the question arises as to the meaning of this power in character building. one purpose stands paramount over every other. it is the "ideal making factory" of the life. from transforming sticks and chairs, the soul will one day pass to transforming memories and thoughts, putting away the unattractive features and investing the attractive with even more charm, through dreams of what might be. from constructing houses out of blocks, the soul will begin to construct ideals out of its experiences and visions, according to a pattern shown on some mount. as childhood recedes and manhood beckons, the soul unveils this ideal, fashioned in its secret workshop out of all that appeared most desirable, and with strange, magnetic power, it begins to draw the life after it. worthy or unworthy, the years to come will see some part, at least, of the ideal, a reality. the character of the imagination, therefore, becomes a matter of supreme concern to nurture. it will be healthy or diseased morally, according to the quality of the material supplied for its use. the two great sources of this material are every day experiences and the story. the meaning of these experiences to the child's life has already been emphasized in various connections, and repetition is unnecessary, but the story holds a unique place in point of influence. since it comes with deepest significance to the child in the next period of development, when imagination is less mixed with fancy, its discussion will be reserved for that time. memory the child has an unfortunate experience with a hot stove and tender fingers bear the cruel scar. must some one always watch him, year after year, to save him from a succession of burns? he is taken to school by his mother; must she forever accompany him to insure his safe arrival? is there no way of understanding a present experience except by passing through it? life would be an unsatisfactory thing indeed, if this were true, but the soul has the power of retaining past experiences in order that they may throw light upon the present. the business man does not deliberately do again that which was disastrous before, for he remembers the past misfortune. the child will not tomorrow press his little burned hand against the heated iron, for he recalls the pain of yesterday. this gracious gift of god to life, we call memory. without it, there could be no understanding, no reasoning, no imagination, no knowledge, no growth. the physical side of memory is most interesting. on the covering of the brain, each in its own place, the images or impression brought in by the senses and the activity are registered. so sensitive and susceptible are the brain cells during childhood, that these impressions are received as clay receives the touch of the sculptor's finger, and under right conditions, they are ineffaceable. when the soul acts upon these images, they live again, and we say, "we remember." two important questions are suggested by these facts. first, what kind of impressions should we attempt to store in the memory during childhood? second, how may these impressions be made permanent? to the first question, the child himself makes answer through what he most easily retains and through his needs. since he is interested and curious in regard to things, since he spends all his physical activity upon them, since he desires them and thinks about them, we would expect that things, together with experiences and ideas associated with them, would naturally fill his memory. any observer of childhood knows that this is true. the memory of a little child is overwhelmingly for the concrete, the impressions through the senses and from what he does being far more easily retained than ideas alone. a child will recall the story of the good samaritan more readily than the isolated verse, "thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." the reward or punishment of an act makes a more lasting impression than the dissertation upon it. since the concrete must be the starting point of thinking, it must come to his soul at some time, and, judged by every condition, this is god's time for it. the child's needs are also a guide in this matter. the soul is growing in every direction, intellectually, emotionally, and spiritually if properly nurtured, and memory holds the constantly increasing food for its growth. is it to be treated as a stockroom, where packages unavailable for the present are to be laid away until needed, or as a store-house supplied with nourishing food for the present? if memory is a stockroom, then it should be filled with definitions, statements, terms, facts, anything which may be needed sometime. this can be done, for the brain will retain the sound of the words, but meantime, what shall the child feed on? what shall he use? the soul can feed on or make use of only that which is at least partially understood. this means largely the concrete, for abstract statements can be understood only through the experience or reason, and the child has meagre resources in either direction. only when a thought embodies what he has experienced, can he grasp and use it. is it not the work of nurture to see that memory is provided with that out of which it can supply every need of the developing life today? that, "faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen," may mean much to his mature heart, but what if the child should be frightened tomorrow and need to have his budding faith strengthened from memory? would not the story of god's care over the baby moses, jesus' care for the disciples in the blackness of the storm, with the words, "he careth for you," if these were stored in memory, quiet more quickly the beating heart, and more surely increase his faith? true nurture will not starve life in the present to hoard for the future. memory now requires all its store for immediate use. later, after growth is well under way in every direction, memory not only can supply present needs, but it will also demand a surplus for future use. the second question, relating to the permanency of these impressions, is answered in meeting the following conditions: 1. a healthy, non-fatigued brain when the impression is made. 2. close attention. 3. a clear, easily understood and forceful presentation of the thing to be remembered. 4. the use of as many senses as possible. when an impression has been given through eye and ear and touch, for example, it is more definite in the mind than when it has come only through the sense of hearing. 5. a natural association of the new impression with others well known and interesting to the child. 6. immediate and frequent recall. chapter iv the period of early childhood--concluded the feelings a child receives a coveted toy and his face is aglow with delight. he is sharply reproved and anger or grief appears. another child comes to play with him, and he may assert that all his guest desires "is mine," and tears, and even blows ensue before amicable adjustment can be made. and so through the hours of a kaleidoscopic day, the emotional pendulum keeps swinging from love to anger, from pride to humility, from selfishness to sporadic and angelic bits of generosity. what is the significance of it all in the life of the child? before considering this vital question, shall we note some characteristics of the feelings in early childhood? they center about self, and instinctive feelings, such as hunger and thirst, pain and pleasure, fear, pride and anger, are strongest. love is present in its first stages, not the self sacrificing sort, but love given in response to love and attention. the child's feelings are easily aroused, fleeting, and usually more or less superficial. abstractions, such as beauty, duty, responsibility, and relationships in general have but slight effect upon his soul, and the lack of feeling in these directions is commonly expressed by saying that the higher feelings are not yet developed. the child's feelings in response to religious truth can not, therefore, be those of the adult. he will feel love for god as he feels it for his mother, because of his love, provision and care for him. god's power and the mystery that envelops him will awaken a response of awe and wonder in his soul, and absolute confidence that he can do anything. but this same power and majesty, carelessly presented, may call out fear, not the godly sort that is afraid of grieving him by sin, but the physical fear that casts out love. he does not have the sense of moral obligation to god, for that again goes into the abstraction of thought. his religious life begins in feeling, pure and simple, and his creed is in i john, "we love him because he first loved us." most interesting lines of discussion open out from the subject, but they are not pertinent to the chosen theme of this book. the only legitimate question is, "what is the work of nurture in connection with the feelings?" before this can be answered, the purpose of the feelings in character building must be clear. then we shall know what nurture must do. no feeling has a right to exist for itself. there is a task for it to perform, namely, to lead the soul to action. if unhindered it will always do this. the careful analysis of any action will reveal a motive power in some feeling, ranging from the lowest desires for self gratification to the sublime heights of love that denies self for the master's sake. knowledge alone does not suffice for action. a man may be familiar with the claims of jesus and even acknowledge them, but until he feels a great need of him, he will not become a christian. the sermon may compel the admiration of the mind, but unless it move the heart no man will practice it. jesus summed up his commands in "love," not "know," for he knew that loving meant god-like living. it is significant that the fruitage of the spirit appears in the feelings of "love, joy, peace," before it can be manifest in the acts of "long-suffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, meekness, self control." this indissoluble relation between feeling and action gives deep meaning to the words of dr. w.h. payne, "at least the half, and perhaps the better half of education consists in the formation of right feelings." the work of nurture in connection with the feelings is now apparent. it must endeavor to develop right feelings in order to secure right actions and consequent strong character. this development is secured through repeatedly arousing the feelings, and giving them expression in action until they are habitual. 1. how may the feelings be aroused? passing by all the physiological and psychological processes involved, and using the term, feeling, as it is popularly understood, the law that governs its appearance may be stated thus: "a feeling is occasioned by the touch of an impression upon the soul." with older people, these impressions may come from without or from a thought within, but with little children they come almost entirely from without. the sort of feeling aroused will evidently depend upon the sort of impression that comes, as well as the condition of the soul that receives it. this difference in conditions, or difference in lives as we ordinarily say, explains why the sunday school lesson has such varied effects in the same class, or even upon the same child at different times. keeping in mind the law that some impression must precede a feeling, true nurture asks, "in what way can these impressions best be given, that desired feelings may be aroused?" 1. they are not given through command. common sense would recognize the absurdity of attempting to awaken anger by saying to a group of happy children, "be angry." but why is the absurdity not equally apparent in saying, "be loving," "be sorry," "be reverent?" yet this is a method on which countless teachers and parents place their dependence. suppose, for instance, reverence be the feeling desired; a thought of god's greatness and power and holiness must be given. if, to the sensitive soul of the child, the teacher bring the story of sinai, or the story of majestic power as it is set forth in the 104th psalm, or the glory of the heavenly throne with the adoring multitudes, following with the words, softly sung, "holy, holy, holy, lord god of hosts, heaven and earth are full of thee, heaven and earth are praising thee, oh lord, most high." the result will be true reverence. 2. suggestion is a most effective way of conveying these impressions. instead of saying to the child, "this is the thought you should have, and this is what you should feel, and this is what you ought to do," he is allowed to draw meanings and have feelings of his own, for then they are genuinely a part of his soul, not something foisted upon him. but even though the application is not made, nurture will consciously present impressions intended to suggest certain feelings. the sunday school lesson, the missionary story, the visit to the poor family, the song carefully selected, all fall in this class. special mention should be made of the great effect upon the child in making attractive in another, the feeling desired for him. a single incident will illustrate this: a frightened little candidate for the beginners' class and his stern mother stood one sunday morning before the primary superintendent. "he's got to stay in here by himself today," she said; "i won't have such nonsense. look at him, with his first trousers on! i'm ashamed of him!" the superintendent did look and saw the new trousers, and in them the trembling little body, and a soul speechless with terror at facing for the first time, alone, the unknown experience of a great world, even though it was enclosed in four walls. there was no trace of relenting in the mother's face, and any plea for pity was useless. but the new trousers gave a possible key to the situation. "why, so he has new trousers on!" the superintendent said. "i want to see them," and very thoroughly and enthusiastically they were inspected. "i didn't know that he was so nearly a man that he could wear trousers instead of dresses. i am sure he will stay alone today because men do and are not at all afraid." she waited. gradually the little head lifted as the thought of bravery began to make its appeal. he put his hand into the hand of the superintendent, and without hesitation started on the perilous journey across the room to the beginners' section, where no punishment could have driven him a few moments earlier, and proud and heroic sat by himself through the hour. such is the power of suggestion. two points, however, must be carefully guarded in deliberate effort to arouse a feeling. 1. care must be exercised not to over stimulate feeling, as an excess beyond that which can be expended in action has an after weakening and reactionary effect. this has its illustration in certain methods of evangelistic work with children, where results are measured by their hysterical condition when the meeting concludes. contrast with this the gentleness which breathes through the story of the master's touch, as he took them in his arms and blessed them, laying his hands upon them, when he had said, "suffer the little children to come unto me." 2. it is as injurious to a child to attempt to force a feeling before its normal time, as to a bud, to pry open its petals to hasten god's processes. even the divine child "grew." "that is not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural, then that which is spiritual," is god's law of unfolding life. but these consciously presented impressions form only a small part of the sources of suggestion to the child. the countless sights and circumstances of his everyday life all have a voice for him, and a feeling follows their message. every mother who has suffered mortification over the unaccountable behavior of her child toward a guest, knows the sometimes untoward as well as helpful working of suggestion from personality. atmosphere has the same power. "i don't know what there is in your home," said a visitor to her hostess; "i can't define it, but it makes me want to be good." music may be suggestive, aside from what it actually says. it would seem as if no sane superintendent would prepare for prayer by a two step song, or follow the lesson on, "the washing of the disciples' feet", by, "columbia, the gem of the ocean," but it was done. it would seem as though no primary teacher could be so insensible to suggestion from objects, as to try to teach worship in giving by taking the offering through a hole in the tail of a jointed tin rooster, but that self-same rooster is no myth. the subject expands into endless ramifications. true nurture essays the difficult task of analyzing the impressions that come from suggestion--guarding against the harmful, and multiplying the helpful. 3. impressions may be given and feelings aroused through doing the act which would naturally result from the feeling. this is the reason why a reverential attitude helps to arouse real reverence, and a smiling face and cheery tone actually bring cheerfulness in a case of the blues. little children are so imitative that they quickly copy the outward manifestations of a feeling, and the inner state tends to follow. this is further a reason for leading them into acts of loving service, that love and kindred gracious feelings may gain strength through the reflex influence of the action upon the soul. one word should be spoken on the negative side. since each recurrence of a feeling strengthens its power, nurture will seek to avoid the conditions which would arouse wrong feelings. "but should not the child control himself?" some one asks. instinctive feelings are stronger than the power of self control in the beginning, and life needs shielding more than testing. god says, "fathers, provoke not your children to anger," or, literally, "fathers, irritate not your children beyond measure, but nourish them fully in the instruction and admonition of the lord." 2. the expression of the feelings. every normal feeling tends irresistibly to express itself in action unless it is held in leash. the story of the poor family needs the addition of no impassioned appeal; the child is already wondering whether he can empty his bank for their help. if expression is denied to the feeling, it tends to die out, and continual repression means a lessening either in power to act or power to feel. "sentimentalists" have lost power to act except in tears or ejaculations when their emotions are stirred, and "hardened" people have lost the power to feel under ordinary stimulation. therefore nothing is more fatal to vigorous development of the feelings of the child than to allow them to be dissipated without expression in the action they naturally suggest. but nurture will see that little hands are allowed to hinder by "helping" to make the beds, or dust the room or carry the package, not simply that love may grow stronger, but that in after years there may be the desire to lift the burdens in reality from wearied shoulders, for the higher feelings of life develop from the instinctive feelings, if they have proper expression in the beginning. love that is almost barter in early years, since it is bestowed for value received, if given constant expression in acts of helpfulness, will become the self-denying love of later years. love for self, which is so strong in a child, can be developed toward its manifestation of self respect, by using it at first in childhood, "to help this good body grow both strong and tall." childish hate may be directed against wrong things, in preparation for indignation against sin of future years. it must not be forgotten, however, that in god's economy every feeling, if properly used, has its work to do in character building in every stage of its development, so that even the foundation stones may be laid in beauty and strength. the will the power of the soul to make deliberate choice of action, and unwaveringly to execute it, is undeveloped in this period of early childhood. the child does not balance reasons or desires. instead, he acts impetuously and unthinkingly, as the feeling of the passing moment impels him. often one desire so completely absorbs his mind as to obscure everything else, and he will make any effort to gain his end. his case is like that of a man who "sets his heart" on a thing, or who harbors an alluring temptation too long, until it overpowers him. this is the explanation of most cases of obstinacy and strong will, as is proven by the disappearance of the "will" when the mind is diverted. one of the deepest desires of every parent and teacher is that there shall in truth be a strong will as the life matures, and so its training is sought. but just what is meant by it? we know there is no separate faculty to be strengthened as the arm is strengthened. what can be trained? the only training possible is in helping the soul to form the habit of choosing to do the right thing, or, analyzing still more closely, of following the promptings of the noblest feelings of the heart. the inseparable relation between feeling and action has been noted. if the noblest feelings can be made the strongest, they will be followed. the previous discussion shows that their strength is increased every time they are aroused and acted upon, and this leads to habit in both feeling and action. the nurture of the will or executive power of the soul is seen, therefore, to be most intimately connected with the nurture of the feelings, and its work will consist in making the right course of action so appealing that the child will desire and choose it for himself, until it becomes habitual, and consequently, undebatable. forcing him to follow it, secures the action; it does not arouse the feelings that would lead him to choose to do the act himself. an act compelled is like an apple tied to a fruit tree; it did not grow there and has no connection with the life of the tree. a fruit tree that can not bear its own fruit is worthless, and a life that does not reach the point of producing its own right actions, independent of human coercion, is a failure. the comparison may be pressed still further. no quantity of apples tied upon a tree will ever make it produce apples, and even so, no number of right acts imposed upon a child will, in itself, make him do right things voluntarily. this can only come through strengthening in his own soul the processes that lead to right action. the truth of this is proven in the case of thousands of boys who did the right things at home because they were compelled to do so, but when they left home they went wrong. the one who should have nurtured was too busy, or too thoughtless, to take the time to lead into strength and uprightness the thinking and feeling and choosing of the soul while it was developing. it was easier to say peremptorily, "do this," with the inevitable result, that when compulsion was removed character gave way because it was weak. but some one is saying, "that is a very questionable doctrine; 'let the child do as he pleases, if he don't want to do the right, don't force him.'" such a deduction from the argument entirely misses the point. the child must do the right, but, in a nutshell--which is the stronger constraint--outer or inner? which makes character surer, the voice without, saying, 'you must,' or the voice within which says it? no external power could have made paul's record of service, or brainerd's or paton's. all the force of the russian government was powerless to obtain that which each japanese soldier poured out upon his country's altar in the fight for supremacy in manchuria. these deeds are the soul's response to the most irresistible power in the world--a consuming passion. it was such a passion, intense beyond earthly fathom, that led the savior through gethsemane to calvary. because this is so, the heavenly father's effort to secure right action from his children is not evident in external compulsion. through his favor and fellowship, the joy of his approval, the peace that passeth understanding, the "well done," the eternal reward, he endeavors to arouse love for himself and what he desires, in order that his will may be chosen. according to this divine pattern human nurture labors. at the very first, the parent must make choice for the child, but earlier than is usually appreciated, definite training may be begun. the loving smile of the mother and her known wish, her approval or disapproval, her recognition and encouragement, the knowledge that, "whatsoever a man soweth that must he also reap," gained through bearing the penalty or enjoying the reward of each choice, the right course made attractive in the story of some one who chose it, or, most magnetic of all, in the life of the one who is nurturing, all these will begin to arouse the inner constraint that compels, and with glad acquiescence the soul will say, "necessity is laid upon me." when the life shall learn that the most blessed joy that inheres in right actions is not human approval but god's favor, and for his sake, with face steadfastly set, the right is followed, even though shorn of all external attractiveness, the highest development possible for a soul has been realized. application to sunday school work the sunday school is such an important factor in religious training that a special application of the foregoing discussion to its methods and work seems wise. it is evident that plans can not be detailed, but only some principles underlying the methods be suggested. the cradle roll in the first department known as the cradle roll, nurture can be given by the sunday school only as it touches the parents. any cradle roll work that culminates in the sentiment of securing the babies' names and calling them, "our sweet peas", has missed its purpose. a peculiar opportunity comes with the flood tide of new parental love. "if i had not been a christian when my boy was born, i could very easily have been led to christ, my heart was so tender and full of gratitude," said the father of an only son. the sunday school will nurture its babes through choosing as cradle roll superintendent, a consecrated christian woman, trained in the school of life's experience, who can come close to other mothers because she, too, has known the valley of the shadow and the sacred joy of a new born life in her arms. a unique opportunity is hers to lead the parents to christ or into closer fellowship with him, and to help them understand the meaning of the life he has lent them. the beginners' department the beginners' department will care for the years between three and six. nurture will be concerned first with the teacher. the teacher.--the child's conception of christ will be what he sees in the teacher. he can not conceive of any love or tenderness or gentleness greater than appears in her. a mother came to the teacher of her little boy one day and said, "john was playing on the floor this afternoon, and all at once he stopped and watched me, and then said, 'mamma, i wish you were as much like jesus as my teacher is'" the lesson, the music, the prayer and all the differentiation of the day and place tend to elevate the teacher above those who share his daily life, and envelop her with an atmosphere more mystic and holy. she is connected not with clothes and bread and butter episodes, but wholly with the thought of jesus, and stands by his side in the child's thought and love, and if he love not the teacher whom he has seen, he can not love god whom he has not seen. even the physical charm of the teacher will make his picture of the christ more beautiful. nurture demands above all else that the teacher of a beginners' class suggest "one altogether lovely," to the sensitive, imaginative and imitative soul of the child, for her message to him is ever silently, but irresistibly, "be ye imitators of me as i am of christ." the place.--the place of meeting must fulfill certain conditions to give proper nurture. because of the restlessness of these years, it ought to afford opportunity for physical movement. even if a separate room is not available, screens or curtains should make it possible for the children to change their position frequently. the separation will also remove the temptation for curiosity to obtain satisfaction through roving eyes. the place should provide comfortable seating arrangements, for impressions carried within from strained muscles and tired limbs are far stronger than from ideas that the teacher gives, and these will consequently receive the attention. but it is not sufficient to plan for seclusion and comfort. nurture thinks beyond and deeper than this. the child is gaining his first impressions of religious things during these years, and his ideas will be derived from what his senses give him. there is no way to give him the thought of the beauty of holiness, and the joy that the religion of jesus christ brings, except to make every thing associated with it as glad and beautiful as may be. choice pictures, flowers, sunshine, order, all mysteriously transmit their beauty to the child's thought of god. the more attractive the visible things, the more magnetic the charm of the invisible. "out of zion, the perfection of beauty, god hath shined." the equipment.--the equipment is not to be a heterogeneous collection of things, and yet the child must be taught through his senses. a bible which can be kept before the children and reverently handled, to teach reverence by suggestion, is of first importance. little chairs, or an equally comfortable substitute, a blackboard and an instrument, if possible, will give good working capital. since taste is forming at this time and every thing has an influence in determining its direction, the beautiful pictures in black and white are gaining favor through their artistic execution and subdued coloring. to this equipment may be added special objects designed to make the facts of special lessons clearer--the sand table occasionally, or models. thoughtful teachers are more and more convinced that while kindergarten principles should obtain, the kindergarten should not be moved bodily into the sunday school. values must be balanced, and over against the reasons which might be given for bringing in all the equipment of the week-day environment, there is this great fact:--the child is to be taught that religion is the supreme thing in the world, and he can learn it only by differentiating it in a tangible way from other things. this means that the methods, music, material and beauty associated with it ought to make it distinctive, and more attractive than any of the week-day surroundings. after he learns that it is the chief thing in the world, he can learn how to bring it down to the common things of life without sacrificing its supremacy, instead of dragging the every-dayness into it. the program.--the program must be varied, because self control is weak, and attention will be given to one thing only so long as interest is active. music should have a prominent place, provided it is meaningful, choice, and suggestive of the thought desired, in music as well as words. since this is the rhythmic and imitative period of life, motion songs can be occasionally used, provided the motions are not mechanical and artificial. the foot notes which say that at i the hands should be clasped, at 2 they should wave, and at 3 be raindrops, miss the point of a motion song. unless the child spontaneously expresses the thought which the song suggests to him, the motions have no value, aside from a rest exercise. the entire program should be planned around the thought of leading the child into a genuine love for god. nature is beautiful, but its place in sunday school is subordinate to him. the most exquisite song that ends with birds and flowers falls below the highest nurture. love must be both aroused and expressed during the hour's session. music, scripture, the enumeration of his blessings, the joy over birthdays and new scholars he has sent, the lesson, the carefully selected pictures and stories of what his love has done for other boys and girls unlike them, an atmosphere of gladness and reverence will kindle it; the offering service, the prayer, scripture and music will express it. the suggestion from teacher, place, program and lesson combined, should be a great, wonderful god who loves little children, as well as a christ who took the children in his arms. the lesson.--the course known as "the two years' course for beginners" affords the best subject matter for the lessons for the following reasons: 1. bible truths needed first in the life of a little child have been carefully selected and arranged in their logical order. 2. as many lessons as are needed to make each truth clear and to fix it in memory are devoted to it. 3. the setting for the truths to be taught is given in stories, not abstract statements. 4. the same golden text is used for all the lessons teaching one truth, is simple, intelligible and, by repetition in connection with several lessons, can be fixed. 5. the pictures accompanying the lessons are very choice both in theme and execution. since the only ideas the child will receive of the lesson must come through his senses and bodily activity, and since, of his senses, sight and touch make a clearer impression than hearing, large use should be made of them. further, as this is the period of imitation of definite acts, the lesson should present forcibly and fascinatingly, an activity within his power to imitate. the end sought, as a result of the nurture of this period, is that the child may become truly a child of god, and never know a time when he did not love him. this may be achieved, for the heart of a little child is open and peculiarly sensitized to the matchless story of jesus christ. when it is presented to him aright, he always responds in faith and love. in this response, the conditions upon which spiritual sonship is conferred are met, for, "as many as received him, to them gave he the right to become children of god, even to them that believe on his name." chapter v childhood--six to twelve no abrupt change marks the transition from the period of early childhood to childhood, but development is continuous and rapid in every direction. the larger social world, entered through school life, and the new intellectual world, revealed through ability to read, widen the child's vision and develop possibilities hitherto latent, because unneeded. the sunday school divides the period of childhood into the "primary age," from six to nine, and the "junior age," from nine to twelve, basing the division as accurately as is possible upon the awakening of these latent possibilities. the development of this period will therefore be considered according to this classification. the primary age--six to nine during these years the characteristics of early childhood remain in more or less modified form. physical growth is still rapid in all parts of the body, the brain reaching almost full size by the ninth year. parallel with this vigorous physical growth is a mental growth and development equally rapid and many sided. curiosity is as hungry as ever, still more eager concerning things than abstract ideas, and still a goad to active senses. the mind has increased power to retain what is given it, and about the ninth year enters upon its "golden memory period." the ability to reason is gradually increasing, though it is used more upon relationships between things than between ideas. the child's feelings are still self-centered, yet development of the social and altruistic feelings is apparent. children enjoy companionship more than in earlier years, but the longing for others does not reach the intensity which demands the club and gang until later. a feeling of sympathy and desire to help must still be awakened by definite cases of need, plus the influence of parent or teacher, as the child does not yet know life's hard experiences well enough to read their meaning and give response to them of himself. if nurture has met its opportunity in the preceding period, the child's love for god and confidence in him have grown stronger. the heavenly father will be as real to him as an earthly friend, and his help a living experience. "how is it that you always have a perfect spelling lesson at school?" a primary teacher asked of one of her boys. "why, don't you know that jesus sits in the seat with me every day and helps me?" he replied. the teacher's face betokened her surprise, and the child emphatically reiterated, "he truly does sit with me and help me." would that god's older children could live as actually in the presence that was promised for "all the days." actions continue to be largely impulsive, carried out according to the strongest present desire, and though right and wrong are more clearly understood than formerly, they do not often determine an act unsupported by other considerations. this is evident in the matter of obedience, whose strengthening into a habit is one of the most imperative tasks of nurture during childhood. abstract laws and principles of right, so weighty in middle adolescence, have but slight influence over the child, unless joined with them is a strong personality whom the child loves or fears, and whose favor he desires to win through obeying. there are certain modifications of earlier characteristics, which demand more than a passing notice, because they necessitate greater change in the methods of nurture. activity though the restlessness of the preceding period is still in evidence, more and more activity is becoming purposeful and willed. while the child continues to love activity for itself, he is more interested in what it will accomplish than formerly, but an end is not yet sufficiently attractive in itself to hold him to an unpleasant activity for its achievement. for example, he enjoys both the weaving and the basket, the pasting and the scrap-book, but if pasting and weaving were laborious and difficult, he would not voluntarily go through them to obtain the basket or the scrap-book. it must be noted further, that activity still expends itself more readily in the realm of the physical than the mental, though there is increasing pleasure in the quest for knowledge, if wisely directed. the sunday school is beginning to recognize what the day school has learned, that the child both enjoys and masters a lesson which can be approached through physical as well as mental avenues. in consequence, hand work is being introduced to aid in religious instruction, as manual work in the public schools for secular education, with most gratifying results in both cases. the senses more skill, more accuracy and more discrimination characterize the work of the senses than in early childhood. the impressions are richer in detail and meaning, because of the increased knowledge possessed by the child. it is a commonplace that we receive from anything in proportion to what we bring to it. the ear of the musician hears in an orchestra what the child or the adult without the knowledge of music could never detect, because he listens with more than they. the child can see in a picture or circumstance, and hear in a conversation or a song, what once he could not, because he brings a larger experience to bear upon it. criticism of others in the home, the lapses from christ-like living, the scenes of the street, things pernicious as well as helpful have greater significance in character building than ever before. this gives still graver emphasis to the work of nurture in guarding these wide-open doorways to a hungry soul. growing out of the fact that the senses are the greatest source of information to the child's mind, the method of teaching by means of objects has arisen. rightly used, there is great value in this mode of instruction, but a serious perversion of its legitimate use has developed in connection with religious instruction of little children. though the discussion of this may be a possible digression, it seems necessary in order to safeguard nurture from a mistake. there are two helpful methods of using an object with children in the beginners' and primary age. the first is to explain an unfamiliar fact, or make it clear. a model of an oriental house or curios from a mission field are examples of this. the second use is to illustrate a fact. the flower is the visible expression of god's loving care; the table, heaped high with grains and fruits and vegetables at the thanksgiving service, teaches as no mere words could the fact of god's provision for our need. objects used in this way require no reasoning power to make their meaning clear. it is only a matter of perception. the use of an object, however, in order to deduce spiritual truth therefrom for children with reasoning powers undeveloped, is a mistake. instead of making the thought clearer to their minds it obscures it. close examination reveals the reason for this. a child is both imaginative and literal. through his imagination he can transform one object into another object, as we have already observed, but in this case he is asked to transform an object into an abstract idea. this he does not easily do, since such transformation is made by reason, not by imagination. further, the spiritual teachings are drawn from the abstract idea which the object is supposed to represent, not from the object itself. manifestly, therefore, if he does not get the idea he will not get the deductions from it. his mind does not follow beyond the point where he can understand, consequently, his thought remains with the object as it literally is. to illustrate, take the familiar object lesson of a cup overflowing with water, used to teach the thought of god's manifold blessings in the life. the child is asked to change the cup into the abstract thought of life, and water into the thought of blessing. this is difficult, for it involves reason and deals with resemblances which are artificial, not real. the child's literalism, therefore, asserts itself, and the cup remains a cup and the water is still water, and while the teacher is drawing conclusions, the child is probably wondering whether her dress will get wet or how he can get a drink. the same principle obtains in regard to certain types of blackboard illustrations. the child is asked to change a cross into suffering, a crown into victory, a red cardboard heart into life, and a picture of jesus christ pinned upon it into regeneration. he does not make these transformations until reason is more fully developed than in this period. lines remain lines, cardboard is still cardboard and spiritual deductions do not reach his understanding. the fact that an object or drawing is always interesting does not alter the principle at all, for being interested and being instructed are not necessarily equivalent terms. the lesson must always be interesting, but it must also gain entrance according to the laws of the mind to be instructive. interests the interests of this period include those of the preceding period, but they are more diverse and far-reaching than in early childhood. they still center around the concrete, and especially physical activity. crude and amazingly heterogeneous collections begin to make their appearance in boys' pockets and girls' treasure boxes. dolls are never so dear to their fond mothers as in this period. games and active outdoor sports appeal to both boys and girls, those games being particularly enjoyable which give the individual an opportunity to shine. real team play is impossible at this time, since in honor each prefers himself. any scepticism upon this point will be dispelled by listening to the modest aspirants for office when the positions in a football game are being assigned. the explanation for this lies partially in the instinct of rivalry, which arrays individual against individual, all through the early years of life. when the social feeling which welds individuals into groups becomes strong, rivalry will appear between gangs and clubs rather than between individuals. a significant change occurs in connection with that which the child desires to imitate. at first, definite acts focused the most of his interest and aroused imitation, now, interest begins to attach itself to the actor as well, and the child not only desires to imitate the deed but also to emulate the doer. out of this a little later comes real hero worship, an incentive to action than which life holds no greater. another fact in connection with this is also significant; those whom he desires to resemble need not be in the home circle nor in his environment, as at first, but may be distant in time and place. this new interest in people whom he can not see lends added charm and value to bible stories and, if told aright, they will do for his life what can be done in no other way so effectively. surely agur, the son of jakeh, saw no eager little faces upturned to his, pleading, "tell me another," or he would have added to the things that are never satisfied, nor say, "it is enough," the hunger of a child for a story. since hunger is always indicative of a need in the developing life, there must be a reason for this craving. it is found in connection with the rapid development and requirements of the imagination. there are two ways in which a truth may be taught. one is through an abstract statement, such as, "intemperance destroys the happiness of a home." the other is through the concrete, or the story of a home blighted by liquor. the first appeals to reason, and can be understood only in the light of experience; the second requires simply the exercise of a vivid imagination. of reasoning power, the child at this time has little, but he has an imagination vivid, strong and hungry, eagerly reaching out for something to feed upon. the well-told story fully satisfies his hunger, and at the same time meets the greatest need of the whole soul, namely, the placing of right ideals before it in such a way that they will be worked out into character. to accomplish this result three things are necessary: first, the thought suggesting the ideal must be understood; second, it must rouse the feelings; third, it must lead to action. the story meets every demand. 1. it makes the truth concrete. the statement, "love will endure hardships for the sake of jesus christ," is only a thought in the brain. the story of paul or livingston brings the truth out of that intangible world, puts flesh upon it and the breath of life within, and the child can in imagination exercise his sense of sight, of hearing and of touch upon it. 2. it makes the truth visible, and therefore to be grasped through the senses or imagination. a thought can not be seen by itself, but if lived out in the life of a person it may be seen by the physical eye, or, if mountains and centuries intervene, still by the eye of the soul--the imagination. when it is seen, the fact itself is understood, though the reasons for it may not be comprehended. while no man may ever know why god so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, we understand that he does love us, as we see the babe in the manger and the blessed savior upon the cross. only when a truth is so seen does it become real and, consequently, of any worth to the life. herein lies the need and the power of "living epistles," not only in the material world, but also in the world of the imagination. 3. when the truth is seen it always arouses feeling. a thought which is merely known does not move men. it is possible to read of a terrible tragedy with measured pulse and indifferent heart, but if the reader was an eye witness, or allows imagination to picture it for him, his soul quivers in its presence. one of the greatest needs of our teachers is to see the master among the hills and by the blue waters of gennesaret, to look into his face, to hear his voice till hearts burn. then they will not repeat words, but, "looking upon jesus as he walked," say, "behold him!" in such a way that the children will see him also, and a great love for him be born in their hearts, and a longing to follow. 4. the truth that is seen and felt impels to action. this has already been discussed in connection with the feelings, and an illustration will suffice at this time. a mission sunday school was listening to a talk on the fixedness of habits formed in youth, and to make it clearer the speaker said, "boys, do they ever lay cement walks in this neighborhood?" every eye was riveted on him, as they answered, "yes!" "did you know," he continued, "that if you were to take a sharp-pointed stick and write your name in the cement while it was soft, it would harden and remain there as long as the walk lasted?" "of course," he hastily added, as a significant expression appeared on their faces, "no boy here would be mean enough to do such a thing," but it was too late--the picture had done its work and the purpose of handing autographs down to posterity would be executed at the first opportunity. such is the power of the image or picture to lead to action. only the father knows how many sons have come home from the far country because of the matchless story of the prodigal. only he knows how many consecrated men and women are in africa and china and japan because they saw the heroes in god's hall of fame. surely this is why the holy spirit inspired paul to write, "whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honorable, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report, if there be any virtue, if there be any praise, think on these things." 5. if the imagination steadily hold the picture, some day the life will be like it. it is impossible for the soul to look day after day upon anything without unconsciously being changed into its likeness. hawthorne has exquisitely portrayed the transformation of ernest into the image of the great stone face, and, in so doing, has told the story of every life that gazes fixedly on its ideal. herein lies the blessed secret of christ-likeness: "we all, with unveiled face reflecting as a mirror the glory of the lord, are transformed into the same image, from glory to glory even as from the lord, the spirit." in the light of these wonderful possibilities growing out of "seeing the invisible," the oft-quoted words of stanley hall are most significant, "of all the things that a teacher should know how to do, the most important, without any exception, is to know how to tell a story." application to sunday school work the requirements of the primary department in regard to teacher, place and equipment are similar to those in the beginners' class, save that a song roll may now be helpfully added, since the children are learning to read. in the matter of instruction, however, some variation from preceding methods is necessary, owing to the rapid mental development of the children. i. general program. in addition to the thought of making the service worshipful and joyous, the program must be planned with reference to three important things: (1) the truth to be presented in the lesson. this should be a guide to program building in the preceding department as well, but it becomes imperative in this and the junior departments, since the truth to be taught changes weekly, and therefore must be fastened during one hour's work. memory in this period depends upon the force of the impression rather than upon association, as in later periods, hence all songs and exercises should emphasize the one thought to be given in the lesson. this does not require new songs and services weekly. it merely requires that the old songs and exercises be approached from the standpoint of the lesson, that which is pertinent to it being developed in each. the results of this plan are two-fold: first, a freshness in the program each week, even with familiar features, and second, cumulative emphasis upon one truth, thus fulfilling the conditions of memory, and therefore of nurture. (2) the activity of the children. the increased mental ability will permit interesting exercises to take the place of some of the physical outlets for activity necessary in the preceding period, but they must be brief and compelling in their attractiveness. the use of motion songs is outgrown, especially with boys. during many years there has remained in memory the expression in the face of a boy, head and shoulders taller than any other child in the primary department, as he stood pointing to pedal extremities, not less than number fours, and singing, "little feet, be very careful where you take me to." the sentiment could not possibly have been wrung from him had not the superintendent been his mother. hand work suggestive of the lesson, such as pasting, coloring, tearing, cutting and simplest writing for the older ones, is growing in favor as a means of utilizing the activity and impressing the lesson. an outline of the methods of this work is impossible here, but three words of caution must be spoken. first: choose the time for hand work carefully. while it will give wise outlet for activity and aid memory, if used in the wrong place it will tend to dissipate the influence of the lesson. even the pasting of a picture when the feelings are deeply stirred could give them sufficient expression so that they would be satisfied without further action. they ought to impel to imitation of the action in the story with all the intensity that has been aroused, instead of being expended in a mechanical way. in view of this fact, the proper subject of the hand work would seem to be the lesson of the week preceding, and the best time for it, just prior to the beginning of the session, if that be of the usual hour length. this time is practicable even where the session immediately follows the church service, and it has three advantages. it will counteract lack of punctuality, will utilize activity at its most disastrous stage--the unoccupied minutes before the program proper begins--and will not crowd out from the hour any other training equally important. second: remember that valuable as the hand work is in clarifying and impressing the lesson, it is only a shell containing the truth. therefore, a teacher who occupies a large part of the hour in this way is not giving the child sufficient spiritual nourishment. third: this work must be raised above the level of similar week-day occupations. this may be done through emphasizing the fact that the child is making a book of bible stories, and special care must be used to make it beautiful and worthy. a mission of help or cheer to some one else may also be held out as a climax to its completion. (3) the program must be planned with reference to training in habit formation. though the latter part of childhood is the habit forming period of life, pre-eminently, yet habits of christian activity must be begun during these earlier years. the children in this department are not too young to lay the foundations of regular and punctual attendance, bringing of bibles, giving to church expenses and benevolences, interest in and gifts for missionary work, daily prayer and, under proper conditions, church attendance. ii. instruction. while special teaching must be given in connection with each habit to be formed, the supplemental work and the lesson constitute the principal subjects of instruction. 1. supplemental work. scripture for memorization in this period should be chosen primarily to help the children in habit formation. information about the bible and storing for future use belong in the next period of "golden memory." verses that give the thought of god's love, and incite loving obedience to him and to their parents, and loving service to others, are fundamental and should predominate. the twenty-third psalm and lord's prayer will have real meaning, and therefore help for the child at this time, if carefully taught. a few of the great stories of the bible, including those of christmas and easter, may be added, and some of the hymns of the church expressing god's majesty and the thought of service. 2. the lesson. every principle of nurture already discussed bears upon the presentation of the lesson. (1) the lesson must bring an ideal to the child in concrete form. this will be the truth connected in some way with a person. where the lesson gives the negative side, or the absence of the truth in life, the positive side must also be presented and made more attractive, since the child's impulse to imitate, even when warned against it, is stronger than the warnings. he must always be sent away with something to do, rather than not to do. (2) this ideal must always be given in a story. when the lesson material is abstract, like the epistles or psalms, a truth to be taught should be selected from it, and then made concrete and living in some bible story. (3) the story itself is the mainspring to action, not the application. the forceful, vivid and realistic presentation of the story, made possible as the teacher lives in it, impels the child to imitation; the application, or "ought," appeals to his reason and compels him, and action is always more hearty when impelled than when compelled. the only after touch upon the story which is helpful to little children lies in plans for imitating the activity which has been pictured. even this is not always to be done. jesus left the most wonderful story he ever told with no words of application, for they were unnecessary. he knew that every prodigal would feel a tug at the heartstrings and an impulse to go home. at the conclusion of the story of the good samaritan he merely said, "go thou and do likewise." allowing the children to suggest what they would like to do if they so desire, or making the suggestion indirectly by song, or prayer, or the teacher's announcement of her own purpose will carry far more weight than any injunction to act, for, "the deepest spring of action in us is the sight of action in another." chapter vi the junior age--nine to twelve the years we are now to consider are among the most interesting in all the period of development, and among the most exacting, as well, in the problems they present. these problems are related, in the main, to the "new invoice of energy" which has come into the life, the social feelings, habit formation and hero worship, and knowledge and patience are almost exhausted in their solution. a general survey of the period reveals much that we are already familiar with, together with certain new conditions. we find that some of the winsomeness and much of the demonstrativeness and dependency of earlier childhood are gone. the sense of approaching manhood or womanhood is beginning to stir in the soul and, coincident with it, a growing independence is manifest. while the child must still be under authority, the wisest nurture will consult his feelings and wishes as far as possible, for just beyond this period lies life's crisis, and every bond of sympathy and confidence must unite the helper to the one to be helped as the stormy passage is entered upon. with all this growing independence, however, life is very far from possessing the marks of maturity. it is careless and care free, irresponsible in general, yet proud to carry definite responsibilities. there is delight in anything which suggests pre-eminence over others, such as badges, buttons and regalia of any kind, or public recognition and reward. frankness almost to the point of brutality is a frequent trait, particularly of boys of this age, for they do not lend themselves as easily as the girls to the polite usages and subterfuges of society. this characteristic must have its counterbalance in genuineness and freedom from any affectation, especially a pious one, on the part of those dealing with the children, in order to win their love and respect. a marked literalism is also apparent, and instead of the delicately imaginative child of earlier years a matter of fact young person stands out with a desire for exact statement and, if need be, under such oath as, "upon your word," or "cross your heart and hope to die." there is a strong sense of honor connected with such asseverations, and woe betide the one who swears falsely or tinkers with the truth. there are certain conspicuous characteristics which demand a more detailed consideration, and the first to be noted is the energy. energy the very sound of the word is indicative of the nervous force that dominates the life during these years. it is well nigh impossible for action to be noiseless or measured in this period, especially during the latter part. the energy continues to be more vigorous in the physical realm, and active sports of all kinds are attractive. one of the greatest problems of nurture at this time, as has already been suggested, centers around the wise use of this energy in the home, the day school, the sunday school and, most important of all, in the hours unoccupied with definite tasks, for habits are forming through its outgoing. the social feelings another striking characteristic of this period appears in the rapid development of the social feelings. no longer is the child content with one or two playmates, but he craves the companionship of several of the same age and sex. this desire finds expression in the coterie of bosom friends, the gang and the club so prevalent between the ages of ten and fourteen. the bonfire with its circle of kindred spirits, the cave with its password and dark plottings, the street corner and recruiting whistle have almost irresistible fascination. what one boy does not dare, the gang will attempt, and the composite conscience may fall far below that of the individual. the sense of honor already mentioned is very strong among the members, and in absolute loyalty to one another they stand or fall. these organizations exist among the girls as well as boys, but differ in the purpose for which they are formed, the girls organizing more as adults, while the boys' clubs are overwhelmingly to expend energy, lawfully or otherwise. the dangers and opportunities growing out of this strong tendency toward segregation can not be overestimated. a walk along a city street in the evening reveals the fact that the nurture of the sidewalk and the ice cream parlor has largely supplanted the nurture of the home on the social side. the table with the evening lamp--"the home's lighthouse"--and the family circle complete about it, are an almost unknown experience in the life of the average american child. in a recent convention a speaker, who is in charge of a great penal institution filled with human derelicts, said he believed it to be as much a duty of the church to preserve at least one evening a week sacred to the home, as to designate another for the prayer meeting or preaching service. the home ought to be the center of the child's social life. why can not the lights and music and companionship there be made as attractive as the lights of the corner store, or billiard hall, or the sound of the street piano, which pave the way to the saloon and the dance hall later? that boys and girls will congregate during this period and the next is a law unchangeable as the laws of the medes and persians. nurture asks whether the home does not furnish a better environment during this energetic, habit forming and irresponsible period than the corner store or the "gang?" it asks whether the society of those invited within its doors for a good time, under the sympathetic and watchful eye of the father and mother, is not apt to be more conducive to true character building than the society of the chance acquaintance with no credentials save his skill in story telling and initiation into fascinating mysteries? it asks still further, in this age of hero worship, whether the home should not erect the ideals of manhood and womanhood through example, through books, through honored guests who have achieved true distinction instead of delegating this privilege to the group around the bonfire or the man who gathers the admiring circle to listen to the salacious tale? the home which provides for this social craving within its sheltering walls, blending the faces of father and mother with those of companions in the most joyous of good times, and, after the evening altar, when the lights are darkened, knows that each pillow is pressed by its own pure face, that home is a bulwark of the nation and the ante chamber to one of god's many mansions. may god have pity on the thousands of children who live in houses, but are homeless. hero worship in this new interest in his fellows, all figures do not stand out in equal proportion against the child's horizon. some loom very high, and in the inner chamber of the soul, incense is burning at their shrine. out of the earlier interest in people, and desire to imitate their actions, there begins to emerge the great passion of hero worship with all its power in shaping ideals and determining character. if it be true, indeed, that life grows like what it gazes fixedly upon, then nurture has here an important work. the hero of any period must inevitably embody that which the life most admires at the time, hence physical strength and skill, courage and daring will be prominent factors in a boy's hero in this period. this hero may be, perchance, the physical director of the y.m.c.a., the champion baseball or football player, an explorer or adventurer, a desperado, or--happy case--a father who has not forgotten how to swim and fish and hunt and play ball. a boy always longs to place his father on the throne of his heart, if he is given a chance, but the fathers who covet that place enough to pay the price for it are too few. a hard working mechanic said to a friend, "i made up my mind i would rather have a backache when my boys were little than a heartache later on," and so no day's task was so heavy, up toil so exhausting that when he came home at night his two boys could not claim him. the cramped muscles would unlimber behind the bat, the tired limbs would forget their weariness in the jaunt that had been planned with father, and during the hours of freedom the three were chums in sports, in interests, in confidence. they say there is no more beautiful sight in that town today than two stalwart, manly fellows arm in arm with the father, who counts it the joy and pride of his life to have mounted the hero's throne in the hearts of his sons. while boys always choose a man as their hero, girls may choose either the masculine or feminine character. they are still near enough nature's heart to glory in wildness and abandon, and the subtle delicacy of true womanhood has not the charm for them now it will have later. yet it is part of the priceless dower of motherhood to so share in the daughter's life through sympathy and understanding that, to "be like mother" will embody all the aspirations of a girlish heart. "the reading craze" the flame of hero worship is fed from two sources--the life of some one near to the child and the passionate delight in reading which characterizes the years from about ten to fifteen and is especially marked from twelve to fourteen. the choice of books will naturally be governed by the strongest interests. we are not surprised, therefore, that every page must teem with life and chronicle some achievement, preferably in the physical realm, for in the thought of the junior, "greater is he that taketh a city than he who ruleth his own spirit." toward the latter part of this period the sentimental novel, with all of its froth and perverted ideals of life, appeals to the girl, and it is an open question which is more pernicious, "deadwood dick and the indians" or "love at sight." when it is remembered that during these years the desire for reading is so great that it will be satisfied, surreptitiously if not openly, that the heroes and heroines strengthen ideals of their own type in the soul of the child, that these are the years in which taste is being formed, not only in reading but in living, nurture again has a great task outlined. "what is the best way to keep a boy from eating green apples?" a prominent sunday school worker often asks in a convention. the answer never varies: "give him ripe ones to eat." the child who has plenty of well-selected, wholesome literature will have no appetite for the baneful. biography of the heroic type, exploration, adventure and charming romances like the "waverley novels" will help to lay sane and pure foundations of character. the missionary boards are now putting out books as thrilling and stirring in their situations as any yellow-backed novel. these the children devour and the spiritual heroism makes its silent appeal along with the physical. this delight in reading makes comparatively easy the formation of the habit of daily bible reading. if the life is more than meat, then the time taken by the father or mother to select fascinating bible biographies and stories, and tactfully to supervise the reading, is at least as wisely expended as that used in training a grape vine or sewing a lace edge on a ruffle. is it not strange that there is such distorted perspective and false balance of values in regard to what is worth while? the cares of this world crowd out so many supreme things. many a temptation in later life would have its antidote if the holy spirit could bring the needed scripture to mind, but because some one substituted the lesser for the greater, solicitude for external appearance instead of inner furnishing, the word is not there to be recalled. habit formation the discussion of these marked characteristics of the life is given added import when we realize that these years are in the height of the habit forming period. all through early childhood and childhood every act has left its faint tracing upon the plastic cells of the brain, and some of the markings are deep ere now. just as water will follow its channel rather than cut a new course, so activity will expend itself in the well-traced pathways unless prevented from so doing, and the same thought or stimulus will always tend to go out in the same action. no thinking is necessary upon these habitual acts which constitute "nine tenths of life"--they have become mechanical. not only in the body does life acquire fixed habits, but also in the soul, in thinking, feeling and choosing. the seriousness as well as the value of a habit lies in its tenacity. no harder task ever confronts a life than to break up one habit and substitute another after the brain cells grow hard. the process requires not only that activity be directed away from the pathway that irresistibly draws it, but at the same time a new groove be traced upon the hard, unyielding cells. the task is difficult beyond expression. this is why reformed men always have a hidden fear of lapsing into the former life. it is the call of the old pathway, traced so deeply in the brain. a mature woman, brought up to the strictest sabbath observance, came to believe that "the sabbath was made for man and not man for the sabbath," and therefore essayed to act on that day according to her reason and judgment. the attempt was soon abandoned. "there is no pleasure in it," she said. "i am constantly fighting the old habits of my girlhood life, and they will not cease their call to me." this is what the wise king meant when he said, "train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it." the whole tendency is to "ask for the old paths," that there "may be rest to the soul." a part of the miracle of conversion in later life appears in god's power to trace new pathways when the brain is hardened, and to keep life in them, moment by moment, against the tug of the old. three statements will crystallize the discussion. first: the years up to twelve present two conditions for habit formation--plastic brain cells and action easily secured--as no succeeding years present them. second: habit formation, either right or wrong, is constantly going on, for every action leaves its impress and makes repetition easier. third: right habits may be formed as easily as wrong, if the task is definitely undertaken. since the importance of these years is clearly evident, the method of habit formation may be briefly stated. first, secure the desired action; second, secure its successive repetition without a lapse, as far as possible. we have already learned that action is the natural result of an aroused feeling; therefore, nurture will endeavor to make the act attractive and appealing where it can be done, that the cordial co-operation of the child may be had. hero worship may aid here, the example in the home is imperative and future considerations begin to carry weight. encouragement, recognition, new interest and new motives will all contribute toward securing repetition, until unconsciously the action carries its own constraint and outer influence is unnecessary. the "golden memory period" during the years from about nine to fifteen memory is in its most glorious period for storing away. in early life a fact is retained chiefly through its impress on the soft brain cells, for the power of association is little developed. in later life a fact is retained almost wholly through association with other facts, for the cells grow hard and an imprint therefore is faint. in the "golden memory period" the fact has the double hold of impress and association, for the cells are still plastic and associative powers are developed. the task and its haste are evident, for this dual condition never recurs. the brain will now receive everything, the abstract, that which is not understood, the uninteresting, as well as that which is pleasing. this is the drill period, when mechanical repetition will fix anything, regardless of the child's desire to learn, and full comprehension is unnecessary. it is also the period of verbal memory, and that which ought to be memorized exactly should be given now. religious life if nurture has cared for the spiritual life of the child, he will probably desire during this period to publicly confess his love for jesus christ. even if he has not been so nurtured, every condition in his life makes it easier now than it ever will be later to lead him to acceptance of christ. though there comes a great spiritual awakening in adolescence, there is at the same time more in the life to oppose the decision for christ than in childhood. the christian life has not the meaning for him that it will have later on, spiritual vision is not broad nor deep, but if the child genuinely loves the savior and wants to use his energy for him, he is laying at the master's feet all he has now to give, and if christ accepts the gift, the church ought to accept the giver. there is no greater crime against childhood than to bar the doors to these babes in christ, nor, assuredly, can any act bring keener pain to the passionate lover of little children, who said, "let them come unto me, and forbid them not." application to sunday school work perhaps a resume of the conditions which the sunday school must meet in this period will make the situation more definite. the child is increasingly independent and outspoken, but easily won by love and confidence. he responds to responsibility, craves recognition, glories in show and regalia, wants to know the truth about things. he is a hero worshipper, abounds with energy and considers it his inalienable right to have fun with his chums. he devours books and magazines, retains what he reads and memorizes as never before. he is forming habits of life. he ought to be a sincere child christian before he leaves the junior department. manifestly, in dealing with this period, the problem of nurture must find a large part of its solution in the teacher himself. three things must be vitally true of the one holding this responsible office: first, an abiding touch with god that shall mean divine wisdom, moment by moment, for the exegencies of junior work far outnumber the tread mill experiences; second, an understanding of and genuine sympathy with the life of the children; third, a personality that shall meet the conditions of hero worship. some day the church will give to every boys' class, in this and succeeding periods, a trained christian man to be hero first, and then teacher, for no boy aspires to be like a woman, no matter how much he may love her. but, though a woman may not reach up to a boy's ideals along physical lines, nor should she attempt it, there is abundant opportunity through outings, tramps, picnics and genuine interest in their sports to touch even that side of the life of both boys and girls. the social needs must be met through frequent class and department gatherings, preferably in the homes, for the habit of reverence in god's house will receive almost fatal counteraction in the average social gathering of this age held in the church. organizations like the "knights of king arthur," for boys, and the "sunshine club," for girls, are to be highly commended because of their social features, their appeal to the love of uniform, password and secrets, to hero worship and to activity through the ideals of life and service they make concrete and alluring. discipline of these independent, outspoken boys and girls is easy if the teacher will only lay hold of the heart instead of the coat collar, but, alas, the latter method takes less time. the world holds nothing truer and sweeter than the love of a child at this age, free as it is from all affectation and policy, and it is there in every heart, awaiting the touch of the teacher who can find the hidden spring. the contact on sunday is not sufficient, however, to reveal it. the child must know through the letter, the call, the invitation to the teacher's home, the loving sympathy in his life and interests that the teacher wants him, not his golden text and offering, and in this knowledge the magic spring is found. besides the social life, the teacher should feel a responsibility in regard to what the children are reading. papers like the youth's companion circulated among the members, suggestions as to books in the sunday school or public library, books loaned to the children and questions as to their reading may save many a soul from the slimy trail of the serpent coiled in the dime novel. a few suggestions may be added relative to the work in the school itself. place the juniors should have a separate department and place, for their work is distinct in character and methods from the primary and intermediate departments. maps and charts should be added to the equipment, individual and personally owned bibles, and where they can be had, tables for each class. organization for two important reasons the department should be divided into classes and the teaching done by the teachers, presupposing they have risen to their privilege and are trained. first, the week-day shepherding becomes an increasingly serious matter as the child is broadening in his relationships, and no superintendent can give it alone. second, the recitation must give large opportunity for individual work on the part of the pupil during the lesson, and this is impossible in a department taught as a whole. program the program should give prominence to supplemental work taught largely through drills, including--during the golden memory period--the books of the bible, passages, chapters, facts concerning the bible and training in its use, geography of the holy land, the catechism where used and the hymns of the church. public recognition in badges, certificates and roll of honor will aid in securing the desired work along this and other lines. systematic and careful training in habits of christian service ranks with the lesson in importance. responsibilities in various committees through the week may be used to strengthen habits and utilize energy. missionary heroes should be made as familiar to the children as their own personal friends, and there should be regular contributions to definite objects, not abstractions like "missions" or "benevolences." music of a martial type is greatly enjoyed by the children, also that suggesting action, but never the meditative, introspective sort. great care should be taken to guard the voices from overstrain in loud singing, as irreparable damage may be done for all time to come. the lesson the junior lesson should be prepared to meet the children's interest in facts and love of a hero. they are not ready yet for truth in the abstract--it must be seen in a person. instead of the story, as in the primary class, there must be a mingling of vivid word pictures by the teacher and question and answer. the children should not be told to "study the lesson," for they do not know how, but rather have assigned to them one definite thing to prepare for the recitation. make use of their love of reading in this connection. use energy and hold attention by means of pad and pencil, written answers in the books they are making on the current lessons, map drawing, looking up references and a stereoscope if possible. time before the session and in the social gatherings of the class can be most fascinatingly and profitably used in making pulp and sand maps and models of oriental objects. toward the latter part of this period, a questioning in regard to divine things may come, but a questioning unmixed with the doubt of later years. "and when he was twelve years old, ... they found him in the temple, sitting in the midst of the doctors, both hearing them and asking them questions." with this desire to know reasons for belief comes the teacher's golden opportunity for strengthening the foundations of faith through history and the testimony of ancient monuments, where it can be adduced, through experience and through god's word itself. may nurture be so true to god and the life that the child shall leave his childhood and face the dawn of manhood as that one of old with the eager heart and heavenly vision, "wist ye not that i must be about my father's business?" chapter vii adolescence between the quiet unfolding of childhood and the full development of maturity, there lies a period so fraught with danger and so filled with opportunity, that it is rightly considered life's crisis. a mistake at this point is more disastrous than at any other, while wisdom in dealing with the soul never has such rich reward. in a general way, this period, known as adolescence, extends with boys from about twelve to twenty-four, and with girls from about eleven to twenty-one, or from the beginning of manhood and womanhood to full maturing. a study of the conditions that obtain during these years clearly reveals the reason for their crucial character. 1. it is an awakening time of new possibilities, physical, mental, moral and spiritual. we are already familiar with the peril and opportunity that attend the first stages of any development, because the future direction and strength of the possibility are then so largely determined. when we realize that the highest possibilities of the soul, as well as some of the lowest, are now unfolding, the gravity of the period is apparent. the changes that come with the soul's awakening are so great, that often the youth becomes a stranger to those who know him best. ideals, ambitions, feelings, thoughts and power only dimly, if ever, recognized in childhood take possession of the life. a new conception of god is born and a larger sense of responsibility to him, to the neighbor and to the world. in these awakening possibilities are heard the siren voices of passion, society, wealth and fame and the clear call of self-sacrifice and duty, and the soul is bewildered, not knowing which to heed. surely nurture is needed, for the choices of adolescence are in all probability the choices of eternity. 2. these are the years of the greatest susceptibility to influence. everything that comes to the life now has an impelling force that it did not have in childhood. life is in a state of unstable equilibrium, and a touch may move it. the influence of one book, of one friend, of one hasty word of criticism or passing word of encouragement may determine the future of a soul. 3. during this period habits become permanent. the pathways traced through childhood and adolescence become settled, the cells gradually lose power to change, and by the close of adolescence, character is practically determined, unless a divine power "makes all things new." 4. the influence of heredity is strongly felt during the early part of adolescence. a child may be defrauded of his inheritance in stocks and bonds and estates, but the bequest of tendencies to which his parents and grandparents and the long line back have made him heir, can not be diverted. there is danger of over-emphasizing the doctrine of heredity and lessening the sense of personal responsibility for conduct. there is also danger of minimizing it, and consequently failing to give the help that many a life needs in its effort to overcome an evil inheritance. heredity means simply a pull upon the life in a certain direction, because of the way those before have lived. it is easier to climb upward, if "the hands of twenty generations are reached down from the heights to help, than as if they reached up from below to drag down." but whatever the inherited tendencies, any life may have the "antithetic heredity," which is a part of its glorious inheritance in jesus christ. 5. this period contains the largest number of first commitments for crime. three coincident facts demand serious and careful consideration. first. the greatest number of first commitments occur from twelve to sixteen. second. the greatest spiritual awakenings occur between twelve and sixteen. third. "girls are most susceptible to influence for good or evil between eleven to seventeen, with the climax about fourteen, and boys from twelve to nineteen, with the climax about sixteen." is not the work of nurture plain? 6. during the early part of this period, by far the heaviest losses from church and sunday school occur. "while thy servant was busy here and there, he was gone." who was gone? a soul in its crisis, making eternal choices, easily influenced by a word, a look or a touch, in the grip of fierce temptations, but catching sight of divine possibilities, needing help as at no time before or later, this is the soul that slipped away, in all probability, not to be brought back. you who let it slip, "how will you go up to your father and the lad be not with you?" in turning to a more detailed consideration of adolescence, we find the wealth of material so far exceeding the limitations of our space, that the study must be selective, not analytic. only those conditions in the life, therefore, which seem most imperative in their demands upon nurture will be chosen for discussion. early adolescence the first period of adolescence covers about four years, approximately from twelve to sixteen with boys and eleven to fifteen with girls, and is perhaps the most trying of all to deal with. the crisis in these years is a physical one, arising in connection with the functioning of new physical powers. coincident with this the passions are born, bringing to many lives the severest of temptations. if ever a close intimacy is needed between father and son and mother and daughter, it is at this time of mystery and question, when the life does not understand itself nor the meaning of what god now gives it. the sacred confidence between parent and child is infinitely better than the best intended book upon the subject, which arouses further curiosity and kindles the imagination. when the home fails in nurture at this point, the sunday school teacher must earnestly consider what of responsibility falls upon him. the rapid physical growth of these years is often accompanied by awkwardness, due to the fact that the muscles are developing faster than the bones, making delicate adjustment impossible. there is painful sensitiveness over this, especially with boys, as hands and feet must be in the open, and they will easily construe any criticism or ridicule into a desire to be rid of their presence. " ... and what if their feet, sent out of houses, sent into the street, should step round the corner and pause at the door where other boys' feet have paused often before; should pass through the gateway of glittering light, where jokes that are merry and songs that are bright ring out a warm welcome with flattering voice, and temptingly say, 'here's a place for the boys!' ah, what if they should! what if your boy or mine should cross o'er the threshold which marks out the line 'twixt virtue and vice, 'twixt pureness and sin, and leave all his innocent boyhood within? ah, what if they should, because you and i, while the days and the months and the years hurry by, are too busy with cares and with life's fleeting toys to make round our hearthstone a place for the boys." there is a sense of pressure and nervous excitement throughout the whole life, for the "invoice of energy" is not exhausted. athletics afford physical relief, and slang, which is at its height from about thirteen to fifteen, offers somewhat of an emotional safety-valve. experiences are never commonplace during this period, nor any individual ordinary. the strongest superlatives and most extravagant metaphors will scarcely do a situation adequate justice, but nurture can afford to be patient, for "this, too, will pass," and of itself, as life grows calmer. the feverish excitement is not at all to the distaste of the adolescent but, on the contrary, he courts it. the "reading craze" is at its height in this period, and books which give "thrills" are sought by both boys and girls. there is increasing necessity of wise oversight in the choice of reading when the mind is so inflammable and easily led, and the fact that a book is on the shelf of the sunday school library is unhappily not always a guarantee against the need of further parental inspection. the abounding energy of this period, when brought into conjunction with the enlarged vision of life, often gives rise to a restlessness and desire, to leave school and go to work. this is augmented by the new money sense, which is strong about the age of fourteen, and leads to an effort to secure money to save as well as to spend. this desire ought to be met by a regular allowance or an opportunity for earning a stipulated sum. its neglect is often the explanation for the breaking open of sunday school banks or theft from household funds. but even the satisfying of this desire will not allay restlessness, and many a school-room seat becomes vacant in the early teens. if, instead of the harsh measures so often used, the boy could know he had not only the loving sympathy but also the pride of his parents in this harbinger of approaching manhood; if, in place of force, he were given choice, after all the considerations had been carefully weighed; if he could feel the confidence of father and mother that he would do the manly thing because he is almost a man, he would rarely fail to meet the issue, for "at no time in life will a human being respond so heartily if treated by older and wise people as if he were an equal." the result will be not only renewed zest in the erstwhile hated task, but a new bond between parents and son that will help to hold him true when greater crises come. the strong appeal that sympathy and consideration now make to the adolescent is due to the new consciousness of self that has come to the life. it has many manifestations. there is a welcome external one that is evident in care for the personal appearance. the days of maternal solicitude for linen and ears come to an end in this period, and it is well, for the new standard of correctness is so high as to be unattainable by any one save the individual himself. a new sense of pride in one's family and position appears, and an aristocracy based on the accidents of birth succeeds the democracy of childhood. the girl who was sincerely thankful that she was not as others and assumed pharisaic superiority because she had been born a republican, an allopath and, crown of all, a baptist, lived in this period some years ago. this consciousness of self and of approaching manhood and womanhood tends to make the life independent, and "any attempt to treat a child at adolescence as an inferior is instantly fatal to good discipline." in this super-sensitive state, a public reproof, even in the home circle, carries with it humiliation beyond expression, and inevitably arouses resentment and not penitence. "at no time in life does a word of encouragement mean so much, or criticism leave such an ineffaceable scar." if those who touch a life through its unfolding only realized that what they sow of gentleness and consideration or of harshness and neglect when that life is defenceless and they are strong will be reaped when they in turn are without recourse and the child has become a man, would there not be more tenderness and love in some homes? "for with the same measure that ye mete, withal, it shall be measured to you again." another condition of great import to nurture appears in the increasing power of the social feelings over the life. society begins to fascinate, and the problem of a high school education is complicated with the problem of secret societies and school dances. friends are chosen not so much for real worth as for clothes, position, attractive features or, where there is no interchange of confidences between parents and children, for sympathetic understanding. the longing for companionship is god given and must be fostered, else the youth will enter maturity a recluse and self-occupied, but nurture must carefully deal with it while life is in a state of flux. the only course to be at all considered is a substitutive, not prohibitory one, giving opportunity for social intercourse under proper conditions. the development of the affectional side of the life during this period must be briefly noted. hero love and worship are more passionate than before. the object of admiration is usually some one outside of the home, often a favorite teacher who understands the heart of a boy and a girl. the patterning of the life after its ideal is most seriously undertaken, even to imitation of personal mannerisms. the privilege and responsibility of being the lode star of an unresisting, unpoised life is tremendous, for this influence overpowers all others at the time. strange manifestations of that which will later be love, holy and beautiful, between man and woman characterize these years. at first there is a mutual repulsion between the sexes. the boys are "so rough and horrid," and as for the girls--the masculine sentiment concerning them was voiced by one young cavalier in the words, "oh, mush!" when his sunday school class was asked if they would like to invite their "lady friends" to the coming class party. but this stage does not continue, and soon nurture must deal with notes written by foolish maidens and the first glamour of the great passion, "sicklied o'er" with callowness and sentimentality. there is no more perplexing problem in adolescence than how to handle wisely this vernal manifestation of love. blessed is the home where there are congenial and sympathetic brothers and sisters, and wholesome and absorbing occupations. it is the vacuous, roaming soul which is a prey to the multi-temptations of this period. if the tastes and wishes of the young people can be satisfied in the home, and a hearty and natural companionship of the sexes be welcomed in this healthy environment, nurture will be bringing sanest measures to bear upon the situation. against this complex background, the necessity of a personal acquaintance with the lord jesus christ stands out in startling relief. though god comes to a soul in a marked way during adolescence, nurture is taking a dangerous and often fatal risk in allowing life, as far as human effort can go, to enter its crisis without him. the spiritual awakening of this period (to be considered in the succeeding chapter) would seem to be god's call to larger service, rather than his first summons to "follow me." with the master's authority to let the children come, and with every condition in child life god prepared for their coming, there is no tenable position but belief that our father meant every life to enter its period of "storm and stress," in step with jesus christ. application to sunday school work sunday school work during adolescence and maturity lays less emphasis upon methods and equipment than in the earlier periods, and more emphasis on the personal relation between teacher and pupil. for this reason the preceding study, in so far as it interprets the lives of the boys and girls, applies directly to sunday school work, for a sympathetic understanding is the key to the relationship. "there is no greater blessing that can come to a boy (or girl) at this age when he does not understand himself, than a good, strong teacher who understands him, has faith in him, and will day by day lead him till he can walk alone." far more than a pedagogue, the adolescent needs a friend in his sunday school teacher, who shares his ambitions, knows his temptations, sympathizes with his successes and failures and, through it all, trusts him. this understanding and confidence, made long-suffering and tender by the love that never fails, will be a binding cord that can not be broken even by the most restless, wayward life. because of the close relationship to be sought between teacher and pupil, other things being equal, it is wise for a class of boys to be taught by a man, and girls by a woman. the counsel of one who has passed through the same experiences and known the same temptations and difficulties always comes with especial helpfulness. but the question of sex is not as vital as that of sympathy, nor the manner of previous experience as the manner of present love. the new consciousness of distinction will make the class work difficult, if there is any marked difference in the social standing of its members. the leader must be won to the right attitude in private, the appeal being based on personal feeling for the teacher and on the new ideals of relationship to others, which are beginning to take form. an organization of the class in this and succeeding periods is necessary for the best work. it should place definite responsibilities upon each member, either as officer or committee-man, for habits of christian service must be solicitously nurtured during these days. frequent social gatherings are very important. this is the age when the young people begin to think that, "a christian can not have any fun," and it rests with the church and sunday school to prove to them the contrary. the only convincing proof is in experiencing the fact itself that the best times have a religious association, therefore a class party should be as carefully and as prayerfully planned as a sunday school lesson. as these years are included in the golden memory-period, supplemental work of more advanced type should be continued. note books are helpful in amplifying and impressing the lesson, and brief essays upon pertinent topics add interest. the teaching itself must deal more and more with the relationships of life. to the majority of young people, the bible belongs to an uncertain and remote past. the goal of work in these unsettled years is to help them see how the book solves all problems of present-day living, and how jesus christ meets every personal need of the life. chapter viii middle and late adolescence the crisis of adolescence may be said to culminate about the years from fifteen to seventeen with girls, and sixteen to eighteen with boys, or the period of middle adolescence. during these years the feelings and the imagination are a great storm center, largely because of the rapid development of the altruistic feelings, and the enlarged conception of life with the new ideals it has given. divine wisdom in the order of the soul's unfolding can be seen nowhere more clearly than in connection with the growth of responsibility for another. there must first be the self feelings in the little child, to help him learn his own individuality. when that knowledge comes, his life must be related to other lives, hence the social feelings awaken, yet it is for his personal pleasure that contact with others is sought. but god's plan for a life does not leave it self centered, and under his touch through these lives a sense of responsibility toward them begins to be felt, and the realization comes that "no man liveth unto himself." ideals which make the good of others first, enter into conflict with childish ideals which made personal gain first. a new impulse to forget self in loving service confronts the old self seeking and self love. then the truth that "no man can serve two masters," fastens itself upon the soul and decision waits between self and selflessness. in a struggle that often shakes a life to its foundations, the great choice is made and the soul yields itself servant to obey. though a reversal of either choice is possible, it rarely occurs. this decision usually determines destiny. a new meaning and value in early nurture is revealed in the light of this struggle. if love for jesus christ has grown through the years in the heart of the child and the youth, a decision that means fuller allegiance to him and greater blessing to the world is assured. if also during these years nurture has traced pathways of service, as an expression of child love to god and to others, habit adds the influence of its tendencies to the choice of ministering life, and offers channels already prepared for the outflow of sacrificial love. the years preceding have not been utterly devoid of altruistic feeling, but adolescence presents marked difference in its manifestation, other than that of intensity. in early life, the willingness to consider others before self was usually aroused through the influence of some one else; now the longing and constraint is within the individual himself. again, in childhood, these feelings were called out only by some definite, concrete object; now they are stimulated by great ideas as well. patriotism, humanity, suffering, duty, art and science have power to kindle flame on the altar of sacrifice. the more difficult the task suggested, the greater the power of its wooing. it is doubtful whether any christian life ever passes through this period without considering the ministry or the mission field, or whether every life does not at some moment long to go in quest of a holy grail. the issues growing out of this crisis are too momentous to leave with even the wisest human nurture. god himself must deal with the soul face to face, and lead it to this higher love and complete surrender. in early years he revealed himself as creator, heavenly father and friend to the loving, trusting heart of the little child. now the time has come to make his glory pass before the soul. the marvels of creation in nature, in constellation and atom, the infinities of eternity and space, the mysteries of life and death, his own holiness and justice and all the attributes of his matchless character, the unspeakable love that gave a bethlehem and a calvary to a sin sick race are revealed in new light and meaning, and the revelation is overwhelming. existence that had been accepted without question now becomes complex and baffling. god is no longer the gentle lover and strong protector of childhood days, but the great "i am," and in the terrible crystal of his presence the soul is prostrate. with deep, added meaning the cross stands out. its message of salvation, not only to this soul conscious of its need, but to a sinning world, is heard anew; but with it comes the voice of the crucified and risen lord, "if any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross and follow me." the answer cannot be returned in emotional love. it must be the love of all the heart, soul, mind and strength, born in self surrender. if this be the soul's response, the final triumph and glory of the life of self losing is pledged, not in the fluctuating efforts of a human will, but in the changeless strength of the son of god. it is not to be wondered at that when a soul is in the throes of such experiences as these, it is a time of storm and stress. yet often the struggle is carried on alone, in silence, for life becomes secretive. the open frankness of childhood is gone, and only to one in close sympathy will thoughts and feelings which sound foundation depths be revealed. it does not at all follow that because there is a physical tie between two lives, that there will be union of spirit in this time of need. the tragedy of so many homes is disclosed in the distance between father and son, and mother and daughter, that has widened almost imperceptibly through the years from lack of sympathy and confidence. this close relationship which admits to the holy place of the soul in its crisis cannot be lightly cast away, and as easily renewed at will. it is a growth of the years, to be nurtured patiently, prayerfully, watchfully, steadily. a guest in the home of a busy physician noted the peculiarly tender and close relationship which existed between the father and his son, a splendid boy of about ten years of age. in answer to her comment upon it, the father said with moist eyes, "we are very close to one another. i know there is a time coming in his life when he will need a father as he has never needed him before, and i mean to be ready. i never take a long drive in the country, that i do not have him excused from school to go with me. he wants to be a surgeon, so whenever i have to perform an operation, i always have him help me in some way. up to this time there is nothing that weighs for a minute with him over against an opportunity to be with me, and i am trying to keep his life so close to mine that nothing can ever come between us." when that boy reaches his crisis and life closes up, his father will be shut inside with him. is there any question as to the outcome, with a father and a father's god within? if, in the busy cares of life, the intimacy that god intended in the home has been lost, it may be found again if the price of its recovery be paid, but it is often a dear price, payable in the coin of self humiliation, sacrifice and tears. the need of this close touch with another is apparent in the unspeakable longing of the adolescent heart for understanding and sympathy, for appreciation and recognition, for help in choosing the life work, and for love that is patient and deep. perhaps the greatest longing of all is to be trusted, to feel the strong grip of a hand and hear a voice vibrant with encouragement and assurance say, "i know you can do it." if the greatest successes in reformatory work come today through loving confidence in the one who has started wrong, who can measure the energizing power of such confidence in a life already striving toward the best? the pathetic side of this craving for confidence appears in the distrust of self which is almost universal at times during these years. a great wave of ambition and enthusiasm will sweep over the soul, and nothing seems too great to be attained, nor any obstacles unsurmountable. as suddenly it will recede, the ideals become impossible, the individual but an atom in god's great universe, the sky grows gray and hope dies out. in the vacillation between energy and indifference, enthusiasm and apathy, self loving and self hating, goodness and badness, confidence and despair, the ebb and flow of the tide in the soul is revealed to understanding eyes. for this fluctuation of purpose and failure to reach its high ideals, stern sentence is passed at the inner bar of judgment, and though the censure of another is resented, the soul bears great scars of flagellation, self inflicted. the standard of measurement by which the life tests itself and others is a new consciousness that there is absolute right and absolute wrong apart from all external coverings. the statements of others are examined, their actions are stripped of all veneer, profession and practice are balanced, and death sentence is passed upon the influence of any life that fails to meet the test. the compassion that remembers that we are but dust has no place in the heart as yet. suffering will call out sympathy, but not failure to reach the mark. a life must ring true to god, true to its fellow men and true to the ideals conceived as belonging to it by these self-appointed judges, if it is to be of any help to them. it is therefore not a question whether the professing christian, be he parent, teacher or church member, can indulge in doubtful amusements or uncertain practices without injury to himself. it is rather, "are these things included in the ideal of a christian life, as it is held by those whom i want to touch?" if they who bear the name of christ exemplified more completely the ideals by which they are measured, would there be so many who question the reality of divine things? it is during the closing period of adolescence, ending with young men about twenty-four and with young women about twenty-one, that doubt most frequently appears. it comes rather as a questioning and bewilderment to the christian, and scepticism to the one who has had no experience of divine things. spiritual truth is not accepted because another has said it is so, but each desires to know for himself the foundation upon which he stands, that he may have a reason for the hope that is in him. investigation seems to show that at least two out of three pass through this period of intellectual unrest, young men being in the majority. many causes contribute to this condition, but chief among them is the maturing strength of reason and will. the new power to think god's thoughts after him, to trace cause and effect, to understand subtle relationships, intoxicates the soul. everywhere in the world around, the pre-eminence of reason is acknowledged. the atmosphere of the university and the college which surrounds the favored young men and women is an atmosphere of scientific accuracy, where reason applies the tests. the world of business, of finance and of statecraft all bow to reason,--why not the spiritual world, and then by searching, the soul attempts to find out god. as in the wisdom of god divine things do not yield up their treasures in intellectual investigation but in revelation, the thick darkness gathers. even that which had been once known by faith seems strange and unreal from this new view point. it is a critical time for a soul when it is learning that in one realm reason does not go before, but faith. any harshness or lack of sympathy on the part of another or evident disappointment in the life is very serious at this point. the will asserts itself under such measures and from the pliant attitude, "i cannot believe what i cannot explain," it takes the defiant attitude, "i will not believe what i cannot explain." the marvelous dealing of our lord with thomas is a picture of his gracious dealing with every doubting heart, and ought to be the perpetual model for every one who attempts to give help at this time. when the master stood before that disciple who said he would not believe unless he had the indubitable proof of a physical testing, he spoke no words of censure, no words of his pain that thomas had been so long time with him and yet did not know him in faith. "jesus said, 'peace be unto you. reach hither thy finger, and see my hands, and reach thither thy hand and put it into my side and be not faithless but believing,' and thomas answered and said unto him, 'my lord and my god!'" with like patience and infinite tenderness, the spirit deals with the troubled heart today. he makes the past days with god live again in memory, if the life has known him, and the soul can not deny in its reason the reality of what it has lived through in its experience. he uses every christian life that can bear the search light as an irrefutable argument of the verity of the unseen. he brings the peace of god that passeth understanding, yet fills and thrills the soul as every service for him is rendered even in the darkness. he calls through hard experience where reason can bring no comfort and the will is palsied, through the abiding unrest and longing of a heart that is feeling after god in its own way, instead of his, and through the drawing of childhood habits of love and trust. when at last, spent out with struggle and longing, the soul is willing to come back to the heavenly father as the little child who used to be, asking only to walk hand in his, in dark or light, a new consciousness dawns, clear, sure and absolute that, "thus saith the lord," is more than reason, and the triumphant song rings out, "i know whom i have believed, my lord and my god!" application to sunday school work the sunday school touches a life just entering maturity at the focal point toward which all nurture has been tending. enriched by years of absorption, with ideals defined and channels of expression traced, the soul faces an open door, bearing the inscript "service." it is that each soul may enter the door and give back to a waiting world its best, that nurture has brooded and guarded through the years. the great work of the sunday school is to impel the soul to take this step, and taking it, say, "i am debtor." this can not be done through any system of methods, neither are narrow interests or unexacting tasks sufficient to arouse all that the soul has now to give. the great sweep and mighty force of world movements are alone adequate for a soul in touch with god and infinities. there has never been a time in the history of sunday school work when there were such far reaching, thrilling movements through which to appeal to manhood and womanhood as at the present time, and god's hand is not hidden in the matter. the adult bible class movement, enlisting the greatest company of thinking men and women ever gathered for the study of the word, is a call to open loyalty to the book and to the church, that is winning recruits by the thousands. the great teacher training movement, with its exacting standards and high ideals of preparation, is leading the choicest young people to seek the holy service of teaching. the world encircling missionary movements, the definite plan to give the gospel to every man, woman and child in this generation, the marvellous ingatherings already reported from the foreign field, the unparalleled opportunities to make richest investment of life in the waking orient, these arouse the enthusiasm and conviction which issue in prayers and gifts and pledge of student volunteers. in our own land, the ethical awakening with its triumphs for temperance and civic righteousness, the great conventions and conferences held for the kingdom, the sweeping evangelistic campaigns with their trophies for christ, and the new life stirring in the church, movements all, god initiated, god directed, throbbing with his almighty power and revealing the oncoming of his triumph, these give the challenge and the inspiration to men and women, and response is coming in ever swelling volume, "here am i, send me!" it is the crowning mission of the sunday school to relate these great interests to individual lives, and interpret for them the meaning in terms of love and service. to whom shall the task be given? to the teacher of transparent life, who can hold the world and the one in his heart, who can read the signs of the times and the signs of the soul, and who has nurtured with the divine one through the years, to him shall be given god's crowning task with an unfolding life. children's ways by the same author. _the human mind_: a text-book of psychology. 2 vols. 8vo, 21s. _outlines of psychology._ crown 8vo, 9s. _the teacher's handbook of psychology._ crown 8vo, 5s. _studies of childhood._ 8vo, 10s. 6d. longmans, green, and co., london, new york, and bombay. children's ways being selections from the author's _studies of childhood_, with some additional matter by james sully, m.a., ll.d. grote professor of philosophy of mind and logic, university college, london longmans, green, and co. 39 paternoster row, london and bombay 1897 aberdeen university press. preface. the kindly welcome accorded by the press to my volume _studies of childhood_ has suggested to me that there was much in it which might be made attractive to a wider class of readers than that addressed in a psychological work. i have, accordingly, prepared the following selections, cutting out abstruse discussions, dropping as far as possible technical language, and adapting the style to the requirements of the general reader. in order to shorten the work the last two chapters--"extracts from a father's diary" and "george sand's childhood"--have been omitted. the order of treatment has been altered somewhat, and a number of stories has been added. i hope that the result may succeed in recommending what has long been to myself one of the most delightful of subjects to many who would not be disposed to read a larger and more difficult work, and to draw on a few of these, at least, to a closer and more serious inspection of it. contents. part i.--at play. chapter page i. the realm of fancy 1 the transforming wand 2 fancy's resting-places 6 in storyland 8 ii. the enchantment of play 13 the young pretender 13 mysteries of dolldom 18 serious side of play 25 part ii.--at work. iii. attacking our language 29 the namer of things 30 the sentence-builder 33 the interpreter of words 36 iv. the serious searcher 40 the thoughtful observer 40 the pertinacious questioner 44 v. first thoughts: (_a_) the natural world 54 the fashion of things 54 the bigger world 58 dreams 61 birth and growth 64 vi. first thoughts: (_b_) self and other mysteries 68 the visible self 68 the hidden self 72 the unreachable past 73 the supernatural world 76 the great maker 78 vii. the battle with fears: (_a_) the onslaught 85 the battery of sounds 87 the alarmed sentinel 90 viii. the battle with fears (_continued_) 97 the assault of the beasts 97 the night attack 100 (_b_) damage of the onslaught 104 (_c_) recovery from the onslaught 108 ix. good and bad in the making 112 traces of the brute 112 the promise of humanity 119 the lapse into lying 124 fealty to truth 131 x. rebel and subject 135 (_a_) the struggle with law: first tussle with authority 135 evading the law 137 the plea for liberty 140 (_b_) on the side of law 142 the young stickler for the proprieties 143 the enforcer of rules 145 xi. at the gate of the temple 151 the greeting of beauty 151 first peep into the art-world 156 first ventures in creation 161 xii. first pencillings 171 the human face divine 174 the vile body 177 side views of things 184 children's ways. part i. at play. chapter i. the realm of fancy. one of the few things we seemed to be certain of with respect to child-nature was that it is fancy-full. childhood, we all know, is the age for dreaming; for living a life of happy make-believe. even here, however, we want more accurate observation. for one thing, the play of infantile imagination is probably much less uniform than is supposed. there seem to be very serious children who rarely, if ever, indulge in a wild fancy. mr. ruskin has recently told us that when a child he was incapable of acting a part or telling a tale, that he never knew a child "whose thirst for visible fact was at once so eager and so methodic". one may, nevertheless, safely say that a large majority of the little people are, for a time at least, fancy-bound. a child that did not want to play and cared nothing for the marvels of storyland would surely be regarded as queer and not just what a child ought to be. supposing that this is the correct view, there still remains the question whether children's imagination always plays in the same fashion. now science is beginning to bring to light differences of childish fancy. for one thing it suggests that children have their favourite type of mental imagery, that one child's fancy may habitually move in a coloured world, another in a world of sounds, and so forth. the fascination of _robinson crusoe_ to many a boy lies in the wealth of images of movement and adventure which it supplies. with this difference in the material with which a child's fancy plays, there are other differences which turn on his temperament and predominant feelings. hence, the familiar fact that in some children imagination broods by preference on gloomy and alarming objects, whereas in others it selects what is bright and gladsome. perhaps i have said enough to justify my plea for new observations and for a reconsideration of hasty theories in the light of these. nor need we object to a fresh survey of what is perhaps the most delightful side of child-life. (_a_) _the transforming wand._ the play of young fancy meets us in the very domain of the senses: it is active, often bewilderingly active, when the small person seems busily engaged in looking at things and moving among them. we see this fanciful "reading" of things when a child calls the star an "eye," i suppose because of its brightness and its twinkling movement, or says that a dripping plant is "crying". this transforming touch of the magic wand of young fancy has something of crude nature-poetry in it. this is abundantly illustrated in what may be called childish metaphors, by which they try to describe what is new and strange. for example, a little boy of nineteen months looking at his mother's spectacles said: "little windows". another boy two years and five months, on looking at the hammers of a piano which his mother was playing, called out: "there is owlegie" (diminutive of owl). his eye had instantly caught the similarity between the round felt disc of the hammer divided by a piece of wood, and the owl's face divided by its beak. in like manner another little boy called a small oscillating compass-needle a "bird" probably on the ground of its fluttering movement. pretty conceits are often resorted to in this effort to get at home with strange objects, as when stars were described by one child as "cinders from god's stove," and butterflies as "pansies flying". this play of imagination upon the world of sense has a strong vitalising or personifying element. a child is apt to attribute life and sensation to what we serious people regard as lifeless. thus he gives not only a body but a soul to the wind when it whistles or howls at night. the most unpromising things come in for this warming, life-giving touch of a child's fancy. thus one little fellow, aged one year eight months, conceived a special fondness for the letter w, addressing it thus: "dear old boy w". miss ingelow tells us that when a child she used to feel sorry for the pebbles in the causeway for having to lie always in one place, and would carry them to another place for a change. it is hard for us elders to get back to this childish way of looking at things. one may however hazard the guess that there is in it a measure of dreamy illusion. this means that only a part of what is present is seen, the part which makes the new object like the old and familiar one. and so it gets transformed into a semblance of the old one; just as a rock gets transformed for our older eyes into the semblance of a human face. there is another way in which children's fancy may transmute the objects of sense. mr. ruskin tells us that when young he got to connect or "associate" the name "crocodile" so closely with the creature that when he saw it printed it would take on something of the look of the beast's lanky body. how far, one wonders, does this process of transformation of external objects go in the case of imaginative children? it is not improbable that before the qualities of things and their connections one with another are sufficiently known for them to be interesting in themselves they often acquire interest through the interpretative touch of childish fancy. there is one new field of investigation which is illustrating in a curious way the wizard influence wielded by childish imagination over the things of sense. it is well known that a certain number of people habitually "colour" the sounds they hear, imagining, for example, the sound of a particular vowel or musical tone to have its characteristic tint, which they are able to describe accurately. this "coloured hearing," as it is called, is always traced back to the dimly recalled age of childhood. children are now beginning to be tested as to their possession of this trick of fancy. it was found in the case of a number of school-children that nearly 40 per cent. described the tones of certain instruments as coloured. there was, however, no agreement among these children as to the particular tint belonging to a given sound: thus whereas one child mentally "saw" the tone of a fife as pale or bright, another saw it as dark. i have confined myself here to what i have called the _play_ of imagination, the magical transmuting of things through the sheer liveliness of childish fancy. the degree of transmutation will of course vary with the intensity of the imagination. sometimes when a child dwells on the fancy it may grow into a momentary illusion. a little girl of four, sitting by the side of her mother in the garden, picked up a small pink worm and said: "ah! you do look nice; how a thrush would like you!" and thereupon, realising the part of the fortunate thrush, proceeded, to her mother's horror, to eat up the worm quite composedly. the momentary illusion of something nice to eat, here produced by a lively realisation of a part, may arise in other cases from strong feeling, more especially fear, which, as we shall see, has so large a dominion over the young mind. this witchcraft of the young fancy in veiling and transforming the actual surroundings is a good deal restrained by the practical needs of every-day life and by intercourse with older and graver folk. there are, however, regions of child-life where it knows no check. one of these is child's play, to be spoken of presently: another is the filling up of the blank spaces in the visible world with the products of fancy. we will call these regions on which the young wing of fancy is wont to alight and rest, fancy's resting-places. _fancy's resting-places._ most people, perhaps, can recall from their childhood the pleasure of cloud-gazing. the clouds are such strange-looking things, they change their forms so quickly, they seem to be doing so many things, now slumbering lazily, now rushing wildly on. cloud-land is safe away from the scrutiny of fingers, so we never can be sure what they would be if we got to them. some children take fright at their big, strange forms and their weird transformations: but a happy child that loves day-dreaming will spend many delightful hours in fashioning these forms into wondrous and delightful things, such as kings and queens, giants and dwarfs, beautiful castles, armies marching to battle, or driven in flight, pirates sailing over fair isle-dotted seas. there is a delicious satisfaction to young minds in thus finding a habitation for their cherished images. to project them in this way into the visible world, to know that they are located in that spot before the eye, is to "realise" them, in the sense of giving them the fullest possible reality. next to the cloud-world come distant parts of the terrestrial scene. the chain of hills, perhaps, faintly visible from the home, has been again and again endowed by a child's fancy with all manner of wondrous scenery and peopled by all manner of strange creatures. at times when they have shown a soft blue, he has made fairy-land of them; at other times when standing out black and fierce-looking against the western sky at eventide, he has half shuddered at them, peopling them with horrid monsters. best of all, i think, for this locating of images, are the hidden spaces of the visible world. one child used to wonder what was hidden behind a long stretch of wood which closed in a good part of his horizon. many a child has had his day-dreams about the country lying beyond the hills on the horizon. one little girl who lived on a cattle-station in australia used to locate beyond a low range of hills a family of children whom she called her little girls, and about whom she related endless stories. with timid children this tendency to project images into unseen places becomes a fearful kind of wonder, not altogether unpleasant when confined to a moderate intensity. i remember the look of awe on the face of a small boy whose hand i held as we passed one summer evening a dark wood, and he whispered to me that the wolves lived in that wood. this impulse of timid children to project their dark fancies into obscure and hidden places often stops short at vague undefinable conjecture. "when (writes a german author) i was a child and we played hide and seek in the barn, i always felt that there must or might be something unheard of hidden away behind every bundle of straw, and in the corners." here we can hardly speak of a housing of images: at such a moment perhaps the little brain has such a rush of weird images that no one grows distinct. the exact opposite of this is where a child has a very definite image in his mind, and wants to find a home for it in the external world. this wish seems to be particularly active in relation to the images derived from stories. this housing instinct is strong in the case of the poor houseless fairies. one little boy put his fairies in the wall of his bedroom, where, i suppose, he found it convenient to reach them by his prayers. his sister located a fairy in a hole in a smallish stone. as with the fancies born of fairy-tales, so with the images of humbler human personages known by way of books. charles dickens, when a child, had a strong impulse to locate the characters of his stories in the immediate surroundings. he tells us that "every barn in the neighbourhood, every stone of the church, every foot of the churchyard had some association of its own in my mind connected with these books (_roderic random_, _tom jones_, _gil blas_, etc.), and stood for some locality made famous in them. i have seen tom pipes go climbing up the church steeple; i have watched strap with the knapsack on his back stopping to rest himself on the wicket-gate." _in storyland._ the reference to stories naturally brings us to another domain of children's imagination: the new world opened up by their story-books, which is all strange and far away from the nursery where they sit and listen, and in which, nevertheless, they manage in a sense to live and make a new home. how is it, one is disposed to ask, that most children, at any rate, have their imagination laid hold of, and fired to a white heat, by mere words? to watch the small listener in its low chair, with head raised, eyes fixed, and hands clasped, drinking in every word of your story, giving sign by occasional self-cuddling and other spasmodic movements of the almost overpowering delight which fills its breast, is to be face to face with what is a mystery to most "grown-ups". perhaps we elders, who are apt to think that we have acquired all the knowledge and to forget how much we have lost, will never understand the spell of a story for the lively impressionable brain of a child. one thing, however, is pretty certain: our words have a way of calling up in children's minds very vivid and very real images of things, images quite unlike those which are called up in the minds of most older people. this magic power of a word to summon the corresponding image, has, i suspect, a good deal to do with a child's intense way of realising his stories. the passionate interest in stories means more than this however. it means that the little brain is wondrously deft at disentangling our rather hard language and reducing the underlying ideas to an intelligible simplicity. a mother when reading a poem to her boy of six, ventured to remark, "i'm afraid you can't understand it, dear," for which she got rather roughly snubbed by her little master in this fashion: "oh, yes, i can very well, if only you would not explain". the "explaining" is resented because it interrupts the child's own secret art of "making something" out of our words. and what glorious inner visions the skilful little interpreter often manages to get from these troublesome words of ours. scene after scene of the dissolving view unfolds itself in definite outline and magical colouring. at each stage the anticipation of the next undiscernible stage is a thrilling mystery. perhaps no one has given us a better account of the state of dream-like absorption in storyland than thackeray. in one of his delightful "roundabout papers," he thus writes of the experiences of early boyhood: "hush! i never read quite to the end of my first _scottish chiefs_. i couldn't. i peeped in an alarmed furtive manner at some of the closing pages.... oh, novels, sweet and delicious as the raspberry open tarts of budding boyhood! do i forget one night after prayers (when we under-boys were sent to bed) lingering at my cupboard to read one little half-page more of my dear walter scott--and down came the monitor's dictionary on my head!" the intensity of the delight is seen in the greed it generates. who can resist a child's hungry demand for a story? and after you have satisfied his first request, he will ask for more, and if then you are weak enough to say you know no more stories he will catch you by answering: "tell me the same again". as a result of the intensity with which a child's imagination seizes on a narrative it tends to become afterwards a record of fact, a true history. that children look at their stories in this way till they get undeceived seems to be shown by the respect which they pay to the details and even to the words. woe to the unfortunate mother who in repeating one of the good stock nursery tales varies a detail. one such, a friend of mine, when relating "puss in boots" inadvertently made the hero sit on a chair instead of on a box to pull on his boots. she was greeted by a sharp volley of "noes!" as the demand for faithful repetition of story shows, the imaginative realisation continues when the story is no longer heard or read. it has added to the child's self-created world new territory, in which he may wander and live blissful moments. this permanent occupation of storyland is shown in the child's impulse to bring the figures of story-books into the actual surroundings. it is shown, too, in his fondness for introducing them into his play, of which i shall speak presently. to this lively imaginative reception of what is told him the child is apt very soon to join his own free inventions of fairy and other tales. these at first, and for some time, have in them more of play than of serious art, and so can be touched on here where we are dealing with the play of young fancy. we see the beginning of such fanciful invention in childish "romancing" which is often started by the sight of some real object. for example, a little boy aged three and a half years seeing a tramp limping along with a bad leg exclaimed: "look at that poor ole man, mamma; he has dot (got) a bad leg". then romancing, as he was now wont to do: "he dot on a very big 'orse, and he fell off on some great big stone, and he hurt his poor leg and he had to get a big stick. we must make it well." then after a thoughtful pause: "mamma, go and kiss the place and put some powdey (powder) on it and make it well like you do to i". later on children of an imaginative turn wax bolder and spin longer stories and create scenes and persons with whom they live in a prolonged companionship. but of this more presently. partly by taking in and fully realising the wonders of story, partly by a more spontaneous play of creative fancy, children's minds often pass under the dominion of more or less enduring myths. the princes and princesses and dwarfs and gnomes of fairy-tale, the generous but discriminating old gentleman who brings christmas presents, as well as the beings fashioned by the more original sort of child for himself, these live on just like the people of the every-day world, are apt to appear in dreams, in the dark, at odd dreamy moments during the day, bringing into the child's life golden sunlight or black awful shadows, and making in many cases, for a time at least, the most real of all realities. i am far from saying that _all_ children make a fancy world for themselves in this way. as i said at the beginning of the chapter the differences among children in this respect are great. yet i think it is safe to say that most children, and especially lonely children who have not a full active life provided for them by companions and opportunities of adventure, do live a good fraction of their life in dreamland. where the active life is provided a child is apt to play rather than lose himself passively in fancy dreams. but play, too, is to a large extent a product of the liveliness of the young imagination. we will now glance at it in this light. chapter ii. the enchantment of play. children's "play," as the expression is commonly understood, differs from the sportive movements of fancy considered in the last chapter by its essentially active character. we do not speak of a child playing save when he does something, however slight, by way of expressing or acting out a fancy. this outer expression of fancy in some active form is commonly called by children themselves "pretending" to be or to do something, by older people when looking back on the pretence "making-believe". in order to understand what childish fancy is like, and how it works, we must carefully watch it as it moves among the toys and creates a new play-world. _the young pretender._ child's play is a kind of creation of a make-believe but half-real world. as such, it has its primal source in the impulse to act out and embody in sensible form some interesting idea; in which respect, as we shall see by-and-by, it has a close kinship to what we call art. the image, say of the wood, of the chivalrous highwayman, or what not, holds the child's brain, and everything has to accommodate itself to the mastering force. now since play is the acting out of some interesting and exciting fancy, it comes at once into collision with the child's actual surroundings. here, however, he finds his opportunity. the floor of the room is magically transformed into a prairie, a sea, or other locality, the hidden space under the table becomes a robber's cave, a chair serves as horse, ship, or other vehicle, to suit the exigencies of the particular play. the passion for play is essentially active; it is the wild longing to act a part; it is thus in a way dramatic. the child-adventurer as he personates robinson crusoe or other hero becomes another being. and in stepping, so to say, out of his every-day self he has to step out of his every-day world. hence the transformation of his surroundings by what has been called the "alchemy of imagination". even a sick child confined to his bed will, as mr. stevenson tells us in his pretty child's song, "the land of counterpane," make these transformations of his surroundings:- and sometimes for an hour or so i watched my leaden soldiers go, with different uniforms and drills, among the bed-clothes through the hills; and sometimes sent my ships in fleets, all up and down among the sheets; or brought my trees and houses out, and planted cities all about. the impulse to act a part, which is the very life-breath of play, meets us in a crude form very early. even an infant will, if there is a cup at hand, seem to go through something like a pretence of drinking. a little boy of about eighteen months who was digging in the garden began suddenly to play at having a bath. he got into the big bucket he was using for digging, took a handful of earth and dribbled it over him, saying, "'ponge, 'ponge," and then stepped out and asked for "tow'l, tow'l". another boy less than two would spend a whole wet afternoon enjoying his make-believe "painting" of the furniture with the dry end of a bit of rope. there is no need to suppose that in this simple kind of imitative make-believe children _know_ that they are acting a part. it is surely to misunderstand the essence of play to speak of it as a kind of conscious performance, like that of the stage-actor. a child is one creature when he is truly at play, another when he is bent on astonishing or amusing you. when absorbed in play the last thing he is thinking of is a spectator. as we know, the intrusion of a grown-up is very apt to mar children's play, by calling them back to the dull world of every-day. this impulse to get away from his common and tiresome self into a new part will often carry a child rather far. not only does he want to be a prince, or a fairy, he will even make an attempt to become an animal. he will greatly enjoy going on all fours and making dreadful noises if only he has a play-companion to be frightened; and possibly he does get some way towards feeling like the bloodthirsty lion whom he fancies himself. it is worth noting that such passing out of one's ordinary self and assuming a foreign existence is confined to the child-player. a cat or a dog will be quite ready to go through a kind of make-believe game, yet even in its play the cat remains the cat, and the dog the dog. such play-like transmutation of the self is sometimes carried over longer periods. a child will play at being something for a whole day. for example, a boy of three and a half years would one day lead the life of a coal-heaver, another day that of a soldier, and so forth, and was rather particular in expecting his mother to remember which of his favourite characters he was adopting on this or that day. in a good deal of this play-action there is scarcely any adjustment of scene: the child of vigorous fancy plays out his part with imaginary surroundings. children in their second year will act out a scene purely by means of pantomimic movements. thus one little fellow not quite two years old would, when taken out in his perambulator, amuse himself by putting out his hand and pretending to catch "little micies" (mice), which make-believe little rodents he proceeded to cuddle and to stroke, winding up his play by throwing them away, or handing them over to his mother. in like manner he would pretend to feed chickens, taking imaginary food with one hand out of the other, and scattering it with an accompaniment of "chuck! chuck! chuck!" this tendency of the little player to conjure up new surroundings, and to bring to his side desirable companions, is, i suspect, common among lonely children. one little fellow of four passed much of his time in journeyings to edinburgh, "london town," china and so forth in quest of his two little boys who roved about with their "mamsey," a "mrs. cock". they paid him visits when he was alone, always contriving to depart "just two tiny minutes" before any one came in.[1] mr. canton's little heroine took to nursing an invisible "iccle gaal" (little girl), of whose presence she seemed perfectly assured.[2] [1] from a paper by mrs. robert jardine. [2] _the invisible playmate_, p. 33 ff. if only the young imagination is strong enough there may be more of sweet illusion, of a warm grasp of living reality in this solitary play, where fictitious companions, perfectly obedient to the little player's will, take the place of less controllable ones. yet this kind of play, which derives no support from the surroundings, makes heavy demands on the imagination, and would not, one suspects, satisfy most children. the character of the little player's actual surroundings is, for the most part, a matter of small concern to him. if only he has a dark corner and a piece of furniture or two he can build his play-scene. what he does want is some semblance of a living companion. whatever his play he needs somebody, if only as listener to his make-believe; and when his imagination cannot rise to an invisible auditor, he will talk to such unpromising things as a sponge in the bath, a fire-shovel, or a clothes-prop in the garden. in more active sorts of play, where something has to be done, he will commonly want a living companion. in this making of play-companions we see again the transforming power of a child's fancy. mr. ruskin speaks somewhere of "the perfection of child-like imagination, the power of making everything out of nothing". this delightful secret of childhood is illustrated in its fondness for toys and its way of behaving towards them. later on, i think, children are apt to grow more sophisticated, to pay more attention to their surroundings, and to require more realistic accessories for their play actions. this, at least dr. stanley hall tells us, is true of doll-plays. _mysteries of dolldom._ the fact that children make living things out of their toy horses, dogs and the rest is known to every observer of their ways. to the natural unsceptical eye the boy on his rudely carved "gee-gee" slashing the dull flank with all a boy's glee, looks as if he were possessed with the fancy that the rigid inert-looking block which he bestraddles is a very horse. this breathing of life into playthings is seen in all its magic force in play with dolls. a doll, broadly conceived, is anything which a child carries about and makes a pet of. the toy horse, dog or what not that a little boy nurses, feeds and takes to bed with him has much of the dignity of a true doll. but adopting conventional distinctions we shall confine the word to those things which are more or less endowed by childish fancy with human form and character. i read somewhere recently that the doll is a plaything for girls only: but young boys, though they often prefer india-rubber horses and other animals, not infrequently go through a stage of doll-love also, and are hardly less devoted than girls. endless is the variety of _rã´le_ assigned to the doll. it is the all-important comrade in that _solitude ã  deux_ of which the child, like the adult, is so fond. mrs. burnett tells us that when nursing her doll in the armchair of the parlour she would sail across enchanted seas to enchanted islands having all sorts of thrilling adventures. very tenderly, on the whole, is the little doll-lover wont to use her pet, doing her best to keep it clean and tidy, feeding it, putting it to bed, amusing it, for example, by showing it her pictures, tending it with fidelity during bouts of sickness, and giving it the honours of a funeral when, from the attack of a dog set on by an unfeeling brother or other cause, it comes to "die";[3] or when, as in the case of little jane welsh (afterwards mrs. carlyle), the time has come for the young lady to cast aside her dolls. [3] i owe this and other observations on the treatment of dolls to dr. stanley hall's curious researches. the doll-interest implies a deep mysterious sympathy. children wish their dolls to share in their things, to be kissed when they are kissed, and so to come close to them in experience and feeling. not only so, they look for sympathy from their doll-companions, taking to them all their childish troubles. so far is this feeling of oneness carried in some cases that the passion for dolls has actually rendered the child indifferent to child-companions. it is not every little girl who like little maggie tulliver has only "occasional fits of fondness" for her nursling when the brother is absent. not only in this lavishing of tenderness and of sympathy on the doll, but in the occasional discharge on it of a fit of anger, children show how near it comes to a human companion. the punishment of the doll is an important element in nursery-life. it is apt to be carried out with formal solemnity and often with something of brutal emphasis. yet tenderness being the strongest part of the doll-attachment, the little disciplinarians are apt to suffer afterwards for their cruelty, one little girl showing remorse after such a chastisement of her pet for several days. i have talked here of "dolls," but i must not be supposed to be speaking merely of the lovely creatures with blue eyes and yellow hair with which the well-to-do child is wont to be supplied. nothing is more strange and curious in child-life than its art of manufacturing dolls out of the most unpromising materials. the creative child can find something to nurse and fondle and take to bed with it in a bundle of hay tied round with a string, in a shawl, a pillow, a stick, a clothes-pin, or a clay-pipe. victor hugo, with a true touch, makes the little outcast cosette, who has never had a "real doll," fashion one out of a tiny leaden sword and a rag or two, putting it to sleep in her arms with a soft lullaby. do any of us really understand the child's attitude of mind towards its doll? although gifted writers like george sand have tried to take us back to the feeling of childhood, it may be doubted whether they have made it intelligible to us. and certainly the answers to questions collected in america have done little, if anything, towards making it clear. the truth is that the perfect child's faith in dolldom passes away early, in most cases it would appear about the age of thirteen or fourteen. it is then that the young people begin clearly to realise the shocking fact that dolls have no "inner life". occasionally girls will go on playing with dolls much later than this, but not surely with the old sincerity. that many children have a genuine delusion about their dolls seems evident. that is to say when they talk to them and otherwise treat them as human they imaginatively realise that they can understand and feel. the force of the illusion, blotting out from the child's view the naked reality before its eyes, is a striking illustration of the vividness of early fancy. perhaps, too, this intensity of faith comes in part of the strength of the impulses which commonly sustain the doll-passion. of these the instinct of companionship, of sympathy, is the strongest. a lady tells me she remembers that when a child she had a passionate longing for a big, big doll, which would give her the full sweetness of cuddling. the imitative impulse, too, prompting the child to carry out on the doll actions similar to those carried out on itself by mother and nurse, is a strong support of the delusion. a doll, as the odd varieties selected show, seems to be, more than anything else, something to be dressed. children's reasons for preferring one doll to another, as that it can have its face washed, or that it has real hair which can be combed, show how the impulse to carry out nursery operations sustains the feeling of attachment. a girl (the same that wanted the big doll to fondle) had dolls of the proper sort; yet she preferred to make one out of a little wooden stool, because she could more realistically act out with this odd substitute the experience of taking her pet out for a walk, making it stand, for example, when she met a friend. of course, the child's faith, like other faith, is not always up to the height of perfect ardour. a child of six or seven, when the passion for dolls is apt to be strong, will have moments of coolness, leaving "poor dolly" lying in the most humiliating posture on the floor, or throwing it away in a sudden fit of disenchantment and disgust. scepticism will intrude, especially when the hidden "inside" comes to view as mere emptiness, or at best as nothing but sawdust. children seem, as george sand says, to oscillate between the real and the impossible. yet the intrusion of doubt does not, in many cases at least, interfere with an enduring trust. dr. stanley hall tells us that "long after it is _known_ that they are wood, wax, etc., it is _felt_ that they are of skin, flesh, etc.". yes, that is it; the child, seized with the genuine play-mood, _dreams_ its doll into a living child, or living adult. how oddly the player's faith goes on living side by side with a measure of doubt is illustrated in the following story. a little girl begged her mother not to make remarks about her doll in her (the doll's) presence, as she had been trying all her life to keep that doll from knowing that she was not alive.[4] [4] from an article on "the philosophy of dolls," _chambers' journal_, 1881. the treating of the doll and images of animals, such as the wooden or india-rubber horse, as living things is the outcome of the play-impulse. all the imaginative play of children seems, so far as we can understand it, to have about it something of illusion. this fact of the full sincere acceptance of the play-world as for the moment the real one, is illustrated in the child's jealous insistence that everything shall for the time pass over from the every-day world into the new one. "about the age of four," writes m. egger of his boys, "felix is playing at being coachman; emile happens to return home at the moment. in announcing his brother, felix does not say, 'emile is come;' he says, 'the brother of the coachman is come'." it is illustrated further in the keen resentment of any act on the part of the mother or other person which seems to contradict the facts of the new world. a boy of two who was playing one morning in his mother's bed at drinking up pussy's milk from an imaginary saucer on the pillow, said a little crossly to his mother, who was getting into bed after fetching his toys: "don't lie on de saucer, mammy!" the pain inflicted on the little player by such a contradictory action is sometimes intense. a little girl of four was playing "shops" with her younger sister. "the elder one (writes the mother) was shopman at the time i came into her room and kissed her. she broke out into piteous sobs, i could not understand why. at last she sobbed out: 'mother, you never kiss the man in the shop'. i had with my kiss quite spoilt her illusion." but there is still another, and some will think a more conclusive way of satisfying ourselves of the reality of the play-illusion. the child finds himself confronted by the unbeliever who questions what he says about the doll's crying and so forth, and in this case he will often stoutly defend his creed. "discussions with sceptical brothers (writes dr. stanley hall), who assert that the doll is nothing but wood, rubber, wax, etc., are often met with a resentment as keen as that vented upon missionaries who declare that idols are but stocks and stones." it is the same with the toy-horse. "when (writes a mother of her boy) he was just over two years old l. began to speak of a favourite wooden horse (dobbin) as if it were a real living creature. 'no tarpenter (carpenter) made dobbin,' he would say, 'he is not wooden but kin (skin) and bones and dod (god) made him.' if any one said 'it' in speaking of the horse his wrath was instantly aroused, and he would shout indignantly: 'it! you mut'ent tay _it_, you mut tay _he_.'" while play in its absorbing moments, and even afterwards, may thus produce a genuine illusion, the state of perfect realisation is of course apt to be broken by intervals of scepticism. this has already been illustrated in the case of the doll. the same little boy that played with the imaginary mice was sitting on his stool pretending to smoke like his grandpapa out of a bit of bent cardboard. suddenly his face clouded over; he stroked his chin, and remarked in a disappointed tone, "i have not got any whiskers". the dream of full manhood was here rudely dispelled by a recall to reality. a measure of the same fanciful transformation of things that has been illustrated in make-believe play, a measure, too, of the illusion which frequently accompanies it, enters, i believe, into all children's pastimes. whence comes the perennial charm, the undying popularity, of the hoop? is not the interest here due to the circumstance that the child controls a thing which in the freedom of its movements suggests that it has a will of its own? this seems borne out by the following story. a little girl of five once stopped trundling her hoop and said to her mother she thought that her hoop must be alive, because "it is so sensible; it goes where i want it to". perhaps the same thing may be said of other toys, as the kite and the sailing boat. _serious side of play._ i have here treated the whole realm of childish fancy as one of play, as one in which happy childhood finds its own sunny world. yet it is clear that this is after all only one side of children's dream-world. like our own world it has its climates, and if fancy is often frolicsome and games deliciously sweet, they sometimes become serious to the point of a quite dreadful solemnity. that children's imagination is wont to hover, with something of the fascination of the moth, on the confines of the fearful, is known to us all. some children, no doubt, have much more of the passion for the gruesome and blood-curdling than others, since temperament counts for much here; yet it is pretty safe to say that most know something of this horrible fascination. dreams, whether of the night or of the day, are not always of beautiful fairies and the like. weird, awful-looking figures have a way of pushing themselves into the front of the scene. especially when the "tone" of the frail young nerves runs down from poor health do these alarming shapes appear, and acquire a mighty hold on the child's imagination. of the timidity of the early years of life i shall have more to say by-and-by. here i want to bring out how the very vividness of children's images exposes them to what is sometimes at least their worst form of suffering. a child, at once sensitive and imaginative, frequently passes into a state of half hallucination in which the products of fancy take on visible reality. george sand, in her delightful reminiscences of childhood, relates more than one of these terrible prostrating hallucinations of the early years.[5] [5] see my account of george sand's childhood, in _studies of childhood_, chap. xii. we see the same gloomy turn of the young imagination in the readiness with which children accept superstitions about ghosts, witches, and so forth. those who are brought up in the country in contact with the superstitious beliefs of the peasant appear to imbibe them with great energy. this is true of george sand, who gives us an interesting account of the legends of the french peasants, with whom when a little girl she was allowed to associate. american children, especially those who come under the influence of the beliefs of the negro and of the indian, may, as that delightful book, _tom sawyer_, tells us, become quite experts in folk-lore. even in england and among well-to-do people children will show an alarming facility in adopting the superstitious ideas of the servants. much the same thing shows itself in children's romancings and in their preferences in the matter of stories. so far from these being always bright and amusing, they frequently show a very decided tinge of blackness. the young imagination seems to be especially plastic under the touch of the gruesome. it loves to be roused to its highest pitch of activity by the presentation of something fearsome, something which sends a wild tremor through the nerves. and even when the story is free from this touch of the dreadful it takes on seriousness by reason of the earnestness which the child's mind brings to it. coming now to active play, we find here, too, in the region which seems to owe its very existence to the childish instinct of enjoyment, traces of the same seriousness. for most children, one suspects, play would become a tame thing were there not the fearful to conjure with. the favourite play-haunts, the dark corners under the table, behind the curtains, and so forth, show what a vital element of play is supplied by the excitement of the state of half-dread. it is in the games which set the young nerves gently shaking, when a robber has to be met or a giant attacked in his cave, that one sees best, i think, how terribly earnest children's play may become. even where play has in it nothing alarming it is apt to take on a serious aspect. this has been illustrated in what has been said about the doll and other play-illusions. most of children's play is imitative of the serious actions of grown-up folk. in nursing her doll the little girl is taking to her domestic duties in the most serious of moods; similarly when the little boy assumes the responsibilities of coachman or other useful functionary. the imitative impulse of childhood is wont in these cases to follow out the correct and prescribed order with punctilious exactness. the doll must be dressed, fed, put to bed, and so forth, with the regularity that obtains in the child's own life; the coachman must hold the whip, urge on the horses, or stop them in the proper orthodox manner. and the same fidelity to model and prescription shows itself in those games which reproduce the page of fiction. here again tom sawyer is an excellent example. the way in which that leader of boys lays down the law to huckleberry finn when they play at pirates or at robin hood and his merry men illustrates forcibly this serious aspect of play. part ii. at work. chapter iii. attacking our language. no part of the life of a child appeals to us more powerfully perhaps than the first use of our language. the small person's first efforts in linguistics win us by a certain graciousness, by the friendly impulse they disclose to get mentally near us, to enter into the full fruition of human intercourse. the difficulties, too, which we manage to lay upon the young learner of our tongue, and the way in which he grapples with these, lend a peculiar interest, half pathetic, half humorous, to this field of infantile activity. a child first begins to work in downright earnest when he tries to master these difficulties. as we are here studying the child at an age when he has acquired a certain hold on human speech, i shall make no attempt to describe the babbling of the first months which precedes true speech. for the same reason i shall have to pass by the interesting beginnings of sign-making, and shall only just touch the first stages of articulate performance. all this is, i think, deeply interesting, but it cannot be adequately dealt with here, and i have fully dealt with it in my larger work. the first difficulty which our little linguist has to encounter is the mechanical one of reproducing, with a recognisable measure of approximation, our verbal sounds. what a very rough approximation it is at first, all mothers know. when, for example, a child expects you to translate his sound "koppa" into "tommy," or "pots" into "hippopotamus," it will be acknowledged that he is making heavy demands. yet though he causes us difficulties in this way he does so because he finds himself in difficulties. his articulatory organ cannot master the terrible words we put in his way, and he is driven to these short cuts and other make-shifts. _the namer of things._ leaving now the problem of getting over the mechanical difficulties of our speech, let us see what the little explorer has to do when trying to use verbal sounds with their right meanings. here, too, we shall find that huge difficulties beset his path, and that his arrival at the goal proves him to have been in his way as valiant and hard-working as an african explorer. one feature of the early tussle with our language is curious and often quaintly pretty. having at first but few names, the little experimenter makes the most of these by extending them in new and surprising directions. the extension of names to new objects on the ground of some perceived likeness has been touched on above (p. 3); and many other examples might be given. thus when one child first saw a star and wanted to name it he called it, as if by a poetic metaphor, an "eye". in like manner the name "pin" was extended by another child to a crumb just picked up, a fly, and a caterpillar, and seemed to mean something little to be taken between the fingers. the same child used the sound "'at" (hat) for anything put on the head, including a hair-brush. similarly children often extend the names "mamma, baby" to express any contrast of size, as when a small coin was called by an american child a "baby dollar". in this extension of language by the child we find not merely a tendency to move along lines of analogy, as in the above instances, but to go from a thing to its accompaniments by way of what the psychologist calls association. this is illustrated by the case of darwin's grandchild, who after learning to use the common children's name for duck, "quack," proceeded to call a sheet of water "quack". in like manner a little girl called the gas lamp "pop" from the sound produced when lighting it, and then carried over the name "pop" to the stool on which the maid stood when proceeding to light it. there is another curious way in which children are driven by the slenderness of their verbal resources to "extend" the names they learn. they will often employ a word which indicates some relation to express what may be called the inverted relation. for example, like the unschooled yokel they will sometimes make the word "learn" do duty for "teach" also. in one case "spend" was made to express "cost". it was a somewhat similar inversion when a little girl called her parasol blown about by the wind "a windy parasol," and a stone that made her hand sore "a very sore stone". not only do the small experimenters thus stretch the application of their words beyond our conventional limitations, they are often daring enough when their stock fails them to invent new names. sometimes this is done by framing a new composite name out of familiar ones. one child, for example, possessing the word steam-ship and wanting the name sailing-ship, cleverly hit upon the composite form "wind-ship". one little girl, when only a year and nine months old, showed quite a passion for classing objects by help of such compound names, arranging the rooms, for example, into "morner-room," "dinner-room" (she was fond of adding "er" at this time) and "nursery-room". savages do much the same kind of thing, as when the aztecs called a boat a "water-house". it is no less bold a feat when the hard-pressed tyro in speechland frames a new word on the model of other words which he already knows. the results are often quaint enough. one small boy talked of the "rainer," the fairy who makes rain, and another little boy dubbed a teacher the "lessoner". two children invented the quaint substantive "thinks" for "thoughts," and another child used the form "digs" for holes dug in the ground. other droll inventions occur, as when one small person asked to see another worm "deading," and neatly expressed the act of undoing a parcel by the form "unparcel"; and when another child spoke of his metal toy being "unhotted," lacking our word cooled, and asked, "can't i be sorried?" for "can't i be forgiven?" just as children invent new general names, so they now and again invent "proper" names in order to mark off one person or thing from another of the same kind. thus a german professor tells us that his grand-niece introduced her new nurse, who had the same name, "mary," as her old one, as "evening mary," because she had arrived in the evening. of course children's experiments in language are not always so neat as this. they are sometimes misled by false analogies into the formation of such clumsy words as "sorrified" for "sorry," and "magnicious" for "magnificent". _the sentence-builder._ it is an interesting moment when the young linguist tries his hand at putting words together in sentences. as is pretty well known, a child has for some time to try to make known his thoughts and wishes by single vocables, such as "mamma," "milk," "puss," "up," and so forth. each of these words serves in the first baby language for a variety of sentences. thus "puss!" means sometimes "puss is doing something," at other times "i want puss," and so forth. but somewhere about the age of one year nine months the child makes bold to essay a more explicit and definite form of statement. the construction of sentences proceeds in a cautious manner. at first the structure is of the simplest, two words being placed one after the other, in what is called apposition, as in the couple, "big bir" (big bird), "papa no" (papa's nose), and the like. later on longer sentences are attempted of a similar pattern; and it is truly wonderful how much the child manages to express in this rude fashion without any aid from those valuable auxiliaries, prepositions, and the like. for example, one boy when in his twentieth month gave this elaborate order to his father, "dada toe toe ba," that is, "dada is to go and put his toes in the bath". quaint inversions of our order not infrequently occur in this early sentence-making. thus one child used the form, "out-pull-baby 'pecs," meaning in our language, "baby pulls (or will pull) out the spectacles". sometimes the order reminds us still more closely of the idiom of foreign languages, as when a little girl said: "how babba (baby, _i.e._, herself) does feed nicely!" another curious feature of children's first style of composition is the fondness for antithesis. a little boy used when wishing to express his approval of something, say a dog, to use the form, "this a nice bow-wow, not nasty bow-bow". similarly a little girl said, "boo (the name of her cat) dot (got) tail; poor babba (baby) dot no tail," proceeding to search for a tail under her skirts. in the first attempts to fit our words together dreadful slips are apt to occur. the way in which children are wont to violate the rules of grammar when using verbs, as in saying "eated" for "ate," "scram" for "screamed," "be'd" for "was," and so on, is well known, and there are many excuses to be found for these very natural errors. particularly instructive are the odd confusions which children are apt to fall into when they come to use the pronouns, and more particularly "i," "me". many a child begins by using "i" and "you" with mechanical imitation of others, meaning by "you" his own person, which is, of course, called "you" by others when addressing him. the forms "i," "me" and "my" are apt to be hopelessly mixed up, as in saying "me go" and "my go" for "i go," "me book" for "my book," and so forth. one little boy used the form "i am" for "i," saying, for example, "i am don't want to". a little german girl had an odd way of splitting up herself into two persons, saying, for example, "she has made me wet," meaning that she had made herself wet. throughout this work of mastering our language a child is wont to eke out his deficiencies by bold strokes of originality. when, for example, a little girl towards the end of the second year, after being jumped by her father, wants him to jump her mother also, says, in default of the word "jump," "make mamma high". robert hamerling, the austrian poet, when a child, being told by his sick mother that he had not said something she wished him to say, answered, "i said it, but you didn't hear, you are poorly, and so _blind in the ear_". quite pretty metaphors are sometimes hit upon, as when a little boy of two seeing his father putting a piece of wood on the fire said, "flame going to eat it". a boy of twenty-seven months ingeniously said, "it rains off," for "the rain has left off". once a girl about the same age as the boy hit on the idiom, "no two 'tatoes left," for "only one potato is left". pretty constructions sometimes appear in these make-shifts, as when a little girl of whom mrs. meynell tells, wishing to know how far she might go in spending money on fruit, asked, "what mustn't it be more than?" _the interpreter of words._ there is one part of this task of mastering our language which deserves especial notice, _viz._, the puzzling out of the meanings we put, or try to put, into our words. many good stories of children show that they have a way of sadly misunderstanding our words. this arises often from the ignorance of the child and the narrowness of his experience, as when a sunday school scholar understood the story of the good samaritan to mean that a gentleman came and poured some paraffin (_i.e._, oil) over the poor man. by a child's mind what we call accidentals often get taken to be the real meaning. a boy and a girl, twins, had been dressed alike. later on the boy was put into a "suit". a lady asked the girl about this time whether they were not the twins, when she replied, "no, we _used_ to be". "twin" was inseparably associated in her mind with the similarity in dress. it should be remembered, too, that we greatly add to the difficulties of the small student of our language by reason of the ambiguities of our expressions, and of our short and elliptical modes of speaking. it was a quite natural misconception when an american child, noting that children were "half price" at a certain show, wanted his mother to get a baby now that they were cheap. many another child besides jean ingelow has been saddened at being told by her father or other grown-up who was dancing her on his knee that he must put her down as he "had a bone in his leg". much misapprehension arises, too from our figurative use of language, which the little listener is apt to interpret in a very literal way, as when a small boy indignantly resented the statement of his mother who was driving him behind a rather skittish pony, "pony has lost his head". children are desirous of understanding us and make brave efforts to put meanings into our words, sometimes falling comically short of the mark. a little fellow of two who had been called "fat" by his nurse when given his bath, afterwards proceeded to call his father "fat" when he saw him taking his bath. "fat" had by a natural misconception taken on the meaning of "naked". it was a simple movement of childish thought when a little school-girl answered the question of the inspector, "what is an average?" by saying, "what the hen lays eggs on". she had heard her mother say, "the hen lays so many eggs 'on the average' every week," and had no doubt imagined a little myth about this average. it is the same with what is read to them. where they do not recognise a meaning they invent one, or if necessary substitute an intelligible word for an unintelligible one. young hermiston in r. l. stevenson's last story naturally enough said in speaking of his father, the "hanging judge," "it were better for that man if a _milestone_ were bound about his neck". similarly they will invert the relations of words in order to arrive at something like a meaning. mr. canton relates in his pretty sketch of a child, _the invisible playmate_, that his little heroine, who knew the lines in _struwwelpeter_- the doctor came and shook his head, and gave him nasty physic too-was told that she would catch a cold, and that she at once replied, "and will the doctor come and shook my head?" it was so much more natural to suppose that when the doctor came and did something this was carried out on the person of the patient. there is something of this same impatience of meaningless sayings, of the same keen desire to import a meaning into strange words, in children's "word-play," as we call it. for example, a little boy about four years old heard his mother speak of nurse's neuralgia, from which she had been suffering for some time. he thereupon exclaimed, "i don't think it's _new_ ralgia, i call it _old_ ralgia". was this playful punning or a half-serious attempt to correct a misstatement? a child called his doll "shakespeare" because its spear-like legs could be shaken. we know that adults sometimes do the same kind of thing, as a cabman i once overheard speaking to somebody about putting down "_ash_phalt". we all like to feel at home with words, and if they look dreadfully strange we do our best to give them a look of old acquaintance. it should be added that children, though they eke out their deficiencies by inventing new verbal forms and putting new meanings into our words, have on the whole a vast respect for words. this is seen in their way of stickling for accuracy when others repeat familiar word-forms. the zeal of a child in correcting the language not only of other children, but of grown-ups, and the comical errors he will now and again fall into in exercising his corrective function, are well known to parents. sometimes he shows himself the most absurd of pedants. "shall i read to you out of this book, baby?" asked a mother of her boy, about two and a half years old. "no," replied the infant, "not _out_ of dot book, but somepy inside of it." the same little stickler for verbal accuracy, when his nurse asked him, "are you going to build your bricks, baby?" replied solemnly, "we don't build bricks, we make them and then build _with_ them". yet such disagreeable pedantry shows how conscientiously the small curly head is trying to bring clearness and order into the dark tangle of our speech, and it ought not to be treated harshly. chapter iv. the serious searcher. in a former chapter we dealt with a child's mind as a harbourer of fancies, as subject to the illusive spell of its bright imagery. yet with this play of fancy there goes a respectable quantity of serious inquiry into the things of the real world. this is true, i believe, even of highly imaginative children, who now and again come down from their fancy-created world and regard the solid matter-of-fact one at their feet with shrewdly scrutinising eyes. for children, like some of those patients of whom the hypnotist tells us, live alternately two lives. the child not only scans his surroundings, he begins to reflect on what he observes, and does his best to understand the puzzling scene which meets his eyes. and all this gives seriousness, a deep and admirable seriousness, to his attitude; so that one may forgive the touch of exaggeration when mr. bret harte writes: "all those who have made a loving study of the young human animal will, i think, admit that its dominant expression is _gravity_ and not playfulness". we may now turn to this graver side of the young intelligence. _the thoughtful observer._ this serious examination of things begins early. most of us have been subjected to the searching gaze of an infant's eyes when we first made it overtures of friendship. how much this fixed gaze of a child of six months takes in nobody can say. what we find when the child grows and can give an account of his observations is that, while often surprisingly minute in particular directions, they are narrowly confined. thus a child will sometimes be so impressed with the colour of an object as almost to ignore its form. a little girl of eighteen months, who knew lambs and called them "lammies," on seeing two black ones in a field among some white ones called out, "eh! doggie, doggie!" the likeness of colour to the black dog overpowered the likeness in form to the other lambs close by. we shall find further examples of this one-sided observation when we come to consider children's drawings. the pressure of practical needs tends, however, to develop a fuller examination of objects. a lamb and a dog, for example, have to be distinguished by a number of marks in which the supremely interesting detail of colour holds a quite subordinate place. individual things, too, have to be more carefully distinguished, if only for the purpose of drawing the line between what is "mine" and "not mine," for example, spoons and picture-books. the recognition of the mother, say, exacts this fuller inspection, for she cannot always be recognised by her height alone, for example, when she is sitting, nor by her hair alone, as when she has her hat on, so that _a group_ of distinctive features has to be seized. when once the eye has begun to note differences it makes rapid progress. this is particularly true where the development of a special interest leads to a habit of concentration on a particular kind of object. thus little boys when the "railway interest" seizes them are apt to be finely observant of the differences between this and that engine and so forth. a boy aged two years and eleven months, after travelling over two railways, asked his mother if she had noticed the difference in the make of the rails on the two lines. of course she had not, though she afterwards ascertained that there was a slight difference which the boy's keener eyes had detected. the fineness of children's distinguishing observation is well illustrated in their recognition of small drawings and photographs, as when one child of two instantly picked out the likeness of his father from a small _carte de visite_ group. in truth, children's observation, when close and prolonged, as it is apt to be under the stimulus of a really powerful interest, is often surprisingly full as well as exact. the boy, john ruskin, could look for hours together at flowing water, noting all its subtle changes. another little boy, when three and a half years old, received a picture-book, _the railway train_, and inspected the drawings almost uninterruptedly for a week, retaining the treasure even at meals. "at the end of this time (writes his mother) he had grasped the smallest detail in every picture." along with this serious work of observing things there often goes a particularly bright and exact recollection of them and their names. feats of memory in the first three years are, i suspect, a common theme of discourse among admiring mothers. here is a sample of many stories sent me. a little girl only nine months old when taken out for a walk was shown some lambs at the gate of a field. on being taken the same road three weeks later she surprised her mother by calling out just before arriving at the gate, "baa, baa!" later on children will remember through much longer intervals. a little boy of two years on seeing a girl cousin who lived in the country where he had visited five months before, at once asked whether her dog "bruce" barked. another boy aged two years and ten months on revisiting his mother's paternal home in italy after four or five months remembered small details, _e.g._, how the grapes were cut, and how the wine was made. nor does the busy brain of the child stop at observing and recalling what lies about him. he begins at an early age to compare this thing with that, and to note the relations and connections of things, how he is almost as tall as the table, for example, and a good deal taller than pussy, how he has a spoon while his elders have knives and forks, and so forth. and all the while he is trying to get at the general rule or law which obtains in this and that realm of things. the first attempts of a child to grasp the causal connections of things are apt to be quaint enough. professor preyer tells us that his little boy, having been told to blow on his hand which had been hurt, proceeded afterwards when he had struck his head against something "to blow of his own accord, supposing that the blowing would have a soothing effect, even when it did not reach the injured part".[6] [6] _the development of the intellect_ (appleton & co.), p. 155. since the little searcher in trying to piece his facts together in their proper connections must, as all of us do, make use of such experiences as he happens to have, he will pretty certainly fall into the error of "hasty generalisation," as we call it, taking things to be really connected which accidentally occur together, it may be in a single instance only. an american boy of ten who had happened to have a teacher who was short and cross, and a second who was tall and very kind, said to his new teacher, who struck him as short, "i'm afraid you'll make a cross teacher". yet while we smile at such simplicity ought we not to remember that older people, too, sometimes commit similar blunders, and that after all the impulse to reason can only work itself into a good sound faculty by risking such blunders? _the pertinacious questioner._ the effort of the child to understand the things about him grows noteworthy somewhere near the end of the third year, and about the same time there comes the questioning "mania," as we are apt to regard it. the first question was put in the case of a boy in the twenty-eighth month, in the case of a girl in the twenty-third month. but the true age of inquisitiveness when questions are fired off with wondrous rapidity and pertinacity seems to be ushered in with the fourth year. a common theory peculiarly favoured by ignorant nurses and mothers is that children's questioning is one of the ways in which they love to plague their elders. we shall see presently how much truth there is in this view. it may be enough here to say that a good deal of this first questioning is something very different. a child asks you what this thing is you wear on your watch-chain, why you part your hair in the middle, or what not, because he feels that he is ignorant, and for the moment at any rate he would like to get his ignorance removed. more than this, his question shows that he thinks you can satisfy his curiosity. questioning may take various directions. a good deal of the child's catechising of his long-suffering mother is prompted by a more or less keen desire for fact. the typical form of this line of questioning is "what?" the motive here is commonly the wish to know something which will connect itself with and complete a bit of knowledge already gained. "how old is rover?" "where was rover born?" "who was his father?" "what is that dog's name?" "what sort of hair had you when you were a little girl?" this kind of questioning may spring out of pure childish curiosity, or out of some practical need, as that of acting out a part in play. thus a kindergarten teacher was wont to be besieged with questions of this kind from her small boys when playing at being animals: "do walruses swim fast or slow?" "do lions climb trees?" one feature in this pursuit of fact is the great store which a child sets by names of things. it has been pointed out by a french writer that the form of question: "what is this?" often means, "what is it called?" a child is apt to think that everything has its own name. one little boy explained to his mother that he thought all the frogs, the mice, the birds and the butterflies had names given to them by their mothers, just as babies have. perhaps children when they find out the name of a new thing feel that they know it, that they have been introduced to it, so to speak. another motive in this early questioning is the desire for an explanation of what is seen or heard about the reason and the cause of things. it takes the well-known forms, "why?" "who made?" and so forth. who that has tried to instruct the small child of three or four does not know the long shrill whine-like sound of this question? nothing perhaps in child utterance is better worth interpreting, hardly anything more difficult to interpret, than this simple-looking little "why?" let us in judging of this pitiless "why?" try to understand the situation of the small searcher confronted by so much that is strange and puzzling in nature, and in human life alike. just because he is born a thinker he must try at least to bring the strange thing into some connection with his familiar world. and what is more natural than to go to the wise lips of the grown-up for a solution of the difficulty? the demand for the reason or explanation of a thing may be satisfied by a bare reference to some other thing which is similar and so fitted to throw the light of familiarity on what is new and strange. for example, you may sometimes still a child's questioning as to why pussy has fur by telling him that it is pussy's hair. a child may find an appeasement, too, of his logical appetite in learning that what is new and strange to him comes under a general rule, that, for example, many other animals besides pussy have fur. nevertheless, i suspect that a child's "why?" aims farther than this; that it is only fully appeased by a knowledge of what we older folk call a reason, that is to say of the cause which originates a thing, and of the purpose which it serves. it is easy to see, indeed, that this questioning curiosity of the little ones is largely directed to the subject of origins or makings. what hours and hours do they not spend in wondering how the pebbles, the stones, the birds, the babies are made! the inquiry into origin starts with the amiable presupposition that all things have been produced by hand-craft after the manner of household possessions. the world is a sort of big house where everything has been made by somebody, or at least fetched from somewhere. and this is perhaps natural enough, for of the things whose production the child sees are not the larger number fashioned by human hands? he himself makes a considerable number of things, including these rents in his clothes, messes on the tablecloth, and the like, which he gets firmly imprinted on his memory by the authorities. and, then, he is wont to watch with a keen interest the making of things by others, such as puddings, clothes, houses, hay-ricks. to ask, then, who made the animals, the babies, the wind, the clouds, and so forth, is for him merely to apply the type of causation which is familiar to him. the demand for a reason takes on a more special meaning when the idea of purpose becomes clear. the search now is for the use of a thing, the end which the maker had in view when he fashioned it. when, for example, a child asks, "why is there such a lot of dust?" he seems to be seeking the purpose which the maker of dust had in mind, or in other words the use of dust. similarly when things are endowed with life and their own purpose, as in asking, "why does the wind blow?" here the child thinks of nature's processes as if they were a kind of human action which we can understand by seeing into its aim. here are some curious observations which seem to illustrate this childish idea of how nature's processes originate. a little girl whom we will call m., when one year eleven months old, happened to be walking with her mother on a windy day. at first she was delighted at the strong boisterous wind, but then got tired and said: "wind make mamma's hair untidy, babba (her own name) make mamma's hair tidy, _so wind not blow adain_ (again)". about three weeks later the same child being out in the rain with her mother said: "mamma, dy (dry) babba's hands, _so not rain any more_". this little inquirer seems clearly to have conceived of the wind and rain as a kind of naughty child who can be got to behave properly by effacing the effects of its naughtiness. we may notice something more in this early form of questioning. children are apt to think not only that things behave in general after the manner of people, that their activity is motived by some aim, but that this aim concerns us human creatures. the wind and the rain came and went in our little girl's nature-theory just to vex and not to vex "mamma" and "babba". a little boy of two years two months sitting on the floor one day in a bad temper looked up and saw the sun shining and said captiously, "sun not look at hennie," and then more pleadingly, "please, sun, not look at poor hennie". such observations show that children, like savages, and possibly, too, some persons who would not like to be called savages, are inclined to look at nature's doings as specially designed to injure or benefit themselves. there is reason to think that the idea of use is prominent in the first conceptions of things. a french inquirer, m. binet, has brought this fact out by questioning a considerable number of children. thus, when asked what a hat is, one child answered, "pour mettre sur la tãªte". similarly children asked by other inquirers, "what is a tree?" answered, "to make the wind blow," "to sit under," and so forth. later on a more scientific form of questioning arises. the little searcher begins to understand something about the processes of nature, and tries by questioning his elders to get a glimpse into their manner of working. this quest of a natural explanation of things marks the transition to the level of thought of the civilised man. here, again, the small investigator finds much hard work to be got through, for nature's doings are apt to be varied and rather complex. a child, for example, finds that when he dips his hand into sand, clay, or what not, he makes a hole. but when he puts it into water no hole is left behind. hence we can understand one little fellow asking his father, "how _is_ it that when we put our hand into the water we don't make a hole in it?" here we have not mere curiosity; we have perplexity at what looks contradictory to the usual run of things. the same thing is illustrated in the question of another little boy, "can they (the fish) breathe with their moufs under water?" among the things which are apt to puzzle the young inquirer is the disappearance of things. he can as little understand this as the beginning of things, and so he will ask: "where does the sea swim to?" or "where does the wind go to?" or "where does the wet (_e.g._, on the pavement after rain) go to?" as the view of things begins to widen and embrace the absent and the past new puzzles occur and prompt to a more philosophical kind of questioning. sometimes it is the mere vastness of the world, the multitude of things, which oppresses and confuses the young understanding. "mother," asked a small boy of four, "why _is_ there such a lot of things in the world if no one knows all these things?" a little girl about three and a half years old asked her mother, "mamma, why do there be any more days, why do there? and why don't we leave off eating and drinking?" it is hard for us older folk to get behind questions like this so as to understand the source of the childish bewilderment. the subject of origins is, as we all know, apt to be a sore puzzle for the childish mind. the beginnings of living things are, of course, the great mystery. "there's such a lot of things," remarked the little zoologist i have recently been quoting, "i want to know, that you say nobody knows, mamma. i want to know who made god, and i want to know if pussy has eggs to help her make ickle (little) kitties." finding that this was not so, he observed: "oh, then, i s'pose she has to have god to help her if she doesn't have kitties in eggs given her to sit on". another little boy, five years old, found his way to the puzzle of the reciprocal genetic relation of the hen and the egg, and asked his mother: "when there _is_ no egg where does the hen come from? when there _was_ no egg, i mean, where _did_ the hen come from?" another little fellow was puzzled to know how the first child was suckled, or, as a little girl of four and a half years put it: "when everybody was a baby--then who could be their nurse--if they were all babies?" in this bold sweep of inquiry a child is apt to go back to the absolute beginnings of things, as when he asks, "who made god?" or, "what was there before god?" the idea that god has _always_ been seems to be particularly perplexing and even oppressive to a child's mind. sometimes the questioning takes on a still clearer ring of metaphysics, startling and shocking perhaps the patient listener. a little boy of three once put the poser: "if i'd gone upstairs, could god make it that i hadn't?" or as another boy of eight put it to a distinguished biologist, "mr. --, mr. --, if god wanted me to be good, and i wouldn't be good, who would win?" needless to say that this young philosopher was a britisher. with many children confronted with the mysteries of god and the devil this questioning often reproduces the directions of theological speculation. thus the problem of the necessity of evil is clearly recognisable in the question once put by an american boy under eight years of age to a priest who visited his home: "father, why don't god kill the devil and then there would be no more wickedness in the world?" the different lines of questioning here briefly illustrated are apt to run on concurrently from about the end of the third year, a fit of eager curiosity about animals or other natural objects giving place to a fit of theological inquiry, this again being dropped for an equally eager inquiry into the making of clocks, railway engines, and so on. yet, through these alternating bouts of questioning we can recognise laws of progress. thus children will ask first about the things which first interest them, as, for example, animals and babies. again the questioning grows gradually more intelligent, more reasonable, accommodating itself, often after much suffering, to the adamantine limits of human knowledge. while i have here regarded children's questioning seriously as the expression of a genuine desire for knowledge, i am well aware that this cannot be said of all of it. the hard-pressed mother knows that a child's "why?" is often used in a sleepy mechanical way with no real desire for knowledge, any semblance of answer being accepted without an attempt to put a meaning into it. a good deal of the more reckless kind of children's asking, when one question is followed by another with an irritating pertinacity, appears to be of this formal and lifeless character. some of it, indeed, as when a little american asked her mother: "mamma, why ain't edna belle (her baby sister) me, and why ain't i edna belle?" comes alarmingly near the rage of questioning observed in certain forms of mental disease, and may perhaps be a symptom of an over-wrought brain. to admit this, however, is far from saying that we ought to treat all this questioning with a mild contempt. the little questioners flatter us by attributing superior knowledge to us, and good manners should compel us to treat their questions with some attention. and if now and then they torment us with a string of random reckless questioning, in how many cases, one wonders, are they not made to suffer, and that wrongfully, by having perfectly serious questions rudely cast back on their hands? chapter v. first thoughts: (_a_) the natural world. we have seen in the last chapter that children have their characteristic ways of looking at their new world. these ways often result in the formation of definite ideas or "thoughts" which may last for years. we will now try to follow the little thinker in his first attempt at framing a theory of nature and her doings. here, too, we shall find that the active little brain has its work cut out for it. as already suggested, things are often so puzzling to the child that it is only by dint of a good deal of questioning that he can piece them together at all. and even after he has had his questions answered he sometimes finds it well-nigh impossible to reconcile one fact with another, and to reach a clear view of things as a whole. _the fashion of things._ the first thoughts on nature and her processes are moulded very largely by the tendencies of the young mind touched on in the last chapter. like the savage the child is apt to think of the wind and the thunder as somebody's doing, and as aimed specially at himself. hence the strongly marked mythological or supernatural element in children's theories. here, it is evident, thought is supported by a somewhat capricious fancy. when, for example, a child accounts for the wind by saying that somebody is waving a very big fan somewhere, or, more prettily, that it is made by the fanning of the angels' wings, he comes very near that romancing which we have regarded as the play of imagination. yet though fanciful it is still thought, just because it aims, however wildly, at explaining something in the real world. with this fanciful and mythological element there goes a more scientific one. even the fan myth recognises a mechanical process, _viz._, the waving of something to and fro, which does undoubtedly produce a movement of the air. children's first theories of nature often show a queer mingling of supernatural and natural conceptions. i propose now to examine a few of the commoner ideas of children respecting natural objects. one characteristic of this first thought about things appears at an early age. a child seems inclined to take all that he sees for real tangible substance: it is some time before he learns that "things are not what they seem". for example, an infant will try to touch shadows, sunlight dancing on the wall and flat objects in pictures. this tendency to make things out of all he sees shows itself in pretty forms, as when a little girl one year eleven months old, "gathered sunlight in her hands and put it on her face," and about a month earlier expressed a wish to wash some black smoke. this was the same child that tried to make the wind behave by tidying her mother's hair; and her belief in the material reality of the wind was shown by her asking her mother to lift her up high so that she might see the wind; which reminds one of r. l. stevenson's lines to the wind:- i felt you push, i heard you call, i could not see yourself at all. in making a reality out of the wind a child is led not by sight, but by touch. he _feels_ the wind, and so the wind must be something substantial. the common childish thought about the wind shows that the young mind is apt to be much impressed by the movements of things. movement seems for all of us the clearest and most impressive manifestation of life. when the movement of an object is not seen to be caused by some other object, but seems to be spontaneous, it is apt to be taken by children as by uncivilised races to be the sign of life, and of something like human impulse. a child of eighteen months used to throw kisses to the fire. some children in the infant department of a london board school were asked what things in the room were alive, and they promptly replied: "the smoke and the fire". big things moving by some internal contrivance of which the child knows nothing, more especially engines, are of course endowed with life. a little girl of thirteen months offered a biscuit to a steam-tram, and the author of _the invisible playmate_ tells us that his little girl wanted to stroke the "dear head" of a locomotive. next to movement a sound which seems to be produced by the thing itself leads children to endow it with life. are not movement and vocal sound the two great channels by which the child itself expresses its feelings and impulses? the wind often owes something of its life to its sound. the common tendency of children to think of the sea as alive, of which m. pierre loti gives an excellent illustration in his _roman d'un enfant_, is no doubt based on the perception of its noise and movement. a little boy assured his teacher that the wind was alive, for he heard it whistling in the night. the impulse, too, to endow with life an object which looks so very much of a machine as a railway engine, is probably supported by the knowledge of its puffing and whistling. closely related to this impulse to ascribe life to what we call inanimate objects is the tendency to conceive of them as growing. this is illustrated in the remark of a little boy of three and a half years who when criticised by his mother for trying to make a walking-stick out of a very short stick, observed: "me use it for walking-stick when stick be bigger". i have referred in the last chapter to children's way of thinking of things as made by somebody. the idea of hand-work is extended in odd ways. for example, quite young children are apt to extend the ideas broken and mended to all kinds of objects. anything which seems to have become reduced by losing a portion of itself is said to be "broken". thus a little boy of three, on seeing the moon partly covered by a cloud, remarked: "the moon is broken". on the other hand, in the case of one little boy, everything not broken or intact was said to be "mended". do children when they talk in this fashion really think that things are constantly undergoing repairs at the hand of some mysterious mechanic, or are they using their familiar terms figuratively in default of others? it is hard to say. curious thoughts about nature's processes arise later when the inquirer tries to make them intelligible to himself. here the first mechanical conceptions of the wind deserve attention. an american child, asked what a tree was, answered oddly, "to make the wind blow". a pupil of mine distinctly recalls that when a child he accounted for the wind at night by the swaying of two large elms which stood in front of the house not far from the windows of his bedroom. this putting of the cart before the horse is funny enough, yet it is perfectly natural. all the wind-making a child can observe, as in blowing with his mouth, waving a newspaper, and so forth, is effected by the movement of a material object. _the bigger world._ with respect to distant objects, a child is of course freer to speculate, and, as we know, his ideas of the heavenly bodies are wont to be odd enough. his thoughts about these remote objects are rendered quainter by his inability to conceive of great distances. children naturally enough take this world to be what it looks to their uninstructed eyes. thus the earth becomes a circular plain, and the sky a sort of inverted bowl placed upon it. many children appear like the ancients to suppose that the sky and the heavenly bodies touch the earth somewhere, and could be reached by taking a long, long journey. other and similar ideas are formed by some. thus one little girl used on looking at the sky to fancy she was inside a blue balloon. the heavenly bodies are apt to be taken for flat discs. the brother of the little girl just referred to took the sun to be a big kind of cask cover, which could be put on the round globe to make a "see-saw". when this first simple creed gets corrected, children go to work to put a meaning into what is told them by their instructors. thus they begin to speculate about the other side of the globe, and, as mr. barrie reminds us, are apt to fancy they can know about it by peeping down a well. when religious instruction introduces the new region of heaven they are wont to localise it just above the sky, which to their thought forms its floor. some hard thinking is carried out by the young heads in the effort to reconcile the various things they learn about the celestial region. thus the sky is apt to be thought of as _thin_, probably by way of explaining the light of the stars and moon, which is supposed to shine through the sky-roof. one american child ingeniously applied the idea of the thinness of the sky to explain the appearance of the moon when one part is bright and the other faintly illumined, supposing it to be half-way through a sort of semi-transparent curtain. others again prettily accounted for the waning of the moon to a crescent by saying it was half stuck or half "buttoned" into the sky. characteristic movements of childish thought show themselves in framing ideas of the making of the world. the boy of four described by mrs. jardine thought that the stars were "cut out" first, and that then the little bits left over were all rolled into the moon. such an idea of cosmogony seems nonsense till one remembers the work of cutting out the finer figures in paper. in much the same way children try to understand the movements of the sun and other heavenly bodies by help of the familiar movements of terrestrial objects. thus the sun was thought by american children to fly, to be blown, perhaps like a soap-bubble or air-ball, and, by a child with a more mechanical turn, to roll, presumably as a hoop rolls, and so forth. theological ideas, too, are pressed into the service of childish explanation, as when the disappearance of the sun is ascribed to god's pulling it up higher out of sight, to his taking it into heaven and putting it to bed, and the like. the impressive phenomena of thunder and lightning give rise in the case of the child as in that of the nature-man to some fine myth-making. the american children, as already observed, have different mechanical illustrations for describing the supernatural operation here, thunder being thought of as the noise made by god when groaning, when walking heavily on the floor of heaven, when he has coals "run in"--ideas which show how naã¯vely the child-mind humanises the deity, making him a respectable citizen with a house and a coal-cellar. in like manner the lightning is attributed to god's lighting the gas, or striking many matches at once. by a similar use of familiar household operations god is supposed to cause rain by turning on a tap, or by letting it down from a cistern by a hose, or, better, by passing it through a sieve or a dipper with holes.[7] [7] i am indebted for these illustrations to an article by dr. stanley hall on "the contents of children's minds". throughout the whole region of these mysterious phenomena we have illustrations of the tendency to regard what takes place as designed for us poor mortals. thus one of the american children referred to said charmingly that the moon comes round when people forget to light the lamps. the little girl of whom mr. canton writes thought "the wind and the rain and the moon 'walking' came out to see _her_, and the flowers woke up with the same laudable object". when frightened by the crash of the thunder a child instinctively thinks that it is all done to vex his little soul. an earthquake may be thought of as a kind of wonder show, specially got up for the admiration of a sufficient body of spectators. two children, d. and k., aged ten and five respectively, lived in a small american town. d., who was reading about an earthquake, addressed his mother thus: "oh, isn't it dreadful, mamma? do you suppose we will ever have one here?" k., intervening with the characteristic impulse of the young child to correct his elders, answered: "why, no, d., they don't have earthquakes in little towns like this". later on nature's arrangements are criticised from the same point of view. a girl of seven, going back to the interesting question of babies, remarked to her mother: "wouldn't it be convenient if you laid an egg, and then if you changed your mind you needn't hatch it?" _dreams._ children are apt to have their own thoughts about the strange semblances of objects which sometimes present themselves to their eyes, more particularly the "spectra" which we see after looking at the sun or when the circulation of the retina is disturbed. one little fellow spun quite a romance about the spectra he used to see when poorly, saying that they were angels, and that they went into his toy-basket and played with his toys. the most common form of such illusory appearance is, of course, the dream, and i believe that children dwell much on the mystery of dreaming. the simpler kind of child, like the savage, is disposed to take his dreams for sensible realities. a boy in an elementary school in london, aged five years, said one day: "teacher, i saw an old woman one night against my bed". another child, a little girl in the same school, told her mother that she had seen a funeral last night, and on being asked, "where?" answered quaintly, "i saw it in my pillow". a little boy whom i know once asked his mother not to put him to bed in a certain room, "because there were so many dreams in the room". yet children who reflect soon find out that dream-objects do not belong to the common world, in the sights of which we all partake. another theory has then to be found. i believe that many children, especially those who, being imaginative when awake, make their fairy-stories and their own romancings very real to themselves, and who, as a result of this, are wont to return to them in their dreams, are inclined to identify dreamland and fairyland. if they want to see their "fairies" by day they will shut their eyes; and so the idea may naturally enough occur to them that when closing their eyes for sleep they are going to see the beloved fairies again, and for a longer time. other ideas about dreams also occur among children. a gentleman tells me that when a child he used to think that dreaming, though different from actual seeing, was yet more than having one's own individual fancies; on dreaming, for example, that he had met certain people he supposed that each of these must have had a dream in which he had met him. this, it may be remembered, is very much the fanciful idea of dreaming which mr. du maurier works out in his pretty story _peter ibbetson_. there is some evidence to show that a thoughtful child, when he begins to grasp the truth that dreams are only unreal phantasms, becomes confused, and wonders whether the things too which we see when waking are not unreal. here is a quaint example of this transference of childish doubt from dreamland to the every-day world. a little boy five years old asked his teacher: "wouldn't it be funny if we were dreaming?" and being satisfied by the reply elicited that it would be funny, he continued more explicitly: "supposing every one in the whole world were dreaming, wouldn't _that_ be funny? they might be, mightn't they?" receiving a slightly encouraging, "perhaps they might," he wound up his argument in this fashion: "yes, but i don't think we are--i'm sure we are not. perhaps we should wake up and find _every one_ gone away." this is dark enough, but suggests, i think, that doubt as to the bright beautiful forms seen in sleep is casting its shadow on the real world, on the precious certainty of the presence of those we love. a little girl about six and a half years old being instructed by her father as to the making of the world remarked: "perhaps the world's a fancy". the doubt in this case too was, one may conjecture, led up to by the loss of faith in dreamland. _birth and growth._ we may now pass to some of children's characteristic thoughts about living things, more particularly human beings, and the familiar domestic animals. the most interesting of these, i think, are those respecting growth and birth. as already mentioned, the growth of things is one of the most stimulating of childish puzzles. led no doubt by what others tell him, a child finds that things are in general made bigger by additions from without, and his earliest conception of growth is, i think, that of such addition. thus, plants are made to grow, that is, swell out, by the rain. the idea that the growth or expansion of animals comes from eating is easily reached by the childish intelligence, and, as we know, nurses and parents have a way of recommending the less attractive sorts of diet by telling children that they will make them grow. the idea that the sun makes us grow, often suggested by parents (who may be ignorant of the fact that growth _is_ more rapid in the summer than in the winter), is probably interpreted by the analogy of an infusion of something into the body. a number of children, i have found, have the queer notion that towards the end of life there is a process of shrinkage. old people are supposed to become little again. one of the american children referred to, a little girl of three, once said to her mother: "when i am a big girl and you are a little girl i shall whip you just as you whipped me now". at first one is almost disposed to think that this child must have heard of mr. anstey's amusing story, _vice versã¢_. yet i have collected a number of similar observations. for example, a little boy that i know, when about three and a half years old, used often to say to his mother with perfect seriousness of manner: "when i am big then you will be little, then i will carry you about and dress you and put you to sleep". and one little girl asked about some old person of her acquaintance: "when will she begin to get small?" another little girl asked her grown-up cousin who was reading to her something about an old woman: "do people turn back into babies when they get quite old?" another interesting fact to be noted here is that some children firmly believe that persons after dying and going to heaven will return to earth as little children. an american lady writes to me that two of her boys found their way independently of each other to this idea. thus one of them speaking of a playmate who had been drowned, and who was now, he was told, in heaven, remarked: "then god will let him come back and be a baby again". what, it may be asked, is the explanation of this quaint childish thought? i think it probable that it is suggested in different ways. one must remember that as a child grows taller grown-ups may seem _by comparison_ to get shorter. again old people are wont to stoop and so to look shorter; and then children often hear in their stories of "little old" people. i suspect, however, that in some cases there is a more subtle train of thought. as the belief of the two brothers in people's coming back from heaven suggests, the idea of shrinkage is connected with those of birth and death. may it not be that the more thoughtful sort of child reasons in this way? babies which are sent from heaven must have been something there; and people when they die must continue to be something in heaven. why, then, the "dead" people that go to this place are the very same as the babies that come from it. to make this theory "square" with other knowledge, the idea of shrinkage, either before or after death, has to be called in. that it takes place before death is supported by what was said above, and probably also by the information often given to children that people when they die are carried by angels to heaven just as the babies are said to be brought down to earth by the angels. the origin of babies and young animals furnishes the small brain, as we have seen, with much food for speculation. here the little thinker is not often left to excogitate a theory for himself. his inconvenient questionings in this direction have to be firmly checked, and thus arise the well-known legends about the doctor, the angel and so forth. with the various lore thus collected, supplemented by the pretty conceits of hans andersen and other writers of fairy stories, the young inquirer has to do his best. how the child-thinker is apt to go to work here is illustrated in a collection of the thoughts of american school-children. some of these said that god drops babies for the women and doctors to catch them, others that he brings them down to earth by means of a wooden ladder, others again, that mamma, nurse, or doctor goes up and fetches them in a balloon. they are said by other children to grow in cabbages, or to be placed by god in water, perhaps in the sewer, where they are found by the doctor, who takes them to sick folks that want them. here we have delicious touches of childish fancy, quaint adaptations of fairy and bible lore, as in the use of jacob's ladder and the legend of moses placed among the bulrushes, this last being enriched by the thorough master-stroke of child-genius, the idea of the dark, mysterious, wonder-producing sewer. not all children, by any means, elaborate even this crude sort of theory. the less speculative and more practical kind of child accepts what he is told and proceeds to apply it, sometimes oddly enough. thus the _lancet_ recently contained an amusing letter from some children, the eldest of whom was seven, addressed to a doctor asking for a baby for their mother's next birthday. it was to be "fat and bonny, with blue eyes and fair hair"--a perfect doll in fact; and a characteristic postscript asked: "which would be the cheaper--a boy or a girl?" these ideas of children about babies partly communicated by others, partly thought out for themselves, are naturally enough made to account for the beginnings of animal life. this is illustrated in the supposition of the little boy, already quoted, who thought that god helps pussy to have "'ickle kitties," seeing that she hasn't any kitties in eggs given her to sit upon. chapter vi. first thoughts: (_b_) self and other mysteries. we may now pass to some of the characteristic modes of child-thought about that standing mystery, the self. as our discussion of the child's ideas of origin, growth and final shrinkage suggests, a good deal of his most earnest thinking is devoted to problems relating to himself. _the visible self._ the date of the first thought about self, of the first dim stage of self-awareness, probably varies considerably in the case of different children according to the rapidity of the mental development and to the character of the surrounding circumstances. the little girl, who was afterwards to be known as george sand, may be supposed to have had an exceptional development; and the blow which she received as a baby in arms, and to which she ascribes the first dawn of self-consciousness, was, of course, exceptional too. there are probably many robust and unreflective children, knowing little of life's misery, who get on extremely well without any consciousness of self. the earliest idea of children about "myself" is a mental picture of the body. they come to learn that their body is different from other objects of sense by a number of experiences, such as grasping the foot, striking the head, receiving soft caresses, kisses, and so forth. such experiences may suffice to develop even during the first year the idea that their body is "me" in the sense that it is the living seat of pain and pleasure. the moving limbs are, of course, a specially interesting part of this bodily self. yet there is reason to think that children regard the trunk as the most important and vital part of themselves. thus one small boy who, when put to bed, could not get into a comfortable posture, said queerly: "i can't get my hands out of the way of myself". this may be because they learn to connect the impressive experiences of aches and pains with the trunk, and because they observe that the maimed can do without arms and without legs. it is interesting to note that in the development of the idea of the soul by the race its seat was placed in the trunk, _viz._, the heart, long before it was localised in the head. children are probably confirmed in this view of the supreme importance of the trunk by our way of specially referring to it when speaking of the "body". about this interesting trunk-body, what is inside it, and how it works, the child speculates vastly. the experience of bleeding has suggested to some children that it is filled with blood. when later on the young thinker hears of the stomach, bones and so forth, he sets about theorising on these mysterious matters. odd twistings of thought occur when the higher anatomy is talked of in his hearing. a six-year-old girl, of whom mr. canton writes, thus delivered herself with respect to the brain and its functions: "brain is what you think with in your head, and the more you think the more crinkles there are". the growth of the folds was understood, with charming childish simplicity, as the immediate effect of thought, like the crinkling of the skin of the forehead. at a later stage of the child's development, no doubt, when he begins to grasp the idea of a conscious thinking "i," the head will become a principal portion of the bodily self. children are quite capable of finding their way, in part at least, to the idea that the mind has its lodgment in the head. but it is long before this thought grows clear. this may be seen in children's talk, as when a girl of four spoke of her dolly as having no sense in her _eyes_. even after a child has learned from others that we think with our brains he may go on supposing that our thoughts travel down to the mouth when we speak. very interesting in connection with the first stages of development of the idea of self is the experience of the mirror. it would be absurd to expect a child when first placed before a glass to recognise his own face. he will smile at the reflection as early as the tenth week, though this is probably merely an expression of pleasure at the sight of a bright object. if held when about six months old in somebody's arms before a glass a baby will at once show that he recognises the image of the familiar face of his carrier by turning round to the real face, whereas he does not recognise his own. he appears at first and for some months to take it for a real object, sometimes smiling to it as to a stranger and even kissing it, or, as in the case of a little girl (fifteen months old), offering it things. an infant will, we know, take a shadow to be a real object and try to touch it. some children on noticing their own and other people's shadows on the wall are afraid as at something uncanny. here, too, in time, as with young animals, _e.g._, kittens, the strange appearance is taken as a matter of course. some children seem to follow out in part the line of thought of uncivilised races, and take reflections and shadows for a kind of "double" of the self. one of dr. stanley hall's correspondents writes to him that he used to have small panics at his own shadow, trying to run away from it, and to stamp on it, thinking it might be his soul. we find another illustration of this doubling of the self in the autobiography of george sand, which relates that when a child, reflecting on the impressive experience of the echo, she invented a theory of her double existence. we know, too, that the boy hartley coleridge distinguished among the "hartleys" a picture hartley and a shadow hartley. to one little boy the idea of being photographed seemed uncanny, as if it were a robbing himself of something and the making of another self. but much more needs to be known about these matters. the prominence of the bodily element in a child's first idea of himself is seen in the tendency to regard his sameness as limited by unaltered bodily appearance. a child of six, with his shock of curls, will, naturally enough, refuse to believe that he is the same as the hairless baby whose photograph the mother shows him. one boy who had attained to the dignity of knickerbockers used to speak of his petticoated predecessor as a little girl. _the hidden self._ in process of time, however, what we call the conscious self, that which thinks and suffers and wills, comes to be dimly discerned. it is probable that a real advance towards this true self-consciousness takes place towards the end of the third year, when the difficult forms of language, "i," "me," "mine," commonly come to be used with intelligence. this is borne out by the following story: a little girl of three lying in bed shut her eyes and said: "mother, you can't see me now". the mother replied: "oh, you little goose, i can see you but you can't see me". to which she rejoined: "oh, yes, i know you can see _my body_, mother, but you can't see _me_". the "me" here was, i suppose, the expression of the inner self through the eyes. the same child at about the same age was concerned as to the reality of her own existence. one day playing with her dolls she asked her mother: "mother, am _i_ real, or only a pretend like my dolls?" the first thought about self as something existing apart from all that is seen is apt to be very perplexing to the thoughtful child. as one lady puts it, writing to me of her childish experience: "the power of feeling and acting and moving about myself, under the guidance of some internal self, amazed me continually". as may be seen by this quotation, the first thought about self is greatly occupied with its action on the body. among the many things that puzzled one much-questioning little lad already quoted was this: "how do my thoughts come down from my brain to my mouth: and how does my spirit make my legs walk?" a girl in her fifth year wanted to know how it is we can move our arm and keep it still when we want to, while the curtain can't move except somebody moves it. _the unreachable past._ very curious are the directions of the first thought about the past self. the idea of what we call personal identity does not appear to be fully reached at first; the little boy already quoted who referred to his past self by saying, "when i was a little girl," must have had a very hazy idea of his sameness with that small petticoated person. it would seem, indeed, as if a child found it easy to dissociate his present self from his past, to deny all kinship with it. the difficulty to the child of conceiving of his remote past, is surpassed by that of trying to understand the state of things before he was born. the true mystery of birth for the child, the mystery which fascinates and holds his mind, is that of his beginning to be. this is illustrated in the question of a little boy: "where was i a hundred years ago? where was i before i was born?" it remains a mystery for all of us, only that after a time we are wont to put it aside. even when a child begins to take in the fact that there was a time when he was not, he is unable to think of absolute non-existence. a little girl of three being shown a photograph of her family and not seeing her own face in the group asked: "where is me?" being duly instructed that she was not here, or indeed anywhere, she asked: "was i killed?" it is curious to note the differences in the attitude of children's minds towards this mystery, "before you were born". a child accustomed to be made the centre of others' interest may be struck with the blank in the common home life before his arrival. a little girl of three, on being told by her mother of something which happened long before she was born, asked in amazement: "and what did you do without h.? did you cry all day for her?" sometimes again, in the more metaphysical sort of child, the puzzle relates to the past existence of the outer world. we have all been perplexed by the thought of the earth and sky, and other folk existing before we were, and going on to exist after we cease to be; though here again we are apt to "get used" to the puzzle. children may be deeply impressed with this apparent contradiction. jean ingelow in the interesting reminiscences of her childhood writes: "i went through a world of cogitation as to whether it was really true that anything had been and lived before i was there to see it". a little boy of five who was rather given to saying "clever" things, was one day asked by a visitor, who thought to rebuke what she took to be his conceit: "why, m., however did the world go round before you came into it?" m. at once replied: "why, it _didn't_ go round. it only began five years ago." this child, too, had probably felt little jean ingelow's difficulty. a child will sometimes try to escape from this puzzle by way of the supernatural ideas already referred to. if of quick intelligence he will see in the legend of babies brought from heaven to earth a way of prolonging his existence backwards. the same little boy that was so concerned to know what his mother had done without him, happened one day to be passing a street pump with his mother, when he stopped and observed with perfect gravity: "there are no pumps in heaven where i came from". he had evidently worked out the idea of heaven-sent babies into a theory of pre-natal existence. in thinking of their past, children have to encounter that terrible mystery, time. they seem at first quite unable to think of time as we think of it, in an abstract way. "to-day," "to-morrow" and "yesterday" are spoken of as things which move. a girl of four asked: "where is yesterday gone to?" and "where will to-morrow come from?" another difficulty is the grasping of great lengths of time. a child is apt to exaggerate greatly a short period. the first morning at school has seemed an eternity to some who have carried the recollection of it into middle life. even the minutes when, as mrs. maynell writes, "your mother's visitor held you so long at his knee, while he talked to her the excited gabble of the grown-up," may have seemed very, very big. possibly this sense of the immeasurable length of certain experiences of childhood gives to the child's sense of past time something of an aching vastness which older people can hardly understand. do not the words "long, long ago," when we use them in telling a child a story, still carry with them for our ears a strangely far-off sound? again, children find it hard to map out the divisions of time, and to see the relations of one period to another. one little boy about five and a half finding that something had happened before his father was born, asked whether it was in the time of the romans. his historical perspective had, not unnaturally perhaps, set the "time of the romans" just before the life of the oldest of his household. _the supernatural world._ a child's first acquaintance with the supernatural is frequently made through the medium of fairy-story or other fiction. and, as has been suggested in an earlier chapter, he can put a germ of thought into the tradition of a fairy-world. it is, however, when something in the shape of theological instruction supervenes that the supernatural becomes a problem for the young intellect. he is told of these mysterious things as of certainties, and in the measure in which he is a thinker, he will try to get a clear intelligent view of things. like the beginning of life, its ending is one of the recurring puzzles of early days. a child appears better able to imagine others dying than himself; this seems to be suggested by a story published by stanley hall of a little girl who from six to nine feared that all other people would die one by one, and that she would be left alone on the earth. the first recoil from an inscrutable mystery soon begins to give place to a feeling of dread. a little girl of three and a half years asked her mother to put a great stone on her head, because she did not want to die. she was asked how a stone would prevent it, and answered with perfect childish logic: "because i shall not grow tall if you put a great stone on my head; and people who grow tall get old and then die". the first way of regarding death seems to be as a temporary state like sleep, which it so closely resembles. a little boy of two and a half years, on hearing from his mother of the death of a lady friend, at once asked: "will mrs. p. still be dead when we go back to london?" the knowledge of burial gives a new and alarming turn to the child's thought. he now begins to speculate much about the grave. the instinctive tendency to carry over the idea of life and feeling to the buried body is illustrated in the request made by a little boy to his mother: "don't put earth on my face when i am buried". in the case of children who pick up something of the orthodox creed the idea of going to heaven has somehow to be grasped and put side by side with that of burial. here comes one of the hardest puzzles for the logical child. one boy tried to reconcile the story of heaven with the fact of burial, at first by assuming that the good people who went to heaven were not buried at all; and later by supposing that the journey to heaven was somehow to be effected after burial and by way of the grave. other devices for getting a consistent view of things are also hit upon. some children have supposed that the _head_ only passes into heaven, partly from taking the "body" to be the trunk only, and partly from a feeling that the head is the seat of the thinking mind. the idea of dead people going to heaven is, as we know, pushed by the little brain to its logical consequences. animals when they die are, naturally enough, supposed to go to heaven also. _the great maker._ children seem disposed, apart from religious instruction, to form ideas of supernatural beings. sometimes it is a dreadful person who exerts a malign influence on the child, sending him, for example, his pains in the stomach. in other cases it is a fairy-like being who is created into a mighty benefactor, and half-worshipped and prayed to in childish fashion. even when religious instruction supplies the form of the supernatural being the young thinker deals with this in his own original way. he has to understand the mysteries of god, satan and the rest, and he can only understand them by shedding on them the light of homely terrestrial facts. hence the undisguised materialism of the child's theology. according to dr. stanley hall's inquiries into the thoughts of american children, god is apt to be imaged as a big, very strong man or giant. one child thought of him as a huge being with limbs spread all over the sky; another, as so tall that he could stand with one foot on the ground, and touch the clouds. he is commonly supposed, in conformity with what is told him, to dwell just above the sky, which last, as we have seen, is thought of as a dividing floor, through the chinks of which we get glimmerings of the glory of the heaven above. but some children show more of their own thought in localising the deity, placing him, for example, in one of the stars, or the moon, or lower down "upon the hill". differences in childish feeling, as well as in intelligence, reflect themselves in the first ideas about the divine dwelling-place. it seems commonly to be conceived of as a grand house or mansion. while, however, some children deck it out with all manner of lovely things, including a park, flowers, and birds, others give it a homelier character, thinking, for example, of doors and possible draughts, like a little girl who asked god "to mind and shut the door, because he (_i.e._, grandpapa who had just died) can't stand the draughts". some children, too, of a less exuberant fancy are disposed to think of heaven as by no means so satisfyingly lovely, and rather to shrink from a long wearisome stay in it. while thus relegated to the sublime regions of the sky god is supposed to be doing things, and of course doing them for us, sending down rain and so forth. what seems to impress children most, especially boys, in the traditional account of god is his power of making things. he is emphatically the artificer, the "demiurgos," who not only has made the world, the stars, etc., but is still kept actively employed by human needs. according to some of the american school-children he fabricates all sorts of things from babies to money, and the angels work for him. the boy has a great admiration for the maker, and one small english boy once expressed this oddly by asking his mother whether a group of working men returning from their work were "gods". this admiration for superior power and skill favours the idea of god's omnipotence. this is amply illustrated in children's spontaneous prayers, which ask for things, from fine weather on a coming holiday to a baby with curly hair and other lovely attributes, with all a child's naã¯ve faith. yet a critical attitude will sometimes be taken up towards this mystery of unlimited power. the more logical and speculative sort of child will now and then put a sceptical question to his elders on this subject. a boy of eight turned over the problem whether god could beat him in a foot-race if he were starter and judge and refused to let god start till he had reached the goal; and he actually measured out the racecourse on a garden path and went through the part of running, afterwards sitting down and giving god time to run, and then pondering the possibility of his beating him. the idea of god's omniscience, too, may come readily enough to a child accustomed to look up admiringly to the boundless knowledge of some human authority, say a clergyman. yet i know of cases where the dogma of god's infinite knowledge provoked in the child's mind a sceptical attitude. one little fellow remarked on this subject rather profanely: "i know a 'ickle more than kitty, and you know a 'ickle more than me; and god knows a 'ickle more than you, i s'pose; then he can't know so very much after all". another of the divine attributes does undoubtedly shock the child's intelligence. while he is told that god has a special abode in heaven, he is told also that he is here, there and everywhere, and can see everything. more particularly the idea of being always watched is, i think, repugnant to sensitive and high-spirited children. an american lady, miss shinn, speaks of a little girl, who, on learning that she was under this constant surveillance, declared that she "would _not_ be so tagged". an english boy of three, on being informed by his older sister that god can see and watch us while we cannot see him, thought awhile, and then in an apologetic tone said: "i'm very sorry, dear, i can't (b)elieve you". when the idea is accepted odd devices are excogitated by the active little brain for making it intelligible. thus one child thought of god as a very small person who could easily pass through the keyhole. the opposite idea of god's huge framework, illustrated above, is probably but another attempt to figure the conception of omnipresence. curious conclusions too are sometimes drawn from the supposition. thus a little girl of three years and nine months one day said to her mother in the abrupt childish manner: "mr. c. (a gentleman she had known who had just died) is in this room". her mother, naturally a good deal startled, answered: "oh, no!" whereupon the child resumed: "yes, he is. you told me he is with god, and you told me god was everywhere; so as mr. c. is with god, he must be in this room." it might easily be supposed that the child's readiness to pray to god is inconsistent with what has just been said. yet i think there is no real inconsistency. children's idea of prayer appears commonly to be that of sending a message to some one at a distance. the epistolary manner noticeable in many prayers, especially at the beginning and the ending, seems to illustrate this. the mysterious whispering in which a prayer is often conveyed is, i suspect, supposed in some inscrutable fashion known only to the child to transmit itself to the divine ear. of the child's belief in god's goodness it is needless to say much. for these little worshippers he is emphatically the friend in need who is just as ready as he is able to help them out of every manner of difficulty, and who, if they only ask prettily, will send them all the nice things they long for. yet, happy little optimists as they are inclined to be, they will now and again be saddened by doubt, and wonder why the nice things asked for don't come, and why the dear kind god allows them to suffer so much. while a child is thus apt to think of god as nicer than the nicest gentleman visitor who is wont to bring toys and do wondrous things for his delectation, he commonly imports into his conception a touch of human caprice. fear may readily suggest to a child who has had some orthodox instruction that the wind howling at night is the noise of god's anger, or that the thunder is due to a sudden determination of the creator to shoot him dead. the sceptical child, again, who is by no means so rare, may early begin to wonder how god can be so good and yet allow men to kill animals, and allow satan to do such a lot of wicked things. one of the hardest puzzles set to a child by the common religious instruction is the doctrine of god's eternity. the idea of a vast, endless "for ever," whether past or future, seems to be positively overwhelming to many young minds. the continual frustration of the attempt to reach a resting-place in a beginning or an end may bring on something of mental giddiness. hence the wearisome perplexities of the first thoughts about god's past. the question, "who made god?" seems to be one to which all inquiring young minds are led at a certain stage of child-thought. when told that god has always been, unchanging, and knowing no youth, he wants to get behind this "always was," just as at an earlier stage of his development he wanted to get behind the barrier of the blue hills. other mysteries of the orthodox faith may undergo a characteristic solution in the hard-working mind of a child. a friend tells me that when a child he was much puzzled by the doctrine of the trinity. he happened to be an only child, and so he was led to put a meaning into it by likening it to his own family group, in which the holy ghost had, rather oddly, to take the place of the mother. thoughtful children by odd processes of early logic are apt when interpreting the words and actions of their teachers to endow god with surprising attributes. for example, a boy of four asked his aunt one sunday to tell him why god was so fond of three-penny bits. asked why he thought god had this particular liking, he explained by saying that he noticed that on sunday morning people ask for a three-penny bit "instead of" three pennies, and that as they take it to church he supposed that they gave it to god. i have tried to show that the more thoughtful children seek to put meaning into the communications about the unseen world which they are wont to receive from their elders. perhaps these elders if they knew what is apt to go on in a child's mind would reconsider some of the answers which they give to the little questioner, and select with more care the truths which, as they flatter themselves, they are making so plain to their little ones. chapter vii. the battle with fears: (_a_) the onslaught. it is often asked whether children have as lively, as intense feelings as their elders. those emotions of childhood which are wont to break out into violent expression, such as angry disappointment and gladness, may not, it is said, be in themselves so intense as they look. in order to get more data for settling the question we must try to reach their less demonstrative feelings, those which they are apt to hide from view out of shame, or some other impulse. of these none is more interesting than fear, and it so happens that a good deal of inquiry has of late been directed to this feeling. that we must not expect too much knowledge here seems certain. fear is one of the shyest of the young feelings. a little fellow of two coming out of his grandpapa's house one evening into the darkness with his mother, asked her: "would you like to take hold of my hand, mammy?" his father took this to mean the beginning of boyish determination not to show fear. still, with the help of observations of parents, and later confessions and descriptions of childish fear, we may be able to get some insight into the dark subject. that fear is one of the characteristic feelings of children needs, one supposes, no proving. in spite of the wonderful stories of horatio nelson, and of their reflections in literature, _e.g._, mr. barrie's "sentimental tommy," i entertain the gravest doubts as to the existence of a perfectly fearless child. children differ enormously, and the same child differs enormously at different times in the intensity of his fear, but they all have the characteristic _disposition_ to fear. it seems to belong to these wee, weakly things, brought face to face with a new strange world, to tremble. they are naturally timid, as all that is weak and ignorant in nature is apt to be timid. i have said that fear is well marked in the child. yet, though it is true that a state of "being afraid" when fully developed shows itself by unmistakable signs, there are many cases where it is by no means easy to say whether the child experiences the feeling. people are apt to think that every time a child starts it is feeling afraid of something, but as we shall presently see, being startled and really frightened are two experiences, which, though closely related, must be carefully distinguished. a child may, further, show a sort of ã¦sthetic repugnance to certain sounds, such as those of a piano; to ugly forms, _e.g._, a hunch-back figure; to particular touches, such as that of fur or velvet, without having the full experience of fear. observers of children are by no means careful to distinguish true fear from other feelings which resemble it. fear proper shows itself in such signs as these, in the stare, the grave look, the movement of turning away and hiding the face against the nurse's or mother's shoulder, or of covering it with the hands. in the severer forms, known as terror, it leads to trembling and to wild shrieking. changes of colour also occur, the child's face turning white, or possibly in some cases red. when frightened by anything an older child will commonly run from the object of his fear, though the violence of the feeling may sometimes paralyse the limbs and chain the would-be fugitive to the spot. this often happens, i fancy, with a sudden oncoming of dread at discovering oneself alone in the dark. _the battery of sounds._ as is well known, sudden and loud sounds, such as that of a door banging, will give a shock to an infant in the first weeks of life, which though not amounting to fear is its progenitor. a clearer manifestation occurs when a new and unfamiliar sound calls forth the grave look, the trembling lip, and possibly the fit of crying. darwin noticed these in one of his own boys at the age of four and a half months, when he produced the new sound of a loud snoring. it is not every new sound which is thus disconcerting to the little stranger. sudden sharp sounds of any kind seem to be especially disliked, as those of a dog's bark. a little girl burst out crying on first hearing the sound of a baby rattle; and she did the same two months later on accidentally ringing a hand bell. children often show curious caprices in their objections to sounds. thus a little girl when taken into the country at the age of nine months took a liking to most of the animals she saw, but on hearing the bleating of the sheep showed a distinct germ of fear by sheltering herself against her nurse's shoulder. so disturbing are new sounds apt to be to the young child that even musical ones are often disliked at first. the first hearing of the tones of a piano has upset the comfort of many a child. a child of five and a half months conceived a kind of horror for a banjo, and screamed if it were played or only touched. animals may show a similar dread of musical sounds. i took a young cat of about eight weeks into my lap and struck some chords not loudly on the piano. it got up, moved uneasily from side to side, then bolted to a corner of the room and seemed to try to get up the walls. many dogs, too, certainly appear to be put out, if not to be made afraid, on hearing the music of a brass band. fear of nature's great sounds, more especially the wind and thunder, which is common among older children, owes its intensity not merely to their volume, which seems to surround and crush, but also to the mystery of their origin. we should remember too that sounds are, for the child still more than for the adult, expressive of feeling and intention. hence religious ideas readily graft themselves on to the noisy utterances of wind and thunder. wind is conceived of, for example, as the blowing of god when angry, and thunder, as we have seen, as his snoring, and so forth. i am far from saying that all children manifest this fear of sounds. many babies welcome the new and beautiful sounds of music with a joyous greeting. even the awful thunder-storm may gladly excite and not frighten. children will sometimes get through the first months without this fear, and then develop it as late as the second year. i think, then, that in these disturbing effects of sound we have to do with something more than a mere nervous shock or a start. they involve a rudiment of the feeling of uneasiness at what is unexpected and disturbing, and so may be said to be the beginning of true childish fears. this element of anxiety becomes more clearly marked where the sound is not only disturbing but mysterious, as when a toy emits a sound, or water produces a rushing noise in some hidden pipe. there is another kind of disturbance which shows itself also in the first year, and has a certain analogy to the discomposing effect of sound. this is the feeling of bodily insecurity which appears very early when the child is awkwardly carried, or when in dandling it, it is let down back-foremost. one child in her fifth month was observed when carried to hold on to the nurse's dress as if for safety. and it has been noticed by more than one observer that on dandling a baby up and down in one's arms, it will on descending, that is when the support of the arms is being withdrawn, show signs of discontent in struggling movements. this is sometimes regarded as an inherited fear; yet it seems possible that, like the jarring effect of noise on the young nerves, it is the result of a rude disturbance. a child accustomed to the support of its cradle, the floor, or somebody's lap, might be expected to be put out when the customary support is withdrawn wholly or partially. the sense of equilibrium is disturbed in this case. other senses, more particularly that of touch, may bring their disturbing elements, too. many children have a strong repugnance to cold clammy things, such as a cold moist hand, and what seems stranger, to the touch of something that seems altogether so likable as fur. whether the common dislike of children to water has anything to do with its soft yieldingness to touch i cannot say. this whole class of early repugnances to certain sensations seems to stand on the confines between mere dislikes and fears, properly so called. a child may very much dislike touching fur without being in the strict sense afraid of it, though the dislike may readily develop into a true fear. _the alarmed sentinel._ we may now pass to the disconcerting and alarming effects to which a child is exposed through his sense of sight. this, as we know, is the intellectual sense, the sentinel that guards the body, keeping a look-out for what is afar as for what is anear. the uneasiness which a child experiences at seeing things is not, like the uneasiness at sounds, a mere effect of violent sensation; it arises much more from a perception of something menacing. among the earliest alarmers of sight may be mentioned the appearance of something new and strange, especially when it involves a sudden abolition of customary arrangements. although we are wont to think of children as loving and delighting in what is new, we must not forget that it may also trouble and alarm. this feeling of uneasiness and apparently of insecurity in presence of changed surroundings shows itself as soon as a child has begun to grow used or accustomed to a particular state of things. among the more disconcerting effects of a rude departure from the customary, is that of change of place. when once an infant has grown accustomed to a certain room it is apt to find a new one strange, and will eye its features with a perceptibly anxious look. this sense of strangeness in places sometimes appears very early. a little girl on being taken at the age of four months into a new nursery, "looked all round and then burst out crying". some children retain this feeling of uneasiness up to the age of three years and later. here, again, clearly marked differences among children disclose themselves. on entering an unfamiliar room a child may have his curiosity excited, or may be amused by the odd look of things, so that the fear-impulse is kept under by other and pleasanter ones. what applies to places applies also to persons. a child may be said to combine the attachment of the dog to persons with that of the cat to localities. any sudden change of the customary human surroundings, for example, the arrival of a stranger on the scene, is apt to trouble him. during the first three months, there is no distinct manifestation of a fear of strangers. it is only later, when recurring forms have grown familiar, that the approach of a stranger, especially if accompanied by a proposal to take the child, calls forth clear signs of displeasure and the shrinking away of fear. professor preyer gives between six and seven months as the date at which his boy began to cry at the sight of a strange face. here, too, curious differences soon begin to disclose themselves, some children showing themselves more hospitable than others. it would be curious to compare the ages at which children begin to take kindly to new faces. professor preyer gives nineteen months as the date at which his boy surmounted his timidity. one strange variety of the fear of strangers is the uneasiness shown in presence of some one who is only partially recognisable. one little boy of eight months moaned in a curious way when his nurse returned home after a fortnight's holiday. another boy of about ten months is said to have shown a marked shrinking from an uncle who strongly resembled his father. such facts, taken with the familiar one that children are apt to be frightened at the sight of a parent partially disguised, suggest that half-stranger half-friend may be for a child's mind worse than altogether a stranger. the uneasiness which comes from a sense of being in a new room or face to face with a stranger may perhaps be described as a feeling of what the germans call the "unhomely". the little traveller has lost his bearings, and he begins to feel that he himself is lost. this effect of homelessness is, of course, most marked when a child finds himself in a strange place. much of the acuter fear of children probably has in it something of this dizzy sickening sense of being lost. a little girl between the ages of seven and ten used to wake up in a fright crying loudly because she could not think where she was. many a child when exploring a new and dark room, or still more venturesomely wandering alone out of doors, has suddenly woke up to the strange homeless look of things. i once saw a wee girl at a children's party who appeared to enjoy herself well enough up to a certain point, but was then suddenly seized by this sense of being lost in a new room among new faces, so that all her older sister's attempts to reassure her failed to stay the paroxysm of grief and terror. we may see a measure of this same distrust of the new, this same clinging to the homely, in many of children's lesser fears, as, for example, that of new clothes. an infant has been known to break out into tears at the sight of a new dress on its mother, though the colour and pattern had, one would have supposed, nothing alarming. the fear of black clothes, of which there are many known examples, probably includes further a special dislike for this colour. here, again, we may see two opposed impulses at work, of which either one or the other may be uppermost in different children, or at different times in the same child. the dread of new clothes has its natural antagonist in the love of new clothes, which is often supported in children of a "subjective" turn by a feeling of something like disgrace at having to go on wearing the same clothes so long. sometimes the love of novelty becomes a passion. the boy alfred de musset at the age of four, watching his mother fitting on his feet a pair of pretty red shoes, exclaimed: "dã©pã¨che-toi, maman, mes souliers neufs vont devenir vieux". some other fears closely resemble that of new clothes insomuch as they involve an unpleasant transformation of a familiar object, the human figure, the mainstay of a child's trust. possibly the alarming effect of making faces, which is said to disturb a child within the first three months, illustrates the effect of shock at the spoiling of what is getting familiar and liked. the donning of a pair of dark spectacles, by extinguishing the focus of childish interest, the eye, will produce a like effect of the uncanny. children show a similar dislike and fear at the sight of an ugly doll with features greatly distorted from the familiar pattern. the fear of certain big objects contains, i think, the germ of this feeling of uneasiness in the presence of strange surroundings. one of the best illustrations of this is produced by a first sight of the sea. some children clearly show signs of alarm, nestling towards their nurses when they are carried near the edge of the water. yet here, again, the behaviour of the childish mind varies greatly. a little boy who first saw the sea at the age of thirteen months exhibited signs not of fear but of wondering delight, prettily stretching out his tiny hands towards it as if wanting to go to it. i am disposed to think that imaginative children, whose minds take in something of the bigness of the sea, are more susceptible of this variety of fear. this conjecture is borne out by the case of two sisters, of whom one, an imaginative child, had not even at the age of six got over her fear of going into the sea, whereas the sister, who was comparatively unimaginative, was perfectly fearless. the supposition finds a further confirmation in the descriptions given by imaginative writers of their early impressions of the sea, for example, that of m. pierre loti in his volume _le roman d'un enfant_. the fear of an eclipse of the moon and other celestial phenomena, owes something of its force and persistence to their unknown and inaccessible character. a child is easily annoyed at that great white thing, which seems like a human face to look down on him, and which never comes a step nearer to let him know what it really is. it may be conjectured too that a child's fear of clouds, when they take on uncanny forms, is supported by their inaccessibility; for he cannot get near them and touch them. it seems, however, according to some recent researches in america, that children's fear of celestial bodies, especially the moon and clouds, is connected with the thought that they may fall on them. the idea of these strange-looking objects above the head, having no visible support, and often taking on a threatening mien, may well give rise to fear in a child's breast akin to the superstitious fear of the savage. self-moving objects, which are not manifestly living things, are apt to excite a feeling of alarm in children, as indeed to some extent in the more intelligent animals. just as a dog will run away from a leaf whirled about by the wind, so children are apt to be terrified by the strange and quite irregular behaviour of a feather as it glides along the floor or lifts itself into the air. a girl of three, who happened to pull a feather out of her mother's eider-down quilt, was so alarmed at seeing it float in the air that she would not come near the bed for days afterwards. shrewd nurses know of this weakness, and have been able effectually to keep a child in a room by putting a feather in the keyhole. the fear here seems to be of something which simulates life and yet is not recognisable as a familiar living form. it was, i suppose, the same uncanny suggestion of life which made a child of four afraid at the sight of a leaf floating on the water of the bath-tub. fear of feathers is, i believe, known among the superstitions of adults. this simulation of life by what is perceived to be not alive probably takes part in other forms of childish dread. toys which take on too impudently the appearance of life may excite fear, as, for example, a toy cow which "moved realistically when it reared its head," a combination which completely scared its possessor, a boy about the age of one and a half years. a child can itself _make_ its toy alive, and so does not want the toy-maker to do so. the fear of shadows, which appears among children as among superstitious adults, seems to arise partly from their blackness and eerie forms, partly from their uncanny movements and changes of form. some of us can recall with r. l. stevenson the childish horror of going up a staircase to bed when, ... all round the candle the crooked shadows come, and go marching along up the stair. one's own shadow is worst of all, doggedly pursuing, horribly close at every movement, undergoing all manner of ugly and weird transformations. chapter viii. the battle with fears (_continued_). _the assault of the beasts._ there are two varieties of children's fears so prominent and so important that it seems worth while to deal with them separately. these are the dread of animals and of the dark. it may well seem strange that the creatures which are to become the companions and playmates of children, and one of the chief sources of their happiness, should cause so much alarm when they first come on the scene. yet so it is. many children, at least, are at first terribly put out by quite harmless members of the animal family. in some cases, no doubt, as when a child takes a strong dislike to a dog after having been alarmed at its barking, we have to do with the disturbing effect of sound merely. fear here takes its rise in the experience of shock. in other cases we have to do rather with a sort of ã¦sthetic dislike to what is disagreeable and ugly than with a true fear. children sometimes appear to feel a repugnance to a black sheep or other animal just because they dislike black objects, though the feeling may not amount to fear properly so called. yet allowing for these sources of repugnance, it seems probable that many children from about two or three onwards manifest something indistinguishable from fear at the first sight of certain animals. the directions of this childish fear vary greatly. darwin's boy when taken to the zoological gardens at the age of two years three months showed a fear of the big caged animals whose forms were strange to him, such, _e.g._, as the lion and the tiger. some children have shown fear on seeing a tame bear, others have selected the cow as their pet dread, others the butting ram, and so forth. nor do they confine their aversions to the bigger animals. snakes, caterpillars, worms, small birds such as sparrows, spiders and even moths have looked alarming enough to throw a child into a state of terror. it is sometimes thought that these early fears of animals are inherited from remote ancestors to whom many wild animals were really dangerous. but i do not think that this has been proven. the variety of these childish recoilings, and the fact that they seem to be just as often from small harmless creatures as from big and mighty ones, suggest that other causes are at work here. we may indeed suppose that a child's nervous system has been so put together and poised that it very readily responds to the impression of strange animal forms by a tremor. special aspects of the unfamiliar animal, aided by special characteristics of its sounds, probably determine the directions of this tremor. in many cases, i think, the mere bigness of an animal, aided by the uncanny look which often comes from an apparent distortion of the familiar human face, may account for some of these early fears. in other cases we can see that it is the suggestion of attack which alarms. this applies pretty certainly to the butting ram, and may apply to pigeons and other birds whose pecking movements readily appear to a child's mind a kind of attack. and this supplies an explanation of the fear of one boy of two years three months at the sight of pigs when sucking; for, as the child let out afterwards, he thought they were biting their mother. the unexpectedness of the animal's movements too, especially when, as in the case of birds, mice, spiders, they are rapid, might excite uneasiness. in other cases it is something uncanny in the movement which excites fear, as when one child was frightened at seeing a cat's tail move when the animal was asleep. the apparent fear of worms and caterpillars in some children may be explained in this way, though associations of disagreeable touch probably assist here. in the case of many of the smaller animals, _e.g._, small birds, mice, and even insects when they come too near, the fear may not improbably have its source in a vague apprehension of invasion. these shrinkings from animals are among the most capricious-looking of all childish fears. many robust children with hardy nerves know little or nothing of them. here, too, as in the case of new things generally, the painfulness of fear is opposed and may be overcome by the pleasure of watching and by the deeper pleasure of "making friends". quite tiny children, on first seeing ducks and other animals, so far from being alarmed, will run after the pretty creatures to make pets of them. nothing perhaps is prettier in child-life than the pose and look of one of these defenceless youngsters when he is making a brave effort to get the better of his fear at the approach of a strange big dog and to proffer friendship to the shaggy monster. the perfect love which lies at the bottom of children's hearts towards their animal kinsfolk soon casts out fear. and when once the reconciliation has been effected it will take a good deal of harsh experience to make the child ever again entertain the thought of danger. _the night attack._ fear of the dark, and especially of _being alone_ in the dark, which includes not only the nocturnal dread of the dark bedroom, but that of closets, caves, woods, and other gloomy places, is no doubt very common among children. it does not show itself in the early months. a baby of three or four months if accustomed to a light may no doubt be upset at being deprived of it; but this is some way from a dread of the dark. this presupposes a certain development of the mind, and more particularly what we call imagination. it is said by dr. stanley hall to attain its greatest strength about the age of five to seven, when images of things are known to be vivid. so far as we can understand it the fear of the dark is rarely of the darkness as such. the blackness present to the eye in a dark room does no doubt encompass us and seem to close in upon and threaten to stifle us. we know, too, that children sometimes show fear of mists, and that many are haunted by the idea of the stifling grave. hence, it is not improbable that children seized by the common terror and dizziness on suddenly waking may feel the darkness as something oppressive. this is borne out by the fact that a little boy on surmounting his dread told his father that he used to think the dark "a great large live thing the colour of black". a child can easily make a substantial thing out of the dark, as he can out of a shadow. yet in most, if not all, cases imagination is active here. the darkness itself offers points for the play of imagination. owing to the activity of the retina, which goes on even when no light excites it, brighter spots are apt to stand out from the black background, to take form and to move; and all this supplies food to a child's fancy. i suspect that the alarming eyes of people and animals which children are apt to see in the dark receive their explanation in this way. of course these sources of uneasiness grow more pronounced when a child is out of health and his nervous tone falls low. even older people who have this fear describe the experience as seeing shadowy flitting forms, and this suggests that the activity of that wonderful little structure the retina is at the bottom of it. the same thing seems to be borne out by the common dread in the dark of _black_ forms, _e.g._, a black coach with headless coachman dressed in black. a girl of nineteen remembers that when a child she seemed on going to bed to see little black figures jumping about between the ceiling and the bed. the more familiar forms of a dread of the dark are sustained by images of threatening creatures which lie hidden in the blackness or half betray their presence in the way just indicated. these images are in many cases the revival of those acquired from the experiences of the day, and from storyland. the fears of the day live on undisturbed in the dark hours of night. the dog that has frightened a child will, when he goes to bed, be projected into the surrounding blackness. any shock in the waking hours may in this way give rise to a more or less permanent fear of being alone in a dark place. in not a few instances the alarming images are the product of fairy-stories, or of ghost and other alarming stories told by nurses and others thoughtlessly. in this way the dark room becomes for a timid child haunted by a "bogie" or other horror. alarming animals, generally black, as that significant expression _bãªte noire_ shows, are frequently the dread of these solitary hours in the dark room. lions and wolves, monsters not describable except by saying that they have claws, which they can stretch out, these seem to fill the blackness for some children. the vague horrors of big black shapeless things are by no means the lightest to bear. in addition to this overflow of the day's fears into the unlit hours, sleep and the transitional states between sleeping and waking also furnish much alarming material. probably the worst moment of this trouble of the night is when the child wakes suddenly from a sleep or half-sleep with some powerful dream-image still holding him in its clutches, and when the awful struggle to wake and to be at home with the surroundings issues in the cry, "where am i?" it is in these moments of absolute hopeless confusion that the impenetrable blackness, refusing to divulge its secret, grows insufferable. the dream-images, but slightly slackening their hold, people the blackness with nameless terrors. the little sufferer has to lie and battle with these as best he may, perhaps till the slow-moving day brings reassuring light and the familiar look of things. how terrible beyond all description, all measurement with other things, these nightmare fears may be in the case of nervous children, the reminiscences of charles lamb and others have told us. it is not too much, i think, to say that to many a child this dread of the black night has been the worst of his sufferings. at no time is he really so brave as when he lies still in a cold damp terror and trusts to the coming of the morning light. i do not believe that fear of the dark is universal among young children. i know a child that did not show any trace of it till some rather too gruesome stories of grimm set his brain horror-spinning when he ought to have been going to sleep. a lady whom i know tells me that she never had the fear as a child though she acquired it later, towards the age of thirty. how common it is among children under ten or twelve, we have as yet no means of judging. some inquiries of dr. stanley hall show that out of about 300 young people under thirty only two appear to have been wholly exempt from it, but the ages at which the fear first appeared are not given. here, again, we have a counterbalancing side. an imaginative child can fill the dark vacancy of the bedroom with bright pleasing images. on going to bed and saying good-night to the world of daylight, he can see his beloved fairies, talk to them and hear them talk. we know how r. l. stevenson must, when a child, have gladdened many of his solitary dark hours by bright fancies. even when there is a little trepidation a hardy child may manage to play with his fears, and so in a sense to enjoy his black phantasmagoria, just as grown-ups may enjoy the horrors of fiction. it will perhaps turn out that imaginative children have both suffered and enjoyed the most in these ways, the effect varying with nervous tone and mental condition. yet it seems probable that the fearful suffering mood has here been uppermost. why these nocturnal images tend to be gloomy and alarming may, i think, be explained by a number of circumstances. the absence of light and the oncoming of night have, as we know, a lowering effect on the functions of the body; and it is not unlikely that this might so modify the action of the brain as to favour the rise of gloomy thoughts. the very blackness of night, too, which we must remember is actually seen by the child, would probably tend to darken the young thoughts. we know how commonly we make black and dark shades of colour symbols of melancholy and sorrow. if to this we add that in the night a child is apt to feel lost through a loss of all his customary landmarks, and that, worst of all, he is, in the midst of this blackness which blots out his daily home, left to himself, robbed of that human companionship which is his necessary stay and comfort, we need not, i think, wonder at his so often encountering "the terror by night". (_b_) _damage of the onslaught._ i have now, perhaps, illustrated sufficiently some of the more common and characteristic fears of children. the facts seem to show that they are exposed on different sides to the attacks of fear, and that the attacking force is large and consists of a variety of alarming shapes. if now we glance back at these several childish fears, one feature in them which at once arrests our attention is the small part which remembered experiences of evil play in their production. the child is inexperienced, and if humanely treated knows little of the acuter forms of human suffering. it would seem at least as if he feared not so much because his experience had made him aware of a real danger in this and that direction, as because he was constitutionally and instinctively nervous, and possessed with a feeling of insecurity. more particularly children are apt to feel uneasy when face to face with the new, the strange, the unknown, and this uneasiness grows into a more definite feeling of fear as soon as the least suggestion of harmfulness is added; as when a child recoils with dread from a stranger who has a big projecting eye that looks a menace, or a squint which suggests a sly way of looking at you, or an ugly and advancing tooth that threatens to bite. how much the fear of the dark is due to inability to see and so to know is shown by the familiar fact that children and adults who can enter a strange gloomy-looking room and keep brave as long as things are before their eyes are wont to feel a creepy sense of "something" behind them when they turn their backs to retire and can no longer see. it is shown too in the common practice of children and their elders to look into the cupboard, under the bed, and so forth, before putting out the light; for that which has not been inspected retains dire possibilities of danger. where a child does not know he is apt to fancy something. it is the activity of children's imagination which creates and sustains the larger number of their fears. do we not indeed in saying that they are for the greater part groundless say also that they are "fanciful"? children's fears are often compared with those of animals. no doubt there are points of contact. the misery of a dog when street music is going on is very suggestive of a state of uneasiness if not of fully developed fear. dogs, cats, and other animals will "shy" at the sight of "uncanny" moving objects, such as leaves, feathers, and shadows. yet the great point of difference remains that animals not having imagination are exempt from many of the fearful foes which menace childhood, including that arch-foe, the black night. a much more instructive comparison of children's fears may be made with those of savages. both have a like feeling of insecurity in presence of the big unknown, especially the mysterious mighty things, such as the storm-wind, and the rare and startling things, _e.g._, the eclipse and the thunder. the ignorance and simplicity of mind, moreover, aided by a fertile fancy, which lead to this and that form of childish fear are at work also in the case of uncivilised adults. hence the familiar observation that children's superstitious fears often reflect those of savage tribes. while children have this organic predisposition to fear, the sufferings introduced by what we call human experience begin at an early date to give definite direction to their fears. how much it does this in the first months of life it is difficult to say. in the aversion of a baby to its medicine glass, or its cold bath, one sees, perhaps, more of the rude germ of passion or anger than of fear. some children, at least, have a surprising way of going through a good deal of physical suffering from falls, cuts and so forth, without acquiring a genuine fear of what hurts them. it is a noteworthy fact that a child will be more terrified during a first experience of pain, especially if there be a visible hurt and bleeding, than by any subsequent prospect of a renewal of the suffering. even where fear can be clearly traced to experience it is doubtful whether in all cases it springs out of a definite expectation of some particular kind of harm. when, for example, a child who has been frightened by a dog betrays signs of fear at the sight of a kennel, and even of a picture of a dog, may we not say that he dreads the sight and the idea of the dog rather than any harmful act of the animal? in these fears, then, we seem to see much of the workmanship of nature, who has so shaped the child's nervous system and delicately poised it that the trepidation of fear comes readily. according to some she has done more, burdening a child's spirit with germinal remains of the fears of far-off savage ancestors, to whom darkness and the sounds of wild beasts were fraught with danger. that, however, is far from being satisfactorily demonstrated. we can see why in the case of children, as in that of young animals, nature tempers a bold curiosity of the new by mingling with it a certain amount of uneasiness, lest the ignorant helpless things should come to grief by wandering from parental shelter and supplies. this, it seems to me, is all that nature has done. and in so doing has she not, with excellent economy, done just enough? the extent of suffering brought into child-life by the assaults of fear is hard to measure. even the method of questioning young people about their fears, which is now in vogue, is not likely to bring us near a solution of this problem. and this for the good reason that children are never more reticent than when talking of their fears, and that by the time the fears are surmounted few can be trusted to give from memory an accurate report of them. one thing seems pretty clear, and the new questioning of children which is going on apace in america seems to bear it out, _viz._, that, since it is the unknown which is the primary occasion of these childish fears, and since the unknown in childhood is almost everything, the possibilities of suffering from this source are great enough. alike the good, the ill offend thy sight, and rouse the stormy sense of shrill affright. (_c_) _recovery from the onslaught._ nevertheless it is quite possible here to go from one extreme of indifference to another of sentimental exaggeration. even allowing what george sand says, that fear is "the greatest moral suffering of children," the suffering may turn out to be less cruelly severe than it looks. to begin with, then, if children are sadly open to the attacks of fear on certain sides they are completely defended on other sides by their ignorance. this is well illustrated in the pretty story of the child walter scott, who was found out of doors lying on his back during a thunderstorm, clapping his hands and shouting, "bonnie! bonnie!" at each new flash. again, if, as we have supposed, children's fears are mostly due to a feeling of insecurity in view of the unknown, they may be said to correct themselves to a large extent. by getting used to the disturbing sound, the ugly black doll, and so forth, a child, like a dog, tends to lose its first fear. one must say "tends," for the well-known fact that many persons carry with them into later life their early fear of the dark shows that when once the habit of fearing has got set no amount of familiarity will suffice to dissolve it. not only are the points of attack thus limited; the attack when it does take place may bring something better than a debasing fear. a child may, it is certain, suffer acutely when it is frightened. but if only there is the magic circle of the mother's arms within reach may it not be said that the fear is more than counterbalanced by the greatest emotional luxury of childhood, the loving embrace? it is the shy fears, breeding the new fear of exposure to unloving eyes and possibly to ridicule, which are the tragedy of childhood. in addition to these extraneous aids children are provided by nature with capacities of self-defence. i have pointed out that the impulses of curiosity and fear lie close together in a child's mind, so that one can hardly say beforehand which of the two is going to be awakened first by the coming of the new and strange thing. the eager desire to know about things is perhaps the most perfect inward defence against many childish fears. even when fear is half awake the passionate longing to see will force its way. a little girl that was frightened at a japanese doll just given her and would not approach it, insisted on seeing it at some distance every day. the same backing of a timid child's spirit by hardy curiosity shows itself in his way of peeping at a dog which has just terrified him and gradually approaching the monster. better still, in the hardier race of children nature has planted an impulse which not only disarms fear but turns it into a frolicsome companion. many children, i feel sure, maintain a double attitude towards their terrors, the bogies, the giants and the rest. moments of cruel suffering alternate with moments of brave exultation. fear in children, even more than in adults, is an instinctive process into which but little thought enters. if the nerves are slack, and if the circumstances are eerie and fear-provoking, the sudden strange sound, the appearance of a black something, will send the swift shudder through the small body; if, on the other hand, the child is cooler and has the cheering daylight to back him, he may be bold enough to play with his fears, and to talk of them to others with the chuckle of superiority.[8] the more real and oppressive the fit of fear the more enjoyable is the subsequent self-deliverance by a perspicacious laugh likely to be. the beginnings of childish bravery often take the form of laughing away their fears. even when the ugly phantoms are not wholly driven back they are half seen through, and the child who is strong enough can amuse himself with them, suffering the momentary compression for the sake of the joyous expansion which so swiftly follows. a child of two, the same that asked his mother, "would you like to take hold of my hand?" was once taken out by her on a little sledge. being turned too suddenly he was pitched into the snow, almost on his head; but on being picked up by his mother he remarked quite calmly: "i nearly tumbled off". another child of six on entering an empty room alone, stamped his foot and shouted: "go away everything that's here!" in such ways do the nerves of a strong child recover themselves after shock and tremor, taking on something of the steady pose of human bravery. [8] mrs. meynell gives an example of this in her volume _the children_ ("the man with two heads"). chapter ix. good and bad in the making. children have had passed on their moral characteristics the extremes of human judgment. by some, including a number of theologians, they have been viewed as steeped in depravity; by others, _e.g._, rousseau, they have been regarded as the perfection of the creator's workmanship. if we are to throw any light on the point in dispute we must avoid the unfairness of applying grown-up standards to childish actions, and must expect neither the vices nor the virtues of manhood. we must further take some pains to get, so far as this is possible, at children's natural inclinations so as to see whether, and if so how far, they set in the direction of good or of bad. _traces of the brute._ even a distant acquaintance with the first years of human life tells us that young children have much in common with the lower animals. the characteristic feelings and impulses are centred in self and the satisfaction of its wants. what is better marked, for example, than the boundless greed of the child, his keen desire to appropriate and enjoy whatever presents itself, and to resent others' participation in such enjoyment? we note, further, that when later on he makes fuller acquaintance with his social surroundings, his first attitude has in it much of the hostility of the ishmaelite. the removal of the feeding bottle before full satisfaction has been attained is, as we know, the occasion for one of the most impressive utterances of the baby's "will to live," and of its resentment of all human checks to its native impulses. here we have the first rude germ of that opposition of will which makes the ishmaelite look on others as his foes. the same attitude of isolating hostility is apt to show itself towards other children. in the matter of toys, for example, the natural way of a child is very frequently not only to make free with other children's property when he has the chance, but to show the strongest objection to any imitation of this freedom by others, sometimes indeed to display a dog-in-the-manger spirit by refusing to lend what he himself does not want. the same vigorous egoism inspires the whole scale of childish envies and jealousies, from those having to do with things of the appetite to those which trouble themselves about the marks of others' good-will, such as caresses and praises. in this wide category of childish egoisms we seem to be near the level of animal ways. out of all this fierce pushing of desire whereby the child comes into rude collision with others' wishes, there issue the storms of young passion. the energy of these displays of wrath as the imperious little will feels itself suddenly pulled up has in spite of its comicality something impressive. we all know the shocking scene as the boy ishmaelite gives clearest and most emphatic utterance to his will by hitting out with his arms, stamping and kicking, throwing things down on the floor and breaking them, and accompanying this war-dance with savage howlings and yellings. the outburst tends to concentrate itself in a real attack on somebody. sometimes this is the offender, as when darwin's boy at the age of two years and three months would throw books, sticks, etc., at any one who offended him. but almost anybody or anything will do as an object of attack. a child of four on having his lordly purpose crossed would bang his chair, and then proceed to vent his displeasure on his unoffending toy lion, banging him, jumping on him, and, as anti-climax, threatening him with the loss of his dinner. hitting is in many cases improved upon by biting. such fits of temper, as we call them, vary in their manner from child to child. thus, whereas one little boy would savagely bite or roll on the floor, his sister was accustomed to dance about and stamp. they vary greatly too in their frequency and their force. some children show in their anger little if anything of savage furiousness. it is to be added, that with those who do show it, it is wont in most cases to appear only for a limited period. the resemblance of this fierce anger to the fury of the savage and of the brute can hardly fail to be noticed. here indeed, as is illustrated in the good hymn of our nursery days, which bids us leave biting to the dogs, we see most plainly how firmly planted an animal root lies at the bottom of our proud humanity. ages of civilisation have not succeeded in eradicating some of the most characteristic and unpleasant impulses of the brute. at the same time a child's passionateness is more than a brute instinct. he suffers consciously; he realises himself in lonely antagonism to a world. this is seen in the bodily attitude of dejection which often follows the more vigorous stage of the fit, when the little ishmaelite, growing aware of the impotence of his anger, is wont to throw himself on the floor and to hide his head in solitary wretchedness. this consciousness of absolute isolation and hostility reaches a higher phase when the opposing force is distinctly apprehended as human will. a dim recognition of the stronger will facing him brings the sense of injury, of tyrannous power. now this feeling of being injured and oppressed is human, and is fraught with moral possibilities. it is not as yet morally good; for the sense of injury is capable of developing, and may actually turn by-and-by into, hatred. yet, as we shall see, it holds within itself a promise of something higher. this predominance of self, this kinship with the unsocial brute, which shows itself in these germinal animosities, seems to be discoverable also in the unfeelingness of children. a common charge against them from those who are not on intimate terms with them, and sometimes, alas, from those who are, is that they are heartless and cruel. that children often appear to the adult as unfeeling as a stone, is, i suppose, incontestable. the troubles which harass and oppress the mother may leave her small companion quite unconcerned. he either goes on playing with undisturbed cheerfulness, or he betrays a momentary curiosity about some trivial circumstance of her affliction which is worse than the absorption in play through its tantalising want of any genuine feeling. if, for example, she is ill, the event is interesting to him merely as supplying him with new treats. a little boy of four, after spending half an hour in his mother's sick-room, coolly informed his nurse: "i have had a very nice time, mamma's ill!" the order of the two statements is significant of the common attitude of mind of children towards others' sufferings. when it comes to the bigger human troubles this want of fellow-feeling is still more noticeable. nothing is more shocking to the adult observer of children than their coldness and stolidity in presence of death. while a whole house is stricken with grief at the loss of a beloved inmate the child is wont to preserve his serenity, being often taken with a shocking curiosity to peep into the dead room, and to get perhaps the gruesome pleasure of touching the dead body so as to know what "as cold as death" means, and at best showing only a feeling of awe before a great mystery. no one, i think, will doubt that judged by our standards children are often profoundly and shockingly callous. but the question arises here, too, whether we are right in applying our grown-up standards. it is one thing to be indifferent with full knowledge of suffering, another to be indifferent in the sense in which a cat might be said to be so at the spectacle of your falling or burning your finger. we are apt to forget that a large part of the manifestation of human suffering is quite unintelligible to a little child. again, when an appeal to serious attention is given, a child is apt to spy something besides the sadness. the little girl who wanted to touch, and to know the meaning of "cold as death," on going to see a dead schoolmate was not unnaturally taken up with the beauty of the scene, with the white hangings and the white flowers. i am far from saying that the first acquaintance with death commonly leaves a child indifferent to the signs of woe. i believe, on the contrary, that children are frequently affected in a vague way by the surrounding gloom. in some cases, too, as published reminiscences of childhood show, the first acquaintance with the cruel monarch has sometimes shaken a child's whole being with an infinite, nameless sense of woe. with this unfeelingness children are frequently charged with active unkindness, amounting to cruelty. la fontaine spoke of the age of childhood as pitiless (_sans pitiã©_). this appearance of cruelty will now and again show itself in dealings with other children. one of the trying situations of early life is to find oneself supplanted by the arrival of a new baby. children, i have reason to think, are, in such circumstances, capable of coming shockingly near to a feeling of hatred. one little girl was taken with so violent an antipathy to a baby which she considered outrageously ugly as to make a beginning, fortunately only a feeble beginning, at smashing its head, much as she would no doubt have tried to destroy an ugly-looking doll. such malicious treatment of smaller infants is, i think, rare. more common is the exhibition of the signs of cruelty in the child's dealings with animals. it is of this, indeed, that we mostly think when we speak of his cruelty. at first nothing seems clearer than the evidence of malevolent intention in a child's treatment of animals. a little girl when only a year old would lift two kittens by the neck and try to stamp on them. older children often have a way of treating even their pets with a similar roughness. yet i think we cannot safely say that such rough usage is intended to be painful. it seems rather to be the outcome of the mere energy of the childish impulse to hold, possess, and completely dominate his pet. the case of destructive cruelty, as when a small boy crushes a fly, is somewhat different. let me give a well-observed instance. a little boy of two years and two months, "after nearly killing a fly on the window-pane, seemed surprised and disturbed, looking round for an explanation, then gave it himself: 'mr. fly dom (gone) to by-by'. but he would not touch it or another fly again--a doubt evidently remained, and he continued uneasy about it." here the arrest of life clearly brought a kind of shock, and we may safely say was not thought out beforehand. children may pounce upon and maul small moving things for a number of reasons. the wish to gratify their sense of power--which is probably keener in children who so rarely gratify it than in grown-ups--will often explain these actions. to stop all that commotion, all that buzzing on the window-pane, by a single tap of the finger, that may bring a delicious thrill of power to a child. curiosity, too, is a powerful incentive to this kind of maltreatment of animals. children have something of the anatomist's impulse to take living things apart, to see where the blood is, as one child put it, and so forth. i think, then, that we may give the small offenders the benefit of the doubt, and not attribute their rough handling of animals to a wish to inflict pain, or even to an indifference to pain of which they are clearly aware. wanton activity, the curiosity of the experimenter, and delight in showing one's power and producing an effect, seem sufficient to explain a large part of the unlearned brutality of the first years. we have now looked at one of the darkest sides of the child and have found that though it is decidedly unpleasant it is not quite so ugly as it has been painted. children are no doubt apt to be greedy, and otherwise unsociable, to be ferocious in their anger, and to be sadly wanting in consideration for others; yet it is some consolation to reflect that their savageness is not quite that of brutes, and that their selfishness and cruelty are a long way removed from a deliberate and calculating egoism. _the promise of humanity._ pure ishmaelite as he seems, however, a child has what we call the social instincts, and inconsistently enough no doubt he shows at times that after all he wants to join himself to those whom at other times he treats as foes. if he has his outbursts of temper he has also his fits of tenderness. if he is now dead to others' sufferings he is at another time taken with a most amiable childish concern for their happiness. the germ of this instinct of attachment to society may be said to disclose itself in a rude form in the first weeks of life, when he begins to get used to and to depend on the human presence, and is miserable when this is taken from him. in this instinct of companionship there is involved a vague inarticulate kind of sympathy. just as the attached dog may be said to have in a dim fashion a feeling of oneness with its master, so the child. the intenser realisation of this oneness comes after separation. a girl of thirteen months was separated from her mother during six weeks. on the return of the latter she was speechless, and for some time could not bear to leave her restored companion for a minute. a like outbreak of tender sympathy is apt to follow a fit of naughtiness when a child feels itself taken back to the mother's heart. sympathy, it is commonly said, is a kind of imitation, and this is strikingly illustrated in its early forms. a child has been observed under the age of seven months to look unhappy, drawing down well the corners of the mouth in the characteristic baby-fashion when his nurse pretended to cry. this imitative sympathy deepens with attachment. we see something of it in the child's make-believe. when, for example, a little girl on finding that her mother's head ached pretended to have a bad head, we appear to see the working of an impulse to get near and share in others' experiences. the same feeling shows itself in play, especially in the treatment of the doll, which has to go through all that the child goes through, to be bathed, scolded, nursed when poorly, and so forth. from this imitative acting of another's trouble, so as to share in it, there is but a step to that more direct apprehension of it which we call sympathy. children sometimes begin to display such understanding of others' trouble early in the second year. one mite of fourteen months was quite concerned at the misery of an elder sister, crawling towards her and making comical endeavours by grunts and imitative movements of the fingers to allay her crying. i have a number of stories showing that for a period beginning early in the second year it is not uncommon for children to betray an exuberance of pity, being moved almost to tears, for example, when the mother says, "_poor_ uncle!" or when contemplating in a picture the tragic fate of humpty dumpty. very sweet and sacred to a mother are the first manifestations of tenderness towards herself. a child about the age of two has a way of looking at and touching its mother's face with something of the rapturous expression of a lover. still sweeter, perhaps, are the first clear indications of loving concern. the temporary loss of her presence, due to illness or other cause, is often the occasion for the appearance of a deeper tenderness. a little boy of three spontaneously brought his story-book to his mother when she lay in bed ill; and the same child used to follow her about after her recovery with all the devotion of a little knight. at other times it is the suspicion of an injury to his beloved one, as when one little fellow seeing the strange doctor lay hold of his mother's wrist stood up like an outraged turkey-cock, backing into his mother's skirts, ready to charge the assaulter. a deeper and thoughtful kind of sympathy often comes with the advent of the more reflective years. thought about the overhanging terror, death, is sometimes its awakener. "are you old, mother?" asked a boy of five. "why?" she answered. "because," he continued, "the older you are the nearer you are to dying." there was no doubt thought of his own loss in this question: yet there was, one may hope, a germ of solicitude for the mother too. this first thought for others frequently takes the practical form of helpfulness. a child loves nothing better than to assist in little household occupations. a boy of two years and one month happened to overhear his nurse say to herself: "i wish that anne would remember to fill the nursery boiler". "he listened, and presently trotted off; found the said anne doing a distant grate, pulled her by the apron, saying: 'nanna, nanna!' (come to nurse). she followed, surprised and puzzled, the child pulling all the way, till, having got her into the nursery, he pointed to the boiler, and added: 'go dare, go dare,' so that the girl comprehended and did as he bade her." with this practical form of sympathy there goes a quite charming disposition to give pleasure in other ways. a little girl when just a year old was given to offering her toys, flowers, and other pretty things to everybody. generosity is as truly an impulse of childhood as greediness, and it is odd to observe their alternate play. early in the second year, too, children are wont to show themselves kindly by giving kisses and other pretty courtesies. in truth from about this date they are often quite charming in their expressions of good will, so that the good bishop earle hardly exaggerates when he writes of the child: "he kisses and loves all, and when the smart of the rod is past, smiles on his beater". later on a like amiable disposition will show itself in graceful turns of speech, as when a little girl, aged three and a quarter, petitioned her mother this wise: "please, mamma, will you pin this with the greatest pleasure?" just as there are these beginnings of affectionate concern for the mother and other people, so there is ample evidence of kindness to animals. the charge of cruelty in the case of little children is, indeed, seen to be a gross libel as soon as we consider their whole behaviour towards the animal world. when once the first fear of the strangeness is mastered a child will generally take kindly to an animal. a little boy of fifteen months quickly overcame his fright at the barking of his grandfather's dog, and began to share his biscuits with him, to give him flowers to smell, and to throw stones for his amusement. at a quite early age, too, children will show the germ of a truly humane feeling towards animals. the same little boy that bravely got over his fear of the dog's barking would, when nineteen months old, begin to cry on seeing a horse fall in the street. stronger manifestations of pity are seen at a later age. a little boy of four was moved to passionate grief at the sight of a dead dog taken from a pond. the indignation of children at the doings of the butcher, the hunter and others, shows how deeply pitiful consideration for animals is rooted in their hearts. this is one of the most striking manifestations of the better side of child-nature and deserves a chapter to itself. the close absorbing sympathy which we often observe between a child and animals seems to come from a sense of common weaknesses and needs. perhaps there is in it something of that instinctive impulse of helpless things to band together which we see in sheep and other gregarious animals. a mother once remarked to her boy, between five and six years old: "why, r., i believe you are kinder to the animals than to me". "perhaps i am," he replied, "you see they are not so well off as you are." the same outpourings of affection are seen in the dealings of children with their toy babies and animals. allowing for occasional outbreaks of temper and acts of violence, a child's intercourse with his doll or his toy "gee gee" is a wonderful display of loving solicitude; a solicitude which has something of the endurance of a maternal instinct. here, too, as we know, children vary greatly; there are the loving and the unloving moods, and there are the loving and the unloving children. yet allowing for these facts, i think it may be said that in these first fresh outgoings of human tenderness we have a comforting set off to the unamiable manifestations described above. _the lapse into lying._ the other main charge against children is that they tell lies. according to many, children are in general accomplished little liars, to the manner born, and equally adept with the mendacious savage. even writers on childhood who are by no means prejudiced against it lean to the view that lying is instinctive and universal among children. now it is surely permissible to doubt whether little children have so clear an apprehension of what we understand by truth and falsity as to be liars in this full sense. much of what seems shocking to the adult unable to place himself at the level of childish intelligence and feeling will probably prove to be something far less serious. to begin with those little ruses and dissimulations which are said to appear almost from the cradle in the case of certain children, it is plainly difficult to bring them into the category of full-fledged lies. when, for example, a child wishing to keep a thing hides it, and on your asking for it holds out empty hands, it would be hard to name this action a lie, even though there may be in it a germ of deception. these little ruses or "acted lies" seem at the worst to be attempts to put you off the scent in what is regarded as a private matter, and to have the minimum of intentional deception. this childish passion for guarding secrets may account for later and more serious-looking falsehoods. there is a more alarming appearance of mendacity when the child comes to the use of language and proffers statements which, if he reflected, he might know to be false. even here, however, we may easily apply grown-up standards unfairly. anybody who has observed children's play and knows how real to them their fancies become for the moment will be chary of applying to their sayings the word "lie". there may be solemn sticklers for truth who would be shocked to hear the child when at play saying, "i am a coachman," "dolly is crying," and so forth. but the discerning see nothing to be alarmed at here. on the same level of moral obliquity i should be disposed to place those cases where a child will contradictingly say the opposite of what he is told. a little french boy was overheard saying to himself: "papa parle mal, il a dit _sevette_, bã©bã© parle bien, il dit _serviette_". such reversals may be a kind of play too: the child not unnaturally gets tired now and then of being told that he is wrong, and for the moment imagines himself right and his elders wrong, immensely enjoying the idea. the case looks graver when an "untruth" is uttered in answer to a question. a little boy on being asked by his mother who told him something, answered, "dolly". "false, and knowingly false," somebody will say, especially when he learns that the depraved youngster instantly proceeded to laugh. but is not this laugh just the saving clause of the story, suggesting that it was play and the spirit of mischief at bottom? in this case, i suspect, there was co-operant a strongly marked childish characteristic, the love of producing an effect. a child has a large measure of that feeling which r. l. stevenson attributes to the light-hearted innes in _weir of hermiston_, "the mere pleasure of beholding interested faces". the well-known "cock and bull" stories of small children are inspired by this love of strong effect. it is the dramatic impulse of childhood endeavouring to bring life into the dulness of the serious hours. childish vanity often assists, as where a little girl of five would go about scattering the most alarming kind of false news, as, for example, that baby was dead, simply to court attention and make herself of some importance. a quick vivid fancy, a childish passion for acting a part, these, backed by a strong impulse to astonish, and a playful turn for contradiction and paradox, seem to me to account for most of this early fibbing and other similar varieties of early misstatement. naughty it is, no doubt, in a measure; but is it quite fairly branded as lying, that is, as a serious attempt to deceive? in some cases, i think, the vivid play of imagination which prompts the untrue assertion may lead to a measure of self-deception. when, for example, an italian child, of whom signorina lombroso tells us, who is out for a walk, and wanting to be carried says, "my leg hurts me and my foot too just here, i can't walk, i can't, i can't," it is possible at least that the vivid imagination of the south produces at the moment an illusory sense of fatigue. and if so we must hesitate to call the statement wholly a falsehood. a fertile source of childish "untruth," which may be more true than untrue in the sense of expressing the conviction of the moment, is the wish to please. an emotional child who in a sudden fit of tenderness for his mother gushes out, "you're the best mother in the whole world!" may be hardly conscious of any exaggeration. there is more of artfulness in the flatteries which appear to involve a calculating intention to say the nice agreeable thing. some children, especially little girls, are, i believe, adepts at these amenities. those in whom the impulse is strong and dominant are perhaps those who in later years make the good society actors. yet if there is a measure of untruth in such pretty flatteries, one needs to be superhuman in order to condemn them harshly. the other side of this wish to please is the fear to give offence, and this, i suspect, may point to a more intentional and conscious kind of untruth. if, for example, a child is asked whether he does not like or admire something, his feeling that the questioner expects him to say "yes" makes it very hard to say "no". mrs. burnett gives us a reminiscence of this early experience. when she was less than three, she writes, a lady visitor, a friend of her mother, having found out that the baby newly added to the family was called edith, remarked to her: "that's a pretty name. my baby is eleanor. isn't that a pretty name?" on being thus questioned she felt in a dreadful difficulty, for she did not like the sound of "eleanor," and yet feared to be rude and say so. she got out of it by saying she did not like the name as well as "edith". in such cases as this the fear to give offence may be reinforced by the mastering force of "suggestion". just as the hypnotiser "suggests" to his subject the idea that he is ill, that the dirty water in this glass is wine, and so forth, compelling him to accept and act out the idea, so we all exercise a kind of suggestive sway over children's minds. our leading questions, as when we say, "isn't this pretty?" may for a moment set up a half belief that the thing must be so. thus in a double fashion do our words control children's thoughts, driving them now into contradiction, drawing them at other times and in other moods into submissive assent. wordsworth has illustrated how an unwise and importunate demand for a reason from a child may drive him into invention.[9] [9] see his poem, _anecdote for fathers, showing how the practice of lying may be taught_. ("poems referring to the period of childhood.") i do not say that these are the only impulses which prompt to this early fibbing. from some records of the first years i learn that a child may drift into something like a lie under the pressure of fear, more especially fear of being scolded. one little fellow, more than once instanced in this work, a single child brought up wholly by his mother, perpetrated his first fib when he was about twenty-two months old. he went, it seems, and threw his doll down stairs in one of those capricious outbursts towards favourites which children share with certain sovereigns, then went to his mother and making great pretence of grief said, "poor dolly tumbled". if this had stood alone i should have been ready to look on it as a little childish comedy; but the same child a month or two afterwards would invent a fib when he wanted his mother to do something. for example, he was one morning lying in bed with his mother and wanted much to get up. his mother told him to look for the watch and see what time it was. he felt under the pillow pretending to find and consult the time-teller, saying: "time to get up". here it was clearly the force of the young will resisting an unpleasant check which excited the sober faculties to something like deception. to say that our moral discipline with its injunctions, its corrections, is a great promoter of childish untruth may sound shocking, but it is i think an indisputable truth. we can see how this begins to work in the first years. for example, a mite of three having in a moment of temper called her mother "monkey," and being questioned as to what she had said, replied: "i said _i_ was a monkey". a child is often driven into such ruses by the instinct of self-protection. our system of discipline may develop untruth in other ways too. when, for example, punishment has been inflicted and its inflicter, relenting, asks: "are you sorry?" or "aren't you sorry?" the answer is exceedingly likely to be "no," even though this may at the moment be half felt to be untrue. from such partial untruths the way is easy to complete ones, as when a naughty little boy who is shut up in his room and kept without food, is asked: "are you hungry?" and with the hardihood of a confirmed sinner answers "no," even though the low and dismal tone of the word shows how much the untruth goes against the grain. i think there is no doubt, then, that at a certain age children may, more especially under a severe home authority, develop, apart from contagion, a tendency to falsehood. some may see in this, as in childish fears and cruelties, rudiments of characteristics which belonged to remote uncivilised ancestors. however this be, it is hard to say that these fibs have that clear intention to deceive which constitutes a complete lie. there are curious points in the manner of childish fibbing. a good many children seem to be like savages in distinguishing those to whom one is bound to speak the truth. the "bad form" of telling a lie to the head-master is a later illustration of the same thing. on the other hand it seems to be thought that there are people who are specially fitted to be the victims of untruth. even young children soon find out who it is among the servants that being credulous supplies the best listener to their amazing inventions. another interesting point is the way in which the perfectly baseless fictions of children are apt to grow into permanent "stories". in the nursery and in the playground there are wont to be developed myths and legends which are solemnly believed by the simple-minded, and may be handed down to successors. in all such cases of propagated untruths the impulse of imitation and the tendency of the child's mind to accept statements uncritically are of course at work. the "lie" propagated by this influence of contagion very soon ceases to be a lie. _fealty to truth._ in order to understand what childish untruth really amounts to we must carefully note its after-effects on the perpetrator. it seems certain that many children experience a qualm of conscience when uttering that, of the falsity of which they are more or less aware. this is evidenced in the well-known devices by which the young casuist thinks to mitigate the lie; as when on saying what he knows to be false he adds mentally, "i do not mean it," "in my mind," or some similar palliative. such subterfuges show a measure of sensibility, for a hardened liar would despise the shifts, and are curious as illustrations of the childish conscience and its unlearnt casuistry. the remorse that sometimes follows lying, especially the first lie, which catches the conscience at its tenderest, is much more than this passing qualm, and has been remembered by many in later life. here is a case. a young lady whom i know remembers that when a child of four she had to wear a shade over her eyes. one day on walking out with her mother she was looking, child-wise, sidewards instead of in front, and nearly struck a lamp-post. her mother then scolded her, but presently remembering the eyes, said: "poor child, you could not see well". she knew that this was not the reason, but she accepted it, and for long afterwards was tormented with a sense of having told a lie. such remorse, in certain cases prolonged beyond the first lie, comes to the little offender as he or she lies in bed and recalls the untruths of the day. some children suffer greatly from this periodic reflection on their lies. some of the more poignant of the sufferings which come to the sensitive child from saying what is false are those of fear, fear of those terrific penalties which religious teaching attaches to the lying tongue. it seems likely that childish devices for allaying their qualms when saying what is untrue are intended somehow to make things right with god, and so to avoid the dreaded chastisement. i am sure, too, that the subsequent remorse, especially at night, is very largely a dread of some awful manifestation of god's wrath. while i should set down much of this horror of children at discovering themselves liars to a dread of supernatural penalties, i should not set down the whole. i am disposed to think that there is another force at work in the little people's consciousness. in order to explain what i mean, i must begin by saying that a tendency towards conscious falsehood, though common, does not seem to be universal among children. several mothers assure me that their children have never seriously put forth an untruth. i can say the same about two children who have been especially observed for the purpose. i am ready to go further and to suggest that where a child is brought up normally, that is, in a habitually truth-speaking community, he tends, quite apart from moral instruction, to acquire a respect for truth. one may easily see that children accustomed to truth-speaking show all the signs of a moral shock when they are confronted with a false statement. i remember after more than twelve years one little boy's outbreaks of righteous indignation at meeting with untrue statements about his beloved horses and other things in one of his books, for which he had all a child's reverence. the idea of knowingly perpetrating an untruth, so far as i can judge, is simply awful to a child who has been thoroughly habituated to the practice of truthful statement. may it, then, not well be that when a preternatural pressure of circumstances pushes the child over the boundary line of truth, he feels a shock, a horror, a giddy and aching sense of having violated law--law not wholly imposed by the mother's command, but rooted in the very habits of social life? our inquiry has led us to recognise, in the case of cruelty and of lying alike, that children are by no means morally perfect, but have tendencies which, if not counteracted or held in check by others, will develop into the vices of cruelty and lying. on the other hand it has shown us that there are other and counteracting impulses, germs of human sympathy and of respect for the binding custom of truthfulness. so far from saying that child-nature is utterly bad or beautifully perfect, we should say that it is a disorderly jumble of impulses, each pushing itself upwards in lively contest with the others, some towards what is bad, others towards what is good. it is on this motley group of tendencies that the hand of the moral cultivator has to work, selecting, arranging, organising into a beautiful whole. chapter x. rebel and subject. children are early confronted with our laws, and it is worth while asking how they behave in relation to these. many persons seem to think that children generally are disobedient, lawless creatures; others, that some are obedient, others disobedient. perhaps neither of these views is quite exact enough. (_a_) _the struggle with law: first tussle with authority._ let us begin our study by looking a little more closely at what we call the disobedient attitude of children. that it exists nobody, surely, can well doubt. the very liveliness of young limbs and young wits brings their possessors into conflict with our sedate customs. the person who tries to wield authority over these small people is constantly introducing unpleasant checkings of vigorous impulse. a child has large requirements in the matter of movements and experiments with things, which are apt to clash with what the mother considers orderliness; when he is out of doors he exhibits a duck-like fondness for dirty water, whereas civilisation, represented by his tidy nurse, wills it that man should, at least when not in the arctic regions, be clean; he shows a perverse passion for fun and tricks when the mother thinks it the right time for serious talk, and so forth. in these ways there comes the tussle with human law. yet surely, if we consider the matter impartially, we shall see that these collisions in the early years are perfectly normal and right. in the interests of the race, at any rate, we ought perhaps to regard him as the better child, as the child of finer promise, who will not subject himself to human law without a considerable show of resistance. the first and most impressive form of resistance to the laws of grown-ups is the use of physical force, which has already been touched on. there is something pathetically comic in the spectacle of these mites resorting to the arbitrement of force, trying their small hand at pushing, striking, and the like; and as we have seen the effort is wont soon to exhaust itself in childish despair. as soon as our authority begins to assert itself in the issuing of commands the child's disposition to disobey, that is to have his way rather than ours, is apt to show itself now and again in decided refusals. when, let us say, the nurse gives up pulling him from the dirty pool, and bids him come away, he may very likely assert himself in an eloquent, "i won't," or less bluntly, "i can't come yet". here, of course, there may be no wilful rejection of recognised law, but merely resistance to this particular disagreeable order coming from this particular person. nevertheless we must, i fear, admit that such refusals to obey orders have in them something of true lawlessness. the whole attitude of the child when he thus "tries on" defiance of commands is certainly suggestive of the rebel's temper. nobody is so completely reckless as the child-rebel. when the fit is on him he pays not the least attention to the most awful of warnings. one little offender of four when he was reminded by his sister--two years older--that he would be shut out from heaven retorted impiously, "i don't care"; adding, for reasons best known to himself, "uncle won't go--i'll stay with him". _evading the law._ in addition to this first impressive form of opposition there are later ones which plainly show the spirit of antagonism. the conflict with law now takes on the aspect of evasion or "trying it on". one of the simplest of these childish tricks is the invention of an excuse for not instantly obeying a command, as "come here!" "don't tease pussy!" a child soon finds out that to say "i won't" when he is bidden to do something is indiscreet as well as vulgar. he wants to have his own way without resorting to a gross breach of good manners, so he replies insinuatingly, "i's very sorry, but i's too busy," or in some such conciliatory words. this field of invention offers a fine opportunity for the imaginative child. a small boy of three years and nine months on receiving from his nurse the familiar order, "come here!" at once replied, "i can't, nurse, i's looking for a flea," and pretended to be much engrossed in the momentous business of hunting for this quarry in the blanket of his cot. the little trickster is such a lover of fun that he is pretty certain to betray his ruse in a case like this, and our small flea-catcher, we are told, laughed mischievously as he proffered his excuse. such sly fabrications may be just as naughty as the uninspired excuses of a stupidly sulky child, but it is hard to be quite as much put out by them. it is a further refinement when the staunch little lover of liberty sets about "easing" the pressure of commands. if, for example, he is told to keep perfectly quiet because mother or father wants to sleep, he will prettily plead for the reservation of whispering ever so softly. if he is forbidden to ask for things at the table he will resort to sly indirect reminders of what he wants, as when a boy of five and a half years whispered audibly: "i hope somebody will offer me some more soup," or when a girl of three and a half years, with more subtle insinuation, observed on seeing the elder folk eating cake: "i not asking". a like astuteness will show itself in meeting the dismal accusations and scoldings. sometimes the fault-finding is daringly ignored, and the small culprit, after keeping up an excellent appearance of listening, proceeds in the most artless way to talk about something more agreeable, or, what is worse, to criticise the manner of his correction; as when a small boy interrupted his mother's well-prepared homily by remarking: "mamma, when you talk you don't move your upper jaw". in cases in which no attempt is made to ignore the accusation, the small wits are wont to be busy discovering exculpations. here we have the ruses, often crude enough, by which the little culprit tries to shake off moral responsibility, to deny the authorship of the "naughty" action. the blame is put on anybody or anything--if there is no other scape-goat in view, then on the hands or other "bodily agents". this last device is sometimes hit upon very early, as when a mite of two who was told to stop crying gasped out: "elsie cry--_not_ elsie cry--tears cry--naughty tears!" we find too at an early age a suggestion of fatalism, as when a boy of three who was blamed for not eating his crusts, and his procedure contrasted with that of his virtuous sire, remarked: "yes, but, papa, you see god had made you and me different". next to these denials of the "naughty" action come attempts at justification. sometimes these look like pitiful examples of quibbling. a boy had been rough with his baby brother. his mother chid him, telling him he might hurt baby. he then asked his mother, "isn't he my own brother?" and on his mother admitting so incontestable a proposition, exclaimed triumphantly, "well, you said i could do what i liked with _my own_ things". at other times they have a dreadful look of being fibs invented for the purpose of covering a fault. under a severe mode of discipline a child is apt, as already hinted, to slip over the boundary line of truth in his self-protective efforts to escape blame and punishment. one other illustration of this keen childish dialectic when face to face with the accuser deserves to be touched on. the sharpened faculties have something of a lawyer's quickness in detecting a flaw in the indictment. any exaggeration into which a feeling of indignation happens to betray the accuser is instantly pounced upon. if, for example, a child is scolded for pulling kitty's ears and making her cry it is enough for the little stickler for accuracy to be able to say: "i wasn't pulling kitty's _ears_, i was only pulling _one_ of her ears". the ability to deny the charge in its initial form gives him a great advantage, and robs the accusation in its amended form of much of its sting. whence, by the way, one may infer that wisdom in managing children shows itself in nothing more than in a scrupulous exactness in the use of words. _the plea for liberty._ while there are these isolated attacks on various points of the daily discipline, we see now and again a bolder line of action in the shape of a general protest against its severity. sometimes the parental authority is contrasted unfavourably with that of some other mother. the small boy who invented a family, _viz._, a mother called mrs. cock and her little boys, frequently referred to this lady for the purpose of giving point to protests against the severity of the real mother. "for instance (writes the latter) when mother refuses her paint-box as a plaything, or declines to supply unlimited note-paper for 'scwibbleation,' a reproachful little voice is heard, 'mrs. cock always gives her paint-box and all her paper to my little boys'. a pause. then follows suggestively: 'i fink she loves them vewy much'."[10] on the other hand, if the child accepts the mother's plea, that she has to impose restraints because she is a good mother, he is apt to wish that she were a shade less good. a boy of four had one morning to remain in bed till ten o'clock as a punishment for misbehaviour. he proceeded to address his mother in this wise: "if i had any little children i'd be a worse mother than you--i'd be quite a bad mother; i'd let the children get up directly i had done my breakfast at any rate". [10] from a published article by mrs. robert jardine (compare above, pp. 16, 17). enough has been said to illustrate the ways in which the natural child kicks against the imposition of restraints on his free activity. he begins by showing himself an open foe to authority. for a long time after, while making a certain show of submission, he harbours in his breast something of the rebel's spirit. he does his best to evade the most galling parts of the daily discipline, and displays an admirable ingenuity in devising excuses for apparent acts of insubordination. and, lastly, where candour is permitted, he is apt to prove himself an exceedingly acute critic of the system which is imposed on him. all this, moreover, seems to show that a child objects not only to the particular administration under which he happens to live, but to all law as implying restraints on free activity. thus, from the child's point of view, so far as we have yet examined it, punishment as such is a thing which ought not to be. so strong and deep-reaching is this antagonism to law and its restraints apt to be that the common longing to be "big" is, i believe, largely grounded on the expectation of liberty. to be big seems to the child more than anything else to be able to do what one likes without interference from others. "do you know," asked a little fellow of four years, "what i shall do when i'm a big man? i'll go to a shop and buy a bun and pick out all the currants." one must have left in him much of the child in order to understand the fascination of that forbidden pleasure of daintily selecting the currants. (_b_) _on the side of law._ if, however, we look closer we shall find that this hostility is not the whole, perhaps not the most fundamental part, of a child's attitude towards law. it is evident that the early criticism of parental government referred to above, so far from implying rejection of all rule, plainly implies its acceptance. some of the earliest and bitterest protests against interference are directed against what looks to the child irregular or opposed to law, as when, for example, he is allowed for some time to use a pair of scissors as a plaything, and is then suddenly deprived of it. and does not all the exercise of childish ingenuity in excuses imply in an indirect way that _if he had done_ what is described in the indictment it would be naughty and deserving of punishment? other facts in early life bear out the conjecture that a child has law-abiding as well as law-resisting impulses. i think we may often discern evidence of this in his suffering when in disgrace. when he is too young perhaps to feel the shame, he will feel, and acutely too, the estrangement, the loneliness, the sudden shrinkage of his beloved world. the greater the love and the dependence, the greater will be this feeling of devastation. the same little boy who said to his mother: "i'd be a worse mother," remarked to her a few months later that if he could say what he liked to god it would be: "love me when i'm naughty". there is, perhaps, in this childish suffering often something more than the sense of being homeless and outcast. a child of four or five may, i conceive, when suffering disgrace have a dim consciousness of having broken with his normal orderly self, of having set at defiance that which he customarily honours and obeys. now this setting up of an orderly law-abiding self seems to me to imply that there are impulses which make for order. a child, as i understand the little sphinx, is at once the subject of ever-changing caprices--whence the delight in playful defiance of all rule and order--and the reverer of custom, precedent, rule. and, as i conceive, this reverence for precedent and rule is the deeper and the stronger impulse. _the young stickler for the proprieties._ i believe that those who know young children will agree with me that they show an instinctive respect for what is customary and according to rule, such as a particular way of taking food, dressing, and definite times for doing this and that. nor can we regard this as merely a reflection of our respect for law, for as we shall presently see it reaches far beyond the limits of the rules laid down by adults. it seems to be a true instinct which comes before education and makes education possible. it is related to habit, the great principle which runs through the whole of life. the first crude manifestation of this disposition to make rule is seen in the insistence on the customary, as to the places of things, the order of procedure at meals and such like. the little boy of two, often quoted here, showed a punctilious feeling for order in the placing of things. he protested one morning in his mother's bedroom against a hair-brush being placed on the washing-stand near the tooth-brushes, saying quaintly: "that toof-brush is a brush one". older children are apt to be sticklers for order at the meal-table: thus, the cup and the spoon have to be put in precisely the right place. similarly, the sequences of the day, _e.g._, the lesson before the walk, the walk before bed, have to be rigorously observed. this feeling for order may develop itself even where the system of parental government is by no means characterised by rigorous insistence on such minutiã¦ of procedure. this impulse to extend rule appears more plainly in many of the little ceremonial observances of the child. very charmingly is this respect for rule exhibited in all dealings with animals, also dolls and other pets. not only are they required to do things in a proper orderly manner, but people have to treat them with due deference. one little fellow when saying good-night to his mother insisted on her going through with his doll precisely the same round of kissing and hand-shaking that he required in his own case. this jealous regard for ceremony and the proprieties of behaviour is seen in the enforcement of rules of politeness by children who will extend them far beyond the scope intended by the parent. a delightful instance of this fell under my own observation, as i was walking on hampstead heath. it was a spring day, and the fat buds of the chestnuts were bursting into magnificent green plumes. two well-dressed "misses," aged, i should say, about nine and eleven, were taking their correct morning walk. the elder called the attention of the younger to one of the trees, pointing to it. the younger exclaimed in a highly shocked tone: "oh, maud (or was it 'mabel'?), you know you _shouldn't_ point!" the domain of prayer well illustrates the same tendency. the child is wont, as we have seen, to think of god as a very, very grand person, and naturally, therefore, extends to him all the courtesies he knows of. thus he must be addressed politely with the due forms, "please," "if you please," and the like. the german child shrinks from using the familiar form "du" in his prayers. as one maiden of seven well put it in reply to a question why she used "sie" (the polite form of "you") in her prayers: "ich werde doch den lieben gott nicht du nennen: ich kenne ihn ja gar nicht" (but i mustn't call god "thou": i don't know him, you see). on the other hand, god must not be kept waiting. "oh, mamma," said a little boy of three years and eight months (the same that was so insistent about the kissing and hand-shaking), "how long you have kept me awake for you; god has been wondering so whenever i was going to say my prayers." all the words must be nicely said to him. a little boy, aged four and three-quarter years, once stopped in the middle of a prayer and asked his mother: "oh! how do you spell that word?" the question is curious as suggesting that the child may have regarded his silent communication to the far-off king as a kind of letter. _the enforcer of rules._ not only do children thus of themselves extend the scope of our commands, they show a disposition to make rules for themselves. if, after being told to do a thing on a single occasion only, a child is found repeating the action on other occasions, this seems to show the germ of a law-making impulse. a little boy of two years and one month was once asked to give a lot of old toys to the children of the gardener. some time after, on receiving some new toys, he put away, of his own accord, his old ones as before for the less fortunate children. that the instinct for order assists moral discipline may be seen in the fact that children are apt to pay enormous deference to our rules. nothing is more suggestive here than their talk among themselves, the emphasis they are wont to lay on the "must" and "must not". the truth is that children have a tremendous belief in the sacredness of rules. this recognition of the absolute imperativeness of a rule properly laid down by the recognised authority is seen in the frequent insistence on its observance in new circumstances. it has been pointed out by professor preyer that a child of two years and eight months will follow out the prohibitions of the mother when he falls into other hands, sternly protesting, for example, against the nurse giving him the forbidden knife at table. very proper children rather like to instruct their aunts and other ignorant persons as to the right way of dealing with them, and will rejoice in the opportunity of setting them straight even when it means a deprivation for themselves. the self-denying ordinance, "mamma doesn't let me have many sweets," is by no means beyond the powers of a very correct little person. a still clearer evidence of this respect for law as such, apart from its particular enforcement by the parent, is supplied by children's way of extending the rules imposed on themselves to others. no trait is better marked in the normal child than the impulse to subject others to his own disciplinary system. with what amusing severity are they wont to lay down the law to their dolls, and to their animal playmates, subjecting them to precisely the same prohibitions and punishments as those to which they themselves are subject! nor do they stop here. they enforce the duties just as courageously on their human elders. a mite of eighteen months went up to her elder sister, who was crying, and with perfect mimicry of the nurse's corrective manner, said: "hush! hush! papa!" pointing at the same time to the door. this judicial bent of the child is a curious one and often develops a priggish fondness for setting others morally straight. small boys have to endure much in this way from the hands of slightly older sisters proficient in matters of law and delighting to enforce the moralities. but sometimes the sisters lapse into naughtiness, and then the small boys have their chance. they too can on such occasions be priggish if not downright hypocritical. a little boy had been quarrelling with his sister named muriel just before going to bed. on kneeling down to say his prayers and noticing that muriel was sitting near and listening, he prayed aloud in this wise, "please, god, make muriel a good girl," then looked up and said in an angry voice, "do you hear that, muriel?" and after this digression resumed his petition. this mania for correction shows itself too in relation to the authorities themselves. a collection of rebukes and expositions of moral precept supplied by children to their erring parents would be amusing and suggestive. here is an example: a boy of two--the moral instruction of parents by the child begins betimes--would not go to sleep when bidden to do so by his father and mother. at length the father, losing patience, addressed him with a man's fierce emphasis. this mode of admonition so far from cowering the child simply offended his sense of propriety, for he rejoined: "you s'ouldn't, s'ouldn't, assum (_i.e._, 'arthur,' the father's name), you s'ould speak nicely". we may now turn to what some will regard as still clearer evidence of a law-fearing instinct in children, _viz._, their spontaneous self-submission to its commands. we are apt to think of these little ones as doing right only when under compulsion: but this is far from the truth. a very young child will show the germ of a disposition freely to adopt a law. a little girl, when only twenty months old, would, when left by her mother alone in a room, say to herself: "tay dar" (stay there). about the same time, after being naughty and squealing "like a railway-whistle," she would after each squeal say in a deep voice, "be dood, babba" (her name). in like manner the little boy often quoted at the age of twenty months said to himself when walking down the garden, "sonny darling, mind nettles". here, no doubt, we see quaint mimicries of the mother's fashion of control, but they seem, too, to indicate a movement in the direction of self-control. very instructive here is the way in which children will voluntarily come and submit themselves to our discipline. the girl just quoted, when less than two years old, would go to her mother and confess some piece of naughtiness and suggest the punishment. a little boy aged two years and four months was deprived of a pencil from thursday to sunday for scribbling on the wall-paper. his punishment was, however, tempered by permission to draw when taken downstairs. on saturday he had finished a picture downstairs which pleased him. when his nurse fetched him she wanted to look at the drawing, but the boy strongly objected, saying: "no, nanna (name for nurse), look at it till sunday". and sure enough when sunday came, and the pencil was restored to him, he promptly showed nurse his picture. that there is this tendency to fall in with punishment for breach of rule is borne out by some recent questionings of school children in america as to their views of the justice of their punishments. the results appear to show that they regard a large part of their corrections for naughtiness as a matter of course, the younger ones being apparently harsher in their views of what constitutes a proper punishment than the older ones. these evidences of an impulse to look on correction as a quite proper thing are corroborated by stories of self-punishment. here is an example: a girl of nine had been naughty, and was very sorry for her misbehaviour. shortly after she came to her lesson limping, and remarked that she felt very uncomfortable. being asked by her governess what was the matter with her she said: "it was very naughty of me to disobey you, so i put my right shoe on to my left foot and my left shoe on to my right foot". the facts here briefly illustrated seem to me to show that there is in the child from the first a rudiment of true law-abidingness, which exists side by side and struggles with the childish love of liberty and rebelliousness. and this is a force of the greatest consequence to the disciplinarian. it is something which takes side in the child's breast with the reasonable governor and the laws which he or she administers. it secures in many cases, at least, a ready compliance with a large part of the discipline enforced. chapter xi. at the gate of the temple. one of the most interesting phases of a child's activity is its groping after what we call art. although a decided bent towards some special form of our art may be rare among children, most of them betray some rudiment of a feeling for beauty and of an impulse to produce it. it will be well to begin by glancing at the responses of children to the various presentations of beauty in nature and art, and then to examine their attempts at artistic production. _the greeting of beauty._ in looking in a young child for responses to the beauty of things, we must not, of course, expect a clear appreciation of its several phases. here our aim will be to collect evidences of a natural feeling which may afterwards under favourable conditions grow into a discerning taste. even in infancy we may detect in the movements of the arms, the admiring cooing sounds, this greeting of nature's beauty as of something kindred. in the home interior it is commonly some bit of bright light, especially when it is in movement, which first charms the eye of the novice; the dancing fire-flame, for example, the play of the sunlight on a bit of glass or a gilded frame, the great globe of the lamp just created. in some cases it is a patch of bright colour or a gay pattern on the mother's dress which calls forth a full vocal welcome in the shape of baby "talking". in the out-of-door scene, too, it is the glitter of the running water, or a meadow all white with daisies, which captivates the glance. light, the symbol of life's joy, seems to be the first language in which the spirit of beauty speaks to a child. a feeling for the charm of colour comes distinctly later. the first pleasure from coloured toys and pictures is hardly distinguishable from the welcome of the glad light, the delight in mere brightness. this applies pretty manifestly to the strongly illumined rose-red curtain which professor preyer's boy greeted with signs of satisfaction at the age of twenty-three days. later on, too, when it is possible to test a child's feeling for colour, it has been found that a decided preference is shown for the bright or "luminous" tints, _viz._, red and yellow. an american observer, miss shinn, tells us that her niece in her twenty-eighth month had a special fondness for the daffodils--the bright tints of which allured, as we know, an older maiden, and, alas! to the place whence all brightness was banished. among the other coloured objects which captivated the eye of this little girl were a patch of white cherry blossom, and a red sun-set sky. such observations might easily be multiplied. whiteness, it is to be noted, comes, as we might expect, with the brighter tones of the other colours among the first favourites. at what age a child begins to appreciate the value of colour as colour, to like blue or red for its own sake and apart from its brightness, it is hard to say. the experiments made so far are not conclusive, though they seem to show that taste for colour does not always develop along the same lines. thus, according to the observer of one child, blue is one of the first to be preferred, though this is said not to be true of other children. later on, i believe, a child is wont to have his favourite colour, and to be ready to defend it against the preferences of others. liking for a single colour is a considerably smaller display of mind than an appreciation of the relation of two colours. many adults, it is said, hardly have a rudiment of this feeling, pairing the most fiercely antagonistic tints. common observation shows that most children, like the less cultivated adults, prefer juxtapositions of colours which are strongly opposed, such as blue and red or blue and yellow. it would be interesting to know whether there is any general preference as between these two combinations. it is, of course, a long step from this recognition of the contrast and mutual emphasising of colour to that of its quiet harmonious combinations. that little children have their likings in the matter of form is, i think, indisputable, but they are not those of the cultivated adult. one of the first out-goings of admiration towards form is the child's praise of "tiny" things. the common liking of children for small natural forms, _e.g._, those of the lesser birds, insects, and sea-shells, is well known. how they love to "pile up" the endearing epithets "wee," "tiny" (or "teeny"), and the rest! here, as in so many of these childish admirations, we have to do not with a purely ã¦sthetic perception. the feeling for the tiny things probably has in it the warmth of a young personal sympathy. if now we turn to the higher aspects of form, such as symmetry and proportion, we encounter a difficulty. a child may acquire while quite young and before any methodical education commences a certain feeling for regular form. but can we be sure that this is the result of his own observations? we have to remember that his daily life, where the home is orderly, helps to impress on him regularity of form. in the laying of the cloth on the dinner-table, for example, he sees the regular division of space enforced as a law. every time he is dressed, or sees his mother dress, he has an object-lesson in symmetrical arrangement. and so these features take on a kind of moral rightness before they are judged of as pleasing to the eye and as beautiful. the feeling for proportion, as, for example, between the height of a horse and that of a house, is, as children's drawings show us, in general very defective. a susceptibility to the pleasures of light, colour, and certain simple aspects of form, may be said to supply the basis of a crude perception of beauty. a quite small child is capable of acquiring a real admiration for a beautiful lady, in the appreciation of which brightness, colour, grace of movement, the splendour of dress, all have their part, while the charm for the eye is often reinforced by a sweet and winsome quality of voice. such an admiration is not of course a pure appreciation of beauty: awe, some feeling for the social dignity of dress, perhaps a longing to be embraced by the charmer, may all enter into it; yet delight in the _look_ of a thing for its own sake is surely the core of the feeling. perhaps the nearest approach to a pure ã¦sthetic enjoyment in these early days is the love of flowers. the wee round wonders with their mystery of velvety colour are well fitted to take captive the young eye. i believe most children who live among flowers and have access to them acquire something of this sentiment, a sentiment in which admiration for beautiful things combines with a kind of dumb childish sympathy. no doubt there are marked differences among children here. there are some who care only, or mainly, for their scent, and the keen sensibilities of the olfactory organ appear to have a good deal to do with early preferences and prejudices in the matter of flowers. others again care for them mainly as a means of personal adornment, though i am disposed to think that this partially interested fondness is less common with children than with many adults. in much of this first crude utterance of the ã¦sthetic sense of the child we have points of contact with the manifestations of taste among uncivilised races. admiration for brilliant colours, for moving things, such as feathers, is common to the two. yet a child coming under the humanising influences of culture soon gets far away from the level of the savage. perhaps his almost perfectly spontaneous love of tiny flowers is already a considerable advance on his so-called prototype. many adults assume that a child can look at a landscape as they look at it, taking in the whole picturesque effect. when he is taken to switzerland and shown a fine "view," his eye, so far from seizing the whole, will provokingly pounce on some unimportant detail of the scene and give undivided attention to this, that the eye of a child of ten or less can enjoy the reddening of a snow-peak, or the emergence of a bright green alp from the mountain mist, i fully believe. but it is quite another thing to expect him to appreciate great extent of view and all the unnameable relations of form, of light and shade, and of colour, which compose a landscape. _first peep into the art-world._ while nature is thus speaking to a child through her light, her colour and her various forms, human art makes appeal also. in a cultured home a child finds himself at the precincts of the art-temple, and feels there are wondrous delights within if he can only get there. one of the earliest of these appeals is to the ear. a child outside the temple of art hears its music before he sees its veiled beauties. i have had occasion to show how sadly new sounds may perturb the spirit of an infant. yet these same waves of sound, which break upon and shake the young nerves, give them, too, their most delightful thrill. nowhere in adult experience do pleasure and sadness lie so near one another as in music, and a child's contrasting responses, as he now shrinks away with trouble in his eyes, now gratefully reaches forth and falls into joyous sympathetic movement, are a striking illustration of this proximity. in the case of many happy children the interest in the sounds of things, _e.g._, the gurgle of running water, the soughing of the trees, is a large one. an approach to ã¦sthetic pleasure is seen in the responses to rhythmic series of sounds. rhythm, it has been well said, is a universal law of life: all the activities of the organism have their regular changes, their periodic rise and fall. the rhythm of a simple tune plays favourably on a child's ear, enhancing life according to this great law. his ear, his brain, his muscles take on a new joyous activity, and the tide of life rises higher. nursery rhymes, which, it has recently been suggested, should be banished, bring something of this joy of ordered movement, and help to form the rhythmic ear. with this feeling for rhythm there soon appears a discerning feeling for quality of tone. first of all, i suspect, comes the appreciation of moderation and smoothness of sound; it is the violent sounds which mostly offend the young ear. a child's preference for the mother's singing is, perhaps, a half reminiscence of the soft-low tones of the lullaby. purity or sweetness of tone, little by little, makes itself felt, and a child takes dislikes to certain voices as wanting in this agreeable quality. much later, in the case of all but gifted children, do the mysteries of harmony begin to take on definite form and meaning. the arts which give to the eye semblances or representations of objects appeal to a child much more through his knowledge of things. the enjoyment of a picture means the understanding of it as a picture, and this requires a process of self-education. a child begins to make acquaintance with the images of things when set before a mirror. here he can inspect what he sees, say the reflection of the face of his mother or nurse, and compare it at once with the original. with pictures there is no such opportunity of directly comparing with the original, and children have to find out as best they may what the drawings in their picture-books mean. a dim discernment of what a drawing represents may appear early. a little boy was observed to talk to pictures at the end of the eighth month. a girl of forty-two weeks showed the same excitement at the sight of a life-size painting of a cat as at that of a real cat. another child, a boy, recognised pictures of animals by spontaneously naming them "bow-wow," etc., at the age of ten months. the early recognition of pictured objects, of which certain animals have a measure, is often strikingly discerning. a child a little more than a year old has been known to pick out her father's face in a group of nine, the face being scarcely more than a quarter of an inch in diameter. another curious point in this early deciphering of drawings and photographs is that a child seems indifferent to the _position_ of the picture, holding it as readily inverted as in its proper position. one little girl of three and a half "does not mind (writes her father) whether she looks at a picture the right way up or the wrong; she points out what you ask for, eyes, feet, hands, tail, etc., about equally well whichever way up the picture is, and never asks to have it put right that she may see it better". a like indifference to the position of a picture, and of a letter, has been observed among backward races. surprising as this early recognition of pictures undoubtedly is, it is a question whether it necessarily implies any idea of the true nature of them, as being merely semblances or representations of things. that children do not, at first, clearly seize the meaning of pictures is seen in the familiar fact that they will touch them just as they touch shadows, and otherwise treat them as if they were tangible realities. one little girl attempted to smell at the trees in a drawing and pretended to feed some pictorial dogs. this may have been half play. but here is a more convincing example. a girl was moved to pity by a picture of a lamb caught in a thicket, and tried to lift the branch that lay across the animal. with less intelligent children traces of this tendency to take pictorial representation for reality may appear as late as four. one american boy having looked at a picture of people going to church in the snow, and finding on the next day that the figures in the drawing were exactly in the same position, seemed perplexed, and remarked naã¯vely: "why, mrs. c., these people haven't got there yet, have they?" it is not surprising after this to learn that some children are slow in seizing the representative character of acting. if, for example, a father at christmas-tide disguises himself as santa claus, his child will only too readily take him to be what he represents himself to be, and this when the disguise, especially in the matter of the voice, leaves much to be desired. children, like uneducated adults, have been known to take a spectacle on the stage of a theatre too seriously. yet their own play, which, though serious at the moment, is known afterwards to be "pretending," probably renders many of them particularly quick in interpreting dramatic play. this tendency to take art-representations for realities reappears even in the mental attitude of a child towards his stories. a verbal narrative has of course in itself nothing similar to the scenes and events of which it tells. in this it differs from the semblance of the picture and of the dramatic spectacle. yet a story, just because it uses our common forms of language and takes the guise of a narrative about people who lived at such a time and place, may well appear to a child's mind to tell of real events. at any rate we know that he is wont to believe tenaciously in the truth of his stories. careful observations of these first movements of the child's mind towards art will illustrate the variable directions of his taste. the preferences of a boy of four in the matter of picture-books tell us where his special interests lie, what things he finds pretty, and may supply a hint as to how much of a genuine ã¦sthetic faculty he is likely to develop later on. it is curious to note children's first manifestations of a sense of the pathetic and the comic as represented in art. here marked differences present themselves. those of a more serious turn are apt to show a curious preference for the graver aspects of things. they like stories, for example, with a certain amount of tension and even of thrill in them. there are others who disclose a special susceptibility to the more simple effects of pathos. there are sentimental children, as there are sentimental adults, who seem never happier than when the tears are ready to start. it may be suspected from the number of descriptions of early deaths in literature for the young that some at least must take pleasure in this kind of description. a child's strong feeling of attachment to animals is apt at a certain age to give to stories about the hardships of horses and the like something of an overpowering sadness. the sense of the comic in children is a curious subject to which justice has not yet been done. the tendency to judge them by our grown-up standards shows itself in an expectation that their laughter will follow the directions of our own. their fun is, i suspect, of a very elemental character. they are apt to be tickled by the spectacle of some upsetting of the proprieties, some confusion of the established distinctions of rank. dress, as we have seen, has an enormous symbolic value for their mind, and any incongruity here is apt to be specially laughter-provoking. one child between three and four was convulsed at the sight of his baby bib fastened round the neck of his bearded sire. there is, too, a considerable element of rowdiness in children's sense of the comical, as may be seen by the enduring popularity of the spectacle of punch's successful misdemeanours and bravings of the legal authority. the sense of humour which is finely percipient and half reflective is far from their level, as indeed it is from that of the average adult. hence the fact familiar to parents that stories which treat of child-life with the finer kind of humour may utterly fail to tickle a young reader. _first ventures in creation._ it is sometimes said that children are artists in embryo, that in their play and throughout their activity they manifest the germs of the art-impulse. it seems worth while to examine the saying. there is no doubt that in much of the first spontaneous activity there is a trace of ã¦sthetic feeling and the impulse to produce something pretty. yet the feeling is in most children weak and vacillating, and is wont to be mixed with other and less noble ones. one of the lower and mixed forms of artistic activity, in the case of the child and of the race alike, is personal adornment. the impulse to study appearances appears to reach far down in animal life. two impulses seem to be at work here: to frighten or overawe others, as seen in the raising of feathers and hair so as to increase size, and to attract, which possibly underlies the habit of trimming feathers and fur among birds and quadrupeds. the same two impulses are said to lie at the root of the elaborate art of personal adornment developed by savages. in the case of children brought up in the ways of civilisation where personal cleanliness and adornment are peremptorily enforced in the face of many a tearful protest, it seems at first vain to look for the play of instinctive tendencies. yet i think if we observe closely we shall detect traces of a spontaneous impulse towards self-adornment. children, like uncultured adults, are wont to prize a bit of finery in the shape of a string of beads or of daisies for the neck, a feather for the hat, and so forth. imitation of the ways of their elders doubtless plays a part here, but it is aided by an instinct for adornment. little girls perhaps represent the attractive function of adornment: they like to be thought pretty. little boys when decking themselves out with tall hat and monstrously big clothes seem to be trying to put on an alarming aspect. since children are left so little free to deck themselves, it is of course hard to study the development of ã¦sthetic taste in this domain of their activity. yet their quaint attempts to improve their appearance throw an interesting side-light on their ã¦sthetic preferences. while in general they have in their hearts almost as much love of glitter, of gaudy colour, as uncivilised adults, they betray striking differences of feeling; some developing, for example, a bent towards modest neatness and refinement, and this, it may be, in direct opposition to the whole trend of home influence. another domain of childish activity which is akin to art is the manifestation of grace. a good deal of the charm of movement, of gesture, of intonation, in a young child may be unconscious, and as much a result of happy physical conditions as the pretty gambols of a kitten. yet one may commonly detect in graceful children the rudiment of an ã¦sthetic feeling for what is nice, and also of the instinct to please. there is, indeed, in these first actions, such as the kissing of the hand to other children in the street, something of the simple grace and dignity of the more amiable of those uncivilised races which we dishonour by calling them savages. this feeling for pleasing effect in bodily carriage and movement, in the use of speech and gesture, is no doubt far from being a pure art-activity. traces of self-consciousness, of vanity, are often discernible in it; yet at least it attests the existence of a certain appreciation of what is beautiful, and of something akin to the creative impulse of the artist. a true art-impulse is characterised by a pure love of doing something which, either in itself as an action or in the material result which it produces, is beautiful. into this there enters, at the moment at least, no consciousness of self. now there is one field of children's activity which, as was suggested in an earlier chapter, is marked by just this absorption of thought in action for its own sake, and that is play. to say that play is art-like has almost become a commonplace. like art it is inspired and sustained by a pure love of producing. like art, too, on its representative side, play aims at producing an imitation or semblance of something. the semblance may be plastic, residing in the material product of the action, as in making things such as castles out of cardboard or sand; or it may be dramatic and reside in the action itself, as in much of the childish play already described. the imitative impulse prompting to the production of the semblance of something appears very early in child-life. a good deal of the imitation which occurs in the second half year is the taking on, under the lead of another's example, of actions which are more or less useful. this applies, for example, to such actions as waving the hand in sign of farewell, and of course to vocal imitation of others' verbal sounds. at an early date we find, further, a perfectly useless kind of imitation which is more akin to that of art. a quite young child will, for example, _pretend_ to do something, as to take an empty cup and carry out the semblance of drinking. the imitation of the sounds and movements of animals, which comes early too, may be said to be imitative in the more artistic sense, inasmuch as it has no aim beyond that of mimetic representation. later on, towards the third year, this simple type of imitative action grows more complex, so that a prolonged make-believe action may be carried out. a child, for example, occupies himself with pretending to be an organ-grinder's monkey, going duly and in order through the action of jumping down from his seat, and taking off his cap by way of begging for the stranger's contribution. here, it is evident, we get something closely analogous to histrionic performance. this play-like performance, again, gradually divides itself into a more serious kind of action, analogous to serious drama, and into a lighter representation of some funny scene, which has in it something akin to comedy. meanwhile, another form of imitation is developing, the fashioning of lasting semblances. early illustrations of this impulse are the making of a river out of the gravy in the plate, the pinching of pellets of bread till they take on something of resemblance to known forms. one child, three years old, would occupy himself at table by turning his plate into a clock, in which the knife and fork were made to act as hands, and cherry stones put round the plate to represent the hours. such table-pastimes are known to all observers of children, and have been prettily touched on by r. l. stevenson in his essay on "child's play". these formative touches are, at first, rough enough, the transformation being effected, as we have seen, much more by the alchemy of the child's imagination than by the cunning of his hands. yet, crude as it is, and showing at first almost as much of chance as of design, it is a manifestation of the same plastic impulse which possesses the sculptor and the painter. the more elaborate constructive play which follows--the building with cards and wooden bricks, the moulding with sand and clay, and the first spontaneous drawings--is the direct descendant of this rude formative activity. the kindergarten is, indeed, a kind of smaller art-world where the dramatic and plastic impulses of the child are led into orderly action. in this imitative play we see from the first the artistic tendency to set forth what is characteristic in the things represented. thus in the unstudied acting of the nursery, the nurse, the coachman, and the rest, are presented by a few broad touches; characteristic actions, such as pouring out the medicine, jerking the reins, being aided by one or two rough accessories, as the medicine bottle or the whip. in this way child's play, like primitive art, shows a certain unconscious selectiveness. it presents what is constant and typical, imperfectly enough no doubt. the same selection of broadly distinctive traits is seen where some individual person, _e.g._, a particular newsboy or gardener, seems to be represented. a similar tendency to a somewhat bald typicalness of outline is seen in the first rude attempts of children to construct, whether with materials like cards or bricks, or with pencil, the semblance of a house, a garden and so forth. as observation widens and grows finer, the first bald representation becomes fuller and more life-like. a larger number of distinctive traits is taken up into the play. thus the coachman's talk becomes richer, fuller of reminiscences of the stable, etc., and so colour is given to the dramatic picture. similarly with the products of the plastic impulse. with this more realistic tendency to exhibit the characteristic with something like concrete fulness we see the germ at least of the idealistic impulse to transcend the level of common things, to give prominence to what has value, to touch the representation with the magic light of beauty. even a small child playing with its coloured petals or its shells will show a rudiment of this artistic feeling for beautiful arrangement. no doubt there are striking variations among children in this respect. play discloses in many ways differences of feeling and ideas: among others, in the unequal degrees of tastefulness of the play scene. yet the presence of an impulse, however rudimentary, to produce what has beauty and charm for the eye is a fact which we must recognise. along with this feeling for the sensuous effect of beauty we can discern the beginnings of fancy and invention whereby the idea represented is made more prominent and potent. this tendency, like the others, shows itself in a crude form at first, as in the earlier and coarser art of the race. in children's play we can see much of the uncultured man's love of strong effect. the pathos of the death of the pet animal or of the child has to be made obvious and strongly effective by a mass of painful detail; the comic incident must be made broadly farcical by heavy touches of caricature; the excitement of perilous adventure has to be intensified by multiplying the menacing forces and the thrilling situations. yet crude as are these early attempts at strengthening the feebleness of the actual they are remotely akin to the idealising efforts of true art. nevertheless, children's play, though akin to it, is not completely art. as pointed out above, the action in a child's play is not intended as a dramatic spectacle. the small player is too self-centred, if i may so say. the scenes he acts out, the semblances he shapes with his hands, are not produced, as art is produced, for its own worth's sake, but rather as providing a new world into which he may retire and enjoy privacy. a child in playing a part does not "play" in order to delight others. "i remember," writes r. l. stevenson, "as though it were yesterday, the expansion of spirit, the dignity and self-reliance, that came with a pair of mustachios in burnt cork _even when there was none to see_." the same is true when children play at being indians or what not: they are not "acting" in the theatrical sense of the word. while, then, one can say that there is something akin to art in the happy semi-conscious activity of the child at play, we must add that, for the development of the true impulse of the artist, a good deal more is needed. the play-impulse will only get specialised into the art-impulse when it is illumined by a growing participation in the social consciousness, and by a sense of beauty and the ã¦sthetic worth of things; when, further, it begins to concentrate itself on one mode of imitative activity, as, for example, dramatic representation or drawing. i have chosen here to deal with the more spontaneous manifestations of an art-like impulse in children, rather than to describe their first attempts at art as we understand it. here--in the case of all but those endowed with a genuine artistic talent--we are apt to find too much of the adult's educative influence, too little of what is spontaneous and original. at the same time, some of this art-activity, more particularly the first weaving of stories, is characteristic enough to deserve a special study. i have made a small collection of early stories, and some of them are interesting enough to be quoted. here is a quaint example of the first halting manner of a child of two and a half years as invention tries to get away from the sway of models: "three little bears went out a walk, and they found a stick, and they poked the fire with it, and they poked the fire and then went a walk". soon, however, the young fancy is apt to wax bolder, and then we get some fine invention. a boy of five years and a quarter living at the sea-side improvised as follows. he related "that one day he went out on the sea in a lifeboat, when suddenly he saw a big whale, and so he jumped down to catch it; but it was so big that he climbed on it and rode on it in the water, and all the little fishes laughed so". with this comic story may be compared a more serious not to say tragic one from the lips of a girl one month younger, which is characterised by an almost equal fondness for the wonderful. "a man wanted to go to heaven before he died. he said, 'i don't want to die, and i must see heaven!' jesus christ said he must be patient like other people. he then got _so_ angry, and screamed out as loud as he could, and kicked up his heels as high as he could, and they (the heels) went into the sky, and the sky fell down and broke the earth all to pieces. he wanted jesus christ to mend the earth again, but he wouldn't, so this was a good punishment for him." this last, which is the work of one now grown into womanhood and no longer a story-teller, is interesting in many ways. the wish to go to heaven without dying is, as i know, a motive derived from child-life. the manifestations of displeasure could, one supposes, only have been written by one who was herself experienced in the ways of childish "tantrums". the naã¯ve conception of sky and earth, and lastly the moral issue of the story, are no less instructive. these samples may serve to show that in the stories of by no means highly gifted children we come face to face with interesting traits of the young mind, and can study some of the characteristic tendencies of early and primitive art. of the later efforts to imitate older art, as verse writing, the same cannot, i think, be said. children's verses, so far as i have come across them, are poor and stilted, showing all the signs of the cramping effect of models and rules to which the young mind cannot easily accommodate itself, and wanting in true childish inspiration. no doubt, even in these choking circumstances, childish feeling may now and again peep out. the first prose compositions, letters before all if they may be counted art, give more scope for the expression of this feeling and the characteristic movements of young thought, and might well repay careful study. there is one other department of children's art which clearly does deserve to be studied with some care--their drawing. and this for the very good reason that it is not wholly a product of our influence and education, but shows itself in its essential characteristics as a spontaneous self-taught activity which takes its rise, indeed, in the play-impulse. to this i propose to devote my next and last chapter. chapter xii. first pencillings. a child's first attempts at drawing are not art proper, but a kind of play. as he sits at the table and covers a sheet of paper with line-scribble he is wholly self-centred, "amusing himself," as we say, and caring nothing about the production of a thing of ã¦sthetic value. yet even in this infantile scribbling we see a tendency towards art-production in the effort of the small draughtsman to make his lines indicative of something to another's eyes, as when he bids his mother look at the "man," "gee-gee," or what else he cheerfully imagines his scribble to delineate. such early essays to represent objects by lines, though commonly crude enough and apt to shock the ã¦sthetic sense of the matured artist by their unsightliness, are closely related to art, and deserve to be studied as a kind of preliminary stage of pictorial design. in studying what is really a large subject it will be well for us to narrow the range of our inquiry by keeping to delineations of the human figure and of animals, especially the horse. these are the favourite topics of the child's pencil, and examples of them are easily obtainable. as far as possible i have sought spontaneous drawings of quite young children, _viz._, from between two and three to about six. in a strict sense, of course, no child's drawing is absolutely spontaneous and independent of external stimulus and guidance. the first attempts to manage the pencil are commonly aided by the mother or other instructor, who, moreover, is wont to present a model drawing, and, what is even more important at this early stage, to supply model-movements of the arm and hand. in most cases, too, there is some slight amount of critical inspection, as when she asks, "where is papa's nose?" "where is doggie's tail?" in one case, however, i have succeeded in getting drawings of a little girl who was carefully left to develop her own ideas. even in the instances where adult supervision is apt to interfere, we can, i think, by patient investigation distinguish traits which are genuinely childish. a child's drawing begins with a free aimless swinging of the pencil to and fro, which movements produce a chaos of slightly curved lines. these movements are purely spontaneous, or, if imitative, are so only in the sense that they follow roughly the directions of another's pencil. in this first line-scribble there is no serious intention to trace a particular form. what a child seems to do in this rough imitation of another's movements is to make a tangle of lines, more or less straight, varied by loops, which in a true spirit of play he makes believe to be the semblance of "mamma," "pussy," or what not, as in fig. 1 (_a_) and (_b_). possibly in not a few cases the interpretation first suggests itself after the scribble, the child's fancy discerning some faint resemblance in his formless tangle to a human head, a cat's tail, and so forth. [illustration: fig. 1 (_a_).[11]] [illustration: fig. 1 (_b_).[11]] [11] fig. 1 (_a_) is a drawing of a man by a child of twenty months, reproduced from prof. m. baldwin's _mental development_, p. 84; fig. 1 (_b_) is a drawing of a man by a child of two years three months, reproduced from an article on children's drawings by mr. h. t. lukens in _the pedagogical seminary_, vol. iv. (1896). this habit of scribble may persist after a child attempts a linear description of the parts of an object. thus a little girl in her fourth year when asked to draw a cat produced the two accompanying figures (fig. 2 (_a_) and (_b_)). [illustration: fig. 2 (_a_).] [illustration: fig. 2 (_b_).] here it is evident we have a phase of childish drawing which is closely analogous to the symbolism of language. the form of representation is chosen arbitrarily and not because of its likeness to what is represented. this element of symbolic indication will be found to run through the whole of childish drawing. as soon as the hand acquires a certain readiness in drawing lines and closed lines or "outlines," and begins to connect the forms produced with the necessary movements, drawing takes on a more intentional character. the child now aims at constructing a particular linear representation, that of a man, a horse, or what not. these first attempts to copy in line the forms of familiar objects are among the most curious products of the child's mind. they follow standards and methods of their own; they are apt to get hardened into a fixed conventional manner which may reappear even in mature years. they exhibit with a certain range of individual difference a curious uniformity, and they have their parallels in what we know of the first crude designs of the untutored savage. _the human face divine._ it has been wittily observed by an italian writer, signor corrado ricci, that children in their drawings reverse the order of natural creation by beginning instead of ending with man. it may be added that they start with the most dignified part of this crown of creation, _viz._, the human head. a child's attempt to represent a man appears commonly to begin by drawing a sort of circle for the front view of the head. a dot or two, sometimes only one, sometimes as many as five, are thrown in as a rough way of indicating the features. i speak here of the commoner form. there are however variations of this. some children draw a squarish outline for head, but these are children _at school_. in one case, that of a little girl aged three years four months, the outline was not completed, the facial features being set between two vertical columns of scribble, which do duty for legs (fig. 3). sometimes the features are simply laid down without any enclosing contour; and this arrangement appears not only in children's drawings but in those of savage adults. [illustration: fig. 3.[12]] [12] reproduced from the article already referred to, by mr. lukens. the representation of the head sometimes appears alone, but a strong tendency to bring in the support of the legs soon shows itself. this takes at first the crude device of a couple of vertical lines attached to the head (see fig. 4). [illustration: fig. 4.] coming now to the mode of representing the face, we find at an early stage the commencement of an attempt to differentiate the features. in drawings of children of three we frequently see that while the eyes are indicated by dots the nose is given as a short vertical line. similarly when the mouth appears it does so commonly as a horizontal line. we notice that more attention is given to the problem of placing a feature than to that of making a likeness of it. indeed this first drawing is largely a pointing out or noting down of features without any serious effort to draw them. the representation is a kind of local description rather than a true drawing. curious differences appear in respect of the completeness of this linear noting or enumerating of features. the nose more particularly appears and disappears in a capricious way in the drawings of the same child. [illustration: fig. 5.] [illustration: fig. 6.] odd differences, reflecting differences of intelligence, show themselves in the management of this diagram of the human face. one child, a jamaica girl of seven, went so far as to draw the face with only one eye (fig. 5). again though, as i have said, a child will try to give a correct local arrangement, for example putting the nose between and below the eyes, he does not always reach accuracy of localisation. many children habitually set the two eyes far up towards the crown of the head, as in fig. 6. when the features begin to be represented by something more like a form we find in most cases a curious want of proportion. the eye, for instance, is often greatly exaggerated; so is the mouth, which is sometimes drawn right across the face, as in fig. 6. as the drawing progresses we note a kind of evolution of the features. in the case of the eye, for example, we may often trace a gradual development, the dot being displaced by a small circle or ovoid, this last supplemented by a second outer circle, or by an arch or pair of arches. in like manner the mouth, from being a bare symbolic indication, gradually takes on form and likeness. there appears a rude attempt to picture the mouth cavity and to show those interesting accessories, the teeth. the nose, too, tries to look more like a nose by help of various ingenious expedients, as by drawing an angle, a triangle, and a kind of scissors arrangement in which the holders stand for the nostrils (see fig. 7 (_a_) and (_b_); compare above, fig. 4). ears, hair, and the other adjuncts come in later as after-thoughts. much the same characteristics are observable in the treatment of these features. _the vile body._ at first, as i have observed, the trunk is commonly omitted. the indifference of the young mind to this is seen in the obstinate persistence of the first scheme of a head set on two legs, even when two arms are added and attached to the sides of the head. indeed a child will sometimes complete the drawing by adding feet and hands before he troubles to bring in the trunk (see fig. 8). from this common way of spiking the head on two forked or upright legs there occurs an important deviation. the contour of the head may be left incomplete, and the upper part of the curve be run on into the leg-lines, as in the accompanying example by a jamaica girl (fig. 8). [illustration: fig. 7 (_a_).] [illustration: fig. 7 (_b_).] [illustration: fig. 8.] [illustration: fig. 9 (_a_).[13]] [illustration: fig. 9 (_b_).] [illustration: fig. 9 (_c_).] [illustration: fig. 9 (_d_).] [13] fig. 9 (_a_) is a reproduction of a drawing of a girl of four and a half years, from mr. lukens' article. the drawing of the trunk may commence in different ways. sometimes a lame attempt is made to indicate it by leaving space between the head and the legs, that is, by not attaching the legs to the head. another contrivance is where the space between the legs is shown to be the trunk by shading or by drawing a vertical row of buttons. in other cases the contour of the head appears to be elongated so as to serve for head and trunk. a better expedient is drawing a line across the two vertical lines and so marking off the trunk (see fig. 9 (_a_) to (_d_)). in drawings made by brazilian indians we see another device, _viz._, a pinching in of the vertical lines (see fig. 9 (_e_)). after the trunk has been recognised by the young draughtsman he is apt to show his want of respect for it by making it absurdly small in proportion to the head, as in fig. 10. it assumes a variety of shapes, triangular, rectangular, and circular or ovoid, this last being, however, the most common. [illustration: fig. 9 (_e_).] [illustration: fig. 10.] [illustration: fig. 11.] at this stage there is no attempt to show the joining on of the head to the trunk by means of the neck. when this is added it is apt to take the exaggerated look of caricature, as in fig. 11. a curious feature which not infrequently appears in this first drawing of the trunk is the doubling of the corporeal ovoid, one being laid upon the other. as this appears when a neck is added it looks like a clumsy attempt to indicate the pinch at the waist--presumably the female waist (see fig. 12). the introduction of the arms is very uncertain. to the child, as also to the savage, the arms seem far less important than the legs, and are omitted in rather more than one case out of two. after all, the divine portion, the head, can be supported very well without their help. [illustration: fig. 12.] [illustration: fig. 13.] the arms, being the thin lanky members, are, like the legs, commonly represented by lines. the same thing is noticeable in the drawings of savages. they appear, in the front view of the figure, as more or less stretched out, so as to show beyond the trunk; and their appearance always gives a certain liveliness to the form, an air of joyous expression, as if to say, "here i am!" (see fig. 13, the drawing of a boy of six). in respect of their structure a process of gradual evolution may be observed. the primal rigidity of the straight line yields later on to the freedom of an organ. thus an attempt is made to represent by means of a curve the look of the bent arm, as in the accompanying drawing by a boy of five (fig. 14). in other cases the angle of the elbow is indicated. this last improvement seems to come comparatively late in children's drawings, which here, as in other respects, lag behind the crudest outline sketches of savages. [illustration: fig. 14.] [illustration: fig. 15.] the mode of insertion or attachment of the arms is noteworthy. where they are added to the trunkless figure they sometimes appear as emerging from the sides of the head, as in a drawing by a boy of two and a half years (see fig. 15), but more commonly, from the point of junction of the head and legs (see above, fig. 7 (_b_)). after the trunk is added they appear to sprout from almost any point of this. it may be added that their length is often grotesquely exaggerated. the arm in these childish drawings early develops the interesting adjunct of a hand. like other features this is apt at first to be amusingly forced into prominence by its size. the treatment of the hand illustrates in a curious way the process of artistic evolution, the movement from a bare symbolic indication towards a more life-like representation. thus one of the earliest and rudest devices i have met with, though in a few cases only, is that of drawing strokes across the line of the arm to serve as signs of fingers (fig. 16). [illustration: fig. 16.--humpty dumpty on the wall.] [illustration: fig. 17.] it is an important advance when the branching lines are set in a bunch-like arrangement at the extremity of the arm-line. from this point the transition is easy to the common "toasting-fork" arrangement, in which the finger-lines are set on a hand-line (see above, figs. 8 and 7 (_b_)). from this stage, again, there is but a step to the first crude attempt to give contour first to the hand alone, as in fig. 13, and then to hand and fingers, as in figs. 11 and 17. various odd arrangements appear in the first attempts to outline arm and hand. in one, which occurs not infrequently, a thickened arm is made to expand into something like a fan-shaped hand, as in fig. 18. [illustration: fig. 18.] there is a corresponding development of the foot from a bare indication by a line to something like a form in which toes are commonly represented by much the same devices as fingers. in the better drawings, however, one notes signs of a tendency to hide the toes, and to indicate the notch between the heel and the sole of the boot. _side views of things._ so far, i have dealt only with the child's treatment of the front view of the human face and figure. new and highly curious characteristics begin to appear when he attempts to give the profile aspect. a child, it must be remembered, prefers the full face arrangement, as he wants to indicate all its important features, especially the two eyes. "if," writes a kindergarten teacher, "one makes drawings in profile for quite little children, they will not be satisfied unless they see two eyes; and sometimes they turn a picture round to see the other side." this reminds one of a story told, i believe, by catlin of the indian chief, who was so angry at a representation of himself in profile that the unfortunate artist went in fear of his life. at the same time children do not rest content with this front view. after a time they try, without any aid from the teacher, to grope their way to a new mode of representing the face and figure, which, though it would be an error to call it a profile drawing, has some of its characteristics. the first clear indication of an attempt to give the profile aspect of the face is the introduction of the side view of the nose into the contour. the little observer is soon impressed by the characteristic, well-marked outline of the nose in profile; and the motive to bring this in is strengthened by his inability, already illustrated, to make much of the front view of the organ. the addition is made either by adding a spindle-like projection after completing the circle of the head, as in figs. 6 and 7 (_a_), or more adroitly by modifying the circular outline. the other features, the eyes and the mouth, are given in full view as before. it may well seem a puzzle to us how a normal child of five or six can complacently set down this self-contradictory scheme of a human head. how little any idea of consistency troubles the young draughtsman is seen in the fact that he will, not infrequently, reach the absurdity of doubling the nose, retaining the vertical line which did duty in the first front view along with the added nasal projection (see fig. 19). this appearance of the nose as a lateral projection is apt to be followed by a similar side view of the ear (as seen in fig. 19), of the beard and other adjuncts which the little artist wants to display in the most advantageous way. some children stop at this mixed scheme, continuing to give the two eyes and the mouth, as in the front view, and frequently also the front view of the body. this becomes a fixed conventional way of representing a man. with children of finer perception the transition to a correct profile view may be carried much further. yet a lingering fondness for the two eyes is apt to appear at a later stage in this development of a consistent treatment of the profile; a feeling that the second eye is not in its right place prompting the artist in some cases to place it _outside the face_ (see fig. 20 (_a_) and (_b_)). [illustration: fig. 19.--a miner.] [illustration: fig. 20 (_a_).] [illustration: fig. 20 (_b_).] other confusions are apt to appear in these early attempts at drawing a man in profile. the trunk, for example, is very frequently represented in front view with a row of buttons running down the middle, though the head and feet seem clearly shown in side view. the arms, too, not uncommonly are spread out from the two sides of the trunk just as in the front view. it would take too long to offer a complete explanation of these characteristics of children's drawings. i must content myself here with touching on one or two of the main causes at work. first of all, then, it seems pretty evident that most children when they begin to draw are not thinking of setting down a likeness of what they see when they look at an object. in the first simple stage we have little more than a jotting down of a number of linear notes, a kind of rude and fragmentary description in lines rather than in words. here a child aims at bringing into his scheme what seems to him to have most interest and importance, such as the features of the face, the two legs, and so forth. in the later and more ambitious attempt to draw a man in profile the old impulse to set down what seems important continues to show itself. although the little draughtsman has decided to give to the nose, to the ear, and possibly to the manly beard and the equally manly pipe, the advantage of a side view, he goes on exhibiting those sovereign members, the two round eyes, and the mouth with its flash of serried teeth, in their full front-view glory. it is enough for him to know that the lord of creation has these members, and he does not trouble about so small a matter as our capability of seeing them all at the same moment. in like manner a child will sometimes, on first clothing the human form, exhibit arms and legs through their covering (see fig. 21 (_a_) and (_b_)). all this shows that even at this later and decidedly "knowing" stage of his craft he is not much nearer the point of view of our pictorial art than he was in the earlier stage of bald symbolism. much the same kind of thing shows itself in a child's manner of treating the forms of animals, which his pencil is wont to attack soon after that of man. here the desire to exhibit what is characteristic and worthy naturally leads at the outset to a representation of the body in profile. a horse is rather a poor affair looked at from the front. a child must show his four legs, as well as his neck and his tail. but though the profile seems to be the aspect selected, the little penciller by no means confines himself to a strict record of this. the four legs have to be shown not half hidden by overlappings but standing quite clear one of another. the head, too, must be turned towards the spectator, or at least given in a mixed scheme--half front view, half side view (see fig. 22 (_a_) and (_b_)). [illustration: fig. 21 (_a_) (from general pitt rivers' collection of drawings).] [illustration: fig. 21 (_b_) (reproduced from a drawing published by mr. h. t. lukens).] a like tendency to get behind the momentary appearance of an object and to present to view what the child _knows_ to be there is seen in early drawings of men on horseback, in boats, railway carriages, houses, and so forth. here the interest in the human form sets at defiance the limitations of perspective, and shows us the rider's second leg through the horse's body, the rower's body through the boat, and so forth. the widespread appearance of these tendencies among children of different european countries, of half-civilised peoples, like the jamaica blacks, as well as among adult savages, shows how deeply rooted in the natural mind is this quaint notion of drawing. [illustration: fig. 22 (_a_).--a horse.] [illustration: fig. 22 (_b_).--a quadruped.] at the same time there are, as i have allowed, important differences in children's drawings. a few have the eye and the artistic impulse needed for picturing, roughly at least, the _look_ of an object. i have lately looked through the drawings of a little girl in a cultured home where every precaution was taken to shut out the influences of example and educational guidance. when at the age of four years eight months she first drew the profile of the human face she quite correctly put in only one eye, and added a shaded projection for nose (see fig. 23). in like manner she was from the first careful to show only one leg of the rider, one rein over the horse's neck, and so forth; and would sometimes, with a child's sweet thoughtfulness, explain to her mother why she proceeded in this way. yet even in the case of this child one could observe now and again a rudiment of the tendency to bring in what is hidden. thus in one drawing she shows the rider's near leg through the trouser; in another she introduces the front view of a horse's nostrils (if not also of the ears) in what is otherwise a drawing of the profile (see fig. 24 (_a_) and (_b_)). [illustration: fig. 23.] [illustration: fig. 24 (_a_).] [illustration: fig. 24 (_b_).] yet while children's drawings are thus so far away from those reproductions of the look of a thing which we call pictures, they are after all a kind of rude art. even the amusing errors which they contain, though a shock to our notions of pictorial semblance, have at least this point of analogy to art, that they aim at selecting and presenting what is characteristic and valuable. in many of the rude drawings with which we have here been occupied we may detect faint traces of individual originality, especially in the endeavour to give life and expression to the form. to this it is right to add that some drawings of young children from two to six which i have seen are striking proofs of the early development now and again of the artist's feeling for what is characteristic in line, and for the economic suggestiveness of a bare stroke (see fig. 25 (_a_) and (_b_)). when once a child's eye is focussed for the prettiness of things the dawn of ã¦sthetic perception is pretty sure to bring with it a more serious effort to reproduce their look. among children, as among adults, it is love which makes the artist. [illustration: fig. 25 (_a_) (drawn by a boy aged two years one month).] [illustration: fig. 25 (_b_) (drawn by a girl of five and a half years).] [illustration] the modern educator's library _general editor_.--prof. a.a. cock. the child under eight by e.r. murray vice-principal maria grey training college author of "froebel as a pioneer in modern psychology," etc. and henrietta brown smith lecturer in education, university of london, goldsmiths' college editor of "education by life" "is it not marvellous that an infant should be the heir of the whole world, and see those mysteries which the books of the learned never unfold? i knew by intuition those things which since my apostasy i collected again by highest reason." thomas traherne. 1920 the modern educator's library _the following volumes are now ready, and others are in preparation_:-education: its data and first principles. by t.p. nunn, m.a., d.sc., professor of education in the university of london. moral and religious education. by sophie bryant, d.sc., litt.d., late headmistress, north london collegiate school for girls. the teaching of modern foreign languages in school and university. by h.g. atkins, professor of german in king's college, london; and h.l. hutton, senior modern language master at merchant taylors' school. the child under eight. by e.r. murray, vice-principal, maria grey training college, brondesbury; and henrietta brown smith, l.l.a., lecturer in education, goldsmiths' college, university of london. the organisation and curricula of schools. by w.g. sleight, m.a., d.lit, lecturer at greystoke place training college, london. editor's preface the _modern educator's library_ has been designed to give considered expositions of the best theory and practice in english education of to-day. it is planned to cover the principal problems of educational theory in general, of curriculum and organisation, of some unexhausted aspects of the history of education, and of special branches of applied education. the editor and his colleagues have had in view the needs of young teachers and of those training to be teachers, but since the school and the schoolmaster are not the sole factors in the educative process, it is hoped that educators in general (and which of us is not in some sense or other an educator?) as well as the professional schoolmaster may find in the series some help in understanding precept and practice in education of to-day and to-morrow. for we have borne in mind not only what is but what ought to be. to exhibit the educator's work as a vocation requiring the best possible preparation is the spirit in which these volumes have been written. no artificial uniformity has been sought or imposed, and while the editor is responsible for the series in general, the responsibility for the opinions expressed in each volume rests solely with its author. albert a. cook. university of london, king's college. authors' preface we have made this book between us, but we have not collaborated. we know that we agree in all essentials, though our experience has differed. we both desire to see the best conditions for development provided for all children, irrespective of class. we both look forward to the time when the conditions of the public elementary school, from the nursery school up, will be such--in point of numbers, in freedom from pressure, in situation of building, in space both within and without, and in beauty of surroundings--that parents of any class will gladly let their children attend it. we are teachers and we have dealt mainly with the mental or, as we prefer to call it, the spiritual requirements of children. it is from the medical profession that we must all accept facts about food values, hours of sleep, etc., and the importance of cleanliness and fresh air are now fully recognised. we do, however, feel that there is room for fresh discussion of ultimate aims and of daily procedure. mr. clutton brock has said that the great weakness of english education is the want of a definite aim to put before our children, the want of a philosophy for ourselves. without some understanding of life and its purpose or meaning, the teacher is at the mercy of every fad and is apt to exalt method above principle. this book is an attempt to gather together certain recognised principles, and to show in the light of actual experience how these may be applied to existing circumstances. the day is coming when all teachers will seek to understand the true value of play, of spontaneous activity in all directions. its importance is emphasised in nearly all the educational writings of the day, as well in the senior as in the junior departments of the school, but we need a full and deep understanding of the saying, "man is man only when he plays." it is easy to say we believe it, but it needs strong faith, courage, and wide intelligence to weave such belief into the warp of daily life in school. e.r. murray. h. brown smith. contents part i the child in the nursery and kindergarten by e. r. murray chap. i. "what's in a name?" ii. the biologist educator iii. learning born of play iv. from 1816 to 1919 v. "the world's mine oyster" vi. "all the world's a stage" vii. joy in making viii. stories ix. in grassy places x. a way to god xi. rhythm xii. from fancy to fact xiii. new needs and new helps part ii the child in the state school by h. brown smith i. things as they are xiv. certain characteristics of growth xv. the infant school of to-day xvi. some vital principles ii. practical application of vital principles xvii. the need for experience xviii. gaining experience by play xix. the unity of experience xx. gaining experience through freedom iii. consideration of the aspects of experience xxi. experiences of human conduct. xxii. experiences of the natural world xxiii. experiences of mathematical truths xxiv. experiences by means of doing. xxv. experiences of the life of man xxvi. experiences recorded and passed on xxvii. the things that really matter. bibliography index part i the child in the nursery and kindergarten chapter i "what's in a name?" it is an appropriate time to produce a book on english schools for little children, now that nursery schools have been specially selected for notice and encouragement by an enlightened minister for education. it was madame michaelis, who in 1890 originally and most appropriately used the term nursery school as the english equivalent of a title suggested by froebel[1] for his new institution, before he invented the word kindergarten, a title which, literally translated, ran "institution for the care of little children." [footnote 1: froebel's _letters_, trans. michaelis and moore, p. 30.] in england the word nursery, which implies the idea of nurture, belongs properly to children, though it has been borrowed by the gardener for his young plants. in germany it was the other way round; froebel had to invent the term _child garden_ to express his idea of the nurture, as opposed to the repression, of the essential nature of the child. unfortunately the word kindergarten while being naturalised in england had two distinct meanings attached to it. well-to-do people began to send their children to a new institution, a child garden or play school. the children of the people, however, already attended infant schools, of which the chief feature was what mr. caldwell cook calls "sit-stillery," and here the word kindergarten, really equivalent to nursery school, became identified with certain occupations, childlike in origin it is true, but formalised out of all recognition. how a real kindergarten strikes a child is illustrated by the recent remark from a little new boy who had been with us for perhaps three mornings. "shall i go up to the nursery now?" he asked. the first attempt at a kindergarten was made in 1837, and by 1848 germany possessed sixteen. in that eventful year came the revolution in berlin, which created such high hopes, doomed, alas! to disappointment. "instead of the rosy dawn of freedom," writes ebers,[2] himself an old keilhau boy, "in the state the exercise of a boundless arbitrary power, in the church dark intolerance." it must have been an easy matter to bring charges of revolutionary doctrines against the man who said so innocently, "but i,--i only wanted to train up free-thinking, independent men." [footnote 2: author of _an egyptian princess_, etc.] it was from "stony berlin," as froebel calls it, that the edict went forth in the name of the minister of education entirely prohibiting kindergartens in prussia, and the prohibition soon spread. at the present time it seems to us quite fitting that the bitter attack upon kindergartens should have been launched by folsung, a schoolmaster, "who began life as an artilleryman." nor is it less interesting to read that it was under the protection of von moltke himself that oberlin schools were opened to counteract the attractions of the "godless" kindergarten. little wonder that the same man who in 1813 had so gladly taken up arms to resist the invasion of napoleon, and who had rejoiced with such enthusiasm in the prospect of a free and united fatherland, should write in 1851: "wherefore i have made a firm resolve that if the conditions of german life will not allow room for the development of honest efforts for the good of humanity; if this indifference to all higher things continues--then it is my purpose next spring to seek in the land of union and independence a soil where my idea of education may strike deep root." and to america he might have gone had he lived, but he died three months later, his end hastened by grief at the edict which closed the kindergartens. the prussian minister announced, in this edict, that "it is evident that kindergartens form a part of the froebelian socialistic system, the aim of which is to teach the children atheism," and the suggestion that he was anti-christian cut the old man to the heart. there had been some confusion between froebel and one of his nephews, who had democratic leanings, and no doubt anything at all democratic did mean atheism to "stony berlin" and its intolerant autocracy. for a time, at least in bavaria, a curious compromise was allowed. if the teacher were a member of the orthodox church, she might have her kindergarten, but if she belonged to one of the free churches, it was permissible to open an infant school, but she must not use the term kindergarten. froebel was by no means of the opinion that, if only the teacher had the right spirit, the name did not matter. rather did he hold with confucius, whose answer to the question of a disciple, "how shall i convert the world?" was, "call things by their right names." he refused to use the word school, because "little children, especially those under six, do not need to be schooled and taught, what they need is opportunity for development." he had great difficulty in selecting a name. those originally suggested were somewhat cumbrous, e.g. _institution for the promotion of spontaneous activity in children_; another was _self-teaching institution_, and there was also the one which madame michaelis translated "_nursery school for little children_." but the name kindergarten expressed just what he wanted: "as in a garden, under god's favour, and by the care of a skilled intelligent gardener, growing plants are cultivated in accordance with nature's laws, so here in our child garden shall the noblest of all growing things, men (that is, children), be cultivated in accordance with the laws of their own being, of god and of nature." to one of his students he writes: "you remember well enough how hard we worked and how we had to fight that we might elevate the darmstadt crèche, or rather infant school, by improved methods and organisation until it became a true kindergarten.... now what was the outcome of all this, even during my own stay at darmstadt? why, the fetters which always cripple a crèche or an infant school, and which seem to cling round its very name--these fetters were allowed to remain unbroken. every one was pleased with so faithful a mistress as yourself,... yet they withheld from you the main condition of unimpeded development, that of the freedom necessary to every young healthy and vigorous plant.... is there really such importance underlying the mere name of a system?--some one might ask. yes, there is.... it is true that any one watching your teaching would observe _a new spirit_ infused into it, _expressing and fulfilling the child's own wants and desires._ you would strike him as personally capable, but you would fail to strike him as priestess of the idea which god has now called to life within man's bosom, and of the struggle towards the realisation of that idea--_education by development--the destined means of raising the whole human race...._ no man can acquire fresh knowledge, even at a school, beyond the measure which his own stage of development fits him to receive.... infant schools are nothing but a contradiction of child-nature. little children especially those under school age, ought not to be schooled and taught, what they need is opportunity for development. this idea lies in the very name of a kindergarten.... and the name is absolutely necessary to describe the first education of children." for an actual definition of what froebel meant by his nursery school for little children or kindergarten, it is only fair to go to the founder himself. he has left us two definitions or descriptions, one announced shortly before the first kindergarten was opened, which runs: "an institution for the fostering of human life, through the cultivation of the human instincts of activity, of investigation and of construction in the child, as a member of the family, of the nation and of humanity; an institution for the self-instruction, self-education and self-cultivation of mankind, as well as for all-sided development of the individual through play, through creative self-activity and spontaneous self-instruction." a second definition is given in froebel's reply to a proposal that he should establish "my system of education--education by development"--in london, paris or the united states: "we also need establishments for training quite young children in their first stage of educational development, where their training and instruction shall be based upon their own free action or spontaneity acting under proper rules, these rules not being arbitrarily decreed, but such as must arise by logical necessity from the child's mental and bodily nature, regarding him as a member of the great human family; such rules as are, in fact, discovered by the actual observation of children when associated together in companies. these establishments bear the name of kindergartens." unfortunately there are but few pictures of froebel's own kindergarten, but there seems to have been little formality in its earliest development. an oft-told story is that of madame von marenholz in 1847 going to watch the proceedings of "an old fool," as the villagers called him, who played games with the village children. a less well-known account is given by col. von arnswald, again a keilhau boy, who visited blankenberg in 1839, when froebel had just opened his first kindergarten. "arriving at the place, i found my middendorf[3] seated by the pump in the market-place, surrounded by a crowd of little children. going near them i saw that he was engaged in mending the jacket of a boy. by his side sat a little girl busy with thread and needle upon another piece of clothing; one boy had his feet in a bucket of water washing them carefully; other girls and boys were standing round attentively looking upon the strange pictures of real life before them, and waiting for something to turn up to interest them personally. our meeting was of the most cordial kind, but middendorf did not interrupt the business in which he was engaged. 'come, children,' he cried, 'let us go into the garden!' and with loud cries of joy the little folk with willing feet followed the splendid-looking, tall man, running all round him. [footnote 3: one of froebel's most devoted helpers.] "the garden was not a garden, however, but a barn, with a small room and an entrance hall. in the entrance middendorf welcomed the children and played a round game with them, ending with the flight of the little ones into the room, where each of them sat down in his place on the bench and took his box of building blocks. for half an hour they were all busy with their blocks, and then came 'come, children, let us play "spring and spring."' and when the game was finished they went away full of joy and life, every one giving his little hand for a grateful good-bye." here in this earliest of free kindergartens are certain essentials. washing and mending, the alternation of constructive play with active exercise, rhythmic game and song, and last but not least human kindliness and courtesy. the shelter was but a barn, but there are things more important than premises. froebel died too soon to see his ideals realised, but he had sown the seed in the heart of at least one woman with brain to grasp and will to execute. as early as 1873 the froebelians had established something more than the equivalent of the montessori children's houses under the name of free kindergartens or people's kindergartens. it will bring this out more clearly if, without referring here to any modern experiments in america, in england and scotland, or in the dominions, we quote the description of an actual people's kindergarten or nursery school as it was established nearly fifty years ago. the moving spirit of this institution was henrietta schroder, froebel's own grand-niece, trained by him, and of whom he said that she, more than any other, had most truly understood his views. the whole institution was called the pestalozzi-froebel house. the prussian edict, which abolished the kindergarten almost before it had started, was now rescinded, and our own princess royal[4] gave warm support to this new institution. the description here quoted was actually written in 1887, when the institution had been in existence for fourteen years: [footnote 4: the crown princess of prussia, afterwards the empress frederick.] "the purpose of the national kindergarten is to provide the necessary and natural help which poor mothers require, who have to leave their children to themselves. "the establishment contains:-"(1) the kindergarten proper, a national kindergarten with four classes for children from 2-1/2 to 6 years old. "(2) the transition class, only held in the morning for children about 6 or 6-1/2 years old. "(3) the preparatory school, for children from 6 to 7 or 7-1/2 years old. "(4) the school of handwork, for children from 6 to 10 or older. "dinners are provided for those children whose parents work all day away from home at a trifling charge of a halfpenny and a penny. also, for a trifle, poor children may receive assistance of various kinds in illness, or may have milk or baths through the kindness of the kindred 'association for the promotion of health in the household.' "in the institution we are describing there is a complete and well-furnished kitchen, a bathroom, a courtyard with sand for digging, with pebbles and pine-cones, moss, shells and straw, etc., a garden, and a series of rooms and halls suitably furnished and arranged for games, occupations, handwork and instruction. "the occupations pursued in the kindergarten are the following: free play of a child by itself; free play of several children by themselves; associated play under the guidance of a teacher; gymnastic exercises; several sorts of handwork suited to little children; going for walks; learning music, both instrumental (on the method of madame wiseneder[5]) and vocal; learning and repetition of poetry; story-telling; looking at really good pictures; aiding in domestic occupations; gardening; and the usual systematic ordered occupations of froebel. madame schrader is steadfastly opposed to that conception of the kindergarten which insists upon mathematically shaped materials for the froebelian occupations. her own words are: 'the children find in our institution every encouragement to develop their capabilities and powers by use; not by their selfish use to their own personal advantage, but by their use in the loving service of others. the longing to help people and to accomplish little pieces of work proportioned to their feeble powers is constant in children; and lies alongside of their need for that free and unrestrained play which is the business of their life." [footnote 5: from certain old photographs, i suppose this to have been what we now call a kindergarten band.] "the elder children are expected to employ themselves in cleaning, taking care of, arranging, keeping in order, and using the many various things belonging to the housekeeping department of the kindergarten; for example, they set out and clear away the materials required for the games and handicrafts; they help in cleaning the rooms, furniture and utensils; they keep all things in order and cleanliness; they paste together torn wallpapers or pictures, they cover books, and they help in the cooking and in preparations for it; in laying the tables, in washing up the plates and dishes, etc. the children gain in this manner the simple but most important foundations of their later duties as housekeepers and householders, and at the same time learn to regard these duties as things done in the service of others." it is worth while to notice the order in which the necessities of this place are described. first comes a kitchen and next a bathroom, then an out-of-doors playground with abundant material for gaining ideas through action--sand, pebbles, pine-cones, moss, shells and straw. then comes the garden, and only after all these, the rooms and halls for indoors games, handwork and instruction. it is worth while also to note the prominence given to play, music, poetry and story-telling pictures, domestic occupations and gardening, all preceding the "systematic and ordered occupations" which to some have seemed so all-important. if we compare this with the current ideas about nursery schools, we do not find that it falls much below the present ideal. there has been a time when some of us feared that only the bodily needs of the little child were to be considered, but the "regulations for nursery schools" have banished such fear. in these the child is regarded as a human being, with spiritual as well as bodily requirements. to put it shortly, the physical requirements of a child are food, fresh air and exercise, cleanliness and rest. it is not so easy to sum up the requirements of a human soul. the first is sympathy, and though this may spring from parental instinct, it should be nourished by true understanding. next perhaps comes the need for material, material for investigation, for admiration, for imitation and for construction or creation. power of sense-discrimination is important enough, but in this case if we take care of the pounds of admiration and investigation, the pence of sense-discrimination will take care of themselves. besides these the child has the essentially human need for social intercourse, for speech, for games, for songs and stories, for pictures and poetry. he must have opportunity both to imitate and to share in the work and life around him; he must be an individual among other individuals, a necessary part of a whole, allowed to give as well as to receive service. in the national kindergarten of 1873 no one of these requirements is overlooked except the provision for sleep, and from old photographs we know that this, too, was considered. nursery schools are needed for children of all classes. it is not only the children of the poor who require sympathy and guidance from those specially qualified by real grasp of the facts of child-development. well-to-do mothers, too, often leave their children to ignorant and untrained servants, or to the equally untrained and hardly less ignorant nursery governess. mothers in small houses have much to do; making beds and washing dishes, sweeping and dusting, baking and cooking, making and mending, not to mention tending an infant or tending the sick, leave little leisure for sympathy with the adventuring and investigating propensities natural and desirable in a healthy child between three and five. there are innumerable kindergartens open only in the morning for the children of those who can afford to pay, and these could well be multiplied and assisted just as far as is necessary. in towns, at least, mothers with but small incomes would gladly pay a moderate fee to have their little ones, especially their sturdy little boys, guarded from danger and trained to good habits, yet allowed freedom for happy activity. kindergartens and nursery schools ought to be as much as possible fresh-air schools. they should never be large or the home atmosphere must disappear. they should always have grassy spaces and common flowers, and they ought to be within easy reach of the children's homes. there must for the present be certain differences between the free kindergarten or nursery school for the poor and for those whose parents are fairly well-to-do. in both cases we must supply what the children need. if the mother must go out to work, the child requires a home for the day, and the nursery school must make arrangements for feeding the children. all little children are the better for rest and if possible for sleep during the day; but for those who live in overcrowded rooms, where quiet and restful sleep in good air is impossible, the need for daily sleep is very great. all free kindergartens arrange for this. most important also is the training to cleanliness. this is not invariably the lot even of those who come from apparently comfortable homes to attend fee-paying kindergartens, and among the poor, differences in respect of cleanliness are very great. but soap and hot water do cost money and washing takes time, and the modern habit of brushing teeth has not yet been acquired by all classes of the community. the free kindergartens provide for necessary washing, each child is provided with its own tooth-brush; and tooth-brush drill is a daily practice, somewhat amusing to witness. the best baby rooms in our infant schools carry out the same practices, and these are likely to be turned into nursery schools. it cannot yet be accepted as conclusively proved that a completely open-air life is the best in our climate. we have not yet sufficient statistics. no doubt children do improve enormously in open-air camps, but so they do in ordinary nursery schools, where they are clean, happy and well fed, and where they live a regular life with daily sleep. housing conditions complicate the problem, and all children must suffer who sleep in crowded, noisy, unventilated rooms. up to the present time nursery schools have been provided by voluntary effort entirely, and far too little encouragement has been given to those enlightened headmistresses of infant schools who have tried to give to their lowest classes nursery school conditions. since the passing of mr. fisher's education bill, however, we are entitled to hope that soon, for all children in the land, there may be the opportunity of a fair start under the care of "a person with breadth of outlook and imagination," the equivalent of froebel's "skilled intelligent gardener." in the following chapter an attempt is made to explain how it is that so many years ago froebel reached his vision of what a child is, and of what a child needs, and the considerations on which he based his "nursery school for little children" or "self-teaching institution." chapter ii the biologist educator progress, man's distinctive mark alone, not god's, and not the beasts': god is, they are, man partly is and wholly hopes to be. "a large bright room, ... a sandheap in one corner, a low tub or bath of water in another, a rope ladder, a swing, steps to run up and down and such like, a line of black or green board low down round the wall, little rough carts and trolleys, boxes which can be turned into houses, or shops, or pretence ships, etc., a cooking stove of a very simple nature, dolls of all kinds, wooden animals, growing plants in boxes, an aquarium." any froebelian would recognise this as the description of a more or less ideal kindergarten or nursery school, and yet the writer had probably never read a page that froebel wrote. on the contrary, she shows her entire ignorance of the real kindergarten by calling it "pretty employments devised by adults and imposed at set times by authority." the description is taken from a very able address on "child nature and education" delivered some years ago by miss hoskyns abrahall. it is quoted here, because, for her conception of right surroundings for young children, the speaker has gone to the very source from which froebel took his ideas--she has gone to what froebel indeed called "the only true source, life itself," and she writes from the point of view of the biologist. there exists at present, in certain quarters, a belief that the kindergarten is old-fashioned, out of date, more especially that it has no scientific basis. it is partly on this account that the ideas of dr. maria montessori, who has approached the question of the education of young children from the point of view of medical science, have been warmly welcomed by so large a circle. but neither in england nor in america does that circle include the froebelians, and this for several reasons. for one thing, much that the general public has accepted as new--and in this general public must be included weighty names, men of science, educational authorities, and others who have never troubled to inquire into the meaning of the kindergarten--are already matters of everyday life to the froebelian. among these comes the idea of training to service for the community, and the provision of suitable furniture, little chairs and tables, which the children can move about, and low cupboards for materials, all of which tend to independence and self-control. it is a more serious stumbling-block to the froebelian that dr. montessori, while advocating freedom in words, has really set strict limits to the natural activities of children by laying so much stress on her "didactic apparatus," the intention of which is formal training in sense-discrimination. this material, which is an adaptation and enlargement of that provided by séguin for his mentally deficient children, is certainly open to the reproach of having been "devised by adults." it is formal, and the child is not permitted to use it for his own purposes. before everything else, however, comes the fact that in no place has dr. montessori shown that she has made any study of play, or that she attaches special importance to the play activities, or natural activities of childhood, on which the kindergarten is founded. this is probably accounted for in that her first observations were made on deficient children who are notably wanting in initiative. among these "play activities" we should include the child's perpetual imitation or pretence, a matter which dr. montessori entirely fails to understand, as shown in her more recent book, where she treats of imagination. here she maintains that only the children of the comparatively poor ride upon their fathers' walking-sticks or construct coaches of chairs, that this "is not a proof of imagination but of an unsatisfied desire," and that rich children who own ponies and who drive out in motor-cars "would be astonished to see the delight of children who imagine themselves to be drawn along by stationary armchairs." imitative play has, of course, nothing to do with poverty or riches, but is, as froebel said long since, the outcome of an initiative impulse, sadly wanting in deficient children, an impulse which prompts the child of all lands, of all time and of all classes to imitate or dramatise, and so to gain some understanding of everything and of every person he sees around. the work of dr. montessori has helped enormously in the movement, begun long since, for greater freedom in our infant schools; freedom, not from judicious guidance and authority, but from rigid time-tables and formal lessons, and from arbitrary restrictions, as well as freedom for the individual as apart from the class. the best kindergartens and infant schools had already discarded time-tables, and kindergarten classes have always been small enough to give the individual a fair chance. froebel himself constantly urged that the child should become familiar with "both the strongly opposed elements of his life, the individual determining and directing side, and the general ordered and subordinated side." he urged the early development of the social consciousness as well as insisting on expansion of individuality, but it is always difficult to combine the two, and most kindergarten teachers will benefit by learning from dr. montessori to apply the method of individual learning to a greater extent. we are, however, fully prepared to maintain that froebel; even in 1840, had a wider and a deeper realisation of the needs of the child than has as yet been attained by the dottoressa.[6] in order to make this clear, it is proposed to compare the theories of froebel with the conclusions of a biologist. for biology has a wider and a saner outlook than medical science; it does not start from the abnormal, but with life under normal conditions. [footnote 6: her latest publication regarding the instruction--for it is not education--of older children makes this even more plain. for here is no discussion of what children at this stage require, but a mere plunge into "subjects" in which formal grammar takes a foremost place.] in the address, from which the opening words of this chapter are quoted, it is suggested that a capable biologist be set to deal with education, but he is to be freed "from all preconceived ideas derived from accepted tradition." after such fundamentals as food and warmth, light, air and sleep, the first problems considered by this biologist educator are stages of growth, their appropriate activities, and the stimuli necessary to evoke them. always he bears in mind that "interference with a growing creature is a hazardous business," and takes as his motto "when in doubt, refrain." to discover the natural activities of the child, the biologist relies upon, first, observation of the child himself, secondly, upon his knowledge of the nervous system, and thirdly, upon his knowledge of the past history of the race. from these he comes to a very pertinent conclusion, viz. "the general outcome of this is that the safe way of educating children is by means of play," play being defined as "the natural manifestation of the child's activities; systematic in that it follows the lines of physiological development, but without the hard and fast routine of the time-table."[7] [footnote 7: it is in this connection that the kindergarten is stigmatised as "pretty employments devised by adults and imposed at set times by authority," an opinion evidently gained from the way in which the term has been misused in a type of infant school now fast disappearing.] it is easy to show that although froebel was pre-darwinian, he had been in close touch with scientists who were working at theories of development, and that he was largely influenced by krause, who applied the idea of organic development to all departments of social science. it was because froebel was himself, even in 1826, the biologist educator desiring to break with preconceived ideas and traditions that he wished one of his pupils had been able to "call your work by its proper name, and so make evident the real nature of the new spirit you have introduced."[8] [footnote 8: see p. 4.] but froebel was more than a biologist, he was a philosopher and an idealist. such words have sometimes been used as terms of reproach, but wisdom can only be justified of her children. at the back of all froebel has to say about "the education of the human being" lies his conception of what the human being is. and it is impossible fully to understand why froebel laid so much stress on spontaneous play unless we go deeper than the province of the biologist without in the least minimising the importance of biological knowledge to educational theory. as the biologist defines play as "the natural manifestation of the child's activities," so froedel says "play at first is just natural life." but to him the true inwardness of spontaneous play lies in the fact that it is spontaneous--so far as anything in the universe can be spontaneous. for spontaneous response to environment is self-expression, and out of self-expression comes selfhood, consciousness of self. if we are to understand froebel at all, we must begin with the answer he found, or accepted, from krause and others for his first question, what is that self? before reaching the question of how to educate, it seemed to him necessary to consider not only the purpose or aim of education, but the purpose or aim of human existence, the purpose of all and any existence, even whether there is any purpose in anything; and that brings us to what he calls "the groundwork of all," of which a summary is given in the following paragraphs. in the universe we can perceive plan, purpose or law, and behind this there must be some great mind, "a living, all-pervading, energising, self-conscious and hence eternal unity" whom we call god. nature and all existing things are a revelation of god. as bergson speaks of the _élan vital_ which expresses itself from infinity to infinity, so froebel says that behind everything there is force, and that we cannot conceive of force without matter on which it can exercise itself. neither can we think of matter without any force to work upon it, so that "force and matter mutually condition one another," we cannot think one without the other. this force expresses itself in all ways, the whole universe is the expression of the divine, but "man is the highest and most perfect earthly being in whom the primordial force is spiritualised so that man feels, understands and knows his own power." conscious development of one's own power is the triumph of spirit over matter, therefore human development is spiritual development. so while man is the most perfect earthly being, yet, with regard to spiritual development he has returned to a first stage and "must raise himself through ascending degrees of consciousness" to heights as yet unknown, "for who has measured the limits of god-born mankind?" self-consciousness is the special characteristic of man. no other animal has the power to become conscious of himself because man alone has the chance of failure. the lower animals have definite instincts and cannot fail, _i.e._ cannot learn.[9] man wants to do much, but his instincts are less definite and most actions have to be learned; it is by striving and failing that he learns to know not only his limitations but the power that is within him--his self. [footnote 9: this would nowadays be considered too sweeping an assertion.] according to froebel, "the aim of education is the steady progressive development of mankind, there is and can be no other"; and, except as regards physiological knowledge inaccessible in his day, he is at one with the biologist as to how we are to find out the course of this development. first, by looking into our own past; secondly, by the observation of children as individuals as well as when associated together, and by comparison of the results of observation; thirdly, by comparison of these with race history and race development. froebel makes much of observation of children. he writes to a cousin begging her to "record in writing the most important facts about each separate child," and adds that it seems to him "most necessary for the comprehension of child-nature that such observations should be made public,... of the greatest importance that we should interchange the observations we make so that little by little we may come to know the grounds and conditions of what we observe, that we may formulate their laws." he protests that even in his day "the observation, development and guidance of children in the first years of life up to the proper age of school" is not up to the existing level of "the stage of human knowledge or the advance of science and art"; and he states that it is "an essential part" of his undertaking "to call into life _an institution for the preparation of teachers trained for the care of children through observation of their life_." in speaking of the stages of development of the individual, froebel says that "there is no order of importance in the stages of human development except the order of succession, in which the earlier is always the more important," and from that point of view we ought "to consider childhood as the most important stage, ... a stage in the development of the godlike in the earthly and human." he also emphasises that "the vigorous and complete development and cultivation of each successive stage depends on the vigorous, complete and characteristic development of each and all preceding stages." so the duty of the parent is to "look as deeply as possible into the life of the child to see what he requires for his present stage of development," and then to "scrutinise the environment to see what it offers ... to utilise all possibilities of meeting normal needs," to remove what is hurtful, or at least to "admit its defects" if they cannot give the child what his nature requires. "if parents offer what the child does not need," he says, "they will destroy the child's faith in their sympathetic understanding." the educator is to "bring the child into relations and surroundings in all respects adapted to him" but affording a minimum of opportunity of injury, "guarding and protecting" but not interfering, unless he is certain that healthy development has already been interrupted. it is somewhat remarkable that froebel anticipated even the conclusions of modern psycho-analysis in his views about childish faults. "the sources of these," he says, are "neglect to develop certain sides of human life and, secondly, early distortion of originally good human powers by arbitrary interference with the orderly course of human development ... a suppressed or perverted good quality--a good tendency, only repressed, misunderstood or misguided--lies at the bottom of every shortcoming." hence the only remedy even for wickedness is to find and foster, build up and guide what has been repressed. it may be necessary to interfere and even to use severity, but only when the educator is sure of unhealthy growth. the motto of the biologist on the subject of interference--"when in doubt, refrain"--exactly expresses froebel's doctrine of "passive or following" education, following, that is, the nature of the child, and "passive" as opposed to arbitrary interference. free from this, the child will follow his natural impulses, which are to be trusted as much as those of any other young animal; in other words, he will play, he will manifest his natural activities. "the young human being--still, as it were, in process of creation--would seek, though unconsciously yet decidedly and surely, as a product of nature that which is in itself best, and in a form adapted to his condition, his disposition, his powers and his means. thus the duckling hastens to the pond and into the water, while the chicken scratches the ground and the young swallow catches its food upon the wing. we grant space and time to young plants and animals because we know that, in accordance with the laws that live in them, they will develop properly and grow well; arbitrary interference with their growth is avoided because it would hinder their development; but the young human being is looked upon as a piece of wax, a lump of clay, which man can mould into what he pleases. o man, who roamest through garden and field, through meadow and grove, why dost thou close thy mind to the silent teaching of nature? behold the weed; grown among hindrances and constraint, how it scarcely yields an indication of inner law; behold it in nature, in field or garden, how perfectly it conforms to law--a beautiful sun, a radiant star, it has burst from the earth! thus, o parents, could your children, on whom you force in tender years forms and aims against their nature, and who, therefore, walk with you in morbid and unnatural deformity--thus could your children, too, unfold in beauty and develop in harmony." at first play is activity for the sake of activity, not for the sake of results, "of which the child has as yet no idea." very soon, however, having man's special capacity of learning through experience, the child does gather ideas. by this time he has passed through the stage of infancy, and now his play becomes to the philosopher the highest stage of human development at this stage, because now it is self-expression. when froebel wrote in 1826, there had been but little thought expended on the subject of play, and probably none on human instincts, which were supposed to be nonexistent. the hope he expressed that some philosopher would take up these subjects has now been fulfilled, and we ought now to turn to what has been said on a subject all-important to those who desire to help in the education of young children. chapter iii learning born of play play, which is the business of their lives. there may be nothing new under the sun, but it does seem to be a fair claim to make for froebel that no one before or since his time has more fully realised the value to humanity of what in childhood goes by the name of play. froebel had distinct theories about play, and he put his theories into actual practice, not only when he founded the kindergarten, but in his original school for older children at keilhau. before going into its full meaning, it may be well first to meet the most common misconception about play. it is not surprising that those who have given the subject no special consideration should regard play from the ordinary adult standpoint, and think of it as entirely opposed to work, as relaxation of effort. but the play of a child covers so much that it is startling to find a real psychologist writing that "education through play" is "a pernicious proposition."[10] statements of this kind spring from the mistaken idea, certainly not derived from observation, that play involves no effort, that it runs in the line of least resistance, and that education through play means therefore education without effort, without training in self-control, education without moral training. the case for the kindergarten is the opposite of this. education through play is advocated just because of the effort it calls forth, just because of the way in which the child, and later the boy or girl, throws his whole energy into it. what froebel admired, what he called "the most beautiful expression of childlife," was "the child that plays thoroughly, with spontaneous determination, perseveringly, until physical fatigue forbids--a child wholly absorbed in his play--a child that has fallen asleep while so absorbed." that child, he said, would be "a thorough determined man, capable of self-sacrifice for the promotion of the welfare of himself and others." it is because "play is not trivial, but highly serious and of deep significance," that he appeals to mothers to cultivate and foster it, and to fathers to protect and guard it. [footnote 10: _the educative process_, p. 255 (bagley).] the kindergarten position can be summed up in a sentence from dr. clouston's _hygiene of mind_: "play is the real work of children." froebel calls activity of sense and limb "the first germ," and "play-building and modelling the tender blossoms of the constructive impulse"; and this, he says, is "the moment when man is to be prepared for future industry, diligence and productive activity." he points out, too, the importance of noticing the habits which come from spontaneous self-employment, which may be habits of indolent ease if the child is not allowed to be as active as his nature requires. there were no theories of play in froebel's day, but he had certainly read _levana_, and in all probability he knew what schiller had said in his _letters on aesthetic education_. the play theories are now too well known to require more than a brief recapitulation. it will generally be allowed that the distinctive feature of play as opposed to work is that of spontaneity. the action itself is of no consequence, one man's play is another man's work. nor does it seem to matter whence comes the feeling of compulsion in work, whether from pressure of outer necessity, or from an inner necessity like the compelling force of duty. where there is joy in creation or in discovery the work and play of the genius approach the standpoint of the child, indulging every instinct of the soul, there, where law, life, joy, impulse are one thing. in the play of early childhood there may be freedom, not only from adult authority, but even from the restrictions of nature or of circumstances since "let's pretend" annihilates time and space and all material considerations. among theories of play first comes what is known as the schiller-spencer theory, in which play is attributed to the accumulation of surplus energy. when the human being has more energy than he requires in order to supply the bodily needs of himself and his family, then he feels impelled to use it. as the activities of his daily life are the only ones known to him, he fights his battles over again, he simulates the serious business of life, and transfers, for instance, the incidents of the chase into a dance. in this way he reaches artistic creation, so that "play is the first poetry of the human being." as an opposite of this we get a re-creation theory, where play, if not too strenuous, understood as a change of occupation, rests and re-creates. another theory is that of recapitulation, which has been emphasised by stanley hall, according to which children play hunting and chasing games, or find a fascination in making tents, because they are passing through that stage of development in which their primitive ancestors lived by hunting or dwelt in tents. lastly, a most interesting theory is that which is associated with the name of groos, and which is best expressed in the sentence: "animals do not play because they are young, but they have their youth because they must play," play being regarded as the preparation for future life activities. the kitten therefore practises chasing a cork, the puppy worries boots and gloves, the kid practises jumping, and so on. a full account of play will probably embrace all these theories, and though they were not formulated in his day, froebel overlooked none, though he may have laid special stress on the preparation side. yet another value of play emphasised by professor royce, viz. its enormous importance from the point of view of mental initiative, is strongly urged by froebel. professor royce argues that "in the mere persistence of the playful child one has a factor whose value for mental initiative it is hard to overestimate." without this "passionately persistent repetition," and without also the constant varying of apparently useless activities, the organism, says professor royce, "would remain the prey of the environment." to froebel, as we have seen, the human being is the climax of animal evolution and the starting-point of psychical development. the lower animal, he maintained, as all will now agree, is hindered by his definite instincts, but the instincts or instinctive tendencies of the human being are so undefined that there is room for spontaneity, for new forms of conduct. professor royce says that "a general view of the place which beings with minds occupy in the physical world strongly suggests that their organisms may especially have significance as places for the initiation of more or less novel types of activity." and to froebel the chief significance of play lies in this spontaneity. "play is the highest phase of human development at this stage, because it is spontaneous expression of what is within produced by an inner necessity and impulse. play is the most characteristic, most spiritual manifestation of man at this stage, and, at the same time, is typical of human life as a whole." these various theories seem to reinforce rather than to contradict each other, and it is more important to avoid running any to an extreme than to differentiate between them. in the case of recapitulation, we must certainly bear in mind froebel's warning that the child "should be treated as having in himself the present, past and future." so, as dr. drummond says: "if we feel constrained to present him with a tent because abraham lived in one, he no doubt enters into the spirit of the thing and accepts it joyfully. but he also annexes the ball of string and the coffee canister to fit up telephonic communication with the nursery." he may play robbers and hide and seek because he has reached a "hunting and capture" stage, but the physiologist points out that violent exercise is a necessity for his circulation and nutrition, and to practise swift flight to safety is useful even in modern times.[11] gardening may take us back to an agricultural stage, but digging is most useful as a muscular exercise, and "watering" is scientific experiment and adds to the feeling of power, while the flowers themselves appeal to the aesthetic side of the sense-play, which is not limited to any age, though conspicuous so soon. [footnote 11: an up-to-date riddle asks the difference between the quick and the dead, and answers, "the quick are those who get out of the way of a motor-bus and the dead are those who do not."] froebel recognised many kinds of play. he realised that much of the play of boyhood is exercise of physical power, and that it must be of a competitive nature because the boy wants to measure his power. even in 1826 he urges the importance not only of town playgrounds but of play leaders, that the play may be full of life. among games for boys he noted some still involving sense-play, as hiding games, colour games and shooting at a mark, which need quick hearing and sight, intellectual plays exercising thought and judgement, _e.g._ draughts and dramatic games. one form of play which seemed to him most important was constructive play, where there is expression of ideas as well as expression of power. this side of play covers a great deal, and will be dealt with later; its importance in froebel's eyes lies in the fact that through construction, however simple, the child gains knowledge of his own power and learns "to master himself." froebel wanted particularly to deepen this feeling of power, and says that the little one who has already made some experiments takes pleasure in the use of sand and clay, "impelled by the previously acquired sense of power he seeks to master the material." in order to gain real knowledge of himself, of his power, a child needs to compare his power with that of others. this is one reason for the child's ready imitation of all he sees done by others. another reason for this is that only through real experience or action can a child gain the ideas which he will express later, therefore he must reproduce all he sees or hears. "in the family the child sees parents and others at work, producing, doing something; consequently he, at this stage, would like to represent what he sees. be cautious, parents. you can at one blow destroy, at least for a long time, the impulse to activity and to formation if you repel their help as childish, useless or even as a hindrance.... strengthen and develop this instinct; give to your child the highest he now needs, let him add his power to your work, that he may gain the consciousness of his power and also learn to appreciate its limitations." as the child's sense of power and his self-consciousness deepen he requires possessions of his "very own." says froebel: "the feeling of his own power implies and demands also the possession of his own space and his own material belonging exclusively to him. be his realm, his province, a corner of the house or courtyard, be it the space of a box or of a closet, be it a grotto, a hut or a garden, the boy at this age needs an external point, chosen and prepared by himself, to which he refers all his activity." as ideas widen the child's purposes enlarge, and he finds the need for that co-operation which binds human beings together. and so by play enjoyed in common, the feeling of community which is present in the little child is raised to recognition of the rights of others; not only is a sense of justice developed, but also forbearance, consideration and sympathy. "when the room to be filled is extensive, when the realm to be controlled is large, when the whole to be produced is complex, then brotherly union of similar-minded persons is in place." and we are invited to enter an "education room," where boys of seven to ten are using building blocks, sand, sawdust and green moss brought in from the forest. "each one has finished his work and he examines it and that of others, and in each rises the desire to unite all in one whole," so roads are made from the village of one boy to the castle of another: the boy who has made a cardboard house unites with another who has made miniature ships from nut-shells, the house as a castle crowns the hill, and the ships float in the lake below, while the youngest brings his shepherd and sheep to graze between the mountain and the lake, and all stand and behold with pleasure and satisfaction the result of their hands. the educative value of such play has been brought forward in modern times in _floor games_ by mr. wells, _magic cities_ by mrs. nesbit, and notably in mr. caldwell cook's play city in _the play way_. joining together for a common purpose does not only belong to younger boys. "what busy tumult among those older boys at the brook! they have built canals, sluices, bridges, etc.... at each step one trespasses on the limits of another realm. each one claims his right as lord and maker, while he recognises the claims of others, and like states, they bind themselves by strict treaties." "every town should have its own common playground for the boys. glorious results would come from this for the entire community. for, at this period, games, whenever possible, are in common, and develop the feeling and desire for community, and the laws and requirements of community. the boy tries to see himself in his companions, to weigh and measure himself by them, to know and find himself by their help." "it is the sense of sure and reliable power, the sense of its increase, both as an individual and as a member of the group, that fills the boy with joy during these games.... justice, self-control, loyalty, impartiality, who could fail to catch their fragrance and that of still more delicate blossoms, forbearance, consideration, sympathy and encouragement for the weaker.... thus the games educate the boy for life and awaken and cultivate many social and moral virtues." in england we have always had respect for boys' games and more and more, especially in america, people are realising the need for play places and play leaders. but all this was written in 1826, when for ten years froebel had been experimenting with boys of all ages. at keilhau play of all kinds had an honoured place. we read of excursions for all kinds of purposes, of indian games out of fenimore cooper, and of "homeric battles." it was "part of froebel's plan to have us work with spade and pick-axe," and every boy had his own piece of ground where he might do what he pleased. ebers, being literary, constructed in his plot a bed of heather on which he lay and read or made verses. the boys built their own stage, painted their own scenery, and in winter once a week they acted classic dramas. besides this, there was a large and complete puppet theatre belonging to the school. bookbinding and carpentry were taught, and at christmas "the embryo cabinet-maker made boxes with locks and hinges, finished, veneered and polished." in england in 1917 we have given to us _the play way_, in which one who has tried it gives the results of his own experiments in education through play. mr. caldwell cook was not satisfied with the condition of affairs when "school above the kindergarten is a nuisance because there is no play." his dream is that of a play school commonwealth, where education, which is the training of youth, shall be filled with the spirit of youth, namely, "freshness, zeal, happiness, enthusiasm." the next chapter will show that it has taken us exactly a hundred years to reach as far as public recognition of the nursery school where play is the only possible motive. it is for the coming generation of teachers to act so that the dream of the play school commonwealth shall be realised more quickly. it is a significant fact that the lines quoted as heading for the next chapter are written by a modern schoolmaster. chapter iv from 1816 to 1919 poor mites; you stiffen on a bench and stoop your curls to dusty laws; your petal fingers curve and clench in slavery to parchment saws; you suit your hearts to sallow faces in sullen places: but no pen nor pedantry can make you men. yours are the morning and the day: you should be taught of wind and light; your learning should be born of play. (_caged:_ george winthrop young.) had england but honoured her own prophets, we should have had nursery schools a hundred years ago. in 1816, the year in which froebel founded his school for older boys at keilhau, robert owen, the socialist, "following the plan prescribed by nature," opened a school where children, from two to six, were to dance and sing, to be out-of-doors as much as possible, to learn "when their curiosity induced them to ask questions," and not to be "annoyed with books." they were to be prevented from acquiring bad habits, to be taught what they could understand, and their dispositions were to be trained "to mutual kindness and a sincere desire to contribute all in their power to benefit each other." they "were trained and educated without punishment or the fear of it.... a child who acted improperly was not considered an object of blame but of pity, and no unnecessary restraint was imposed on the children." but the world was not ready. owen's "rational infant school" attracted much notice, and an infant school society was founded. but even the enlightened were incapable of understanding that any education was possible without books, and the promoters rightly, though quite unconsciously, condemned themselves when they kept the title infant school but dropped the qualifying "rational." still, infant schools had been started and interest had been aroused. when the edict abolishing kindergartens was promulgated in germany, some of froebel's disciples passed to other lands, and madame von marenholz came to england in 1854. already one kindergarten had been opened by a madame ronge, to which rowland hill sent his children, and to which dickens paid frequent visits. in the same year there was held in london an "international educational exposition and congress," and to this madame von marenholz sent an exhibit, which was explained by madame ronge, and by a mr. hoffmann. dickens, who had watched the actual working of a kindergarten, gave warm support to the new ideas, and wrote an excellent article on "infant gardens" for _household words_, urging "that since children are by infinite wisdom so created as to find happiness in the active exercise and development of all their faculties, we, who have children round about us, shall no longer repress their energies, tie up their bodies, shut their mouths.... the frolic of childhood is not pure exuberance and waste. 'there is often a high meaning in childish play,' said froebel. let us study it, and act upon the hints--or more than hints--that nature gives." dr. henry barnard represented connecticut at this congress, and he took the kindergarten to america, in whose virgin soil the seed took root, and quickly brought forth abundantly. but the soil was virgin and the fields were ready for planting, for america in these days had nothing corresponding to our infant schools. the kindergarten was welcomed by people of influence. dr. barnard found his first ally in miss peabody, one of whose sisters was married to nathaniel hawthorne, while another was the wife of horace mann. miss peabody began to teach in 1860, but eight years later, after a visit to europe, she gave up teaching for propaganda work. owing to her efforts the first free kindergarten was opened in boston in 1870. philanthropists soon recognised its importance as a social agency, and by 1883 one lady alone supported thirty-one such institutions in boston and its surroundings. in new york, dr. felix adler established a free kindergarten in 1878, and teachers' college was influential in helping to form an association which supports several. another name well known in this country is that of miss kate douglas wiggin,[12] who was a kindergarten teacher for many years before she became known as a novelist. it is miss wiggin who tells of a quaint translation of kindergarten heard by a san francisco teacher making friendly visits to the mothers of her children. while she stood on a door-step sympathising with one poor woman she heard a "loud, but not unfriendly" voice from an upper window. "clear things from under foot!" it pealed in stentorian accents. "the teacher o' the _kids' guards_ is comin' down the street." [footnote 12: writer of _penelope in england_, etc., and of a capital collection of essays entitled _children's rights_.] in england things were very different, because of the infant schools which had already been established, but which had fallen far below the ideal set up by robert owen. as every one knows, the education given in those days to teachers of elementary schools was but meagre, and the results were often so bad that, to justify the expenditure of public money, "payment by results" was introduced. in 1870 came the education act, and the year 1874 saw a good deal of movement. miss caroline bishop was appointed to lecture to the infants' teachers under the london school board; miss heerwart took charge of a training college for kindergarten teachers in connection with the british and foreign school society; the froehel society was founded, and madame michaelis took the kindergarten into the newly established high schools for girls. for the children of the well-to-do kindergartens spread rapidly, but for the children of the poor there was no such happiness; the infant school was too firmly established as a place where children learned to read, write and count, and above all to sit still. infants' teachers received no special training for their work; their course of study, in which professional training played but a small part, was the same as that prescribed for the teachers of older children. some colleges, notably the home and colonial, stockwell, and saffron walden, did try to give their students some special training, but it was not of much avail, and the word kindergarten came to mean not nursery school, as was the idea of its founder, but dictated exercises with kindergarten material, a kind of manual drill supposed to give "hand and eye training," and with this meaning it made its appearance on the time-table. visitors from america were shocked to find no kindergartens in england, but only large classes of poor little automatons sitting erect with "hands behind" or worse still "hands on heads," and moving only to the word of command. one lady who ultimately found her way to our own kindergarten told me that she had been informed at the l.c.c. offices that there were no kindergartens in london. it was partly the scandalised expressions of these american teachers that stimulated miss adelaide wragge to take her courage into her hands, and in the year 1900 to open the first mission kindergarten in england. she called it a mission, not a free kindergarten, partly because the parents paid the trifling fee of one penny per week, and partly because it was connected with the parish work of holy trinity, woolwich, of which her brother was vicar. the first report says: "the neighbourhood was suitable for the experiment; little children, needing just the kind of training we proposed to give them, abounded everywhere.... the woolwich children were typical slum babies, varying in ages from three to six years; very poor, very dirty, totally untrained in good habits. at first we only admitted a few, and when these began to improve, gradually increased the numbers to thirty-five. they needed great patience and care, but they responded wonderfully to the love given them, and before long they were real kindergarten children, full of vigour, merriment and self-activity." as is done in connection with all free kindergartens, parents' evenings were instituted from the first, and the mothers were helped to understand their children by simple talks. sesame house for home life training had been opened six months before this mission kindergarten. it was founded by the sesame club, and at its head was miss schepel, who for twenty years had been at the head of the pestalozzi froebel house. the idea of home life training attracted students who were not obliged by stern necessity to earn their daily bread. though the methods were not quite in line with progressive thought, the atmosphere created by miss schepel, warmly seconded by miss buckton,[13] was one of enthusiasm in the service of children. the second nursery school in london had its origin in this enthusiasm. miss maufe left sesame house early in 1903, and started a free child garden in west london. four years later she moved to westminster to a block of workmen's dwellings erected on the site of the old millbank prison. this "child garden" has a special interest from the fact that it was carried on actually in a block of workmen's dwellings like the children's houses of a later date. the effort was voluntary and the rooms were small, but, if the experiment had been supported by the authorities, it would have been easy to take down dividing walls to get sufficient space. miss maufe gave herself and her income for about twelve years, but difficulties created by the war, the impossibility of finding efficient help and consequent drain upon her own strength have forced her to close her little school, to the grief of the mothers in 48 ruskin buildings. another sesame house student, miss l. hardy, in her charming _diary of a free kindergarten_, takes us from london to edinburgh, but the first free kindergarten in edinburgh began in 1903 and had a different origin. miss howden was an infants' mistress in one of the slums, and knew well the needs of little children in that wide street, once decked with lordly mansions, which leads from the castle to holyrood palace. some of the fine houses are left, but the inhabitants are of the poorest, and miss howden left her savings to start a free kindergarten in the canongate. the sum was not large, but it was seed sown in faith, and its harvest has been abundant, for edinburgh with its population of under 400,000 has five free kindergartens, in all of which the children are washed and fed and given restful sleep, as well as taught and trained with intelligence and love. london with its population of 6,000,000 had but eight up to the time of the outbreak of the war. [footnote 13: author of the beautiful mystery play of _eager heart_.] in 1904 the froebel society took part in a joint conference at bradford, where one sitting was devoted to "the need for nursery schools for children from three to five years at present attending the public elementary schools." the speakers were mrs. miall of leeds, and miss k. phillips, who had wide opportunities for knowledge of the unsuitable conditions generally provided for these little children. among those who joined in this discussion was miss margaret m'millan, so well known for her pioneer work in connection with school clinics, and more recently for her now famous camp school. miss m'millan had already done yeoman service on the bradford education committee, but was now resident in london, and she had been warmly welcomed on the council of the froebel society. it was from the date of this conference that the name nursery school became general, though it had been used by madame michaelis as early as 1891. in the following year, 1905, the board of education published its "reports on children under five years of age," with its prefatory memorandum stating that "a new form of school is necessary for poor children," and that parents who must send their little ones to school "should send them to nursery schools rather than to schools of instruction," to schools where there should be "more play, more sleep, more free conversation, story-telling and observation." it would seem that the recommendations of 1905 may begin to be carried out in 1919, a consummation devoutly to be wished. in the meantime voluntary effort has done what it could. birmingham had good reason to be in the forefront, since many of its public-spirited citizens had in their own childhood the benefit of the excellent works of miss caroline bishop, a disciple of frau schrader. the birmingham people's kindergarten association opened its first people's kindergarten at greet, in 1904, and a second, the settlement kindergarten, in 1907. sir oliver lodge spoke strongly in favour of these institutions, calling them a protest against the idea of the comparative unimportance of childhood. miss hardy opened her child garden in 1906, and that work has grown so that the children are now kept till they are eight years old. the edinburgh provincial council for the training of teachers opened another free kindergarten as a demonstration school for froebelian methods, a practising school for students, and also as an experimental school, where attempts might be made to solve problems as to the education of neglected children under school age. it was the headmistress of this school, miss hodsman, who invented the net beds now in general use. she wanted something hygienic and light enough to be carried easily into the garden, that in fine weather the children might sleep out of doors. another sesame house student, miss priestman, opened a free kindergarten in the pretty village of thornton-le-dale, where the children have a sand-heap in a little enclosure allowed them by the blacksmith, and sail their boats at a quiet place by the side of the beck that runs through the village. it was in 1908 that miss esther lawrence of the froebel institute inspired her old students to help her to open the michaelis free kindergarten. since the war, the name has been altered to the michaelis nursery school, which is in netting dale, on the edge of a very poor neighbourhood, where large families often occupy a single room. as in the edinburgh free kindergartens, dinner is provided, for which the parents pay one penny. the first report tells how necessary are nursery schools in such surroundings. "the little child who was formerly tied to the leg of the bed, and left all day while his mother was out at work, is now enjoying the happy freedom of the kindergarten. the child whose clothes were formerly sewn on to him, to save his mother the periodical labour of sewing on buttons, is now undressed and bathed regularly. the attacks on children by drunken parents are less frequent. when the kindergarten was first opened, many of the children were quite listless, they did not know how to play, did not care to play. now they play with pleasure and with vigour, and one can hardly believe they are the listless, spiritless children of a year ago." in 1910 miss lawrence succeeded in opening what was called from the first the "somers town nursery school," where the same kind of work is done. one of the reports says: "it is interesting to see the children sweeping or dusting a room, washing their dusters and dolls' clothes, polishing the furniture, their shoes, and anything which needs polishing. on friday morning the 'silver' is cleaned, and the brilliant results give great pleasure and satisfaction to the little polishers. 'have you done your work?' was the question addressed to a visitor by a three-year-old child, and the visitor beat a hasty retreat, ashamed perhaps of being the only drone in the busy hive. at dinner time four children wait on the rest, and very well and quickly the food is handed round and the plates removed." there are other free kindergartens at work. one is in charge of miss rowland, and is in connection with the bermondsey settlement. it is miss rowland who tells of the "candid mother" she met one saturday who remarked, "i told the children to wash their faces in case they met you." the phoenix park kindergarten in glasgow is interesting because the site was granted by an enlightened corporation and the parks committee laid out the garden, while the real start came from the pupils of a school for girls of well-to-do families. by this time other social agencies have been grouped round the kindergarten as a centre. the caldecott nursery school was opened in 1911 and has grown into the caldecott community, which has now taken its children to live altogether in the country. this nursery school was never intended to be a kindergarten; it was started as an interesting experiment, "chiefly perhaps in the hope that the children might enjoy that instruction which is usually absorbed by the children of the wealthy in their own nurseries by virtue of their happier surroundings." and in the very year in which we were plunged into war miss margaret m'millan put into actual shape what she had long thought of, and opened her "baby camp" and nursery school, with a place for "toddlers" in between, the full story of which is told in _the, camp school_. in the camp itself the things which impress the visitor most are first the space and the fresh air, the sky above and the brown earth below, and next the family feeling which is so plain in spite of the numbers. the camp existed long before it was a baby camp and nursery school, for miss m'millan began with a school clinic and went on to open-air camps for girls and for boys, before going to the "preventive and constructive" work of the baby camp. clean and healthy bodies come first, but to miss m'millan's enthusiasm everything in life is educative. the war has increased the supply of nursery schools, because the need for them has become glaringly apparent. many experiments are going on now, and it seems as if experimental work would be encouraged, not hampered by unyielding regulations. the nursery school should cover the ages for which the kindergarten was instituted, roughly from three to six years old. already there are excellent baby rooms in some parts of london, and no doubt in other towns, and the only reason for disturbing these is to provide the children with more space and more fresh air, or with something resembling a garden rather than a bare yard. one school in london has a creche or day nursery, not exactly a part of it, but in closest touch, established owing to the efforts of an enthusiastic headmistress working along with the norland place nurses. its space is at present insufficient, but the neighbouring buildings are condemned, and will come down after the war. they need not go up again. then the space could be used in the same way as in the camp school. that would be to the benefit of the whole neighbourhood, and there could be at least one experiment where from creche to standard vii. might be in close connection. miss m'millan's ideal is to have a large space in the centre of a district with covered passages radiating from it so that mothers from a large area could bring their little ones and leave them in safety. it would be safety, it would be salvation. but, as the scots proverb has it, "it is a far cry to loch awe." another question much debated is, who is to be in charge of these children. the day nursery or crèche must undoubtedly be staffed with nurses, but with nurses trained to care for children, not merely sick nurses. there are, however, certain people who believe that the "trained nurse" is the right person to be in charge of children up to five, while others think that young girls or uneducated women will suffice. we are thankful that the board of education takes up the position that a well-educated and specially trained teacher is to be the person responsible. we certainly want the help both of the trained nurse and of the motherly woman. the trained nurse will be far more use in detecting and attending to the ailments of children than the teacher can be, and the motherly woman can give far more efficient help in training children to decent habits than any young probationer, useful though these may be. but there is always the fear that the nurses may think that good food and cleanliness are all a child requires, and, as miss m'millan says, "the sight of the toddlers' empty hands and mute lips does not trouble them at all." but every man to his trade, and though the teacher in charge must know something about ailing children, it is very doubtful if a few months in a hospital will advantage her much. here she trenches on the province of the real nurse, whose training is thorough, and the little knowledge, as every one knows, is sometimes dangerous. one nursery school teacher, with years of experience, says that what she learned in hospital has been of no use to her, and it is probable that attendance at a clinic for children would be really more useful. certainly the main concern of the nursery school teacher is sympathetic understanding of children. there must be no more of _punch's_ "go and see what tommy is doing in the next room and tell him not to," but "go and see what tommy is trying to accomplish, and make it possible for him to carry on his self-education through that 'fostering of the human instincts of activity, investigation and construction' which constitutes a kindergarten." chapter v "the world's mine oyster" a box of counters and a red-veined stone, a piece of glass abraded by the beach, and six or seven shells. if early education, consist in fostering natural activities, there can be no doubt that froebel hit upon the activity most prominent of all in the case of young children, viz. the impulse to investigate. for his crest, the little child should share in the "motto given to the mongoose family, in kipling's _rikki-tikki_, 'run and find out.'" most writers on the education of young children have emphasised the importance of what is most inadequately called sense training, and it is here that dr. montessori takes her stand with her "didactic apparatus." froebel's ideas seem wider; he realises that the sword with which the child opens his oyster is a two-edged sword, that he uses not only his sense organs as tools for investigation, but his whole body. his pathway to knowledge, and to power over himself and his surroundings, is action, and action of all kinds is as necessary to him as the use of his senses. "the child's first utterance is force," says froebel, and his first discovery is the resistance of matter, when he "pushes with his feet against what resists them." his first experiments are with his body, "his first toys are his own limbs," and his first play is the use of "body, senses and limbs" for the sake of use, not for result. one use of his body is the imitation of any moving object, and froebel tells the mother: if your child's to understand action in the world without, you must let his tiny hand imitative move about. this is the reason why baby will, never still, imitate whatever's by. at this stage the child is "to move freely, and be active, to grasp and hold with his own hands." he is to stand "when he can sit erect and draw himself up," not to walk till he "can creep, rise freely, maintain his balance and proceed by his own effort." he is _not_ to be hindered by swaddling bands--such as are in use in continental countries--nor, later on, to be "_spoiled by too much assistance_," words which every mother and teacher should write upon her phylacteries. but as soon as he can move himself the surroundings speak to the child, "outer objects _invite_ him to seize and grasp them, and if they are distant, they invite him who would bring them nearer to move towards them." this use of the word "invite" is worthy of notice, and calls to mind a sentence used by a writer on freud,[14] that "the activity of a human being is a constant function of his environment." we adults, who are so ready with our "don't touch," must endeavour to remember how everything is shouting to a child: "look at me, listen to me, come and fetch me, and find out all you can about me by every means in your power." [footnote 14: _the freudian wish_, edwin holt.] if we have anything to do with little children, we must face the fact that the child is, if not quite a robinson crusoe on his island, at least an explorer in a strange country, and a scientist in his laboratory. but there is nothing narrow in his outlook: the name of this chapter is deliberately chosen, the whole world is the child's oyster, his interests are all-embracing. from his first walk he is the geographer. "each little walk is a tour of discovery; each object--the chair, the wall--is an america, a new world, which he either goes around to see if it be an island, or whose coast he follows to discover if it be a continent. each new phenomenon is a discovery in the child's small and yet rich world, _e.g._ one may go round the chair; one may stand before it, behind it, but one cannot go behind the bench or the wall." then comes an inquiry into the physical properties of surrounding objects. "the effort to reach a particular object may have its source in the child's desire to hold himself firm and upright by it, but we also observe that it gives him pleasure to touch, to feel, to grasp, and perhaps also--which is a new phase of activity--to be able to move it.... the chair is hard or soft; the seat is smooth; the corner is pointed; the edge is sharp." the business of the adult, froebel goes on to say, is to supply these names, "not primarily to develop the child's power of speech," but "to define his sense impressions." next, the scientist must stock his laboratory with material for experiment. "the child is attracted by the bright round smooth pebble, by the gaily fluttering bit of paper, by the smooth bit of board, by the rectangular block, by the brilliant quaint leaf. look at the child that can scarcely keep himself erect, that can walk only with the greatest care--he sees a twig, a bit of straw; painfully he secures it, and like the bird carries it to his nest. see him again, laboriously stooping and slowly going forward on the ground, under the eaves of the roof (the deep eaves of the thuringian peasant house). the force of the rain has washed out of the sand smooth bright pebbles, and the ever-observing child gathers them as building stones as it were, as material for future building. and is he wrong? is he not in truth collecting material for his future life building?" the "box of counters, and the red-veined stone," the brilliant quaint leaf, the twig, the bit of straw, all the child's treasures--these are the stimuli which, according to the biologist educator, must be supplied if the activities appropriate to each stage are to be called forth. every one knows for how long a period a child can occupy himself examining, comparing and experimenting. "like things," says froebel, "must be ranged together, unlike things separated.... the child loves all things that enter his small horizon and extend his little world. to him the least thing is a new discovery, but it must not come dead into the little world, nor lie dead therein, lest it obscure the small horizon and crush the little world. therefore the child would know why he loves this thing, he would know all its properties. for this reason he examines the object on all sides; for this reason he tears and breaks it; for this reason he puts it in his mouth and bites it. we reprove the child for naughtiness and foolishness; and yet he is wiser than we who reprove him." this experimenting is one side of a child's play, and the things with which he thus experiments are his toys, or, as froebel puts it, "play material." much of this is and ought to be self found, and where the child can find his own toys he asks for little more. the seaside supplies him with sand and water, stones, shells, rock pools, seaweed, and he asks us for nothing but a spade, which digs deeper than his naked hands, and a pail to carry water, which hands alone cannot convey. the vista of the sand is the child's free land; where the grown-ups seem half afraid; even nurse forgets to sniff and to call "come here" as she sits very near to the far up cliff and you venture alone with your spade.... even indoors, a child could probably find for himself all the material for investigation, all the stimuli he requires, if it were not that his investigations interfere with adult purposes. even in very primitive times the child probably experimented upon the revolving qualities of his mother's spindle till she found it more convenient to let him have one for himself, and it became a toy or top. froebel, who made so much of play, to whom it was spontaneous education and self realisation, was bound to see that toys were important. "the man advanced in insight," he said, "even when he gives his child a plaything, must make clear to himself its purpose and the purpose of playthings and occupation material in general. this purpose is to aid the child freely to express what lies within him, and to bring the outer world nearer to him, and thus to serve as mediator between the mind and the world." froebel's "gifts" were an attempt to supply right play material. true to his faith in natural impulse, froebel watched children to see what playthings they found for themselves, or which, among those presented by adults, were most appreciated. soft little coloured balls seemed right material for a baby's tender hand, and it was clear that when the child could crawl about he was ready for something which he could roll on the floor and pursue on all fours. as early as two years old he loves to take things out of boxes and to move objects about, so boxes of bricks were supplied, graded in number and in variety of form. not for a moment did froebel suggest that the child was to be limited to these selected playthings, he expressly stated the contrary, and he frequently said that spontaneity was not to be checked. but from what has followed, from the way in which these little toys have been misused, we are tempted to speculate on whether these "gifts" supplied that definite foundation without which, in these days, no notice would have been taken of the new ideas, or whether they have proved the sunken rock on which much that was valuable has perished. the world was not ready to believe in the educational value of play, just pure play. nor is it yet. for the new system in its "didactic" apparatus out-froebels froebel in his mistake of trying to systematise the material for spontaneous education. carefully planned, as were froebel's own "gifts," the new apparatus presents a series of exercises in sense discrimination, satisfying no doubt while unfamiliar, but suffering from the defect of the "too finished and complex plaything," in which froebel saw a danger "which slumbers like a viper under the roses." the danger is that "the child can begin no new thing with it, cannot produce enough variety by its means; his power of creative imagination, his power of giving outward form to his own ideas are thus actually deadened." "to realise his aims, man, and more particularly the child, requires material, though it be only a bit of wood or a pebble, with which he makes something or which he makes into something. in order to lead the child to the handling of material we give him the ball, the cube and other bodies, the kindergarten gifts. each of these gifts incites the child to free spontaneous activity, to independent movement." froebel would have sympathised deeply with the views of peter as expressed by mr. wells in regard to ideals, which he, however, called toys: "the theory of ideals played almost as important a part in the early philosophy of peter as it did in the philosophy of plato. but peter did not call them ideals, he called them 'toys.' toys were the simplified essences of things, pure, perfect and manageable. real things were troublesome, uncontrollable, over-complicated and largely irrelevant. a real train, for example, was a poor, big, clumsy, limited thing that was obliged to go to redhill, or croydon, or london, that was full of unnecessary strangers, usually sitting firmly in the window seats, that you could do nothing with at all. a toy train was your very own; it took you wherever you wanted, to fairyland, or russia, or anywhere, at whatever pace you chose."[15] [footnote 15: _joan and peter_, p. 77.] froebel asks what presents are most prized by the child and by mankind in general, and answers, "those which afford him a means of developing his mind, of giving it freest activity, of expressing it clearly." for her ideas as to educative material dr. montessori went, not to normal life, not even to children, but to what may he called curative appliances, to the material invented by séguin to develop the dormant powers of defective children. she herself came to the study of education from the medical side, the curative. froebel, with his belief in human instinct, naturally went to what he called the mother's room, which we should call the nursery, and to the garden where the child finds his "bright round smooth pebble" and his "brilliant quaint leaf." no one would seek to under-value the importance of sense discrimination, but it can be exercised without formalism, and it need not be mere discrimination. it is in connection with the taste and smell games that froebel tells the mother that "the higher is rooted in the lower, morality in instinct, the spiritual in the material." the baby enjoys the scent, thanks the kind spirit that put it there, and must let mother smell it too, so from the beginning there is a touch of aesthetic pleasure and a recognition of "what the dear god is saying outside." as to how sense discrimination may be exercised without formality, there is a charming picture in _the camp school_: "and then that sense of _smell_, which got so little exercise and attention that it went to sleep altogether, so that millions get no warning and no joy through it. we met the need for its education in the baby camp by having a herb garden. back from the shelters and open ground, in a shady place, we have planted fennel, mint, lavender, sage, marjoram, thyme, rosemary, herb gerrard and rue. and over and above these pungently smelling things there are little fields of mignonette. we have balm, indeed, everywhere in our garden. the toddlers go round the beds of herbs, pinching the leaves with their tiny fingers and then putting their fingers to their noses. there are two little couples going the rounds just now. one is a pair of new comers, very much astonished, the other couple old inhabitants, delighted to show the wonders of the place! coming back with odorous hands, they perhaps want to tell us about the journey. their eyes are bright, their mouths open." in chapter ii. we quoted the biologist educator's ideal conception of the surroundings best suited to bring about right development. let us now visit one or two actual kindergartens and see if these conditions are in any way realised by the followers of froebel. the first one we enter is certainly a large bright room, for one side is open to light, with two large windows, and between them glass doors opening into the playground. there is no heap of sand in a corner, nor is there a tub of water; for the practical teacher knows how little hands, if not little feet, with their vigorous but as yet uncontrolled movements would splash the water and scatter the sand with dire effects as to the floor, which the theorist fondly imagines would always be clean enough to sit upon. but there is a sand-tray big enough and deep enough for six to eight children to use individually or together. as spontaneous activity, with its ceaseless efforts at experimenting, ceaselessly spills the sand, within easy reach are little brushes and dustpans to remedy such mishaps. the sand-tray is lined with zinc so that the sand can be replaced by water for boats and ducks, etc., when desired. the low wall blackboard is there ready for use. bright pictures are on the walls, well drawn and well coloured, some from nursery rhymes, some of caldecott's, a frieze of hen and chickens, etc. boxes for houses and shops are not in evidence, but their place is taken by bricks of such size and quantity that houses, shops, motors, engines and anything else may be built large enough for the children themselves to be shopkeepers or drivers, and there are also pieces of wood to use for various purposes of construction. there is no cooking stove, but simple cooking can be carried out on an open fire, and when a baking oven is required, an eager procession makes its way to the kitchen, where a kindly housekeeper permits the use of her oven. there is a doll's cot with a few dolls of various sizes. there are flowers and growing bulbs. there are light low tables and chairs, a family of guinea pigs in a large cage, and there is a cupboard which the children can reach. water is to be found in a passage room, between the kindergarten and the rooms for children above that stage, and here, so placed that the children themselves can find and reach everything, are the sawdust, bran and oats for the guinea pigs, with a few carrots and a knife to cut them, some tiny scrubbing-brushes and a wiping-up cloth. here also are stored the empty boxes, corrugated paper and odds and ends in constant demand for constructions. in the cupboard there are certain shelves from which anything may be taken, and some from which nothing may be taken without leave. for the teacher here is of opinion that children of even three and four are not too young to begin to learn the lesson of _meum_ and _tuum_, and she also thinks it is good to have some treasures which do not come out every day, and which may require more delicate handling than the ordinary toy ought to need. for this ought to be strong enough to bear unskilled handling and vigorous movements, for a broken toy ought to be a tragedy. at the same time it is part of a child's training to learn to use dainty objects with delicate handling, and such things form the children's art gems, showing beauty of construction and of colour. children as well as grown-ups have their bad days, when something out of the usual is very welcome. "do you know there's nothing in this world that i'm not tired of?" was said one day by a boy of six usually quite contented. "give me something out of the cupboard that i've never seen before," said another whose digestion was troublesome. the open shelves contain pencils and paper, crayons, paint-boxes, boxes of building blocks, interlocking blocks, wooden animals, jigsaw and other puzzles, coloured tablets for pattern laying, toy scales, beads to thread, dominoes, etc., the only rule being that what is taken out must be tidily replaced. this kindergarten is part of a large institution, and the playground, to which it has direct access, is of considerable extent. there is a big stretch of grass and another of asphalt, so that in suitable weather the tables and chairs, the sand-tray, the bricks and anything else that is wanted can be carried outside so that the children can live in the open, which of course is better than any room. in the playground there is a bank where the children can run up and down, and there are a few planks and a builder's trestle,[16] on which they can be poised for seesaws or slides, and these are a constant source of pleasure. [footnote 16: see p. 55.] in another kindergarten we find the walls enlivened with cecil aldin's fascinating friezes: here is noah with all the animals walking in cheerful procession, and in the next room is an attractive procession of children with push-carts, hoops and toy motor cars. when we make our visit the day is fine and the room is empty, the children are all outside. the garden is not large, but there is some space, and under the shade of two big trees we find rugs spread, on which the children are sitting, standing, kneeling and lying, according to their occupation. one is building with large blocks, and must stand up to complete her erection; another is lying flat putting together a jigsaw; another, a boy, is threading beads; while another has built railway arches, and with much whistling and the greatest carefulness is guiding his train through the tunnels. the play is almost entirely individual, but very often you hear, "o miss x, _do_ come and see what i've done!" after about an hour, during which a few of the children have changed their occupations, those who wish to do so join some older children who are playing games involving movement. this may be a traditional game like looby loo, or round and round the village, or it may be one of the best of the old kindergarten games. after lunch the washing up is to be done in a beautiful new white sink which is displayed with pride. our next visit is to a free kindergarten. the rooms are quite as attractive, as rich in charming friezes as in the others, and the furnishing in some ways is much the same. but here we see what we have not seen before, for here is a large room filled with tiny hammock beds. the windows are wide open, but the blinds are down, for the children are having their afternoon sleep. here, as in all free kindergartens, the children are provided with simple but pretty overalls which the parents are pleased to wash. house shoes are also provided, partly to minimise the noise from active little feet, but principally because the poor little boots are often a painfully inadequate protection from wet pavements. the children are trained to tidy ways and to independence. they cannot read, but by picture cards they recognise their own beds, pegs and other properties. they take out and put away their own things, and give all reasonable help in laying tables and serving food, in washing, dusting and sweeping up crumbs, as is done in any true kindergarten. in the garden of this free kindergarten there is a large sand-pit, surrounded by a low wooden framework, and having a pole across the middle so that it resembles a cucumber frame and a cover can be thrown over the sand to keep it clean when not in use. froebel's own list of playthings contains, besides balls and building blocks, coloured beads, coloured tablets for laying patterns, coloured papers for cutting, folding and plaiting; pencils, paints and brushes; modelling clay and sand; coloured wool for sewing patterns and pictures; and such little sticks and laths as children living in a forest region find for themselves. considered in themselves, apart from the traditions of formality, these are quite good play material or stimuli, and froebel meant the time to come "when we shall speak of the doll and the hobby horse as the first plays of the awakening life of the girl and the boy," but he died before he had done so. in the _mother songs_, too, we find quite a good list of toys which are now to be found in most kindergartens. toys for the playground should be provided--a sand-heap, a seesaw, a substantial wheel-barrow, hoops, balls, reins and perhaps skipping-ropes. something on which the child can balance, logs or planks which they can move about, and a trestle on which these can be supported, are invaluable. it was while an addition was being made to our place that we realised the importance of such things, and, as in froebel's case, "our teachers were the children themselves." they were so supremely happy running up and down the plank roads laid by the builders for their wheel-barrows, seesawing or balancing and sliding on others, that we could not face the desolation of emptiness which would come when the workmen removed their things. so, for a few pounds, all that the children needed was secured, ordinary planks for seesawing, narrower for balancing and a couple of trestles. one exercise the children had specially enjoyed was jumping up and down on yielding planks, and this the workmen had forbidden because the planks might crack. but a sympathetic foreman told us what was needed: two planks of special springy wood were fastened together by cross pieces at each end, and besides making excellent slides, these made most exciting springboards. for representations of real life the children require dolls and the simplest of furniture--a bed, which need only be a box, some means of carrying out the doll's washing, her personal requirements as well as her clothes; some little tea-things and pots and pans. a doll's house is not necessary, and can only be used by two or three children, but will be welcomed if provided, and its appointments give practice in dainty handling. trains and signals of some kind, home-made or otherwise; animals for farm or zoo; a pair of scales for a shop, and some sort of delivery van, which, of course, may be home-made. there must also be provision for increase of skill and possibility of creation. if the kindergarten can afford it, some of the montessori material may be provided; there is no reason, except expense, why it should not be used if the children like it, and if it does not take up too much room. but it has no creative possibilities, and even at three years old this is required. scissors are an important tool, and an old book of sample wall-papers is most useful; old match-boxes and used matches, paste and brushes and some old magazines to cut. blackboard chalks and crayons, paint-boxes with four to six important colours, some kindergarten folding papers, all these supply colour. certain toys seem specially suited to give hand control, _e.g._ a noah's ark, where the small animals are to be set out carefully, tops or teetotums and tiddlywinks, at which some little children become proficient. the puzzle interest must not be forgotten, and simple jigsaw pictures give great pleasure. it is interesting to note here that the youngest children fit these puzzles not by the picture but by form, though they know they are making a picture and are pleased when it is finished. the puzzle with six pictures on the sides of cubes is much more difficult than a simple jigsaw. all sorts of odds and ends come in useful, and especially for the poorer children these should be provided. any one who remembers the pleasure derived from coloured envelope bands, from transparent paper from crackers, and from certain advertisements, will save these for children to whose homes such treasures never come. a box containing scraps of soft cloth, possibly a bit of velvet, some bits of smooth and shining coloured silk give the pleasure of sense discrimination without the formality of the montessori graded boxes, and are easier to replace. some substitute for "mother's button box," a box of shells or coloured seeds, a box of feathers, all these things will be played with, which means observation and discrimination, comparison and contrast, and in addition, where colour is involved, there is aesthetic pleasure, and this also enters into the touching of smooth or soft surfaces. softness is a joy to children, as is shown in the woolly lambs, etc., provided for babies. a little one of my acquaintance had a bit of blanket which comforted many woes, and when once i offered her a feather boa as a substitute she sobbed out: "it isn't so soft as the blanket!" in one of miss mcmillan's early books she wrote: "very early the child begins more or less consciously to exercise the basal sense--the sense of touch. on waking from sleep he puts his tiny hands to grasp something, or turns his head on the firm soft pillow. he _touches_ rather than looks, at first (for his hands and fingers perform a great many movements long before he learns to turn his eyeballs in various directions or follow the passage even of a light), and through touching many things he begins his education. if he is the nursling of wealthy parents, it is possible that his first exercises are rather restricted. he touches silk, ivory, muslin and fine linen. that is all, and that is not much. but the child of the cottager is often better off, for his mother gives him a great variety of objects to keep him quiet. the ridiculous command, 'do not touch,' cannot be imposed on him while he is screaming in his cradle or protesting in his dinner chair; and so all manner of things--reels, rings, boxes, tins, that is to say a variety of surfaces--is offered to him, to his great delight and advantage. and lest he should not get the full benefit of such privilege he carries everything to his mouth, where the sense of touch is very keen."[17] [footnote 17: _early childhood_: swan sonnenschein, published 1900.] among the treasures kept for special occasions there may be pipes for soap-bubbles, a prism of some kind with which to make rainbows, a tiny mirror to make "light-birds" on the wall and ceiling, and a magnet with the time-honoured ducks and fish, if these are still to be bought, along with other articles, delicately made or coloured, which require care. pictures and picture-books should also be considered; some being in constant use, some only brought out occasionally. for the very smallest children some may be rag books, but always children should be taught to treat books carefully. the pictures on the walls ought to be changed, sometimes with the children's help, sometimes as a surprise and discovery. for that purpose it is convenient to have series of pictures in frames with movable backs, but brown-paper frames will do quite well. the pictures belonging to the stories which have been told to the children ought to have a prominent place, and if the little ones desire to have one retold they will ask for it. it is of course not at all either necessary or even desirable for any one school to have everything, and children should not have too much within the range of their attention at one time. individual teachers will make their own selections, but in all cases there must be sufficient variety of material for each child to carry out his natural desire for observation, experiment and construction. chapter vi "all the world's a stage" a wedding or a festival, a mourning or a funeral... as if his whole vocation were endless imitation. in every country and in every age those who have eyes to see have watched the same little dramas. what wordsworth saw was seen nineteen hundred years ago in the syrian market-place, where the children complained of their unresponsive companions: "we have piped the glad chaunt of the marriage, but ye have not danced, we have wailed our lamentation, but ye have not joined our mourning procession." since the very name kindergarten is to imply a teaching which fulfils the child's own wants and desires, it must supply abundant provision for the dramatic representation of life. adults have always been ready to use for their own purposes the strong tendency to imitate, which is a characteristic of all normal children, but few even now realise to what extent a child profits by his imitative play. the explanation that froebel found for this will now be generally accepted, viz. that only by acting it out can a child fully grasp an idea, "for what he tries to represent or do, he begins to understand." he thinks in action, or as one writer put it, he "apperceives with his muscles." this explanation seems to cover imitative play, from the little child's imitative wave of the hand up to such elaborate imitations as are described in stanley hall's _story of a sand pile,_[18] or in dewey's _schools of to-morrow._ but when we think of the joy of such imaginative play as that of red indians, shipwrecks and desert islands, we feel that these show a craving for experience, for life, such a craving as causes the adult to lose himself in a book of travels or in a dramatic performance, and which explains the phenomenal success of the cinema, poor stuff as it is. [footnote 18: or that delightful "play town" in _the play way_.] we thirst for experiences, even for those which are unpleasant; we wonder "how it feels" to be up in an aeroplane or down in a submarine. we are far indeed from desiring air-raids, but if such things must be, there is a curious satisfaction in being "in it." and though the experiences they desire may be matters of everyday occurrence to us, children probably feel the craving even more keenly. "you may write what you like," said a teacher, and a somewhat inarticulate child wrote, "i was out last night, it was late." "why, jack," said another, "you've painted your cow green; did you ever see a green cow?" "no," said jack, "but i'd like to." in early kindergarten days this imitative and dramatic tendency was chiefly met in games, and the children were by turns butterflies and bees, bakers and carpenters, clocks and windmills. the programme was suggested by froebel's _mother songs_, in which he deals with the child's nearest environment. too often, indeed, the realities to which froebel referred were not realities to english children, but that was recognised as a defect, and the ideas themselves were suitable. chickens, pigeons and farmyard animals; the homely pussy cat or canary bird; the workers to whom the child is indebted, farmer, baker, miner, builder or carpenter; the sun, the rain, the rainbow and the "light-bird"--such ideas were chosen as suitable centres, and stories and songs, games and handwork clustered round. what was the reason for this binding of things together? why did froebel constantly plead for "unity" even for the tiny child, and tell us to link together his baby finger-games or his first weak efforts at building with his blocks chairs, tables, beds, walls and ladders? looking back over the years, it seems as if this idea of joining together has been trying to assert itself under various forms, each of which has reigned for its day, has been carried to extremes and been discarded, only to come up again in a somewhat different form. it has always seemed to aim at extending and ordering the mind content of children. for the froebelian it was expressed in such words as "unity," "connectedness" and "continuity," while the herbartians called it "correlation." under these terms much work has been, and is still being, carried out, some very good and some very foolish. ideas catch on, however, because of the truth that is in them, not because of the error which is likely to be mixed with it, and even the weakest effort after connection embodies an important truth. when we smile over absurd stories of forced "correlation," we seldom stop to think of what went on before the kindergarten existed, for instance the still more absurd and totally disconnected lists of object lessons. one actual list for children of four years old ran: soda, elephant, tea, pig, wax, cow, sugar, spider, potatoes, sheep, salt, mouse, bread, camel. kindergarten practice was far ahead of this, for here the teacher was expected to choose her material according to (1) time of year; (2) local conditions, such as the pursuits of the people; (3) social customs. when it was possible the children went to see the real blacksmith or the real cow, and to let game or handwork be an expression, and a re-ordering of ideas gained was natural and right. connectedness, however, meant more than this, it meant that the material itself was to be treated so that the children would be helped to that real understanding which comes from seeing things in their relations to each other. as lloyd morgan puts it, "we are mainly at work upon the mental background. it is our object to make this background as rich and full and orderly as possible, so that whatever is brought to the focus of consciousness shall be set in a relational background, which shall give it meaning; and so that our pupils may be able to feel the truth which browning puts into the mouth of fra lippo lippi: this world's no blot for us nor blank; it means intensely and means good: to find its meaning is my meat and drink." according to professor dewey, some such linking or joining is necessary "to foster that sense which is at the basis of attention and of all intellectual growth, the sense of continuity." the herbartian correlation was designed to further that well-connected circle of thought out of which would come the firm will, guided by right insight, inspired by true feeling, which is their aim in education. froebelian unity and connectedness have, like the others, an intellectual and a moral aspect. intellectually "the essential characteristic of instruction is the treatment of individual things in their relationships"; morally, the idea of unity is that we are all members one of another. the child who, through unhindered activity, has reached the stage of self-consciousness is to go on to feel himself a part, a member of an ever-increasing whole--family, school, township, country, humanity--the all; to be "one with nature, man and god." every one has heard something of the new teaching--which, by the way, sheds clearer light over froebel's warning against arbitrary interference--viz. that a great part of the nervous instability which affects our generation is due to the thwarting and checking of the natural impulses of early years. but this new school also gives us something positive, and reinforces older doctrines by telling us to integrate behaviour. "this matter of the unthwarted lifelong progress of behaviour integration is of profound importance, for it is the transition from behaviour to conduct. the more integrated behaviour is harmonious and consistent behaviour toward a larger and more comprehensive situation, toward a bigger section of the universe; it is lucidity and breadth of purpose. the child playing with fire is only wrong conduct because it is behaviour that does not take into account consequences; it is not adjusted to enough of the environment; it will be made right by an enlargement of its scope and reach."[19] all selfish conduct, all rudeness and roughness come from ignorance; we are all more or less self-centred, and the child's consciousness of self has to be widened, his scope has to be enlarged to sympathy with the thoughts, feelings and desires of other selves. "the sane man is the man who (however limited the scope of his behaviour) has no such suppression incorporated in him. the wise man must be sane and must have scope as well."[20] [footnote 19: _the freudian wish_, edwin holt.] [footnote 20: _the freudian wish_, edwin holt.] professor earl barnes always used to describe the child mind as "scrappy." how can we best aid development into the wholeness or healthiness and the scope of sanity and wisdom? for it may well be that this widening and ordering of experience, of consciousness, of behaviour into moral behaviour is our most important task as teachers. froebel emphasised the "crying need" for connection of school and life, pointing out how the little child desires to imitate and the older to share in all that, as professor dewey puts it, is "surcharged with a sense of the mysterious values that attach to whatever their elders are concerned with." this is one of the points to which professor dewey called attention in his summing up of froebel's educational principles, this letting the child reproduce on his own plane the typical doings and occupations of the larger, maturer society into which he is finally to go forth. it is in this connection that he says the kindergarten teacher has the opportunity to foster that most important "sense of continuity." in simple reproduction of the home life while there is abundant variety, since daily life may bring us into contact with all the life of the city or of the country, yet, because the work is within a whole, "there is opportunity to foster that sense which is at the basis of attention and of all intellectual growth, a sense of continuity." since professor dewey gave to the world the results of his experimental school, all the kindergartens and most of the infant schools in england have tried to carry out their accustomed reproduction of home surroundings, more or less on the lines of the primary department of his experimental school. they have extended their scope, and in addition to the material already taken from workman and shop, from garden and farm, have also with much profit to older children used his suggestions about primitive industries. reproduction of home surroundings can be done in many ways, one of which is to help the children to furnish and to play with a doll's house. but the play must be play. it is not enough to use the drama as merely offering suggestions for handwork, and one small doll's house does not allow of real play for more than one or two children. our own children used to settle this by taking out the furniture, etc., and arranging different homes around the room. i can remember the never-ending pleasure given by similar play in my own nursery days, when the actors were the men and boys supplied by tailors' advertisements. many and varied were the experiences of these paper families, families, it may be noted, none of whom demeaned themselves so far as to possess any womankind. for that nursery party of five had lost its mother sadly early and was ruled by two boys, who evidently thought little of the other sex. professor dewey tells us that "nothing is more absurd than to suppose that there is no middle term between leaving a child to his unguided fancies, or controlling his activities by a formal succession of dictated directions." it is the teacher's business to know what is striving for utterance and to supply the needed stimulus and materials. to show how under the inspiration of a thoroughly capable teacher this continuity may be secured and prolonged for quite a long period, an example may be taken from the work of miss janet payne, who is remarkably successful in meeting and stimulating, without in any way forcing the "striving for utterance" mentioned by dewey. on this occasion miss payne produced a doll about ten inches high, dressed to resemble the children's fathers, and suggested that a home should be made for him. the children adopted him with zeal, named him mr. bird, and his career lasted for two years. mr. bird required a family, so mrs. bird had to be produced with her little girl winnie, and later a baby was added to the family. beds, tables and chairs, including a high chair for winnie, were made of scraps from the wood box, and for a long time mr. bird was most domesticated. miss payne had used ordinary dolls' heads, but had constructed the bodies herself in such a way that the dolls could sit and stand, and use their arms to wield a broom or hold the baby. after some time, one child said, "mr. bird ought to go to business," and after much deliberation he became a grocer. his shop was made and stocked, and he attended it every day, going home to dinner regularly. one day he appeared to be having a meal on the shop counter, and it was explained that he had been "rather in a hurry" in the morning, so mrs. bird had given him his breakfast to take with him. the bird family had various adventures, they had spring cleanings, removals, visited the zoo and went to the seaside. one morning a little fellow sat in a trolley with the bird family beside him for three-quarters of an hour evidently "imagining." i did inquire in passing if it was a drive or a picnic, but the answer was so brief, that i knew i was an interruption and retired. but a younger and bolder inquirer, who wanted to conduct an experiment in modelling, ventured to ask if mr. bird wanted anything that could be made "at clay modelling." "yes, he wants some ink-pots for his post-office shop," was the answer, with the slightly irate addition, "but i _wish_ you'd call it the china factory." when these children moved to an upper class, mr. bird was laid away, but the children requested his presence. so he entered the new room and became a farmer. he had now to write letters, to arrange rents, etc., and the money had to be made and counted. the letters served for writing and reading lessons, and miss payne was careful to send the answers through the real post, properly addressed to mr. bird with the name of class and school. mr. bird hired labourers, the children grew corn, and thrashed it and sent it to the mill. a miller had to be produced, and the children, now his assistants, ground the wheat, and mr. bird came in his cart to fetch the sacks of flour, which ultimately became the birds' christmas pudding and was eaten by the labourers, now guests at the feast. in spring, after careful provision for their comfort, mr. bird went to the cattle market and bought cows. though the milking had to be pretence, the butter and cheese were really made. the first question of the summer term was, "what's mr. bird going to do this term?" like other teachers inspired by professor dewey, we have found our children most responsive to the suggestion of playing out primitive man. but with some, not of course with the brightest, it is too great a stretch to go at one step from the present to the most primitive times, and we often spend a term over something of the nature of robinson crusoe, where the situation presents characters accustomed to modern civilisation and deprived of all its conveniences. miss payne is careful to give the children full opportunity for suggestions--one dull little boy puzzled his mother by telling her "i made a very good 'gestion' to-day"--so though she had not contemplated the renewed appearance of mr. bird she said, "what do you want him to do?" "let him go out and shoot bears," cried an embryo sportsman. somewhat taken aback, miss payne temporised with, "he wouldn't find them in this country." "then let him go to india," cried one child, but another called out, "no, no, let him go to a desert island!" and that was carried with acclamation. mr. bird's various homes were on a miniature scale, and were contained in a series of zinc trays, which we have had made to fit the available tables and cupboard tops. we find these trays convenient, as a new one can be added when more scope is required to carry out new ideas. the following accounts taken from the notes of miss hilda beer, while a student in training, show another kind of play where the children themselves act the drama. the notes only cover a short period, but they show how the play may arise quite incidentally. _mon., june 18._--as the ground is too damp for out-of-doors work, if the children were not ready with plans, i meant to suggest building a railway station, tunnel, etc., and later, i thought perhaps we might paint advertisements of seaside resorts for our station. but the children brought several things with them, and dorothy brought her own doll. marie had left the baby doll from the other room in the cot, so dorothy and sylvia said they must look after the babies. so cecil, josie and i swept and dusted. then we began to play house. cecil and dorothy were mr. and mrs. harry, sylvia was mrs. loo (husband at the war). josie was nurse and i was aunt lizzie. the dolls were winnie harry, and jack and doreen loo. mr. and mrs. harry built themselves a house and so did we. cecil said, "but what is the name of the road?" mrs. harry chose 25 brookfield avenue, and mr. harry 7 victoria street, but he gave in and mrs. loo took his name for her house. we had to put numbers on the houses; sylvia could make 7, but the others could not make 25, so i put it on the board and they copied it. josie having also made a 7 wanted to use it, but mrs. loo objected, and said, "the mother is more important than the nurse," so josie fixed her 7 on the house opposite. after lunch we bathed the babies and put them to sleep, and as it was time for the children's own rest, we all went to bed. when rest was over, we washed and dressed, and then mrs. harry asked for clay to make a water-tap for her house. that made all the children want to make things in clay, so we made cups and saucers, plates, and a baby's bottle, then scones and sponge-cakes, bread and a bread-board, and one of the children said we must put a b on that. then mrs. loo said, "but we haven't any shelves." i had to leave my class in miss payne's charge, and they spent the rest of the time fitting in shelves, water-taps, and sinks. _june 19._--after sweeping, dusting, and washing and dressing the dolls, i read to the children "how the house was built." then we all pretended to bake, making rolls and cakes as next day was to be the doll winnie's birthday. we baked our cakes on a piece of wood on the empty fireplace. the other children were invited to winnie's party, so we went out to shop. the children wanted lettuces from their own garden, but the grass was too wet, so we pretended. the shop was on the edge of the grass and we talked to imaginary shopmen, cecil often exclaiming, "eightpence! why, it's not worth it!" as neither of the houses would hold all the guests invited to the party, we had to have a picnic instead. _june_ 20.--i must see that sylvia and dorothy do the sweeping to-morrow, and let josie bath the doll; she is very good-natured, and i see that they give her the less attractive occupation. i think too that the food question has played too large a part, so if the children suggest more cooking i shall look in the larder and say that really we must not buy or bake as food goes bad in hot weather, and we must not waste in war time. the children have suggested making cushions, painting pictures, and making knives and forks, but we have not had time. _report_.--dorothy and sylvia swept, cecil mended the wall of the house, josie took the children down to the beach (the sand tray), and i dusted. we looked into the larder and found that yesterday's greens were going bad, so decided not to buy more. then we took the babies for a walk. we noticed how many nasturtiums were out, how the blackberry bushes were in flower and in bud, and the runner-bean was in flower, and the red flowers looked so pretty in the green leaves. we looked at the hollyhocks, because i have told the children that they will grow taller than i am, and they are always wondering how soon this will be. the children found some cherries which had fallen, and dorothy said how pretty they were on the tree. i called attention to one branch that was laden with fruit, and looked particularly pretty with the sun shining on it. we also looked at the pear tree and the almond. everything has come on so fast, and the children were ready to say it was because of the rain. after rest, we went to the hall to see the chickens. to-day they were much bigger, and sylvia said had "bigger wings." we were able to watch them drinking, how they hold up their heads to let the water run down. the rest of the morning we made curtains, and the children loved it. there was much discussion and at first the children suggested making them all different, but they agreed that curtains at windows were usually alike. mr. and mrs. harry nearly quarrelled, as one wanted green and the other pink. i suggested trimming the green with a strip of pink, and they were quite pleased. mrs. loo and nurse chose green which was to be sewn with red silk. sylvia said, "a pattern," and i said, "you saw something red and green to-day," and she called out, "oh! cherries." she cut out a round of paper and tried to sew round it, holding it in place with her other hand. i suggested putting in a stitch to hold the paper. cecil was absorbed in sewing, and it seemed quieting for such an excitable boy and good for his weak hands. one child said, "fancy a boy sewing," so i told how soldiers and sailors sewed. they sewed just as they liked. these notes are continued in chapter ix., where they are used to show children's attitude towards nature. though separated here for a special purpose it is clear that there neither is nor ought to be any real separation in the lives of the children. their lives are wholes and they continually pass from one "subject" to another, because life and its circumstances are making new demands. if it rains and you cannot gather the lettuces you have grown from seed, you take refuge in happy pretence; if it clears and the sun calls you out of doors, you take your doll-babies for their walk. chapter vii joy in making i, too, will something make, and joy in the making. robert bridges. built by that only law, that use be suggester of beauty. arthur clough. there has always been _making_ in the kindergarten, since to froebel the impulse to create was a characteristic of self-conscious humanity. stopford brooke points out that browning's caliban, though almost brute, shows himself human, in that, besides thinking out his natural religion, he also dramatises and creates, "falls to make something." 'tis solace making baubles, ay, and sport. tasteth, himself, no finer good i' the world than trying what to do with wit and strength-what does a child gain from his ceaseless attempts at making? froebel's answer was that intellectually, through making he gains ideas, which, received in words, remain mere words. "to learn through life and action is more developing than to learn through words: expression in plastic material, united with thought and speech, is far more developing than mere repetition of words." morally, it is through impressing himself on his surroundings, that the child reaches the human attributes of self-consciousness and self-control. one of the most important passages froebel ever wrote is this: "the deepest craving of the child's life is to see itself mirrored in some external object. through such reflection, he learns to know his own activity, its essence, direction and aim, and learns to determine his activity in accordance with outer things. such mirroring of the inner life is essential, for through it the child comes to self-consciousness, and learns to order, determine and master himself." it is from the point of view of expression alone that froebel regards art, and drawing, he takes to be "the first revelation of the creative power within the child." the very earliest drawing to which he refers is what he calls "sketching the object on itself," that is, the tracing round the outlines of things, whereby the child learns form by co-ordinating sight and motor perceptions, a stage on which dr. montessori has also laid much stress. besides noting how children draw "round scissors and boxes, leaves and twigs, their own hands, and even shadows," he sees that from experimentation with any pointed stick or scrap of red stone or chalk, may come what mr. e. cooke called a language of line, and now "the horse of lines, the man of lines" will give much pleasure. after this it is true that "whatever a child knows he will put into his drawing," and the teacher's business is to see that he has abundant perceptions and images to express. another kind of drawing which children seem to find for themselves is what they call making patterns. out of this came the old-fashioned chequer drawing, now condemned as injurious to eyesight and of little value. when children see anything rich in colour the general cry is "let's paint it," which is their way of taking in the beauty. we should not, says froebel, give them paints and brushes inconsiderately, to throw about, but give them the help they need, and he describes quite a sensible lesson given to boys "whose own painting did not seem to paint them long." teachers who want real help in the art training of children should read the excellent papers by miss findlay in _school and life_, where we are told that we must rescue the term "design" from the limited uses to which it is often condemned in the drawing class, viz. the construction of pleasing arrangements of colour and form for surface decoration. "we shall use it in its full popular significance in constructive work.... the term will cover building houses, making kettles, laying out streets, planning rooms, dressing hair, as well as making patterns for cushion covers and cathedral windows.... in thus widening our art studies, we shall be harking back in a slight degree to the kind of training that in past ages produced the great masters.... giotto designed his campanile primarily for the bells that were to summon the florentines to their cathedral; the venetians wanted façades for their palaces, and made façades to delight their eyes; the japanese have wanted small furniture for their small rooms, and have developed wonderful skill and taste in designing it. neither art nor science can remain long afloat in high abstract regions above the needs and interests of human life. to quote a.h. clough: 'a cathedral pure and perfect. built by that only law, that use be suggester of beauty; nothing concealed that is, done, but all things done to adornment; meanest utilities seized as occasions to grace and embellish.'" if this is true of the interests of the professional artist, much more must it be true of the art training of the child. we must not then despise the rough and ready productions of a child, nor force upon him a standard for which he is not ready. before any other construction is possible to him, a child can _make_ with sand, and this is a constant joy, from the endless puddings that are turned out of patty pans, up to such models as that of the whole "isle of wight" with its tunnelled cliffs and system of railways, made by an ex-kindergarten boy as yet innocent of geography lessons. the child then who is making, especially making for use, is to a certain extent developing himself as an artist. the little boys at keilhau were well provided with sand, moss, etc., to use with their building blocks, and it was a former keilhau boy who suggested to his old master that some kind of sand-box would make a good plaything for the children in his new kindergarten. miss wiggin tells us that indirectly we owe the children's sand-heaps in the public parks to froebel, since these were the result of a suggestion made by frau schrader to the empress frederick, and the idea was carried out during her husband's too brief reign. another very early "making" is the arranging of furniture for shops, carriages, trains, and the "ships upon the stairs," which made bright pictures in stevenson's memory. building blocks are truly, as froebel puts it, "the finest and most variable material that can be offered a boy for purposes of representation." the little boxes associated with the kindergarten were originally planned for the use of nursery children two to three years of age, and in most if not in all kindergartens these have been replaced by larger bricks. it is many years now since, at miss payne's suggestion, we bought some hundreds of road paving blocks, and these are such a source of pleasure that the children often dream about them. living out the life around presents much opportunity for making, which may be done with blocks, but which even in the kindergarten can be done with tools. care must be exercised, but children have quite a strong instinct for self-preservation, and if shown how real workmen handle their tools, they are often more careful than at a much later stage. to make a workable railway signal is more interesting and much more educative than to use one that came from a shop. the teacher may make illuminating discoveries in the process, as when one set of children desired to make a counter for a shop, and arranged their piece of wood vertically so that the counter had no top. it was found that to these very little people the most important part was the high front against which they were accustomed to stand, not the flat top which they seldom saw. another set of children made a cart on which the farmer was to carry his corn, and exemplified dewey's "concrete logic of action." at first they only wanted a board on wheels, but the corn fell off, so they nailed on sides, but the cart never had either back or front and resembled some seen in early english pictures. any kind of cooking that can be done is a most important kind of making; even the very little ones can help, and they thoroughly enjoy watching. "her hands were in the dough from three years old," said a north-country mother, "so i taught her how to bake, and now (at seven) she can bake as well as i can." children delight in carrying out the processes involved in the making of flour, and they can easily thrash a little wheat, then winnow, grind between stones and sift it. their best efforts produce but a tiny quantity of flour, but the experience is real, interest is great, and a new significance attaches to the shop flour from which bread is ultimately produced. butter and cheese can easily be made, also jam, and even a christmas pudding. in very early kindergartens we read of the growing, digging and cooking of potatoes, and of the extraction of starch to be used as paste. special anniversaries require special making. we possess a doll of 1794 to whom her old mother bequeathed her birthday. the doll's birthday is a great event, and on the previous day each class in turn bakes tiny loaves, or cakes or pastry for the party. christmas creates a need for decorations, christmas cards and presents, and empire day and trafalgar day for flags, while in many places there is an annual sale on behalf of a charity. it does not do to be too modern and to despise all the old-fashioned "makings," which gave such pleasure some years ago. kindergarten paper-folding has fallen into an undeserved oblivion. the making of boats or cocked-hats from old newspaper is a great achievement for a child, and to make pigs and purses, corner cupboards and chairs for paper dolls is still a delight, and calls forth real concentration and effort. making in connection with some whole, such as the continuous representation of life around us, and, at a later stage, the re-inventing of primitive industries, or making which arises out of some special interest may have a higher educational value, but apart from this, children want to make for making's sake. "can't i make something in wood like boy does?" asked a little girl. there is joy in the making, joy in being a cause, and for this the children need opportunity, space and time. there is a lesson to many of us in some verses by miss f. sharpley, lately published (_educational handwork_), which should be entitled, "when can i make my little ship?" i'd like to cut, and cut, and cut, and over the bare floor to strew my papers all about, and then to cut some more. i'd sweep them up so neatly, too, but mother says, "oh no! there is no time, it's seven o'clock; to bed you quickly go!" in school, i'd just begun to make a pretty little ship, but i was slow, and all the rest stood up to dance and skip. when shall i make my little ship? at home there is no gloy, and father builds it by himself or goes to buy a toy. chapter viii stories let me tell the stories and i care not who makes the textbooks. stanley hall. "is it bible story to-day or any _kind_ of a story?" was the greeting of an eager child one morning. "usually they were persuading him to tell stories," writes ebers, from his recollections of froebel as an old man at keilhau. "he was never seen crossing the courtyard without a group of the younger pupils hanging to his coat tails and clasping his arms. usually they were persuading him to tell stories, and when he condescended to do so, the older ones flocked around him, too, and they were never disappointed. what fire, what animation the old man had retained!" so froebel could write with feeling of "the joyful faces, the sparkling eyes, the merry shouts that welcome the genuine story-teller"; he had a right to pronounce that "the child's desire and craving for tales, for legends, for all kinds of stories, and later on for historical accounts, is very intense." surely there was never a little one who did not crave for stories, though here and there may be found an older child, who got none at the right time, and who, therefore, lost that most healthy of appetites. most of us will agree that there is something wrong with the child who does not like stories, but it may be that the something wrong belonged to the mother. one such said to the abbé klein one day, "my children have never asked for stories." "but, madame," was the reply, "neither would they ask for cake if they had never eaten it, or even seen it." it is easy for us to find reasons why we should tell stories. we can brush aside minor aims such as increasing the child's vocabulary. undoubtedly his vocabulary does increase enormously from listening to stories, but it is difficult to imagine that any one could rise to real heights in story-telling with this as an aim or end. that the narrator should clothe his living story in words expressive of its atmosphere, and that the listener should in this way gain such power over language, that he, too, can fitly express himself is quite another matter. first, then, we tell stories because we love to tell them and because the children love to listen. we choose stories that appeal to our audience. it is something beautiful, humorous, heroic or witty that we have found, and being social animals we want to share it. as educators with an aim before us, we deliberately tell stories in order to place before our children ideals of unselfishness, courage and truth. we know from our own experience, not only in childhood, but all through life how the story reaches our feelings as no sermon or moralising ever does, and we have learned that "out of the heart are the issues of life." unguided feelings may be a danger, but the story does more than rouse feelings--it gives opportunity for the exercise of moral judgement, for the exercise of judgement upon questions of right and wrong. feeling is aroused, but it is not usually a personal feeling, so judgement is likely to be unbiassed. it may, however, be biassed by the tone absorbed from the environment even in childhood, as when the mother makes more of table etiquette than of kindness, and the child, instead of condemning jacob's refusal to feed his hungry brother with the red pottage, as all natural children do condemn, says: "no, esau shouldn't have got it, 'cause he asked for it." as a rule, the children's standard is correct enough, and approval or condemnation is justly bestowed, provided that the story has been chosen to suit the child's stage of development. one little girl objected strongly to macaulay's ideal roman, who "in rome's quarrel, spared neither land nor gold, nor son nor wife." "that wasn't right," she said stoutly, "he ought to think of his own wife and children first." she was satisfied, however, when it was explained to her that horatius might be able to save many fathers to many wives and children. in my earliest teaching days, having found certain history stories successful with children of seven, i tried the same with children of six, but only once. edmund of east anglia dying for his faith fell very flat. "what was the good of that?" said one little fellow, "'cause if you're dead you can't do anything! but if you're alive, you can get more soldiers and win a victory." the majority of the class, however, seemed to feel with another who asked, "why didn't he promise while the danes were there? he needn't have kept it when they went away." another way of stating our aim in telling stories to children is that a story presents morality in the concrete. virtues and vices _per se_ neither attract nor repel, they simply mean nothing to a child, until they are presented as the deeds of man or woman, boy or girl, living and acting in a world recognised as real. one telling story is that of the boy who got hold of miss edgeworth's _parent's assistant_ and who said to his mother, "mother, i've been reading 'the little merchants' and i know now how horrid it is to cheat and tell lies." "i have been telling you that ever since you could speak," said his mother, to which the boy answered, "yes, i know, but that didn't interest me." our children had been told the story of how the countess of buchan crowned the bruce, a duty which should have been performed by her brother the earl of fife, who, however, was too much afraid of the wrath of english edward. a few days after, an argument arose and one little girl was heard to say, "i don't want to be brave," and a boy rejoined, "girls don't need to be brave." i said, "which would you rather be, the countess who put the crown on the king's head, or the brother who ran away?" and quickly came the answer, "oh! the brave countess," from the very child who didn't want to be brave! froebel sums up the teacher's aim in the words: "the telling of stories is a truly strengthening spirit-bath, it gives opportunity for the exercise of all mental powers, opportunity for testing individual judgement and individual feelings." but why is it that children crave for stories? "education," says miss blow, a veteran froebelian, "is a series of responses to indicated needs," and undoubtedly the need for stories is as pressing as the need to explore, to experiment and to construct. what is the unconscious need that is expressed in this craving, why is this desire so deeply implanted by nature? so far, no one seems to have given a better answer than froebel has done, when he says that the desire for stories comes out of the need to understand life, that it is in fact rooted in the instinct of investigation. "only the study of the life of others can furnish points of comparison with the life the boy himself has experienced. the story concerns other men, other circumstances, other times and places, yet the hearer seeks his own image, he beholds it and no one knows that he sees it." man cannot be master of his surroundings till he investigates and so gathers knowledge. but he has to adapt himself not only to the physical but to the human environment in which he lives. in stories of all kinds, children study human life in all kinds of circumstances, nay, if the story is sufficiently graphic they almost go through the experiences narrated, almost live the new life. with very young children the most popular of all stories is the "the three bears" and it is worth a little analysis. a little girl runs away, and running away is a great temptation to little girls and boys, as great an adventure as running off to sea will be at a later stage. she goes into a wood and meets bears: what else could you expect! the story then deals with really interesting things, porridge, basins, chairs and beds. the strong contrast of the bears' voices fascinates children, and just when retribution might descend upon her, the heroine escapes and gets safe home. children revel in the familiar details, but these alone would not suffice, there must be adventure, excitement, romance. one feels that southey had the assistance of a child in making his story so complete, and we can hear the questions: "how did the big bear know that the little girl had tasted his porridge? oh, because she had left the spoon. how did he know that she had sat in his chair? because she left the cushion untidy, and as for the little bear's chair, why, she sat that right out." that quite little children desire fresh experiences or adventures and really exciting ones, is shown by the following stories made by children. the first two are by a little girl of two-and-a-half, the third is taken from lady glenconner's recently published _the sayings of the children_. "once upon a time there was a giant and a little girl, and he told a little girl not to kiss a bear acos he would bite her, and the little girl climbed right on his back and she jumped right down the stairs and the bear came walking after the little girl and kissing her, and she called it a little bear and it was a big bear! (immense amusement). "once upon a time there was a little piggy and he was right in a big green and white fire and he didn't hurt hisself, and (told as a tremendous secret) he touched a fire with his handie. 'what a naughty piggy,' said auntie, 'and what next?' he jumped right out of a fire. auntie, can you smile? (for aunties cannot smile when people are naughty.)" the third story is said to have been filled with pauses due to a certain slowness of speech, but the pauses are "lit by the lightning flash of a flying eyebrow, and the impressive nodding of a silken head." "once, you know, there was a fight between a little pony and a lion, and the lion sprang against the pony and the pony put his back against a stack and bited towards the lion, and the lion rolled over and the pony jumped up, and he ran up ... and the pony turned round and the lion ..." his mother felt she had lost the thread. "which won?" she asked. "which won!" he repeated and after a moment's pause he said, "oh! the little bear." this surprising conclusion points to a stage when it is difficult for a child to hold the thread of a narrative, and at this stage, along with simple stories of little ones like themselves, repetition or "accumulation" stories seem to give most pleasure. "henny penny" and "billy bobtail"--told by jacobs as "how jack went to seek his fortune"--are prime favourites. repetition of rhythmic phrases has a great attraction, as in "three little pigs," with its delightful repetition of "little pig, little pig, let me come in," "no, no, by the hair of my chinny chin chin," "then i'll huff and i'll puff and i'll blow your house in." very soon, however, the children are ready for the time-honoured fairy-tale or folk-tale. the orthodox beginning, "once upon a time, in a certain country there lived ...," fits the stage when neither time nor place is of any consequence. animals speak, well why not, we can! the fairies accomplish wonders, again why not? wonderful things do happen and they must have a wonderful cause, and, as one child said, if there never had been any fairies, how could people have written stories about them? goodness is rewarded and wickedness is punished, as is only right in the child's eyes, and goodness usually means kindness, the virtue best understood of children. obedience is no doubt the nursery virtue in the eyes of authority, but kindness is much more human and attractive. "both child and man," says froebel, "desire to know the significance of what happens around them; this is the foundation of greek choruses, especially in tragedy, and of many productions in the realm of legends and fairy-tales. it is the result of the deep-rooted consciousness, the slumbering premonition of being surrounded by that which is higher and more conscious than ourselves." the fairy tale is the child's mystery land, his recognition that there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in our philosophy or in our science. dr. montessori protests against the idea that fairy-tales have anything to do with the religious sense, saying that "faith and fable are as the poles apart." she does not understand that it is for their truth that we value fairy-tales. the truths they teach are such as that courage and intelligence can conquer brute strength, that love can brave and can overcome all dangers and always finds the lost, that kindness begets kindness and always wins in the end. the good and the faithful marries the princess--or the prince--and lives happy ever after. and assuredly if he does not marry his princess, he will not live happy, and if she does not marry the prince, she will live in no beautiful palace. and there is more. take for instance, the story of "toads and diamonds." the courteous maiden who goes down the well, who gives help where it is needed, and who works faithfully for mother holle,[21] comes home again dropping gold and diamonds when she speaks. her silence may be silver, but her speech is golden, and her words give light in dark places. the selfish and lazy girl, who refuses help and whose work is unfaithful and only done for reward, has her reward. henceforth, when she speaks, down fall toads and snakes her words are cold as she is, they may glitter but they sting. [footnote 21: this version is probably a mixture of the versions of perrault and grimm but mother holle shaking her feathers is worth bringing in.] fairyand folk-tales give wholesome food to the desire for adventure, whereas in what we may call realistic stories, adventure is chiefly confined to the naughty child, who is therefore more attractive than the good and stodgy. even among fairy-tales we may select. "beauty and the beast" and "the sleeping beauty" and "snow-white and rose-red" are distinctly preferable to "jack the giant killer" or "puss in boots," while "bluebeard" cannot be told. it seems to me that children can often safely read for themselves stories the adult cannot well tell. the child's notion of justice is crude, bad is bad, and whether embodied in an ogre or in pharaoh of egypt, it must be got rid of, put out of the story. no child is sorry for the giant when jack's axe cleaves the beanstalk, and as for pharaoh, "well, it's a good thing he's drowned, for he was a bad man, wasn't he?" death means nothing to children, as a rule, except disappearance. when children can read for themselves, they will take from their stories what suits their stage of development, their standard of judgement, and we need not interfere, even though they regard with perfect calm what seems gruesome to the adult. as a valuable addition to the best-known fairy-tales, we may mention one or two others: _grannie's wonderful chair_ is a delightful set of stories, full of charming pictures, though the writer, frances brown, was born blind. mrs. ewing's stories for children, _the brownies_, with _amelia and the dwarfs_ and _timothy's shoes_, are inimitable, and her _old-fashioned fairy tales_ are very good, but not for very young children. her other stories are certainly about children, but are, as a rule, written for adults. george macdonald's stories are all too well known and too universally beloved to need recommendation. but in telling them, _e.g._ "the princess and the goblins" or "at the back of the north wind," the young teacher must remember that they are beautiful allegories. before she ventures to tell them, the beginner should ponder well what the poet--for these are prose poems--means, and who is represented by the beautiful great-great-grandmother always old and always young, or "north wind" who must sink the ship but is able to bear the cry from it, because of the sound of a far-off song, which seems to swallow up all fear and pain and to set the suffering "singing it with the rest." _water-babies_ is a bridge between the fairy-tale of a child and equally wonderful and beautiful fairy-tales of nature, and it, too, is full of meaning. if the teacher has gained this, the children will not lag behind. it was a child of backward development, who, when she heard of mother carey, "who made things make themselves," said, "oh! i know who that was, that was god." such stories must be spread out over many days of telling, but they gain rather than lose from that, though for quite young children the stories do require to be short and simple, and often repeated. if children get plenty of these, the stage for longer stories is reached wonderfully soon. pseudo-scientific stories, in which, for example, a drop of water discusses evaporation and condensation, are not stories at all, but a kind of mental meat lozenge, most unsatisfying and probably not even fulfilling their task of supplying nourishment in form of facts. fables usually deal with the faults and failings of grown-ups, and may be left for children to read for themselves, to extract what suits them. illustrations are not always necessary, but if well chosen they are always a help. warne has published some delightfully illustrated stories for little children, "the three pigs," "hop o' my thumb," "beauty and the beast," etc. they are illustrated by h.m. brock and by leslie brooke, and they really are illustrated. the artists have enjoyed the stories and children equally enjoy the pictures. the teacher must consider what ideas she is presenting and whether words alone can convey them properly. we must remember that most children visualise and that they can only do so from what they have seen. so, without illustrations, a castle may be a suburban house with nottingham lace curtains and an aspidistra, while perseus or moses may differ little from the child's own father or brothers. again, town children cannot visualise hill and valley, forest and moor, brook and river, not to mention jungles and snowfields and the trackless ocean. it is not easy to find pictures to give any idea of such scenes, but it is worth while to look for them, and it is also worth while for the teacher to visualise, and to practise vivid describing of what she sees. children, of course, only want description when it is really a part of the story, as when tom crosses the moor, descends lewthwaite crag, or travels from brook to river and from river to sea. as to how a story should be told, opinions differ. it must be well told with a well-modulated voice and with slight but effective gesture. but the model should be the story as told in the home, not the story told from a platform. the children need not be spellbound all the time, but should be free to ask sensible questions and to make childlike comments in moderation. the language should fit the subject; beautiful thoughts need beauty of expression, high and noble deeds must be told in noble language. a teacher who wishes to be a really good teller of stories must herself read good literature, and she will do well not only to prepare her stories with care, but to consider the language she uses in daily life. there is a happy medium between pedantry and the latest variety of slang, and if daily speech is careless and slipshod, it is difficult to change it for special occasions. our stories should not only prepare for literature, they should be literature, and those who realise what the story may do for children will not grudge time spent in preparation. if the story is to present an ideal, let us see that we present a worthy one; if it is to lead the children to judge of right and wrong, let us see that we give them time and opportunity to judge and that we do not force their judgement. lastly, if the story is to make the children feel, let us see that the feeling is on the right side, that they shrink from all that is mean, selfish, cruel and cowardly, and sympathise with whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report. chapter ix in grassy places my heart leaps up when i behold a rainbow in the sky, so was it when my life began so be it when i shall grow old, or let me die. what is the real aim of what we call nature-lessons, nature-teaching, nature-work? it is surely to foster delight in beauty, so that our hearts shall leap up at sight of the rainbow until we die. for, indeed, if we lose that uplift of the heart, some part of us has died already. yet even wordsworth mourns that nothing can bring back the hour of splendour in the grass and glory in the flower! in its answer to the question "what is the chief end of man?" the old shorter catechism has a grand beginning: "man's chief end is to glorify god and to enjoy him for ever." do we lose the vision because we are not bold enough to take that enjoyment as our chief end? to enjoy good is to enjoy god. our ends or aims are our desires, and mr. clutton brock, in his _ultimate belief_, urges teachers to recognise that the spirit of man has three desires, three ends, and that it cannot be satisfied till it attains all three. man desires to do right, so far as he sees it, for the sake of doing right; he desires to gain knowledge or to know for the sake of knowing, for the sake of truth; and he desires beauty. "we do not value that which we call beautiful because it is true, or because it is good, but because it is beautiful. there is a glory of the universe which we call truth which we discover and apprehend, and a glory of the universe which we call beauty and which we discover or apprehend." froebel begins his _education of man_ by an inquiry into the reason for our existence and his answer is that _all_ things exist to make manifest the spirit, the _élan vital_, which brought them into being. "_sursum corda_," says stevenson, lift up your hearts art and blue heaven april and god's larks green reeds and sky scattering river a stately music enter god. and browning? "if you get simple beauty and nought else, you get about the best thing god invents." to let children get that beauty should be our aim, and they must get it in their own way. "life in and with nature and with the fair silent things of nature, should be fostered by parents and others," froebel tells us, "as a chief fulcrum of child-life, and this is accomplished chiefly in play, which is at first simply natural life." let us surmount the ruts of our teaching experience and climb high enough to look back upon our own childhood, to see where beauty called to us, where we attained to beauty. among my own earliest recollections come a first view of the starry sky and the discovery of heaven. no one called attention to the stars, they spoke themselves to a child of four or five and declared "the glory of god." heaven was not on high among these glorious stars, however. it was a grassy place with flowers and sunshine. it had to be heaven because you went through the cemetery to reach it, and because it was so bright and flowery and there were no graves in it. i never found it again, because i had forgotten how to get there. another very early memory is one of grief, to see from the window how the gardener was mowing down all the daisies, and there were so many, in the grass; and yet another is of a high, grassy, sunny field with a little stream running far down below. it was not really far and there was nothing particularly beautiful in the place to grown-up eyes, but the beholder was very small and loved it dearly. to his art and blue heaven stevenson might have added sun and green grass. for he knew what grassy places are to the child, and that "happy play in grassy places" might well be heaven to the little one. a most interesting little book called _what is a kindergarten?_[22] was published some years ago in america. it is written by a landscape gardener, and contains most valuable suggestions as to how best to use for a kindergarten or nursery school plots of ground which may be secured for that purpose. naturally the writer has much to say on the laying out and stocking the available space to the best advantage, choosing the most suitable positions for the house, where the teacher must live, he says, to supply the atmosphere of a home; for animal hutches, for sand-heaps and seesaws; for the necessary shelter, for the children's gardens, and for the lawn, for even on his smallest plan, a "twenty-five-foot lot," we find "room for a spot of green." later he explains that for this green one must use what will grow, and if grass will not perhaps clover will. the way in which the trees and plants are chosen is most suggestive. beauty and suitability are always considered, but he remembers his own youth, and also considers the special joys of childhood. for it is not nature lessons that come into his calculations but "the mere association of plants and children." so the birch tree is chosen, partly for its grace and beauty, but also because of its bark, for one can scribble on its papery surface; the hazel, because children delight in the catkins with their showers of golden dust, and the nut "hidden in its cap of frills and tucks." and he adds: "how much more alluring than the naked fruit from the grocer's sack are these nuts, especially when dots for eyes and mouth are added, and a whole little face is tucked within this natural bonnet." [footnote 22: g. hansen, pub. elder, morgan & shepherd, san francisco, 1891.] in addition to the flowers chosen for beauty of colour, this lover of children and of gardens wants canterbury bells to ring, forget-me-nots because they can stand so much watering, and "flowers with faces," pansies, sweet-peas, lupins, snapdragons, monkey flowers, red and white dead nettles, and red clover to bring the bees. some of these are chosen because the child can do something with them, can find their own uses for them, can play with them. and, speaking generally, playing with them is the child's way of appreciating both plant and animal. picking feathery grasses, red-tipped daisies, sweet-smelling clover and golden dandelions; feeding snapdragons with fallen petals, finding what's o'clock by blowing dandelion fruits, paying for dock tea out of a fairy purse, shading poppy dolls with woodruff parasols, that is how a child enjoys the beauty of colour, scent and form. he gets not more but less beauty when he must sit in a class and answer formal questions. "must we talk about them before we take the flowers home?" asked a child one day; "they are so pretty." clearly, the "talk" was going to lessen, not to deepen the beauty. and animals? the child plays with cat and dog, he feeds the chickens, the horse and the donkey, he watches with the utmost interest caterpillar, snail and spider, but he does not want to be asked questions about them--he does want to talk and perhaps to ask the questions himself--nor does he always want even to draw, paint or model them. mostly he wants to watch, and perhaps just to stir them up a little if they do not perform to his satisfaction. he does not necessarily mean to tease, only why should he watch an animal that does nothing? "the animals haven't any habits when i watch them," a little girl once said to professor arthur thomson. all children should live in the country at least for part of the year. they should know fields and gardens, and have intercourse with hens and chickens, cows and calves, sheep and lambs; should make hay and see the corn cut. they would still want the wisely sympathetic teacher, not to arouse interest--that is not necessary, but to keep it alive by keeping pace with the child's natural development. it is not merely living in the country that develops the little child's interest in shape and colour and scent into something deeper. people still "spend all their time in the fields and forests and see and feel nothing of the beauties of nature, and of their influence on the human heart"; and this, said froebel--and it is just what mr. clutton brock is saying now--is because the child "fails to find the same feelings among adults." two effects follow: the child feels the want of sympathy and loses some respect for the elder, and also he loses his original joy in nature. "there is in every human being the passionate desire for this self-forgetfulness--to which it attains when it is aware of beauty--and a passionate delight in it when it comes. the child feels that delight among spring flowers; we can all remember how we felt it in the first apprehension of some new beauty of the universe, when we ceased to be little animals and became aware that there was this beauty outside us to be loved. and most of us must remember, too, the strange indifference of our elders. they were not considering the lilies of the field; they did not want us to get our feet wet among them. we might be forgetting ourselves, but they were remembering us; and we became suddenly aware of the bitterness of life and the tyranny of facts. now parents and nurses (and teachers) have, of course, to remember children when they forget themselves. but they ought to be aware that the child, when he forgets himself in the beauty of the world, is passing through a sacred experience which will enrich and glorify the whole of his life. children, because they are not engaged in the struggle for life, are more capable of this aesthetic self-forgetfulness than they will afterwards be; and they need all of it that they can get, so that they may remember it and prize it in later years. in these heaven-sent moments they know what disinterestedness is. they have a test by which they can value all future experience and know the dullness and staleness of worldly success. therefore it is a sin to check, more than need be, their aesthetic delight" (_the ultimate belief_). we cannot all give to our children the experiences we should like to supply, but if we are clear that we are aiming at enjoyment of nature, and not at supplying information, we shall come nearer to what is desirable. for years, almost since it opened in 1908, miss reed of the michaelis free kindergarten has taken her children to the country. it means a great deal of work and responsibility, it means collecting funds and giving up one's scanty leisure, it means devoted service, but it has been done, and it has been kept up even during war time, though with great difficulty as to funds, because of the inestimable benefit to the children. miss stokes of the somers town nursery school secured a country holiday for her little ones in various ways, partly through the children's country holiday fund, but since the war she has been unable to secure help of that kind, and has managed to take the children away to a country cottage. a paragraph in the report says: "the children in the country had a delightful time, and what was seen and done during their holiday is still talked about continually. these joys entered into all the work of the nursery school and helped the children for months to retain a breath of the country in their london surroundings. they realised much from that visit. cows now have horns, wasps have wings and fly--alas they sting also. hens sit on eggs, an almost unbelievable thing. fishes, newts, tadpoles, were all met with and greeted as friends. children and helpers alike returned home full of health and vigour and longing for the next time. one little maid wept bitterly, and there seemed no joy in life at home until she came across the school rabbit, which was tenderly caressed, and consoled her with memories of the country and hopes for future visits." in the days when teachers argued about the differences between object-lessons and nature-lessons, one point insisted upon was that the nature-lesson far surpassed the object-lesson because it dealt with life. we have learned now that we should as much as we can surround our children with life and growth. even indoors it is easy to give the joy of growing seeds and bulbs and of opening chestnut branches: without any cruelty we can let them enjoy watching snails and worms and we can keep caterpillars or silkworms and so let them drink their fill of the miracle of development. but beauty comes to children in very different ways, and always it is nature, though it may not be life. children revel in colour, colour for its own sake, and should be allowed to create it. in a modern novel there is a description of a mother doing her washing in the open air and "at her feet sat a baby intent upon the assimilation of a gingerbread elephant, but now and then tugging at her skirts and holding up a fat hand. each time he was rewarded by a dab of soapsuds, which she deposited good-naturedly in his palm. he received it with solemn delight; watching the roseate play of colour as the bubbles shrank and broke, and the lovely iridescent treasure vanished in a smear of dirty wetness while he looked. then he would beat his fists delightedly against his mother's dress and presently demand another handful." the following notes from another student's report show how this may spring naturally out of the children's life:[23] [footnote 23: miss edith jones.] "we were spinning the teetotum yesterday and it did not spin well so we made new ones. while the children were painting their tops, oliver grew very eager when he found he could fill in all the spaces in different colours, but betty made her colours very insipid. i want them to get the feeling of beautiful colour, so i shall show them a book with the colours graded in it, and we shall each have a paper and paint on it all the rich colours we can think of. the colours will probably run into each other, and so the children will get ideas about the blending of colours, but i will watch to see that they do not get the colour too wet. if they are not tired of painting i want to show them a painted circle to turn on a string and they can make these for themselves, using the colours they have already used. "i want the children to do some group work, and i thought we might make a village with shops and houses under the trees in the garden and have little men and women to represent ourselves. the suggestion will probably have to come from the teacher, but the children will probably have the desire when it is suggested, and i hope we shall be able to go on enlarging our town on the pattern of the towns the children know. if they want bricks for their houses they can dig clay in the garden. "_report_.--the children wanted to make a tea-set, so we carried our clay outside. they began discussing why their china would not be so fine as the china at home, and i said the clay might be different. then bernard asked what sort of china we should get from the clay in the garden, and i told him that kind of clay was generally made into bricks, and suggested making bricks. from that we went on to the use of bricks, and to-morrow we are going to dig, and make bricks to build a town. bernard is anxious to know how we shall make mortar. just then it started to rain, and bernard said that if the sun kept shining and it rained hard enough we should have a rainbow, and he wished it would come so as to see the beautiful colours. i thought this rather a coincidence, and told him i had a book with all the rainbow colours in it. they asked to see it, so i showed it and suggested painting the colours ourselves. those who had finished their dishes started, and we talked about the richness of the colours. one or two children started with very watery colour, so i showed them the book and began to paint myself. they all enjoyed it very much, especially the different colours made where the colours ran into each other. the results pleased them and they are to be used as wall-papers to sell in our town, but sybil wants to have a toy shop, and she is going to make a painted circle for it like the one i showed." this is clearly the time to show a glass prism and to let these children make rainbows for themselves, to tell the story of iris, and to use any colour material, milton bradley spectrum papers, montessori silks, colour top, and anything else so long as the children keep up their interest. the interest in colour need never die out; it will probably show itself now in finer discrimination, and more careful reproduction of the colours of flowers and leaves, and the sympathy given will heighten interest and increase enjoyment. here are some notes showing children's numerous activities in a suburban garden where they were allowed to visit a hen and chickens. "_monday_[24]--to-day the children took up their mustard and cress, dug and raked the ground ready for transplanting the lettuces. after their rest we went to see the chickens at the hall (the students' hostel), and the hall garden seemed to them a wonderful place. they watched the trains go in and out of the station at the foot of the garden, and explored all the side doors, going up and down all the steps and into the cycle shed. they helped miss s. to stir the soot water, then they went to the grassy bank and ran down it, slid down it, and rolled down it. they peeped over the wall into the next garden, they peeped through holes in the fences and finished up with a swing in the hammock. each child had twenty swings, and they enjoyed counting in time with the swaying of the hammock, and swayed their own bodies as they pushed. [footnote 24: these notes are part of those already given on pp. 68-71.] "another example of love and rhythm was when they went to say good-bye to the hen and chickens, and kept on repeating 'good-bye, good-bye' all together, nodding their heads at the same time. "i did not know if i should have let them do so much, but i was not sure that we should be allowed to come back and i wanted them to enjoy the garden. "_wednesday_.--first we watered the lettuces we had transplanted, and transplanted more. then, as we had permission to come again, we took some of our lettuces to the chickens. we saw the mother hen with one wing spread right out, and the children were much surprised to see how large it was. we looked at the roses, and saw how the bud of yesterday was full blown to-day. the children again ran down and rolled down the bank, and had turns in the hammock, this time to the rhythm of "margery daw" sung twice through, and then counting up to twenty. very often they went to watch the trains. cecil is particularly interested in them, and wanted to know how long was the time between. he said three minutes, i guessed nine, but we found they were irregular. in the intervals while waiting for a train to pass, we played a 'listening' game, listening to what sounds we could hear. a thrush came and sang right over our heads, so the listening was concentrated on his song, and we tried to say what we thought he meant to say. one child said, 'he says, "come here, come here,"' but they found this too difficult. we also watched a boy cleaning the station windows, and dorothy said, 'miss beer, isn't it wonderful that you can see through glass?' i agreed, but made no other remark because i did not know what to say. "we rested outside to-day under an almond tree. i pointed out how pretty the sky looked when you only saw it peeping through the leaves. after rest the children noticed feathery grasses, and spent the rest of the morning gathering them. i suggested that they should see how many kinds they could find. they found three, but were not enthusiastic about it, being content just to pluck, but they were delighted when they found specially long and beautiful grasses hidden deep under a leafy bush. they also found clover leaves, and i told them its name and sang to them the verse from 'the bee,' with 'the sweet-smelling clover, he, humming, hangs over.' "_thursday._--brushed and dusted the room, gave fresh water to the flowers, and then went to gardening. the children were delighted to find ladybirds on the lettuces they were transplanting, and we also noticed how the cherries were ripening. "they joined the transition class for games. later, while playing with the sand, cecil made a discovery. he said, 'miss beer, do you know, i know what sand is, it's little tiny tiny stones.'" it may be worth while to notice some things in these notes. first the pleasure in exploring the new surroundings and then the variety of delights. our landscape gardener mentions that "any slope to our grounds should be welcomed.... for as we leave the level land and flee to the mountains to spend our vacation, so will a child avoid the street and seek the gutter and the bank on the unimproved lot to enjoy its pastime." our own children have been fortunate enough to have a bank for their play, and though, unfortunately, extension of buildings has taken away much of this, we have had abundant opportunity to see the value of sloping ground. then there are the discoveries, the feathery grasses, especially those which were hidden, the ladybirds, that sand is really "tiny tiny stones"--has every adult noticed that, or is sand "just sand"?--and the "wonder" that we can see through glass, a wonder realised by a little girl of four years old. also we can notice what the children did not desire. they liked listening to the thrush, but to make out what the thrush was "saying" was beyond them. they liked gathering feathery grasses, but to sort these into different kinds gave no pleasure, though older children would have enjoyed trying to find many varieties. perhaps teachers with a fair amount of experience might have felt like the beginner who frankly says, "i didn't say anything more because i didn't know what to say," when dorothy discovered the wonderfulness of glass. perhaps we are silent because the child has gone ahead of us. it is wonderful, but we have never thought about it. in such cases we must, as froebel says, "become a learner with the child" and humbly, with real sympathy and earnestness, ask, "is it wonderful, i suppose it is, but i never thought about it, why do _you_ call it wonderful?" if the child answers, it is well, if not the teacher can go on thinking aloud, thinking with the child. "let's think what other things we can see through." we can never understand it, we can only reach the fact of "transparency" as a wonderful property of certain substances and consider which possess this magic quality. there is water of course, and there is jelly or gelatine, but these are not hard, they are not stones as glass seems to be. the child will be pleased too to see a crystal or a bit of mica, but the main thing is that we should not imagine we have disposed of the wonder by a mere name with a glib, "oh, that's just because it's transparent," but that we realise, and reinforce and deepen the child's sense of wonderfulness. so teacher and child enter into the thoughts of him who endlessly was teaching above my spirits utmost reaching, what love can do in the leaf or stone, so that to master this alone, this done in the stone or leaf for me, i must go on learning endlessly. chapter x a way to god wonders chiefly at himself who can tell him what he is or how meet in human elf coming and past eternities. emerson. it is of set purpose that this short chapter, referring to what we specially call religion, is placed immediately after that on the child's attitude to nature. the actual word religion, which, to him, expressed being bound, did not appeal to froebel so much as one which expressed one-ness with god. as a son can share the aspirations of his father, so man "a thought of god" can aspire from earth's level where blindly creep things perfected more or less to the heaven's height far and steep. but we begin at earth's level, and a child's religion must be largely a natural religion. how to introduce a child to religion is a problem which must have many solutions. in froebel's original training course, his kindergarten teachers were to be "trained to the observation and care of the earliest germs of the religious instinct in man." these earliest beginnings he found in different sources. first come the relations between the child and the family, beginning with the mother; fatherhood and motherhood must be realised before the child can reach up to the father of all. then there is the atmosphere of the home, the real reverence for higher things, if it exists, affects even a little child more than is usually supposed, but children are quick to distinguish reality from mere conventionality though the distinction is only half conscious. reality impresses, while conventionality is apt to bore. even to quite young children froebel's ideal mother would begin to show god in nature. some one put into the flowers the scent and colour that delight the child--some one whom he cannot see. the sun, moon and stars give light and beauty, and "love is what they mean to show." this mother teaches her little one some sort of prayer, and the gesture of reverence, the folded hands, affects the child even if the words mean little or nothing. akin to the "feeling of community" between the child and his family is the joining in religious worship in church, "the entrance in a common life," and the emotional effect of the deep tones of the organ. then there is the interdependence of the universe: the baby is to thank jenny for his bread and milk, peter for mowing the grass for the cow, "until you come to the last ring of all, god's father love for all." next to this comes the child's service; others work for him and he also must serve. "every age has its duties, and duties are not burdens," and it is necessary that feeling should have expression, "for even a child's love unfostered (by action in form of service) droops and dies away." there is also the desire for approbation. the child "must be roused to good by inclination, love, and respect, through the opinion of others about him," and this should be guided until he learns to care chiefly for the approval of the god within. right ideals must be provided: religion is "a continually advancing endeavour," and its reward must not be a material reward. we ought to lift and strengthen human nature, but we degrade and weaken it when we seek to lead it to good conduct by a bait, even if this bait beckons to a future world. the consciousness of having lived worthily should be our highest reward. froebel goes so far as to say that instead of teaching "the good will be happy," and leaving children to imagine that this means an outer or material happiness, we ought rather to teach that in seeking the highest we may lose the lower. "renunciation, the abandonment of the outer for the sake of securing the inner, is the condition for attaining highest development. dogmatic religious instruction should rather show that whoever truly and earnestly seeks the good, must needs expose himself to a life of outer oppression, pain and want, anxiety and care." even a child, though not a baby, can be led to see that to do good for outer reward is but enlightened selfishness. these suggestions are taken for the most part from the _mother songs_, some from _the education of man_. each parent or teacher must use what seems to her or to him most valuable. some may from the beginning desire to teach the child a baby prayer, or at least to let him hear "god bless you." others may prefer to wait for a more intelligent stage, perhaps when the child begins to ask the invariable questions--who made the flowers, the animals; who made me? if so, we must remember that children see, and hear, and think, that often in thoughtless ejaculations, or in those of heartfelt thankfulness, children may hear the name of god; that a simple story may have something that stirs thought; that churches are much in evidence; and that the conversation of little playfellows may take an unexpected turn. to me it seems a great mistake to put before young children ideas which are really beyond the conception of an adult. there are many stories told of how children receive teaching about the omniscience or omnipotence of god. the stories sound irreverent, and are often repeated as highly amusing, but they are really more pathetic. miss shinn tells of one poor mite who resented being constantly watched and said, "i will not be so tagged," and another said, "then i think he's a very rude man," when, in reply to her puzzled questions, she was told that god could see her even in her bath. and the boy who said, "if i had done a thing, could god make it that i hadn't?" must have made his instructor feel somewhat foolish. it never does harm for us honestly to confess our own limitations and our ignorance, and that is better than weak materialistic explanations, which after all explain nothing. to tell a child that the great father is always grieved when we are unkind or cowardly, always ready to help us and to put kindness and bravery into our hearts, that we know he has power to do that if we will let him, but that his power is beyond our understanding: to say that he is able to keep us in all danger, and that even if we are killed we are safe in his keeping, surely that is enough. he who blessed the children uttered strong words against him who caused the little ones to stumble. "from every point, from every object of nature and life there is a way to god.... the things of nature form a more beautiful ladder between heaven and earth than that seen by jacob.... it is decked with flowers, and angels with children's eyes beckon us toward it." this is true, but it does not mean that we are always to be trying to make things sacred, but that we are to realise that all beauty and all knowledge and all sympathy are already sacred, and that to love such things is to love something whereby the creator makes himself known to us, that to enjoy them is to enjoy god. religion is not always explained as implying the idea of being bound, but sometimes as being set free from the bonds of the lower or animal nature. in this sense mr. clutton brock may well call it "a sacred experience" for the child, when he forgets himself in the beauty of the world. if we could all rise to a wider conception of the meaning of the word religion, we should know that it comes into all the work of the day, that it does not depend alone upon that special scripture lesson which may become mere routine. the greatest teacher of all taught by stories, and when any story deepens our feelings for human nature and our recognition of the heights to which it can rise, when it makes us long for faith, courage, and love to go and do likewise, who shall say that this is not religious teaching, teaching which helps to deliver us from the bonds that hamper spiritual ascent. many of us will feel with froebel that the fairy-tale, with its slumbering premonition of being surrounded by that which is higher and more "conscious than ourselves,"[25] has its place, and an important place, in religious development. [footnote 25: p. 85.] the "fairy sense," says dr. greville macdonald, "is innate as the religious sense itself ... the fairy stories best beloved are those steeped in meaning--the unfathomable meaning of life ... such stories teach--even though no lesson was intended--the wisdom of the book of job: wisdom that by this time surely should have made religious teaching saner, and therefore more acceptable."[26] [footnote 26: "the fairy-tale in education," by greville macdonald, m.d., _child life_, dec. 1918.] fairies, like angels, may be god's messengers. a child who had heard of st. cuthbert as a shepherd boy being carried home from the hillside when hurt, by a man on a white horse, repeated the story in her own words, "and he thought it was a fairy of god's sent to help him." there is, however, nothing the children love more than the bible story, the story which shows, so simply, humanity struggling as the children struggle, failing as the children fail, and believing and trusting as the children believe, and as we at least strive to do, in the ultimate victory of right over wrong, of good over evil. but just because the stories are often so beautiful and so inspiring, the teacher should have freedom to deal with them as the spirit moves her. what experience has taught me in this way has already been passed on to younger teachers in _education by life_, and there seems little more to add. wonders chiefly at himself who can tell him what he is. it is for us to tell the child what he is, that he, too, like all the things he loves, is a manifestation of god. "i am a being alive and conscious upon this earth; a descendant of ancestors who rose by gradual processes from lower forms of animal life, and with struggle and suffering became man."[27] [footnote 27: _the substance of faith allied with science_, sir oliver lodge (methuen).] "the colossal remains of shattered mountain chains speak of the greatness of god; and man is encouraged and lifts himself up by them, feeling within himself the same spirit and power."[28] [footnote 28: _the education of man_.] chapter xi rhythm lo with the ancient roots of man's nature twines the eternal passion of song. the very existence of lullabies, not to mention their abundance in all countries, the very rockers on the cradles testify to the rhythmic nature of man in infancy. in his _mother songs_, froebel couples rhythm with harmony of all kinds, not only musical harmony but harmony of proportion and colour, and in urging the very early training of "the germs of all this," he gives perhaps the chief reason for training. "if these germs do not develop and take shape as independent formations in each individual, they at least teach how to understand and to recognise those of other people. this is life-gain enough, it makes one's life richer, richer by the lives of others." it is to the genius of m. jacques dalcroze that the world of to-day owes some idea of what may be effected by rhythmic training, and m. dalcroze started his work with the same aim that froebel set before the mother, that of making the child capable of appreciation, capable of being made "richer by the lives of others." but froebel prophesied that far more than appreciation would come from proper rhythmic training, and this m. dalcroze has amply proved. "through movement the mother tries to lead the child to consciousness of his own life. by regular rhythmic movement--this is of special importance--she brings this power within the child's own conscious control when she dandles him in her arms in rhythmic movements and to rhythmic sounds, cautiously following the slowly developing life in the child, arousing it to greater activity, and so developing it. those who regard the child as empty, who wish to fill his mind from without, neglect the means of cultivation in word and tone which should lead to a sense of rhythm and obedience to law in all human expression. but an early development of rhythmic movement would prove most wholesome, and would remove much wilfulness, impropriety and coarseness from his life, movements, and action, and would secure for him harmony and moderation, and, later on, a higher appreciation of nature, music, poetry, and art" _(education of man_). here, then, is an aim most plainly stated, "higher appreciation of nature, music, poetry and art," and if we adopt it, we must make sure that we start on a road leading to that end. to kindergarten children, apart from movement, rhythm comes first in nursery rhymes, and if we honestly follow the methods of the mother we shall not teach these, but say or sing them over and over again, letting the children select their favourites and join in when and where they like. this is the true _babies' opera_, as walter crane justly names an illustrated collection. froebel's _mother songs_, though containing a deal of sound wisdom in its mottoes and explanations, is an annotated, expurgated, and decidedly pedantic version of the nursery rhymes of his own country. that these should ever have been introduced to our children arose from the fact that the first kindergarten teachers, being foreigners, did not know our own home-grown productions. long since we have shaken off the foreign product, in favour of our own "sing a song of sixpence," "baa, baa, black sheep" and their refreshingly cheerful compeers. froebel's book suggests songs to suit all subjects and all frames of mind--the wind, the moon, and stars, the farm with its cows and sheep, its hens and chickens, the baker and carpenter, fish in the brook and birds in nests, the garden and the christmas fair. we can supply good verses for all these if we take pains to search, and if we eschew ignorant and unpoetic modern doggerel as we eschew poison. besides the nursery rhymes, we have stevenson, with his "wind," "shadow," and "swing," christina rossetti's "wrens and robins," her "rainbow verses" and "brownie, brownie, let down your milk, white as swansdown, smooth as silk." there are many others, and a recent charming addition to our stock is "chimneys and fairies," by rose fyleman. one thing we should not neglect, and that is the child's sense of humour. for the very young this is probably satisfied by the cow that jumps over the moon, the dish that runs after the spoon, jill tumbling after jack, and miss muffet running away from the spider. but older children much enjoy nonsense verses by lewis carroll or by lear, and "john gilpin" is another favourite. it is a mistake to keep strictly within the limits of a child's understanding of the words. what we want here, as in the realm of nature, is joy and delight, the delight that comes from musical words and rhythm, as well as from the pictures that may be called up. even a child of four can enjoy the poetry of the psalms without asking for much understanding. the mother repeats her rhymes and verses solely to give pleasure, and if our aim is the deepening of appreciation, there is no reason for leaving the green and grassy path that nature has showed to the mother for the hard and beaten track of "recitation." in our own kindergarten there has never been either rote learning or recitation. the older children learn the words of their songs, but not to a word-perfect stage, because words and music suggest each other. except for that we just enjoy our verses, the children asking for their favourites and getting new ones sometimes by request sometimes not. anything not enjoyed is laid aside. we need variety, but everything must be good of its kind, and verses about children are seldom for children. because children love babies, they love "where did you come from, baby dear?" but nothing like tennyson's "baby, wait a little longer," and especially nothing of the "toddlekins" type has any place in the collection of a self-respecting child. it is doubtful if eugene field's verses are really good enough for children. all children enjoy singing, but here, as in everything, we must keep pace with development, or the older ones, especially the boys, may get bored by what suits the less adventurous. in all cases the music should be good and tuneful, modelled not on the modern drawing-room inanity, but on the healthy and vigorous nursery rhyme or folk song. children also enjoy instrumental music, and will listen to piano or violin while quietly occupied, for example if they are drawing. one nursery school teacher plays soft music to get her babies to sleep, and our little ones fidget less if some one sings softly during their compulsory rest. "the kindergarten band" is another way in which children can join in rhythm. it came to us from miss bishop and is probably the music referred to in the description of the pestalozzi-froebel house. the children are provided with drums, cymbals, tambourines, and triangles, and keep time to music played on the piano. they can do some analysis in choosing which instruments are most suitable to accompany different melodies or changes from grave to gay, etc. a full account was given in _child life_ for may 1917. several years ago, knowing nothing of m. dalcroze, miss marie salt began an experiment, the results of which are likely to be far-spreading and of great benefit. desiring to help children to appreciation of good music, miss salt experimented deliberately with the froebelian "learn through action," and her success has been remarkable. because of its freedom from any kind of formality, this system is perhaps better suited to little children than the dalcroze work, unless that is in the hands of an exceptionally gifted teacher. m. dalcroze himself is delightfully sympathetic with little ones. miss salt tells her own story in an appendix to mr. stewart macpherson's _aural culture based on musical appreciation._ good music is played and the children listen and move freely in time to it, sometimes marching or dancing in circles, sometimes quite freely "expressing" whatever feeling the music calls forth in them. the stress is laid on listening; if you see a picture you reproduce it, if the music makes you think of trees or wind, thunder or goblins, you become what you think of. it is astonishing to see how little children learn in this way to care for music by schumann, mendelssohn, grieg, dvorák, brahms, chopin, and beethoven. the music is of course selected with skill, and care is taken that the "expression" shall not make the children foolishly self-conscious. emphasis is always placed on listening, and the children's appreciation is apparent. such appreciation must enrich their lives. chapter xii from fancy to fact creeps ever on from fancy to the fact. fairy tales suit little children because their knowledge is so limited, that "the fairies must have done it" is regarded as a satisfactory answer to early problems, just as it satisfied childlike man. things that to us are wonderful, children accept as commonplace, while others commonplace to us are marvels to the child. but fairy tales do not continue to satisfy all needs. as knowledge grows the child begins to distinguish between what may and what may not happen, though there will always be individual differences, and the more poetic souls are apt to suffer when the outrush of their imagination is checked by a barbed wire of fact. the question "is it true?" and the desire for true stories arise in the average child of seven to eight years, and at that age history stories are enjoyed. real history is of course impossible to young children, whose idea of time is still very vague, and whose understanding of the motives and actions of those immediately around them is but embryonic. they still crave for adventure and romance, and they thrill to deeds of bravery. bravery in the fight appeals to all boys and to most girls, and it is a question for serious consideration how this admiration is to be guided, it certainly cannot be ignored. it is legitimate to admire knights who ride about "redressing human wrongs," fighting dragons and rescuing fair ladies from wicked giants, and at this stage there is no need to draw a hard and fast line between history and legendary literature. it is good to introduce children, especially boys, to some of the arthurian legends if only to impress the ideal, "live pure, speak true, right wrong, else wherefore born?" stories should always help children to understand human beings, men and women with desires and feelings like our own. but in history and geography stories we deal particularly with people who are different from ourselves, and we should help children to understand, and to sympathise with those whose surroundings and customs are not ours. they may have lived centuries ago, or they may be living now but afar off, they may be far from us in time or space, but our stories should show the reasons for their customs and actions, and should tend to lessen the natural tendency to feel superior to those who have fewer advantages, and gradually to substitute for that a sense of responsibility. but the narration of stories is not the only way in which we can treat history. our present minister of education says that history teaching ought to give "discipline in practical reasoning" and "help in forming judgements," not merely in remembering facts. indeed he went so far as to say "eliminate dates and facts" by which, of course, he only meant that the power of reasoning, the power of forming judgements is of far more consequence than the mere possession of any quantity of facts and dates. training in reasoning, however, must involve training in verification of facts before pronouncing judgement. training in practical reasoning takes a prominent place in that form of history teaching introduced by professor dewey. according to him, history is worth nothing unless it is "an indirect sociology," an account of how human beings have learned, so far as the world has yet learned the lesson, to co-operate with one another, a study of the growth of society and what helps and hinders. so he finds his beginnings in primitive life, and although there is much in this that will appeal to any age, there is no doubt that children of seven to ten or eleven revel in this material. if used at all it should be used as thinking material--here is man without tools, without knowledge, everything must be thought out. it does not do much good to hand over the material as a story, as some teachers use the dopp series of books. these books do all the children's thinking for them. every set of children must work things out for themselves, using their own environments and their own advantages. the teacher must read to be ready with help if the children fail, and also to be ready with the actual problems. it is astonishing how keen the children are, and how often they suggest just what has really happened. where there is space out-of-doors and the children can find branches for huts, clay for pots, etc., the work is much easier for the teacher and more satisfactory. but even where that is impossible and where one has sometimes to be content with miniature reproductions, the interest is most keen. children under eight cannot really produce fire from flints or rubbing sticks, nor can they make useable woollen threads with which to do much weaving. but even they can get sparks from flint, make a little thread from wool, invent looms and weave enough to get the ideas. the romance of "long ago" ought to be taken advantage of to deepen respect for the dignity of labour. our lives are so very short that we are apt to get out of perspective in the ages. reading and writing are so new--it is only about four hundred years since the first book was printed in england, the roman occupation lasted as long, and who thinks of that as a long period? perhaps it is because we are in the reading and writing age that our boys and girls must become "braw, braw clerks," instead of living on and by the land. history, particularly primitive history, should help us all to be "grateful to those unknown pioneers of the human race to whose struggles and suffering, discoveries and energies our present favoured mode of existence on the planet is due. the more people realise the effort that has preceded them and made them possible, the more are they likely to endeavour to be worthy of it: the more pitiful also will they feel when they see individuals failing in the struggle upward and falling back toward a brute condition; and the more hopeful they will ultimately become for the brilliant future of a race which from such lowly and unpromising beginnings has produced the material vehicle necessary for those great men who flourished in the recent period which we speak of as antiquity."[29] [footnote 29: _the substance of faith_, p. 18.] professor dewey urges that "the industrial history of man is not a materialistic or merely utilitarian affair," but a matter of intelligence, a record of how men learned to think, and also an ethical record, "the account of the conditions which men have patiently wrought out to serve their ends." this interest in how human beings have created themselves and their surroundings ought to be deeply interesting to any and every age. young children can reach so little that one hopes the interest aroused will be lasting and lead to fruitful work later. but it certainly makes a good foundation for the study of history and geography, if history is treated as sociology and if geography is recognised as the study of man in his environment. coming now to practical details, in our own work we have followed fairly closely the suggestions made by professor dewey, but everything must vary from year to year according to the suggestions of the children or their apparent needs. one extra step we have found necessary, and that is to spend some time over a desert island or robinson crusoe stage. some children can do without it, but all enjoy it, and the duller children find it difficult to imagine a time when "you could buy it in a shop" does not fit all difficulties. they can easily grasp the idea of sailing away to a land "where no man had ever been before," and playing at desert island has always been a joy. the starting-points for primitive life have been various; sometimes the work has found its beginning in chance conversation, as when a child asked, "are men animals?" and the class took to the suggestion that man meant thinking animal, and began to consider what he had thought. often after robinson crusoe there has been a direct question, "how did robinson crusoe know how to make his things; had any one taught him? who made the things he had seen; who made the very first and how did he know?" one answer invariably comes, "god taught them," which can be met by saying this is true, but that god "teaches" by putting things into the world and giving men power to think. this leads to a discussion about things natural, "what god makes" and what man makes, which is sometimes illuminating on the limited conceptions of town children. years ago we named primitive man "the long-ago people," and the title has seemed to give satisfaction, though once we had the suggestion of "old-time men." we always start with the need for food, and the children suggest all the wild fruits they know, often leaving out nuts till asked if there is anything that can be stored for winter. roots are not always given, but buds of trees is a frequent answer. children in the country ought to explore and to dig, and in our own playground we find at least wild barley, blackberries of a sort, cherries, hard pears, almonds and cherry gum. killing animals for food is suggested, and the children have to be told that the animals were fierce and to realise that in these times man was hunted, not hunter. little heads are quite ready to tackle the problem of defence and attack. they could throw stones, use sticks that the wind blew down, pull up a young tree, or "a lot of people could hang on to a branch and get it down." when one child suggested finding a dead animal and using it for food, some were disgusted, but a little girl said, "i don't suppose they would mind, they wouldn't be very particular." the idea of throwing stones starts the examination of different kinds, which have to be provided for the purpose. flint is invariably selected, and for months the children keep bringing "lovely sharp flints," but there is much careful observation, observation which has a motive. "i would put a stone in a stick and chuck it at them" is followed by much experiment at fixing. string is of course taboo, but bass is allowed because it grows, also strips of skin. we very often get the suggestion "they might find a stone with a hole in it," which leads to renewed searching and to the endeavour to make holes. to make a hole in flint is beyond us, but in a softer stone it can be done. then may come the question of safety and tree-climbing, and how to manage with the babies. children generally know that tiny babies can hold very tight, and have various ideas for the mother. how to keep the baby from falling brings the idea of twisting in extra branches, which is recognised as a cradle in the tree, and the children delight in this as a meaning for "rock-a-bye, baby, in the tree-top." the possibility of tree-shelters comes in, and various experiments are made, sometimes in miniature, sometimes in the garden. out of this comes the discussion of clothes. animals' skins is an invariable suggestion, though all children do not realise that what they call "fur" means skin. skin is provided, and much time is taken in experimenting to see if it can be cut with bits of flint. how could the long-ago people fasten on the skins, brings the answers "by thorns," "tie with narrow pieces," and the children are pleased to see that their own leather belts are strips or straps. sometimes much time is taken up in cutting out "skins to wear" from paper or cheap calico, the children working in pairs, one kneeling down while the other fits on the calico to see where the head and legs come. the skins are painted or chalked, and pictures are consulted to see whether the chosen animals are striped or spotted. it may be stated here that we are not very rigid about periods or climates, and that our long-ago people are of a generalised type. our business is not to supply correct information on anthropological questions, but to call forth thought and originality, to present opportunities for closer observation than was ever evoked by observation lessons, and for experiments full of meaning and full of zest. naturally we do not despise correct information, but these children are very young and all this work is tentative. we are never dogmatic, it is all "do you think they might have ..." or "well, i know what i should have done; i should have ..." and the teacher's reply is usually "suppose we try." children are apt of course to make startling remarks, but it is only the teacher who is startled by: "was all this before god's birthday?" "i don't think god had learned to be very clever then." it is a curious fact, but orthodox opinion has only twice in the course of many years brought up adam and eve. probably this is because we never talk about the first man, but about how things were discovered. the first time the question did come up miss payne was taking the subject, and she suggested that adam and eve were never in this country, which disposed of difficulties so well that i gave the same answer the only time i ever had to deal with the question. when we come to the problem of fire, we always use parts of miss dopp's story of _the tree-dwellers_. if the children are asked if they ever heard of fire that comes by itself, or of things being burned by fire that no human being had anything to do with, one or two are sure to suggest lightning. they will tell that lightning sometimes sets trees on fire, that thunderstorms generally come after hot dry weather, and that if lightning struck a tree with dry stuff about the fire would spread, and the long-ago people would run away. a question from the teacher as to what these people might think about it may bring the suggestion of a monster; if not, one only has to say that it must have seemed as if it was eating the trees to get "they would think it was a dreadful animal." then the story can be told of how the boy called bodo stopped to look and saw the monster grow smaller, so he went closer, fed it on wood, and liked to feel its warm breath after the heavy rain that follows thunder--why had the monster grown smaller?--found that no animal would come near it and so on. we never tell of the "fire country," though sometimes the children read the book for themselves a little later. we have never succeeded in making flames, but it is thrilling to get sparks from flint. once a child brought an old tinder box with steel and flint, but even then we were not skilful enough to get up a flame. still it is something to have tried, and we are left with a respectful admiration for those who could so easily do without matches. what made these long-ago people think of using their fire to cook food? our children have suggested that a bit of raw meat fell into the fire by accident, and we have also worked it out in this way. we were pretending to warm ourselves by the fire, and i said my frozen meat was so cold that it hurt my teeth. "hold it to the fire then." we burned our fingers, and sticks were suggested, but we sucked the burnt fingers, and i said, "it tastes good," and the children shouted with glee "because the meat's roasted really." then something was supposed to drop, and the cry was "gravy! catch it in a shell, dip your finger in and let your baby suck it." a small shell was suggested, and the boy who said "and put a stick in for a handle" was dubbed "the spoon-maker." at that time we were earning names for ourselves by suggestions; we started with fair hair, curly hair, big teeth, long legs, and arrived at quick runner, climber, and even thinker. we have got at pottery in a similar way. the meat was supposed to be tough. "soak it" came at once, and "could you get hot water?" then came suggestions: a stone saucepan, scoop out a stone and put it on the fire, build a stone pan and fix the stones with cherry gum, dig a hole in the ground and put fire under; "_that_ would be a kind of oven." when asked if water would stay in the hole, and if any kind of earth would hold water, the answer may be, "no, nothing but clay, and you'd have to make that." "no! you get clay round a well. my cousin has a well, and there's clay round it." "why, there's clay in the playground." "you could put the meat into a skin bag or a basket." asked if the skin or basket could be set on the fire, or if anything could be done to keep the basket from catching fire, the answer comes, "yes, dab clay round it. then," joyfully, "it would hold water and you _could_ boil." "what would happen to the clay when it was put on the fire?" this has to be discovered by a quick experiment, but the children readily guess that when the hot water is taken off the fire there would be "a sort of clay basin. then they could make more! and plates and cups!" experiments depend upon circumstances and upon the age of the children. a thick and tiny basin put into a hot part of an ordinary fire does harden and hold water to a certain extent even without glazing. but elaborate baking may also be done. i have found it convenient to take weaving as a bridge to history stories, by using sir frederick leighton's picture of the phoenicians bartering cloth for skins with the early britons. the children are told that the people dressed in cloth come from near the bible-story country, and those dressed in skins are the long-ago people of this very country. what would these people think of the cloth? "they would think it was animals' skins." and what would they do? "they'd feel it and look at it." so cloth is produced and we pull it to pieces, first into threads and then into hairs, and the children say the hairs are like "fur." then sheep's wool is produced and we try to make thread. attempts at thread-making and then at weaving last a long time, and along with this come some history stories, probably arising out of the question, "how did people know about all this?" the children are told about the writings of julius caesar, and pictures of roman ships and houses are shown, beside pictures of coracles and bee-hive dwellings, etc. old coins, a flint battle-axe, some roman pottery are also shown, along with descriptions and pictures of the roman villa at brading and other roman remains. the children are thus helped to realise that other countries exist where the people were far ahead of those in this country, and they can begin to understand how social conditions vary, and how nations act upon each other. the work varies considerably from year to year, according to how it takes hold upon the children's interest. but children of eight to nine are usually considered ready for broad ideas of the world as a whole, and the inquiry into where julius caesar came from, and why he came, gives a fair start. chapter xiii new needs and new helps i am old, so old, i can write a letter. writing and reading have no place in the actual kindergarten, much less arithmetic. the stories are told to the child; drawing, modelling and such-like will express all he wants to express in any permanent form, and speech, as froebel says, is "the element in which he lives." his counting is of the simplest, and the main thing is to see that he does not merely repeat a series while he handles material, but that the series corresponds with the objects. even this can be left alone if it seems to annoy the little one. in the school he is on a very different level, he has attained to the abstract, he can use signs: he can express thoughts which he could not draw, and can communicate with those who are absent. he can read any letter received and he is no longer dependent on grown-ups for stories. he can count his own money and can get correct change in small transactions, and he can probably do a variety of sums which are of no use to him at all. between these two comes what froebel called the transition or connecting class, in which the child learns the meaning of the signs which stand for speech, and those which make calculation less arduous for weak memories. much has been written as to when and how children are to be taught to read. some great authorities would put it off till eight or even ten. stanley hall says between six and eight, while dr. montessori teaches children of five and even of four. froebel would have supported stanley hall and would wait till the age of six. the strongest reason for keeping children back from books is a physiological one. in the _psychology and physiology of reading_[30] strong arguments are adduced against early reading as very injurious to eyesight, so it is surprising that dr. montessori begins so soon. it has been said that her children only learn to write, not to read, but it is to be supposed that they can read what they write, and therefore can read other material. [footnote 30: macmillan.] if we agree not to begin until six years old, the next question is the method. the alphabetic, whereby children were taught the letter names and then memorised the spelling of each single word, has no supporters. but controversy still goes on as to whether children shall begin with word wholes or with the phonic sounds. it is not a matter of vital importance, for the children who begin with words come to phonics later, and so far as english is concerned, the children who begin with phonics cannot go far without meeting irregularities, unless indeed they are limited to books like those of miss dale. in other languages which are phonic the difficulties are minimised. children in the ordinary elementary schools in italy, though taught in large classes, can write long sentences to dictation in four or five months.[31] but in italian each letter has its definite sound and every letter is sounded. it is true that these children appear to spend most of their time in formal work. [footnote 31: a class of children who began in the middle of october wrote correctly to dictation on march 28, "patria e lavoro siamo, miei cari bambini, parole sante per voi. amate la nostra cara e bella italia, crescete onesti e laboriosi e sarete degni di lei."] the froebelian who believes in learning by action will, of course, expect the children to make or write from the beginning as a method of learning, whether she begins with words or with sounds. but in english, unless simplified spelling is introduced, the time must soon come when reproduction must lag behind recognition. one child said with pathos one day, "may we spell as we like to-day, for i've got such a lot to say?" the phonic method dates back to about 1530. the variety used in the pestalozzi-froebel house is said to have originated with jacotot (1780-1840). it is called the "observing-speaking-writing and reading method." froebel's own adaptation was simpler; it was his principle to begin with a desire on the part of the child, and he gives his method in story form, "how lina learned to write and read." lina is six, she has left the kindergarten and is presently to attend the primary school. she notices with what pleasure her father, perhaps a somewhat exceptional parent, receives and answers letters. she desires to write and her mother makes her say her own name carefully, noticing first the "open" or vowel sounds and then by noting the position of her tongue she finds the closed sounds. as she hears the sound she is shown how to make it. her father leaves home at the right moment, lina writes to him, receives and is able to read his answer, printed like her own in roman capitals. he sends her a picture book and she is helped to see how the letters resemble those she has learned and the reading is accomplished. in england the phonic method best known is probably miss dale's. it is very ingenious, the analysis is thorough and the books are prettily got up, but to those who feel that reading, though a most valuable tool, still is but a tool and one not needed for children under seven, the method seems over-elaborate. much depends upon the teacher but to see fifty children sitting still while one child places the letters in their places on the board suggests a great deal of lost time. the system is also so rigidly phonic that it is a long time before a child can pick up an ordinary book with any profit. stanley hall holds that it is best to combine methods, and probably most of us do this. "the growing agreement" is, he says, "that there is no one and only orthodox way of teaching and learning this greatest and hardest of all the arts, in which ear, mouth, eye and hand must each in turn train the others to automatic perfection, in ways hard and easy, by devices old and new, mechanically and consciously, actively and passively ... this is a great gain and seems now secure. while a good pedagogic method is one of the most economic--both of labour and of money--of all inventions, we should never forget that the brightest children, and indeed most children, if taught individually or at home, need but very few refinements of method. idiots, as mr. seguin first showed, need and profit greatly by very elaborated methods in learning how to walk, feed and dress themselves, which would only retard a normal child. above all it should be borne in mind that the stated use of any method does not preclude the incidental use of any and perhaps of _all_ others." an adaptation of phonic combined with the word method can be found in _education by life_. it is simpler than miss dale's, and being combined with the word method, children get much more quickly to real stories. stanley hall advocates the individual teaching of reading, and since dr. montessori called every one's attention to this we have used it much more freely, and have found that once the children know some sounds, there is a great advantage in a certain amount of individual learning, but class teaching has its own advantages and it seems best to have a combination. long since we taught a boy who was mentally deficient and incapable of intelligent analysis, by whole words and corresponding pictures. miss payne has developed this to a great extent. it is practically an appeal to the interest in solving puzzles. the children choose their own pictures and are supplied with envelopes containing either single sounds, or whole words corresponding with the picture. they lay _h_ on the house, _g_ on the girl, _p_ on the pond, and later do the same with words. they certainly enjoy it, and no one is ever kept waiting. sometimes the puzzle is to set in order the words of a nursery rhyme which they already know, sometimes it is to read and draw everything mentioned. it is not only how children learn to read that is important: even more so is what they read. much unintelligent reading in later life is due to the reading primer in which there was nothing to understand. children should read books, as adults do, to get something out of them. the time often wasted in teaching reading too soon would be far better employed in cultivating a taste for good reading by telling or reading to the children good stories and verses.[32] [footnote 32: it is difficult to find easy material that is worth giving to intelligent children, and we have been glad to find brown's _young artists' readers_, series a.] a revolution is going on just now in the method of teaching writing. it is now generally recognised that much time and effort have been wasted in teaching children to join letters which are easier to read unjoined. a very interesting article appeared in the fielden school demonstration record no. ii., and mr. graily hewitt has brought the subject of writing as it was done before copperplate was invented very much to the fore. the child study society has published a little monograph on the subject giving the experience of different teachers and specimens of the writing. little marjorie fleming was a voracious reader with a remarkable capacity for writing. her spelling was unconventional at times, but there was never any doubt about her meaning. she expressed herself strongly on many subjects, and one of these was arithmetic. "i am now going to tell you the horrible and wretched plaege (plague) that my multiplication gives me you cant conceive it the most devilish thing is 8 times 8 and 7 times 7 it is what nature itself cant endure." yet "if you speak with the tongues of men and angels and make not mention of arithmetic it profiteth you nothing," says miss wiggin. there are a few little children who are really fond of number work. there are not many of them, and they would probably learn more if they were left to themselves. there are even a few mathematical geniuses who hardly want teaching, but who are worthy of being taught by a professor of mathematics, always supposing that he is worthy of them. but the majority of children would probably be farther advanced at ten or twelve if they had no teaching till they were seven. they ought to learn through actual number games, through keeping score for other games, and through any kind of calculation that is needed for construction or in real life. there are but few true number games, but dominoes and card games introduce the number groups. in "old maid" the children pair the groups and so learn to recognise them; in dominoes they use this knowledge, while "snap" involves quick recognition. any one can make up a game in which scoring is necessary. ninepins or skittles is a number game, and one can score by using number groups, or by fetching counters, shells, beads, etc., as reminders. the number groups are important; they form what miss punnett calls "a scheme" for those who have no great visualising power, and they combine the smallest groups into large ones. it ought to be remembered that the repetition of a group is an easier thing to deal with than the combination of two groups, that is, six is a name for two threes and eight for two fours, but five and seven have not so definite a meaning.[33] [footnote 33: this very morning a child cutting out brown paper pennies for a shop said, 'look! there are two sixes; that _would_ be a big number!'] the tillich bricks are good playthings, and so is cardboard money--shillings, sixpences, threepences, pence and halfpence. when the names have a meaning the children will want signs, i.e. figures. clock figures (roman) can be used first as simplest, showing the closed fingers and the thumb for v; the only difficulty is ix. the arabic figures can be made by drawing round the number groups, or by laying out their shapes in little sticks. 5 and 8 show very plainly how to arrange five and eight sticks; for two and three they are placed horizontally, the curves merely joining the lines. in teaching children to count, the decimal system should be kept well in mind, and the teacher should see that thirteen means three-ten, and that the children can touch the three and the ten as they speak the word. eleven and twelve ought to be called oneteen and twoteen, half in joke. the idea of grouping should never be lost sight of, and larger numbers should at first be names for so many threes, fours, fives, etc. in order to keep the meaning clear the children should say threety, fourty and fivety, but there should be no need to write these numbers. the kindergarten sticks tied in bundles of ten are quite convenient counting material when any counting is necessary. tram tickets and cigarette pictures can be used in the same way. the decimal notation is a great thing to learn, how great any one will discover who will take the trouble to work a simple addition sum, involving hundreds, in roman figures. children are always taught the number of the house they live in, which makes a starting-point. if, for instance, 35 is compared with xxxv a meaning is given to the 3. many teachers make formal sums of numbers which could quite well be added without any writing at all. by using any kind of material by which ten can be made plain as a higher unit--bundles of sticks or tickets, sonnenschein's apparatus, miss punnett's number scheme, or the new montessori apparatus with its chains of beads: the material used is of no great consequence--children should be able to deal as easily with tens as with ones, and there is no need for little formal sums which have no meaning. everything in daily life should be used before formal work is attempted. "measure, reckon, weigh, compare," said rousseau. children love to measure, whether by lineal or liquid measure, or by learning to tell the time or to use a pair of scales. there are a few occasions when interest is in actual number relations, as when a child for himself discovers that two sixes is six twos. one boy on his own account compared a shilling and an hour, and said that he could set out a shilling in five parts by the clock. he looked at the clock and chose out a sixpence, a threepence, and 3 pennies. but usually what is abstract belongs to a stage farther on. so we can end where we began, by letting froebel once more define the kindergarten. "crèches and infant schools must be raised into kindergartens wherein the child is treated and trained according to his whole nature, so that the claims of his body, his heart and his head, his active, moral and intellectual powers, are all satisfied and developed. "not the training of the memory, not learning by rote, not familiarity with the appearances of things, but culture by means of action, realities and life itself, bring a blessing upon the individual, and thereby a blessing upon the whole community; since each one, be he the highest or the humblest, is a member of the community." part ii the child in the state school i. things as they are chapter xiv certain characteristics of growth early in the nineteenth century two men, moved by very different impulses, founded what might be considered the beginnings of the infant school. for nearly fifty years their work grew separately, but now they are merged together into something that seems to be permanent. in a bleak lanarkshire factory village in the south of scotland, robert owen, millowner, socialist and welshman, found that unless he could provide for the education of the children of his factory hands, no parents would consent to settle in the district and he would be without workers in his mill. as a consequence owen found himself in the position of education authority, privy purse and organiser, and he did not flinch from the situation; he imposed no cheap makeshift, because he believed in education as an end and not as an economic means; a twofold institution was therefore established by him in 1816, one part for the children of recognised school age, presumably over six, and one for those under school age, whose only entrance test was their ability to walk. it is with the latter that we are concerned. the instructions given by owen to the man and the women he chose for his infant school may serve to show his general aim; the babies under their care were above all to be happy, to lead a natural life, outdoor or indoor as weather permitted; learning their surroundings, playing, singing, dancing, "not annoyed with books," not shadowed by the needs of the upper school, but living the life their age demanded. in the light of the 1918 education bill this seems almost prophetic. their guardians were selected solely on the grounds of personality, and expected to work in the spirit in which owen conceived the school. they were gentle, without personal ambition, fond of children, caring only for their welfare; but the sole guiding principle was owen, and this was at once the success and doom of the school, for the personality of owen was thus made the pivot round which the school revolved; without him there was nothing to take hold of. very soon the experiment became known: persons with the stamp of authority came to see it, and even official hearts were moved by the reality of the children's happiness and their consequent development. the visitors felt, rather than knew, that the thing was right. arrangements were made to establish similar institutions in london, and after one or two experiments, a permanent one was founded which was under the control of a man named wilderspin. wilderspin's contribution to education is difficult to estimate; certainly he never caught owen's spirit, or realised his simple purpose: he had ambitions reaching beyond the happiness of the children; and far from trying to make their education suit their stage of growth, he sought to produce the "infant prodigy," just as a contemporary of his sought to produce the "infant saint." from what we can see, his aim was what he honestly believed to be right, as far as his light went; but he sought for no light beyond his own; and his outlook was not so narrow as his application was unintelligent. owen was still in lanarkshire to be consulted; rousseau had already written _émile_, pestalozzi's work was by this time fairly well known in england, the children were there to be studied, but wilderspin pursued his limited and unenlightened work, until the infant school was almost a dead thing in his hands and in the hands of those who followed. the following is birchenough's account: "the school was in charge of a master and a female assistant, presumably his wife. much attention was given to training children in good personal habits, cleanliness, tidiness, punctuality, etc., and to moral training. great stress was laid on information.... the curriculum included reading, writing, arithmetic, geometry, lessons on common objects, geography, singing and religion, and an effort was made to make the work interesting and 'concrete.' to this end much importance was attached to object-lessons, to the use of illustrations, to questioning and exposition, while the memory was aided by means of didactic verse.... the real teaching devolved upon the master and mistress. this was of two kinds: class teaching to a section of the children of approximately equal attainments either on the floor or in the class-room, and collective teaching to the whole school, regardless of age, on the gallery." it is a curious coincidence that in 1816, the year of owen's experiment, a humble educational experiment was begun by frederick froebel in a very small village in the heart of the thuringian forest. like owen, his aim was education solely for its own sake, and he had a simple faith in the human goodness of the older germany. but he came to education as a philosopher rather than a social reformer, with a strong belief in its power to improve humanity. this belief remained with him; it is embodied in his aim, and leavened all his work. the first twenty years of his experience convinced froebel that the neglect or mismanagement of the earliest years of a child's life rendered useless all that was done later. what came to owen as an inspiration grew in froebel to be a reasoned truth, and like owen he put it into practice. in 1837 the little kindergarten at blankenburg was begun, with the village children as pupils; the beautiful surroundings of forest-covered hills and green slopes made a very different background from the bleak little lanarkshire village, overshadowed by the factory, where owen's school stood, but the spirit was the same; the children were in surroundings suitable for their growth, and the very name of kindergarten does more to make froebel's aim clear than any explanation. he lived to see other kindergartens established in different parts of thuringia, and about the middle of the nineteenth century some of his teachers came to england, and did similar work in london, croydon and manchester. the private kindergarten became an established thing, and educationalists came to understand something of its meaning. in 1870 the london school board suggested that the kindergarten system should be introduced into their infant schools, and in doing so they were unconsciously the factors in bringing together the work initiated by owen and by froebel. the infant school of wilderspin, already briefly described, was almost a dead thing, with its galleries and its mechanical prodigies, its object-lessons and its theology; now it was breathed upon by the spirit of the man who said: "play is the highest phase of child development, of human development at this period: for it is the spontaneous representation of the inner, from inner necessity and impulse." "play is the purest, most spiritual activity of man." "the plays of childhood are the germinal leaves of all later life." "if the child is injured at this period, if the germinal leaves of the future tree of his life are marred at this time, he will only with the greatest difficulty and the utmost effort grow into strong manhood." it is perhaps not altogether to be wondered at that teachers at first seized the apparatus rather than the spirit of the kindergarten when we remember that we have not accepted in anything like its fulness the teaching of froebel. formalism and materialism always die slowly: play in the board school was interpreted as something that had to be dictated and taught: the gifts, occupations and games were organised, and appeared on the time-table as subjects side by side with wilderspin's theology and object-lessons. the combination must have been curious, but even with its formalism the change was welcome to the children: at least they could use their hands and do something; at least they could leave their back-breaking galleries and dance and skip, even though the doing and the dancing were according to strict rule. the change was not welcome to all teachers. as late as 1907 a headmistress who was a product of the training of that time remarked: "we have kindergarten on wednesday afternoons and then it is over for the week." but there were teachers who saw beneath the bricks and sticks and pretty movements, who felt the spiritual side and kept themselves alive till greater opportunities came. what was imperishable has remained; the system of prescribed activities is nearly dead, but the spirit of the true kindergarten is more alive than ever. the change from the early 'eighties till now is difficult to describe, because it is a growth of spirit, a gradual change of values, rather than a change in outward form; there has been no definite throwing off, and no definite adoption, of any one system or theory; but the difference between the best infant schools of 1880 and the best infant schools of to-day is chiefly a difference in outlook. the older schools aimed at copying a method, while the schools of to-day are more concerned with realising the spirit. at present we are trying to reconstruct education for the new world after the war, and so it is convenient to regard the intervening period of nearly half a century as a transition period: during that time the education of the child under eight has changed much more than the education of older children, at least in the elementary school; and there have been certain marked phases that, though apparently insignificant in themselves, have marked stages of progress in thought. perhaps the most significant and most important of these was the effect of the child-study movement on the formal and external side of kindergarten work. it is first of all to america that we owe this, to the pioneer stanley hall, and more especially here to mr. earl barnes. very slowly, but surely, it was evident to the more enlightened teachers that children had their own way of learning and doing, and the adult-imposed system meant working against nature. for the logical method of presenting material from the simple to the complex, from the known to the unknown, from the concrete to the abstract, was substituted the psychological method of watching the children's way of learning and developing. teachers found that what they considered to be "the simple" was not the simple to children; what they took to be "the known" was the unfamiliar to children. for instance, the "simple" in geography, in the adult sense, was the definition of an island, with which most of us began that study, and in geometry it was the point. to children of the ordinary type, both are far-away ideas, and not related to everyday experiences; "the known" in arithmetic, for example, was to teachers the previous lesson, quite regardless of the fact that arithmetic enters into many problems of life outside school. the life in school and the life outside school were, in these early days of infant teaching, two separate things, and only occasionally did a teacher stoop to take an example from everyday life. a little girl in one of the poorest schools brought her baby to show her teacher, and proudly displayed the baby's powers of speech--"say a pint of 'alf-an-'alf for teacher," said the little girl to the baby by way of encouragement to both. this is the kind of rude awakening teachers get, from time to time, when they realise how much of the real child eludes them. psychology has made it clear that life is a unity and must be so regarded. part of this child-study movement has resulted in the slow but sure death of formalism: large classes, material results, and a lack of psychology made formalism the path of least resistance. painting became "blobbing," constructive work was interpreted as "courses" of paper folding, cutting, tearing; books of these courses were published with minute directions for a graduated sequence. the aim was obedient imitation on the part of the child, and the imagined virtues accruing to him in consequence were good habits, patience, accuracy and technical skill. self-expression and creativeness were still only theories. a second interesting phase of the transition period was the method adopted for the training of the senses. from the days of comenius till now the importance of this has held its place firmly, but the means have greatly changed. pestalozzi's object-lesson was adopted by wilderspin and thoroughly sterilised; many teachers still remember the lessons on the orange, leather, camphor, paper, sugar, in which the teacher's senses were trained, for only she came in contact with the object, and the children from their galleries answered questions on an object remote from most of their senses, and only dimly visible to their eyes. similar lessons were given after 1870 on froebel's gift ii. in which the ball, cylinder and cube were treated in the same manner: progress was slow, but sometimes the children followed nature's promptings and played with their specimens; this was followed by books of "gift-plays," where organised play took the place of organised observation. about 1890 or thereabouts the nature study movement swept over the schools, and "nature specimens" then became the material for sense training: as far as possible each child had a specimen, and by the minute examination of these, stimulated their senses and stifled their appreciation of all that was beautiful. question and answer still dominated the activity; the poor little withered snowdrop took the place of the dead camphor or leather. but underlying all the paralysing organisation the truth was slowly growing, and the children were being brought nearer to real things. a third phase in this transition period is that known as "correlation"; most teachers remember the elaborate programmes of work that drove them to extremes in finding "connections." the following, taken from a reputable book of the time, will exemplify the principle: a week's programme object lesson the horse. phonetics the foal, _oa_ sound. number problems on the work of horses. story the bell of atri [story of a horse ringing a bell]. song busy blacksmith [shoeing a horse]. game the blacksmith's shop. reading on the horse. poetry kindness to animals. paper cutting the bell of atri. paper folding a trough. free-arm drawing a horseshoe. clay modelling a carrot for the horse. brushwork a turnip for the horse. brown paper drawing a stable. underneath it all the truth was growing, namely, the need of making associations and so unifying the children's lines. but the process of finding the truth was slow and cumbersome. a fourth phase of the early infant school was the strong belief of both teachers and inspectors in uniformity of work and of results. it is difficult to disentangle this from the paralysing influences of payment by results and large classes: it was probably the teachers' unconscious expression of the instinct of self-preservation, when working against the heaviest odds. but it was constantly evident to the teacher that any attempt on a child's part to be an individual, either in work or in conduct, had to be arrested: and the theory of individual development was regarded as so utopian that the idea itself was lost. goodness was synonymous with uniform obedience and silence; naughtiness with individuality, spontaneity and desire to investigate. a frequently-heard admonition on the part of the teacher was, "teacher didn't tell you to do it that way--that's a naughty way"; but such an attitude of mind was doubtless generated by the report of the inspector when he commended a class by saying: "the work of the class showed a satisfactory uniformity." to obtain uniform results practice had to come before actual performance, and many weary hours were spent over drill in reading, drill in number, drill in handwork, drill in needlework. the extreme point was reached when babies of three had thimble and needle drill long before they began needlework. there were also conduct drills; miss grant, of devons road school, remembers a school where the babies "practised" their conduct before the visit of the "spectre," as they called him, he being represented as a stick set up on a chair. there is a curious symbolism in the whole occasion. it is difficult to see the good underlying this phase, but it was there. there is undoubtedly a place for practice, though not before performance, and uniformity was undoubtedly the germ of an ideal. all these phases stand for both progress and arrest. the average person is readier to accept methods than investigate principles; but we must recognise that all struggles and searchings after truth have made the road of progress shorter for us by many a mile. perhaps the chief cause of stumbling lay in the fact that there was no clearly realised aim or policy except that of material results. there were many fine-sounding principles in the air, but they were unrelated to each other; and the conditions of teaching were likely to crush the finest endeavours, and to make impossible a teaching that could be called educative. chapter xv the infant school of to-day taking neither the best nor the worst, but the average school of to-day, it will be profitable to review shortly where it stands, to consider how far it has learnt the lessons of experience, and what kind of ideal it has set before itself. in externals there have been many improvements. modern buildings are better in many ways; there is more space and light, and the surroundings are more attractive. most of the galleries have disappeared, but the furniture consists chiefly of dual desks, fixed and heavy, so that the arrangement of the room cannot be changed. the impression given to a visitor is that it is planned for listening and answering, except in the baby room, where there are generally light tables and chairs, and consequently no monotonous rows of children, unless a teacher arranges them thus from sheer habit. in each room is a high narrow cupboard about one quarter of the necessary size for all that education demands; most education authorities provide some good pictures, but the best are usually hung on the class-room wall behind the children, and all are above the children's eye level. "oh, teacher, my neck do ache!" was the only appreciative remark made by a child after a tour made of the school pictures, which were really beautiful. as a rule the windows are too high for the children to see from, and the lower part is generally frosted. in a new school which had a view up one of the loveliest valleys in great britain, the windows were of this description; the head of the school explained that it was a precaution in case the children might see what was outside; in other words, they might make the mistake of seeing a real river valley instead of listening to a description of it. in country schools of the older type the accommodation is not so good, but the newer ones are often very attractive in appearance, and have both space and light. the school garden is a common feature in the country, and it is to be regretted so few even of the plot description are to be found in town schools. of late years the apparatus has improved, though there is still much to be done in this direction. instead of the original tiny boxes of gifts we have frequently real nursery bricks of a larger and more varied character, and many other nursery toys. one of the best signs of a progressive policy is that large numbers of _little_ toys have taken the place of the big expensive ones that only an occasional child could use. it is a pity that the use of toys comes to so sudden an end, and that learning by this method does not follow the babies after they have officially ceased to be babies, as is the custom in real life. one of the most striking changes for the better is the evidence of care of the children's health, of which some of the external signs are doctor, nurse and care committee. a sense of responsibility in this respect is gradually growing in the schools; a fair number provide for sleep, a few try to train the children to eat lunch slowly and carefully, and some try to arrange for milk or cod-liver oil in the case of very delicate children. though these instances are very much in the minority, they represent a change of spirit. this is one of the striking characteristics of the new education bill. a legacy from the old formalism lies in the fact that every room has a highly organised time-table, except perhaps in the babies' room, where the children's actual needs are sometimes considered first. the morning in most classes is occupied with scripture, reading, arithmetic, writing, and some less formal work, such as nature lesson or recitation; some form of physical exercise is always taken. the afternoons are mostly devoted to games, stories, handwork and singing: this order is not universal, but the general principle holds, of taking the more difficult and formal subjects in the morning. in the babies' room some preparation for reading is still too frequent. the lessons are short and the order varied, but in one single morning or afternoon there is a bewildering number of changes. some years ago the unfortunate principle was laid down in the code, that fifteen minutes was sufficient time for a lesson in an infant school, and though this is not strictly followed the lessons are short and numerous, giving an unsettled character to the work; children appear to be swung at a moment's notice from topic to topic without an apparent link or reason: for example, the day's work may begin with the story of a little boy sent by train to the country, settled at a farm and taken out to see the _cow_ and the _sow_: soon this is found to be a reading lesson on words ending in "ow," but after a short time the whole class is told quite suddenly, that one shilling is to be spent at a shop in town, and while they are still interested in calculating the change, paints are distributed, and the children are painting the bluebell. the whole day is apt to be of this broken character, which certainly does not make for training in mental concentration, or for a realisation of the unity of life. some teachers still aim at correlation, but in a rather half-hearted way: others have entirely discarded it because of its strained applications, but nothing very definite has taken its place. the curriculum which has been given is varied in character, and sometimes includes a "free period." except in the babies' class the three r's occupy a prominent place, and children under six spend relatively a great deal of time in formal subjects, while children between six and seven, if they are still in the infant school, are taught to put down sums on paper, which they could nearly always calculate without such help. as soon as a child can read well, and work a fair number of sums on paper, he is considered fit for promotion, and the question of whether he understands the method of working such sums, is not considered so important as accuracy and quickness. the test of so-called intelligence for promotion is reading and number, but it is really the test of convenience, so that large numbers of children may be taught together and brought, against the laws of nature, to a uniform standard. this poison of the promotion and uniformity test works down through the infant school: it can be seen when the babies are diverted from their natural activities to learn reading, or when they are "examined": it can be seen when a teacher yields up her "bright" children to fill a few empty desks, it can be seen in the grind at reading and formal arithmetic of the children under six, when weary and useless hours are spent in working against nature, and precious time is wasted that will never come back. yet we _say_ we believe that "children have their youth that they may play," and that "play is the purest, most spiritual activity of man at this stage" [childhood]. the lack of any clear aim shows itself in the fluid nature of the term "results"; to some teachers it signifies readiness for promotion, or a piece of work that presents a satisfactory external appearance, such as good writing, neat handwork, an orderly game, fluent reading. to others it means something deeper, which they discover in some chance remark of a child's that marks the growth of the spirit, or the awakening of the interest of a child whose development is late, or the quickened power of a child to express; or evidence of independent thought and the power to use it, in some piece of handwork, or appreciation of music or literature. according to the meaning attached to the term "results" so the method of the teacher must vary; but one gets the general impression that in this respect matters are in a transitional state; the first kind of teacher is always a little uncertain of her ground and a little fearful that she is not quite "up-to-date," while the second class of teacher is sometimes a little timid, and not quite sure that she is prepared to account for the rather subtle and intangible outcome of her work. the same transitional character holds in the case of discipline: while what is known as "military" discipline still prevails in many schools, there are a very fair number with whom the grip has relaxed; but it is a courageous teacher that will admit the term "free discipline" which has nearly as bad a reputation as "free thought" used to have, and few are prepared to go all the way. probably the reason lies in the vagueness of the meaning of the term, and the fact that its value is not clearly realised because it is not clearly understood. teachers have not faced the question squarely: "what am i aiming at in promoting free discipline." taking a general view of the present school, one gets the impression of a constant change of activity on the part of the children, but very little change of position, a good deal of provision for general class interest, but little for individual interest; of less demand than formerly for uniformity of results, but the existence of a good deal of uniformity of method, arresting the teacher's own initiative; of very constant teaching on the part of the teacher and a good deal of listening and oral expression on the part of the children, of many lessons and little independent individual work. below all this there is evident a very friendly relationship between the teacher and the children, a good deal of personal knowledge of the children on the part of the teacher, and a good deal of affection on both sides. there is less fear and more love than in the earlier days, less government and more training, less restraint and more freedom. and the children are greatly attached to their school. from consideration of the foregoing summary it will be seen that education in the infant school is a thing of curious patches, of strength and weakness, of light and shade; perhaps the greatest weakness is its lack of cohesion, of unification: on the one hand we find much provision for the children's real needs, much singleness of purpose in the teacher's work, such a genuine spirit of whole-hearted desire for their education: on the other hand, an unreasoning sense of haste, of pushing on, of introducing prematurely work for which the children admittedly are unready; an acceptance of new things on popular report, without scientific basis, and a lack of courage to maintain the truth for its own sake, in the face of so-called authority, and a craving to be modern. at the root of all this inconsistency and possibly its cause, is the lack of a guiding policy or aim, the lack of belief in the scientific or psychological basis of education, and consequently the want of that strong belief in absolute truth which helps the teacher to pass all barriers. chapter xvi some vital principles if it be true that the infant school of to-day suffers from lack of a clear basis for its general policy, it will be profitable to have clearly before us such principles as great educators have found to be most vital to the education of young children. we all believe that we have an aim and a high aim before us: it has been variously expressed by past educationalists, but in the main they all agree that the aim of education is conduct. in actual practice, however, we act too often as if we only cared for economic values. if we are to live up to our educational profession, we must look our aim in the face and honestly practise what we believe. while training of character and conduct is the accepted aim for education in general, to make this useful and practical each teacher must fix her attention on how this ultimate aim affects her own special part of the whole work. by watching the free child she will discover how best she can help him: he knows his own business, and when unfettered by advice or command shows plainly that he is chiefly concerned with _gaining experience_. he finds himself in what is to him a new and complex world of people and things; actual experience is the foundation for complete living, and the stronger the foundation the better the result of later building. _the first vital principle then is that the teacher of young children must provide life in miniature; that is, she must provide abundant raw material and opportunities for experience_. the next question is that of the best method of gaining this actual experience. the child is unaware that he is laying foundations, he is only vaguely conscious that he finds great pleasure in certain activities, and that something impels him in certain directions. he realises no definite future, he is content with the present; he cannot work for a purpose other than the pleasure of the moment; without this stimulus concentration is impossible. in the activities of this stage he probably assimilates more actual matter than at any other period of his life, and it is the same with his acquirements of skill. in happy unconsciousness he gains knowledge of his own body and of its power, of the external world, of his mother tongue and of his relations to other people: he makes mistakes and commits faults, but these do not necessarily cripple or incriminate him. he is not considered a social outcast because he once kicked or bit, or because he threw his milk over the table; he learns to balance and adjust his muscles on a seesaw, when a fall on soft grass is a matter of little importance, and this is better than waiting till he is compelled hastily to cross a river on a narrow plank. it is all a kind of joyous rehearsal of life which we call play. we can force a child to passivity, to formal repetitions of second-hand knowledge, to the acquisition of that for which he has no apparent need, but we can never _educate_ him by these things. "children do not play because they are young, they have their youth that they may play," as surely as they have their legs that they may walk. _the second principle is therefore that the method of gaining experience lies through play, and that by this road we can best reach work_. the third principle is the nature of the experience that a child seeks to gain--the life he desires to live. how can we he sure that the surroundings we provide and the activities we encourage are in accord with children's needs? let us imagine a child of about five to six years of age, one of a family, living in a small house to which a garden is attached; inside he has the run of the house, but keeps his own toys, picture books and collections of treasures. we will suppose that not being at school he is free to arrange his own day, sometimes alone, and sometimes with other children, or with his parents. what does he do? he is interested in inanimate things, especially in using them, and so he plays with his toys. he builds bricks, runs engines, solves simple puzzle pictures, asks to work with his father's gardening tools, or his mother's cooking utensils. he is interested in the life of the garden, in the growing things, in the snail or spider he finds, in the cat, dog or rabbit of the family; he wants to dig, water and feed these various things, but he declines regular responsibility; his interest is in spurts. he is interested in sounds, both in those he can produce and in those produced by others: soon he is interested in music, he will listen to it for considerable periods, and may join in it: at first more especially on the rhythmical side. so, too, he likes the rhythm of poetry and the melody sounds of words. he is interested in making things; on a wet day he will ask for scissors and paste, or bring out his paint box or chalks; on a fine day he mixes sand or mud with water, or builds a shelter with poles and shawls; at any time when he has an opportunity he shuts himself into the bathroom and experiments with the taps, sails boats, colours water, blows bubbles, tries to mix things, wet and dry. he is interested in the doings of other people, in their conduct and in his own; he is more interested in their badness than in their goodness: "tell me more of the bad things your children do," said a little boy to his teacher aunt, and the request is significant and general; we learn so little by mere uncontrasted goodness. he is interested in the words that clothe narrations and in their style, he is impatient of a change in form of an accepted piece of prose or poetry. he is hungry for the sounds of telling words and phrases. he is interested in reproducing the doings of other people so that he may experience them more fully, and this involves minute observation, careful and intelligent imitation, and vivid imagination. his own word for it is pretence. there are other things that he grasps at more vaguely and later; he is dimly aware that people have lived before, and he is less dimly aware that people live in places different from his own surroundings. he realises that some of the stories, such as the fairy stories, are true in one sense, a sense that responds to something within himself; that some are true in another more material, and external sense, one concerned with things that really happen. he hears of "black men," and of "ships that carry people across the sea," and of "things that come back in those ships." he is interested in the immaterial world suggested by the mysteries of woods and gardens, he has a dim conception that there is some life beyond the visible, he feels a power behind life and he reveals this in his early questions. he is keenly interested in questions of birth and death, and sometimes comes into close contact with them. he feels that other wonders must be accounted for--the snow, thunder and lightning, the colours of summer, the changeful sea. at first the world of fairy lore may satisfy him, later comes the life of the undying spirit, but the two are continuous. he may attend "religious observances," and these may help or they may hinder. he is keenly interested in games, whether they are games of physical skill, of mental skill, or games of pretence. here most especially he comes into contact with other people, and here he realises some of the experiences of social life. such are the most usual sides of life sought by the ordinary child, and on such must we base the surroundings we provide for our children in school, and the aspects of life to which we introduce them, commonly called subjects of the curriculum. _our third principle is therefore, evident: we find, in the child's spontaneous choice, the nature of the surroundings and of the activities that he craves for; in other words, he makes his own curriculum and selects his own subject matter_. the next consideration is the atmosphere in which a child can best develop character by means of these experiences. a young child is a stranger in an unknown, untried country: he has many strange promptings that seek for satisfaction; he has strong emotions arising from his instincts, he feels crudely and fiercely and he must act without delay, as a result of these emotions. he is like a tourist in a new strange country, fresh and eager, and with a similar holiday spirit of adventure: the stimulation of the new arouses a desire to interpret, to investigate and to ask questions: it arouses strong emotions to like or dislike, to fear, to be curious; it leads to certain modes of conduct, as a result of these emotions. picture such a young tourist buttonholed by a blasé guide, who had forgotten what first impressions meant, who insisted on accompanying him wherever he went, regulating his procedure by telling him just what should be observed and how to do so, pouring out information so premature as to be obnoxious, correcting his taste, subduing his enthusiasm, and modifying even his behaviour. the tourist would presumably pay off the unwelcome guide, but the children cannot pay off the teacher: they can and do rebel, but docility and adaptability seem to play a large part in self-preservation. for the young child freedom must precede docility, because the only reasonable and profitable docility is one that comes after initiative and experiment have been satisfied, and when the child feels that he needs help. the world that the free child chooses represents every side of life that he is ready to assimilate, and his freedom must be intellectual, emotional and moral freedom. in the school with the rigidly organised time-table, where the remarks of the children provoke the constantly repeated reproach: "we are not talking of that just now," where the apparatus is formal and the method of using it prescribed, where home life and street life are ignored, where there are neither garden nor picture books, where childish questions are passed over or hastily answered, where the room is full of desks and the normal attitude is sitting, where the teacher is teaching more often than the children are doing, there is no intellectual freedom. where passion and excitement are instantly arrested, where appreciation for strong colours, fierce punishments, loud noises, is killed, where fear is ridiculed, where primitive likes and dislikes are interpreted as coarseness, there is no emotional freedom. a child must have these experiences if he is to come to his own later: this is not the time to stamp out but only to deflect and guide; otherwise he becomes a weak and pale reflection of his elders, with little resource or enthusiasm. where it is almost impossible to be openly naughty, where there is no opportunity for choice or for making mistakes, where control is all from the teacher and self-control has no place, there is no moral freedom. the school is not for the righteous but for the so-called sinner, who is only a child learning self-control by experience. self-control is a habit gained through habits; a child must acquire the habit of arresting desire, of holding the physical side in check, the habit of reflection, of choice, and most of all the habit of either acting or holding back, as a result of all this. if in the earliest years his will is in the hands of others, and he has the habit of obedience to the exclusion of all other habits, then his development as a self-reliant individual is arrested, and may be permanently weakened. there is no other way to learn life, and build up an ideal from the raw material he has gained in other ways. in the rehearsal of life at school he can do this without serious harm; but every time a mode of conduct is imposed upon him when he might have chosen, every time he is externally controlled when he might have controlled himself, every time he is balked in making a mistake that would have been experience to him, he will be proportionally less fit to choose, to exercise self-control, to learn by experience, and these are the chief lessons at this impressionable period. _the fourth principle therefore is that the atmosphere of freedom is the only atmosphere in which a child can gain experiences that will help to develop character and control conduct._ these four vital principles will be applied to practical work in the following chapters. ii. practical application of vital principles before applying these principles it is necessary for practical considerations to set out clearly the various stages of this period. during the first eight years of life, development is very rapid and not always relatively continuous. sometimes it takes leaps, and sometimes appears for a time to be quiescent. but roughly the first stage, of a child's developing life ends when he can walk, eat more or less ordinary food, and is independent of his mother. at this point the nursery school stage begins: the child is learning for himself his world by experience, and through play he chooses his raw material in an atmosphere of freedom. when the period of play pure and simple begins to grow into a desire to do things better, to learn and practise for a more remote end--in other words, when the child begins to be willing to be taught, the transitional period from play to work begins. it can never be said to end, but the relative amount of play to work gradually defines the life of the school: and so the transitional period merges into the school period. thus we are concerned first with the nursery school period which corresponds to what froebel meant by his kindergarten and owen by his infant school; secondly, with the transitional period which has been far too long neglected or rushed over, and which roughly corresponds to the standard i. of the elementary school; and thirdly, we have the beginnings of the junior school where work is the predominant factor. in spite of shakespeare's assertion, there is much in a name, and if these names were definitely adopted, teachers would realise better the nature of their business. the following chapters seek to apply practically the four vital principles to these periods of a child's life, but in many cases the transition classes and the junior school are considered together. chapter xvii the need for experience "the first vital principle is that the teacher of young children must provide for them life in miniature, i.e. she must provide abundant raw material and opportunities for acquiring experience." the practical translation of this in the words of the teacher of to-day is, "i must choose furniture, and requisition apparatus." the teacher of to-morrow will say to her children, "i will bring the world into the school for you to learn." the local education authority of to-day says, "we must build a school for instruction." the local education authority of to-morrow will say, "we must make a miniature world for our children." the world of the nursery school child probably requires the most careful thought in this respect: a large room with sunlight and air, low clear windows, a door leading to a garden and playground, low cupboards full of toys, low-hung pictures, light chairs and tables that can be pushed into a corner, stretcher beds equally disposable, a dresser with pretty utensils for food; these are the chief requirements for satisfying physical needs, apparent in the actual room. physical habits will be considered later, under another heading. outside, in the playground, there should be opportunities for physical development, for its own sake: swings, giant strides, ladders laid flat, slightly sloping planks, and a seesaw should all be available for constant use; if the children are not warned or given constant advice about their own safety, there is little fear of accidents. thus the purely physical side of the children is provided for, the side that they are, if healthy, quite unconscious of; what else does experience demand at this stage? roughly classified, the raw experience of this stage may be divided into the experience of the natural world of living things, the world of inanimate things, and the social world. for the natural world there should be the garden outside, with its trees, grass and flower beds; with its dovecot and rabbit hutch, and possibly a cat sunning herself on its paths; inside there will be plants and flowers to care for; the elements, especially water, earth and air, are very dear to a young child, and it is quite possible to satisfy his cravings with a large sand-heap of _dry_ and _wet_ sand; a large flat bath for sailing boats and testing the theory of sinking and floating; a bin of clay; a pair of bellows and several fans to set the air in motion. there is always the fire to gaze at on the right side of the fire-guard, and appreciation of the beauty of this element should be encouraged. the world of inanimate things includes most of the toys that stimulate activity and give ideas. the chief that should be found in the cupboards, round the walls, or scattered about the room, are bricks of all sizes and shapes, skittles, balls and bats or rackets, hoops, reins, spades and other garden tools; pails and patty pans for the sand-heap; pipes for bubbles, shells, fir-cones, buttons, acorns, and any collection of small articles for handling; all kinds of vehicles that can be pushed, such as carts, barrows, prams, engines; drums and other musical instruments; materials for construction and expression, such as chalks, boards, paints and paper. for experiences of the social world, which is not very real at this individualistic period, come the dolls and doll's house, horses and stables, tea-things, cooking utensils, noah's ark, scales for a shop, boats, soldiers and forts: a very important item in this connection is the collection of picture-books: they must be chosen with the greatest care, and only pictures of such merit as those of caldecott, leslie brooke and jessie wilcox smith should be selected. pictures form one of the richest sources of experience at this stage, as indeed at any stage of life, and truth, beauty and suggestiveness must be their chief factors. the toys should be above all things durable, and if possible washable. broken and dirty toys make immoral children. besides the material surroundings there are opportunities, the seizing of which gives valuable experiences. these belong to the social world, and lie chiefly in the training in life's social observances and the development of good habits. this side of life is one of the most important in the nursery school, and needs material help. the lavatories and cloakrooms should be constructed so that there is every chance for a child to become self-reliant and fastidious. the cloakrooms should be provided with low pegs, boot holes, clothes brushes and shoe brushes: there should be low basins with hot and cold water, enamel mugs and tooth brushes _for each child,_ nail brushes, plenty of towels, and where the district needs it, baths. the type provided by the middlesex education authority at greenford avenue school, hanwell, gives a shower bath to a whole group of children at once, thus making a more frequent bath possible. perhaps for very small children of the nursery school age separate baths are more suitable. this is a question for future experience on the part of teachers. there should be plenty of time for the children to learn to wash and dress themselves. in the school-room there should either be tablecloths, or the tables should be capable of being scrubbed by the children after each meal. their almost inevitable lack of manners at table gives an invaluable opportunity for training, and again in such a case there should be no question of haste. the meals should be laid, waited on and cleared away, and the dishes washed by the children themselves, and they should be responsible for the general tidiness of the room. this involves tea-cloths, mops, dusters, washing bowls, brushes and dustpans. in the transition classes and junior school the furniture and apparatus can be to a great extent very much the same, their difference lying chiefly in degree. it is a pity to bring the age of toys to an abrupt conclusion; in real life the older children still borrow the toys of the younger ones while there are some definitely their own: such are, jigsaw and other puzzles, dominoes, articles for dramatic representation, playing cards, toys for games of physical skill, such as tops, kites, skipping ropes, etc. such prepared constructive materials as meccano--and a great mass of raw material for construction, generally termed "waste." there should be a series of boxes or shelves where such waste products of the home, or of the woods, or of the seashore, or of the shop, might be stored in some classified order: the collective instinct is stronger than the more civilised habit of orderliness: here is an opportunity for developing a habit from an instinct. there should also be materials for expression, such as clay, paper, chalk, pencil, paints, weaving materials, cardboard, and scenery materials; and such tools as scissors, cardboard knives, needlework tools, paste brushes, and others that may be necessary and suitable. the rooms should be large and suitable for much moving about: the most usual conditions should be a scattered class and not a seated listening class. this means light chairs and tables or benches where handwork can be done; low cupboards and lockers so that each child can get at his own things; broad window-sills for plants and flowers and a bookcase for reading and picture books. here again good picture-books are as essential as, even more essential than, readers in the transition class. they will be a little more advanced than in the nursery school, and will be of the type of the pied piper illustrated, or pictures of children of other lands and times. some of rackham's, of harold copping's, of the publications by black in _peeps at many lands_, are suitable for this stage. readers should be chosen for their literary value from the recognised children's classics, such as the peter rabbit type, _alice in wonderland, water-babies,_ and not made up for the sake of reading practice. the pictures on the walls should be hung at the right eye-level, and the windows low enough for looking at the outside world--whatever it may be. the teacher's desk should be in a corner, not in the central part of the room, for she must remember that the children are still in the main seeking experience, not listening to the experience of another. they should have access to the garden and playground, and all the incitements to activity should be there--similar to those of the nursery school, or those provided by the london county council in parks. the bare wilderness of playground now so familiar, where there is neither time nor opportunity for children to be other than primitive savages, does not represent the outside world of beauty and of adventure. the lower classes of junior school should differ very little in their miniature world. life is still activity to the child of eight, and consequently should contain no immovable furniture. there will be more books, and the children may be in their seats for longer periods; the atmosphere of guided but still spontaneous work is more definite, but the aim in choice of both furniture and apparatus is still the gaining of experience of life, by direct contact in the main. such is the requisition sheet to be presented to the stores superintendent of the local education authority in the future, with an explanatory note stating that in a general way what is actually required is the world in miniature! chapter xviii gaining experience by play "the second principle is that the method of gaining experience lies through play and that by this road we can best reach work." play is marked off from work chiefly by the absence of any outside pressure, and pleasure in the activity is the characteristic of play pure and simple: if a child has forced upon him a hint of any ulterior motive that may be in the mind of his teacher, the pleasure is spoilt for him and the intrinsic value of the play is lost. in bringing children into school during their play period, probably the most important formative period of their lives, and in utilising their play consciously, we are interfering with one of their most precious possessions when they are still too helpless to resent it directly. too many of us make play a means of concealing the wholesome but unwelcome morsel of information in jam, and we try to force it on the children prematurely and surreptitiously, but nature generally defeats us. the only sound thing to do is to _play the game_ for all it is worth, and recognise that in doing so education will look after itself. to understand the nature of play, and to have the courage to follow it, is the business of every teacher of young children. the nursery school, especially if it consists chiefly of children under five, presents at first very hard problems to the teacher; however strong her belief in play may be, it receives severe tests. so much of the play at first seems to be aimless running and shouting, or throwing about of toys and breaking them if possible, so much quarrelling and fighting and weeping seem involved with any attempts at social life on the part of the children; there seems very little desire to co-operate, and very little desire to construct; as a rule, a child roams from one thing to another with apparently only a fleeting attempt to play with it; yet on the other hand, to make the problem more baffling, a child will spend a whole morning at one thing: quite lately one child announced that he meant to play with water all day, and he did; another never left the sand-heap, and apparently repeated the same kind of activity during a complete morning; visitors said in a rather disappointed tone, "they just play all the time by themselves." one teacher brought out an attractive picture and when a group of children gathered round it she proceeded to tell the story; they listened politely for a few minutes, and then the group gradually melted away; they were not ready for concentrated effort. if those children had been in the ordinary baby room of a school they would have been quite docile, sitting in their places apparently listening to the story, amiably "using" their bricks or other materials according to the teacher's directions, but they would not, in the real sense, have been playing. this is an example of the need for both principle and courage. it is into this chaotic method of gaining experience that the teacher comes with her interpretive power--she sees in it the beginnings of all the big things of life--and like a bigger child she joins, and like a bigger child she improves. she sees in the apparent chaos an attempt to get experience of the different aspects of life, in the apparently aimless activity an attempt to realise and develop the bodily powers, in the fighting and quarrelling an attempt to establish a place in social life. it is all unconscious on the part of a child, but a necessary phase of real development. gradually the little primitive man begins to yield to civilisation. he is interested in things for longer and asks for stories, music and rhymes, and what does this mean? as he develops a child learns much about life in his care of the garden, about language in his games, about human conduct from stories; but he does these things because he wants to do them, and because there is a play need behind it all, which for him is a life need; in order to build a straight wall he must classify his bricks, in order to be a real shopman he must know his weights, in order to be a good workman he must measure his paper; all the ideas gained from these things come to him _along with sense activity_; they are associated with the needs and interests of daily life; and because of this he puts into the activity all the effort of which he is capable, or as dewey has expressed it, "the maximum of consciousness" into the experience which is his play. this is real sense training, differing in this respect from the training given by the montessori material, which has no appeal to life interest, aims at exercising the senses separately, and discourages _play_ with the apparatus. it is activity without a body, practice without an end, and nothing develops from it of a constructive or expressive nature. in the nursery class therefore our curriculum is life, our apparatus all that a child's world includes, and our method the one of joyful investigation, by means of which ideas and skill are being acquired. the teacher is player in chief, ready to suggest, co-operate, supply information, lead or follow as circumstances demand: responsibility must still belong to the children, for while most of them know quite naturally how to play, there are many who will never get beyond a rather narrow limit, through lack of experience or of initiative. it is quite safe to let experience take its chance through play, but there are certain things that must be dealt with quite definitely, when the teacher is not there as a playmate, but as something more in the capacity of a mother. it is impossible to train all the habits necessary at this time, through the spontaneous play, although incidentally many will be greatly helped and made significant by it. if the children come from poor homes where speech is imperfect, probably mere imitation of the teacher, which is the chief factor in ordinary language training, will be insufficient. it will be necessary to invent ways, chiefly games, by which the vocal organs may be used; this may be considered play, but it is more artificial and less spontaneous than the informal activity already described. it is well to be clear as to the kind of exercises best suited to make the vocal organs supple, and then to make these the basis of a game: for example, little children constantly imitate the cries of ordinary life; town children could dramatise a railway station where the sounds produced by engines and by porters give a valuable training; they could imitate street cries, the sound of the wind, of motor hooters, sirens, or of church bells. country children could use the sounds of the farm-yard, the birds, or the wind. in the recognition of sound, which is as necessary as its production, such a guessing game could be taught as "i sent my son to be a grocer and the first thing he sold began with _s_ and ended with _p_," using the _sounds_, not names of the letters. for the acquisition of a vocabulary, such a game as the family coach might be played and turned into many other vehicles or objects about which many stories could be told. all the time the game must be played with the same fidelity to the spirit of play as previously, but the introduction must be recognised as more artificial and forced, and this can be justified because so many children are not normal with regard to speech, and only where this is the case should language training be forced upon them. habits of courtesy, of behaviour at table, of position, of dressing and undressing, of washing hands and brushing teeth, and many others, must all be _taught_, but taught at the time when the need comes. occasions will certainly occur during play, but the chances of repetition are not sufficient to count on. thus we summarise the chief business of the nursery school teacher when we say that it is concerned chiefly with habits and play and right surroundings. play in the transition class is less informal. after the age of six certain ambitions grow and must be satisfied. the aspects of life are more separated, and concentration on individual ones is commoner; this means more separation into subjects, and thus a child is more willing to be organised, and to have his day to _some_ extent arranged for him. while in the nursery class only what was absolutely necessary was fixed, in the transition class it is convenient to fix rather more, for the sake of establishing certain regular habits, and because it is necessary to give the freshest hours to the work that requires most concentration. we must remember, however, that it _is_ a transition class, and not set up a completely fashioned time-table for the whole day. reading and arithmetic must be acquired both as knowledge and skill, the mother tongue requires definite practice, there must be a time for physical activity, and living things must not be attended to spasmodically. therefore it seems best that these things be taken in the morning hours, while the afternoon is still a time for free choice of activity. the following is a plan for the transition class, showing the bridge between absolute freedom and a fully organised time-table- morning. afternoon. monday |nature |reading |stories from |organised games and |work. |and number.|scripture or other |handwork. ---------|care |-----------|literature, and |---------------------- tuesday |of the |reading |stories of social |music and handwork. |room. |and number.|life; music and | ---------|nature |-----------|singing; industrial|---------------------- wednesday|chart |reading |activities such as |excursion or handwork. |and |and number.|solving puzzles, | ---------|general|-----------|playing games of |---------------------- thursday |talk. |reading |skill, looking at |dramatic representation | |and number.|pictures, arranging|including preparations. ---------| |-----------|collections. |---------------------- friday | |reading | |gardening or handwork. | |and number.| | granting this arrangement we must be clear how play as a method can still hold. it does not hold in the informal incidental sense of the nursery school: there are periods in the transition class when the children know that they are working for a definite purpose which is not direct play--as in reading; and there are times when they are dissatisfied with their performances of skill and ask to be shown a better way, and voluntarily practise to secure the end, as in handwork, arithmetic and some kinds of physical games. the remainder is probably still pursued for its own sake. how then can this play spirit be maintained side by side with work? first of all, the children should not be required to do anything without having behind it a purpose that appeals to them; it may not be the ultimate purpose of "their good," but a secondary reason may be given to which they will respond readily, generally the pretence reason. arithmetic to the ordinary person is a thing of real life; we count chiefly in connection with money, with making things, with distributing things, or with arranging things, and we count carefully when we keep scores in games; in adult life we seldom or never count or perform arithmetical operations for sheer pleasure in the activity, but there are many children who do so in the same spirit as we play patience or chess. and all this is our basis. the arithmetical activities in the transition class should therefore be based on such everyday experiences as have been mentioned, else there will be no associations made between the experiences of school and those of life outside. the two must merge. there is no such thing as arithmetic pure and simple for children unless they seek it; they must play at real life, and the real life that they are now capable of appreciating. skill in calculation, accuracy and quickness can be acquired by a kind of practice that children are quite ready for, if it comes when they realise the need; most children feel that their power to score for games is often too slow and inaccurate; as store clerks they are uncertain in their calculations; they will be willing to practise quick additions, subtractions, multiplications and divisions, in pure arithmetical form, if the pretence purpose is clearly in view, which to them is a real purpose; the same thing occurs in writing which should be considered a side issue of reading; meaningless words or sentences are written wearily and without pains, but to write the name of a picture you have painted, at the bottom of it, or to write something that cinderella's godmother said, or bit by bit to write a letter, will be having a purpose that gives life to an apparently meaningless act, and thoroughness to the effort. in handwork, too, at this stage, practice takes an important place: a child is willing to hem, to try certain brush strokes, to cut evenly, and later on to use his cardboard knife to effect for the sake of a future result if he has already experimented freely. this is in full harmony with the spirit of play, when we think of the practiced "strokes" and "throws" of the later games, but it is a more advanced quality of play, because there is the beginning of a purpose which is separated from immediate pleasure in the activity, there is the hint of an end in view though it is a child's end, and not the adult or economic one. the training of the mother tongue can be made very effective by means of games: in the days when children's parties were simple, and family life was united, language games in the long dark evenings gave to many a grip of words and expressions. children learnt to describe accurately, to be very fastidious in choice of words, to ask direct questions, to give verbal form to thought, all through the stress of such games--man and his shadow, clumps, subject and object, russian scandal, the minister's cat, i see a light, charades, and acting of all kinds. no number of picture talks, oral compositions, or observations can compete in real value with these games, because behind them was a purpose or need for language that compelled the greatest efforts. physical development and its adjustment to mental control owes its greatest stimulus to games. when physical strength, speed, or nimble adjustability is the pivot upon which the game depends, special muscles are made subservient to will: behind the game there is the stimulus of strong emotion, and here is the greatest factor in establishing permanent associations between body and mind; psychologists see in many of these games of physical activity the evolution of the race: drill pure and simple has its place partly in the same sense as "practice" in number or handwork, and partly as a corrective to our fallacious system of education by listening, instead of by activity: and we cannot in a lifetime acquire the powers of the race except by concentrated practice. but no amount of drill can give the all-round experience necessary for physical readiness for an emergency, physical and mental power to endure, active co-operation, where self-control holds in check ambitious personal impulses: and no drill seems to give grace and beauty of motion that the natural activity of dancing can give. it is through the games that british children inherit, and by means of which they have unconsciously rehearsed many of the situations of life, that they have been able to take their place readily in the life of the nation and even to help to save it. again, as in other directions, children must be made to play the game in its thoroughness, for a well-played game gives the right balance to the activities: drill is more specialised, and has specialisation for its end: a game calls on the whole of an individual: he must be alert mentally and physically; and at the same time the sense of fairness cannot be too strongly insisted on; no game can be tolerated as part of education where there is looseness in this direction, from the skittles of the nursery class to the cricket and hockey of the seventh standard, and nothing will so entirely outrage the children's feelings as a teacher's careless arbitration. in physical games, too, the social side is strongly developed: leadership, self-effacement and co-operation are more valuable lessons of experience than fluent reading or neat writing or accurate additions: but they have not counted as such in our economic system of education; they have taken their chance: few inspectors ask to see whether children know how to "play the game," and yet they are so soon to play the independent game of life. but the individual output of reading and sums of a sneaking and cowardly, or assertive and selfish child, is as good probably as that of a child that has the makings of a hero in him. and then we wonder at the propensities of the "lower classes." it is because we have never made sure that they can play the game. to summarise: play in the nursery school stage is unorganised, informal, and pursued with no motive but pleasure in the activity itself; it is mainly individual. play in the transition class is more definitely in the form of games, _i.e._ organised play, efforts of skill, mental or physical; it becomes social. play in the junior school is almost an occasional method, because the work motive is by this time getting stronger. chapter xix the unity of experience "we find in the child's spontaneous choice the nature of the surroundings and of the activities he craves for; in other words, he makes his own curriculum, and selects his own subject matter." the next problem we have to solve is how to unify the bewildering variety of ideas and activities that a child seeks contact with during a day. we found that the curriculum of the infant school of to-day presented a rather confusing variety of ideas, not necessarily arranged as the children would have chosen; they would certainly not have chosen to break off some intense interest, because an arbitrary timetable hurried them to something else, and they would have been right. if we asked the children their reasons for choosing, we would find no clue except that they chose what they wanted to, neither could they tell us why they spent so much more time over one thing than another. if a similar study were to be made of a child from a slum also free to arrange his day, we should find that while certain general features were the same others would be different: he would ask for different stories, probably play different games, or the same games in a different way, his back-yard would present different aspects, the things he made would be different. it is evident that the old correlation method has little or nothing to do with the matter; a child may or may not draw the rabbit he feeds, he certainly does not play a rabbit game because of the rabbit he has fed, nor does he build a rabbit-hutch with his bricks. he might try to make a real one if the rabbit really needed it, but that arises out of an obvious necessity. if he could put his unconscious promptings into words, he would say he did the things because he wanted to, because somebody else did them, or because of something he saw yesterday, and so on; but he would always refer back to _himself_. the central link in each case is in the child, with his special store of experiences derived from his own particular surroundings; he brings to new experiences his store of present experiences, his interests not always satisfied, his powers variously used, he interprets the new by these, and seeks for more in the line of the old. it is life he has experienced, and he seeks for more life. how then can we secure for him that the new experiences presented to him in school will be in line with the old? we will take three typical cases of children to illustrate the real nature of this problem. the first is the case of a child living in a very poor district of london or of any large town. the school is presumably situated in a narrow street running off the high street of the district, the street where all the shopping is done; at the corner is a hide factory with an evil smell. most of the dwelling-houses abut on the pavement, some with a very small yard behind, some without any. several families live in one house, and often one room is all a family can afford; as that has to be paid for in advance the family address may change frequently. the father may be a dock labourer with uncertain pay, a coster, a rag and bone merchant, or he may follow some unskilled occupation of a similarly precarious nature; in consequence the mother has frequently to do daily work, the home is locked up till evening, and she often leaves before the children start for morning school. it is a curious but very common fact that, free though these children are, they know only a very small radius around their own homes. they are accustomed to be sent shopping into high street, where household stores are bought in pennyworths or twopennyworths, owing to uncertain finance and no storage accommodation. generally there is one tap and one sink in the basement for the needs of all the families in the house. there is usually a park somewhere within reach, but it may be a mile away; in it would, at least, be trees, a pond, grass, flowers. but an excursion there, unless it is undertaken by the school, can only be hoped for on a fine bank holiday; there is neither time nor money to go on a saturday, and sunday cannot be said to begin till dinner-time, about 3 p.m., when the public-houses close, and the father comes home to dinner. it is difficult to imagine the conversation of such a household; family life exists only on sunday at dinner-time; the child's background of family life is a room which is at once a bedroom, living room and laundry. there is nearly always some part of a meal on the table, and some washing hanging up. outside there are the dingy street, the crowded shops, the pavement to play on, and both outside and in, the bleaker and more sordid aspects of life, sometimes miserable, sometimes exciting. on saturday night the lights are brilliant and life is at least intense. bed is a very crowded affair, in which many half-undressed children sleep covered with the remainder of the day's wardrobe. what store of experiences does a child from such a neighbourhood bring to school, to be assimilated with the new experiences provided there? what do such terms as home, dinner, bed, bath, birth, death, country, mean to him? they mean _something_.[34] [footnote 34: see _child life_, october 1916.] not a mile away we may come to a very respectable suburb of the average type; and what is said of it may apply in some degree to a provincial or country town or, at least, the application can easily be made. the school probably stands at the top corner of a road of houses rented, at £25 to £35 per annum, with gardens in front and behind. the road generally runs into a main road with shops and traffic. here and there in the residential road are little oases of shops, patronised by the neighbourhood, and some of the children may live over these. the home life is more ordinary and needs less descriptive detail, but there are some features that must be considered. the decencies, not to say refinements of eating, sleeping and washing are taken for granted: there is often a bath-room and always a kitchen. the father's occupation may be local, but a good many fathers will go to town; there is generally a family holiday to the sea, or less often to the country. in the house the degree of refinement varies; there are nearly always pictures of a sort, books of a sort, and the children are supplied with toys of a sort. they visit each other's houses, and the observances of social life are kept variously. often the horizon is very narrow; the mother's interest is very local and timid; the father's business life may be absolutely apart from his home life and never mentioned there. the family conversation while quite amiable and agreeable may be round very few topics, and the vocabulary, while quite respectable, may be most limited. children's questions may be put aside as either trivial or unsuitable. in one sense the slum child may be said to have a broader background, the realities of life are bare to him on their most sordid side, there is neither mystery nor beauty around life, or death, or the natural affections. the suburban child may on the contrary be balked and restricted so that unnecessary mystery gives an unwholesome interest to these things and conventionality a dishonest reserve. a suburb of this type is described by beresford in _housemates_:--"in such districts (as gospel oak) i am depressed by the flatness of an awful monotony. the slums vex me far less. there i find adventure and jest whatever the squalor; the marks of the primitive struggle through dirt and darkness towards release. those horrible lines of moody, complacent streets represent not struggle, but the achievement of a worthless aspiration. the houses, with their deadly similarity, their smug, false exteriors, their conformity to an ideal which is typified by their poor imitative decoration, could only be inhabited by people who have no thought or desire for expression.... the dwellers in such districts are cramped into the vice of their environment. their homes represent the dull concession to a state rule; and their lives take tone from the grey, smoke-grimed repetition of one endlessly repeated design. the same foolish ornamentation on every house reiterates the same suggestion. their places of worship, the blank chapels and pseudo-gothic churches rear themselves head and shoulders above the dull level, only to repeat the same threat of obedience to a gloomy law.... the thought of gospel oak and its like is the thought of imitation, of imitation falling back and becoming stereotyped, until the meaning of the thing so persistently copied has been lost and forgotten." a third case is that of the country child, the child who attends the village school. many villages lie several miles from a railway station, so that the younger children may not see a railway train more than once or twice a year. the fathers may be engaged in village trades, such as a shoemaker, carpenter, gardener, general shop merchant, farm labourer, or farmer. the village houses are often cramped and small, but there is wholesome space outside, and generally a good garden which supplies some of the family food; milk and eggs are easily obtainable, and conditions of living are seldom as crowded as in a town. the country children see more of life in complete miniature than the slum or the suburban child can do, for the whole life of the village lies before him. the school is generally in the centre, with a good playground, and of late years a good school garden is frequent. the village church, generally old, is another centre of life, and there is at least the vicarage to give a type of life under different social conditions. the home intellectual background may vary, but on the whole cannot be reckoned on very much; though in some ways it is more narrow than the suburban one, it is often less superficial. in a different way from the slum child, but none the less definitely, the country child comes face to face with the realities of life, in a more natural and desirable way than either of the others. it is difficult to estimate some of the effects of living in the midst of real nature on children; unconsciously, they acquire much deep knowledge impossible to learn through nature study, however good, a kind of knowledge that is part of their being; but how far it affects them emotionally or enters into their scheme of life, is hard to say. as they grow up much of it is merely economic acquirement: if they are to work on the land, or rear cattle, or drive a van through the country, it is all to the good; but one thing is noticeable, that they take very quickly to such allurements of town life as a cinema, or a picture paper or gramophone, and this points to unsatisfied cravings of some sort, not necessarily so unworthy or superficial as the means sought to satisfy them. from these rather extreme cases we get near the solution of the problem; it is quite evident that each of these children brings to school very different contributions of experience on which to build, though their general needs and interests are similar. therefore the curriculum of the school will depend on the general surroundings and circumstances of the children, and all programmes of work and many questions of organisation will be built on this. the model programme so dear to some teachers must be banished, as a doctor would banish a general prescription; no honest teacher can allow this part of her work to be done for her by any one else. therefore the central point is the child's previous experience, and on this the experience provided by school, _i.e._ curriculum and subject matter, depends. one or two examples of the working out of this might make the application clearer. probably the realities of life in relation to money differ greatly. the kind of problem presented to the poor town child will deal with shopping in pennyworths or ounces, with getting coals in pound bagfuls. clothes are generally second-hand, and so ordinary standard prices are out of the question. bread is bought stale and therefore cheaper, early in the morning. preserved milk only is bought, and that in halfpenny quantities. only problems based on these will be real to this child at first. the suburban child's economic experience may be based on his pocket-money, money in the bank, and the normal shopping of ordinary life. the country child is frequently very ignorant of money values; probably it will be necessary to take the country general shop as the basis. he could also begin to estimate the produce of the school garden. the nursery school programme it is quite obvious from the nature of play at this stage that a time-table is out of the question and in fact an outrage against nature. only for social convenience and for the establishment of certain physical habits can there be fixed hours. there must be approximate limits as to the times of arrival and departure, but nothing of the nature of marking registers to record exact minutes. little children sometimes sleep late, or, on the other hand, the mothers may have to leave home very early; all this must be allowed for. there should be fixed times for meals and for sleep, and these should be rigidly observed, and there should be regular times for the children to go to the lavatories; all these establish regularity and self-control, as well as improving general health. but anything in the nature of story periods, games periods, handwork periods, only impedes the variously developing children in their hunger for experiences. their curriculum is life as the teacher has spread it out before them; there are no subjects at this stage; the various aspects ought to be of the nature of a glorious feast to these young children. traherne says in the seventeenth century:-"will you see the infancy of this sublime and celestial greatness? those pure and virgin apprehensions i had in my infancy, and that divine light wherewith i was born, are the best unto this day wherein i can see the universe.... verily they form the greatest gift his wisdom can bestow, for without them all other gifts had been dead and vain. they are unattainable by books and therefore will i teach them by experience.... certainly adam in paradise had not more sweet and curious apprehensions of the world than i when i was a child. "all appeared new and strange at first, inexpressibly rare and delightful and beautiful. i was a little stranger which at my entrance into the world was saluted and surrounded with innumerable joys.... i knew by intuition those things which since my apostasy i collected again by the highest reason.... all things were spotless and pure and glorious; yea, and infinitely mine, and joyful and precious.... i saw in all the peace of eden.... is it not that an infant should be heir of the whole world, and see those mysteries which the books of the learned never unfold? "the corn was orient and immortal wheat which never should be reaped, nor was ever sown. i thought it stood from everlasting to everlasting. the dust and stones of the street were as precious as gold: the gates were at first the end of the world. the green trees when i saw them first through one of the gates transported and ravished me: ... the skies were mine, and so were the sun and moon and stars, and all the world was mine: and i the only spectator and enjoyer of it.... so that with much ado i was corrupted and made to learn the dirty devices of this world, which i now unlearn, and become, as it were, a little child again that i may enter into the kingdom of heaven." if this is what life means to the young child, and traherne only records what many of us have forgotten there is little need for interference: we can only spread the feast and stand aside to watch for opportunities. the following extract is given from a teacher's note-book: it shows how many possibilities open out to a teacher, and how impossible it is to keep to a time-table, or even to try to name the activities. the children concerned were about five years old, newly admitted to a poor school in s.e. london. the records are selected from a continuous period, and do not apply to one day:-plans for the day what actually happened _number occupations._--this will the children played, freely be entirely free and the children chalking most of the time; those will choose their own toys and threading beads were most put them away. interested. again i noticed the lack of idea of colour; i found one new boy placing his sticks according to colour, without knowing the names of the colours. the boys thought the soldiers belonged to them, and laughed at a little girl for choosing them. _language training._--i have i realised this was a failure, discovered that they love to for i asked the children to use imitate sounds, so we will play their boards and chalks for a at this. they could draw a cat definite drawing, and they should and say "miauw," and a duck and have had the time to use them say "quack." they could also freely and discover their use. i imitate the wind. got very little information about their vocabulary. _language training_ (_another i found that many children day_).--i shall try to induce the pronounced words so strangely children to speak to me about their that i could only with difficulty homes, in order to discover any recognise them. one said she difficulties of pronunciation and had a "bresser" with "clates" to make them more fluent. on it and "knies" others spoke of "manckle," "firebrace," "forts." one child speaking of curly hair called it "killeyer." we had no time for the story. _playing with toys._--the noah's arks, dolls, and bricks children will choose their own toys, were used, and i found that the and as far as possible i will put girls who had no dolls at home a child who knows how to use them were delighted to be able to dress next to one who desires to sit and undress them and put them still. to bed. one little girl walked backwards and forwards before the class getting her doll to sleep; the boys were making a noise with their arks and she remarked on this, so we induced them to be silent while the dolls were put to sleep. the boys arranged their animals in long lines. the bricks were much more carefully put away to-day. the transition and the junior school programme even after the nursery school period much of the curriculum and subject matter is in the hands of the children themselves, though the relative proportions will vary according to the children's experiences. it is pretty evident to the honest-minded teacher that the subjects are, in school terms, nature work and elementary science, mathematics, constructive and expressive work, literature, music, language, physical exercise and religion. the business of the younger child is with real things and activity, not with symbols and passivity, therefore he is not really in need of reading, writing, or arithmetic. we hear arguments from ambitious teachers that children are fond of reading lessons because they enjoy the fantasies in which these lessons are wrapped, or the efforts made by the teacher to create interest; we hear that children ask to be taught to read; they also ask to be taught to drive a tram or to cook a dinner; but it is all part of the pretence game of playing at being grown up. they do not need to read while stories and poetry can be told or read to them; they are not ready to make the effort of working for a remote economic end, where there is no real pleasure in the activity, and no opportunity of putting their powers to use. no child under six wants to sit down and read, and it would be very harmful if he did; his business is with real things and with his vocabulary, which is not nearly ready to put into symbols yet. if reading is delayed, hours of weary drudgery will be saved and energy stored for more precious attainments. therefore in the transition class (_i.e._ children over six at lowest) the only addition to the curriculum already set out for the nursery class, would be arithmetic and reading, including writing. the other differences would be in degree only. in the junior class (with children over seven at lowest) a desire to know something of the doings of people in other countries, to hear about other parts of our own land, will lead to the beginnings of geography; while with this less imaginative and more literal period comes the request for stories that are more verbally true, and questions about origins, leading to the beginnings of history. it is very much easier to give the general curriculum than to deal with the choice of actual material, because that is involved largely with the principle of the unity of experience, and, as we know, experiences vary. the normal town and country child, and the abnormal child of poverty have all certain human cravings in common, and these are provided for in the aspects of life or subjects that have been named--but this is far too general an application to be the end of the matter; each subject has many sides to offer. there may be for example the pottery town, the weaving town, the country town, the fishing town, the colliery town: in the country there is the district of the dairy farmer, of the sheep farmer, of the grain grower and miller, of the fruit farmer, of the hop grower, and many districts may partake of more than one characteristic. perhaps the most curious anomaly of experience is that of the child of the london slums who goes "hopping" into some of the loveliest parts of kent, in early autumn. and so in a general way at least the concentrated experience of school must fill gaps and supply experiences that life has not provided for. one of the pottery towns in staffordshire is built on very unfertile clay; there are several potteries in the town belching out smoke, and, in addition, rows of monotonous smoke-blackened houses; almost always a yellow pall of smoke hangs over the whole district, and even where the edge of the country might begin, the grass and trees are poor and blackened, and distant views are seen through a haze. there are almost no gardens in the town, and very little attempt has been made to beautify it, because the results are so disappointing. beauty, therefore, in various forms must be a large part of the curriculum: already design is a common interest in the pottery museums of the district, and this could be made a motive for the older children; but in the junior and nursery school pictures of natural beauty, wild flowers if it is possible to get them, music, painting and drawing, and literature should bulk largely enough to make a permanent impression on the children. in a very remote country village where life seems to go slowly, and days are long, children should be encouraged, by means of the school influence, to make things that absorb thought and interest, to tell and hear stories. storytelling in the evening round the fire is a habit of the past, and might well supply some of the cravings that have to be satisfied by the "pictures." most of us have to keep ourselves well in hand when we listen to a recitation in much the same way as when a slate pencil used to creak; it would be very much better if the art of storytelling were cultivated at school, encouraged at home, and applied to entertainments. indeed the entertainments of a village school, instead of being the unnatural and feverish production of hours of overtime, might well be the ordinary outcome of work both at school and at home--and thus a motive for leisure is naturally supplied and probably a hobby initiated. it is profitable sometimes to group the subjects of experience in order to preserve balance. all getting of experience is active, but some kinds more obviously than others. undoubtedly in hearing stories and poetry, in watching a snail or a bee, in listening to music, the activity is mental rather than physical and assimilation of ideas is more direct; in discovering experiences by means of construction, expression, experiment or imitation, assimilation is less direct but often more permanent and secure. froebel discriminates between impression and expression, or taking in and giving out, and although he constantly emphasised that the child takes in by giving, it is convenient to recognise this distinction. another helpful grouping is the more objective one. some subjects refer more particularly to human conduct, the enlargement of experiences of human beings, and the building up of the ideal: these are literature, music, history and geography; others refer to life other than that of human beings, commonly known as nature study and science; others to the properties of inanimate things, and to questions throughout all life of measurement, size and force--this is known as mathematics; others of the life behind the material and the spiritual world--this is known as religion. chapter xx gaining experience through freedom "the atmosphere of freedom is the only atmosphere in which a child can gain experiences that will help to develop character." the principle of freedom underlies all the activities of the school and does not refer to conduct simply; intellectual and emotional aspects of discipline are too often ignored and we have as a product the commonplace, narrow, imitative person, too timid or too indolent to think a new thought, or to feel strongly enough to stand for a cause. self-control is the goal of discipline, but independent thinking, enthusiasm and initiative are all included in the term. it will be well to discriminate between the occasions, both in the nursery school and in the transition and junior classes, when a child should be free to learn by experience and when he should be controlled from without. we shall probably find occasions which partake of the nature of each. the nursery school is a collection of individuals presumably from 2-1/2 to 5-1/2 years of age. they know no social life beyond the family life, and family experience is relative to the size of the family. in any case they have not yet measured themselves against their peers, with the exception of the occasional twin. a few months ago about twenty children of this description formed the nucleus of a new nursery school where, as far as possible, the world in miniature was spread out before them, and they were guided in their entrance to it by an experienced teacher and a young helper. for the first few weeks the chief characteristic was noise; the children rushed up and down the large room, shouting, and pushing any portable toys they could find. one little boy of 2-1/2 employed himself in what can only be called "punching" the other children, snatching their possessions away from them and responding to the teacher by the law of contra-suggestion. he was the most intelligent child in the school. he generally left a line of weeping children behind him, and several began to imitate him. the pugnacious instinct requires little encouragement. lunch was a period of snatching, spilling, and making plans to get the best. many of the toys provided were carelessly trampled upon and broken: requests to put away things at the end of the day were almost unavailing. when the time for sleeping came in the afternoon many of the children refused to lie down: some consented but only to sing and talk as they lay. only one, a child of 2-1/2, slept, because he cried himself to sleep from sheer strangeness. this apparently unbeautiful picture is only the first battle of the individual on his entrance to the life of the community. on the other hand, there were intervals of keen joy: water, sand and clay chiefly absorbed the younger children: the older ones wanted to wash up and scrub, and many spent a good deal of time looking at picture-books. this was the raw material for the teacher to begin with: the children came from comfortable suburban homes: none were really poor, and many had known no privation. they were keen for experiences and disposed to be very friendly to her. after five months there is a marked difference in spirit. the noise is modified because the children found other absorbing interests, though at times nature still demands voice production. during lunch time and sleeping time there is quiet, but the teacher has never _asked_ for silence unless there was some such evident reason. there is no silence game. the difference has come from within the children. all now lie down in the afternoon quietly, and the greater number sleep; but there has been no command or any kind of general plan: again the desire has gradually come to individuals from suggestion and imitation. lunch is quite orderly, but not yet without an occasional accident or struggle. there is much less fighting, but primitive man is still there. the most marked development is in the growth of the idea of "taking turns"; the children have begun to master this all-important lesson of life. the strong pugnacious habit in the little punching boy reached a point that showed he was unable to conquer it from within: about two months after his arrival the teacher consulted his mother, who confirmed all that the teacher had experienced: her prescription was smacking. after a good deal of thought and many ineffectual talks and experiments with the boy, the teacher came to the conclusion that the mother was right: she took him to the cloakroom after the next outbreak and smacked his hands: he was surprised and a little hurt, but very soon forgot and continued his practices: on the next occasion the teacher repeated the punishment and it was never again necessary. for a few days he was at a loss for an occupation because punching had become a confirmed habit, but soon other interests appealed to him: he has never changed in his trust in his teacher of whom he is noticeably very fond, and he has now realised that he must control a bad habit. this example has been given at length to illustrate the relation of government to freedom. if these children had been in the ordinary baby room, subject to a time-table, to constant plans by the teacher for their activities, few or none of these occasions would have occurred: the incipient so-called naughtiness would have been displayed only outside, in the playground or at home: there would have been little chance of chaos, of fighting, of punching, of trying to get the best thing and foremost place, there would have been little opportunity for choice and less real absorption, because of the time-table. the children would have been happy enough, but they would not have been trained to live as individuals. outward docility is a fatal trait and very common in young children; probably it is a form of self-preservation. but the real child only lies in wait to make opportunities out of school. the school is therefore not preparing him for life. * * * * * freedom in the transition and the junior school must be differently applied: individual life begins to merge into community life, and the children begin to learn that things right for individuals may be wrong for the community. but the problem of freedom is not as easy as the problem of authority: standards must be greatly altered and outward docility no longer mistaken for training in self-control. individual training cannot suddenly become class discipline, neither can children be switched from the nursery school to a full-blown class system. the idea of class teaching must be postponed, for out of it come most of the difficulties of discipline, and it is not the natural arrangement at this transitional period. a teacher is imposing on a number of very different individuals a system that says their difficulties are alike, that they must all work at one rate and in one way: and so we have the weary "reading round" class, when the slow ones struggle and the quick ones find other and unlawful occupation: we have the number lessons broken by the teacher's breathless attempts to see that all the class follows: we have the handwork that imposes an average standard of work that fits nobody exactly. intellectual freedom can only come by individual or group work, while class teaching is only for such occasions as a literature or a singing lesson, or the presentation of an occasional new idea in number. individual and group work need much organisation, but while classes consist of over forty children there is no other way to permit intellectual and moral freedom. of course the furniture of the room will greatly help to make this more possible, and it is hoped that an enlightened authority will not continue to supply heavy iron-framed desks for the junior school, those described as "desks for listening." the prevailing atmosphere should be a busy noise and not silence--it should be the noise of children working, oftener than of the teacher teaching, _i.e._ teaching the whole class. the teacher should be more frequently among the children than at her desk, and the children's voices should be heard more often than hers. such children will inevitably become intellectually independent and morally self-controlled. most of the order should be taken in hand by children in office, and they should be distinguished by a badge: most questions of punishment should be referred to them. this means a constant appeal to the law that is behind both teacher and children and which they learn to reach apart from the teacher's control. "where 'thou shalt' of the law becomes 'i will' of the doer, then we are free." iii. consideration of the aspects of experience the aim of the following chapters is to show how principles may be applied to what are usually known as subjects of the curriculum, and what place these subjects take in the acquisition of experience. an exhaustive or detailed treatment of method is not intended, but merely the establishment of a point of view and method of application. chapter xxi experiences of human conduct it is always difficult to see the beginnings of things: we know that stories form the raw material of morality, it is not easy to trace morality in _little black sambo, the three bears, alice in wonderland,_ or _the sleeping beauty,_ but nevertheless morality is there if we recognise morality in everyday things. it is not too much to say that everybody should have an ideal, even a burglar: his ideal is to be a good and thorough burglar, and probably if he is a burglar of the finer sort, it is to play fair to the whole gang. it is better to be a burglar with an ideal than a blameless person with very little soul or personality, who just slides through life accepting things: it is better to have a coster's ideal of a holiday than to be too indifferent or stupid to care or to know what you want. now ideals are supposed to be the essence of morality and morality comes to us through experience, and only experience tests its truth. the story with a moral is generally neither literature nor morality, except such unique examples as _the pilgrim's progress _or _everyman_. the kind of experience with which morality is concerned is experience of human life in various circumstances, and the way people behave under those circumstances. the beginning of such experience is our own behaviour and the behaviour of other people we know, but this is too limited an experience to produce a satisfactory ideal; so we crave for something wider. it is curious how strong is the craving for this kind of experience in all normal children, in whom one would suppose sense experiences and especially muscular experiences to be enough. the need to know about people other than ourselves, and yet not too unlike, in circumstances other than our own, and yet not too strange, seems to be a necessary part of our education, and we interpret it in the light of our own personal conduct. out of this, as well as out of our direct experience, we build our ideal. when one realises how an ideal may colour the whole outlook of a person, one begins to realise what literature means to a child. the early ideal is crude; it may be jack the giant-killer, or an engine-driver, cinderella, or the step-cleaner; this may grow into hiawatha or robinson crusoe, for boys, and a fairy tale princess or one of the "little women" for girls. in every hero a child half-unconsciously sees himself, and the ideal stimulates all that hidden life which is probably the most important part of his growth. as indirect experiences grow, or in other words as he hears or reads more stories, his ideal widens, and his knowledge of the problems of life is enlarged. this is the raw material of morality, for out of his answers to these problems he builds up standards of conduct and of judgement. he projects himself into his own ideal, and he projects himself into the experiences of other people: he lives in both: this is imagination of the highest kind, it is often called sympathy, but the term is too limited, it is rather imaginative understanding. there is another side of life grasped by means of this new world of experience, and that is, the spiritual side that lies between conduct and ideals; children have always accepted the supernatural quite readily and it is not to be wondered at, for all the world is new and therefore supernatural to them. magic is done daily in children's eyes, and there is no line between what is understandable and what is not, until adults try to interpret it for them. they are curious about birth and death and all origins: thunder is terrifying, the sea is enthralling, the wind is mysterious, the sky is immense, and all suggest a power beyond: in this the children are reproducing the race experience as expressed in myths, when power was embodied in a god or goddess. therefore the fairy world or the giant world, or the wood full of dwarfs and witches' houses, is as real to them, and as acceptable, as any part of life. it is their recognition of a world of spirits which later on mingles itself with the spiritual life of religion. that life is behind all matter, is the main truth they hold, and while it is difficult here to disentangle morality from religion, it is supremely evident that a very great and significant side of a child's education is before us. it is by means of the divine gift of imagination, probably the most spiritual of a child's gifts, that he can lay hold of all that the world of literature has to offer him. because of imagination he is independent of poverty, monotony, and the indifference of other people; he has a world of his own in which nothing is impossible. edwin pugh says of a child of the slums who was passionately fond of reading cheap literature:--"it was by means of this penny passport to heaven that she escaped from the hell of her surroundings. it was in the maudlin fancies of some poor besotted literary hack maybe, that she found surcease from the pains of weariness, the carks and cares of her miserable estate." a teacher realising this, should feel an almost unspeakable sense of responsibility in having to select and present matter: but the problem should be solved on the one hand by her own high standard of story material, and on the other by her knowledge of the child's needs. according to his experiences of life the interpretation of the story will differ: for example, it was found that the children of a low slum neighbourhood translated _jack the giant-killer_ into terms of a street fight: to children living by a river or the sea, the _water-babies_ would mean very much, while _jan of the windmill_ would be more familiar ground for country children. fairy stories of the best kind have a universal appeal. in choosing a story a teacher should be aware of the imperishable part of it, the truth around which it grew; sometimes the truth may seem a very commonplace one, sometimes a curious one. for example, very young children generally prefer stories of home life because round the family their experience gathers: the subject seems homely, but it is really one of the fundamental things of life and the teacher should realise this in such a way that the telling or reading of the story makes the kernel its central point. to some children the ideal home life comes only through literature: daily experiences rather contradict it. humour is an important factor in morality; unless a person is capable of seeing the humor of a situation he is likely to be wanting in a sense of balance; the humor of a situation is often caused by the wrong proportion or wrong balance of things: for example the humour of _the mad tea-party_ lies, partly at least, in the absurd gravity with which the animals regarded the whole situation, the extreme literal-mindedness of alice, and the exaggerated imitation of human beings: a really moral person must have balance as well as sympathy, else he sees things out of proportion. these examples make evident that we are not to seek for anything very patently high-flown in the stories for children; it is life in all its phases that gives the material, but it must be true life: not false or sentimental or trivial life: this will rule out the "pretty" stories for children written by trivial people in teachers' papers, or the pseudo-nature story, or the artificial myth of the "how did" type, or the would-be childish story where the language is rather that of the grown-up imitating children than that of real children. of late years, with the discovery of children, children's literature has grown, and there is a good deal to choose from past and present writers. there is no recognised or stereotyped method of telling a story to children: it is something much deeper than merely an acquired art, it is the teacher giving something of her personality to the children, something that is most precious. one of the finest of our english kindergarten teachers once said, "i feel almost as if i ought to prepare my soul before telling a story to young children," and this is the sense in which the story should be chosen and told. there are, of course, certain external qualifications which must be so fully acquired as to be used unconsciously, such as a good vocabulary, power over one's voice, a recognition of certain literary phases in a story, such as the working up to the dramatic crisis, the working down to the end so that it shall not fall flat, and the dramatic touches that give life; these are certainly most necessary, and should be studied and cultivated; but a teacher should not be hampered in her telling by being too conscious of them. rather she should feel such respect and even reverence for this side of a child's education that the framework and setting can only be of the best, always remembering at the same time what is framework and setting, and what is essence. much that has been said about the method and aim of stories might apply to those taken from the bible, but they need certain additional considerations. here religion and morality come very closely together: the recognition of a definite personality behind all circumstances of life, to whom our conduct matters, gives a soul to morality. the old testament is a record of the growth of a nation more fully conscious of god than is the record of any other nation, and because of this children can understand god in human life when they read such stories as the childhood of moses and of samuel. children resemble the young jewish nation in this respect: they accept the direct intervention of god in the life of every day. their primitive sense of justice, which is an eye for an eye, will make them welcome joyfully the plagues of egypt and the crossing of the red sea. it would be premature to force on them the more mature idea of mercy, which would probably lead to confusion of judgement: they must be clear about the balance of things before they readjust it for themselves. much of the material in the old testament is hardly suitable for very young children, but the most should be made of what there is: the lives of eastern people are interesting to children and help to make the phraseology of the psalms and even of the narratives clear to them. wonder stories such as the creation, the flood, the burning bush, elijah's experiences, appeal to them on another side, the side that is eager to wonder: the accounts of the childhood of ishmael, isaac, joseph, moses, david and samuel, and the little syrian maid, come very close to them. such stories should be given to young children so that they form part of the enchanted memory of childhood--which is permanent. with the new testament the problem is more difficult: one hesitates to bring the life of christ before children until they are ready to understand, even in some degree, its significance; the subject is apt to be dealt with either too familiarly, and made too commonplace and everyday a matter, or as something so far removed from human affairs as to be mysterious and remote to a child. to mix old and new testament indiscriminately, as, for example, by taking them on alternate days, is unforgivable, and no teacher who has studied the bible seriously could do so, if she cared about the religious training of her children, and understood the bible. if the children can realise something of the sense in which christ helped human beings, then some of the incidents in his life might be given, such as his birth, his work of healing, feeding and helping the poor, and some of his stories, such as the lost sheep, the lost son, the sower, the good samaritan. it is difficult to speak strongly enough of the mistreatment of scripture, under the name of religion: it has been spoilt more than any other subject in the curriculum, chiefly by being taken too often and too slightly, by teachers who may be in themselves deeply religious, but who have not applied intelligence to this matter. the religious life of a young child is very direct: there is only a little in the religious experiences of the jews that can help him, and much that can puzzle and hinder him; their interpretation of god as revengeful, cruel and one-sided in his dealings with their enemies must greatly puzzle him, when he hears on the other hand that god is the father of all the nations on the earth. what is suitable should be taken and taken well, but there is no virtue in the bible misunderstood. poetry is a form of literature which appeals to children _if they are not made to learn it by rote_. unconsciously they learn it very quickly and easily, if they understand in a general way the meaning, and if they like the sound of the words. rhythm is an early inheritance and can be encouraged by poetry, music and movement. the sound of words appeals strongly to young children, and rhyming is almost a game. the kind of poetry preferred varies a good deal but on the whole narrative or nonsense verses seem most popular; few children are ready for sentiment or reflection even about themselves, and this is why some of stevenson's most charming poems about children are not appreciated by them as much as by grown-up people. and for the same reason only a few nature poems are really liked. without doubt, the only aim in giving poetry to children is to help them to appreciate it, and the only method to secure this is to read it to them appreciatively and often. besides such anthologies as _the golden staircase,_ e.v. lucas's _book of verses for children,_ and others, we must go to the bible for poems like the song of miriam, or of deborah, and the psalms; to shakespeare for such songs as "where the bee sucks," "i know a bank," "ye spotted snakes," either with or without music; to longfellow's _hiawatha_ for descriptive pieces, and to scott and tennyson for ballads and songs, and to many other simple classic sources outside the ordinary collections. in both prose and poetry, probably the ultimate aim is appreciation of beauty in human conduct. clutton brock says, "the value of art is the value of the aesthetic activity of the spirit, and we must all value that before we can value works of art rightly: and ultimately we must value this glory of the universe, to which we give the name of beauty when we apprehend it." again he says, "parents, nurses and teachers ought to be aware that the child when he forgets himself in the beauty of the world is passing through a sacred experience which will enrich and glorify the whole of his life." if all this is what literature means in a child's experiences of life, then it must be given a worthy place in the time-table and curriculum and in the serious preparation by the teacher for her work. chapter xxii experiences of the natural world the first experiences the child gains from the world of nature are those of beauty, of sound, colour and smell. flowers at first are just lovely and sweet-smelling; the keen senses of a child are more deeply satisfied with colour and scent than we have any idea of, unless some faint memory of what it meant remains with us. but he begins to grasp real scientific truth from his experiences with the elements which have for him such a mysterious attraction; by the very contact with water something in the child responds to its stimulus. mud and sand have their charms, quite intangible, but universal, from prince to coster; a bonfire is something that arouses a kind of primeval joy. again, race experience reproducing itself may account for all this, and it must be satisfied. the demand for contact with the rest of nature is a strong and fierce part of human nature, and it means the growth of something in life that we cannot do without. we induce children to come into our schools when this hunger is at its fiercest, and very often we do nothing to satisfy it, but set them in rooms to look at things inanimate when their very being is crying out for life. "i want something and i don't know what to want" is the expression of a state very frequent in children, and not infrequent in grown-up people, because they have been balked of something. how, then, can we provide for their experience of this side of life? we have tried to do so in the past by object and nature lessons, but we must admit that they are not the means by which young children seek to know life, or by which they appreciate its beauty. we have been trying to kill too many birds with one stone in our economic way; "to train the powers of observation," "to teach a child to express himself," "to help a child to gain useful knowledge about living things," have been the most usual aims. and the method has been that of minute examination of a specimen from the plant or animal world, utterly detached from its surroundings, considered by the docile child in parts, such as leaves, stem, roots, petals, and uses; or head, wings, legs, tail, and habits. the innocent listener might frequently think with reason that a number lesson rather than a nature lesson was being given. the day of the object lesson is past, and to young children the nature lesson must become nature work. it is in the term "nature lesson" that the root of the mischief lies: nature is not a lesson to the young child, it is an interest from which he seeks to gain more pleasure, by means of his own activity: plants encourage him to garden, animals stir his desire to watch, feed and protect; water, earth and fire arouse his craving to investigate and experiment: there is no motive for passive study at this juncture, and without a motive or purpose all study leads to nothing. adults compare, and count the various parts of a living thing for purposes of classification connected with the subdivisions of life which we call botany and zoology; but such things are far removed from the young child's world--only gradually does it begin to dawn on him that there are interesting likenesses, and that in this world, as in his own, there are relationships; when he realises this, the time for a nature lesson has come. but much direct experience must come first. in setting out the furnishing of the school the need for this activity is implied. no school worthy of the name can do without a garden, any more than it can do without reading books, or blackboards, indeed the former need is greater: if it is possible, and possibilities gradually merge into acceptances, a pond should be in the middle of the garden, and trees should also be considered as part of the whole. it is not difficult for the ordinary person to make a pond, or even to begin a garden. in a school situated in s.e. london in the midst of rows of monotonous little houses, and close to a busy railway junction, a miracle was performed: the playground was not very large, and of the usual uncompromising concrete. the children, most of whose fathers worked on the railway, lived in the surrounding streets, and most of them had a back-yard of sorts; they had little or no idea of a garden. one of the teachers had, however, a vision which became a reality. she asked her children to help to make a garden, and for weeks every child brought from his back-yard his little paper bag of soil which was deposited over some clinkers that were spread out in a narrow border against the outside wall; in a few months there was a border of two yards in which flowers were planted: the caretaker, inspired by the sight, did his share of fixing a wooden strip as a kind of supporting border to the whole: in two years the garden had spread all round the outside wall of the playground, and belonged to several classes. an even greater miracle was performed in a dock-side school, where to most of the children a back-yard was a luxury beyond all possibility. the school playground was very small, and evening classes made a school garden quite impossible. but the head mistress was one who saw life full of possibilities, and so she saw a garden even in the sordidness. round the parish church was a graveyard long disused, and near one of the gates a small piece of ground that had never been used for any graveyard purpose: it was near enough to the school to be possible, and in a short time the miracle happened--the entrance to the graveyard became a children's flowering garden. inside the school where plants and flowers in pots are numerous, a part of the morning should be spent in the care of these: few people know how to arrange flowers, and fewer how to feed and wash them; if there are an aquarium or chrysalis boxes, they have to be attended to: all this should be a regular duty with a strong sense of responsibility attached to it; it is curious how many people are content to live in an atmosphere of decaying matter. if the children enjoy so intensely the colour of the leaves and flowers they will be glad to have the opportunity of painting them; this is as much a part of nature work as any other, and it should be used as such, because it emphasises so strongly the side of appreciation of beauty, a side very often neglected. it is here that the individual paint box is so important. if children are to have any sense of colour they must learn to match very truthfully; there is a great difference between the blue of the forget-me-not and of the bluebell, but only by experiment can children discover that the difference lies in the amount of red in the latter. by means of discoveries of this kind they will see new colours in life around them, and a new depth of meaning will come to their everyday observations. this is true observation, not the "look and say" of the oral lesson, which has no purpose in it, and leads to no natural activity, or to appreciation. it is difficult to satisfy the interest in animals. in connection with the nursery school the most suitable have been mentioned. the transition and junior school children may see others when they go for excursions. at this stage, too, children have a great desire to learn about wild animals, and the need often arises out of their literature: the camel that brought rebecca to isaac, the wolf that adopted mowgli, the reindeer that carried kay and gerda, the fox that tried to eat the seven little kids, androcles' lion, and black sambo's tiger, might form an interesting series, helped by pictures of the creature _in its own home_. it is difficult to say whether this may be termed literature, geography, or nature study. the difficulty serves to show the unity of life at this period. books such as seton thompson's, long's, and kearton's, and many others, supply living experiences of animal life impossible to get from less direct sources. as children get older, and have the power to look back, they will feel the necessity of keeping records; and thus the nature calendar, forerunner of geography, will be adopted naturally. another important feature in nature experiences is the excursion. froebel says: "not only children and boys, but indeed many adults, fare with nature and her character as ordinary men fare with the air. they live in it and yet scarcely know it as something distinct ... therefore these children and boys who spend all their time in the fields and forests see and feel nothing of the beauties of nature and their influence on the human heart. they are like people who have grown up in a very beautiful country and who have no idea of its beauty and its spirit ... therefore it is so important that boys and adults should go into the fields and forests, together striving to receive into their hearts and minds the life and spirit of nature." it is evident from this that excursions are as necessary in the country as in the town, where instead of the "fields and forests" perhaps only a park is possible, but there is no virtue in an excursion taken without preparation. the teacher must first of all visit the place and see what it is likely to give the children. she must tell them something of it, give them some aim in going there, such as collecting leaves or fruits, or recording different shapes of bare trees, or collecting things that grow in the grass. these are examples of what a town park might yield. within one group of children there might be many with different aims. during the days following the excursion time should be spent in using these experiences, either by means of painting and modelling, or making classified collections of things found, or compiling records, oral or written. otherwise the excursion degenerates into a school treat without its natural enjoyment. with regard to the inevitable gaps in the children's minds in connection with the world of living things, such pictures as the following should be in every town school: a pine wood, a rabbit warren, a natural pond, a ditch and hedge, a hayfield in june, a wild daffodil patch, a sheet of bluebells, a cornfield at different stages, an orchard in spring and in autumn, and many others. these must be constantly used when they are needed, and not misused in the artificial method known as "picture talks." there is another side to nature work. froebel says: "the things of nature form a more beautiful ladder between heaven and earth than that seen by jacob; not a one-sided ladder leading in one direction, but an all-sided one leading in all directions. not in dreams is it seen; it is permanent, it surrounds us on all sides." froebel believed that contact with nature helps a child's realisation of god, and any one who believes in early religious experience must agree; a child's early questions and difficulties, as well as his early awe and fear show it--he is probably nearer to god in his nature work than in many of the _daily_ scripture lessons. all his education should be permeated by spiritual feeling, but there are some aspects in which the realisation is clearer, and possibly his contact with nature stands out as the highest in this respect. there is no conscious method or art in bringing this about; the teacher must feel it and be convinced of it. thus we come to the conclusion that the nursery school nature work can be safely left to look after itself, provided the surroundings are satisfying and the children are free. in the transition and the junior school there should be no nature lessons of the object lesson type, but plenty of nature work, leading to talks, handwork, and poetry. the aim is not economic or informational at this stage, but the development of pure appreciation and interest. there can hardly be a regular place on the time-table for such irregular work, comprising excursions, gardening, handwork, and literature at least, and depending on the weather and the seasons. there should always be a regular morning time for attending to plants and animals and for the nature calendar, but no "living" teacher will be a slave to mere time-table thraldom. chapter xxiii experiences of mathematical truths by means of toys, handwork and games, as well as various private individual experiments, a child touches on most sides of mathematics in the nursery class. in experimenting with bricks he must of necessity have considered relative size, balance and adjustment, form and symmetry; in fitting them back into their boxes some of the most difficult problems of cubic content; in weighing out "pretence" sugar and butter by means of sand and clay new problems are there for consideration; in making a paper-house questions of measurement evolve. this is all in the incidental play of the nursery school, and yet we might say that a child thus occupied is learning mathematics more than anything else. here, if he remained till six, he did a certain amount of necessary counting, and he may have acquired skill in recognising groups, he may have unconsciously and incidentally performed achievements in the four rules, but never, of course, in any shortened or technical form. probably he knows some figures. it is best to give these to a child when he asks for or needs them, as in the case of records of games. on the other hand he may be content with strokes. various mathematical relationships are made clear in his games or trials of strength, such as distance in relation to time or strength, weight in relation to power and to balance, length and breadth in relation to materials, value of material in relation to money or work. by means of many of his toys the properties of solids have become working knowledge to him. here, then, is our starting-point for the transition period. after the nursery stage undoubtedly the aim of the transition class is partly to continue by means of games and dramatic play the kind of knowledge gained in the nursery school; but it has also the task of beginning to organise such knowledge, as the grouping into tens and hundreds. this organisation of raw material and the presenting of shortened processes, as occur in the first four rules, forms the work also of the junior school. to give to a child shortened processes which he would be very unlikely to discover in less than a lifetime, is simply giving him the experience of the race, as primitive man did to his son. but the important point is to decide when a child's discovery should end and the teacher's demonstration begin. this is the period when we are accustomed to speak of beginning "abstract" work; it is well to be clear what it means, and how it stands related to a child's need for experience. when we leave the problems of life, such as shopping, keeping records of games and making measurements for construction; and when we begin to work with pure number, we are said to be dealing with the abstract. formerly dealing with pure number was called "simple," and dealing with actual things, such as money and measures, "compound," and they were taken in this order. but experience has reversed the process, and a child comes to see the need of abstract practice when he finds he is not quick enough or accurate enough, or his setting out seems clumsy, in actual problems. this was discussed at greater length in the chapter on play. for instance, he might set down the points of a game by strokes, each line representing a different opponent: john |||||||||||||||| henry ||||||||||| tom ||| he will see how difficult it is to estimate at a glance the exact score, and how easy it is to be inaccurate. it seems the moment to show him that the idea of grouping or enclosing a certain number, and always keeping to the same grouping, is helpful: john |||||||||| |||||| = 1 ten and 6 singles. henry |||||||||| | = 1 ten and 1 single. tom ||| = 3 singles. after doing this a good many times he could be told that this is a universal method, and he would doubtless enjoy the purely puzzle pleasure in working long sums to perfect practice. this pleasure is very common in children at this stage, but too often it comes to them merely through being shown the "trick" of carrying tens. they have reached a purely abstract point, but they cannot get through it without some more material help. the following is an example of the kind of help that can be given in getting clear the concept of the ten grouping and the processes it involves: [illustration: board with hooks, in ranks of nine, and rings] the whole apparatus is a rectangular piece of wood about 3/4 of an inch thick, and about 3x1-1/2 feet of surface. it is painted white, and the horizontal bars are green, so that the divisions may be apparent at a distance; it has perpendicular divisions breaking it up into three columns, each of which contains rows of nine small dresser hooks. it can be hung on an easel or supported by its own hinge on a table. each of the divisions represents a numerical grouping, the one on the right is for singles or units, the central one for tens, and the left side one for hundreds: the counters used are button moulds, dipped in red ink, with small loops of string to hang on the hooks: it is easily seen by a child that, after nine is reached, the units can no longer remain in their division or "house," but must be gathered together into a bunch (fastened by a safety pin) and fixed on one of the hooks of the middle division. sums of two or three lines can thus be set out on the horizontal bars, and in processes of addition the answer can be on the bottom line. it is very easy, by this concrete means, to see the process in subtraction, and indeed the whole difficulty of dealing with ten is made concrete. the whole of a sum can be gone through on this board with the button-moulds, and on boards and chalk with figures, side by side, thus interpreting symbol by material; but the whole process is abstract. the piece of apparatus is less abstract only in degree than the figures on the blackboard, because neither represents real life or its problems: in abstract working we are merely going off at a side issue for the sake of practice, to make us more competent to deal with the economic affairs of life. there is a place for sticks and counters, and there is a place for money and measures, but they are not the same: the former represents the abstract and the latter the concrete problem if used as in real life: the bridge between the abstract and the concrete is largely the work of the transition class and junior school, in respect of the foundations of arithmetic known as the first four rules. games of skill, very thorough shopping or keeping a bankbook, or selling tickets for tram or train, represent the kind of everyday problem that should be the centre of the arithmetic work at this transition stage; and out of the necessities of these problems the abstract and semi-abstract work should come, but it should _never_ precede the real work. a real purpose should underlie it all, a purpose that is apparent and stimulating enough to produce willing practice. a child will do much to be a good shopkeeper, a good tram conductor, a good banker; he will always play the game for all it is worth. chapter xxiv experiences by means of doing in the nursery school activity is the chief characteristic: one of its most usual forms is experimenting with tools and materials, such as chalk, paints, scissors, paper, sand, clay and other things. the desire to experiment, to change the material in some way, to gratify the senses, especially the muscular one, may be stronger than the desire to construct. the handwork play of the nursery school is therefore chiefly by means of imitation and experiment, and direct help is usually quite unwelcome to the child under six. there is little more to be said in the way of direction than, "provide suitable material, give freedom, and help, if the child wants it." but the case is rather different in the transitional stage. as the race learnt to think by doing, so children seem to approach thought in that way; they have a natural inclination to do in the first case; they try, do wrongly, consider, examine, observe, and do again: for example, a girl wants to make a doll's bonnet like the baby's; she begins impulsively to cut out the stuff, finds it too small, tries to visualise the right size, examines the real bonnet, and makes another attempt. at some apparently odd moment she stumbles on a truth, perhaps the relation of one form to another in the mazes of bonnet-making; it is at these odd moments that we learn. or a boy may be painting a christmas card, and in another odd moment he may _feel_ something of the beauty of colour, if, for example, he is copying holly-berries. no purposeless looking at them would have stirred appreciation. whether the end is doing, or whether it is thinking, the two are inextricably connected; in the earlier stages the way to know and feel is very often by action, and here is the basis of the maxim that handwork is a method. this idea has often been only half digested, and consequently it has led to a very trivial kind of application; a nature lesson of the "look and say" description has been followed by a painting lesson; a geography lesson, by the making of a model. if the method of learning by doing was the accepted aim of the teacher then it was not carried out, for this is learning and then doing, not learning for the purpose of doing, but doing for the purpose of testing the learning, which is quite another matter, and not a very natural procedure with young children. many people have tried to make things from printed directions, a woman may try to make a blouse and a man to make a knife-box; their procedure is not to separate the doing and the learning process; probably they have first tried to do, found need for help, and gone to the printed directions, which they followed side by side with the doing; and in the light of former failures or in the course of looking or of experimenting, they stumbled upon knowledge: this is learning by doing. therefore the making of a box may be arithmetic, the painting of a buttercup may be nature study, the construction of a model, or of dramatic properties may be geography or history, not by any means the only way of learning, but one of the earlier ways and a very sound way; there is a purpose to serve behind it all, that will lead to very careful discrimination in selection of knowledge, and to pains taken to retain it. if this is fully understood by a teacher and she is content to take nature's way, and abide for nature's time to see results, then her methods will be appropriately applied: she will see that she is not training a race of box-makers, but that she is guiding children to discover things that they need to know in a natural way, and ensuring that as these facts are discovered they shall be used. consequently neither haste nor perfection of finish must cloud the aim; it is not the output that matters but the method by which the children arrive at the finished object, not forty good boxes, but forty good thinkers. dewey has put it most clearly when he says that the right test of an occupation consists "in putting the maximum of consciousness into whatever is done." froebel says, "what man tries to represent or do he begins to understand." this is what we should mean by saying that handwork is a method of learning. but handwork has its own absolute place as well. a child wants to acquire skill in this direction even more consciously than he wants to learn: if he has been free, in the nursery class, to experiment with materials, and if he knows some of his limitations, he is now, in the transition class, ready for help, and he should get it as he needs it. this may run side by side with the more didactic side of handwork which has been described, but it is more likely that in practice the two are inextricably mixed up; and this does not matter if the two ends are clear in the teacher's mind; both sides have to be reckoned with. the important thing to know is the kind of help that should be given, and when and how it is needed. it is well to remember that in this connection a child's limitations are not final, but only mark stages: for example, in his early attempts to use thick cardboard he cannot discover the neat hinge that is made by the process known as a "half-cut"; he tries in vain to bend the cardboard, so as to secure the same result. there are two ways of helping him: either he can be quite definitely shown and made to imitate, or he can be set to think about it; he is given a cardboard knife and allowed to experiment: if he fails, it may be suggested that a clean edge can only be got by some form of cutting; probably he will find out the rest of the process. the second method is the better one, because it promotes thinking, while the first only promotes pure imitation and the habit of reckoning on this easy solution of difficulties. a dull child may have to be shown, but there are few such children, unless they have been trained to dulness. imitation is not, however, always a medicine for dulness, nor does it always produce dulness. there is a time for imitation and there is a kind of imitation that is very intelligent. for example, a child may come across a toy aeroplane and wish to make one; he will examine it carefully, think over the uses of parts and proceed to make one as like it as possible: here again is the maximum of consciousness, the essence of thinking. or the imitation may consist in following verbal directions: this is far from easy if the teacher is at all vague, and promotes valuable effort if she is clear but not diffuse: the putting of words into action necessitates a considerable amount of imagining, and the establishment of very important associations in brain centres. such cases might occur in connection with weaving, cardboard and paper work, or the more technical processes of drawing and painting, where race experience is actually _given_ to a child, by means of which he leaps over the experiences of centuries. this is progress. if a teacher is to take handwork seriously, and not as a pretty recreation with pleasing results, she should be fully conscious of all that it means, and apply this definitely in her work: it is so easy to be trivial while appearing to be thorough by having well-finished work produced, which has necessitated little hard thinking on the child's part. construction gives a sense of power, a strengthening of the will, ability to concentrate on a purpose in learning, a social sense of serviceableness, a deepened individuality: but this can only be looked for if a child is allowed to approach it in the right way, first as an experimenter and investigator, or as an artist, and afterwards as a learner, who is also an individual, and learns in his own way and at his own rate: but if the teacher's ambition is external and economic then the child is a tool in her hands, and will remain a tool. we cannot expect the fruits of the spirit if our goal is a material one. one of the lessons of the war is economy. in handwork this has come to us through the quest for materials, but it has been a blessing, if now and then in disguise. in the more formal period of handwork only prepared, almost patented material was used; everything was "requisitioned" and eager manufacturers supplied very highly finished stuff. not very many years ago, the keeper of a "kindergarten" stall at an exhibition said, while pointing to cards cut and printed with outlines for sewing and pricking, "we have so many orders for these that we can afford to lay down considerable plant for their production." an example in another direction is that of a little girl who attended one of the best so-called kindergartens of the time: she was afflicted, while at home, with the "don't know what to do" malady; her mother suggested that she might make some of the things she made at school, but she negatived that at once with the remark, "i couldn't do that, you see, because we have none of the right kind of stuff to make them of here." it is quite unnecessary to give more direct details as to the kind of work suitable and the method of doing it; more than enough books of help have been published on every kind of material, and it might perhaps be well if we made less use of such terms as "clay-modelling," "cardboard-work," "raffia," and took handwork more in the sense of constructive or expressive work, letting the children select one or several media for their purpose; they ought to have access to a variety of material; and except when they waste, they should use it freely. it is limiting and unenlightened to put down a special time for the use of special material, if the end might be better answered by something else: if modelling is at 11.30 on monday and children are anxious to make christmas presents, what law in heaven or earth are we obeying if we stick to modelling except the law of red tape. chapter xxv experiences of the life of man this aspect of experience comes in two forms, the life of man in the past, with the memorials and legacies he has left, and the life of man in the present under the varying conditions of climate and all that it involves. in other words these experiences are commonly known as history and geography, though in the earlier stages of their appearance in school it is perhaps better to call the work--preparation for history and geography. they would naturally appear in the transition or the junior class, preferably in the latter, but they need not be wholly new subjects to a child; his literature has prepared him for both; to some extent his experiments in handwork have prepared him for history, while his nature work, especially his excursions and records, have prepared him for geography. that he needs this extension of experience can be seen in his growing demands for true stories, true in the more literal sense which he is coming fast to appreciate; undoubtedly most children pass through a stage of extreme literalism between early childhood and what is generally recognised as boyhood and girlhood. they begin to ask questions regarding the past, they are interested in things from "abroad," however vague that term may be to them. perhaps it will be best to treat the two subjects separately, though like all the child's curriculum at this stage they are inextricably confused and mingled both with each other, and with literature, as experiences of man's life and conduct. the beginnings of geography lie in the child's foundations of experience. probably the first real contact, unconscious though it may be, that any child has in this connection is through the production of food and clothing. a country child sees some of the beginnings of both, but it is doubtful how much of it is really interpreted by him; the village shop with its inexhaustible stores probably means much more in the way of origins, and he may never go behind its contents in his speculations. it is true he sees milking, harvesting, sheep-shearing, and many other operations, but he often misses the stage between the actual beginning and the finished product--between the wool on the sheep's back and his sunday clothes, between the wheat in the field and his loaf of bread. the town child has many links if he can use them: the goods train, the docks, the grocer's, green-grocer's or draper's shop, foreigners in the street, the vans that come through the silent streets in the early morning; in big towns, such markets as covent garden or leadenhall or smithfield; such a river as the thames, humber or mersey--from any one of these beginnings he can reach out from his own small environment to the world. a town child has very confused notions of what a farm really means to national life, and a country child of what a big railway station or dock involves. all children need to know what other parts of their own land look like, and what is produced; they ought to trace the products within reach to their origin, and this will involve descriptions of such things as fisheries at hull or aberdeen, the coal mines of wales or lanarkshire, pottery districts of stafford, woollen and cotton factories of yorkshire and lancashire, mills driven by steam, wind and water, lighthouses, the sheep-rearing districts of cumberland and midlothian, the flax-growing of northern ireland, and much else, and the means of transit and communication between all these. the children will gradually realise that many of the things they are familiar with, such as tea, oranges, silk and sugar, have not been accounted for, and this will take them to the lives of people in other countries, the means of getting there, the time taken and mode of travelling. they will also come to see that we do not produce enough of the things that are possible to grow, such as wheat, apples, wool and many other common necessaries, and that we can spare much that is manufactured to countries that do not make them, such as boots, clothes, china and cutlery. there will come a time when the need for a map is apparent: that is the time to branch off from the main theme and make one; it will have to be of the very immediate surroundings first, but it is not difficult to make the leap soon to countries beyond. previous to the need for it, map-making is useless. this working outwards from actual experiences, from the home country to the foreign, from actual contact with real things to things of travellers' tales, is the only way to bring geography to the very door of the school, to make it part of the actual life. the beginning of history, as of geography, lies in the child's foundations of experience. in the country village he sees the church, possibly some old cottages, or an elizabethan or jacobean house near; in the churchyard or in the church the tombstones have quaint inscriptions with reference possibly to past wars or to early colonisation. the slum child on the other hand sees much that is worn out, but little that is antiquated, unless the slum happen to be in such places as edinburgh or deptford, situated among the remains of really fine houses: but he realises more of the technicalities and officialism of a social system than does the country child; the suburban child has probably the scantiest store of all; his district is presumably made up of rows of respectable but monotonous houses, and the social life is similarly respectable and monotonous. there are certain cravings, interests and needs, common to all children, which come regardless of surroundings. all children want to know certain things about people who lived before them, not so much their great doings as their smaller ones; they want to know what these people were like, what they worked at, and learnt, how they travelled, what they bought and sold: and there is undoubtedly a primitive strain in all children that comes out in their love of building shelters, playing at savages, and making things out of natural material. one of the most intense moments in _peter pan_ to many children is the building of the little house in the wood, and later on, of the other on the top of the trees: that is the little house of their dreams. they are not interested in constitutions or the making of laws; wars and invasions have much the same kind of interest for them as the adventures of una and the red cross knight. how are these cravings usually satisfied in the early stages of history teaching of to-day? as a rule a series of biographies of notable people is given, regardless of chronology, or the children's previous experiences, and equally careless of the history lessons of the future; joan of arc, alfred and the cakes, gordon of khartoum, boadicea, christopher columbus, julius caesar, form a list which is not at all uncommon; there is no leading thread, no developing idea, and the old test, "the children like it," excuses indolent thinking. on the other hand, the desire to know more of the robinson crusoe mode of life has been apparent to many teachers for some time, but the material at their disposal has been scanty and uncertain. it is to prof. dewey that we owe the right organisation of this part of history. he has shown that it is on the side of industry, the early modes of weaving, cooking, lighting and heating, making implements for war and for hunting, and making of shelters, that prehistoric man has a real contribution to give: but for the beginnings of social life, for realisation of such imperishable virtues as courage, patriotism and self-sacrifice, children must go to the lives of real people and gradually acquire the idea that certain things are, so to speak, from "everlasting to everlasting," while others change with changing and growing circumstances. the prehistoric history should be largely concerned with doing and experimenting, with making weapons, or firing clay, or weaving rushes, or with visits to such museums as horniman's at forest hill. the early social history may well take the form best suited to the child, and not appeal merely to surface interest. and the spirit in which the lives of other people are presented to children must not be the narrow, prejudiced, insular one, so long associated with the people of great britain, which calls other customs, dress, modes of: living, "funny" or "absurd" or "extraordinary," but rather the scientific spirit that interprets life according to its conditions and so builds up one of its greatest laws, the law of environment. the geography syllabus, even more than the history one, depends for its beginnings at least on the surroundings of the school--out of the mass of possible materials a very rich and comprehensive syllabus can be made, beginning with any one of the central points already suggested. above all there should be plenty of pictures, not as amplification, but as material, by means of which a child may interpret more fully; a picture should be of the nature of a problem or of a map--and picture reading should be in the junior school what map reading is in the upper school. in both history and geography the method is partly that of discovery; especially is this the case in that part of history which deals with primitive industries, and in almost the whole of the geography of this period. the teacher is the guide or leader in discovery, not the story-teller merely, though this may be part of his function. the following is a small part of a syllabus to show how geography and history material may grow naturally out of the children's experiences. it is meant in this case for children in a london suburb, with no particular characteristics:-geography it grows out of the shops of the neighbourhood and the adjoining railway system. _home-produced goods_- a. the green-grocer's shop. tracing of fruit to its own home source, or to a foreign country. home-grown fruit. the fruit farm, garden, orchard, and wood. the packing and sending of fruit.--railway lines. covent garden; the docks; fruit stalls; jam factories. b. a grocer's or corn-chandler's shop. flour and oatmeal traced to their sources. the farm. a wheat and grain farm at different seasons. a dairy farm and a sheep farm. a mill and its processes. woollen factories. a dairy. making of butter and cheese distribution of these goods. c. a china shop, leading to the pottery district and making of pottery. _foreign goods_- furs--red indians and canada. dates--the arabs and the sahara. cotton--the negroes and equatorial regions. cocoa--the west indies. the transit of these, their arrival and distribution. [the need for a map will come early in the first part of the course, and the need for a globe in the second.] history this grows naturally out of the geography syllabus and might be taken side by side or afterwards. the development of industries. the growth of spinning and weaving from the simplest processes, bringing in the distaff, spinning-wheel, and loom. the making of garments from the joining together of furs. the growth of pottery and the development of cooking. the growth of roads and means of transit. [this will involve a good deal of experimental and constructive handwork.] chapter xxvi experiences recorded and passed on reading and writing are held to have lifted man above the brute; they are the means by which we can discover and record human experience and progress, and as such their value is incalculable. but in themselves they are artificial conventions, symbols invented for the convenience of mankind, and to acquire them we need exercise no great mental power. a good eye and ear memory, and a certain superficial quickness to recognise and apply previous knowledge, is all that is needed for reading and spelling; while for writing, the development of a specialised muscular skill is all that is necessary. in themselves they do not as a rule hold any great interest for a child: sometimes they have the same puzzle interest as a long addition sum, and to children of a certain type, mechanical work such as writing gives relief; one of the most docile and uninteresting of little boys said that writing was his favourite subject, and it was easy to understand: he did not want to be stirred out of his commonplaceness; unconsciously he had assimilated the atmosphere and adopted the standards of his surroundings, which were monotonous and commonplace in the extreme, and so he desired no more adventurous method of expression than the process of writing, which he could do well. imitation is often a strong incentive to reading, it is part of the craving for grown-upness to many children; they desire to do what their brothers and sisters can do. but _during the first stage of childhood, roughly up to the age of six or even later, no child needs to learn to read or write, taking "need" in the psychological sense:_ that period is concerned with laying the foundation of real things and with learning surroundings;--any records of experience that come to a child can come as they did to his earliest forefathers--by word of mouth. when he wants to read stories for himself, or write his own letters, then he is impelled by a sufficiently strong aim or incentive to make concentration possible, without resorting to any of the fantastic devices and apparatus so dear to so many teachers. indeed it is safe to say of many of these devices that they prove the fact that children are not ready for reading. when a child is ready to read and write the process need not be a long one: by wise delay many tedious hours are saved, tedious to both teacher and children; they have already learnt to talk in those precious hours, to discriminate sounds as part of language training, but without any resort to symbols--merely as something natural. it has been amply proved that if a child is not prematurely forced into reading he can do as much in one year as he would have done in three, under more strained conditions. with regard to methods a great deal has been written on the subject; it is pretty safe to leave a teacher to choose her own--for much of the elaboration is unnecessary if reading is rightly delayed, and if a child can read reasonably well at seven and a half there can be no grounds for complaint. if his phonetic training has been good in the earlier stages of language, then this may be combined with the "look and say" method, or method of reading by whole words. the "cat on the mat" type of book is disappearing, and its place is being taken by books where the subject matter is interesting and suitable to the child's age; but as in other subjects the book chosen should be considered in reference to the child's surroundings, either to amplify or to extend. writing is, in the first instance, a part of reading: when words are being learnt they must be written, or in the earliest stages printed, but only those interesting to the children and written for some definite purpose should be selected: a great aid to spelling is transcription, and children are always willing to copy something they like, such as a verse of poetry, or their name and address. as in arithmetic and in handwork, they will come to recognise the need for practice, and be willing to undergo such exercise for the sake of improvement, as well as for the pleasure in the activity--which actual writing gives to some children. we must be quite clear about relative values. reading and writing are necessities, and the means of opening up to us things of great value; but the art of acquiring them is of little intrinsic value, and the recognition of the need is not an early one; nothing is gained by beginning too early, and much valuable time is taken from other activities, notably language. the incentive should be the need that the child feels, and when this is evident time and pains should be given to the subject so that it maybe quickly acquired. but the art of reading is no test of intelligence, and the art of writing is no test of original skill. _the claims of the upper departments must be resisted._ chapter xxvii the things that really matter the _first_ thing that matters is what is commonly called the personality of the teacher; she must be a person, unmistakable from other persons, and not a type; what she has as an individual, of gifts or goodness, she should give freely, and give in her own way; that she should be trained is, of course, as indisputable as the training of a doctor, but her training should have deepened her personality. pestalozzi's curriculum and organisation left much to be desired; what he has handed down to us came from himself and his own experience, not from anything superimposed: records of his pupils constantly emphasise this: it was his goodness assimilated with his outlook on life and readiness to learn by experience, that mattered, and it was this that remained with his pupils. the teacher's own personality must dominate her choice of principles else she is a dead method, a machine, and not a living teacher. she must not keep her interests and gifts for out-of-school use; if she has a sense of humour she must use it, if she is fond of pretty clothes she must wear them in school, if she appreciates music she must help her class to do the same, if she has dramatic gifts she must act to them. her standard of goodness must be high, and she must be strong enough to adopt it practically, so that she is unconscious of it: goodness and righteousness are as essential as health to a teacher: for something intangible passes from the teacher to her children, however young and unconscious they may be, and nothing can awaken goodness but goodness. part of her personality is her attitude towards religion. it is difficult to think of a teacher of young children who is not religious, _i.e._ whose conduct is not definitely permeated by her spiritual life: young children are essentially religious, and the life of the spirit must find a response in the same kind of intangible assumption of its existence as goodness. no form of creed or dogma is meant, only the life of the spirit common to all. but of course there may be people who refuse to admit this as a necessity. the _next_ thing that matters is that all children must be regarded as individuals: there has been much more talk of this lately, but practical difficulties are often raised as a bar. if teachers and parents continue to accept the conditions which make it difficult, such as large classes, and a need to hasten, there will always be a bar: if individuality is held as one of the greatest things in education, authorities cannot continue to economise so as to make it impossible. it is the individual part of each child that is his most precious possession, his immortal side: froebel calls it his "divine essence," and makes the cultivation of it the aim of education; he is right, and any more general aim will lead only to half-developed human beings. if we accept the principle that only goodness is fundamental and evil a distortion of nature, we need have no fear about cultivating individuals. every doctor assures us that all normal babies are naturally healthy; they are also naturally good, but evil is easily aroused by arbitrary interference or by mismanagement. the _third_ thing that matters belongs more especially to the intellectual life; it might be described as the making of right associations. more than any other side of training, the making of associations means the making of the intelligent person. to see life in patches is to see pieces of a great picture by the square inch, and never to see the relationship of these to each other--never to see the whole. the _fourth_ thing that matters is the making of good and serviceable habits: much has been said on this, in connection with the nursery class, and it is at that stage that the process is most important, but it should never cease. if a child is to have time and opportunity to develop his individuality he must not be hampered by having to be conscious of things that belong to the subconscious region. to start a child with a foundation of good habits is better than riches. the _fifth_ thing that matters is the realisation by teachers that _opportunities_ matter more than results; opportunities to discover, to learn, to comprehend all sides of life, to be an individual, to appreciate beauty, to go at one's own rate; some are material in their nature, such as the actual surroundings of the child in school; others are rather in the atmosphere, such as refraining from interference, encouragement, suggestion, spirituality. the teacher has the making of opportunities largely in her own hands. the _sixth_ thing, that matters is the cultivation of the divine gift of imagination; both morality and spirituality spring from this; meanness, cowardice, lack of sympathy, sensuality, materialism, quickly grow where there is no imagination. it refines and intensifies personality, it opens a door to things beyond the senses. it makes possible appreciation of the things of the spirit, and appreciation is a thousand times more important than knowledge. the _last_ thing that matters is the need for freedom from bondage, of the body and of the soul. only from a free atmosphere can come the best things--personality, imagination and opportunity; and all are great needs, but the greatest of all is freedom. bibliography froebel. the education of man. (appleton.) macdougall. social psychology. (methuen.) groos. the play of man. (heinemann.) drummond. an introduction to child study. (arnold.) kirkpatrick. fundamentals of child study. (macmillan.) dewey. the school and the child. (blackie.) the dewey school. (the froebel society.) stanley hall. aspects of education. findlay. school and life. (g. philip & son.) sully. children's ways. (longmans.) caldwell cook. the play way. (heinemann.) e.r. murray. froebel as a pioneer in modern psychology. (g. philip & son.) edited by h. brown smith. education by life. (g. philip & son.) margaret drummond. the dawn of mind. (arnold.) boyd. from locke to montessori. (harrap.) kilpatrick. montessori examined. (constable.) wiggin. children's rights. (gay & hancock.) birchenough. history of elementary education. (univ. tutorial press.) macmillan. the camp school. (allen & unwin.) hardy. the diary of a free kindergarten. (gay & hancock.) scott. social education. (ginn.) tylor. anthropology. (macmillan.) kingston quiggin. primeval man. (macdonald & evans.) solomon. an infant school. (the froebel society.) felix klein. mon filleul au jardin d'enfants. i. comment il s'élève. ii. comment il s'instruit. (armand colin, paris.) e. nesbit. wings and the child. (hodder and stoughton.) wells. floor games. (palmer.) ruskin. the two paths. dopp. the place of industries in industrial education. (univ. of chicago press.) pritchard and ashford. an english primary school. (harrap.) hall. days before history. (harrap.) hall. the threshold of history. (harrap.) spalding. piers plowman histories. junior. bk. ii. (g. philip & son.) shedlock. the art of story-telling. bryant. how to tell stories. (harrap.) klein. de ce qu'il faut raconter aux petits. (blond et gay.) the eurhythmics of jaques-dalcroze. (constable.) findlay. eurhythmics. (dalcroze society.) white. a course in music. (camb. univ. press.) stanley hall. how to teach reading. (heath.) benchara branford. a study of mathematical education. fielden demonstration school record ii. (manchester univ. press.) punnett. the groundwork of arithmetic. (longmans.) ashford. sense plays and number plays. (longmans.) index abrahall, miss h., adam and eve question, adler, dr. felix, aim of education and of human life, america, kindergartens in, anderson, professor a., animals and nature study, apparatus. _see_ equipment arithmetic, transition class, arnswald, colonel von, art training, drawing, etc., _see also_ colour, rhythm, etc., assistance, warning, "baby camp", barnard, dr. h., barnes, prof. earl, beauty, conduct, appreciation of beauty in, _see also_ colour, rhythm, etc. beer, miss h., notes of, beresford's _housemates_, description of a suburb, bergson, bermondsey settlement free kindergarten, biological view of education, birchenough, bird, mr., and his family, birmingham kindergartens, bishop, miss caroline, blankenberg kindergarten, blow, miss, bradford joint conference, brock, mr. clutton, quotations, etc., brooke, stopford, brown, frances, _grannie's wonderful chair_, browning, brown's _young artists' headers_, buckton, miss, buildings. _see_ equipment and surroundings caldecott nursery school, camp school, child study, class discipline, cleanliness and order, clough, a.h., clouston, dr., colour, comenius, conduct- aim of education, experiences of--_see also_ moral teaching connectedness, continuity. _see_ unity constructive play, varieties of _making_--_see also_ handwork cook, mr. caldwell, _the play way_, etc., cooke, mr. e., cooking, co-operation in play, correlation, infant school programme in transition period, present-day infant schools, country child, country life for the child, crane, walter, creation. _see_ constructive play crèche. _see_ nursery school curriculum- principle guiding selection, transition class, daleroze, m. jacques, rhythmic training, dale, miss, phonic reading books, decimal system, definition of education, desert island play, dewey, prof., quotations, etc., dickens on "infant gardens," discipline, docility _v_. self-control, dopp series, dramatic play, drawing, drill _v_. games, drummond, dr., ebers, edinburgh, free kindergartens, education act of 1870, of 1919, _education by life,_ _education of man,_ environment- school equipment, etc. _see_ equipment source of child's experience, equipment and surroundings, miniature world, montessori didactic apparatus, transition classes and junior school, ewing, mrs., stories of, experience, education by means of, child's desires and needs, grouping subjects of experience, material and opportunities, morality and indirect experiences, passing on experience, fairy tales, field, eugene, verses of, findlay, miss, fisher, mr., fleming, marjorie, _floor games_, flowers and plants, 93, 201. _see also_ garden, nature work folsung, formalism, freedom- apparent result at first, definition, froebel on, montessori, dr., work of, vital principle, warning against interference, freud, froebel and froebelian principles- aim of education, beauty, biologist educator and froebel, definitions of kindergarten, excursions, impression and expression, montessori and froebelian systems, society, furniture, _see also_ equipment fyleman, rose, _chimney sand fairies,_ games, garden, activities in a suburban garden, best use of ground, possibilities in difficult places, geography, illustrative syllabus, glasgow, phoenix park kindergarten, glenconner, lady, grant, miss, greenford avenue school, hanwell, groos, habits, training in, physical habits and fixed hours, hall, stanley, references to, handwork, hansen, g., hardy, miss l., heerwart, miss, herb garden and sense training, herbartian "correlation", hewit, mr. graily, high schools for girls, kindergartens in, history, discipline in practical reasoning, illustrative syllabus, indirect sociology, industrial, practical details, prehistoric, stories, hodsman, miss, hoffman, mr., home surroundings, reproduction in school, source of child's experience, howden, miss, humour, factor in morality, _hygiene of mind_, imagination and literature, imitative play, individual, child as, _see also_ freedom infant schools, early infant schools, formalism, causes, etc., kindergarten system, perversion of, present-day schools, buildings, furniture, etc., change in spirit since the 'eighties, effect of child study movement, etc., curriculum, lack of clear aim and continuity, discipline, formalism, promotion and uniformity, health, care of, teachers, training of, transition period, instinct, interests of a child, interference, warning, international educational exposition and congress of 1854, investigation impulse, junior school. _see_ transition classes and junior school keilhau, kindergarten band, kindergartens, america, first english, froebelian principles _see_ froebel, germany, _kids' guards_, london school board infant schools, proposed introduction, perversion of system in infant schools, schrader, henrietta, work of, klein, abbé, krause, language training, games for, lawrence, miss esther, _levana_, literature _see also_ stories and poetry lodge, sir o., macdonald, george, stories of, macdonald, dr. greville, m'millan, miss margaret, macpherson, mr. stewart, _magic cities_, marenholz, madame von, mathematics, transition class, maufe, miss, medical view of education, dr. montessori, meum and tuum training, miall, mrs., michaelis, madame, michaelis nursery school, notting dale, middendorf, mission kindergarten, moltke, von, montessori, dr. maria- froebelian views of, medical view of education, play activities, failure to understand, moral teaching- humour as factor in morality, _see also_ religion, service for the community, stories morgan, lloyd, _mother songs_, music, kindergarten band, name of school for little children and its importance, nature work, experiences of the natural world, activities in a suburban garden, aim of, animals, excursions, movement _c._ 1890, nature calendar, object lesson and nature lesson, pictures, use of, plants and flowers, religion and nature work, necessities of the nursery school, _see also_ equipment and principles nesbit, mrs., _magic cities_, net beds, number work. _see_ mathematics nursery rhymes and nonsense verses, nursery school- name question, requirements of, obedience _v._ self-control, oberlin schools, object lessons, observation of children, odds and ends, use of, open-air question, owen, robert, "rational infant school", paper-folding, parents' evenings, payne, miss janet, peabody, miss, periods of a young child's life, pestalozzi, pestalozzi-froebel house, phillips, miss k., phonic method of teaching reading, physical requirements, picture books, pictures, play- biologist educator's view, constructive, co-operation in, courage in the teacher, definitions, distinction from work, froebel's theory of, practice at keilhau, imitative, material, froebel's "gifts," etc., self-expression in, theories of, transition class, _play way, the_, playground, equipment, etc., garden essential, transition class, poetry, poor and well-to-do children, different requirements, possession, child's need of, meum and tuum training, preparation theory of play, priestman, miss, principles, vital principles, pugh, edwin, punnett, miss, reading and writing, age for, matter and methods, phonic method, etc., recapitulation theory of play, recreation theory of play, reed, miss, religion, age for first teaching, _see also_ stories reproducing, _see_ imitative play results, payment by, rhythm and rhythmic training, robinson crusoe stage of history teaching, ronge, madame, rossetti, christina, verses for children, rousseau, rowland, miss, royee, prof., st. cuthbert, story of, salt, miss marie, _sayings of the children_, schepel, miss, schiller, _letters on aesthetic education_, schiller-spencer theory of play, _school and life_, _schools of to-morrow_, schrader, henrietta, séguin, self-consciousness, self-control and external control, sense-training, herb garden, service for the community, training to- froebel and montessori system, games, social side, idea of unity, religion, part of, sesame house for home-life training, sharpley, miss f., shinn, miss, sleep, provision for, slum child's experience, somers town nursery school, speech and vocabulary, spiritual life and stories, spontaneity in play, staff question, training, etc., _see also_ teachers stevenson, nursery songs, stokes, miss, stories and story-telling, fairy tales, how to tell, illustrations, made by children, moral teaching, religious teaching, repetition or "accumulation" stories, selection, "true" stories--history, legend, geography, _story of a sand pile_, suburban child's experience, supernatural, the child's acceptance of, surroundings. _see_ equipment and surroundings table manners, teacher- function, personality question, religion, training, thornton-le-dale kindergarten, time-table thraldom, instance from a teacher's note-book, tools, touch, sense of, toys, transition classes and junior school, wells, mr., on, traherne, transition classes and junior school, bridge between freedom and timetable, curriculum, discipline, equipment, etc., freedom and class teaching, handwork, help, methods of, imitation, nature work, play spirit, _ultimate belief_, uniformity in infant schools, unity of aim and unity in experience, cases illustrating problem, previous experience of the child, basing curriculum on, war, effect on nursery school movement, warne, illustrated stories for children, water, attraction of, _water-babies_, wells, mr., _what is a kindergarten?_, "when can i make my little ship?", wiggin, miss k.d., wilderspin's infant school, windows, wordsworth, wragge, miss adelaide, writing. _see_ reading and writing the end international education series edited by william t. harris, a. m., ll. d. _volume ix_. the international education series. 12mo, cloth, uniform binding. * * * * * the international education series was projected for the purpose of bringing together in orderly arrangement the best writings, new and old, upon educational subjects, and presenting a complete course of reading and training for teachers generally. it is edited by w. t. harris, ll. d., united states commissioner of education, who has contributed for the different volumes in the way of introductions, analysis, and commentary. the volumes are tastefully and substantially bound in uniform style. _volumes now ready_ vol. i.--the philosophy of education. by johann k. f. rosenkranz, doctor of theology and professor of philosophy, university of königsberg. translated by anna c. brackett. second edition, revised, with commentary and complete analysis. $1.50. vol. ii.--a history of education. by f. v. n. painter, a. m., professor of modern languages and literature, roanoke college, va. $1.50. vol. iii.--the rise and early constitution of universities. with a survey of mediæval education. by s. s. laurie, ll. d., professor of the institutes and history of education, university of edinburgh. $1.50. vol. iv.--the ventilation and warming of school buildings. by gilbert b. morrison, teacher of physics and chemistry, kansas city high school. $1.00. vol. v.--the education of man. by friedrich froebel. translated and annotated by w. n. hailmann, a. m., superintendent of public schools, la porte, ind. $1.50. vol. vi.--elementary psychology and education. by joseph baldwin, a. m., ll. d., author of "the art of school management." $1.50. vol. vii.--the senses and the will. (part i of "the mind of the child.") by w. preyer, professor of physiology in jena. translated by h. w. brown, teacher in the state normal school at worcester, mass. $1.50. vol. viii.--memory: what it is and how to improve it. by david kay, f. r. g. s., author of "education and educators," etc. $1.50. vol. ix.--the development of the intellect. (part ii of "the mind of the child.") by w. preyer, professor of physiology in jena. translated by h. w. brown. $1.50. vol. x.--how to study geography. a practical exposition of methods and devices in teaching geography which apply the principles and plans of ritter and guyot. by francis w. parker, principal of the cook county (illinois) normal school. $1.50. vol. xi.--education in the united states: its history from the earliest settlements. by richard g. boone, a. m., professor of pedagogy, indiana university. $1.50. vol. xii.--european schools: or, what i saw in the schools of germany, france, austria, and switzerland. by l. r. klemm, ph. d., principal of the cincinnati technical school. fully illustrated. $2.00. vol. xiii.--practical hints for the teachers of public schools. by george howland, superintendent of the chicago public schools. $1.00. vol. xiv.--pestalozzi: his life and work. by roger de guimps. authorized translation from the second french edition, by j. russell, b. a. with an introduction by rev. r. h. quick, m. a. $1.50. vol. xv.--school supervision. by j. l. pickard, ll. d. $1.00. vol. xvi.--higher education of women in europe. by helene lange, berlin. translated and accompanied by comparative statistics by l. r. klemm. $1.00. vol. xvii.--essays on educational reformers. by robert herbert quick, m. a., trinity college, cambridge. _only authorized edition of the work as rewritten in 1890._ $1.50. vol. xviii.--a text-book in psychology. by johann friedrich herbart. translated by margaret k. smith. $1.00. vol. xix.--psychology applied to the art of teaching. by joseph baldwin, a. m., ll. d. $1.50. vol. xx.--rousseau's émile: or, treatise on education. translated and annotated by w. h. payne, ph. d., ll. d., chancellor of the university of nashville. $1.50. vol. xxi.--the moral instruction of children. by felix adler. $1.50. vol. xxii.--english education in the elementary and secondary schools. by isaac sharpless, ll. d., president of haverford college. $1.00. vol. xxiii.--education from a national standpoint. by alfred fouillée. $1.50. vol. xxiv.--mental development in the child. by w. preyer, professor of physiology in jena. translated by h. w. brown. $1.00. vol. xxv.--how to study and teach history. by b. a. hinsdale, ph. d., ll. d., university of michigan. $1.50. vol. xxvi.--symbolic education: a commentary on froebel's "mother play." by susan e. blow. $1.50. vol. xxvii.--systematic science teaching. by edward gardnier howe. $1.50. vol. xxviii.--the education of the greek people. by thomas davidson. $1.50. vol. xxix.--the evolution of the massachusetts public school system. by g. h. martin, a. m. $1.50. * * * * * new york: d. appleton & co., publishers, 72 fifth avenue. _international education series_ the mind of the child part ii the development of the intellect _observations concerning the mental development of the human being in the first years of life_ by w. preyer professor of physiology in jena translated from the original german by h. w. brown teacher in the state normal school at worcester, mass. new york d. appleton and company 1895 copyright, 1889, by d. appleton and company. editor's preface. this second volume contains the further investigations of professor preyer on the mind of the child. the former volume contained the first and second portions, devoted respectively to the development of the senses and of the will. the present volume contains the third part, treating of the development of the intellect; and three appendixes are added containing supplementary matter. professor preyer considers that the development of the power of using language is the most prominent index to the unfolding of the intellect. he differs with professor max müller, however, on the question whether the operation of thinking can be carried on without the use of words (see the recent elaborate work of the latter on "the science of thought"). at my suggestion, the painstaking translator of this book has prepared a full conspectus, showing the results of professor preyer's careful observations in a chronological order, arranged by months. this considerable labor will render the book more practical, inasmuch as it will enable each reader to see at a glance the items of development of the child in the several departments brought together in epochs. this makes it possible to institute comparative observations under the guidance of professor preyer's method. i think that i do not exaggerate the value of this conspectus when i say that it doubles the value of the work to the reader. william t. harris. concord, mass., _november, 1888_. contents. page preface by the editor v conspectus showing the progress of the child by months ix third part. _development of the intellect._ chapter xvi.--development of the child's intellect independent of language 3 xvii.--learning to speak 33 1. disturbances of speech in adults 34 (1) periphero-impressive or perceptive disturbances, 36. (2) central disturbances, 37. (3) periphero-expressive or articulatory disturbances, 38. 2. the organic conditions of learning to speak 42 3. parallel between the disturbances of speech in adults and the imperfections of speech in the child 45 i. lalopathy, 47. a. the impressive peripheral processes disturbed--deafness, 47. b. the central processes disturbed--dysphasia, 47. (1) the sensory processes centrally disturbed, 47. (2) the sensori-motor processes of diction disturbed, 48. (3) the motor processes centrally disturbed, 49. c. the expressive peripheral processes disturbed, 54. (1) dyslalia and alalia, 54. (2) literal pararthria or paralalia, 56. (3) bradylalia, or bradyarthria, 57. ii. dysphasia, 58. iii. dysmimia, 62. 4. development of speech in the child 64 xviii.--first sounds and beginnings of speech in the case of a child observed daily during his first three years 99 xix.--development of the feeling of self, the "i"-feeling 189 xx.--summary of results 208 appendixes. appendix a.--comparative observations concerning the acquirement of speech by german and foreign children 221 (_a_) diary of the child of the baroness von taube, of esthonia, 261. appendix b.--notes concerning lacking, defective, and arrested mental development in the first years of life 272 appendix c.--reports concerning the process of learning to see, on the part of persons born blind, but acquiring sight through surgical treatment. also some critical remarks 286 i. the chesselden case, 286. ii, iii. the ware cases, 288. iv, v. the home cases, 296. vi. the wardrop case, 300. vii. the franz case, 306. final remarks, 312. a conspectus of the observations of professor preyer on the mind of the child. arranged chronologically by months, for the convenience of those who wish to verify these observations, or to use them as a guide in their own investigations. by h. w. brown. first month. senses.[a] sight.--_light._--five minutes after birth, slight sensibility to light (2). second day, sensitiveness to light of candle (3). sixth and seventh days, pleasure in moderately bright daylight (3, 4). ninth and tenth days, sensitiveness greater at waking than soon afterward (3). sleeping babes close the eyes more tightly when light falls on the eyes (4). eleventh day, pleasure in light of candle and in bright object (3). _discrimination of colors._--twenty-third day, pleasure in sight of rose-colored curtain (6). _movements of eyelids._--first to eleventh day, shutting and opening of eyes (22). irregular movements (23). lid closed at touch of lashes from sixth day on (26). twenty-fifth day, eyes opened and shut when child is spoken to or nodded to (30). pleasure shown by opening eyes wide, displeasure by shutting them tightly; third, sixteenth, and twenty-first days (31). _movements of eyes._--first day, to right and left (35). tenth day, non-coördinated movements (36). third week, irregularity prevails (37). _direction of look._--eleventh day, to father's face and to the light (43). upward look (43). twenty-third day, active looking begins (44). twenty-third and thirtieth days, a moving light followed (44). _seeing near and distant objects._--twelfth day, hypermetropia (60). hearing.--first days, all children deaf (72). fourth day, child hears noises like clapping of hands (81). eleventh and twelfth days, child quieted by father's voice: hears whistling. twenty-fifth day, pulsation of lids at sound of low voice. twenty-sixth day, starting at noise of dish. thirtieth day, fright at loud voice (82). feeling.--_sensitiveness to contact._--at birth (97-105). second and third days, starting at gentle touches. seventh day, waked by touch on face (105). eleventh day, lid closed at touch of conjunctiva more slowly than in adults (103). _perception of touch._--first gained in nursing (110). _sensibility to temperature._--at birth, cooling unpleasant. warm bath agreeable. seventh day, eyes opened wide with pleasure from bath (112). first two or three years, cold water disagreeable (114). mucous membrane of mouth, tongue, lips, very sensitive to cold and warmth (115). taste.--_sensibility._--at birth (116-118). first day, sugar licked (118). second day, milk licked (119). differences among newly-born (120). sensation not merely general (122). _comparison of impressions._--during nursing period child prefers sweet taste (123). second day, child accepts food that on the fourth he refuses (124). smell.--_faculty at birth._--strong-smelling substances produce mimetic movements (130). _discrimination._--eighth day, groping about for nipple (134). organic sensations and emotions.--_pleasure._--first day, in nursing; in the bath; in the sight of objects; in the light (141). _discomfort._--first days, from cold, wet, hunger, tight clothing, etc. (147). _hunger._--first days, manifested in sucking movements, crying, restlessness (152). cry differs from that of pain or of satisfaction. other signs of hunger (153). _satiety._--third to fifth week, the nipple pushed away with the lips: mouth-piece of bottle ditto. tenth day, smile after eating. fourth week, signs of satisfaction; laughing, opening and half shutting eyes; inarticulate sounds (157). _fatigue._--from crying and nursing (159). second and third weeks, from use of senses (160). first month, sleep lasts two hours; sixteen of the twenty-four hours spent in sleep (162). will. _impulsive movements._--outstretching and bending of arms and legs just after birth; contractions, spreading and bending of fingers (205). grimaces (207). wrinkling of forehead (309). first day, arms and legs take same position as before birth (206). second week, stretching of limbs after waking (205). _reflex movements._--in case of light-impressions (34-42). first cry (213). sneezing of newly-born (214). coughing, ditto. (216). seventh day, yawning (215). first day, spreading of toes when sole of foot is touched (224). first day, hiccough (219). first five days, choking (218). wheezing, yawning (215). seventh day, respiration irregular (217). ninth day, clasping (243). tenth day, lips protruded (283). fourteenth day, movement of left hand toward left temple (220). twenty-fourth day, snoring (215). _instinctive movements._--first to third day, hands to face. fifth day, fingers clasp firmly; toes do not. sixth day, hands go into eye (244). seventh day, pencil held with toes, but no seizing. ninth day, no clasping by sleeping child (245). sucking (257-261). at end of first week, lateral movements of head (264). third week, clasping with fingers, not with thumb (245). _expressive movements._--twenty-sixth day, smile of contentment (296). twenty-third day, tears flow (307). crying, with tears, and whimpering, become signs of mental states (308). intellect.[b] memory first active in the departments of taste and of smell; then in touch, sight, hearing (5). comparison of tastes (i, 123). vowel-sounds in first month (67). sounds in first six months (74). sounds made in crying and screaming, _u-ä_ (101). twenty-second day, association of the breast with nursing (i, 260). footnotes: [a] under "senses" and "will" the numbers in parentheses indicate pages in vol. i. [b] under "intellect" the numbers in parentheses indicate pages from vol. ii, unless otherwise stated. second month. senses. sight.--_light._--bright or highly-colored objects give pleasure (4). _discrimination of colors._--forty-second day, pleasure in sight of colored tassels (7). _movements of eyelids._--fifth week, irregular movements of lids. eighth week, lid covering iris (23). twenty-fifth day, opening and shutting eyes in surprise (30). fifty-seventh and fifty-eighth days, winking. sixtieth day, quick opening and shutting in fright (26). _movements of eyes._--thirty-first day, strabismus rare. forty-sixth to fiftieth day, very rare. fifty-fifth day, irregular movements rare, but appearing in sleep till the sixtieth day (37). _direction of look._--fifth week, toward the christmas-tree (45). thirty-ninth day, toward tassels swinging (46). seventh week, moving lamp or bright object followed (45). hearing.--fifth week, child does not sleep if persons walk or speak. starting at noises. sixth week, starting at slight noises even in sleep; quieted by mother's singing. seventh week, fright at noise is greater (83). sensibility to musical tones, ditto. eighth week, tones of piano give pleasure (84). touch.--thirty-eighth day, movements caused by touch of water (107). forty-first day, reflex movement of arms caused by a general slight agitation (105, 106). fiftieth and fifty-fifth days, closing of eyelid at touch of eyelash (103). seventh week, upper lip sensitive (100). organic sensations and emotions.--pleasure in musical sounds (141); in sight of human face (142). reflexive laughing (145). sixth week, fretfulness and hunger (155). eighth week, fatigue after hearing piano-playing (160). sleep of three, sometimes of five or six hours (162). will. _impulsive movements._--of eyes before waking, also twistings and raisings of trunk (206). seventh week, number of respirations twenty-eight to the minute (217). _reflex movements._--of right arm at touch of left temple (220). forty-third day, sneezing caused by witch-meal (215). fifth week, vomiting (219). eighth week, laughing caused by tickling (225). _instinctive movements._--seventh week, clasping not yet with thumb. eighth week, the four fingers of the child embrace the father's finger (245). intellect. _speech._--forty-third day, first consonant; child says _am-ma_; also vowel-sound _ao_. forty-fourth day, syllables _ta-hu_; forty-sixth day, _gö_, _örö_; fifty-first day, _ara_; eighth and ninth weeks, _örrö_, _arra_, frequent (102). third month. senses. sight.--_movements of the eyelids._--eyelid not completely raised when child looked up (23). irregular movements of eyes appear (though rare) up to tenth week; at three months are no more observed (37). _direction of look._--sixty-first day, child looked at his mother and gave a cry of joy; the father's face made the child gay. sixty-second day, look directed at a swinging lamp (46). _seeing near and distant objects._--ninth week, accommodation apparent (54). hearing.--ninth week, sound of watch arouses attention; other noises (84). eleventh week, head moved in direction of sound (85). eighty-first day ditto. (47). twelfth week, sudden turning of head toward sounding body (85). organic sensations and emotions.--_pleasure._--smile at sight of the mother's face (145). _unpleasant feeling._--from some internal cause (151). _fatigue._--sucking tiresome (159). sleep of four or five hours without waking (162). _hunger._--tenth week, child hungry three times or more in a night (155). will. _reflex movements._--respirations, thirteenth week, twenty-seven to the minute (217). hiccough frequent; stopped by use of sweetened water (219). _instinctive movements._--eleventh week, pencil held, but mechanically; thumb not used in clasping (245). twelfth week, eighty-fourth day, contra-position of thumb reflexive (245, 246). thirteenth week, thumb follows fingers more readily (246). eleventh week, head balanced occasionally. twelfth week, some gain in holding head. thirteenth week, head tolerably well balanced (264). seizing merely apparent (246). no voluntary movement (266). intellect. eighty-first day, seeking direction of sound (i, 47). _speech._--consonant _m_ frequent (67). sixty-fourth day, _ma_ (102). sixty-fifth day, _nei nei nei_ and once _a-omb_. sixty-sixth day, _la_, _grei_, _aho_, _ma_. sixty-ninth day, _mömm_ and _ngö_. seventy-first day, _ra-a-ao_. seventy-sixth day, _nä_ and _n[=a]i-n_. seventy-eighth day, _habu_. twelfth week, _a-i_ and _u[=a]o_, _ä-o-a_, _ä-a-a_ and _o-ä-ö_ (103). _feeling of self._--eleventh week, child does not see himself in mirror (197). fourth month. senses. sight.--_movements of eyelids._--ninety-eighth day, brow wrinkled when look is upward (24). fifty-seventh day, winking (26). fifteenth and sixteenth weeks, ditto (27). seventeenth week, objects seized are moved toward eyes; grasping at objects too distant (55). _movements of eyes._--no more non-coördinated (37). _direction of look._--fourteenth week, following person moving. one hundred and first day, following pendulum. sixteenth week, gazing at sides and ceiling of carriage and at objects (48). hearing.--sixteenth week, head turned toward sound with certainty of reflex (85). feeling.--seventeenth week, eyes are closed when a drop of water touches lashes (103). fourteenth week, sleeping child throws up arms at sudden touch (106). organic sensations and emotions.--pleasure in grasping at objects (142). fifteenth week, intervals between meals three or four hours (155). sleep lasts five or six hours (162). twenty-second week, astonishment at seeing father after separation (173). fourteenth week, smile of satiety. seventeenth week, joy in seeing image in mirror (297). will. _reflex movements._--fourteenth week, right hand to right eye (220). _instinctive movements._--fourteenth week, hands hold objects longer and with contra-position of thumb. fifteenth and sixteenth weeks, no intentional seizing. one hundred and fourteenth day, ditto (246). seventeenth week, efforts to take hold of ball; ball moved to mouth and eyes. one hundred and eighteenth day, frequent attempts at seizing; following day, grasping gives pleasure (247). fourteenth week, head seldom falls forward. sixteenth week, head held up permanently (264), this the first distinct manifestation of will (265). fourteenth week, child sits, his back supported (267). seventeenth week, biting (261). _imitative movements._--fifteenth week, beginnings of imitation; trying to purse the lips (283). seventeenth week, protruding tip of tongue (284). _expressive movements._--sixteenth week, turnings of head and nodding, not significant; head turned away in refusal (314). _deliberate movements._--fourteenth week, attentive looking at person moving; one hundred and first day, at pendulum swinging (48). fifteenth week, imitation, pursing lips (283). sixteenth and seventeenth weeks, voluntary gazing at image in mirror (343). intellect. intellect participates in voluntary movements (i, 338). _speech._--fourteenth week, _ntö_, _ha_, _lö_, _na_. fifteenth week, _nan-nana_, _n[=a]-n[=a]_, _nanna_, in refusal (103). sixteenth week, in screaming, _ä-[)u] ä-[)u] ä_, _[=a]-[)u] [=a]-[)u]_, _[)u]-ä [)u]-ä_, _[=u]-[=u]-[=a]-ö_, _amme-a_; in discomfort, _[=u][)a]-[=u][)a]-[=u][)a]-[=u][)a]_ (104). _feeling of self._--seventeenth week, child gazes at his own hand (193). one hundred and thirteenth day, for the first time regards his image with attention (197). one hundred and sixteenth day, laughs at his image (198). fifth month. senses. sight.--_direction of look._--looking inquiringly (48). _seeing near and distant objects._--reaching too short (55). hearing.--nineteenth week, pleasure in sound of crumpling of paper by himself. twenty-first week, beating of gong enchains attention (85). disturbed by noise (86). touch.--auditory canal sensitive (106). organic sensations and emotions.--pleasure in crumpling paper, tearing newspapers and rolling them into balls, pulling at glove or hair, ringing of a bell (142, 143). eighteenth week, discomfort shown by depressing angles of mouth (149). eighteenth week, nights of ten to eleven hours without taking food (155). eighteenth week, desire shown by stretching out arms (247). will. _instinctive movements._--eighteenth week, objects seized are held firmly and carried to the mouth (247). nineteenth week, child takes bit of meat and carries to mouth. one hundred and twenty-third day, lips protruded in connection with seizing (248). intellect. _speech._--consonant _k_, _gö_, _kö_, _[)a]gg[)e]gg[)e]kö_. first five months, screaming sounds _u_, _ä_, _ö_, _a_, with _ü_ and _o_; _m_ almost the only consonant (104). _feeling of self._--discovery by child that he can cause sensations of sound (192). looking at his own fingers very attentively (194). sixth month. senses. sight.--_movements of eyelids._--twenty-fifth-week, winking caused by puff of wind in face (27). _interpretation of what is seen._--child laughs when nodded to by father; observes father's image in mirror, etc. (62). taste.--medicine taken if sweetened (124). one hundred and fifty-sixth day, child refuses breast, having had sweeter milk. end of twenty-third week, milk of new nurse taken, also cow's milk, meat-broth (125). organic sensations and emotions.--pleasure in grasping increases (142). arms moved up and down when child is nodded to (144). twenty-third week, depression of angles of mouth and cry of distress caused by harsh address (149). hunger apparent in persistent gaze at bottle, crying, and opening of mouth (154). sleep of six to eight hours (162). astonishment at seeing father after separation, and at sight of stranger (173). will. _reflex movements._--sneezing caused, on one hundred and seventieth day, by blowing on the child (215). _instinctive movements._--twenty-second week, child raised himself to sitting posture (267). twenty-third week, ditto; pleased at being placed upright (275). _expressive movements._--laugh accompanied by raisings and droppings of arms when pleasure is great (299). arm-movements that seemed like defensive movements (314). "crowing" a sign of pleasure (ii, 104). intellect. use of means to cause flow of milk (12). _speech._--twenty-second week, _ögö_, _ma-ö-[)e]_, _h[)a]_, _[=a]_, _ho-ich_. "crowing" and aspirate _ha_, and _brrr-há_, signs of pleasure (104). so _aja_, _örrgö_, _[=a]-[=a]-i-[)o]-[=a]_, _eu_ and _oeu_ (french) and _ä_ and _ö_ (german), also _ijä_; _i_ and _u_ rare (105). _feeling of self._--twenty-third week, discrimination between touch of self and of foreign object (194; i, 109). twenty-fourth week, child gazes at glove and at his fingers alternately (194). twenty fourth week, sees father's image in mirror and turns to look at father. twenty-fifth week, stretches hand toward his own image. twenty-sixth week, sees image of father and compares it with original (198). seventh month. senses. sight.--_movements of eyelids._--end of seventh month, opening and shutting of fan causes opening and shutting of eyes (30). _direction of look._--twenty-ninth week, looking at flying sparrow (48). thirtieth week, child does not look after objects let fall (49). _seeing near and distant objects._--accommodation is perfect (55). _interpretation of what is seen._--staring at strange face (62). hearing.--gaze at person singing; joy in military music (86). feeling.--child became pale in bath (115). taste.--new tastes cause play of countenance (124). one hundred and eighty-fifth day, cow's milk boiled, with egg, is liked; leguminous food not (125). organic sensations and emotions.--pleasure in his image in mirror (142). child laughs when others laugh to him (145). twenty-ninth week, crying with hunger; spreading out tongue (153). satiety shown by thrusting mouth-piece out (157). will. _impulsive movements._--nose becomes mobile. babes strike about them vigorously (207). _reflex movements._--sighing appears (216). _instinctive movements._--thirtieth week, seizing more perfect (249). child places himself upright on lap, twenty-eighth week (275). _imitative movements._--imitation of movements of head; of pursing lips (283). _expressive movements._--averting head as sign of refusal; thrusting nipple out of mouth (313, 314). astonishment shown by open mouth and eyes (55). intellect. child did not recognize nurse after absence of four weeks (7); but children distinguish faces before thirtieth week (6). _speech._--when hungry, child screams _mä_, _ä_, _[)u]ä_, _[)u]ä[)e]_; when contented, says _örrö_; _lä_, _[)u]-[=a]-[)u]-i-i_; _t_ seldom, _k_ only in yawning, _p_ very rarely (106). eighth month. senses. sight.--_movements of eyelids._--brow not wrinkled invariably in looking upward (24). play of lid on hearing new noises; no lifting of eyebrows (30, 31). thirty-fourth week, eyes opened wide with longing (31). _direction of look._--thirty-first week, gaze turned in direction of falling object. thirty-third week, objects moved slowly downward are followed with close gaze. thirty-fourth week, objects let fall by him are seldom looked after (49). _interpretation of what is seen._--interest in bottles (62). hearing.--quick closing of lids at new impressions of sound (86). taste.--pleasure in the "prepared food" (125). organic sensations and emotions.--discomfort accompanied by square form of the mouth (149). craving for food shown by cooing sound (155). strongest feeling connected with appeasing of hunger (157). restless nights (162). astonishment at new sounds and sights; with fright (86). thirty-first week, at clapping of fan. thirty-fourth week, at imitation of voices of animals (173). will. _impulsive movements._--accompanying movement of hand (210). thirty-fourth week, stretchings of arms and legs accompanying utterance (ii, 108). _instinctive movements._--thirty-second week, seizing with both hands more perfect; attention more active (248). in same week, legs stretched up vertically, feet observed attentively, toes carried to mouth with the hands (249). pulling objects to him; grasping at bottle (250). thirty-fourth week, carrying things to mouth (251). _expressive movements._--laugh begins to be persistently loud (299). thirty-second week, child no longer sucks at lips when he is kissed, but licks them (305). eyelid half closed in disinclination (315). interest in objects shown by stretching out hands (321). intellect. _speech._--variety of sounds made in the first eight months at random (76). concept of bottle before language (79). sounds in screaming different (106). once the sound _h[=a]-upp_; frequently _a-[(ei]_, _a-[(au]_, _[)a]-h[(au]-[)a]_, _hörrö_. also _nt[)e]-ö_, _mi-ja mija_; once _o[)u][=a][)e]i_ (107). feeling of self.--thirty-second week, child looks at his legs and feet as if they were foreign to him (194). ninth month. senses. sight.--_movements of eyes._--eyes converged easily (38). _direction of look._--thirty-sixth week, objects that fall are not regularly looked after, but slowly moving objects, e. g., tobacco-smoke, are followed (49). _interpretation of what is seen._--boxes are gazed at (62). more interest shown in things in general (63). hearing.--winking and starting at slamming noise (86). taste.--yolk of egg with cane-sugar taken with expression of surprise. water and bread liked (126). organic sensations and emotions.--striking hands together and laughing for joy (145). eyes shut when something disagreeable is to be endured; head turned away also (148). cooing, as in eighth month (155). fear of dog (167, 168). will. _reflex movements._--number of respirations (in fever) forty and forty-two in a minute (217). _instinctive movements._--teeth-grinding (262). turning over when laid face downward (266). thirty-fifth week, child places himself on arm and hand of nurse, and looks over her shoulder (275). thirty-ninth week, likes to sit with support (267). thirty-ninth week, stands on feet a moment without support (269). _expressive movements._--loud laughing at new, pleasing objects (299). turns head to light when asked where it is (321). _deliberate movements._--things brought to mouth are put quickly on tongue (329). intellect. question understood before child can speak (i, 321). _speech._--voice more modulated: screaming varies with different causes (107). delight shown by crowing sounds: _mä-mä_, _ämmä_, _mä_, are expressions of pleasure; _[=a]-au-[=a]-[=a]_, _[=a]-[)o]_, _a-u-au_, _na-na_; _apa_, _ga-au-[)a]_, _acha_ (108). feeling of self.--feet are felt of, and toes are carried to mouth (190). thirty-fifth week, foot grasped and carried to mouth. thirty-sixth week, other objects preferred to hands and feet. thirty-ninth week, in the bath his own skin is looked at and felt of, also his legs (194). thirty-fifth week, his image in mirror is grasped at gayly (198). tenth month. senses. sight.--_movements of eyelids._--brow invariably wrinkled at looking upward (24). _movements of eyes._--convergence of lines of vision disturbed (38). _direction of look._--forty-third week, objects thrown down are looked at (49). _interpretation of what is seen._--visual impressions connected with food best interpreted (63). hearing.--head turned at noise (87). organic sensations and emotions.--joy at lighting of lamp (145). will. _reflex movements._--inhibition of reflex (229). _instinctive movements._--forty-third week, carrying objects to mouth (252). taking a hair from one hand into the other (253). finger bitten (261). bread crunched and swallowed (262). turning over when laid on face (266). fortieth and forty-first weeks, trying to sit without support (267). forty-second week, sitting up without support in bath and carriage (267, 268). forty-first week, first attempts at walking (275). forty-second week, moving feet forward and sidewise; inclination to walk. forty-third week, foot lifted high; moving forward (276). _imitative movements._--beckoning imitated (285). _expressive movements._--laughing becomes more conscious and intelligent (299). crying in sleep (308). striking hands together in sleep (319). object pointed at is carried to mouth and chewed (322). body straightened in anger (324). this not intentional (326). intellect. forty-third week, knowledge of weight of bodies (i, 50). a child missed his parents when they were absent, also a single nine-pin of a set (7, 8). _speech._--child can not repeat a syllable heard (77). in monologue, syllables are more distinct, loud, and varied when child is left to himself than when other persons entertain him: _ndä[)e]_, _b[=a]ë-b[=a]ë_, _ba ell_, _arrö_. frequent are _mä_, _pappa_, _tatta_, _appapa_, _babba_, _tätä_, _pa_, _rrrr_, _rrra_. hints at imitation (108). _feeling of self._--forty-first week, striking his own body and foreign objects (191). forty-first to forty-fourth week, image in mirror laughed at and grasped at (198). eleventh month. senses. sight.--_direction of look._--forty-seventh week, child throws down objects and looks after them (49). _seeing near and distant objects._--forty-fourth week, new objects no longer carried to eyes, but gazed at and felt. forty-seventh week, accommodation perfect (55). _interpretation of what is seen._--trying to fixate objects (63). hearing.--screaming is quieted by a "sh!" or by singing. three hundred and nineteenth day, difference in sound of spoon on plate when plate was touched by hand (87). taste.--meat-broth with egg taken; scalded skimmed milk rejected; dry biscuit liked (126). organic sensations and emotions.--forty-fourth week, astonishment at strange face (173). will. _instinctive movements._--forty-fifth week, grasping at flame of lamp; forty-seventh, at objects behind a pane of glass; gain in moving muscles of arm; shreds of paper handled (252). biting father's hand (261). smacking lips (262). sitting becomes habit for life (268). standing without support; stamping; but standing only for a moment (269). end of forty-seventh week, feet well placed, but lifted too high and put down too hard (276). _expressive movements._--grasping at his image with laugh; jubilant noise at being allowed to walk (299). _deliberate movements._--striking spoon against object and exchanging objects (326, 327). child takes biscuit, carries it to mouth, bites off a bit, chews and swallows it; but can not drink from glass (329). intellect. syllables correctly repeated; intentional sound-imitation on the three hundred and twenty-ninth day. forty-fifth week, response made for diversion: whispering begins (109). three kinds of _r_-sounds: new syllables, _ta-h[(ee]_, _dann-tee_, _[(aa]-n[(ee]_, _ngä_, _tai_, _bä_, _dall_, _at-tall_, _kamm_, _akkee_, _praï-jer_, _tra_, _[=a]-h[(ee]_. some earlier sounds frequent; consonants _b_, _p_, _t_, _d_, _m_, _n_, _r_; _l_, _g_, _k_: vowel _a_ most used, _u_ and _o_ rare, _i_ very rare (110). accentuation not frequent (111). association of idea with utterance in one case (111, 122). forty-fifth week, to word "papa," response _rrra_ (113). _feeling of self._--forty-fifth to fifty-fifth week, discovery of his power to cause changes (192). twelfth month. senses. sight.--_seeing near and distant objects._--fifty-first week, pleasure in seeing men sawing wood at distance of more than one hundred feet (55). hearing.--screaming quieted by "sh!" (87). three hundred and sixty-third day, hears noise in next room and looks in direction of sound (88). taste.--fastidious about food (126). organic sensations and emotions.--grunting as indication of pleasure (144). fifty-second week, astonishment at new sound (173). will. _impulsive movements._--accompanying movement of hand in drinking (209). _instinctive movements._--child seized father's hand, carried it to mouth and bit it (261). forty-eighth week, standing without support a moment; stamping; pushing a chair (276). forty-ninth week, child can not raise himself without help or stand more than an instant. fiftieth week, can not place himself on his feet, or walk without help (277). _imitative movements._--trying to strike with spoon on tumbler; puffing repeated in sleep (287). _expressive movements._--end of year, imitative laughing; crowing (299). laughing in sleep (300). opening of mouth in kissing (305). arms stretched out in desire (322). _deliberate movements._--biscuit put into mouth with few failures; drinking from glass, breathing into the water (329). intellect. ideas gained before language (78). logical activity applied to perceptions of sound (i, 88). abstraction, whiteness of milk (18). _speech._--imitation more successful, but seldom correct. articulate sounds made spontaneously: _haja_, _jajajajaja_, _aja_, _njaja_, _naïn-hopp_, _ha-a_, _pa-a_, _d[=e]wär_, _han-na_, _mömma_, _allda_, _alldaï_, _apa-u-a_, _gägä_, _ka_, _ladn_; _atta_ is varied, no more _dada_; _w_ for the first time. ability to discriminate between words (112). fifty-second week, child of himself obeys command, "give the hand!" quieting effect of sounds "sh, ss, st, pst" (113). _feeling of self._--striking hard substances against teeth; gnashing teeth (189). tearing of paper continued (192). thirteenth month. senses. hearing.--child strikes on keys of piano; pleased with singing of canary-bird (89). organic sensations and emotions.--laughing almost invariably follows the laugh of others (145). sleep, fourteen hours daily (162). will. _instinctive movements._--standing some moments without support (270). fifty-third week, creeping. fifty-fourth week, walking, with support; movements in creeping asymmetrical (277). _expressive movements._--no idea of kissing (305). shaking head in denial (315). begging sound along with extending of hands in desire (323). intellect. trying door after shutting it (15, 16). hears the vowel-sounds in word (68). _speech._--desire expressed by _ä-na_, _ä-nananana_ (112). awkwardness continues; attention more lively. tries to repeat words said for him. three hundred and sixty-ninth day, _papa_ repeated correctly (113, 114). syllables most frequent, _nja_, _njan_, _dada_, _atta_, _mama_, _papaï_, _attaï_, _na-na-na_, _hatta_, _meen[)e]-meen[)e]-meen[)e],_ _mömm_, _mömma_, _ao-u_: _na-na_ denotes desire, _mama_, mother. fifty-fourth week, joy expressed by crowing, some very high tones; first distinct _s_, three hundred and sixty-eighth day (114). understanding of words spoken (115). confusion of associations; first conscious act of obedience (116). _feeling of self._--rapping head with hand (191). finding himself a cause; shaking keys, etc. (192). fifty-fifth week, strikes himself and observes his hands; compares fingers of others with his own (195). fourteenth month. senses. sight.--_seeing near and distant objects._--fifty-eighth week, grasping at lamp above him (55). organic sensations and emotions.--fear of falling (169). fifty-eighth week, astonishment at lantern (173). will. _instinctive movements._--child could be allowed to bite paper to pieces; he took the pieces out of his mouth (253). fifty-seventh week, he hitches along on hands and knees; can not walk without support. sixtieth week, raises himself by chair (277). _imitative movements._--for imitating swinging of arms an interval of time was required (287). coughing imitated (288). nodding not imitated (315). _expressive movements._--confounding of movements (322). affection shown by laying hand on face and shoulders of others (324). _deliberate movements._--child takes off and puts on the cover of a can seventy-nine times (328). intellect. wrong understanding of what is heard (89). _speech._--no doubt that _atta_ means "going"; _brrr_, practiced and perfected; _dakkn_, _daggn_, _taggn_, _attagn_, _attatn_; no special success in repeating vowels and syllables (117). child tries and laughs at his failures, if others laugh; parrot-like repetition of some syllables (118). gain in understanding of words heard; association of definite object with name (119). more movements executed on hearing words (120). confounding of movements occurs, but grows rare; begging attitude seen to be useful (121). _feeling of self._--four hundred and ninth day, child bit himself on the arm (189). pulling out and pushing in a drawer, turning leaves of book, etc. (192). fifty-seventh week, child looks at his image in hand-mirror, puts hand behind glass, etc. (198). fifty-eighth week, his photograph treated in like manner; he turns away from his image in mirror; sixtieth week, recognizes his mother's image in mirror as image (199). fifteenth month. senses. sight.--_direction of look._--sixty-third to sixty-fifth week, objects thrown down and looked after (50). _interpretation of what is seen._--grasps at candle, puts hand into flame, but once only (63). hearing.--laughing at new noises, as gurgling or thunder (89). smell.--coffee and cologne make no impression till end of month (134). will. _instinctive movements._--sixty-second week, child stands a few seconds when support is withdrawn. sixty-third week, walks, holding on to a support (277). sixty-fourth week, can walk without support, if he thinks he is supported; sixty-fifth week, walks holding by one finger of another's hand; raises himself to knees, stands up if he can hold to something (278). _imitative movements._--coughing. learns to blow out candle (288). opening and shutting of hand (289). _expressive movements._--laughing at new sounds (299). the words "give a kiss" produce a drawing near of head and protruding of lips (306). wrinkling of brow in attempts at imitation (310). deprecating movement of arm (314). sixty-fourth week, nodding sometimes accompanies the word "no"; four hundred and forty-fifth day, an accompanying movement (316). first shrugging of shoulders (317). begging gesture made by child when he wants something (318). same made in asking for amusement (319). wish expressed by handing a ring, looking at glasses to be struck, and saying _hay-[)u]h_ (323). intellect. hunting for scraps of paper, etc. (17). after burning his finger in flame of candle, the child never put it near the flame again, but would, in fun, put it in the direction of the candle. he allowed mouth and chin to be wiped without crying (20). _speech._--new sound _wa_; astonishment expressed by _h[=a]-[=a]-[)e][=a]-[)e]_, joy by crowing in high and prolonged tones, strong desire by _häö_, _hä-[)e]_, pain, impatience, by screaming in vowels passing over into one another (121). the _atta_ still used when a light is dimmed (122). advance in repeating syllables. child is vexed when he can not repeat a word. one new word, _heiss_ (hot) (123). the _s_ is distinct; _th_ (eng.) appears; _w_; smacking in sixty-fifth week; tongue the favorite plaything (124). understands words "moon," "clock," "eye," "nose," "cough," "blow," "kick," "light"; affirmative nod at "ja" in sixty-fourth week; negative shaking at "no"; holding out hand at words "give the hand" or "hand"; more time required when child is not well (125). _feeling of self._--child bit his finger so that he cried out with pain (191). sixty-second week, playing with his fingers as foreign objects; pressing one hand down with the other (195). sixty-first week, trying to feel of his own image in the mirror (199). sixteenth month. senses. sight.--_seeing near and distant objects._--sixty-eighth week, reaching too short, too far to left or right, too high or too low (56). _interpretation of what is seen._--grasping at jets of water (63). hearing.--child holds watch to his ear and listens to the ticking (89). smell.--smell and taste not separated; a flower is taken into mouth (135). organic sensations and emotions.--fear of high tones (169). will. _impulsive movements._--sleeping child raised hand to eye (202). accompanying movement of fingers in drinking (210). _reflex movements._--respirations, in sleep, twenty-two to twenty-five a minute (217). _instinctive movements._--sixty-sixth week, four hundred and fifty-seventh day, child runs alone (278). next day, stops and stamps. four hundred and sixty-first day, can walk backward, if led, and can turn round alone. at the end of the week can look at objects while walking. sixty-seventh week, a fall occurs rarely. sixty-eighth week, walking becoming mechanical (279). _imitative movements._--a ring put on his head in imitation (289). waiting attitude (318). _expressive movements._--lips protruded almost like a snout (302). shaking head meant "no" and "i do not know" (316). child shrugs shoulders when unable to answer (317). waiting attitude becomes a sign (318). _deliberate movements._--opening and shutting cupboards, bringing objects, etc. holding ear-ring to ear (327). intellect. child holds an ear-ring to his ear with understanding (i, 327). a begging movement at seeing box from which cake had come (11). small understanding shown in grasping at ring (13). _speech._--progress in repeating words spoken for him and in understanding words heard. desire expressed by _hä!_ _hä-ö!_ _hä-[)e]!_ _h[)e]-[)e]!_ more seldom _hi_, _gö-gö_, _gö_, _f-pa_, _[(au]_; more frequently, _ta_, _dokkn_, _tá-ha_, _a-bwa-bwa_, _b[)u][=a]-b[)u][=a]_; once _dagon_. child "reads" the newspaper (126). pain expressed by screaming; joy by crowing with vowel _i_; _a_ repeated on command; _mö_ and _ma_; imitation tried (127). touches eye, ear, etc., when these are named--not with certainty (128). understands "bring," "give," etc. (129). _feeling of self._--putting thumbs against the head and pushing, experimenting (191). sixty-sixth week, child strikes at his image in mirror. sixty-seventh week, makes grimaces before mirror; turns round to see his father, whose image appeared in mirror (199). sixty-ninth week, signs of vanity (200). seventeenth month. senses. sight.--_interpretation of what is seen._--child grasps at tobacco-smoke (64). hearing.--holding watch to ear (89). taste.--surprise at new tastes (119). smell.--inability to separate smell and taste (135). organic sensations and emotions.--prolonged sleep; ten hours at a time (162). will. _reflex movements._--right hand moved when right nostril is touched (221). _instinctive movements._--clasping of finger in sleep (243). seventieth week, child raises himself from floor alone; seventy-first week, steps over threshold (279). _expressive movements._--shaking head means "i do not wish" (316). throwing himself on floor and screaming with rage (323). intellect. child brings traveling-bag to stand upon in order to reach (12). play of "hide and seek" (17). _speech._--screaming, whimpering, etc. (101). increase of discrimination: _bibi_, _nä-nä-nä_, _t-tó_, _höt-tó_; voluntary imitation (129). associations of words heard with objects and movements (130). _feeling of self._--making grimaces before mirror (200). eighteenth month. senses. sight.--_direction of look._--seventy-eighth week, throwing away of playthings is rare (50). _interpretation of what is seen._--anxiety on seeing man dressed in black (64). smell.--objects no longer carried to mouth (135). organic sensations and emotions.--laughing at thunder (170). will. _impulsive movements._--holding little finger apart from others (209). _instinctive movements._--walks over threshold by holding on (275). seventy-seventh week, runs around table; seventy-eighth, walks over threshold without holding on (280). _imitative movements._--blowing horn (290). _expressive movements._--trying to hit with foot, striking, etc. (315). waiting attitude (318). _deliberate movements._--full spoon carried to mouth with skill (329). intellect. memory of towel (8). watering flowers with empty pot (16). plays (17). giving leaves to stag, etc. (18). stick of wood put in stove (20). _speech._--understanding of words increases (130). repeating of syllables is rare; _atta_ becomes _tto_, _t-tu_, _ftu_; feeling recognized by tone of voice (131). _feeling of self._--recognition of himself as cause of changes (192). nineteenth month. senses. hearing.--hearing watch on his head (89). organic sensations and emotions.--fear of strangers ceases (150). laugh at thunder and lightning (170). will. _imitative movements._--combing and brushing hair, washing hands, etc. (290). _expressive movements._--fastidious about kissing (306). pride in baby-carriage (324). _deliberative movements._--spoon taken in left hand (329). intellect. father recognized after absence (8). bringing cloth for wrap and begging for door to be opened (12). grunting in order to be taken away (13). induction, watch and clock (18). crying seen to be useless (20). _speech._--imitation of whistle (91). spontaneous sound imitations more frequent (131). gazing after objects thrown and whispering, reading newspaper (132). response to _pa_ correctly given (133). objects correctly pointed out; memory of tricks (134). _feeling of self._--attempt to give his foot (190). twentieth month. senses. sight.--_discrimination of colors._--first color-tests. eighty-fifth week, no discrimination (7). eighty-sixth and eighty-seventh weeks, no results (8). _movements of the eyes._--readiness of convergence, pupils very wide open (38). organic sensations and emotions.--prolonged sleep habitual, etc. (163). will. _reflex movements._--respirations twenty-two and more (217). _instinctive movements._--eighty-fifth week, thresholds stepped over quickly; inclines forward in running (280). _imitative movements._--use of comb and brush, putting on collar (290). scraping feet, putting pencil to mouth, marking on paper (291). _expressive movements._--proximity essential in kissing; bends head when "kiss" is said (306). antipathy expressed by turning head at approach of women in black (315). _deliberate movements._--carries spoon with food to mouth cleverly (329). intellect. as in nineteenth month, grunting (12,13). _speech._--_rodi_, _otto_, _rojo_ (93). understanding of the word "other" (128, 129). five hundred and eighty-fourth day, important advance in repeating words said (135). imagination; can not repeat three syllables; laughs when others laugh (136). single words more promptly understood (137). one new concept, expressed by _d[=a]_ and _nd[=a]_, or _t[=a]_ and _nt[=a]_. eighty-seventh week, _attah_ said on railway-train; _papa_ and _bät_ or _bit_ (for "bitte") rightly used; much outcry (138). crowing tones not so high; loud readings continued (139). twenty-first month. senses. hearing.--dancing not rhythmical (89, 90). organic sensations and emotions.--fear of the sea (170). will. _instinctive movements._--eighty-ninth week, running is awkward, but falling rare (280). _imitative movements._--imitation without understanding (290, 291). _expressive movements._--ninetieth week, pointing as expression of wish (321). intellect. recognition of father (8). association of biscuit with coat and wardrobe (11). _speech._--imitations more frequent. eighty-ninth week, babbling different, more _consonants_; _ptö-ptö_, _pt-pt_, and _verlapp_, also _dla-dla_; willfulness shown in articulate sounds and shaking head (139). unlike syllables not repeated, _dang-gee_ and _dank-kee_; tendency to doubling syllables, _tete_, _bibi_; babbling yields great pleasure; _bibi_ for "bitte" rightly used. new word _mimi_, when hungry or thirsty (140). understands use and signification of sound, _neinein_; and answers of his own accord _jaja_ to question in ninety-first week. strength of memory for sounds; points correctly to nose, mouth, etc. (141). astonishing progress in understanding what is said. few expressions of his own with recognizable meaning, _j[=a][)e]_ excepted. _att_, _att_, _att_, unintelligible. tried to imitate sound of steam of locomotive (142). _feeling of self._--placing shells and buttons in rows (193). puts lace about him; vanity; laughs and points at his own image in mirror (200). the same on six hundred and twentieth day (201). twenty-second month. senses. sight.--new impressions enchain attention; the mysterious more attractive (64). intellect. _speech._--progress in understanding; orders executed with surprising accuracy (142). strength of word-memory; facility of articulation; spontaneous utterance of _pss_, _ps_, _ptsch_, _pth_; _pa-ptl-dä-pt_; greeting with _h[=a][=a]-ö_, _ada_ and _ana_. singing, _rollo_, _mama_, _mämä_, etc. more certainty in reproducing sounds: "pst, anna, otto, lina," etc. three-syllabled words correctly repeated, _a-ma-ma_, _a-pa-pa_ (143). words too hard are given back with _tap[)e]ta_, _p[)e]ta_, _pta_, _ptö-ptö_ or _rateratetat_. _ja ja_ and _nein nein_, with _da_ and _bibi_ and _mimi_, used properly in request. cry of pain a strong contrast with the crowing for joy (144). twenty-third month. senses. sight.--_seeing near and distant objects._--ninety-sixth week, does not appreciate distance (56). will. _imitative movements._--imitative impulse seems like ambition; ceremonious movements imitated (291). _expressive movements._--kiss given as a mark of favor (306). striking hands together in applause and desire for repetition (319). tears of sorrow instead of anger; tries to move chair to table, etc. (324). intellect. joy at seeing playthings after absence of eleven and a half weeks (8). concept of "cup" not sharply defined (16). use of adjective for the first spoken judgment (96). _speech._--_heiss_ (hot) means "the drink is too hot," and "the stove is hot" (144). _watja_ and _mimi_; _mimmi_, _mömö_, _m[=a]m[=a]_, mean food; _atta_, disappearance; spontaneous articulation, _[(oi]_, _[(eu]_, _ana_, _ida_, _didl_, _dadl_, _dldo-dlda_; in singing-tone, _opojö_, _apojopojum aui_, _heissa_; calls grandparents _e-papa_ and _e-mama_; knows who is meant when these are spoken of. understands words more easily, as "drink, eat, shut, open" (145). word-memory becoming firm; imagination. great progress in reproducing syllables and words (146). child's name, "axel," is called _aje_, _eja_. "bett, karre, kuk," repeated correctly. echolalia reappears (147). words are best pronounced by child when he is not called upon to do it (148). _feeling of self._--child holds biscuit to his toes (190). twenty-fourth month. senses. sight.--_interpretation of what is seen._--moving animals closely observed (64). hearing.--trying to sing, and beating time (90). organic sensations and emotions.--astonishment more seldom apparent (174). will. _instinctive movements._--child turns, of himself, dancing in time to music; beats time (280). _imitative movements._--ceremonious movements imitated, salutation, uncovering head (291). _expressive movements._--roguish laughing first observed (299). intellect. understanding of actions and of use of utensils more developed than ability to interpret representations of them (i, 64, 65). _speech._--voluntary sound-imitations gain in frequency and accuracy; genuine echolalia (148). imperfect imitations (149). multiplicity of meanings in the same utterance (150). distinguishing men from women. combination of two words into a sentence, seven hundred and seventh day; words confounded; also gestures and movements; but not in the expression of joy and grief (151, 152). twenty-fifth month. senses. sight.--_discrimination of colors._--color-tests, red and green; seven hundred and fifty-eighth day, eleven times right, six wrong; seven hundred and fifty-ninth, seven right, five wrong; seven hundred and sixtieth, nine right, five wrong (8). does not yet _know_ what blue and green signify. moves and handles himself well in twilight (21). _seeing near and distant objects._--one hundred and eighth week, power of accommodation good; small photographic likenesses recognized (56). intellect. _speech._--progress is extraordinary. does not pronounce a perfect "u." all sound-imitations more manifold, etc.; begins saying "_so_" when any object is brought to appointed place (152). has become more teachable, repeats three words imperfectly. evidence of progress of memory, understanding and articulation in answers given. no word invented by himself; calls his nurse _wolá_, probably from the often-heard "ja wohl." correct use of single words picked up increases surprisingly (153). misunderstandings rational; words better understood; reasoning developed (154). inductive reasoning. progress in forming sentences. sentence of five words. pronouns signify objects or qualities (155, 156). twenty-sixth month. senses. sight.--_discrimination of colors._--seven hundred and sixty-third day, 15 right, 1 wrong. three colors pointed out; disinclination to continue (8). seven hundred and sixty-fifth day, green confounded with yellow. one hundred and tenth week, right 73, wrong 22. blue added. end of one hundred and tenth week to one hundred and twelfth week, right 124, wrong 36. yellow more surely recognized than other colors. violet added (9). colors taken separately. one hundred and twelfth week, right 44, wrong 11. tests in both ways; attention not continuous. gray is added. one hundred and twelfth and one hundred and thirteenth weeks, right 90, wrong 27 (10, 11). child does not know what "green" means in one hundred and twelfth week (21). _seeing near and distant objects._--one hundred and thirteenth week, articles of furniture recognized in pictures at distance of three inches or three feet (56). will. _instinctive movements._--first attempts at climbing (331). intellect. child points out objects in pictures, and repeats names given to them; list of results (156). points out of his own accord, with certainty, in the picture-book. appropriates many words not taught him, _tola_ for "kohlen," _dals_ for "salz." others correctly said and used (157). some of his mutilated words not recognizable; "sch" sometimes left out, sometimes given as _z_ or _ss_. independent thoughts expressed by words more frequently; "good-night" said to the christmas-tree (158). verb used (in the infinitive) showing growth of intellect; learning of tricks decreases (159). no notion of number; does not understand "thank you," but thanks himself. more names of animals, learned from adults; no onomatopoeia (160). twenty-seventh month. senses. sight.--_discrimination of colors._--color-tests, from one hundred and fourteenth to one hundred and sixteenth week, four trials, colors mixed; result, 59 right, 22 wrong (11). blue especially confounded with violet, also with green. four trials in one hundred and fourteenth and one hundred and fifteenth weeks; result, 58 right, 32 wrong (12). two trials in one hundred and fifteenth week; result, 25 right, 16 wrong (13). organic sensations and emotions.--uncomfortable feeling through pity; child weeps if human forms cut out of paper are in danger of mutilation (150, 151). will. _instinctive movements._--pleasure in climbing begins (280). intellect. _speech._--activity of thought. observation and comparison. gratitude does not appear (161). wishes expressed by verbs in the infinitive or by substantives. adverbs; indefinite pronouns. seven hundred and ninety-sixth day, makes the word _messen_ (162). _wolà_ and _atta_ have almost disappeared. independent applications of words (163). monologues less frequent. begs apple to give to a puppet. echolalia prominent. tones and noises imitated (164). laughing when others laugh; fragments of a dialogue repeated. feeble memory for answers and numbers. eight hundred and tenth day, gave his own name for first time in answer to a question (165). no question yet asked by the child. the article is not used. pronunciation slowly becoming correct (166). twenty-eighth month. senses. sight.--_discrimination of colors._--one hundred and twenty-first week, greater uncertainty (13). organic sensations and emotions.--fear of pigs (168). will. _instinctive movements._--going on all-fours; jumping, climbing gives pleasure (280). intellect. _speech._--rapid increase of activity in forming ideas, and greater certainty in use of words. ambition; observation and combination; beginning of self-control; use of his own name and of names of parents; independent thinking (167). increase in number of words correctly pronounced; attempt to use prepositions; first intelligent use of the article (168). questioning active; first spontaneous question on eight hundred and forty-fifth day. "where?" is his only interrogative word. reproduction of foreign expressions (169). imagination lively; paper cups used like real ones. articulation better, but still deficient. many parts of the body named correctly (170). child makes remarks for a quarter of an hour at a time concerning objects about him, sings, screams in sleep (171). twenty-ninth month. senses. sight.--_discrimination of colors._--one hundred and twenty-fourth week, right, 58; wrong, 49. eight hundred and sixty-eighth day, child takes colors of his own accord and names them; confounding rose, gray, and pale-green, brown and gray, blue and violet. one hundred and twenty-fourth and one hundred and twenty-fifth weeks, right, 80; wrong, 34 (14). red and yellow generally named rightly; blue and green not. red and yellow are removed; child is less interested. one hundred and twenty-fifth and one hundred and twenty-sixth weeks, right, 80; wrong, 63. orange confounded with yellow, blue with violet, green with gray, black with brown. failure of attempt to induce child to put like colors together, or to select colors by their names (15). _direction of look._--one hundred and twenty-fourth week, gaze follows ball thrown (50). organic sensations and emotions.--fear of dogs (168). intellect. personal pronoun used in place of his own name. inflection of verbs appears, but the infinitive is generally used for imperative; regular and irregular verbs begin to be distinguished (171). desire expressed by infinitive. numbering active; numerals confounded. eight hundred and seventy-eighth day, nine-pins counted "one, one, one," etc. (172). questioning increases; "too much" is confounded with "too little." yet memory gains (173). sounds of animals well remembered. slow progress in articulation (174). _feeling of self._--personal pronoun in place of his own name; "me" but not yet "i" (202). thirtieth month. senses. sight.--_discrimination of colors._--one hundred and twenty-sixth, one hundred and twenty-seventh, and one hundred and twenty-eighth weeks, four trials with single color at a time; 75 right, 34 wrong. eight hundred and ninety-eighth day, every color rightly named; some guessing on blue and green (16). _interpretation of what is seen._--persistent desire daily to "write" locomotives (66). hearing.--while eating, by chance puts hand to ear while kettle of boiling water stood before him; notices diminution in force of sound (88). will. _instinctive movements._--mounting a staircase without help; ten days later with hands free (280, 281). intellect. _speech._--independent activity of thought. when language fails, he considers well (174). deliberation without words; concepts formed. intellectual advance shown in first intentional use of language (175). only interrogative word is still "where?" "i" does not appear, but "me" is used. sentences independently applied (176). more frequent use of the plural in nouns; of the article; of the strong inflection; auxiliaries omitted or misemployed. twofold way of learning correct pronunciation (177). memory for words denoting objects good; right and left confounded (178). thirty-first month. senses. sight.--_discrimination of colors._--nine hundred and thirty-fourth day, child says he can not tell green and blue. green mostly called gray; blue, violet (17). feeling.--_sensibility to temperature._--child laughs joyously in cold bath (115). will. weakness of will shown by ceasing to eat when told that he has had enough (344). intellect. _speech._--onomatopoeia: imitation of locomotive-whistle (91). two new questions. indefinite article more frequent. individual formations of words, as comparative of "high"; "key-watch." confounding of "to-day" and "yesterday" (178). forming of sentences imperfect. reporting of faults. calls things "stupid" when he is vexed by them. changes occupation frequently. imitation less frequent. singing in sleep. "sch" not yet pronounced (179). _feeling of self._--causing change in objects, pouring water into and out of vessels (193). laughing at image of self in mirror (201). thirty-second month. senses. sight.--_discrimination of colors._--one hundred and thirty-eighth and a few previous weeks, six trials, child taking colors and naming them; right 119, wrong, 38 (16, 17). green and blue called "nothing at all." unknown colors named green; leaves of roses called "nothing," as are whitish colors. one hundred and thirty-eighth and one hundred and thirty-ninth weeks, three trials; right, 93, wrong, 39 (17, 18). green begins to be rightly named, blue less often (18). intellect. _speech._--"i" begins to displace the name of child. sentence correctly applied. clauses formed. particle separated in compound verbs. longer names and sentences distinctly spoken, but the influence of dialect appears (180). memory improved, but fastidious; good for what is interesting and intelligible to child (181). _feeling of self._--fourfold designation of self (202). thirty-third month. senses. sight.--_discrimination of colors._--one hundred and thirty-ninth, one hundred and forty-first, and one hundred and forty-sixth weeks, took colors of his own accord and named them; result of three trials, 66 right, 19 wrong (18). organic sensations and emotions.--fear of even smallest dog (168). intellect. understanding that violations of well-known precepts have unpleasant consequences (21). _speech._--strength of memory shown in characteristic remarks narrative of feeding fowls (181). interest in animals and other moving objects; lack of clearness in concepts of animal and machine; meaning of word "father" includes also "uncle"; selfhood more sharply manifested. confounds "too much" with "too little," etc. (182). _feeling of self._--"i" especially used in "i want that," etc. (202). thirty-fourth month. senses. sight.--_discrimination of colors._--"green" rightly applied to leaves and grass (18). order in which colors are rightly named up to this time; right, one thousand and forty-four; wrong, four hundred and forty-two: right, 70.3 per cent; wrong, 29.7. yellow and red much sooner named rightly than green and blue (19). will. _instinctive movements._--first gymnastic exercises (281). _expressive movements._--kissing an expression of thankfulness (306). intellect. _speech._--repeating, for fun, expressions heard. calls, without occasion, the name of the nurse; calls others by her name, sometimes correcting himself. seldom speaks of himself in third person; gradually uses "du" in address; uses "what?" in a new way. one thousand and twenty-eighth day, "why?" first used; instinct of causality expressed in language (183). questioning repeated to weariness. articulation perfected, with some exceptions (184). _feeling of self._--repeats the "i" heard, meaning by it "you" (202). thirty-fifth month. will. _reflex movements._--responsive movement in sleeping child (221). intellect. _speech._--fondness for singing increases; pleasure in compass and power of his voice (185). thirty-sixth month. senses. hearing.--musical notes c, d, e, could not be rightly named by child, in spite of teaching (90). intellect. "when?" not used until close of the third year (184). great pleasure in singing, but imitation here not very successful, though surprisingly so in regard to speech. grammatical errors more rare. long sentences correctly but slowly formed. ambition manifested in doing things without help (185). invention in language rare. participles well used (186). thirty-seventh month. senses. sight.--_discrimination of colors._--colors named correctly except very dark or pale ones (21). organic sensations and emotions.--night's sleep from eleven to twelve hours; day-naps no longer required (163). fear (in sleep) of pigs (168). intellect. _speech._--child's manner of speaking approximates more and more rapidly to that of the family (186). fortieth month. intellect. _feeling of self._--fortieth month, pleased with his shadow (201). the mind of the child. third part. _development of the intellect._ the development of the intellect depends in so great measure upon the modification of innate endowments through natural environment and education, even before systematic instruction begins, and the methods of education are so manifold, that it is at present impossible to make a complete exposition of a normal intellectual development. such an exposition would necessarily comprise in the main two stages: 1. the _combination_ of sensuous _impressions_ into _perceptions_ (wahrnehmungen); which consists essentially in this--that the sensation, impressing itself directly upon our experience, is by the intellect, now beginning to act, co-ordinated in space and time. 2. the _combination_ of _perceptions_ into _ideas_; in particular into _sense-intuitions_ and _concepts_. a sense-intuition (anschauung) is a perception together with its cause, the object of the sensation; a concept (begriff) results from the union of the previously separated perceptions, which are then called separate marks or qualities. the investigation of each of these stages in the child is in itself a great labor, which an individual may indeed begin upon, but can not easily carry through uniformly in all directions. i have indeed tried to collect recorded facts, but have found only very little trustworthy material, and accordingly i confine myself essentially to my own observations on my child. these are not merely perfectly trustworthy, even to the minutest details (i have left out everything of a doubtful character), but they are the most circumstantial ever published in regard to the intellectual development of a child. but i have been acquainted with a sufficient number of other children to be certain that the child observed by me did not _essentially_ differ from other healthy and intelligent boys in regard to the principal points, although the time at which development takes place, and the rapidity of it, differ a good deal in different individuals. girls often appear to learn to speak earlier than boys; but further on they seem to possess a somewhat inferior capacity of development of the logical functions, or to accomplish with less ease abstractions of a higher order; whereas in boys the emotional functions, however lasting their reactions, are not so delicately graduated as in girls. without regard to such differences, of which i am fully aware, the following chapters treat exclusively of the development of purely intellectual cerebral activity in both sexes during the first years. i acknowledge, however, that i have found the investigation of the influence of the affectional movements, or emotions, upon the development of the intellect in the child during the first years so difficult, that i do not for the present enter into details concerning it. the observations relate, first, to the non-dependence of the child's intellect upon language; next, to the acquirement of speech; lastly, to the development of the feeling of self, the "i"-feeling. chapter xvi. development of the child's intellect independently of language. a wide-spread prejudice declares, "without language, no understanding"! subtile distinctions between understanding and reason have limited the statement to the latter term. but even in the restricted form, "without verbal language, no reason," it is at least unproved. _is there any thinking without words?_ the question takes this shape. now, for the thinker, who has long since forgotten the time when he himself learned to speak, it is difficult, or even impossible, to give a decided answer. for the thinking person can not admit that he has been thinking without words; not even when he has caught himself arriving at a logical result without a continuity in his unexpressed thought. a break occurred in the train. there was, however, a train of thought. breaks alone yield no thought; they arise only after words have been associated with thoughts, and so they can by no means serve as evidence of a thinking without words, although the ecstasy of the artist, the profundity of the meta-physician, may attain the last degree of unconsciousness, and a dash may interrupt the thought-text. but the child not yet acquainted with verbal language, who has not been prematurely artificialized by training and by suppression of his own attempts to express his states of mind, who learns _of himself_ to _think_, just as he learns of himself to see and hear--such a child shows plainly to the attentive observer that long before knowledge of the word as a means of understanding among men, and long before the first successful attempt to express himself in articulate words--nay, long before learning the pronunciation of even a single word, he combines ideas in a logical manner--i. e., he _thinks_. thinking is, it is true, "internal speech," but there is a speech without words. facts in proof of this have already been given in connection with other points (vol. i, pp. 88, 327, 328); others are given further on. it will not be superfluous, however, to put together several observations relating to the development of the childish intellect without regard to the acquirement of speech; and to present them separately, as a sort of introduction to the investigation of the process of learning to speak. memory; a causative combination of the earliest recollections, or memory-images; purposive, deliberate movements for the lessening of individual strain--all these come to the child in greater or less measure independently of verbal language. the, as it were, embryonic logic of the child does not need words. a brief explanation of the operation of these three factors will show this. memory takes the first place in point of time. without memory no intellect is possible. the only material at the disposal of the intellect is received from the senses. it has been provided solely out of sensations. now a sensation in itself alone, as a simple fundamental experience affecting primarily the one who has the sensation, can not be the object of any intellectual operation whatever. in order to make such activity possible there must be several sensations: two of different kinds, of unequal strength; or two of different kinds, of the same strength; or two of the same kind unequally strong; in any case, two unlike sensations (cf. my treatise "elemente der reinen empfindungslehre," jena, 1876), if the lowest activity of the intellect, _comparison_, is to operate. but because the sensations that are to be compared can not all exist together, recollection of the earlier ones is necessary (for the comparison); that is, individual or personal memory. this name i give to the memory formed by means of individual impressions (occurrences, experiences) in contrast with the _phyletic_ memory, or instinct, the memory of the race, which results from the inheritance of the traces of individual experiences of ancestors; of this i do not here speak. all sensations leave traces behind in the brain; weak ones leave such as are easy to be obliterated by others; strong ones, traces more enduring. at the beginning of life it seems to be the department of taste (sweet) and of smell (smell of milk) in which memory is first operative (vol. i, p. 124). then comes the sense of touch (in nursing). next in order the sense of sight chiefly asserts itself as an early promoter of memory. hearing does not come till later. if the infant, in the period from three to six months of age, is brought into a room he has not before seen, his expression changes; he is astonished. the new sensations of light, the different apportionment of light and dark, arouse his attention; and when he comes back to his former surroundings he is not astonished. these have lost the _stimulus of novelty_--i. e., a certain _reminiscence_ of them has remained with the child, they have _impressed_ themselves upon him. long before the thirtieth week, healthy children distinguish human faces definitely from one another; first, the faces of the mother and the nurse, then the face of the father, seen less often; and all three of these from every strange face. probably faces are the first thing frequently perceived clearly by the eye. it has been found surprising that infants so much earlier recognize human faces and forms, and follow them with the gaze, than they do other objects. but human forms and faces, being large, moving objects, awaken interest more than other objects do; and on account of the manner of their movements, and because they are the source from which the voice issues, are essentially different from other objects in the field of vision. "in these movements they are also characterized as a coherent whole, and the face, as a whitish-reddish patch with the two sparkling eyes, is always a part of this image that will be easy to recognize, even for one who has seen it but a few times" (helmholtz). hence the memory for faces is established earlier than that for other visual impressions, and with this the ability to recognize members of the family. a little girl, who does not speak at all, looks at pictures with considerable interest in the seventh month, "and points meantime with her little forefinger to the heads of the human figures" (frau von strümpell). my child in the second month could already localize the face and voice of his mother, but the so-called knowing ("erkennen") is a recognition (wiedererkennen) which presupposes a very firm _association of the memory-images_. this fundamental function attached to the memory can have but a slow development, because it demands an accumulation of memory-images and precision in them. in the second three months it is so far developed, at least, that strange faces are at once known as strange, and are distinguished from those of parents and nurse; for they excite astonishment or fear (crying) while the faces of the latter do not. but the latter, if absent, are not yet, at this period, missed by most children. hence it is worthy of note that a girl in her twelfth month recognized her nurse after six days' absence, immediately, "with sobs of joy," as the mother reports (frau von strümpell); another recognized her father, after a separation of four days, even in the tenth month (lindner). in the seventh month my child did _not_ recognize his nurse, to whom he had for months been accustomed, after an absence of four weeks. another child, however, at four months noticed at evening the absence of his nurse, who had been gone only a day, and cried lustily upon the discovery, looking all about the room, and crying again every time after searching in vain (wyma, 1881). at ten months the same child used to be troubled by the absence of his parents, though he bore himself with indifference toward them when he saw them again. at this period a single nine-pin out of the whole set could not be taken away without his noticing it, and at the age of a year and a half this child knew at once whether one of his ten animals was missing or not. in the nineteenth and twenty-first months my boy recognized his father immediately from a distance, after a separation of several days, and once after two weeks' absence; and in his twenty-third month his joy at seeing again his playthings after an absence of eleven and a half weeks (with his parents) was very lively, great as was the child's forgetfulness in other respects at this period. a favorite toy could often be taken from him without its being noticed or once asked for. but when the child--in his eighteenth month--after having been accustomed to bring to his mother two towels which he would afterward carry back to their place, on one occasion had only one towel given back to him, he came with inquiring look and tone to get the second. this observation, which is confirmed by some similar ones, proves that at a year and a half the memory for visual and motor ideas that belong together was already well developed without the knowledge of the corresponding words. but artificial associations of this sort need continual renewing, otherwise they are soon forgotten; the remembrance of them is speedily lost even in the years of childhood. it is noteworthy, in connection with this, that what has been lately acquired, e. g., verses learned by heart, can be recited more fluently during sleep than in the waking condition. at the age of three years and five months a girl recited a stanza of five lines on the occasion of a birthday festival, not without some stumbling, but one night soon after the birthday she repeated the whole of the rhymes aloud in her sleep without stumbling at all (frau von strümpell). it is customary, generally, to assume that the memory of adults does not extend further back than to the fourth year of life. satisfactory observations on this point are not known to exist. but it is certainly of the first consequence, in regard to the development of the faculty of memory, whether the later experiences of the child have any characteristic in common with the earlier experiences. for many of these experiences no such agreement exists; nothing later on reminds us of the once existing inability to balance the head, or of the former inability to turn around, to sit, to stand, to walk, of the inborn difficulty of hearing, inability to accommodate the eye, and to distinguish our own body from foreign objects; hence, no man, and no child, remembers these states. but this is not true of what is acquired later. my child when less than three years old remembered very well--and would almost make merry over himself at it--the time when he could not yet talk, but articulated incorrectly and went imperfectly through the first, often-repeated performances taught by his nurse, "how tall is the child?" and "where is the rogue?" if i asked him, after he had said "frühstücken" correctly, how he used to say it, he would consider, and would require merely a suggestion of accessory circumstances, in order to give the correct answer _fritick_ and so with many words difficult to pronounce. the child of three and even of four years can remember separate experiences of his second year, and a person that will take the pains to remind him frequently of them will be able easily to carry the recollections of the second and third years far on into the more advanced years of childhood. it is merely because no one makes such a useless experiment that older children lose the memory-images of their second year. these fade out because they are not combined with new ones. at what time, however, the first natural association of a particular idea with a new one that appears weeks or months later, takes place without being called up by something in the mean time, is very hard to determine. on this point we must first gather good observations out of the second and third half-years, like the following: "in the presence of a boy a year and a half old it was related that another boy whom he knew, and who was then in the country far away, had fallen and hurt his knee. no one noticed the child, who was playing as the story was told. after some weeks the one who had fallen came into the room, and the little one in a lively manner ran up to the new-comer and cried, 'fall, hurt leg!'" (stiebel, 1865). another example is given by g. lindner (1882): "the mother of a two-year-old child had made for it out of a postal-card a sled (schlitten), which was destroyed after a few hours, and found its way into the waste-basket. just four weeks later another postal-card comes, and it is taken from the carrier by the child and handed to the mother with the words,'_mamma, litten!_' this was in summer, when there was nothing to remind the child of the sled. soon after the same wish was expressed on the receipt of a letter also." i have known like cases of attention, of recollection, and of intelligence in the third year where they were not suspected. the child, unnoticed, hears all sorts of things said, seizes on this or that expression, and weeks after brings into connection, fitly or unfitly, the memory-images, drawing immediately from an insufficient number of particular cases a would-be general conclusion. equally certain with this fact is the other, less known or less noticed, that, _even before the first attempts at speaking, such a generalizing and therefore concept-forming combination of memory-images regularly takes place_. all children in common have inborn in them the ability to combine all sorts of sense-impressions connected with food, when these appear again individually, with one another, or with memory-images of such impressions, so that adaptive movements suited to the obtaining of fresh food arise as the result of this association. in the earlier months these are simple and easier to be seen, and i have given several examples (vol. i, pp. 250, 260, 329, 333). later such movements, through the perfecting of the language of gesture and the growth of this very power of association, become more and more complicated: e. g., in his sixteenth month my boy saw a closed box, out of which he had the day before received a cake; he at once made with his hands a begging movement, yet he could not speak a word. in the twenty-first month i took out of the pocket of a coat which was hanging with many others in the wardrobe a biscuit and gave it to the child. when he had eaten it, he went directly to the wardrobe and looked in the right coat for a second biscuit. at this period also the child can not have been thinking in the unspoken words, "get biscuit--wardrobe, coat, pocket, look," for he did not yet know the words. even in the sixth month an act of remarkable _adaptiveness_ was once observed, which can not be called either accidental or entirely voluntary, and if it was fully purposed it would indicate a well-advanced development of understanding in regard to food without knowledge of words. when the child, viz., after considerable experience in nursing at the breast, discovered that the flow of milk was less abundant, he used to place his hand hard on the breast as if he wanted to force out the milk by pressure. of course there was here no insight into the causal connection, but it is a question whether the firm laying on of the little hand was not repeated for the reason that the experience had been once made accidentally, that after doing this the nursing was less difficult. on the other hand, an unequivocal complicated act of deliberation occurred in the seventeenth month. the child could not reach his playthings in the cupboard, because it was too high for him; he ran about, brought a traveling-bag, got upon it, and took what he wanted. in this case he could not possibly think in words, since he did not yet know words. my child tries further (in the nineteenth and twentieth months) in a twofold fashion to make known his eager wish to leave the room, not being as yet able to speak. he takes any cloth he fancies and brings it to me. i put it about him, he wraps himself in it, and, climbing beseechingly on my knee, makes longing, pitiful sounds, which do not cease until after i have opened a door through which he goes into another room. then he immediately throws away the cloth and runs about exulting. the other performance is this: when the child feels the need of relieving his bowels, he is accustomed to make peculiar grunting sounds, by means of a strain of the abdomen, shutting the mouth and breathing loud, by jerks, through the nose. he is then taken away. now, if he is not suited with the place where he happens to be, at any time, he begins to make just such sounds. if he is taken away, no such need appears at all, but he is in high glee. here is the expectation, "i shall be taken away if i make that sound." whether we are to admit, in addition, an intentional _deception_ in this case, or whether only a logical process takes place, i can not decide. in the whole earlier and later behavior of the child there is no ground for the first assumption, and the fact that he employs this artifice while in his carriage, immediately after he has been waited on, is directly against it. to how small an extent, some time previous to this, perceptions were made use of _to simplify his own exertions_, i. e., were combined and had motor effect, appears from an observation in the sixteenth month. earlier than this, when i used to say, "give the ring," i always laid an ivory ring, that was tied to a thread, before the child, on the table. i now said the same thing--after an interval of a week--while the same ring was hanging near the chair by a red thread a foot long, so that the child, as he sat on the chair, could just reach it, but only with much pains. he made a grasp now, upon getting the sound-impression "ring," not at the thread, which would have made the seizure of the ring, hanging freely, very easy for him, but directly at the ring hanging far below him, and gave it to me. and when the command was repeated, it did not occur to him to touch the thread. it is likewise a sign of small understanding that the mouth is always opened in smelling of a fragrant flower or perfume (vol. i, p. 135). deficiencies of this kind are, indeed, quite logical from the standpoint of childish experience. because, at an earlier period the pleasant smell (of milk) always came in connection with the pleasant taste, therefore, thinks the child, in every case where there is a pleasant smell there will also be something that tastes good. the common or collective concept _taste-smell_ had not yet (in the seventeenth month) been differentiated into the concepts taste and smell. in the department of the sense of hearing the differentiation generally makes its appearance earlier; memory, as a rule, later. yet children whose talent for music is developed early, retain _melodies_ even in their first year of life. a girl to whom some of the froebel songs were sung, and who was taught appropriate movements of the hands and feet, always performed the proper movement when one of the melodies was merely hummed, or a verse was said (in the thirteenth month), without confounding them at all. this early and firm association of sound-images with motor-images is possible only when interest is attached to it--i. e., when the attention has been directed often, persistently, and with concentration, upon the things to be combined. thus, this very child (in the nineteenth month), when her favorite song, "who will go for a soldier?" ("wer will unter die soldaten?") was sung to her, could not only join in the rhyme at the end of the verse, but, no matter where a stop was made, she would go on, in a manner imperfect, indeed, but easily intelligible (frau dr. friedemann). here, however, in addition to memory and attention, heredity is to be considered; since such a talent is wholly lacking in certain families, but in others exists in all the brothers and sisters. in performances of this kind, a superior understanding is not by any means exhibited, but a stronger memory and faculty of association. these associations are not, however, of a logical sort, but are habits acquired through training, and they may even retard the development of the intellect if they become numerous. for they may obstruct the formation, at an early period, of independent ideas, merely on account of the time they claim. often, too, these artificial associations are almost useless for the development of the intellect. they are too special. on this ground i am compelled to censure the extravagancies, that are wide-spread especially in germany, of the froebel methods of occupying young children. the _logic of the child_ naturally operates at the beginning with much more extensive, and therefore less intensive, notions than those of adults, with notions which the adult no longer forms. but the child does not, on that account, proceed illogically, although he does proceed awkwardly. some further examples may illustrate. the adult does not ordinarily try whether a door that he has just bolted is fast; but the one-year-old child tests carefully the edge of the door he has shut, to see whether it is really closed, because he does not understand the effect of lock and bolt. for even in the eighteenth month he goes back and forth with a key, to the writing-desk, with the evident purpose of opening it. but at twelve months, when he tries whether it is fast, he does not think of the key at all, and does not yet possess a single word. an adult, before watering flowers with a watering-pot, will look to see whether there is water in it. the child of a year and a half, who has seen how watering is done, finds special pleasure in going from flower to flower, even with an empty watering-pot, and making the motions of pouring upon each one separately, as if water would really come out. for him the notion "watering-pot" is identical with the notion "filled watering-pot," because at first he was acquainted with the latter only. much of what is attributed to imagination in very young children rests essentially on the formation of such vague concepts, on the inability to combine constant qualities into sharply defined concepts. when, in the twenty-third month, the child holds an empty cup to his mouth and sips and swallows, and does it repeatedly, and with a serene, happy expression, this "play" is founded chiefly on the imperfect notion "filled cup." the child has so often perceived something to drink, drinking-vessel, and the act of drinking, in combination with one another, that the one peremptorily demands the other when either appears singly; hence the pleasure in pouring out from empty pitchers into empty cups, and in drinking out of empty cups (in second to fifth years). when adults do the same in the play of the theatre, this action always has a value as language, it signifies something for other persons; but with the child, who plays in this fashion entirely alone, the pleasure consists in the production of familiar ideas together with agreeable feelings, which are, as it were, crystallized with comparative clearness out of the dull mass of undefined perceptions. these memory-images become real existences, like the hallucinations of the insane, because the sensuous impressions probably impress themselves directly--without reflection--upon the growing brain, and hence the memory-images of them, on account of their vividness, can not always be surely distinguished from the perceptions themselves. most of the plays that children invent of themselves may be referred to this fact; on the other hand, the play of hide-and-seek (especially in the seventeenth and eighteenth months), and, nearly allied to this, the hunting after scraps of paper, bits of biscuit, buttons, and other favorite objects (in the fifteenth month), constitute an intellectual advance. by practice in this kind of seeking for well-known, purposely concealed objects, the intelligence of little children can easily be increased to an astonishing degree, so that toward the end of the second year they already understand some simple tricks of the juggler; for example, making a card disappear. but after i had discontinued such exercises for months, the ordinary capacity for being duped was again present. this ease with which children can be deceived is to be attributed to lack of experience far more than to lack of intelligence. when the child of a year and a half offers leaves to a sheep or a stag, observes the strange animal with somewhat timid astonishment, and a few days after holds out some hastily plucked grass-blades to a chaffinch he sees hopping across the road, supposing that the bird will likewise take them from his hand and eat them--an observation that i made on my child exactly as sigismund did on his--it is not right to call such an act "stupid"; the act shows ignorance--i. e., inexperience--but it is not illogical. the child would be properly called stupid only in case he did not _learn_ the difference between the animals fed. when, on the other hand, the child of two and a half years, entirely of his own accord, holds a watch first to his left ear, then to his right, listens both times, and then says, "the watch goes, goes too!" then, pointing with his finger to a clock, cries with delight, "the clock goes too," we rightly find in such independent induction a proof of intellect. for the swinging of the pendulum and the ticking had indeed often been perceived, but to connect the notion of a "going clock" with the visible but noiseless swinging, just as with the audible but invisible ticking of the watch, requires a pretty well advanced power of abstraction. that the ability to _abstract_ may show itself, though imperfectly, even in the first year, is, according to my observations, certain. infants are struck by a quality of an object--e. g., the white appearance of milk. the "taking away" or "abstracting" then consists in the isolating of this quality out of innumerable other sight-impressions and the blending of the impressions into a concept. the _naming_ of this, which begins months later, by a rudimental word, like _mum_, is an outward sign of this abstraction, which did not at all lead to the formation of the concept, but followed it, as will be shown in detail further on (in the two following chapters). it would be interesting to collect observations concerning this reasoning power in the very earliest period, because at that time language does not interfere to help or to hinder. but it is just such observations that we especially lack. when a child in the twelfth month, on hearing a watch for the first time, cries out, "tick-tick," looking meantime at the clock on the wall, he has not, in doing this, "formed," as g. lindner supposes, "his first concept, although a vague and empty one as yet," but he had the concept before, and has now merely given a name to it for the first time. the first observation made in regard to his child by darwin, which seemed to him to prove "a sort of practical reflection," occurred on the one hundred and forty-fourth day. the child grasped his father's finger and drew it to his mouth, but his own hand prevented him from sucking the finger. the child then, strangely enough, instead of entirely withdrawing his hand, slipped it along the finger so that he could get the end of the finger into his mouth. this proceeding was several times repeated, and was evidently not accidental but intentional. at the age of five months, associations of ideas arose independently of all instruction. thus, e. g., the child, being dressed in hat and cloak, was very angry if he was not at once taken out of doors. how strong the _reasoning power without_ words may be at a later period, the following additional observations show: from the time when my child, like sigismund's (both in the fifteenth month), had burned his finger in the flame of the candle, he could not be induced to put his finger near the flame again, but he would sometimes put it in fun toward the flame without touching it, and he even (eighteen months old) carried a stick of wood of his own accord to the stove-door and pushed it in through the open slide, with a proud look at his parents. there is surely something more than an imitation here. further, my child at first never used to let his mouth and chin be wiped without crying; from the fifteenth month on he kept perfectly quiet during the disagreeable operation. he must have noticed that this was finished sooner when he was quiet. the same thing can be observed in every little child, provided he is not too much talked to, punished, yielded to, or spoiled. in the nineteenth month it happened with my child that he resisted the command to lie down in the evening. i let him cry, and raise himself on his bed, but did not take him up, did not speak to him, did not use any force, but remained motionless and watchful near by. at last he became tired, lay down, and fell asleep directly. here he acquired an understanding of the uselessness of crying in order to avoid obedience to commands. the _knowledge_ of right (what is allowed and commanded) and of wrong (what is forbidden) had been long since acquired. in the seventeenth month, e. g., a sense of cleanliness was strongly developed, and later (in the thirty-third month) the child could not, without lively protest, behold his nurse acting contrary to the directions that had been given to himself--e. g., putting the knife into her mouth or dipping bread into the milk. emotions of this kind are less a proof of the existence of a sense of duty than of the _understanding_ that violations of well-known precepts have unpleasant consequences--i. e., that certain actions bring in their train pleasant feelings, while other acts bring unpleasant feelings. how long before the knowledge of words these emotions began to exist i have, unfortunately, not succeeded in determining. but in many of the above cases--and they might without difficulty be multiplied by diligent observation--there is not the least indication of any influence of spoken words. whether no attempt at speaking has preceded, or whether a small collection of words may have been made, the cases of child-intelligence adduced in this chapter, observed by myself, prove that without knowledge of verbal language, and independently of it, the logical activity of the child attains a high degree of development, and no reason exists for explaining the intelligent actions of children who do not yet speak at all--i. e., do not yet clothe their ideas in words, but do already combine them with one another--as being different specifically from the intelligent (not instinctive) actions of sagacious orangs and chimpanzees. the difference consists far more in this, that the latter can not form so many, so clear, and so abstract conceptions, or so many and complicated combinations of ideas, as can the gifted human child in the society of human beings--_even before he has learned to speak_. when he has learned to speak, then the gap widens to such an extent that what before was in some respects almost the equal of humanity seems now a repulsive caricature of it. in order, then, to understand the real difference between brute and man, it is necessary to ascertain how a child and a brute animal may have ideas without words, and may combine them for an end: whether it is done, e. g., with memory-images, as in dreaming. and it is necessary also to investigate the _essential character of the process of learning to speak_. concerning the first problem, which is of uncommon psychogenetic interest and practical importance, a solution seems to be promised in the investigation of the formation of concepts in the case of those born deaf, the so-called deaf and dumb children. on this point i offer first the words of a man of practical experience. the excellent superintendent of the educational institute for the deaf and dumb in weimar, c. oehlwein (1867), well says: "the deaf-mute in his first years of life looks at, turns over, feels of objects that attract him, on all sides, and approaches those that are at a distance. by this he receives, like the young child who has all his senses, sensations and sensuous ideas;[c] and from the objects themselves he apprehends a number of qualities, which he compares with one another or with the qualities of other objects, but always refers to the object which at the time attracts him. herein he has a more correct or less correct sense-intuition of this object, according as he has observed, compared, and comprehended more or less attentively. as this object has affected him through sight and feeling, so he represents it to other persons also by characteristic signs for sight and indirectly for feeling also. he shapes or draws a copy of the object seen and felt with life and movement. for this he avails himself of the means that nature has placed directly within human power--the control over the movement of the facial muscles, over the use of the hands, and, if necessary, of the feet also. these signs, _not obtained from any one's suggestion_, self-formed, which the deaf-mute employs directly in his representation, are, as it were, the given outline of the image which he has found, and they stand therefore in the closest relation to the inner constitution of the individual that makes the representation. "but we find not only that the individual senses of the deaf-mute, his own observation and apprehension, are formative factors in the occurrences of sensation and perception, as is of course the case, but that the qualities of the objects observed by him, and associated, according to his individual tendencies, are also raised by him, through comparison, separation, grouping--through his own act, therefore--to general ideas, concepts, although as yet imperfect ones, and they are named and recognized again by peculiar signs intelligible to himself. "but in this very raising of an idea to a general idea, to a concept--a process connected with the forming of a sign--is manifested the influence of the lack of hearing and of speech upon the psychical development of the deaf-mute. it appears at first to be an advantage that the sign by which the deaf-mute represents an idea is derived from the impression, the image, the idea, which the user of the sign himself has or has had; he expresses by the sign nothing foreign to him, but only what has become his own. but this advantage disappears when compared with the hindrance caused by this very circumstance in the raising of the individual idea to a general idea, for the fact that the latter is designated by the image, or the elements of the image in which the former consists, is no small obstacle to it in attaining complete generality. the same bond that unites the concept with the conceiver binds it likewise to one of the individual ideas conceived--e. g., when, by pointing to his own flesh, his own skin, he designates the concept flesh, skin (in general also the flesh or the skin of animals); whereas, by means of the word, which the child who has all his senses is obliged to learn, a constraint is indeed exercised as something foreign, but a constraint that simply enforces upon his idea the claim of generality. "one example more. the deaf-mute designates the concept, or general idea, 'red' by lightly touching his lips. with this sign he indicates the red of the sky, of paintings, of dress-stuffs, of flowers, etc. thus, in however manifold connection with other concepts his concept 'red' may be repeated, it is to him as a concept always _one_ and the same only. it is _common_ to _all_ the connections in which it repeatedly occurs." but before the thinking deaf-mute arrived at the concept "red," he formed for himself the ideas "lip, dress, sky, flower," etc. for a knowledge of intellectual development in the child possessed of all the senses, and of the great extent to which he is independent of verbal language in the formation of concepts, it is indispensable to make a collection of such concepts as uneducated deaf-mutes not acquainted either with the finger-alphabet or with articulation express by means of their own gestures in a manner intelligible to others. their language, however, comprises "not only the various expressive changes of countenance (play of feature), but also the varied movements of the hands (gesticulations), the positions, attitudes, bearing, and movements of the other parts of the entire body, through which the deaf-mute naturally, i. e., _untouched by educational influences_, expresses his ideas and conceptions." but i refrain from making such a catalogue here, as we are concerned with the fact that _many concepts are, without any learning of words whatever, plainly expressed and logically combined with one another_, and their correctness is proved by the conduct of any and every untaught child born deaf. besides, such a catalogue, in order to possess the psychogenetic value desired by me, needs a critical examination extremely difficult to carry through as to whether the "educational influences" supposed to be excluded are actually wholly excluded in all cases as they really are in some cases, e. g., in regard to food. degerando (1827) has enumerated a long list of concepts, which deaf-mutes before they are instructed represent by pantomimic gesture. many of these forms of expression in french deaf-mutes are identical with those of german. it is most earnestly to be wished that this international language of feature and gesture used by children entirely uninstructed, born deaf, may be made accessible to psycho-physiological and linguistic study by means of pictorial representations--photographic best of all. this should be founded on the experiences of german, french, english, russian, italian, and other teachers of deaf-mutes. for there is hardly a better proof that thinking is not dependent on the language of words than the conduct of deaf-mutes, who express, indeed, many more concepts of unlike content in the same manner than any verbal language does--just as children with all their senses do before they possess a satisfactory stock of words--but who, by gesticulation and pantomime before receiving any instruction, demonstrate that concepts are formed without words. with reference to the manner in which uneducated deaf-mutes speak, the following examples are characteristic performances in gesture-language: one deaf-mute asks another, "stay, go you?" (look of inquiry). answer: "go, i" (i. e., "do you stay or go?" "i go"). "hunter hare shoots." "arm, man, be strong," means, "the man's arm is strong." "n., spectacles, see," means, "n. sees with the spectacles." "run i finished, go to sleep," means, "when i had finished running, i went to sleep." "money, you?" means, "have you money?" one of the most interesting sights i know of, in a psychological and physiological point of view, is a conversation in gesture and pantomime between two or three children born totally deaf, who do not know that they are observed. i am indebted to director oehlwein, of weimar, for the opportunity of such observations, as also for the above questions and answers. especially those children (of about seven years) not yet instructed in articulation employ an astonishing number of looks and gestures, following one upon another with great rapidity, in order to effect an understanding with one another. they understand one another very easily, but, because their gestures, and particularly their excessively subtilized play of feature, do not appear in ordinary life, these children are just as hard to understand for the uninitiated as are men who speak a wholly foreign language without any gestures. even the eye of the deaf-mute has a different expression from that of the person who talks. the look seems more "interested," and manifestly far fewer unnecessary movements of the eyes and contractions of the facial muscles are made by the deaf-mute than by the child of the same age who has his hearing. further, deaf-mutes, even those of small ability, imitate all sorts of movements that are plainly visible much better, in general, than do persons with all their senses. i made, in presence of the children, several not very easy crossings of the fingers, put my hands in different positions, and the like--movements that they could not ever have seen--and i was surprised that some of the children at once made them deftly, whereas ordinary children, first consider a long time, and then imitate clumsily. it is doubtless this exaltation of the imitative functions in deaf-mute children which makes it appear as if they themselves invented their gestures (see above, p. 23). certainly they do not get their first signs through "any one's suggestion," they form them for themselves, but, so far as i see, only through imitation and the hereditary expressive movements. the signs are in great part themselves unabridged imitations. the agreement, or "convention," which many teachers of deaf-mutes assume, and which would introduce an entirely causeless, not to say mysterious, principle, consists in this, that all deaf-mutes in the beginning imitate the same thing in the same way. thus, through this perfectly natural accord of all, it comes to pass that they understand one another. when they have gained ideas, then they combine the separate signs in manifold ways, as one who speaks combines words, in order to express new ideas; they become thereby more and more difficult to be understood, and often are only with difficulty understood even among themselves; and they are able only in very limited degree to form concepts of a higher order. "nothing, being dead, space"--these are concepts of a very high order for them. for this reason it is easy to comprehend that a deaf-mute child, although he has learned but few words through instruction in articulation, weaves these continually into his pantomimic conversation in place of his former elaborate gestures. i observed that individual children, born totally deaf, preferred, even in conversation with one another, and when ignorant of the fact that i was observing them, the articulate words just learned, although these were scarcely intelligible, to their own signs. thus mighty is the charm of the spoken word, even when the child does not himself hear it, but merely feels it with his tongue. but the schooling the deaf-mute must go through in order to become acquainted with the sensations of sight, touch, and movement that go with the sound, is unspeakably toilsome. w. gude says in his treatise, remarkable alike for acuteness and clearness, "principles and outlines of the exposition of a scheme of instruction for an institution for deaf-mutes" ("grundsätze und grundzüge zur aufstellung eines lehrplans für eine taubstummen-anstalt," 1881): "the utterances of tones and of articulate sounds called forth by involuntary stimulus during the first years, in deaf-mutes, are such unimportant motor phenomena that they are not immediately followed by a motor sensation. but when the deaf-mute child is more awake mentally, he perceives that his relatives make movements of the mouth in their intercourse, and repeated attempts of those about him to make themselves intelligible by pronouncing certain words to him are not entirely without effect upon the deaf-mute that is intellectually active. when such deaf-mutes now direct their attention to the matter, they succeed in regard to only a part of the sounds--those that are conspicuous to the eye in their utterance--in getting a tolerable imitation. individual deaf-mutes go so far, in fact, as to understand various words correctly without repeating them; others succeed gradually in repeating such words as 'papa, mamma,' so that one can understand what is meant. those who are deaf-mutes from birth do not, however, of themselves, succeed in imitating accurately other vocal sounds in general." a deaf-mute, who had not been instructed, explained to romanes, at a later period when he had learned the sign-language, that he had before thought in "images," which means nothing else than that he, in place of the words heard (in our case) and the digital signs seen (in his case), had made use of memory-images gained from visual impressions, for distinguishing his concepts. laura bridgman, too, a person in general the subject of very incorrect inferences, who was not blind and deaf from birth, could form a small number of concepts that were above the lowest grade. these originated from the materials furnished by the sense of touch, the muscular sense and general sensibility, before she had learned a sort of finger-language. but she had learned to speak somewhat before she became dumb and blind. children with sight, born deaf, seem not to be able to perform the simplest arithmetical operations, e. g., 214-96 and 908 x 70 (according to asch, 1865), until after several years of continuous instruction in articulate speaking. they do succeed, however, and that without sound-images of words, and perhaps, too, without sight-images of words; in mental arithmetic without knowledge of written figures, by help of the touch-images of words which the tongue furnishes. in any case uneducated persons born deaf can count by means of the fingers without the knowledge of figures; and, when they go beyond 10, the notched stick comes to their aid (sicard and degerando). the language of gesture and feature in very young children, born dumb and not treated differently from other children, shows also, in most abundant measure, that concepts are formed without words. the child born deaf uses the primitive language of gesture to the same extent as does the child that has his hearing; the former makes himself intelligible by actions and sounds as the latter does, so that his deficiency is not suspected. this natural language is also _understood_ by the child born deaf, so far as it is recognizable by his eye. in the look and the features of his mother he reads her mood. but he very early becomes quiet and develops for himself, "out of unconscious gesticulation, the gesture language, which at first is not conventional, nay, is not in the strict sense quite a sign-language, but a mimetic-plastic representation of the influences experienced from the external world," since the deaf-mute imitates movements perceived, and the attitude of persons and the position of objects. upon this pantomime alone rests the possibility of coming to an understanding, within a certain range, with deaf-mutes that have had no instruction at all. it can not, therefore, in its elementary form be conventional, as hill, to whom i owe these data, rightly maintains. he writes concerning the child born deaf: "his voice seems just like that of other children. he screams, weeps, according as he feels uncomfortable; he starts when frightened by any noise. even friendly address, toying, fun, serious threats, are understood by him as early as by any child." but he does not hear his own voice; it is not sound that frightens him, but the concussion; it is not the pleasant word that delights him, but the pleasant countenance of his mother. "it even happens, not seldom, that through encouragement to use the voice, these children acquire a series of articulate sounds, and a number of combinations of sounds, which they employ as the expression of their wishes." they not only _point out_ the object desired, not only _imitate_ movements that are to procure what they want, but they also outline the forms of objects wished for. they are able to conduct themselves so intelligently in this, that the deaf-mute condition is not discovered till the second year, or even later, and then chiefly by their use of the eye, because in case of distant objects only those seen excite their attention. from this behavior of infants born deaf it manifestly follows that even without the possibility of natural imitation of sounds, and without the knowledge of a single word, qualities may be blended with qualities into concepts. thus, _primitive thinking is not bound up with verbal language_. it demands, however, a certain development of the cerebrum, probably a certain very considerable number of ganglionic cells in the cerebral cortex, that stand in firm organic connection with one another. the difference between an uninstructed young deaf-mute and a cretin is immense. the former can learn a great deal through instruction in speaking, the latter can not. this very ability to learn, in the child born deaf, is greater than in the normal child, in respect to pantomime and gesture. if a child with his hearing had to grow up among deaf-mutes, he would undoubtedly learn their language, and would in addition enjoy his own voice without being able to make use of it; but he would probably be discovered, further on, without testing his hearing, by the fact that he was not quite so complete a master of this gesture-language as the deaf-mutes, on account of the diversion of his attention by sound. the total result of the foregoing observations concerning the capacity of accomplishment on the part of uneducated deaf-mutes in regard to the natural language of gesture and feature, demonstrates more plainly than any other fact whatever that, without words and without signs for words, thought-activity exists--that thinking takes place when both words and signs for words are wanting. wherefore, then, should the logical combination of ideas in the human being born perfect begin only with the speaking of words or the learning to speak? because the adult supposes that he no longer thinks without words, he easily draws the erroneous conclusion that no one, that not even he himself, could think before the knowledge of verbal language. in truth, however, it was _not language that generated the intellect; it is the intellect that formerly invented language: and even now the new-born human being brings with him into the world far more intellect than talent for language_. footnotes: [c] empfindungsvorstellungen. chapter xvii. learning to speak. no human being remembers how he learned his mother-tongue in early youth, and the whole human race has forgotten the origin of its articulate speech as well as of its gestures; but every individual passes perceptibly through the stage of learning to speak, so that a patient observer recognizes much as conformable to law. the acquisition of speech belongs to those physiological problems which can not be solved by the most important means possessed by physiology, vivisection. and the speechless condition in which every human being is born can not be regarded as a disease that may be healed by instruction, as is the case with certain forms of acquired aphasia. a set of other accomplishments, such as swimming, riding, fencing, piano-playing, the acquirement of which is physiological, are learned like articulate speech, and nobody calls the person that can not swim an anomaly on that account. the _inability to appropriate_ to one's self these and other co-ordinated muscular movements, this alone is abnormal. but we can not tell in advance in the case of any new-born child whether he will learn to speak or not, just as in the case of one who has suffered an obstruction of speech or has entirely lost speech, it is not certain whether he will ever recover it. in this the normal child that does _not yet_ speak perfectly, resembles the diseased adult who, for any cause, _no longer_ has command of language. and to compare these two with each other is the more important, as at present no other empirical way is open to us for investigating the nature of the process of learning to speak; but this way conducts us, fortunately, through pathology, to solid, important physiological conclusions. 1. disturbances of speech in adults. the command of language comprises, on the one hand, the understanding of what is spoken; on the other hand, the utterance of what is thought. it is at the height of its performance in free, intelligible, connected speech. everything that disturbs the _understanding of words heard_ must be designated disturbance of speech equally with everything that disturbs _the production of words_ and sentences. by means of excellent investigations made by many persons, especially by broca, wernicke, kussmaul, it has become possible to make a topical division of most of the observed disturbances of speech of both kinds. in the first class, which comprises the _impressive_ processes, we have to consider every functional disturbance of the peripheral ear, of the auditory nerve and of the central ends of the auditory nerve; in the second class, viz., the _expressive_ processes, we consider every functional disturbance of the apparatus required for articulation, including the nerves belonging to this in their whole extent, in particular the hypoglossus, as motor nerve of the tongue, and certain parts of the cerebral hemispheres from which the nerves of speech are excited and to which the sense-impressions from without are so conducted by connecting fibers that they themselves or their memory-images can call forth expressive, i. e., motor processes. the diagram, fig. 1, illustrates the matter. [illustration: fig. 1.] the peripheral ear _o_, with the terminations of the auditory nerve, is by means of sensory fibers _a_, that are connected with the auditory nerve, in connection with the storehouse of sound-impressions, k. this is connected by means of the intercentral paths _v_ with the motor speech-center m. from it go out special fibers of communication, _h_, to the motor nerves of speech which terminate in the external instruments of articulation, _z_. the impressive nerve-path, _o_ _a_ k, is centripetal; the expressive, m _h_ _z_, centrifugal; _v_, intercentral. when the normal child learns to speak, _o_ receives the sound-impressions; by _a_ the acoustic-nerve excitations are passed along to k, and are here stored up, every distinctly heard sound (a tone, a syllable, a word) leaving an impression behind in k. it is very remarkable here that, among the many sounds and noises that impress themselves upon the portions of the brain directly connected with the auditory nerve, a selection is made in the sound-field of speech, k, since all those impressions that can be reproduced, among them all the acoustic images necessary for speech, are preserved, but many others are not, e. g., thunder, crackling. memory is indistinct with regard to these. from k, when the sound-images or sound-impressions have become sufficiently strong and numerous, the nerve-excitement goes farther through the connecting paths _v_ to m, where it liberates motor impulses, and through _h_ sets in activity the peripheral apparatus of speech, _z_. now, speech is disturbed when at any point the path _o_ _z_ is interrupted, or the excitation conducted along the nerve-fibers and ganglionic cells upon the hearing of something spoken or upon the speaking of something represented in idea (heard inwardly) is arrested, a thing which may be effected without a total interruption of the conduction, e. g., by means of poison and through anatomical lesions. on the basis of these physiological relations, about which there is no doubt, i divide, then, all pure disturbances of speech, or _lalopathies_, into three classes: (1) periphero-impressive or perceptive disturbances. the organ of hearing is injured _at its peripheral extremity_, or else the acusticus in its course; then occurs _difficulty of hearing_ or _deafness_. what is spoken is not correctly heard or not heard at all: the utterance is correct only in case the lesion happened late. if it is inborn, then this lack of speech, alalia, is called _deaf-mutism_, although the so-called deaf and dumb are not in reality dumb, but only deaf. if words spoken are incorrectly heard on account of acquired defects of the peripheral ear, the patient mis-hears, and the abnormal condition is called paracusis. (2) central disturbances. _a._ the higher impressive central paths are disturbed: _centro-sensory dysphasia and aphasia_, or _word-deafness_. words are heard but not understood. the hearing is acute. "patients may have perfectly correct ideas, but they lack the correct expression for them; not the thoughts but the words are confused. they would understand the ideas of others also if they only understood the words. they are in the position of persons suddenly transported into the midst of a people using the same sounds but different words, which strike upon their ear like an unintelligible noise." (kussmaul.) their articulation is without defect, but what they say is unintelligible because the words are mutilated and used wrongly. c. wernicke discovered this form, and has separated it sharply from other disturbances of speech. he designated it sensory aphasia. kussmaul later named this abnormal condition word-deafness (surditas verbalis). _b._ the connections between the impressive sound-centers and the motor speech-center are injured. then we have intercentral conductive dysphasia and aphasia. what is spoken is heard and understood correctly even when _v_ is completely interrupted. the articulation is not disturbed, and yet the patient utters no word of himself. he can, however, read aloud what is written. (kussmaul.) the word that has just been read aloud by the patient can not be repeated by him, neither can the word that has been pronounced to him; and, notwithstanding this, he reads aloud with perfect correctness. in this case, then, it is impossible for the patient of his own motion, even if the memory of the words heard were not lost, to set in activity the expressive mechanism of speech, although it might remain uninjured. _c._ the motor speech-center is injured. then we have centro-motor dysphasia and aphasia. if the center is completely and exclusively disturbed, then it is a case of pure ataxic aphasia. spontaneous speaking, saying over of words said by another, and reading aloud of writing, are impossible. (kussmaul.) on the other hand, words heard are understood, although the concepts belonging with them can not be expressed aloud. the verbal memory remains; and the patient can still express his thoughts in writing and can copy in writing what he reads or what is dictated to him. (3) periphero-expressive or articulatory disturbances. the centrifugal paths from the motor speech-center to the motor nerves of speech and to their extremities, or else these nerves themselves, are injured. then occurs _dysarthria_, and, if the path is totally impassable at any place, _anarthria_. the hearing and understanding of words are not hindered, but speaking, repeating the words of others, and reading aloud are, as in the last case (2, _c_), impossible. in general this form can not be distinguished from the foregoing when both are developed in an extreme degree, except in cases of peripheral dysarthria, i. e., dyslalia, since, as may be easily understood, it makes no difference in the resulting phenomena whether the motor center itself is extirpated or its connections with the motor outlet are absolutely cut off just where the latter begins; but if this latter is injured nearer to the periphery, e. g., if the hypoglossus is paralyzed, then the phenomena are different (paralalia, mogilalia). here belongs all so-called mechanical dyslalia, caused by defects of the peripheral speech-apparatus. of these five forms each occurs generally only in connection with another; for this reason the topical diagnosis also is often extraordinarily difficult. but enough cases have been accurately observed and collected to put it almost beyond a doubt that each form may also appear for a short time purely by itself. to be sure, the anatomical localization of the impressive and expressive paths is not yet ascertained, so that for the present the centripetal roads from the acusticus to the motor speech-center, and the intercentral fibers that run to the higher centers, are as much unknown as the centrifugal paths leading from them to the nuclei of the hypoglossus; but that the speech-center discovered by broca is situated in the posterior portion of the third frontal convolution (in right-handed men on the left, in left-handed on the right) is universally acknowledged. further, it results from the abundance of clinical material, that the acoustic-center k must be divided into a sound-center l, a syllable-center s, a word-center w, each of which may be in itself defective, for cases have been observed in which sounds were still recognized and reproduced, but not syllables and words, also cases in which sounds and syllables could be dealt with but no words; and, finally, cases in which all these were wanting. the original diagram is thereby considerably complicated, as the simple path of connection between k and m has added to it the arcs l s m and l s w m (fig. 2). [illustration: fig. 2.] the surest test of the perfect condition of all the segments is afforded by the repetition of sounds, syllables, and words pronounced by others. syllables and sounds, but no words, can be pronounced if w is missing or the path s w or w m is interrupted; no syllables if s is missing or l s or s m is interrupted. if l is missing, then nothing can be repeated from hearing. if l m is interrupted, then syllables and words are more easily repeated than simple sounds, so far as the latter are not syllables. if l s is interrupted, then simple sounds only can be repeated. all these abnormal states have been actually observed. the proofs are to be found in kussmaul's classic work on the disturbances of speech (1877). even the strange case appears in which, l m being impracticable, syllables are more easily repeated than simple sounds. if _a_ is interrupted before the acquirement of speech, and thus chronic deafness is present in very early childhood, articulation may still be learned through visual and tactile impressions; but in this case the sound-center l is not developed. another, a sound-touch-center, comes in its place in deaf-mutes when they are instructed, chiefly through the tactile sensations of the tongue; and, when they are instructed in reading (and writing), a sound-sight-(or letter) center. this last is, on the contrary, wanting to those born blind; and both are wanting to those born blind and deaf. instead is formed in them through careful instruction, by means of the tactile sensations of the finger-tips, a center for signs of sound that are known by touch (as with the printed text for the blind). accordingly, the eye and ear are not absolutely indispensable to the acquirement of a verbal language; but for the thorough learning of the verbal language in its entire significance both are by all means indispensable. for, the person born blind does not get the significance of words pertaining to light and color. for him, therefore, a large class of conceptions, an extensive portion of the vocabulary of his language, remains empty sound. to the one born deaf there is likewise an extensive district of conceptions closed, inasmuch as all words pertaining to tone and noise remain unintelligible to him. moreover, those born blind and deaf, or those born blind and becoming deaf very early, or those born deaf and becoming blind very early, though they may possess ever so good intelligence, and perhaps even learn to write letters, as did the famous laura bridgman, will invariably understand only a small part of the vocabulary of their language, and will not articulate correctly. those born deaf are precisely the ones that show plainly how necessary hearing is for the acquirement of perfectly articulate speech. one who is deaf from birth does not even learn to speak half a dozen sounds correctly without assistance, and the loss of speech that regularly follows deafness coming on in children who have already learned to speak, shows how inseparably the learning and the development of perfect articulation are bound up with the hearing. even the deafness that comes on in maturer years injures essentially the agreeable tone, often also the intelligibility, of the utterance. 2. the organic conditions of learning to speak. how is it, now, with the normal child, who is learning to speak? how is it as to the existence and practicability of the nervous conduction, and the genesis of the centers? in order to decide these questions, a further extension of the diagram is necessary (fig. 3). [illustration: fig. 3.] for the last diagram deals only with the hearing and pronouncing of sounds, syllables, and single words, not with the grammatical formation and syntactical grouping of these; there must further be a center of higher rank, the _dictorium_, or center of diction (kussmaul), brought into connection with the centers l s and w. and, on the one hand, the word-image acquired (by hearing) must be at the disposition of the diction-center, an excitation, therefore, passing from w to d (through _m_); on the other hand, an impulse must go out from the diction-center to pronounce the word that is formed and placed so as to correspond to the sense (through _n_). the same is true for syllables and sounds, whose paths to and from are indicated by _k_ and _l_, as well as by _g_ and _i_. these paths of connection must be of twofold sort. the excitement can not pass off to the diction-center d on the same anatomical path as the return impulse from d, because not a single case is known of a nerve-fiber that in natural relations conducts both centrifugally _and_ centripetally, although this possibility of double conduction does occur under artificial circumstances. apart, then, from pathological experience, which seems to be in favor of it, the separation of the two directions of the excitement seems to be justified anatomically also. on the contrary, it is questionable whether the impulse proceeding from d does not arrive directly at the motor speech-center, instead of passing through w, s, or l. the diagram then represents it as follows (fig. 4). here the paths of direct connection _i_, _l_, and _n_ from d to m represent that which was just now represented by _i_ l _d_ and _l_ s _e_ and _n_ w _f_, respectively; in fig. 4, _i_ conducts only sound-excitations coming from l, _l_ only excitations coming from s, and _n_ only those coming from w, as impulses for m. for the present, i see no way of deciding between the two possibilities. they may even exist both together. all the following statements concerning the localization of the disturbances of speech and the parallel imperfections of child-speech apply indifferently to either figure; it should be borne in mind that the nerve-excitement always goes _only_ in the direction of the arrows, never in the opposite direction, through the nervous path corresponding to them. such a parallel is not only presented, as i have found, and as i will show in what follows, by the most superficial exhibition of the manifold deviations of child-speech from the later perfect speech, but is, above all, necessary for the answering of the question: what is the condition of things in learning to speak? [illustration: fig. 4.] 3. parallel between the disturbances of speech in adults and the imperfections of speech in the child. in undertaking to draw such a parallel, i must first of all state that in regard to the pathology of the subject, i have not much experience of my own, and therefore i rely here upon kussmaul's comprehensive work on speech-disturbances, from which are taken most of the data that serve to characterize the individual deviations from the rule. in that work also may be found the explanations, or precise definitions, of almost all the names--with the exception of the following, added here for the sake of brevity--skoliophasia, skoliophrasia, and palimphrasia. on the other hand, the statements concerning the speech of the child rest on my own observations of children--especially of my own son--and readers who give their attention to little children may verify them all; most of them, indeed, with ease. only the examples added for explaining mogilalia and paralalia are taken in part from sigismund, a few others from vierordt. they show more plainly (at least concerning rhotacism) than my own notes, some imperfections of articulation of the child in the second year, which occur, however, only in single individuals. in general the defects of child-speech are found to be very unequally distributed among different ages and individuals, so that we can hardly expect to find all the speech-disturbances of adults manifested in typical fashion in one and the same child. but with very careful observation it may be done, notwithstanding; and when several children are compared with one another in this respect, the analogies fairly force themselves upon the observer, and there is no break anywhere. the whole group into which i have tried to bring in organic connection all the kinds of disturbances and defects of speech in systematic form falls into three divisions: 1. imperfections not occasioned by disturbance of the intelligence--pure speech-disturbances or _lalopathies_. 2. imperfections occasioned solely by disturbances of the intelligence--disturbances of continuous speech or discourse (rede)--_dysphrasies_. 3. imperfections of the language of gesture and feature--_dysmimies_. i. lalopathy. a. the impressive peripheral processes disturbed. _deafness._--persons able to speak but who have become deaf do not understand what is spoken simply because they can _no longer_ hear. the newly born do not understand what is spoken because they can _not yet_ hear. the paths _o_ and _a_ are not yet practicable. all those just born are deaf and dumb. _difficulty of hearing._--persons who have become hard of hearing do not understand what is spoken, or they misunderstand, because they _no longer_ hear distinctly. such individuals easily hear wrong (paracusis). very young infants do not understand what is spoken, for the reason that they do _not yet_ hear distinctly; _o_ and _a_ are still difficult for the acoustic nerve-excitement to traverse. little children very easily hear wrong on this account. b. the central processes disturbed. _dysphasia._--in the child that can use only a small number of words, the cerebral and psychical act through which he connects these with his ideas and gives them grammatical form and syntactical construction in order to express the movement of his thought is _not yet_ complete. (1) the sensory processes centrally disturbed. _sensory aphasia_ (wernicke), _word-deafness_ (kussmaul).--the child, in spite of good hearing and sufficiently developed intelligence, can _not yet_ understand spoken words because the path _m_ is not yet formed and the storehouse of word images w is still empty or is just in the stage of origination. _amnesia, amnesic dysphasia and aphasia, partial and total word-amnesia, memory-aphasia._--the child has as yet no word-memory, or only a weak one, utters meaningless sounds and sound-combinations. he can _not yet_ use words because he does not yet have them at his disposal as acoustic sound-combinations. in this stage, however, much that is said to him can be repeated correctly in case w is passable, though empty or imperfectly developed. (2) the sensori-motor processes of diction disturbed. _acataphasia_ (steinthal).--the child that has already a considerable number of words at his disposal is _not yet_ in condition to arrange them in a sentence syntactically. he can _not yet_ frame correct sentences to express the movement of his thought, because his diction-center d is still imperfectly developed. he expresses a whole sentence by a word; e. g., _hot!_ means as much as "the milk is too hot for me to drink," and then again it may mean "the stove is too hot!" _man!_ means "a strange man has come!" _dysgrammatism_ (kussmaul) _and agrammatism_ (steinthal).--children can _not yet_ put words into correct grammatical form, decline, or conjugate. they like to use the indefinite noun-substantive and the infinitive, likewise to some extent the past participle. they prefer the weak inflection, ignore and confound the articles, conjunctions, auxiliaries, prepositions, and pronouns. in place of "i" they say their own names, also _tint_ (for "kind"--child or "baby"). instead of "du, er, sie" (thou, he, you), they use proper names, or man, papa, mamma. sometimes, too, the adjectives are placed after the nouns, and the meaning of words is indicated by their position with reference to others, by the intonation, by looks and gestures. agrammatism in child-language always appears in company with acataphasia, often also in insane persons. when the imbecile tony says, "tony flowers taken, attendant come, tony whipped" (tony blumen genommen, wärterin gekommen, tony gehaut), she speaks exactly like a child (kussmaul), without articles, pronouns, or auxiliary verbs, and, like the child, uses the weak inflection. the connection _m_ of the word-image-center w with the diction-center d, i. e., of the word-memory with grammar, and the centers themselves, are as yet very imperfectly developed, unused. _bradyphasia._--children that can already frame sentences take a surprising amount of time in speaking on account of the slowness of their diction. in d and w _m_ in the cerebral cortex the hindrances are still great because of too slight practice. (3) the motor processes centrally disturbed. _a. centro-motor dysphasia and aphasia, aphemia, asymbolia, asemia._--children have not yet learned, or have hardly learned, the use of language, although their intelligence is already sufficient. there is no longer any deficiency in the development of the external organs of speech, no muscular weakness, no imperfection of the nervous structures that effect the articulation of the separate sounds, for intelligence shows itself in the child's actions; he forms the separate sounds correctly, unintentionally; his hearing is good and the sensory word-memory is present, since the child already obeys. his _not yet_ speaking at this period (commonly as late as the second year) must accordingly be essentially of centro-motor character. in the various forms of this condition there is injury or lack of sufficient relative development either in the centro-motorium m or in the paths that lead into it, _d_, _e_, _f_ as well as _i_, _l_, _n_. _[alpha]. central dysarthria and anarthria._--in the child at the stage of development just indicated articulation is _not yet_ perfect, inasmuch as while he often unintentionally pronounces correctly sounds, syllables, and single words, yet he can not form these intentionally, although he hears and understands them aright. he makes use of gestures. _ataxic aphasia (verbal anarthria)._--the child that already understands several words as sound-combinations and retains them (since he obeys), can not yet use these in speech because he has not yet the requisite centro-motor impulses. he forms correctly the few syllables he has already learned of his future language, i. e., those he has at the time in memory as sound-combinations (sensory), but can _not yet_ group them into new words; e. g., he says _bi_ and _te_ correctly, learns also to say "_bitte_," but not yet at this period "tibe," "tebi." he lacks still the motor co-ordination of words. at this period the gesture-language and modulation of voice of the child are generally easy to understand, as in case of pure ataxic aphasia (the verbal asemia or asymbolia of finkelnburg) are the looks and gestures of aphasic adults. chiefly _n_, _f_, and m are as yet imperfectly developed. _central stammering and lisping (literal dysarthria)._--children just beginning to form sentences stammer, not uttering the sounds correctly. they also, as a rule, lisp for a considerable time, so that the words spoken by them are still indistinct and are intelligible only to the persons most intimately associated with them. the paths _d_ and _i_, and consequently the centro-motorium m, come chiefly into consideration here; but l also is concerned, so far as from it comes the motor impulse to make a sound audible through m. the babbling of the infant is not to be confounded with this. that imports merely the unintentional production of single disconnected articulate sounds with non-coördinated movements of the tongue on account of uncontrolled excitement of the nerves of the tongue. _stuttering (syllabic dysarthria)._--stutterers articulate each separate sound correctly, but connect the consonants, especially the explosive sounds, with the succeeding vowels badly, with effort as if an obstacle were to be overcome. the paths _i_ and _l_ are affected, and hence m is not properly excited. s, too, comes under consideration in the case of stuttering, so far as impulses go out from it for the pronunciation of the syllables. children who can not yet speak of themselves but can repeat what is said for them, exert themselves unnecessarily, making a strong expiratory effort (with the help of abdominal pressure) to repeat a syllable still unfamiliar, and they pause between the doubled or tripled consonant and vowel. this peculiarity, which soon passes away and is to be traced often to the lack of practice and to embarrassment (in case of threats), and which may be observed _occasionally_ in every child, is stuttering proper, although it appears more seldom than in stutterers. example: the child of two years is to say "tischdecke," and he begins with an unnecessary expiratory effort, _t-t-itt-t_, and does not finish. stuttering is by no means a physiological transition-stage through which every child learning to speak must necessarily pass. but it is easily acquired, in learning to speak, by imitation of stutterers, in frequent intercourse with them. hence, stutterers have sometimes stuttering children. _[beta]. stumbling at syllables._--children that already articulate correctly separate sounds, and do so intentionally, very often put together syllables out of the sounds incorrectly, and frame words incorrectly from the syllables, where we can not assume deficient development of the external organs of speech; this is solely because the co-ordination is still imperfect. the child accordingly says _beti_ before he can say _bitte_; so too _grefessen_ instead of _gefressen_. the tracts _l_ and _n_ are still incompletely developed; also s and w, so far as impulses come thence to utter syllables by means of m. _b. paraphasia._--children have learned some expressions in their future language, and use them independently but wrongly; they put in the place of the appropriate word an incorrect one, confounding words because they can _not yet_ correctly combine their ideas with the word-images. they say, e. g., _kind_ instead of "kinn," and _sand_ instead of "salz"; also _netz_ for "nest" and _billard_ for "billet," _matrone_ for "patrone." the connection of d with m through _n_ is still imperfect, and perhaps also m is not sufficiently developed. _making mistakes in speaking (skoliophasia)._--in this kind of paraphasia in adults the cause is a lack of attention; therefore purely central concentration is wanting, or one fails to "collect himself"; there is distraction, hence the unintentional, frequently unconscious, confounding of words similar in sound or connected merely by remote, often dim, reminiscences. this kind of mis-speaking through carelessness is distinguished from skoliophrasia (see below) by the fact that there is no disturbance of the intelligence, and the correction easily follows. skoliophasia occurs regularly with children in the second and third years (and later). the child in general has not yet the ability to concentrate his attention upon that which is to be spoken. he _wills_ to do it but _can_ not yet. hence, even in spite of the greatest effort, occur often erroneous repetitions of words pronounced for him (aside from difficulties of articulation, and also when these are wanting); hence confounding (of words), wrong forms of address, e. g., _mama_ or _helene_ instead of "papa," and _papa_ instead of "marie." _c. taciturnity (dumbness)._--individual human beings of sound physical condition who can speak very well are dumb, or speak only two or three words in all for several years, because they no longer _will_ to speak (e. g., in the belief that silence prevents them from doing wrong). this taciturnity is not to be confounded with the paranoic aphrasia in certain insane persons--e. g., in catatonia, where the will is paralyzed. it also occurs--seldom, however--that children who have already learned to speak pretty well are dumb, or speak only a few words--among these the word _no_--during several months, or speak only with certain persons, because they _will not_ speak (out of obstinacy, or embarrassment). here an organic obstacle in the motor speech-center is probable. for voluntary dumbness requires great strength of will, which is hardly to be attributed to the child. the unwillingness to speak that is prompted by _fun_ never lasts long. c. the expressive peripheral processes disturbed. (1) dyslalia and alalia (peripheral dysarthria and anarthria). the infant can _not yet_ articulate correctly, or at all, on account of the still deficient development, and afterward the lack of control, of the nerves of speech and the external organs of speech. the complete inability to articulate is called alalia. the newly born is alalic. dyslalia continues with many children a long time even after the learning of the mother-tongue. this is always a case simply of imperfections in _h_ and _z_. _a. bulbo-nuclear stammering (literal bulbo-nuclear dysarthria and anarthria)._--patients who have lost control over the muscles of speech through bulbo-nuclear paralysis, stammer before they become speechless, and along with paralysis and atrophy of the tongue occur regularly fibrillar contractions of the muscles of the tongue. the tongue is _no longer_ regulated by the will. the child that has not yet gained control over his vocal muscles stammers before he can speak correctly, and, according to my observations, regularly shows fibrillar contractions of the muscles of the tongue along with an extraordinary mobility of the tongue. the tongue is _not yet_ regulated by the will. its movements are aimless. _b. mogilalia._--children, on account of the as yet deficient control of the external organs of speech, especially of the tongue, can _not yet_ form some sounds, and therefore omit them. they say, e. g., _in_ for "hin," _ätz_ for "herz," _eitun_ for "zeitung," _ere_ for "schere." _gammacism._--children find difficulties in the voluntary utterance of k and ks (_x_), and indeed of g, and therefore often omit these sounds without substituting others; they say, e. g., _atsen_ for "klatschen," _atten_ for "garten," _asse_ for "gasse," _all_ for "karl," _ete_ for "grete" (in the second year), _wesen_ for "gewesen," _opf_ for "kopf." _sigmatism._--all children are late in learning to pronounce correctly s, and generally still later with sch, and therefore omit both, or in a lisping fashion put s in place of sch; more rarely sch in place of s. they say, e. g., _saf._ in place of "schaf," _int_ for "singt," _anz_ for "salz," _lafen_ and _slafen_ for "schlafen," _iss_ for "hirsch," _pitte_ for "splitter," _tul_ for "stuhl," _wein_ for "schwein," _tuttav_ for "gustav," _torch_ for "storch" (second year), _emele_ for "schemel," _webenau_ for "fledermaus," but also _kusch_ for "kuss." but in no case have i myself heard a child regularly put "sch" in place of _s_, as _joschef_ for "josef." this form, perhaps, occurs in jewish families; but i have no further observations concerning it as yet. _rhotacism._--many children do not form r at all for a long time and put nothing in place of it. they say _duch_ for "durch," _bot_ for "brot," _unte_ for "herunter," _tautech_ for "traurig," _ule_ for "ruhe," _tänen_ for "thränen," _ukka_ for "zucker." on the contrary, some form early the r lingual, guttural, and labial, but all confound now and then the first two with each other. _lambdacism._--many children are late in learning to utter l, and often omit it. they say, e. g., _icht_ for "licht," _voge_ for "vogel," _atenne_ for "laterne," _batn_ for "blatt," _mante_ for "mantel." (2) literal pararthria or paralalia. children who are beginning to repeat intentionally what is said, often put another sound in place of the well-known correct (no doubt intended) one; this on account of deficient control of the tongue or other peripheral organs of speech. e. g., they say _t_ in place of _p_, or _b_ for _w_ (_basse_ for "wasser" and for "flasche"), _e_ for _i_ and _o_ for _u_, as in _bete_ for "bitte," and _ohr_ for "uhr." _paragammacism._--children supply the place of the insuperably difficult sounds g, k, x by others, especially d and t, also n, saying, e. g., _itte_ for "rike," _finne_ for "finger," _tein_ for "klein," _toss_ for "gross," _atitte_ for "karnickel," _otute_ for "kuk," _attall_ for "axel," _wodal_ for "vogel," _tut_ for "gut," _tatze_ for "katze." _parasigmatism._--children are late in learning to utter s and sch correctly. they often supply the place of them, before acquiring them, by other sounds, saying, e. g., _tule_ for "schule," _ade_ for "hase," _webbe_ for "wasser," _beb_ for "bös," _bebe_ for "besen," _gigod_ for "schildkröte," _baubee_ for "schwalbe." _pararhotacism._--most children, if not all, even when they have very early formed r correctly (involuntarily), introduce other sounds in place of it in speaking--e. g., they say _moigjen_ for "morgen," _matta_ for "martha," _annold_ for "arnold," _jeiben_ for "reiben," _amum_ for "warum," _welfen_ for "werfen." _paralambdacism._--many children who do not learn until late to utter l put in its place other sounds; saying, e. g., _bind_ for "bild," _bampe_ for "lampe," _tinne_ for "stille," _degen_ for "legen," _wewe_ for "löwe," _ewebau_ for "elephant." (3) bradylalia or bradyarthria. children reciting for the first time something learned by heart speak not always indistinctly, but, on account of the incomplete practicability of the motor-paths, slowly, monotonously, without modulation. sounds and syllables do _not yet_ follow one another quickly, although they are already formed correctly. the syllables belonging to a word are often separated by pauses like the words themselves--a sort of dysphasia-of-conduction on account of the more difficult and prolonged conduction of the motor-impulse. i knew a boy (feeble-minded, to be sure) who took from three to eight seconds for answering even the simplest question; then came a regular explosion of utterance. yet he did not stutter or stammer. when he had only _yes_ or _no_ to answer, the interval between question and answer was shorter. here belong in part also the imperfections of speech that are occasioned by too large a tongue (macroglossia). when a child is born with too large a tongue, he may remain long alalic, without the loss of intellectual development, as was observed to be the case by paster and o. von heusinger (1882). ii. dysphrasia (dyslogical disturbances of speech). the child that can already speak pretty correctly deforms his speech after the manner of insane persons, being moved by strange caprices, because his understanding is not yet sufficiently developed. _logorrhoea_ (_loquaciousness_).--it is a regular occurrence with children that their pleasure in articulation and in vocal sound often induces them to hold long monologues, sometimes in articulate sounds and syllables, sometimes not. this chattering is kept up till the grown people present are weary, and that by children who can not yet talk; and their screaming is often interrupted only by hoarseness, just as in the case of the polyphrasia of the insane. _dysphrasia of the melancholy._--children exert themselves perceptibly in their first attempts to speak, answer indolently or not at all, or frequently with embarrassment, always slowly, often with drawl and monotone, very frequently coming to a stop. they also sometimes begin to speak, and then lose at once the inclination to go on. _dysphrasia of the delirious_ (_wahnsinnigen_).--children that have begun to speak often make new words for themselves. they have already invented signs before this; they are also unintelligible often-times because they use the words they have learned in a different sense. _dysphrasia of the insane_ (_verrückten_).--the child is not yet prepared to speak. he possesses only non-co-ordinated sounds and isolated rudiments of words, primitive syllables, roots, as the primitive raw material of the future speech. in many insane persons only the disconnected remains or ruins of their stock of words are left, so that their speech resembles that of the child at a certain stage. _dysphrasia of the feeble-minded._--the child at first reacts only upon strong impressions, and that often indolently and clumsily and with outcry; later, upon impressions of ordinary strength, without understanding--laughing, crowing, uttering disconnected syllables. so the patient reacts either upon strong impressions only, and that indolently, bluntly, with gestures that express little and with rude words, or he still reacts upon impressions of ordinary strength, but in flat, silly, disconnected utterances. _dysphrasia of idiots._--children have command at the beginning of no articulate sounds; then they learn these and syllables; after this also words of one syllable; then they speak short words of more than one syllable and sentences, but frequently babble forth words they have heard without understanding their meaning, like parrots. imbeciles also frequently command only short words and sentences or monosyllabic words and sounds, or, finally, they lack all articulate sound. many microcephalous idiots babble words without understanding their meaning, like little children. _echo-speech or echolalia_ (_imitative reflex speech_).--children not yet able to frame a sentence correctly like to repeat the last word of a sentence they have heard; and this, according to my observations and researches, is so general that i am forced to call this echolalia a physiological transition stage. of long words said to them, the children usually repeat only the last two syllables or the last syllable only. the feeble-minded also repeat monotonously the words and sentences said by a person in their neighborhood without showing an awakened attention, and in general without connecting any idea with what they say. (romberg.) _interjectional speech._--children sometimes have a fancy for speaking in interjections. they express vague ideas by single vowels (like _ä_), syllables (e. g., _na_, _da_), and combinations of syllables, and frequently call out aloud through the house meaningless sounds and syllables. d and w are as yet undeveloped. often, too, children imitate the interjections used by members of the family--_hop!_ _patsch_, _bauz!_ an interjectional echolalia. many deranged persons express their feelings in like manner, in sounds, especially vowels, syllables, or sound-combinations resembling words, which are void of meaning or are associated merely with obscure ideas (martini). then d is connected with m only through l and s, and so through _i_ and _e_. _embolophrasia._--many children, long after they have overcome acataphasia and agrammatism, delight in inserting between words sounds, syllables, and words that do not belong there; e. g., they double the last syllable of every word and put an _eff_ to it: _ich-ich-eff_, _bin in-eff_, etc., or they make a kind of bleat between the words (kussmaul); and, in telling a story, put extra syllables into their utterance while they are thinking. many adults likewise have the disagreeable habit of introducing certain words or meaningless syllables into their speech, where these do not at all belong; or they tack on diminutive endings to their words. the syllables are often mere sounds, like _eh_, _uh_; in many cases they sound like _eng_, _ang_ (angophrasia--kussmaul). _palimphrasia._--insane persons often repeat single sounds, syllables, or sentences, over and over without meaning; e. g., "i am-am-am-am." "the phenomenon in many cases reminds us of children, who say or sing some word or phrase, a rhyme or little verse, so long continuously, like automata, that the by-standers can endure it no longer. it is often the ring of the words, often the sense, often both, by which the children are impressed. the child repeats them because they seem to him strange or very sonorous." (kussmaul.) _bradyphrasia._--the speech of people that are sad or sleepy, and of others whose mental processes are indolent, often drags along with tedious slowness; is also liable to be broken off abruptly. the speaker comes to a standstill. this is not to be confounded with bradyphasia or with bradyarthria or bradylalia (see above). in children likewise the forming of the sentence takes a long time on account of the as yet slow rise and combination of ideas, and a simple narrative is only slowly completed or not finished at all, because the intellectual processes in the brain are too fatiguing. _paraphrasia._--under the same circumstances as in the case of bradyphrasia the (slow) speech may be marred and may become unintelligible because the train of thought is confused--e. g., in persons "drunk" with sleep--so that words are uttered that do not correspond to the original ideas. in the case of children who want to tell something, and who begin right, the story may be interrupted easily by a recollection, a fresh train of thought, and still they go on; e. g., they mix up two fairy tales, attaching to the beginning of one the end of another. _skoliophrasia._--distracted and timid feeble-minded persons easily make mistakes in speaking, because they can not direct their attention to what they are saying and to the way in which they are saying it, but they wander, allowing themselves to be turned aside from the thing to be said by all sorts of ideas and external impressions; and, moreover, they do not notice afterward that they have been making mistakes (cf. p. 53). children frequently put a wrong word in place of a right one well known to them, without noticing it. they allow themselves to be turned aside very easily from the main point by external impressions and all sorts of fancies, and often, in fact, say the opposite of what they mean without noticing it. iii. dysmimia. disturbances of gesture-language (pantomime). _perceptive asemia._--patients have lost the ability to _understand_ looks and gestures (steinthal). children can not yet understand the looks and gestures of persons about them. _amnesic amimia._--aphasic persons can sometimes imitate gestures, but can not execute them when bid, but only when the gestures are made for them to imitate. children that do not yet speak can imitate gestures if these are made for them to see, but it is often a long time before they can make them at the word of command. _ataxic dysmimia and amimia_ (_mimetic asemia_).--patients can _no longer_ execute significative looks and gestures, on account of defective co-ordination. children can not express their states of desire, etc., because they do _not yet_ control the requisite co-ordination for the corresponding looks and gestures. _paramimia_ (_paramimetic asemia_).--many patients can make use of looks and gestures, but confound them. children have not yet firmly impressed upon them the significance of looks and gestures; this is shown in their interchanging of these; e. g., the head is shaken in the way of denial when they are affirming something. _emotive language_ (_affectsprache_) _in aphrasia._--in aphrasia it happens that smiling, laughing, and weeping are _no longer_ controlled, and that they break out on the least occasion with the greatest violence, like the spinal reflexes in decapitated animals. (hughlings-jackson.) emotive language may continue when the language of ideas (begriffssprache) is completely extinguished, and idiotic children without speech can even sing. in children, far slighter occasions suffice normally to call forth smiles, laughter, and tears, than in adults. these emotional utterances are _not yet_ often voluntarily inhibited by the child that can not yet speak; on the contrary, they are unnecessarily repeated. _apraxia._--many patients are _no longer_ in condition, on account of disturbed intellect, to make right use of ordinary objects, the use of which they knew well formerly; e. g., they can no longer find the way to the mouth; or they bite into the soap. children are _not yet_ in condition, on account of deficient practice, to use the common utensils rightly; e. g., they will eat soup with a fork, and will put the fork against the cheek instead of into the mouth. 4. development of speech in the child. we may now take up the main question as to the condition of the child that is learning to speak, in regard to the development and practicability of the nerve-paths and of the centers required for speech. for the comparison of the disturbances of speech in adults with the deficiencies of speech in the child, on the one hand, and the chronological observation of the child, on the other hand, disclose to us what parts of the apparatus of speech come by degrees into operation. first to be considered are the _impressive_ and _expressive_ paths in general. all new-born human beings are deaf or hard of hearing, as has already been demonstrated. since the hearing but slowly grows more acute during the first days, no utterances of sound at this period can be regarded as responses to any sound-impressions whatever. the first cry is purely reflexive, like the croaking of the decapitated frog when the skin of his back is stroked (vol. i, p. 214). the cry is not heard by the newly-born himself and has not the least value as language. it is on a par with the squeaking of the pig just born, the bleating of the new-born lamb, and the peeping of the chick that is breaking its shell. upon this first, short season of physiological deaf-mutism follows the period during which crying expresses bodily conditions, feelings such as pain, hunger, cold. here, again, there exists as yet no connection of the expressive phenomena with acoustic impressions, but there is already the employment of the voice with stronger expiration in case of strong and disagreeable excitations of other sensory nerves than those of general sensation and of the skin. for the child now cries at a dazzling light also, and at a bitter taste, as if the unpleasant feeling were diminished by the strong motor discharge. in any case the child cries because this loud, augmented expiration lessens for him the previously existing unpleasant feelings, without exactly inducing thereby a comfortable condition. not until later does a sudden sound-impression, which at first called forth only a start and then a quivering of the eyelids, cause also crying. but this loud sign of fright may be purely reflexive, just like the silent starting and throwing up of the arms at a sudden noise, and has at most the significance of an expression of discomfort, like screaming at a painful blow. it is otherwise with the first loud response to an acoustic impression _recognized_ as new. the indefinable sounds of satisfaction made by the child that hears music for the first time are no longer reflexive, and are not symptoms of displeasure. i see in this reaction, which may be compared with the howling of the dog that for the first time in his life hears music--i see in this reaction of the apparatus of voice and of future speech, _the first sign of the connection now just established between impressive_ (acoustic) and _expressive_ (having the character of emotive language) _paths_. the impressive, separately, were long since open, as the children under observation after the first week allowed themselves to be quieted by the singing of cradle-songs, and the expressive, separately, must likewise have been open, since various conditions were announced by various sorts of crying. everything now depends on a well-established _intercentral communication_ between the two. this is next to be discussed. the primitive connection is already an advance upon that of a reflex arc. the sound-excitations arriving from the ear at the central endings of the auditory nerve are not directly transformed into motor excitations for the laryngeal nerves, so that the glottis contracts to utter vocal sound. when the child (as early as the sixth to the eighth week) takes pleasure in music and laughs aloud, his voice can not in this case (as at birth) have been educed by reflex action, for without a cerebrum he would not laugh or utter joyous sounds, whereas even without that he cries. from this, however, by no means follows the existence of a speech-center in the infant. the fact that he produces sounds easily articulated, although without choice, like _tahu_ and _amma_, proves merely the functional capacity of the peripheral apparatus of articulation (in the seventh week) at a period long before it is intentionally used for articulation. the unintentionally uttered syllables that make their appearance are, to be sure, simple, at least in the first half-year. it is vowels almost exclusively that appear in the first month, and these predominate for a long time yet. of the consonants in the third month _m_ alone is generally to be noted as frequent. this letter comes at a later period also, from the raising and dropping of the lower jaw in expiration, an operation that is besides soon easy for the infant with less outlay of will than the letter _b_, which necessitates a firmer closing of the lips. but in spite of the simplicity of all the vocal utterances and of the defectiveness of the articulatory apparatus, the child is able (often long before the seventh month) to respond to address, questions, chiding, either with inarticulate sounds or with vowels or by means of simple syllables, like _pa_, _ta_, _ma_, _na_, _da_, _mä_, _mö_, _gö_, _rö_ [_a_ as in _father_; ä as in _fate_; ö like _i_ in _bird_.] since these responses are entirely, or almost entirely, lacking in microcephali and in children born deaf, they are not purely reflexive, like sneezing, e. g.; therefore there must be in the case of these a cerebral operation also, simple indeed, but indubitably intellectual, interposed between sound-perception and vocal utterance, especially as the infant behaves differently according to what he hears, and he discriminates very well the stern command from the caress, forbidding from allowing, in the voice of the person speaking to him. yet it is much more the _timbre_, the accent, the pitch, the intensity of the voice and the sounds, the variation of which excites attention, than it is the spoken word. in the first half-year the child hears the vowels much better than he does the consonants, and will imperfectly understand or divine the sense of a few sounds only--e. g., when his name is uttered in a threatening tone he will hear merely the accented vowel, for at the first performance taught him, purposely postponed to a very late period (in his thirteenth month), it made no difference to my child whether we asked without changing a feature, "wie gross?" (how tall?) or "ooss?" or "oo?" in all three cases he answered with the same movement of the hand. now, although all infants in normal condition, before they can repeat anything after others or can understand any word whatever, _express_ their feelings by various sounds, even by syllables, and _distinguish_ vowels and many consonants in the words spoken to them, yet this does not raise them above the intelligent animal. the response to friendly address and loud chiding by appropriate sounds is scarcely to be distinguished as to its psychical value from the joyous barking and whining of the poodle. the pointer-dog's understanding of the few spoken utterances that are impressed upon him in his training is also quite as certain at least as the babe's understanding of the jargon of the nurse. the correctly executed movements or arrests of movement following the sound-impressions "setz dich! pfui! zurück! vorwärts! allez! fass! apporte! such! verloren! pst! lass! hierher! brav! leid's nicht! ruhig! wahr dich! hab acht! was ist das! pfui vogel! pfui hase! halt!" prove that the bird-dog understands the meaning of the sounds and syllables and words heard as far as he needs to understand them. the training in the english language accomplishes the same result with "down! down charge! steady! toho! fetch! hold up!" as the training in the french language, with yet other words--so that we can by no means assume any hereditary connection whatever between the quality of the sound heard and the movement or arrest of movement to be executed, such as may perhaps exist in the case of the chick just hatched which follows the clucking of the hen. rather does the dog learn afresh in every case the meaning of the words required for hunting, just as the speechless child comprehends the meaning of the first words of its future language without being able to repeat them himself--e. g., "give! come! hand! sh! quiet!" long before the child's mechanism of articulation is so far developed that these expressions can be produced by him, the child manifests his understanding of them unequivocally by corresponding movements, by gestures and looks, by obedience. no doubt this behavior varies in individual cases, inasmuch as in some few the imitative articulation may be to some extent earlier developed than the understanding. there are many children who even in their first year have a monkey-like knack at imitation and repeat all sorts of things like parrots without guessing the sense of them. here, however, it is to be borne in mind that such an echo-speech appears only after the _first_ understanding of some spoken word can be demonstrated; in no case before the fourth month. lindner relates that when he one day observed that his child of eighteen weeks was gazing at the swinging pendulum of the house-clock, he went with him to it, saying, "tick-tack," in time with the pendulum; and when he afterward called out to the child, who was no longer looking at the clock, "tick-tack!" this call was answered, at first with delay, a little later immediately, by a turning of the look toward the clock. this proved that there was understanding long before the first imitation of words. progress now became pretty rapid, so that at the end of the seventh month the questions, "where is your eye? ear? head? mouth? nose? the table? chair? sofa?" were answered correctly by movements of hand and eyes. in the tenth month this child for the first time himself used a word as a means of effecting an understanding, viz., _mama_ (soon afterward, indeed, he called both parents _papa_). the child's inability to repeat distinctly syllables spoken for him is not to be attributed, shortly before the time at which he succeeds in doing it, to a purely psychical adynamy (impotence), not, as many suppose, to "being stupid," or to a weakness of will without organic imperfections determined by the cerebral development, for the efforts, the attention, and the ability to repeat incorrectly, show that the will is not wanting. since also the peripheral impressive acoustic and expressive phonetic paths are intact and developed, as is proved by the acuteness of the hearing and the spontaneous formation of the very syllables desired, the cause of the inability to repeat correctly must be solely organic-centro-motor. the connecting paths between the sound-center and the syllable-center, and of both these with the speech motorium, are not yet or not easily passable; but the imitation of a single sound, be it only _a_, can not take place without the mediation of the cerebral cortex. thus in the very first attempt to repeat something heard there exists an unquestionable advance in brain development; and the first successful attempt of this kind proves not merely the augmented functional ability of the articulatory apparatus and of the sound-center, and the practicability of the impressive paths that lead from the ear to the sound-center--it proves, above all, the establishment of intercentral routes that lead from the sound-center and the syllable-center to the motorium. in fact, the correct _repeating_ of a sound heard, of a syllable, and, finally, of a word pronounced by another person, is the surest proof of the establishment and practicability of the entire impressive, central, and expressive path. it, however, proves nothing as to the _understanding_ of the sound or word heard and faultlessly repeated. as the term "understanding" or "understand" is ambiguous, in so far as it may relate to the ideal content (the meaning), and at the same time to the mere perception of the word spoken (or written or touched)--e. g., when any one speaks indistinctly so that we do not "understand" him--it is advisable to restrict the use of this expression. _understand_ shall in future apply only to the _meaning_ of the word; _hear_--since it is simply the perceiving of a word through the hearing that we have in view--will relate to the sensuous impression. it is clear, then, that all children who can hear but can not yet speak, repeat many words without understanding them, and understand many words without being able to repeat them, as kussmaul has already observed. but i must add that the repeating of what is not understood begins only after some word (even one that can not be repeated) has been understood. now it is certain that the majority, if not all, of the children that have good hearing develop the understanding more at first, since the impressive side is practiced more and sooner than the expressive-articulatory. probably those that imitate early and skillfully are the children that can speak earliest, and whose cerebrum grows fastest but also soonest ceases to grow; whereas those that imitate later and more sparingly, generally learn to speak later, and will generally be the more intelligent. for with the higher sort of activity goes the greater growth of brain. while the other children cultivate more the centro-motor portion, the sensory, the intellectual, is neglected. in animals, likewise, a brief, rapid development of the brain is wont to go along with inferior intelligence. the intelligence gets a better development when the child, instead of repeating all sorts of things without any meaning, tries to guess the meaning of what he hears. precisely the epoch at which this takes place belongs to the most interesting in intellectual development. like a pantomimist, the child, by means of his looks and gestures, and further by cries and by movements of all sorts, gives abundant evidence of his understanding and his desires, without himself speaking a single word. as the adult, after having half learned a foreign language from books, can not speak (imitate) it, and can not easily understand it when he hears it spoken fluently by one that is a perfect master of it, but yet makes out _single_ expressions and understands them, and divines the meaning of the whole, so the child at this stage can distinctly hear single words, can grasp the purport of them, and divine correctly a whole sentence from the looks and gestures of the speaker, although the child himself makes audible no articulate utterance except his own, for the most part meaningless, variable babble of sounds and syllables and outcries. the causes of the slowness of the progress in expressing in articulate words what is understood and desired, on the part of normal children, is not, however, to be attributed, as it has often been, to a slower development of the expressive motor mechanism, but must be looked for in the difficulty of establishing the connection of the various central storehouses of sense-impressions with the intercentral path of connection between the acoustic speech-centers and the speech-motorium. for the purely peripheral articulatory acts are long since perfect, although as yet a simple "_a_" or "_pa_" can not be repeated after another person; for these and other sounds and syllables are already uttered correctly by the child himself. the order of succession in which these separate sounds appear, without instruction, is very different in individual cases. with my boy, who learned to speak rather late, and was not occupied with learning by heart, the following was the order of the perfectly pure sounds heard by me: on the left are the sounds or syllables indicated by one letter; on the right, the same indicated by more than one letter; and it is to be borne in mind that the child needs to pronounce only fourteen of the nineteen so-called consonants of the german alphabet in order to master the remaining five also; for c = ts and k v = f and w x = ks and gs q = ku and kw z = ts and ds and of the fourteen four require no new articulation, because p is a toneless b t is a toneless d f is a toneless w k is a toneless g of the ten positions of the mouth required for all the consonants of the alphabet, nine are taken by the child within the first six months:* months. 1. indefinite vowels; ä u, uä. 2. a, ö, o; m, g, r, t; h, am, ma, ta, hu, ör, rö, ar, ra, gö. 3. i; b, l, n, ua, oa, ao, ai, [(ei], oä, äo, äa, äö; öm, in, ab, om; la, ho, mö, nä, na, ha, bu; ng, mb, gr. 4. e, [(äu], a-u, aö, ea; an; na, tö, la, me; nt. 5. ü (y); k, ag, eg, ek, ge, kö. 6. j; the oi ([(eu], [(äu]), io, öe, eu (french); ij, aj, lingual-labial ög, ich; ja, jä; rg, br, ch. sound, 7. d, p, äe, ui; mä. 8. eö, aë, ou, [(au]; up; hö, mi, te. 9. ap, ach, äm; pa, ga, cha. 10. el, ab, at, ät; dä, ba, ta, tä; nd. 11. ad, al, ak, er, ej, öd; da, gä, bä, ka, ke, je, he, ne; pr, tr. 12. w, än, op, ew, är; de, wä; nj, ld. 13. s (ss), en; hi; dn. 14. mu; kn, gn, kt. 15. z, oö, öa, is, iss, es, ass, th (english), ith (engl.), it; hä, di, wa, sse. 16. f (v), ok, on; do, go; bw, fp. 17. ib, öt, an; bi. 18. äi, iä; äp, im; tu, pä; ft. 19. ön, et, es; sa, be; st, tth (engl.), s-ch, sj. 20. ub, ot, id, od, oj, uf, ät; bo, ro, jo; dj, dth (engl.). 21. öp; fe; rl, dl, nk, pt. 22. ol; lo; ps, pt, tl, sch, tsch, pth (engl.). 23. q, uo; id, op, um, em, us, un, ow, ed, uk, ig, il; jö, ju, po, mo, wo, fa, fo, fi, we, ku (qu), li, ti; tn, pf, gch, gj, tj, schg. 24. ut, esch; pu, wi, schi, pi. 25. oë, ul, il, och, iw, ip, ur; lt, rb, rt. 26. nl, ds, mp, rm, fl, kl, nch, ml, dr. 27. x, kch, cht, lch, ls, sw, sl. _____________________________________________________________________ * pronounce the letters in the tabular view as in german. every such chronological view of the sequence of sounds is uncertain, because we can not observe the child uninterruptedly, and hence the first appearance of a new sound easily escapes notice. the above synopsis has a chronological value only so far as this, that it announces, concerning every single sound, that such sound was heard in its purity by me at least as early as the given month. the sound may, however, have been uttered considerably earlier without my hearing it. i know from personal experience that in other children many sounds appear much earlier; in my child, e. g., _ngä_ was observed too late, and i have no doubt that the first utterance of _f_ and _w_ was unobserved, although i was on the lookout for them. when it is maintained, on the contrary, that _m_ is not heard from a normal child until the tenth month, then the _am_ and _mö_ which appear universally in the first half-year have escaped notice. earlier tabular views of this sort, which have even served as a foundation for instruction of deaf-mutes in speaking, do not rest exclusively on observation. besides, in this matter, even two children hardly agree. according to my observations, i am compelled in spite of this disagreement to lay down the proposition as valid for all healthy children, that the greatly _preponderating majority of the sounds the child makes use of after learning verbal language, and many other sounds besides these, are correctly formed by him within the first eight months_, not intentionally, but just as much at random as any other utterance of sound not to be used later in speech, not appearing in any civilized language. i will only mention as an example the labio-lingual explosive sound, in which the tip of the tongue comes between the lips and, with an expiration, bursting from its confinement is drawn back swiftly (with or without tone). all children seem to like to form this sound, a sound between _p_, _b_, and _t_, _d_; but it exists in few languages. among the innumerable superfluous, unintentional, random, muscular movements of the infant, the movements of the muscles of the larynx, mouth, and tongue take a conspicuous place, because they ally themselves readily with acoustic effects and the child takes delight in them. it is not surprising, therefore, that precisely those vibrations of the vocal cords, precisely those shapings of the cavity of the mouth, and those positions of the lips, often occur which we observe in the utterance of our vowels, and that among the child-noises produced unconsciously and in play are found almost all our consonants and, besides, many that are used in foreign languages. the plasticity of the apparatus of speech in youth permits the production of a greater abundance of sounds and sound-combinations than is employed later, and not a single child has been observed who has, in accordance with the principle of the least effort (_principe du moindre effort_) applied by french authors to this province, advanced in regular sequence from the sounds articulated easily--i. e., with less activity of will--to the physiologically difficult; rather does it hold good for all the children i have observed, and probably for all children that learn to speak, that many of the sounds uttered by them at the beginning, in the speechless season of infancy, without effort and then forgotten, have to be learned afresh at a later period, have to be painstakingly acquired by means of imitation. mobility and perfection in the _technique_ of sound-formation are not speech. they come into consideration in the process of learning to speak as facilitating the process, because the muscles are perfected by previous practice; but the very first attempts to imitate voluntarily a sound heard show how slight this advantage is. even those primitive syllables which the child of himself often pronounces to weariness, like _da_, he can not at the beginning (in the tenth month in my case) as yet say after any one, although he makes manifest by his effort--a regular strain--by his attention, and his unsuccessful attempts, that he would like to say them, as i have already mentioned. the reason is to be looked for in the still incomplete development of the sensori-motor central paths. in place of _tatta_ is sounded _tä_ or _ata_; in place of _papa_ even _taï_, and this not once only, but after a great many trials repeated again and again with the utmost patience. that the sound-image has been correctly apprehended is evident from the certainty with which the child responds correctly in various cases by gestures to words of similar sound unpronounceable by him. thus, he points by mistake once only to the mouth (mund) instead of the moon (mond), and points correctly to the ear (ohr) and the clock (uhr) when asked where these objects are. the acuteness of hearing indispensable for repeating the sounds is therefore present before the ability to repeat. on the whole, the infant or the young child already weaned must be placed higher at this stage of his mental development than a very intelligent animal, but not on account of his knowledge of language, for the dog also understands very well single words in the speech of his master, in addition to hunting-terms. he divines, from the master's looks and gestures, the meaning of whole sentences, and, although he has not been brought to the point of producing articulate sounds, yet much superior in this respect is the performance of the cockatoo, which learns all articulate sounds. a child who shows by looks and gestures and actions that he understands single words, and who already pronounces correctly many words by imitation without understanding them, does not on this account stand higher intellectually than a sagaciously calculating yet speechless elephant or an arabian horse, but because he already forms many more and far more complex concepts. the animal phase of intellect lasts, in the sound, vigorous, and not neglected child, to the end of the first year of life at the farthest; and long before the close of this he has, by means of the _feelings_ of pleasure and of discomfort, very definitely distinguishable by him even in the first days of life, but for which he does not get the verbal expressions till the second and third year, formed for himself at least in one province, viz., that of food, _ideas_ more or less well defined. romanes also rightly remarks that the _concept_ of food arises in us through the feeling of hunger quite independently of language. probably this concept is the very first that is formed by the quite young infant, only he would not name it "food," if indeed he named it at all, but would understand by it everything that puts an end to the feeling of hunger. it is of great importance to hold firmly to this fact of the origination of ideas, and that not of sensuous percepts only but of concepts, without language, because it runs contrary to prevailing assumptions. he who has conscientiously observed the mental development of infants must come to the conclusion that _the formation of ideas is not bound up with the learning of words, but is a necessary prerequisite for the understanding of the words to be learned first, and therefore for learning to speak_. long before the child understands even a single word, before he uses a single syllable consistently with a definite meaning, he already has a number of ideas which are expressed by looks and gestures and cries. to these belong especially ideas gained through touch and sight. associations of objects touched and seen with impressions of taste are probably the first generators of concepts. the child, still speechless and toothless, takes a lively interest in bottles; sees, e. g., a bottle that is filled with a white opaque liquid (goulard water), and he stretches out his arms with desire toward it, screaming a long time, in the belief that it is a milk-bottle (observed by me in the case of my child in the thirty-first week). the bottle when empty or when filled with water is not so long attractive to him, so that the idea of food (or of something to drink, something to suck, something sweet) must arise from the sight of a bottle with certain contents without the understanding or even utterance of any words. the formation of concepts without words is actually demonstrated by this; for the speechless child not only perceived the points of identity of the various bottles of wine, water, oil, the nursing-bottle and others, the sight of which excited him, but he united in one notion the contents of the different sorts of bottles when what was in them was white--i. e., he had separated the concept of food from that of the bottle. ideas are thus independent of words. certain as this proposition is, it is not, however, supported by the reasons given for it by kussmaul, viz., that one and the same object is variously expressed in various languages, and that a new animal or a new machine is known before it is named; for no one desires to maintain that certain ideas are _necessarily_ connected with certain words, without the knowledge of which they could not arise--it is maintained only that ideas do not exist without words. now, any object has some appellation in each language, were it only the appellation "object," and a new animal, a new machine, is already called "animal," "machine," before it receives its special name. hence from this quarter the proof can not be derived. on the other hand, the speechless infant certainly furnishes the proof, which is confirmed by some observations on microcephalous persons several years old or of adult age. the lack of the power of abstraction apparent in these persons and in idiots is not so great that they have not developed the notion "food" or "taking of food." indeed, it is not impossible that the formation of ideas may continue after the total loss of word-memory, as in the remarkable and much-talked-of case of lordat. yet this case does not by any means prove that the formation of concepts of the _higher_ order is possible without previous mastery of verbal language; rather is it certain that concepts rising above the lowest abstractions can be formed only by him who has thoroughly learned to speak: for intelligent children without speech are acquainted, indeed, with more numerous and more complex ideas than are very sagacious animals, but not with many more abstractions of a higher sort, and where the vocabulary is small the power of abstraction is wont to be as weak in adults as in children. the latter, to be sure, acquire the words for the abstract with more difficulty and later than those for the concrete, but have them stamped more firmly on the mind (for, when the word-memory fails, proper names and nouns denoting concrete objects are, as a rule, first forgotten). but it would not be admissible, as i showed above, to conclude from this that no abstraction at all takes place without words. to me, indeed, it is probable that in the most intense thought the most abstract conceptions are effected most rapidly without the disturbing images of the sounds of words, and are only supplementarily clothed in words. in any case the intelligent child forms many concepts of a lower sort without any knowledge of words at all, and he therefore performs abstraction without words. when sigismund showed to his son, not yet a year old and not able to speak a word, a stuffed woodcock, and, pointing to it, said, "bird," the child directly afterward looked toward another side of the room where there stood upon the stove a stuffed white owl, represented as in flight, which he must certainly have observed before. here, then, the concept had already arisen; but how little specialized are the first concepts connected with words that do not relate to food is shown by the fact that in the case of lindner's child (in the tenth month) _up_ signified also _down_, _warm_ signified also _cold_. just so my child used _too much_ also for _too little_; another child used _no_ also for _yes_; a third used _i_ for _you_. if these by no means isolated phenomena rest upon a lack of differentiation of the concepts, "then the child already has a presentiment that opposites are merely the extreme terms of the same series of conceptions" (lindner), and this before he can command more than a few words. but to return to the condition of the normal child, as yet entirely speechless. it is clear that, being filled with desire to give expression in every way to his feelings, especially to his needs, he will use his voice, too, for this purpose. the adult likewise cries out with pain, although the "oh!" has no direct connection with the pain, and there is no intention of making, by means of the outcry, communication to others. now, before the newly-born is in condition to seek that which excites pleasure, to avoid what excites displeasure, he cries out in like fashion, partly without moving the tongue, partly with the sound _ä_ dominant, repeated over and over monotonously till some change of external conditions takes place. after this the manner of crying begins to vary according to the condition of the infant; then come sounds clearly distinguishable as indications of pleasure or displeasure; then syllables, at first to some extent spontaneously articulated without meaning, afterward such as express desire, pleasure, etc.; not until much later imitated sounds, and often the imperfect imitation of the voices of animals, of inorganic noises, and of spoken words. the mutilation of his words makes it seem as if the child were already inventing new designations which are soon forgotten; and as the child, like the lunatic, uses familiar words in a new sense after he has begun to learn to talk, his style of expression gets an original character, that of "baby-talk." here it is characteristic that the feelings and ideas do not now first _arise_, though they are now first articulately expressed; but they were in part present long since and did not become articulate, but were expressed by means of looks and gestures. in the adult ideas generate new words, and the formation of new words does not cease so long as thinking continues; but in the child without speech new feelings and new ideas generate at first only new cries and movements of the muscles of the face and limbs, and, the further we look back into child-development proper, the greater do we find the number of the conditions expressed by one and the same cry. the organism as yet has too few means at its disposal. in many cases of aphasia every mental state is expressed by one and the same word (often a word without meaning). upon closer examination it is found, however, that for the orator also, who is complete master of speech, all the resources of language are insufficient. no one, e. g., can name all the colors that may be perceived, or describe pain, or describe even a cloud, so that several hearers gain the same idea of its form that the speaker has. the words come short, but the idea is clear. if words sufficed to express clearly clear conceptions, then the greater part of our philosophical and theological literature would not exist. this literature has its basis essentially in the inevitable fact that different persons do not associate the same concept with the same word, and so one word is used to indicate different concepts (as is the case with the child). if a concept is exceptionally difficult--i. e., exceptionally hard to express clearly in words--then it is wont to receive many names, e. g., "die," and the confusion and strife are increased; but words alone render it possible to form and to make clear concepts of a higher sort. they favor the formation of new ideas, and without them the intellect in man remains in a lower stage of development just because they are the most trustworthy and the most delicate means of expression for ideas. if ideas are not expressed at all, or not intelligibly, their possessor can not use them, can not correct or make them effective. those ideas only are of value, as a general thing, which continue to exist after being communicated to others. communication takes place with accuracy (among human beings) only by means of words. it is therefore important to know how the child learns to speak words, and then to use them. i have above designated, as the chief difficulty for the child in the formation of words, the establishment of a connection between the central storehouse for sense-impressions--i. e., the sensory centers of higher rank--with the intercentral path of connection between the center-for-sounds and the speech-motorium. after the establishment of these connections, and long after ideas have been formed, the sound-image of the word spoken by the mother, when it emerges in the center-for-sounds directly after the rise of a clear idea, is now repeated by the child accurately, or, in case it offers insurmountable difficulties of articulation for pronunciation, inaccurately. this fact of _sound-imitation_ is fundamental. beyond it we can not go. especially must be noted here as essential that it appears to be an entirely indifferent matter what syllables and words are employed for the first designation of the child's ideas. were one disposed to provide the child with false designations, he could easily do it. the child would still connect them logically. if taught further on that two times three are five, he would merely give the _name_ five to what is six, and would soon adopt the usual form of expression. in making a beginning of the association of ideas with articulate syllables, such syllables are, as a rule, employed (probably in all languages) as have already been often uttered by the child spontaneously without meaning, because these offered no difficulties of articulation; but only the child's family put meaning into them. such syllables are _pa_, _ma_, with their doubled form _papa_, _mama_, for "father" and "mother," in connection with which it is to be observed that the meaning of them is different in different languages and even in the dialects of a language. for _mamán_, _mamá_, _máma_, _mamme_, _mammeli_, _mömme_, _mam_, _mamma_, _mammeken_, _memme_, _memmeken_, _mamm[)e]l[)e]_, _mammi_, are at the same time child-words and designations for "mother" in various districts of germany, whereas these and very similar expressions signify also the mother's breast, milk, pap, drink, nursing-bottle; nay, even in some languages the father is designated by _ma_-sounds, the mother by _ba_-and _pa_-sounds. it is very much the same with other primitive syllables of the babe's utterance, e. g., _atta_. where this does not denote the parents or grandparents it is frequently used (_táta_, _tatta_, _tatá_, also in england and germany) in the sense of "gone" ("fort") and "goodby." these primitive syllables, _pa-pa_, _ma-ma_, _tata_ and _apa_, _ama_, _ata_, originate of themselves when in the expiration of breath the passage is stopped either by the lips (_p_, _m_) or by the tongue (_d_, _t_); but after they have been already uttered many times with ease, without meaning, at random, the mothers of all nations make use of them to designate previously existing ideas of the child, and designate by them what is most familiar. hence occurs the apparent confounding of "milk" and "breast" and "mother" and "(wet-) nurse" or "nurse" and "bottle," all of which the child learns to call _mam_, _amma_, etc. but just at this period appears a genuine echolalia, the child, unobserved, repeating correctly and like a machine, often in a whisper, all sorts of syllables, when he hears them at the end of a sentence. the normal child, before he can speak, repeats sounds, syllables, words, if they are short, "mechanically," without understanding, as he imitates movements of the hands and the head that are made in his sight. speaking is a movement-making that invites imitation the more because it can be strictly regulated by means of the ear. anything more than regulation is not at first given by the sense of hearing, for those born deaf also learn to speak. they can even, like normal children, speak quite early in dreams (according to gerard van asch). those born deaf, as well as normal children, when one turns quietly toward them, often observe attentively the lips (and also touch them sometimes) and the tongue of the person speaking; and this visual image, even without an auditory image, provokes imitation, which is made perfect by the combination of the two. this combination is lacking in the child born blind, pure echolalia prevailing in this case; in the one born deaf, the combination is likewise wanting, the reading-off of the syllables from the mouth coming in as a substitute. with the deaf infant the study of the mouth-movements is, as is well known, the only means of understanding words spoken aloud, and it is sight that serves almost exclusively for this, very rarely touch; and the child born deaf often repeats the visible movements of lips and tongue better than the hearing child that can not yet talk. it is to be observed, in general, that the hearing child makes less use, on the whole, of the means of reading-off from the mouth than we assume, but depends chiefly on the ear. i have always found, too, that the child has the greatest difficulty in imitating a position of the mouth, in case the sound belonging to it is not made, whereas he easily achieves the same position of the mouth when the acoustic effect goes along with it. accordingly, the connection between the ear and the speech-center must be shorter or more practicable in advance (hereditarily) than that between the eye and the speech-center. with regard to both associations, however, the gradually progressive shortening or consolidating is to be distinguished in space and time. with the child that does not yet speak, but is beginning to repeat syllables correctly and to associate them with primitive ideas, the act of imitation takes longer than with the normal adult, but the paths in the brain that he makes use of are shorter, absolutely and relatively--absolutely, because the whole brain is smaller; relatively, because the higher centers, which at a later period perform their functions with consciousness and accessory ideas, are still lacking. notwithstanding this, the time is longer than at a later period--often amounting to several seconds--because the working up of what has been heard, and even the arrangement of it in the center for sound-images, and of what has been seen in the center for sight-images, takes more time apart from a somewhat less swift propagation of the nerve-excitement in the peripheral paths. the child's imitation can not be called fully conscious or deliberate. it resembles the half-conscious or unconscious imitation attained by the adult through frequent repetition--i. e., through manifold practice--and which, as a sort of reminiscence of conscious or an abbreviation of deliberate imitation, results from frequent continuous use of the same paths. only, the child's imitations last longer, and especially the reading-off from the mouth. the child can not distinguish the positions of the mouth that belong to a syllable, but can produce them himself very correctly. he is like the patients that kussmaul calls "word-blind," who can not, in spite of good sight, read the written words they see, but can express them in speech and writing. for the same word, e. g., _atta_, which the child does not read off from the mouth and does not repeat, he uses himself when he wants to be taken out; thus the inability is not expressive-motor, but central or intercentral. for the child can already see very well the movement of mouth and tongue; the impressive sight-path has been long established. herein this sort of word-blindness agrees fully with the physiological word-deafness of the normal child without speech, whose hearing is good. for he understands wrongly what he hears, when, e. g., in response to the order, "no! no!" he makes the affirmative movement of the head, although he can make the right movement very well. here too, then, it is not centrifugal and centripetal peripheral lines, but intercentral paths or centers, that are not yet sufficiently developed--in the case of my child, in the fourteenth month. the path leading from the word-center to the dictorium, and the word-center itself, must have been as yet too little used. from all this it results, in relation to the question, how the child comes to learn and to use words, that in the first place he has ideas; secondly, he imitates sounds, syllables, and words spoken for him; and, thirdly, he associates the ideas with these. e. g., the idea "white+wet+sweet+warm" having arisen out of frequent seeing, feeling, and tasting of milk, it depends upon what primitive syllable is selected for questioning the hungry infant, for talking to him, or quieting him, whether he expresses his desire for food by _möm_, _mimi_, _nana_, _ning_, or _maman_, or _mäm_, or _mem_, or _mima_, or yet other syllables. the oftener he has the idea of food (i. e., something that banishes hunger or the unpleasant feeling of it), and at the same time the sound-impression "milk," so much the more will the latter be associated with the former, and in consideration of the great advantages it offers, in being understood by all, will finally be adopted. thus the child learns his first words. but in each individual case the first words acquired in this manner have a wider range of meaning than the later ones. by means of pure echolalia, without associating ideas with the word babbled in imitation, the child learns, to be sure, to articulate words likewise; but he does not learn to understand them or to use them properly unless coincidences, intentional or accidental, show him this or that result when this or that word is uttered by him. if the child, e. g., hearing the new word "schnee," says, as an echo, _nee_, and then some one shows him actual snow, the meaningless _nee_ becomes associated with a sense-intuition; and later, also, nothing can take the place of the intuition--i. e., the direct, sensuous perception--as a means of instruction. this way of learning the use of words is exactly the opposite of that just discussed, and is less common because more laborious. for, in the first case, the idea is first present, and only needs to be expressed (through hearing the appropriate word). in the second case, the word comes first, and the idea has to be brought in artificially. later, the word, not understood, awakens curiosity, and thereby generates ideas. but this requires greater maturity. the third way in which the first words are learned is this: the idea and the word appear almost simultaneously, as in onomatopoetic designations and interjections. absolutely original onomatopoetic words are very rare with children, and have not been observed by me except after the children already knew some words. the names of animals, _bow-wow_, _moo-moo_, _peep-peep_ (bird), _hotto_ (horse), from the expression of the carter, "hott-ho" ("_tt_," instead of _haut_ (the skin), i. e., "left," in contrast with "aarr"--_haar_, _mähne_ (the mane)--i. e., "right"), are spoken for the child by the members of his family. some names of animals, like _kukuk_ (cuckoo), also _kikeriki_ (cock) and _kuak_ (duck, frog), are probably formed often without having been heard from others, only more indistinctly, by german, english (american), and french children. _ticktack_ (_tick-tick_) has also been repeated by a boy of two years for a watch. on the other hand, _weo-weo-weo_ (german, _[)u]io_) for the noise of winding a watch (observed by holden in a boy of two years) is original. _hüt_, as an unsuccessful imitation of the locomotive-whistle by my boy of two and a half years, seems also noteworthy as an onomatope independently invented, because it was used daily for months in the same way merely to designate the whistle. the voice of the hen, of the redstart, the creaking of a wheel, were imitated by my child of his own accord long before he could speak a word. but this did not go so far as the framing of syllables. it is not easy in this to trace so clearly the framing of a concept as attaching itself directly to onomatopoetic forms as it is in a case communicated by romanes. a child that was beginning to talk, saw and heard a duck on the water, and said _quack_. thereafter the child called, on the one hand, all birds and insects, on the other hand, all liquids, _quack_. finally, it called all coins also _quack_, after having seen an eagle on a french sou. thus the child came, by gradual generalization, to the point of designating a fly, wine, and a piece of money by the same onomatopoetic word, although only the first perception contained the characteristic that gave the name. another case is reported by eduard schulte: a boy of a year and three quarters applied the joyous outcry _ei_ (which may be an imitated interjection), modifying it first into _eiz_, into _aze_, and then into _ass_, to his wooden goat on wheels, and covered with rough hide; _eiz_, then, became exclusively a cry of joy; _ass_, the name for everything that moved along--e. g., for animals and his own sister and the wagon; also for everything that moved at all; finally, for everything that had a rough surface. now, as this child already called all coverings of the head and covers of cans _huta_, when he saw, for the first time, a fur cap, he at once christened it _ass-huta_. here took place a decided subordination of one concept to another, and therewith a new formation of a word. how broad the comprehensiveness of the concept designated _huta_ was, is perceived especially in this, that it was used to express the wish to have objects at which the child pointed. he liked to put all sorts of things that pleased him upon his head, calling them _huta_. out of the _huta_, for "i should like to have that as a hat" grew, then, after frequent repetition, "i should like that." there was in this case an extension of the narrower concept, after it had itself experienced previously a differentiation, and so a limitation, by means of the suffix _ass_. these examples show how independent of words the formation of concepts is. with the smallest stock of words the concepts are yet manifold, and are designated by the same word when there is a lack of words for the composition of new words, and so for fresh word-formation. the formation of words out of interjections without imitation has not been observed. here belongs the _rollu_, _rollolo_, uttered by my boy, of his own accord, on seeing rolling balls or wheels; and (in the twentieth month) _rodi_, _otto_, _rojo_, where the rotation perceived by the child occasions at once the one or the other exclamation containing _l_ or _r_. in the case of steinthal, it was _lu-lulu_; in the case of a boy a year and a half old, observed by kussmaul, it was _golloh_. in these cases the first interjection is always occasioned by a _noise_, not simply by the sight of things rolling without noise. the interjection must accordingly be styled imitative. a combination of the original--i. e., inborn--interjectional sounds into syllables and groups of syllables, without the assistance of members of the family, and without imitation, for the purpose of communicating an idea, is not proved to exist. on the whole, the way in which the child learns to speak not merely resembles the way in which he learns at a later period to write, but is essentially completely in accord with it. here, too, he makes no new inventions. first are drawn strokes and blurs without meaning; then certain strokes are imitated; then signs of sounds. these can not be at once combined into syllables, and even after the combination has been achieved and the written word can be made from the syllables it is not yet understood. yet the child could see, even before the first instruction in writing or the first attempt at scribbling, every individual letter in the dimensions in which he writes it later. so, too, the speechless child hears every sound before he understands syllables and words, and he understands them before he can speak them. the child commonly learns reading before writing, and so understands the sign he is to write before he can write it. yet the sign written by himself is often just as unintelligible to him as the word he himself speaks. the analogy is perfect. if the first germs of words, after ideas have begun to become clear by means of keener perception, are once formed, then the child fashions them of his own effort, and this often with surprising distinctness; but in the majority of cases the words are mutilated. in the first category belongs the comparative _hocher_ for _höher_ in the sentence _hocher bauen_ (build higher)! (in the third year uttered as a request when playing with building-stones). the understanding of the comparative is plainly manifest in this. when, therefore, the same child in his fifth year, to the improper question, "whom do you like better, papa or mamma?" answers, "papa and mamma," we should not infer a lack of that understanding, as many do (e. g., heyfelder); but the decision is impossible to the child. just so in the case of the question, "would you rather have the apple or the pear?" other inventions of my child were the verb _messen_ for "mit dem messer schneiden" (to cut with the knife); _schiffern_, i. e., "das schiff bewegen" (move the ship), for "rudern," (row). and the preference of the weak inflection on the part of all children is a proof that _after_ the appropriation of a small number of words through imitation, independent--always logical--changes of formation are undertaken. _gegebt_, _gegeht_, _getrinkt_ (gived, goed, drinked), have never been heard by the child; but "gewebt, geweht, gewinkt" (as in english, waved, wafted, beckoned), have been known to him as models (or other formations corresponding to these). yet this is by no means to say that every mutilation or transformation the child proposes is a copy after an erroneously selected model; rather the child's imagination has a wide field here and acts in manifold fashion, especially by combinations. "my teeth-roof pains me," said a boy who did not yet know the word "palate." another in his fourth year called the road (weg) the "go" (gehe). a child of three years used the expression, "just grow me" (_wachs mich einmal_) for "just see how i have grown" (sieh einmal wie ich gewachsen bin) (lindner). such creations of the childish faculty of combination, arising partly through blending, partly through transference, are collected in a neat pamphlet, "zur philosophie der kindersprache," by agathon keber, 1868. the most of them, however, are from a later time of life than that here treated of. so it is with the two "heretical" utterances communicated by rösch. a child said _unterblatte_ (under-leaf) for "oblate," because he saw the wafer (oblate) slipped under the leaf of paper (blatt); and he called the "american chair," "herr-decaner-chair," because somebody who was called "herr decan" used to sit in it. here may be seen the endeavor to put into the acoustic impression not understood a meaning. these expressions are not inventions, but they are evidence of intellect. they can not, of course, appear in younger children without knowledge of words, because they are transformations of words. on the other hand it is of the greatest importance for the understanding of the first stage of the use of words in their real significance, after the acquirement of them has once begun, to observe how many different ideas the child announces by one and the same verbal expression. here are some examples: _tuhl_ (for stuhl, chair) signifies--1. "my chair is gone"; 2. "the chair is broken"; 3. "i want to be lifted into the chair"; 4. "here is a chair." the child (steinthal's) says (in the twenty-second month), when he sees or hears a barking dog, _bellt_ (barks), and thinks he has by that word designated the whole complex phenomenon, the sight-perception of the dog and of a particular dog, and the sound-perception; but he says _bellt_ also when he merely hears the dog. no doubt the memory-image of the dog he has seen is then revived for him. through this manifold significance of a word, which is a substitute for a whole sentence, is exhibited a much higher activity of the intellect than appears in the mutilation and new formation of words having but one meaning to designate a sense-impression, for, although in the latter is manifested the union of impressions into perceptions and also of qualities into concepts, wherein an unconscious judgment is involved, yet a _clear_ judgment is not necessarily connected with them. the union of concepts into conscious clear judgments is recognized rather in the formation of a sentence, no matter whether this is expressed by one word or by several words. in connection with this an error must be corrected that is wide-spread. it consists in the assumption that all children begin to speak with nouns, and that these are followed by verbs. this is by no means the case. the child daily observed by me used an adjective for the first time in the twenty-third month in order to express a judgment, the first one expressed in the language of those about him. he said "hot" for "the milk is too hot." in general, the appropriation and employment of words for the first formation of sentences depends, in the first instance, upon the action of the adults in the company of the child. a good example of this is furnished by an observation of lindner, whose daughter in her fourteenth month first begged with her hands for a piece of apple, upon which the word "apple" was distinctly pronounced to her. after she had eaten the apple she repeated the request, re-enforcing her gesture this time by the imitated sound _appn_, and her request was again granted. evidently encouraged by her success, the child from that time on used _appn_ for "eat, i want to eat," as a sign of her desire to eat in general, because those about her "accepted this signification and took the word stamped by her upon this concept for current coin, else it would very likely have been lost." this also confirms my statement (p. 85) that a child easily learns to speak with logical correctness with wrong words. he also speaks like the deaf-mute with logical correctness with quite a different arrangement of words from that of his speech of a later period. thus the child just mentioned, in whom "the inclination to form sentences was manifest from the twenty-second month," said, "hat die olga getrinkt," when she had drunk! but every child learns at first not only the language of those in whose immediate daily companionship he grows up, but also at first the peculiarities of these persons. he imitates the accent, intonation, dialect, as well as the word, so that a thuringian child may be surely distinguished from a mecklenburg child even in the second and third year, and, at the same time, we may recognize the peculiarities of the speech of its mother or nurse, with whom it has most intercourse. this phenomenon, the persistence of dialects and of peculiarities of speech in single families, gives the impression, on a superficial observation, of being something inherited; whereas, in fact, nothing is inherited beyond the voice through inheritance of the organic peculiarities of the mechanism of phonation. for everything else completely disappears when a child learns to speak from his birth in a foreign community. hereditary we may, indeed, call the characteristic of humanity, speech; hereditary, also, is articulation in man, and the faculty of acquiring any articulate language is innate. but beyond this the tribal influence does not reach. if the possibility of learning to speak words phonetically is wanting because ear or tongue refuses, then another language comes in as a substitute--that of looks, gestures, writing, tactile images--then not broca's center, but another one is generated. so that the question whether a speech-center already exists in the alalic child must be answered in the negative; the center is formed only when the child hears speech, and, if he does not hear speech, no center is developed. in this case the ganglionic cells of the posterior third of the third frontal convolution are otherwise employed, or they suffer atrophy. in learning to speak, on the contrary, there is a continuous development, first of the sound-center, then of the syllable-center, then of the word-center and the dictorium. the brain grows through its own activity. chapter xviii. first sounds and beginnings of speech in the case of a child observed daily during his first three years. the observations bearing upon the acquirement of speech recorded by me in the case of my boy from the day of his birth, the 23d of november, 1877, are here presented, so far as they appear worthy of being communicated, in chronological order. they are intended to serve as authenticated documents. the points to which the attention is to be directed in these observations are determined by the organic conditions of the acquirement of speech, which have been treated previously. first, the expressive processes, next the impressive, last the central processes, claim the attention. (1) to the _expressive_ beginnings of speech belongs the sum total of the inarticulate sounds--crying, whimpering, grunting, cooing, squealing, crowing, laughing, shouting (for joy), modulation of the voice, smacking, and many others, but also the silent movement of the tongue; further, articulation, especially before imitation begins; the formation of sound, and so the gradual perfecting of the vowels, aspirates, and consonants; at the same time the forming of syllables. the last is especially easy to follow in the babbling monologues of the infant, which are often very long. the reduplication of syllables, accentuation, and inflection, whispering, singing, etc., belong likewise here. (2) the _impressive_ processes are discerned in the looks and gestures of the child as yet speechless; later, the ability to discriminate in regard to words and noises, and the connection of the ear with the speech-center, are discerned in the first imitations of sounds and in the repeating after others--i. e., in word-imitation. here belong also the onomatopoetic attempts of children, which are simply a sort of imitation. later, are added to these the answers to simple spoken questions, these answers being partly interjectional, partly articulate, joined into syllables, words, and then sentences. the understanding of words heard is announced especially by the first listening, by the association of certain movements with certain sound-impressions, and of motionless objects with other sound-impressions, before speaking begins. hereby (3) the _central_ processes are already shown to be in existence. the childish logic, especially induction from too few particulars, the mutilation of words reproduced, the wrong applications of expressions correctly repeated, the confounding of opposites in the verbal designation of concepts of the child's own formation, offer an abundance of noteworthy facts for the genesis of mind. moreover, the memory for sounds and words, the imagination, especially in filling out, as well as the first acts of judging, the forming of propositions, questioning--all these are to be considered. as for the order in which the separate classes of words appear, the training in learning-by-heart, speculations as to which spoken word is first perfectly understood, to these matters i have paid less attention, for the reason that here the differences in the child's surroundings exert the greatest influence. my report must, in any event, as a rough draft of the history of the development of language in the child, be very imperfect. it, however, contains nothing but perfectly trustworthy matter of my own observation. during the first weeks the child often cried long and vigorously from discomfort. if one were to try to represent by written vowels the screaming sounds, these would most nearly resemble, in the majority of cases, a short _u_ (oo in book), with a very quickly following prolonged _ä_ (_ai_ in fair); thus, _uä_, _uä_, _uä_, _uä_, were the first sounds that may be approximately expressed. they were uttered after the lapse of five months exactly as at the beginning, only more vigorously. all the other vowel-sounds were at first undefined. notwithstanding this uniformity in the vowel-sounds, the sounds of the voice are so varied, even within the first five weeks, that it may be told with certainty from these alone whether the child feels hunger or pain or pleasure. screaming with the eyes firmly closed in hunger, whimpering in slight indisposition, laughing at bright objects in motion, the peculiar grunting sounds which at a later period are joined with abdominal pressure and with lively arm-movements, as the announcement of completed digestion and of wetness (retained for the first of these states even into the seventeenth month), are manifold acoustic expressions of vitality, and are to be looked upon as the first forerunners of future oral communication, in contrast with the loud-sounding reflex movements of sneezing and of hiccough, and with the infrequent snoring, snuffling (in sucking), and other loud expirations observed in the first days, which have just as little linguistic value as have coughing and the later clearing of the throat. the voice is very powerful as early as the sixth day, especially when it announces feelings of discomfort. screaming is much more frequent, persistent, and vigorous also when diluted cow's milk is given instead of that from the breast. if one occupies himself longer than usual with the infant (in the first two months), the child is afterward more inclined to cry, and cries then (as in the case of hunger) quite differently from what he does when giving notice of something unpleasant--e. g., wetness. directly upon his being made dry, the crying ceases, as now a certain contentment is attained. on the other hand, the inclination to cry serves very early (certainly from the tenth week on) as a sign of well-being (or increase in the growth of the muscles). at least a prolonged silence at this season is wont to be connected with slight ailment. but it is to be remarked that during the whole period no serious illness, lasting more than one day, occurred. on the forty-third day i heard the _first consonant_. the child, in a most comfortable posture, uttering all sorts of obscure sounds, said once distinctly _am-ma_. of vowels, _ao_ was likewise heard on that day. but, on the following day, the child surprised me and others by the syllables, spoken with perfect distinctness, _ta-hu_. on the forty-sixth day, in the otherwise unintelligible babble of the infant, i heard, once each, _gö_ (_ö_ nearly like _i_ in bird), _örö_, and, five days later, _ara_. in the eighth and ninth _weeks_, the two utterances, _örrö_, _arra_, became frequent, the _ö_ and _a_ being pure and the _r_ uvular. the syllable _ma_ i heard by itself (it was during his crying) for the first time on the sixty-fourth day. but on the following day was sounded, during persistent, loud crying, often and distinctly (it returned in like manner months after), _nei_, _nei_, _nei_, and once, during his babbling, _a-omb_. on the day after, distinctly, once each, _la_, _grei_, _aho_, and, besides, _ma_ again. on the sixty-ninth day, the child, when hungry, uttered repeatedly and very distinctly, _mömm_ and _ngö_. of the syllables earlier spoken, only _örrö_ is distinctly repeated in the tenth week. on the seventy-first day, the child being in the most comfortable condition, there comes the new combination, _ra-a-ao_, and, five days later, in a hungry and uncomfortable mood, _nä_, and then _n[=a]i-n_. the manifest sign of contentment was very distinct (on the seventy-eighth day): _habu_, and likewise in the twelfth week _a-i_ and _u[=a]o_, as well as _ä-o-a_, alternating with _ä-a-a_, and _o-ä-ö_. it now became more and more difficult to represent by letters the sounds, already more varied, and even to distinguish the vowels and repeat them accurately. the child cries a good deal, as if to exercise his respiratory muscles. to the sounds uttered while the child is lying comfortably are added in the fourteenth week _ntö_, _ha_. the last was given with an unusually loud cry, with distinct aspiration of the _h_, though with no indication that the child felt any particular pleasure. at this period i heard besides repeatedly _lö_, _na_, the latter along with screaming at disagreeable impressions more and more frequently and distinctly; in the fifteenth week, _nannana_, _n[=a]-n[=a]_, _nanna_ in refusal. on the other hand, the earlier favorite _örrö_ has not been heard at all for some weeks. screaming while waiting for his food to be prepared (milk and water) or for the nurse, who had not sufficient nourishment for the child, is marked, in the sixteenth week--as is also screaming on account of unpleasant feelings--in general by predominance of the vowels, _ä-[)u]_, _ä-[)u] ä_, _[=a]-[)u]_, _[=a]-[)u]_, _[)u]-ä_, _[)u]-ä_, _[=u]-[=u]-[=a]-ö_, but meantime is heard _amme-a_, and as a sign of special discomfort the persistent ill-sounding _[=u][)a]-[=u][)a]-[=u][)a]-[=u][)a]_ (_[)u]_ = eng. _[=oo]_). screaming in the first five months expresses itself in the main by the vowels _u_, _ä_, _ö_, _a_, with _ü_ and _o_ occurring more seldom, and without other consonants, for the most part, than _m_. in the fifth month no new consonants were developed except _k_; but a merely passive _gö_, _kö_, _aggegg[)e]kö_, the last more rarely than the first, was heard with perfect distinctness during the child's yawning. while in this case the _g_-sound originates passively, it was produced, in connection with _ö_, evidently by the position of the tongue, when the child was in a contented frame, as happens in nursing; _ögö_ was heard in the twenty-second week, as well as _ma-ö-[)e]_, _h[)a]_, _[=a]_, _ho-ich_. the _i_ here appeared more distinct than in the third month. the soft _ch_, which sounded like the _g_ in "honig," was likewise quite distinct. about this time began the amusing loud "crowing" of the child, an unmistakable expression of pleasure. the strong aspirate sound _ha_, and this sound united with the labial _r_ in _brrr-há_; corresponding in force to the voice, which had become exceptionally powerful, must likewise be regarded as expressions of pleasure. so with the sounds _aja_, _örrgö_, _[=a]-[=a]-i-[)o]-[=a]_, which the child toward the end of the first half-year utters as if for his own gratification as he lies in comfort. with these belongs also the frequently repeated "eu" of the french "heure," and the "oeu" of the french "coeur," which is not found in the german language, also the primitive sounds _ä_ and _ö_ (german). the lips contract very regularly, and are protruded equally in the transition from _ä_ to _ö_. i heard also _ijä_ cried out by the child in very gay mood. in the babbling and crowing continued often for a long time without interruption, consonants are seldom uttered, pure vowels, with the exception of _a_, less often than _ä_ and _ö_; _i_ and _u_ are especially rare. when the child lies on his back, he moves his arms and legs in a lively manner even without any external provocation. he contracts and expands all the muscles he can command, among these especially the muscles of the larynx, of the tongue, and of the aperture of the mouth. in the various movements of the tongue made at random it often happens that the mouth is partly or entirely closed. then the current of air that issues forth in breathing bursts the barrier and thus arise many sounds, among them some that do not exist in the german language, e. g., frequently and distinctly, by means of labio-lingual stoppage, a consonant-sound between _p_ and _t_ or between _b_ and _d_, in the production of which the child takes pleasure, as he does also in the labial _brr_ and _m_. by far the greater part of the consonant-sounds produced by the exercises of the tongue and lips can not be represented in print; just as the more prolonged and more manifold movements of the extremities, movements made by the child when he has eaten his fill, and is not sleepy and is left to himself, can not be drawn or described. it is noteworthy that all the utterances of sound are expiratory. i have not once observed an attempt to form sounds while drawing in the breath. in the seventh month the child at one time screamed piercingly, in very high tones, from pain. when hungry and desiring milk, he said with perfect distinctness, _mä_, _ä_, _[)u]ä_, _[)u]ä[)e]_; when contented he would say _örrö_ too, as at an earlier period. the screaming was sometimes kept up with great vigor until the child began to be hoarse, in case his desire, e. g., to leave his bed, was not granted. when the child screams with hunger, he draws the tongue back, shortens it and thereby broadens it, making loud expirations with longer or shorter intervals. in pain, on the other hand, the screaming is uninterrupted and the tones are higher than in any other screaming. during the screaming i heard the rare _l_ distinctly in the syllable _lä_. the vowels _[)u]-[=a]-[)u]-i-i_ also appeared distinctly, all as if coming by accident, and not often pure. the _t_ also was seldom heard; _f_, _s_, _sch_, _st_, _sp_, _sm_, _ts_, _ks_, _w_, not once yet; on the other hand, _b_, _d_, _m_, _n_, _r_, often; _g_, _h_, more seldom; _k_, only in yawning; _p_, but very rarely, both in screaming and in the child's babble to himself or in response to friendly address. in the eighth month the screaming sounds were for the most part different from what they had been; the disagreeable screaming no longer so intense and prolonged, from the time that the food of the child consisted exclusively of pap (kindermehl) and water. single vowels, like _u_ and _ä_, are very often not to be heard pure. often the child does not move the lips at all when with mouth shut he lifts and drops the larynx, and with eager desire for the pap howls; or coos like a dove, or grunts. the prattling monologues become longer when the child is alone, lying comfortably in bed. but definite consonants can only with difficulty be distinguished in them, with the exception of _r_ in the _örrö_, which still continues to be uttered, though rarely and unintentionally. once the child, while in the bath, cried out as if yawning, _h[=a]-upp_, and frequently, when merry, _a-[(ei]_, _a-[(au]_, _[)a]-h[(au]-[)a]_, _hörrö_. when he babbles contentedly in this manner, he moves the tongue quickly, both symmetrically, e. g., raising the edges equally, and asymmetrically, thrusting it forward to right or left. he often also puts out the tongue between the lips and draws it back during expiration, producing thereby the before-mentioned labio-lingual explosive sounds. i also heard _nt[)e]-ö_, _mi-ja_, _mija_ (_j_ like eng. _y_) and once distinctly _o[)u][=a][)e]i_. in the ninth month it is still difficult to recognize definite syllables among the more varied utterances of sound. but the voice, often indeed very loud and inarticulate, is already more surely modulated as the expression of psychical states. when the child, e. g., desires a new, especially a bright object, he not only stretches both arms in the direction of it, indicating the direction by his gaze, but also makes known, by the same sound he makes before taking his food, that he wants it. this complex combination of movements of eye, larynx, tongue, lips, and arm-muscles appears now more and more; and we can recognize in his screaming the desire for a change of position, discomfort (arising from wet, heat, cold), anger, and pain. the last is announced by screaming with the mouth in the form of a square and by higher pitch. but delight at a friendly expression of face also expresses itself by high crowing sounds, only these are not so high and are not continued long. violent stretchings of arms and legs accompany (in the thirty-fourth week first) the joyous utterance. coughing, almost a clearing of the throat, is very rare. articulate utterances of pleasure, e. g., at music, are _mä-mä_, _äm-mä_, _mä_. meantime the lip-movements of the _m_ were made without the utterance of sound, as if the child had perceived the difference. other expressions of sound without assignable cause are _[=a]-au [=a]-[=a]_, _[=a]-[)o]_, _a-u-au_, _na-na_, the latter not with the tone of denial as formerly, and often repeated rapidly in succession. as separate utterances in comfortable mood, besides _örrö_ came _apa_, _ga au-[)a]_, _acha_. the tenth month is marked by the increasing distinctness of the syllables in the monologues, which are more varied, louder, and more prolonged when the child is left to himself than when any one tries to entertain him. of new syllables are to be noted _ndä[)e]_, _b[=a]ë-b[=a]ë_, _ba ell_, _arrö_. from the forty-second week on, especially the syllables _mä_ and _pappa_, _tatta_, _appapa_, _babba_, _tätä_, _pa_, are frequently uttered, and the uvular _rrrr_, _rrra_, are repeated unweariedly. the attempts to make the child repeat syllables pronounced to him, even such syllables as he has before spoken of his own accord, all fail. in place of _tatta_ he says, in the most favorable instance, _tä_ or _ata_; but even here there is progress, for in the previous month even these hints at _imitating_ or even responding to sound were almost entirely lacking. in the eleventh month some syllables emphatically pronounced to the child were for the first time correctly repeated. i said "ada" several times, and the attentive child, after some ineffectual movements of the lips, repeated correctly _ada_, which he had for that matter often said of his own accord long before. but this single repetition was so decided that i was convinced that the _sound-imitation_ was intentional. it was the first _unquestionable_ sound-imitation. it took place on the three hundred and twenty-ninth day. the same day when i said "mamma," the response was _nanna_. in general, it often happens, when something is said for imitation, and the child observes attentively my lips, that evident attempts are made at imitation; but for the most part something different makes its appearance, or else a silent movement of the lips. in the forty-fifth week everything said to the child, in case it received his attention, was responded to with movements of lips and tongue, which gave the impression of being made at random and of serving rather for diversion. further, at this period the child begins during his long monologues to _whisper_. he produces sounds in abundance, varying in force, pitch, and _timbre_, as if he were speaking an unknown tongue; and some single syllables may gradually be more easily distinguished, although the corresponding positions of the mouth pass into one another, sometimes quite gradually, sometimes rapidly. the following special cases i was able to establish by means of numerous observations: in crying _rrra_, there is a vibration on both sides of the edges of the tongue, which is bent to a half-cylinder with the ridge upward. in this way the child produces three kinds of _r_-sounds--the labial, the uvular, and this bilateral-lingual. new syllables of this period are _ta-h[(ee]_, _dann-tee_, _[(aa]-n[(ee]_, _ngä_, _tai_, _bä_, _dall_, _at-tall_, _kamm_, _akkee_, _praï-jer_, _tra_, _[=a]-h[(ee]_. among them _tra_ and _pra_ are noteworthy as the first combination of _t_ and _p_ with _r_. the surprising combinations _attall_ and _akkee_ and _praijer_, which made their appearance singly without any occasion that could be noticed, like others, are probably the first attempts to reproduce the child's own name (axel preyer) from memory. of earlier sounds, syllables, and combinations of these, the following are especially frequent: _mammam_, _apapa_, _örrö_, _papa_, _tata_, _tatta_, _n[(aa]_, _rrra_, _pata_, _mmm_, _n[)a]_, _[=a]_, _ä_, _[(au]_, _anna_, _attapa_, _dadada_, _ja_, _ja-ja_, _eja_, _jaë_. the last syllables are distinguished by the distinct _e_, which is now more frequent. all the pains taken to represent a babbling monologue perfectly by letters were fruitless, because these distinct and oft-repeated syllables alternated with indistinct loud and soft ones. still, on the whole, of the consonants the most frequent at this period are _b_, _p_, _t_, _d_, _m_, _n_, and the new _r_; _l_, _g_, _k_, not rare. of vowels the _a_ has a decided preponderance. both _u_ and _o_ are rare; _i_ very rare. yet a vowel is not repeated, either by itself or in a syllable, more than five times in succession without an interval. commonly it is twice or three times. i have also noticed that the mechanical repetition of the same syllable, e. g., _papapa_, occurs far more often than the alternation of a distinctly spoken syllable with, another distinctly spoken one, like _pata_. in the mean time it is certain that the child during his various movements of lips and tongue, along with contraction and expansion of the opening of the mouth, readily starts with surprise when he notices such a change of acoustic effect. it seems as if he were himself taking pleasure in practicing regularly all sorts of symmetrical and asymmetrical positions of the mouth, sometimes in silence, sometimes with loud voice, then again with soft voice. in the combinations of syllables, moreover, palpable accentuation somewhat like this, _appápapa atátata_, is by no means frequent. the surprisingly often repeated _dadada_ has generally no accent. with regard to the question whether in this period, especially important for the development of the apparatus of speech, any articulate utterance of sound stands in firm association with an idea, i have observed the child under the most varied circumstances possible without disturbing him; but i have ascertained only one such case with certainty. the _atta_, _hödda_, _hatta_, _hataï_, showed itself to be associated with the perception that something disappeared, for it was uttered when some one left the room, when the light was extinguished, and the like; also, to be sure, sometimes when such remarkable changes were not discoverable. thus, the eleventh month ends without any other indubitable firm _association of articulation and idea_. in the next four weeks, up to the _end of the first year_ of life, there was no progress in this respect to record; but, from this time on, an eager desire--e. g., for a biscuit seen, but out of reach--was regularly announced by _ä-na_, _ä-nananana_, uttered loudly and with an expression of indescribable longing. the attempts at imitation, too, are somewhat more successful, especially the attention is more strained. when, e. g., in the fifty-first week, i sang something for the child, he gazed fixedly more than a minute, with immovable countenance, without winking, at my mouth, and then moved his own tongue. correct repetition of a syllable pronounced to him is, however, very rare. when i laugh, and the child observes it, he laughs likewise, and then crows, with strong abdominal pressure. this same loud expression of joy is exhibited when the child unexpectedly sees his parents at a distance. this peculiar pressure, with strong expiration, is in general associated with feelings of pleasure. the child almost seems to delight in the discovery of his own abdominal pressure, when he produces by means of it the very high crowing sounds with the vowel _i_ or a genuine grunt. of articulate sounds, syllables, and combinations, made without suggestion from others in the twelfth month, i have caught the following particularly with accuracy: _haja_, _jajajajaja_, _aja_, _njaja_, _naïn-hopp_, _ha-a_, _pa-a_, _d[=e]wär_, _han-na_, _mömma_, _allda_, _alldaï_, _apa-u-a_, _gägä_, _ka_, _ladn_. besides, the earlier _atta_ variously modified; no longer _dada_. more important than such almost meaningless sound-formations, among which, by the way, appears for the first time _w_ is the now awakened _ability to discriminate between words heard_. the child turns around when his name is spoken in a loud voice; he does this, it is true, at other loud sounds also, but then with a different expression. when he hears a new tone, a new noise, he is surprised, opens his eyes wide, and holds his mouth open, without moving. by frequent repetition of the words, "give the hand," with the holding out of the hand, i have brought the child, in the fifty-second week, to the point of obeying this command of himself--a sure proof that he distinguishes words heard. another child did the same thing in the seventh month. in this we can not fail to see the beginning of communication by means of ordinary language, but this remained a one-sided affair till past the third half-year, the child being simply receptive. during this whole period, moreover, from birth on, special sounds, particularly "sch (eng., _sh_), ss, st, pst," just the ones not produced by the child, had a remarkable effect of a quieting character. if the child heard them when he was screaming, he became quiet, as when he heard singing or instrumental music. in the _first weeks of the second year of life_, the child behaves just as awkwardly as ever in regard to saying anything that is said to him, but his attention has become more lively. when anything is said to him for him to say--e. g., _papa_, _mama_, _atta_, _tatta_--he looks at the speaker with eyes wide open and mouth half open, moves the tongue and the lips, often very slightly, often vigorously, but can not at the same time make his voice heard, or else he says, frequently with an effort of abdominal pressure, _attaï_. earlier, even in the forty-fifth week, he had behaved in much the same way, but to the word "papa," pronounced to him, he had responded _rrra_. once only, i remember, _papa_ was repeated correctly, in a faint tone, on the three hundred and sixty-ninth day, almost as by one in a dream. with this exception, no word could be repeated on command, notwithstanding the fact that the faculty of imitation was already active in another department. the syllables most frequently uttered at this stage were _nja_, _njan_, _dada_, _atta_, _mama_, _papaï_, _attaï_, _na-na-na_, _hatta_, _meen[)e]-meen[)e]-meen[)e]_, _mömm_, _mömma_, _ao-u_. of these syllables, _na-na_ regularly denotes a desire, and the arms are stretched out in connection with it; _mama_ is referred to the mother perhaps in the fifty-fourth week, on account of the pleasure she shows at the utterance of these syllables, but they are also repeated mechanically without any reference to her; _atta_ is uttered now and then at going away, but at other times also. his joy--e. g., at recognizing his mother at a distance--the child expresses by crowing sounds, which have become stronger and higher than they were, but which, can not be clearly designated; the nearest approach to a representation of them is _[)a]hij[)a]_. affirmation and negation may already be recognized by the tone of voice alone. the signification of the cooing and the grunting sounds remains the same. the former indicates desire of food; the latter the need of relieving the bowels. as if to exercise the vocal cords, extraordinarily high tones are now produced, which may be regarded as signs of pleasure in his own power. an imperfect language has thus already been formed imperceptibly, although no single object is as yet designated by a sound assigned to it _alone_. the articulation has made progress, for on the three hundred and sixty-eighth day appeared the first distinct _s_, in the syllable _ssi_; quite incidentally, to be sure. the most important advance consists in the now awakened _understanding of spoken words_. the ability to learn, or the capability of being trained, has emerged almost as if it had come in a night. for it did not require frequent repetition of the question, "how tall is the child?" along with holding up his arms, in order to make him execute this movement every time that he heard the words, "wie gross?" ("how tall?") or "ooss," nay, even merely "oo." it was easy, too, to induce him to take an ivory ring, lying before him attached to a thread, into his hand, and reach it to me prettily when i held out my hand and said, "where is the ring?" and, after it had been grasped, said, "give." in the same way, the child holds the biscuit, which he is carrying to his mouth, to the lips of the person who says pleasantly to him, "give"; and he has learned to move his head sidewise hither and thither when he hears "no, no." if we say to him, when he wants food or an object he has seen, "bitte, bitte" (say "please"), he puts his hands together in a begging attitude, a thing which seemed at first somewhat hard for him to learn. finally, he had at this time been taught to respond to the question, "where is the little rogue?" by touching the side of his head with his hand (a movement he had often made of himself before). from this it appears beyond a doubt that now (rather late in comparison with other children) the association of words heard with certain movements is established, inasmuch as upon acoustic impressions--at least upon combined impressions of hearing and of sight, which are repeated in like fashion--like movements follow, and indeed follow invariably with the expression of great satisfaction on the countenance. yet this connection between the sensorium and the motorium is not yet stable, for there follows not seldom upon a command distinctly uttered, and without doubt correctly understood, the wrong movement--paramimy. upon the question, "how tall?" the hands are put together for "please," and the like. once when i said, "how tall?" the child raised his arms a moment, then struck himself on the temples, and thereupon put his hands together, as if "rogue," and then "please," had been said to him. all three movements followed with the utmost swiftness, while the expression of face was that of a person confused, with wavering look. evidently the child had _forgotten_ which movement belonged with the "tall," and performed all the three tricks he had learned, _confounding_ them one with another. this confounding of arm-raising, head-shaking, giving of the ring, putting the hands together, touching the head, is frequent. it is also to be noticed that some one of these five tricks is almost invariably performed by the child when some new command is given to him that he does not understand, as he perceives that something is required of him--the first conscious act of _obedience_, as yet imperfect. in the fourteenth month there was no great increase in the number of independent utterances of sound that can be represented by syllables of the german language. surprising visual impressions, like the brilliant christmas-tree, and the observation of new objects, drew from the pleasurably excited child, without his having touched anything, almost the same sounds that he at other times made when in discontented mood, _[)u]ä_, _m[)u]ä_, only softer; _mömö_ and _mama_, and also _papa_ are frequent expressions of pleasure. when the child is taken away, he often says _ta-ta_ loudly, also, _atta_ in a whisper. there can no longer be a doubt that in these syllables is now expressed simply the idea of "going." the labial _brrr_, the so-called "coachman's _r_," was practiced by the child, of his own accord, with special eagerness, and indeed was soon pronounced so cleverly that educated adults can not produce it in such purity and especially with so prolonged an utterance. the only new word is _dakku_ and _daggn_, which is often uttered pleasantly with astonishing rapidity, in moments of enjoyment, e. g., when the child is eating food that tastes good. but it is also uttered so often without any assignable occasion, that a definite meaning can hardly be attributed to it, unless it be that of satisfaction. for it is never heard when the least thing of a disagreeable sort has happened to the child. the probability is obvious that we have here a case of imitation of the "thanks" (danke) which he has not seldom heard. but the modifications _taggn_, _attagn_, _attatn_, pass over into the word, undoubtedly the original favorite, _taï_, _ataï_. among all the indistinct and distinct sounds of the babbling monologues, no inspiratory ones appeared at this time either; but such did make their appearance now and then, in a passive manner, in swallowing and in the coughing that followed. i spent much time in trying to get the child to repeat vowels and syllables pronounced to him, but always without special success. when i said plainly to him "pá-pá-pá," he answered loudly _ta-taï_, or with manifest effort and a vigorous straining, _t-taï_, _k-taï_, _at-taï_, _hattaï_, and the same when "má-má" was said for him by any one, no matter whom. he also moved lips and tongue often, as if trying to get the sound in various ways; as if the _will_ of the child, as he attentively observed the mouth of the speaker, were present, but not the ability to reproduce the sound-impression. evidently he is taking pains to repeat what he has heard; and he laughs at the unsuccessful effort, if others laugh over it. the earliest success is with the repetition of the vowels "a-u-o," but this is irregular and inaccurate. in contrast with these halting performances stands the precise, _parrot-like repetition_ of such syllables as the child had uttered of his own accord, and which i had immediately after pronounced to him. thus _attaï_, _taï_, _atta_, were often easily and correctly repeated, but, strangely enough, frequently in a whisper. the _ä-[)e]_, _ä-ö_, _ä-[)e]_, accompanied by oscillatory movements of the hand, when imitated directly by me was also produced again; in like manner, regularly, the _dakkn_, but this course did not succeed in the case of other primitive syllables or words, even under the most favorable circumstances: here it is to be borne in mind that the last-named utterances were precisely the most frequent at this period. when he was requested with emphasis to say _papa_, _mama_, _tata_, he would bring out one of the tricks he had been taught in the previous month; among others, that of moving the head to one side and the other as if in negation; but this it could not be, for this significance of the gesture was wholly unknown to him at that time. rather had the child received the impression from my voice that he was to do something that he was bidden, and he did what was easy to him just at the moment, "mechanically," without knowing which of the movements that he had learned was required (cf. p. 116). in regard to the _understanding of words heard_, several points of progress are to be noted; above all a change of place in consequence of the question, "where is your clothes-press?" the child, standing erect, being held by the hand, at these words turns his head and his gaze toward the clothes-press, draws the person holding him through the large room by the hand, although he can not walk a step alone, and then opens the press without assistance. here, at the beginning of the fourteenth month, is the _idea of a definite stationary object associated with a sound heard_, and so strongly that it is able to produce an independent act of locomotion, the first one; for, although before this the clothes-press had often been named and shown, the going to it is still the child's own performance. it is now a matter of common occurrence that other words heard have also a definite relation to objects seen. the questions, "where is papa? mamma? the light?" are invariably answered correctly, after brief deliberation, by turning the head (at the word "light," occasionally since the ninth month) and the gaze in the proper direction, and by lifting the right arm, often also the left, to point, the fingers of the outstretched hand being at the same time generally spread out. in the previous month, only the association of the word _mama_ with the appearance of the mother was established. the following are now added to the movements executed upon hearing certain words. the child likes to beat with his hands upon the table at which he is sitting. i said to him, "play the piano," and made the movement after him. afterward, when i merely said the word "piano" to the child (who was at the time quiet), without moving my hands, he _considered_ for a few seconds, and then beat again with his hands on the table. thus the recollection of the sound was sufficient to bring out the movement. further, the child had accustomed himself, of his own accord, to give a regular _snort_, contracting the nostrils, pursing up the mouth, and breathing out through the nose. if now any one spoke to him of the "nose," this snorting was sure to be made. the word put the centro-motors into a state of excitement. the same is true of the command "give!" since the child reaches out the object he is holding or is about to take hold of, in case any one puts out the hand or the lips to him. some weeks ago this took place only with the ring and biscuit; now the word "give" has the same effect with any object capable of being grasped, but it operates almost like a reflex stimulus, "mechanically," without its being even once the case that the act of giving is a purely voluntary act or even occasioned by sympathy. in these already learned co-ordinated movements made upon hearing the words "please, how tall? rogue! no! piano! ring! give!" all of which are now executed with shorter intervals of deliberation as if by a well-trained animal, there is in general absolutely no deeper understanding present than that to this and the other sound-impression belong this and the other movement. by means of daily repetition of both, the time required for the production of the movement after the excitement of the auditory nerve becomes less and less, the doubt as to which movement follows this or that sound withdrawing more and more. at last the responsive movements followed without any remarkable strain of attention. they became habitual. now and then, however, the movements are still confounded. upon "no! no!" follows the touching of the head; upon "please," the shaking of the head; upon "rogue," the putting of the hands together, etc. these errors become frequent when a new impression diverts the attention. they become more and more rare through repetition of the right movements made for the child to see and through guiding the limbs of the child. a further evidence of the increased ability to learn toward the end of the month is the fact that the hands are raised in the attitude of begging not only at the command "please," but also at the question, "how does the good child behave?" thus, the experience is beginning to become a conscious one that, in order to obtain anything, the begging attitude is useful. the fifteenth month brought no new definite independent utterances of sound with the exception of _wa_. sensations and emotions, however, are indicated more and more definitely and variously by sounds that are inarticulate and sometimes unintelligible. thus, astonishment is expressed by _h[=a]-[=a] [)e][=a]-[)e]_; joy by vigorous crowing in very high tones and more prolonged than before; further, very strong desire by repeated _häö_, _hä-[)e]_; pain, impatience, by screaming in vowels which pass over into one another. the only word that is unquestionably used of the child's own motion to indicate a class of perceptions is still _atta_, _ha-atta_, which during the following month also is uttered softly, for the most part, on going out, and which signifies "away" or "gone" (weg), and still continues to be used also as it was in the eleventh month, when a light is dimmed (by a lamp-shade). beyond this no syllable can be named that marked the dawn of mental independence, none that testified to the voluntary use of articulate sounds for the purpose of announcing perceptions. for the _brrr_, the frequent _dakkn_, _mamam_, _mömö_, and _papap_, are without significance in the monologues. even the saying of _atta_, with turning of the head toward the person going away, has acquired the meaning of "away" (fort) only through being repeatedly said to the child upon his being carried out; but no one said the word when the lamp was extinguished. here has been in existence for some time not only the formation of the concept, but also the designation of the concept by syllables. the similarity in the very different phenomena of going away and of the dimming of the light, viz., the disappearance of a visual impression, was not only discovered, but was named by the child entirely independently in the eleventh month, and has kept its name up to the present time. he has many impressions; he perceives, he unites qualities to make concepts. this he has been doing for a long time without words; but only in this _one_ instance does the child express one of his concepts in language after a particular instance had been thus named for him, and then the word he uses is one not belonging to his later language, but one that belongs to all children the world over. in regard to the repeating of syllables pronounced to him a marked advance is noticeable. the child can not, indeed, by any means repeat _na_ and _pa_ and _o_ or _e_ and _be_. he answers _a_, _taï_, _ta-a-o-ö-a_, and practices all sorts of tongue-and lip-exercises. but the other syllables uttered by him, especially _anna_, _taï_, _dakkn_, _a_, he says in response to any one who speaks them distinctly to him, and he gives them easily and correctly in parrot fashion. if a new word is said to him, e. g., "kalt" (cold), which he can not repeat, he becomes vexed, turns away his head, and screams, too, sometimes. i have been able to introduce into his vocabulary only one new word. in the sixty-third week he seized a biscuit that had been dipped in hot water, let it fall, drew down the corners of his mouth, and began to cry. then i said "heiss" (hot), whereupon the child, speedily quieted, repeated _haï_ and _haï-s_ (with a just discernible _s_). three days later the same experiment was made. after this the _haïs_, _haïsses_, with distinct _s_, was often heard without any occasion. some days later i wanted him to say "hand." the child observed my mouth closely, took manifest pains, but produced only _ha-ïss_, then very distinctly _hass_ with sharp _ss_, and _ha-ith_, _hadith_, with the english _th_; at another time distinctly _ha-its_. thus, at a time when _ts_ = _z_ can not be repeated, there exists the possibility of pronouncing _z_. when i said to him "warm," _ass_ was pronounced with an effort and distinctly, although the syllable _wa_ belonged to the child's stock of words. this was evidently a recollection of the previous attempts to repeat "heiss" and "hand." corresponding to this inability to say words after another's utterance of them is an articulation as yet very imperfect. still, there is indication of progress in the distinctness of the _s_, the frequent english _th_ with the thrusting out of the tip of the tongue between the incisors, the _w_, which now first appears often, as well as in the _smacking_ first heard in the sixty-fifth week (in contented mood). the tongue is, when the child is awake, more than other muscles that in the adult are subject to cerebral volition, almost always in motion even when the child is silent. it is in various ways partly contracted, extended, bent. the lateral bending of the edges of the tongue downward and the turning back of the tip of the tongue (from left to right) so that the lower surface lies upward, are not easily imitated by adults. the mobility of my child's tongue is at any rate much greater than that of my tongue, notwithstanding the fact that, in consequence of varied practice from an early period in rapid speaking, the most difficult performances in rapid speaking are still easily executed by mine. the tongue is unquestionably the child's favorite plaything. one might almost speak of a lingual delirium in his case, as in that of the insane, when he pours forth all sorts of disconnected utterances, articulate and inarticulate, in confusion; and yet i often saw his tongue affected with fibrillar contractions as if the mastery of the hypoglossus were not as yet complete. quite similar fibrillar movements seem to be made by the tongue in bulbar paralysis, and in the case of dogs and guinea-pigs whose hypoglossus has been severed. to the number of words heard that already produce a definite movement are added the following new ones. the child is asked, "where is the moon? the clock? the eye? the nose?" and he raises an arm, spreads the fingers, and looks in the proper direction. if i speak of "coughing," he coughs; of "blowing," he blows; of "kicking," he stretches out his legs; of "light," he blows into the air, or, if there is a lamp in sight, toward that, looking at it meantime--a reminiscence of the blowing out of matches and candles often seen by him. it requires great pains to get from him the affirmative nod of the head at the spoken "ja, ja." not till the sixty-fourth week was this achieved by means of frequent repetition and forcible direction, and the movement was but awkwardly executed even later--months after. on hearing the "no, no," the negative shake of the head now appeared almost invariably, and this was executed as by adults without the least uncertainty. the holding out of his hand at hearing "give the hand," occurs almost invariably, but is not to be regarded as a special case of understanding of the syllable "give," for the word "hand" alone produces the same result. all these accomplishments, attained by regular training, do not afford the least evidence of an understanding of what is commanded when the sound-impression is converted into motor impulse. it is rather a matter of the establishment of the recollection of the customary association of both during the interval of deliberation. the words and muscular contractions that belong together are less often confounded, and the physiological part of the process takes less time, but its duration is noticeably prolonged when the child is not quite well. he deliberates for as much as twelve seconds when the question is asked him, "where is the rogue?" and then responds with the proper gesture (p. 115). the sixteenth month brought few new articulate utterances of sound, none associated with a definite meaning; on the other hand, there was a marked progress in repeating what was said to the child, and especially in the understanding of words heard. among the sounds of his own making are heard--along with the _hä!_ _hä-ö!_ _ha-[)e]!_ _h[)e]-[)e]!_ that even in the following months often expresses desire, but often also is quite without meaning--more seldom _hi_, _gö-gö_, _gö_, _f-pa_ (the _f_ for the first time), _[(au]_, and more frequently _ta_, _dokkn_, _tá-ha_, _a-bwa-bwa_, _b[)u][=a]-b[)u]-[=a]_, and, as if by accident, once among all sorts of indefinable syllables, _dagon_. further, the child--as was the case in the previous month--likes to take a newspaper or a book in his hands and hold the print before his face, babbling _ä-[)e]_, _ä-[)e]_, _ä-[)e]_, evidently in imitation of the reading aloud which he has often observed. by giving the command, "read!" it was easy to get this performance repeated. besides this, it is a delight to the child to utter a syllable--e. g., _bwa_ or _ma_--over and over, some six times in succession, without stopping. as in the previous month, there are still the whispered _attö_ and _hattö_, at the hiding of the face or of the light, at the shutting of a fan, or the emptying of a soup-plate, together with the _dakkn_, with the combinations of syllables made out of _ta_, _pa_, _ma_, _na_, _at_, _ap_, _am_, _an_, and with _mömö_. the _papa_ and _mama_ do not, however, express an exclusive relation to the parents. only to the questions, "where is papa?" "where is mamma?" he points toward them, raising his hand with the fingers spread. pain is announced by loud and prolonged screaming; joy by short, high-pitched, piercing crowing, in which the vowel _i_ appears. of isolated vowels, _a_ only was correctly repeated on command. of syllables, besides those of the previous month, _mö_ and _ma_; and here the child's excessive gayety over the success of the experiment is worthy of remark. he made the discovery that his parrot-like repetition was a fresh source of pleasure, yet he could not for several weeks repeat again the doubled syllables, but kept to the simple ones, or responded with all sorts of dissimilar ones, like _attob_, or said nothing. the syllable _ma_ was very often given back as _hömá_ and _hömö_; _pa_ was never given back, but, as had been the case previously, only _ta_ and _taï_ were the responses, made with great effort and attention, and the visible purpose of repeating correctly. to the word "danke," pronounced for him with urgency innumerable times, the response is _dakkn_, given regularly and promptly, and this in the following months also. if all persuasion failed, and the child were then left to himself without any direction of his attention, then not infrequently new imitations of sounds would be given correctly--e. g., when i said "bo"--but these, again, would no longer succeed when called for. indeed, such attempts often broke down utterly at once. thus the child once heard a hen making a piteous outcry, without seeing the creature, and he tried in vain to imitate the sound, but once only, and not again. on the other hand, he often succeeds in repeating correctly movements of the tongue made for him to see, as the thrusting out of the tongue between the lips, by reason of the extraordinary mobility of his tongue and lips; he even tries to smack in imitation. the more frequent partial contractions of the tongue, without attempts at speaking, are especially surprising. on one side, toward the middle of the tongue, rises a longitudinal swelling; then the edges are brought together, so that the tongue almost forms a closed tube; again, it is turned completely back in front. such flexibility as this hardly belongs to the tongue of any adult. besides, the lips are often protruded a good deal, even when this is not required in framing vocables. the gain in the understanding of words heard is recognizable in this, that when the child hears the appropriate word, he takes hold, with thumb and forefinger, in a most graceful manner, of nose, mouth, beard, forehead, chin, eye, ear, or touches them with the thumb. but in doing this he often confounds ear and eye, chin and forehead, even nose and ear. "o" serves in place of "ohr" (ear); "au" in place of "auge" (eye). in both cases the child soon discovered that these organs are in pairs, and he would seize with the right hand the lobe of my left and of my right ear alternately after i had asked "ear?" how easily in such cases a new sound-impression causes confusion is shown by the following fact: after i had at one time pointed out one ear, and had said, "other ear," i succeeded, by means of repetition, in getting him to point out this other one also correctly every time. now, then, the thing was to apply what had been learned to the eye. when one eye had been pointed out, i asked, "where is the other eye?" the child grasped at an ear, with the sight of which the sound "other" was now associated. not till long after (in the twentieth month) did he learn to apply this sound of himself to different parts of the body. on the other hand, he understands perfectly the significance of the commands, "bring, fetch, give----"; he brings, fetches, gives desired objects, in which case, indeed, the gesture and look of the speaker are decisive; for, if these are only distinctly apprehended, it does not make much difference which word is said, or whether nothing is said. in the seventeenth month, although no disturbance of the development took place, there was no perceptible advance in the utterance of thoughts by sounds, or in the imitation of syllables pronounced by others, or in articulation, but there was a considerable increase of the acoustic power of discrimination in words heard and of the memory of sounds. of syllables original with the child, these are new: _bibi_, _nä-nä-nä_--the first has come from the frequent hearing of "bitte"; the last is an utterance of joy at meeting and an expression of the desire to be lifted up. otherwise, longing, abhorrence, pleasure and pain, hunger and satiety, are indicated by pitch, accent, _timbre_, intensity of the vocal sounds, more decidedly than by syllables. a peculiar complaining sound signifies that he does not understand; another one, that he does not wish. in place of _atta_, at the change of location of an object perceived, comes often a _t-tó_ and _höt-tó_, with the lips much protruded. but, when the child himself wishes to leave the room, then he takes a hat, and says _atta_, casting a longing look at his nurse, or repeatedly taking hold of the door. of voluntary attempts to imitate sounds, the most noteworthy were the efforts to give the noise heard on the winding of a time-piece, and to repeat tones sung. the associations of words heard with seen, tangible objects on the one hand, and, on the other hand, with definite co-ordinated muscular movements, have become considerably more numerous. thus the following are already correctly distinguished, being very rarely confounded: uhr (clock), ohr (ear); schuh (shoe), stuhl (chair), schulter (shoulder), fuss (foot); stirn (forehead), kinn (chin); nase (nose), blasen (blow); bart (beard), haar (hair); heiss (hot), fleisch (meat). in addition to the above, eye, arm, hand, head, cheek, mouth, table, light, cupboard, flowers, are rightly pointed out. the child so often obeys the orders he hears--"run," "kick," "lie down," "cough," "blow," "bring," "give," "come," "kiss"--that when he occasionally does not obey, the disobedience must be ascribed no longer, as before, to deficient understanding, but to caprice, or, as may be discerned beyond a doubt from the expression of his countenance, to a genuine roguishness. thus the spoken consonants are at last surely recognized in their differences of sound. in the eighteenth month this ability of the ear to discriminate, and with it the understanding of spoken words, increases. "finger, glass, door, sofa, thermometer, stove, carpet, watering-pot, biscuit," are rightly pointed out, even when the objects, which were at first touched, or merely pointed at, along with loud and repeated utterance of those words, are no longer present, but objects like them are present. say "finger," and the child takes hold of his own fingers only; "ofen" (stove), then he invariably at first looks upward ("oben"). besides the earlier commands, the following are correctly obeyed: "find, pick up, take it, lay it down." hand him a flower, saying, "smell," and he often carries it to his nose without opening his mouth. the repeating of syllables spoken for him is still rare; "mamma" is responded to by _ta_. the voluntary repeating of syllables heard by chance is likewise rare; in particular, "jaja" is now repeated with precision. the _atta_, which used to be whispered when anything disappeared from the child's field of vision, has changed to _tto_ and _t-tu_ and _ftu_, with pouting of the lips. in the monologues appear _näi_, _mimi_, _päpä_, _mimiä_, _pata_, _rrrrr_, the last uvular and labial for minutes at a time. but these meaningless utterances are simply signs of well-being in general, and are gladly repeated from pleasure in the exercise of the tongue and lips. the tongue still vibrates vigorously with fibrillar contractions when it is at rest, the mouth being open. characteristic for this period is the precision with which the various moods of feeling are expressed, without articulate sounds, by means of the voice, now become very high and strong, in screaming and crowing, then again in wailing, whimpering, weeping, grunting, squealing; so that the mood is recognized by the voice better than ever before, especially desire, grief, joy, hunger, willfulness, and fear. but this language can not be represented by written characters. the same holds good of the nineteenth month, in which bawling and babbling are more rare, the spontaneous sound-imitations are more frequent, the vocal cords are strained harder, the mechanism of articulation works with considerably more ease; the understanding and the retention of spoken words have perceptibly increased, but no word of the child's own, used always in the same sense, is added. when the child has thrown an object from the table to the floor, he often follows it with his gaze and whispers, even when he does not know he is observed, _atta_ or _t-ta_, which is here used in the same sense with _tuff_ or _ft_ or _ftu_, for "fort" (gone). when he had taken a newspaper out of the paper-basket and had spread it on the floor, he laid himself flat upon it, holding his face close to the print, and said--evidently of his own accord, imitating, as he had done before, the reading aloud of the newspaper, which had often been witnessed by him--repeating it for a long time in a monotonous voice, _e-já-e-e-já nanana ána-ná-na atta-ána [=a]je-já s[=a]_; then he tore the paper into many small pieces, and next turned the leaves of books, uttering _pa-pa-ab ta hö-ö-[)e] mömömöm hö-ön[)e]_. such monologues are, however, exceptional at this period, the rule being uniform repetitions of the same syllable, e. g., _habb habb habb habb habbwa habbua_. screaming when water of 26° c. was poured over him in the bath appeared, a few days after the first experiment of this sort, even before the bathing, at sight of the tub, sponge, and water. previously, fear had only in very rare cases occasioned screaming, now the _idea_ of the cold and wet that were to be expected was enough to occasion violent screaming. after about three weeks of daily bathing with water from 18 to 24° c., however, the screaming decreased again. the experience that a pleasant feeling of warmth succeeded, may have forced the recollection of the unpleasant feeling into the background. but the screaming can not at all be represented by letters; _ä_ and _ö_ do not suffice. the same is true of the screaming, often prolonged, before falling asleep in the evening, which occurs not seldom also without any assignable occasion, the child making known by it his desire to leave the bed. as this desire is not complied with, the child perceives the uselessness of the screaming, and at length obeys the command, "lie down," without our employing force or expedients for soothing him. how far the power of imitation and of articulation is developed, is shown especially by the fact that now, at last, _pa_ is correctly pronounced in response; in the beginning _ta_ was still frequently the utterance, then _ba_, finally _pa_ almost invariably given correctly. further, these results were obtained: words said to him. response. bitte _bis_, _bits_, _bit_, _bets_, _beest_, _be_, _bi_, _bit-th_ (eng., _th_). hart _hatt_, _att_, _haat_. fleisch _da-ich_, _daï-s-ch_, _daï-s-j_. ma _mö_, _ma_. in _bits_ appears with perfect distinctness (as already in the fifteenth month) the very rare _ts_ = _z_. the "hart" was once only confounded with "haar," and responded to by grasping at the hair. the _bits_ soon served to add force to the putting together of the hands in the attitude of begging; it is thus the first attempt at the employment of a german word to denote a state of his own, and that the state of desire. the other words said to him, and illustrated by touching and putting the hands upon objects, could not be given by him in response. when he was to say "weich" (soft), "kalt" (cold), "nass" (wet), he turned his head away in repugnance, as formerly. to "nass" he uttered in reply, once only, _na_. smacking, when made for him, was imitated perfectly. the early morning hours, in which the sensibility of the brain is at its highest, are the best adapted to such experiments; but these experiments were not multiplied, in order that the independent development might not be disturbed. the progress in the discrimination of words heard, and in the firm retention of what has been repeatedly heard, is shown particularly in more prompt obedience, whether in abstaining or in acting. to the list of objects correctly pointed out upon request are added "leg, nail, spoon, kettle," and others. it is noteworthy, too, that now, if the syllables _pa_ and _ma_, or _papa_ and _mamma_, are prefixed to the names of the known parts of the face and head, the child points these out correctly; e. g., to the question "where is mamma-ear," the child responds by taking hold of the ear of his mother, and to "papa-ear," of that of his father; so with "nose, eye," etc. but if asked for "mamma-beard," the child is visibly embarrassed, and finally, when there is a laugh at his hesitation, he laughs too. the old tricks, "how tall is the child?" and "where is the little rogue?" which have not been practiced for months past, have been retained in memory, for when in the eighty-second week i brought out both questions with urgency, the child bethought himself for several seconds, motionless, then suddenly, after the first question, raised both arms. after the other question he likewise considered for several seconds, and then pointed to his head as he used to do. his _memory_ for sound-impressions often repeated and associated with specific movements is consequently good. in the twentieth month there was an important advance to be recorded in his manner of repeating what was said to him. suddenly, on the five hundred and eighty-fourth day, the child is repeating correctly and without difficulty words of two syllables that consist either of two like syllables--for the sake of brevity i will call these _like-syllabled_--or of syllables the second of which is the reverse of the first--such i call _reverse-syllabled_. thus of the first class are _papa_, _mama_, _bebe_, _baba_, _neinei_, _jaja_, _bobo_, _bubu_; of the second class, _otto_, _enne_, _anna_; these are very frequently given back quickly and faultlessly at this period, after the repetition of the single syllables _pa_, _ma_, and others had gone on considerably more surely than before, and the child had more often tried of himself to imitate what he heard. these imitations already make sometimes the impression of not being voluntary. thus the child once--in the eighty-third week--observed attentively a redstart in the garden for two full minutes, and then imitated five or six times, not badly, the piping of the bird, turning round toward me afterward. it was when he saw me that the child first seemed to be aware that he had made attempts at imitation at all. for his countenance was like that of one awaking from sleep, and he could not now be induced to imitate sounds. after five days the spectacle was repeated. again the piping of the bird was reproduced, and in the afternoon the child took a cow, roughly carved out of wood, of the size of the redstart, made it move back and forth on the table, upon its feet, and chirped now as he had done at sight of the bird; _imagination_ was here manifestly much excited. the wooden animal was to represent the bird, often observed in the garden, and nesting in the veranda; and the chirping and piping were to represent its voice. on the other hand, words of unlike syllables, like "zwieback" (biscuit), "butterbrod," are either not given back at all or only in unrecognizable fashion, in spite of their being pronounced impressively for him. "trocken" (dry) yields sometimes _tokk[)e]_, _tokko_, _otto_. words of one syllable also offer generally great difficulties of articulation: thus "warm" and "weich" become _w[=a]i_, "kalt" and "hart" become _hatt_. although "bi" and "te" are often rightly given each by itself, the child can not combine the two, and turns away with repugnance when he is to reproduce "bi-te." the same thing frequently happens, still, even with "mamma" and "papa." but the child, when in lively spirits, very often pronounces of his own accord the syllables "bi" and "te" together, preferring, indeed, _bidth_ (with english _th_) and _beet_ to "bitte." in place of "adjö" (adieu) he gives back _ad[=e]_ and _adj[=e]_. nor does he succeed in giving back three syllables; e. g., the child says _papa_, but not "papagei", and refuses altogether to repeat "gei" and "pagei." the same is true of "gut," "nacht," although he of himself holds out his hand for "gute nacht." when others laugh at anything whatsoever, the child laughs regularly with them, a purely imitative movement. it is surprising that the reproducing of what is said to him succeeds best directly after the cold bath in the morning, when the child has been screaming violently and has even been shivering, or when he is still screaming and is being rubbed dry, and, as if resigned to his fate, lies almost without comprehension. the will, it would seem, does not intrude here as a disturbing force, and echolalia manifests itself in its purity, as in the case of hypnotics. the little creature is subdued and powerless. but he speedily recovers himself, and then it is often quite hard to tell whether he _will_ not or _can_ not say the word that is pronounced to him. the _understanding of single words_, especially of single questions and commands, is considerably more prompt than in the previous month. without there being any sort of explanation for it, this extraordinary understanding is here, manifesting itself particularly when the child is requested to fetch and carry all sorts of things. he has observed and touched a great deal, has listened less, except when spoken to. all training in tricks and performances, an evil in the modern education of children hard to avoid, was, however, suppressed as far as possible, so that the only new things were "making a bow" and "kissing the hand." the child practices both of these toward the end of the month, without direction, at coming and going. many new objects, such as window, bed, knife, plate, cigar, his own teeth and thumbs, are correctly pointed out, if only the corresponding word is distinctly pronounced. yet "ofen" and "oben" are still confounded. to put into written form the syllables invented by the child independently, and to get at a sure denotation of objects by them, is exceedingly difficult, particularly when the syllables are merely whispered as the objects are touched, which frequently occurs. at the sight of things rolled noisily, especially of things whirling in a circle, the child would utter _rodi_, _otto_, _rojo_, and like sounds, in general, very indistinctly. only _one_ new concept could with certainty be proved to be associated with a particular sound. with _d[=a]_ and _nd[=a]_, frequently uttered on the sudden appearance of a new object in the field of vision, in a lively manner, loudly and with a peculiarly demonstrative accent--also with _t[=a]_ and _nt[=a]_--the child associates, beyond a doubt, existence, coming, appearing, shooting forth, emerging, in contrast with the very often softly spoken, whispered _atta_, _f-tu_, _tuff_, which signifies "away" or "gone." if i cover my head and let the child uncover it, he laughs after taking off the handkerchief, and says loudly _da_; if i leave the room, he says _atta_ or _hätta_, or _ft_ or _t-ta_, generally softly; the last of these, or else _hata_, he says if he would like to be taken out himself. in the eighty-seventh week we went away on a journey, and on the railway-train the child, with an expression of terror or of anxious astonishment, again and again said _attah_, but without manifesting the desire for a change of place for himself, even by stretching out his arms. two words only--_papa_ for father, and _bät_ or _bit_ for "bitte," are, besides, rightly applied of the child's own accord. the prolonged screaming, from wantonness, of _n[=a]n[=a]n[=a]n[=a]_, _nom-nom_, _h[=a]h[=a]_, _l[=a]l[=a]_, chiefly when running about, has no definite meaning. the child exercises himself a good deal in loud outcry, as if he wanted to test the power of his voice. these exercises evidently give him great pleasure. still the highest crowing tones are no longer quite so high and piercing as they were formerly. the vocal cords have become larger, and can no longer produce such high tones. the screaming sounds of discontent, which continue to be repeated sometimes till hoarseness appears, but rarely in the night, have, on the contrary, as is the case with the shrill sounds of pain, scarcely changed their character, _hä-e_, _hä-ä-ä-[)e]_, _[)e]_. they are strongest in the bath, during the pouring on of cold water. the child, when left to himself, keeps up all the time his loud readings ("lesestudien"). he "reads" in a monotonous way maps, letters, newspapers, drawings, spreading them out in the direction he likes, and lies down on them with his face close to them, or holding the sheet with his hands close to his face, and, as before, utters especially vowel-sounds. in the twenty-first month imitative attempts of this kind became more frequent; but singularly enough the babbling--from the eighty-ninth week on--became different. before this time vowels were predominant, now more _consonants_ are produced. when something is said for the child to reproduce that presents insuperable difficulties of articulation, then he moves tongue and lips in a marvelous fashion, and often says _ptö-ptö_, _pt-pt_, and _verlapp_, also _dla-dla_, without meaning, no matter what was the form of the word pronounced to him. in such practice there often appears likewise a wilfulness, showing itself in inarticulate sounds and the shaking of the head, even when it is merely the repetition of easy like-syllabled words that is desired. hence, in the case of new words, it is more difficult than before, or is even impossible to determine whether the child _will_ not or whether he _can_ not reproduce them. words of unlike syllables are not repeated at all, not even "bitte." in place of "danke" are heard _dang-gee_ and _dank-kee_; the former favorite _dakkn_ is almost never heard. in most of the attempts at sound imitation, the tendency to the doubling of syllables is worthy of notice. i say "bi," and the answer is _bibi_; then i say "te," and the answer is _te-te_. if i say "bi-te," the answer is likewise _bibi_; a single time only, in spite of daily trial, the answer was _bi-te_, as if by oversight. this doubling of syllables, involuntary and surely contrary to the will of the child, stands in remarkable contrast with the indolence he commonly shows in reproducing anything said, even when the fault is not to be charged to teasing, stubbornness, or inability. the child then finds more gratification in other movements than those of the muscles of speech. the babbling only, abounding in consonants, yields him great pleasure, particularly when it is laughed at, although it remains wholly void of meaning as language. yet _bibi_, like _bäbä_, for "bitte," is correctly used by the child of his own accord. a new word, and one that gives notice of a considerable advance, is the term used by the child when hungry and thirsty, for "milk" or "food." he says, viz., with indescribable longing in his voice, _mimi_, more rarely than before _mämä_ and _mömöm_ (page 85). the first appellation was certainly taken from the often-heard "milk" by imitation, and applied to biscuit and other kinds of food. if the child, when he has eaten enough, is asked, "do you want milk?" he says without direction, _neinein_; he has thus grasped and turned to use already the signification of the sound. the same is, perhaps, true also of "ja." for previously, when i asked the child as he was eating, "does it taste good?" he was silent, and i would say, "say jaja," and this would be correctly repeated. but in the ninety-first week he, of his own accord, answers the question with _jaja_--"yes, yes." this, too, may rest simply on imitation, without a knowledge of the meaning of the _ja_, and without an understanding of the question; yet there is progress in the recollection of the connection of the sound "schmeckt's" with _jaja_, the intermediate links being passed over. in other cases, too, the strength of the memory for sounds is plainly manifested. to all questions of an earlier period, "where is the forehead, nose, mouth, chin, beard, hair, cheek, eye, ear, shoulder?" the child now at once pointed correctly in every instance, although he might not have answered them for anybody even once for two weeks. only the question, "where is the thumb?" made him hesitate. but when the thumb had been again shown to him (firmly pressed), he knew it, and from that time pointed it out invariably without delay. to the question, "where is the eye?" he is accustomed to shut both eyes quickly at the same time and to open them again, and then to point to my eye; to the question, "axel's eye?" he responds by pointing to his own; to the question, "the other eye?" by pointing to the one not touched. in the understanding of what is spoken astonishing progress has been made--e. g., if i say, "go, take the hat and lay it on the chair!" the child executes the order without considering more than one or two seconds. he knows the meaning of a great number of words that no one has taught him--e. g., "whip, stick, match, pen." objects of this sort are surely distinguished by the child, for, upon receiving orders, he gets, picks up, brings, lays down, gives these things each by itself. this understanding of spoken words is the more surprising, as his repetition of them continues still to be of a very rudimentary character. with the exception of some interjections, especially _j[=a][)e]_ as a joyous sound and of crowing sounds, also screaming sounds, which, however, have become more rare, the child has but few expressions of his own with a recognizable meaning; _ndä_, _ndä_, _da_ is demonstrative "da" ("there") at new impressions. _att_, _att_, _att_, is unintelligible, perhaps indicative of movement. _attah_ means "we are off" (upon setting out) and "i want to go" ("ich will fort"); _tatass_, _tatass_ is unintelligible, possibly a sound-imitation. when traveling by rail the child tried several times to imitate the hissing of the steam of the locomotive. in the twenty-second month again there are several observations to record, which show the progress in understanding, the strengthening of the memory, and the greater facility in articulation. the child executes the orders given him with surprising accuracy, although the words spoken have not previously been impressed on him separately. here, indeed, it is essential to consider the looks and gestures of those who give the orders; but the child also does what i request of him without looking at me. instances of confusion among the words known to him are also perceptibly more rare. once i asked him very distinctly, "where's the moon?" (mond), and for answer the child pointed to his mouth (mund). but the error was not repeated. the strength of the word-memory appears particularly in this, that all the objects learned are more quickly pointed out on request than they were previously, and the facility of articulation is perceived in the multiplying of consonants in the monologues and in the frequent spontaneous utterance of _pss_, _ps_, _ptsch_ (once), and _pth_ (engl.). the child says, without any occasion, _pa-ptl-dä_, _pt_, and gives a loud greeting from a distance with _h[=aa]-ö_, with _ada_, and _ana_. it seemed to me remarkable that the boy began several times without the least incitement to _sing_ tolerably well. when i expressed my approval of it, he sprang about, overjoyed. at one time he sang, holding his finger on his tongue, first _rollo_, _rollo_, innumerable times, then _mama_, _mama_, _mämä_, _mama_. the progress in the sound-mechanism is most plainly discerned in the greater certainty in reproducing what is spoken. thus, "pst" is correctly given, and of reverse-syllabled words, very accurately, "anna, otto, alla, appa, enne"; of unlike-syllabled words, "lina," but still, notwithstanding many trials, not yet "bitte." _for the first time three-syllabled words also, plainly pronounced to him, were correctly given back_, viz., _a-mama_ and _a-pa-pa_, as the child names his grandparents. hitherto the vowels _e_, _i_, _o_, _u_, could not be correctly given every time, but "a" could be so given as before. when the reproduction of any new word that is too hard is requested--e. g., "gute nacht"--the child at this period regularly answers _tap[)e]ta_, _p[)e]ta_, _pta_, and _ptö-ptö_, also _rateratetat_, expressing thereby not merely his inability, but also, sometimes roguishly, his disinclination to repeat. _ja ja_ and _nein nein_, along with _da_ and _bibi_ (with or without folding of the hands, for "bitte"), and _mimi_, continue still to be the only words taken from the language of adults that are used by the child in the proper sense when he desires or refuses anything. apart from these appear inarticulate sounds, uttered even with the mouth shut. the intense cry of pain, or that produced by cold or wet or by grief at the departure of the parents (this with the accompaniment of abundant tears and the drawing of the corners of the mouth far down), makes the strongest contrast with the crowing for joy, particularly that at meeting again. the twenty-third month brought at length _the first spoken judgment_. the child was drinking milk, carrying the cup to his mouth with both hands. the milk was too warm for him, and he set the cup down quickly and said, loudly and decidedly, looking at me with eyes wide open and with earnestness, _heiss_ (hot). this single word was to signify "the drink is too hot!" in the same week, at the end of the ninety-ninth, the child of his own accord went to the heated stove, took a position before it, looked attentively at it, and suddenly said with decision, _hot_ (_heiss_)! again, a whole proposition in a syllable. in the sixty-third week for the first time the child had reproduced the word "hot" pronounced to him. eight and a half months were required for the step from the imitative _hot_ to the independent _hot_ as expressive of his judgment. he progressed more rapidly with the word "wasser," which was reproduced as _watja_, and was called out longingly by the thirsty child a few weeks afterward. he already distinguishes water and milk in his own fashion as _watja_ and _mimi_. yet _mimmi_, _mömö_, and _m[=a]m[=a]_ still signify food in general, and are called out often before meal-times by the impatient and hungry child. the primitive word _atta_ is likewise frequently uttered incidentally when anything disappears from the child's field of vision or when he is himself carried away. the other sound-utterances of this period proceeding from the child's own impulse are interesting only as exercises of the apparatus of articulation. thus, the child not seldom cries aloud _oi_ or _eu_ (_äu_); further, unusually loud, _ana_, and for himself in play, _ida_, _didl_, _dadl_, _dldo-dlda_, and in singing tone _opojö_, _apojopojum aui_, _heissa_. with special pleasure the child, when talking to himself, said _papa_, _mama_, _mämä_, _mimi_, _momo_, of his own accord, but not "mumu"; on the other hand, _e-mama-ma-memama_, _mi_, _ma_, _mö_, _ma_. his grandparents he now regularly designates by _e-papa_ and _e-mama_. he knows very well who is meant when he is asked, "where is grandmamma? grandpapa?" and several days after leaving them, when asked the question, e. g., on the railway-train, he points out of the window with a troubled look. the understanding of words heard is, again, in general more easy. the child for the most part obeys at once when i say, "drink, eat, shut, open, pick it up, turn around, sit, run!" only the order "come!" is not so promptly executed, not, however, on account of lack of understanding, but from willfulness. that the word-memory is becoming firm is indicated particularly by the circumstance that now the separate parts of the face and body are pointed out, even after pretty long intervals, quickly and upon request, on his own person and that of others. when i asked about his beard, the child (after having already pointed to my beard), in visible embarrassment, pointed with his forefinger to the place on his face corresponding to that where he saw the beard on mine, and moved his thumb and forefinger several times as if he were holding a hair of the beard between them and pulling at it, as he had had opportunity to do with mine. here, accordingly, memory and imagination came in as supplementary to satisfy the demand made by the acoustic image. the greatest progress is to be recorded in this month in regard to the reproduction of syllables and words. a perfecting of the process is apparent in the fact that when anything is said for him to repeat, his head is not turned away in unwillingness so often as before, in case the new word said to him is too difficult, nor are all sorts of incoherent, complicated sounds (_paterateratte_) given forth directly upon the first failure of the attempt at imitation. thus, the following words were at this period, without systematic exercises, incidentally picked up (give, as before, the german pronunciation to the letters): spoken to him. reproduced. ohr, _oa(r)_. tisch, _tiss_. haus, _hausesess_. hemd, _hem_. peitsche, _paitsch_, _paitse_. wasser, _wass_, _watja_. hand, _hann_. heiss, _haïss_. auge, _autschge_. butter, _buotö_. eimer, _aïma_. bitte, _bete_, _bite_. blatt, _batn_. tuch, _tuhs_. papier, _patn_, _paï_. fort, _wott_. vater, _fa-ata_. grete, _deete_. karl, _kara_. alle, _alla_. alle, _alla_. mund, _munn_. finger, _finge_. pferd, _pfowed_, _fowid_. gute nacht, _nag-ch na_. guten tag, _tatách_. morgen, _moigjen_. axel, _akkes_, _aje_, _eja_. the four words, _paitsch_ or _paitse_, _bite_, _watja_, and _haïss_, are uttered now and then by the child without being said to him, and their use has regard to the meaning contained in them. his whip and his pail he learned to name quickly and correctly. his own name, axel, on the contrary, he designates by the favorite interjections _aje_, _eja_. on the whole, variety of articulation is on the increase as compared with the previous month, but the ability to put syllables together into words is still but little developed. thus, e. g., the child reproduces quite correctly "je," and "ja," and "na." but if any one says to him "jena" or "jana," the answer runs regularly _nena_ or _nana_, and only exceptionally, as if by chance, _jena_. further, he repeats correctly the syllables "bi" and "te" when they are given to him, and then also _bi-te_; afterward, giving up the correct imitation, he says _beti_, but can not reproduce _ti-be_ or _tebi_. "bett, karre, kuk," are correctly repeated. finally, echolalia, not observed of late, appears again. if the child hears some one speak, he often repeats the last syllable of the sentence just finished, if the accent were on it--e. g., "what said the man?" _man_; or "who is there?" _there?_ "nun?" (now) _nou_ (_n[=oo]_). once the name "willy" was called. immediately the child likewise called _[)u]il[=e]_, with the accent on the last syllable, and repeated the call during an hour several dozens of times; nay, even several days later he entertained himself with the stereotyped repetition. had not his first echo-play produced great merriment, doubtless this monotonous repetition would not have been kept up. in regard to the preference of one or another word the behavior of those about the child is not merely influential, but is alone decisive. i observed here, as i had done earlier, that urgent exhortations to repeat a new word have generally a much worse result than is obtained by leaving the child to himself. the correct, or at any rate the best, repetitions were those made when the child was not spoken to. even adults can imitate others in their manner of speaking, their dialect, even their voice, much better when not called upon to do it, but left entirely to their own inclination. the wish or command of others generates an embarrassment which disturbs the course of the motor processes. i resolved, consequently, to abandon in the following month all attempts to induce the child to reproduce sounds, but to observe so much the more closely what he might say of his own accord. in the last month of the second year of his life this leaving of him to himself proved fruitful in results to this extent--that voluntary sound-imitations gained considerably in frequency and accuracy. particularly, genuine echolalia manifested itself more at this period in the repeating of the last syllables of sentences heard, the meaning of which remained unintelligible to the child; and of single words, the sense of which became gradually clear to him by means of accompanying gestures. thus, the word "herein!" (come in!) was repeated as an empty sound, and then _arein_, _harrein_, _haarein_, were shouted strenuously toward the door, when the child wanted to be let in; _ab_ (off) was uttered when a neck-ribbon was to be loosened. _moigen_ signified "guten morgen!" _na_, "gute nacht!" to the question, "was thun wir morgen?" (what shall we do to-morrow?) comes the echo-answer _moigen_. in general, by far the greater part of the word-imitations are much distorted, to strangers often quite unintelligible. _ima_ and _imam_ mean "emma," _dakkngaggngaggn_ again means "danke," and _betti_ still continues to signify "bitte." only with the utmost pains, after the separate syllables have been frequently pronounced, appear _dang[=ee]_ and _bitt[=ee]_. an apple (apfel) is regularly named _apfel[=ee]l[=ee]_ (from apfelgelée); a biscuit (zwieback), _wita_, then _wijak_; butter, on the contrary, is often correctly named. instead of "jawohl," the child almost invariably says _wolja_; for "licht" _list_ and _lists_; for "wasser," _watja_ still as before; for "pfui" he repeats, when he has been awkward, _[=u]i_, and often adds a _pott_ or _putt_ in place of "caput." "gut" is still pronounced _[=u]t_ or _tut_, and "fort," _okk_ or _ott_. all the defects illustrated by these examples are owing rather to the lack of flexibility in the apparatus of articulation--even stammering, _tit-t-t-t_, in attempting to repeat "tisch," appears--than to imperfect ability to apprehend sounds. for the deficiency of articulation shows itself plainly when a new word is properly used, but pronounced sometimes correctly and sometimes incorrectly. thus, the "tsch" hitherto not often achieved (twentieth month), and the simple "sch" in _witschi_ and _wesch_, both signifying "zwetschen," are imperfect, although both sounds were long ago well understood as commands to be silent, and zwetschen (plums) have been long known to the child. further, the inability to reproduce anything is still expressed now and then by _raterateratera_; the failure to understand, rather by a peculiar dazed expression of countenance, with an inquiring look. with regard to the independent application of all the words repeated, in part correctly, in part with distortions, a multiplicity of meanings is especially noteworthy in the separate expressions used by the child. the primitive word _atta_, used with uncommon frequency, has now among others the following significations: "i want to go; he is gone; she is not here; not yet here; no longer here; there is nothing in it; there is no one there; it is empty; it is nowhere; out there; go out." to the question "where have you been?" the child answers, on coming home, _atta_, and when he has drunk all there was in the glass, he likewise says _atta_. the concept common to all the interpretations adduced, "gone," seems to be the most comprehensive of all that are at the child's disposal. if we choose to regard a word like this _atta_ as having the force of a whole sentence, we may note many such primitive sentences in this month. thus, _mann_ means, on one occasion, "a man has come," then almost every masculine figure is named _mann_; _auff_, accompanied with the offering of a key, signifies the wish for the opening of a box, and is cried with animation after vain attempts to open a watch. the concepts "male being" and "open" are thus not only clear, but are already named with the right words. the distinguishing of men from women appears for months past very strikingly in this, that the former only are greeted by reaching out the hand. the manifold meaning of a single word used as a sentence is shown particularly in the cry of _papa_, with gestures and looks corresponding to the different meanings of it. this one word, when called out to his father, means (1) "come play with me"; (2) "please lift me up"; (3) "please give me that"; (4) "help me get up on the chair"; (5) "i can't," etc. the greatest progress, however, is indicated by the _combination of two words_ into a sentence. the first sentence of this sort, spoken on the seven hundred and seventh day of his life at the sight of the house that was his home, was _haim_, _mimi_, i. e., "i would like to go home and drink milk." the second was _papa_, _mimi_, and others were similar. contrasted with these first efforts at the framing of sentences, the earlier meaningless monologues play only a subordinate part; they become, as if they were the remains of the period of infancy, gradually rudimentary: thus, _pipapapaï_, _breit_, _baraï_. a more important fact for the recognition of progress in speaking is that the words are often _confounded_, e. g., _watja_ and _buotö_ (for _butter_). in gestures also and in all sorts of performances there are bad cases of confusion almost every day; e. g., the child tries to put on his shoes, holding them with the heel-end to his toes, and takes hold of the can out of which he pours the milk into his cup by the lip instead of the handle. he often affirms in place of denying. his joy is, however, regularly expressed by loud laughing and very high tones; his grief by an extraordinarily deep depression of the angles of the mouth and by weeping. quickly as this expression of countenance may pass over into a cheerful one--often on a sudden, in consequence of some new impression--no confusion of _these_ two _mimetic_ movements takes place. in the first month of the third year of life the progress is extraordinary, and it is only in regard to the articulatory mechanism that no important new actions are to be recorded. the child does not pronounce a perfect "u," or only by chance. generally the lips are not enough protruded, so that "u" becomes "ou"; "uhr" and "ohr" often sound almost the same. the "i" also is frequently mixed with other vowel-sounds, particularly with "e." probably the corners of the mouth are not drawn back sufficiently. with these exceptions the vowels of the german language now offer hardly any difficulties. of the consonants, the "sch" and "cht" are often imperfect or wanting. "waschtisch" is regularly pronounced _waztiz_, and "gute nacht" _gna_. the sound-imitations of every kind are more manifold, eager, and skillful than ever before. once the child even made a serious attempt to reproduce ten words spoken in close succession, but did not succeed. the attempt proves all the same that the word-imitation is now far beyond the lower echo-speech; yet he likes to repeat the last words and syllables of sentences heard by him even in the following months. here belongs his saying _so_ when any object is brought to the place appointed for it. when the reproduction is defective, the child shows himself to be now much more amenable to correction. he has become more teachable. at the beginning of the month he used to say, when he wanted to sit, _ette_ then _etse_, afterward _itse_; but he does not yet in the present month say "setzen" or "sitzen." hitherto he could repeat correctly at the utmost two words said for him. now he repeats three, and once even four, imperfectly: _papa_, _beene_, _delle_, means "papa, birne, teller," and is uttered glibly; but "papa, birne, teller, bitte," or "papa, butter, bitte," is not yet repeated correctly, but _pata_, _butte_, _betti_, and the like; only very seldom, in spite of almost daily trial, _papa_, _beene_, _delle_, _bittee_. evidence of the progress of the memory, the understanding, and the articulation, is furnished in the answers the child gave when i asked him, as i touched various objects, "what is that?" he replied: _autse_, for auge (eye). _nana_, " nase (nose). _ba_, " backe (back). _baat_, " bart (beard). _oë, oa_, " ohr (ear). _opf_, " kopf (head). _tenn_, " kinn (chin). _täne_, " zähne (teeth). _hai_, " haar (hair). _ulter_, " schulter (shoulder). _aam_, " arm (arm). _ann_, " hand (hand). _wiër_, " finger (finger). _daima_, " daumen (thumb). _anu_, " handschuh (glove). _baïn_, " bein (leg). but not one word has the child himself invented. when a new expression appears it may be surely traced to what has been heard, as _uppe_, _oppee_, _appee_, _appei_, to "suppe." the name alone by which he calls on his nurse, _wolá_, seemed hard to explain. if any one says, "call mary," the child invariably calls _wolá_. it is probable, as he used to call it _wolja_, that the appellation has its origin in the often-heard "ja wohl." the correct use of single words, picked up, one might say, at random, increases in a surprising manner. here belong _baden_, _reiputtse_, for "reissuppe," _la-ock_ for "schlafrock," _boter_ for "butter," _butterbrod_, _uhr_, _buch_, _billerbooch_ for "bilderbuch." in what fashion such words now incorporated into the child's vocabulary are employed is shown by the following examples: _tul_ (for "stuhl") means--(1) "i should like to be lifted up on the chair; (2) my chair is gone; (3) i want this chair brought to the table; (4) this chair doesn't stand right." if the chair or other familiar object is broken, then it is still styled _putt_ (for "caput," gone to smash); and if the child has himself broken anything he scolds his own hand, and says _oi_ or _oui_, in place of "pfui" (fie)! he wants to write to his grandmother, and asks for _papier_, a _daitipf_ (for "bleistift," pencil), and says _raiwe_ (for "schreiben," write). that misunderstandings occur in such beginnings of speech seems a matter of course. all that i observed, however, were from the child's standpoint rational. some one says, "schlag das buch auf" (open the book, but meaning literally "strike upon the book"), and the child strikes upon the book with his hands without opening it. he does the same when one says, "schlag auf das buch" (strike upon the book). or we say, "will you come? one, two!" and the child, without being able to count, answers, "three, four." he has merely had the sequence 1, 2, 3, 4, said over to him frequently. but, on the whole, his _understanding_ of words heard, particularly of commands, has considerably advanced; and how far the reasoning faculty has developed is now easily seen in his independent designations for concepts. for example, since his delight at gifts of all sorts on his birthday, he says _burtsa_ (for geburtstag, birthday) when he is delighted by anything whatever. another instance of childish induction was the following: the child's hand being slightly hurt, he was told to blow on his hand and it would be better. he did blow on his hand. in the afternoon he hit his head against something, and he began at once to blow of his own accord, supposing that the blowing would have a soothing effect, even when it did not reach the injured part. in the forming of sentences considerable progress is to be recorded. yet only once has the child joined more than four words in a sentence, and rarely three. his sentences consisting of two words, which express a fact of the present or of the immediate past, are often, perhaps generally, quite unintelligible to strangers. thus, _danna kuha_ signifies "aunt has given me cake"; _kaffee naïn_, "there is no coffee here"; and _mama etsee_ or _etse_ is intelligible only by means of the accompanying gesture as the expression of the wish, "mamma, sit by me." _helle pumme_ signifies the wish to help (_helfen_) in pumping, and is uttered at the sight of persons pumping water. the following sentence consisting of five words is particularly characteristic of this period, because it exhibits the first attempt to relate a personal experience. the child dropped his milk-cup and related _mimi atta teppa papa oï_, which meant "milch fort [auf den] teppich, papa [sagte] pfui." (milk gone [on] carpet, papa [said] "fie!") the words adopted by the child have often a very different meaning from that which they have in the language of adults, being not entirely misunderstood but peculiarly interpreted by the imitator. thus, pronouns, which are not for a long time yet understood in their true sense, signify objects themselves or their qualities. _dein bett_ means "the large bed." in the twenty-sixth month a large picture-book, with good colored pictures, was shown to the child by me every day. then he himself would point out the separate objects represented, and those unknown to him were named to him, and then the words were repeated by him. thus were obtained the following results: said to him. his imitation. blasebalg (bellows), _ba-a-bats_, _blasabalitz_. saugflasche (nursing-bottle), _augflaze_. kanone (cannon), _nanone_. koffer (trunk), _towwer_, _toffer_, _pfoffa_, _poffa_, _toff-wa_. fuchs (fox), _fuhts_. kaffeekanne (coffee-urn), _taffeetanne_, _pfafee-tanne_. frosch (frog), _frotz_. klingel (bell), _linli_ (learned as _ingeling_ and _linlin_). besen (broom), _b[=e]sann_, _beedsen_, _beedsenn_. stiefel (boot), _tiefel_, _stibbell_, _tihbell_, _tibl_. nest (nest), _netz_. storch (stork), _toich_. giesskanne (watering-pot), _tietstanne_, _ihtstanne_, _ziesstanne_. fisch (fish), _fiz_. zuckerhut (sugar-loaf), _ukkahut_. vogel (bird), _wodal_. kuchen (cake), _tuche_, _tuch[=e]n_ (hitherto _kuha_). licht (light), _lihts_, _lits_. schlitten (sled), _lita_, _litta_. tisch (table), _tiss_. nuss (nut), _nuhuss_, _nuss_. kaffeetopf (coffee-pot), _poffee-topf_. hund (dog), _und_. brief (letter), _dief_. elephant, _elafant_. fledermaus (bat), _lebamaunz_, _fleedermauz_. kamm (comb), _damm_, _lamm_, _namm_. schwalbe (swallow), _baubee_. staar (starling), _tahr_. of his own accord the child pointed out with certainty in the picture-book- _häm_, _hä-em_, _hemm_ for helm (helmet). _hörz_ " hirsch (stag). _tawell_ " tafel (table). _lompee_, _lamp['=e]_ " lampe (lamp). _lotz_ " schloss (castle). _benne_ " birne (pear). _torb_ " korb (basket). _onne-erm_ " sonnenschirm (parasol). _flatse_ " flasche (bottle). _wetsa_ " zwetschen (plums). _clawelier_ " clavier (piano). _littl_, _litzl_, _lützl_ " schlüssel (key). _löwee_ " löwe (lion). _ofa_ " ofen (stove). _[=u][)a]_ " uhr (watch). _tint_, _kint_ " kind (child). _naninchä_ " kaninchen (rabbit). _manne_ " pfanne (pan). _tomml_, _tromml_ " trommel (drum). _tuhl_ " stuhl (chair). with these words, the meaning of which the child knows well, though he does not yet pronounce them perfectly, are to be ranked many more which have not been taught him, but which he has himself appropriated thus, _tola_ for kohlen (coals), _dals_ for salz (salt). other words spontaneously appropriated are, however, already pronounced correctly and correctly used, as _papier_ (paper), _holz_ (wood), _hut_ (hat), _wagen_ (carriage), _teppich_ (carpet), _deckel_ (cover), _milch_, _teller_ (often _tell[)e]_), _frau_, _mann_, _mäuse_. these cases form the minority, and are striking in the midst of the manifold mutilations which now constitute the child's speech. of these mutilations some are, even to his nearest relatives who are in company with the child every day, unintelligible or only with great pains to be unriddled. thus, the child calls himself _attall_ instead of axel; says also _rräus atsl_ for "heraus axel," i. e., "axel wants to go out." he still says _bita_ for "bitte," and often _mima_ or _mami_ for marie; _apf_ for "apfel." the numerous mutilations of the words the child undertakes to speak are not all to be traced to defect of articulation. the "sch" is already perfectly developed in _handschuh_; and yet in other words, as appears from the above examples, it is either simply left out or has its place supplied by _z_ and _ss_. further, it sounds almost like wantonness when frequently the surd consonant is put in place of the sonant one or _vice versa_; when, e. g., _puch_ (for buch) _pücherr_ is said on the one hand, and _wort_ instead of "fort" on the other. here belongs likewise the peculiar staccato manner of uttering the syllables, e. g., _pil-ter-puch_ (bilder-buch--picture-book). at other times is heard a hasty _billerbuch_ or _pillerpuch_. the babbling monologues have become infrequent and more of a play with words and the syllables of them, e. g., in the frequently repeated _papa-[)u]-á-[)u]a_. on the other hand, independent thoughts expressed by words are more and more multiplied. here is an example: the child had been extraordinarily pleased by the christmas-tree. the candles on it had been lighted for three evenings. on the third evening, when only one of its many lights was burning, the child could not leave it, but kept taking a position before it and saying with earnest tone, _gunná-itz-boum_, i. e., "gute nacht, christbaum!" the most of his sentences still consist of two words, one of which is often a verb in the infinitive. thus, _helle mama_, _helle mami_, i. e., "helfen (help) mama, marie!" and _bibak tommen_, i. e., "der zwieback soll kommen" (let the biscuit come); or _tsee machen_ (make _c_)--on the piano the keys _c_, _d_, _e_, had often been touched separately by the little fingers accidentally, and the applause when in response to the question, "where is _c_?" the right key was touched, excited the wish for repetition; _roth_, _drün machen_ (make red or green)--the child was instructed by me in the naming of colors; and _dekkn pilen_, i. e., "verstecken spielen" (play hide and seek). in quite short narratives, too, the verbs appear in the infinitive only. such accounts of every-day occurrences--important to the child, however, through their novelty--are in general falling into the background as compared with the expression of his wishes in words as in the last-mentioned cases. both kinds of initiatory attempts at speaking testify more and more plainly to awakening intellect, for, in order to use a noun together with a verb in such a way as to correspond to a wish or to a fact experienced, there must be added to the imitation of words heard and to the memory of them something which adapts the sense of them to the outward experiences at the time and the peculiar circumstances, and associates them with one another. this something is the intellect. in proportion as it grows, the capacity for being taught tricks decreases and the child is already ashamed to answer by means of his former gestures the old questions, "where is the little rogue?" "how tall?" etc. but how far from the intellect of the older child is that of the child now two years and two months old appears from this fact, that the latter has not the remotest notion of number. he repeats mechanically, many times over, the words said for him, _one_, _two_, _three_, _four_, _five_; but when objects of the same sort are put before him in groups, he confounds all the numbers with one another in spite of countless attempts to bring the number 2 into firm connection with the sound two, etc. nor does he as yet understand the meaning of the frequently repeated "danke" (thanks), for, when the child has poured out milk for himself, he puts down the pitcher and says _dankee_. one more remark is to be made about the names of animals. these names are multiplying in this period, which is an important one in regard to the genesis of mind. ask, "what is the animal called?" and the answer runs, _mumu_, _kikeriki_, _bauwau_, _piep-piep_, and others. no trace of onomatopoetic attempts can be discovered here. the child has received the names pronounced to him by his nurse and has retained them; just so _hotto_ for "pferd" (horse), like _lingeling_ for "klingel" (bell). none the less every healthy child has a strong inclination to onomatopeia. the cases already reported prove the fact satisfactorily. the echolalia that still appears now and then really belongs to this. inasmuch as in general in every onomatopoetic attempt we have to do with a sound-imitation or the reproducing of the oscillations of the tympanum as nearly as possible by means of the vocal cords, all attempts of the speechless child to speak are ultimately of onomatopoetic character in the earliest period; but from the present time on sound-imitation retires before the reasoning activity, which is now shooting forth vigorously in the childish brain. in the twenty-seventh month the activity of thought manifests itself already in various ways. the independent ideas, indeed, move in a narrowly limited sphere, but their increasing number testifies to the development of the intellect. some examples may be given: the child sees a tall tree felled, and he says as it lies upon the ground, _pick up_! seeing a hole in a dressing-gown, he says, _nä[)e]n_ (sew)! in his play he sometimes says to himself, _dib acht_ (take care)! to the question, "did it taste good?" the child answers while still eating, _mekk noch_ (schmeckt noch), "it _does_ taste good," thus distinguishing the past in the question from the present. the development of observation and _comparison_ is indicated by the circumstance that salt is also called _sand_. on the other hand, the feeling of gratitude is as yet quite undeveloped. the child, as in the previous month, says _dankee_ to himself when, e. g., he has opened his wardrobe-door alone. the word is thus as yet unintelligible to him, or it is used in the sense of "so" or "succeeded." his frequent expressions of pity are striking. when dolls are cut out of paper, the child weeps violently in the most pitiful manner, for fear that in the cutting a head (_topf_) may be taken off. this behavior calls to mind the cries of _arme wiebak_ (armer zwieback--poor biscuit)! when a biscuit is divided, and _arme holz_ (poor wood)! when a stick of wood is thrown into the stove. nobody has taught the child anything of that sort. the independent observations which he expresses correctly but very briefly in a form akin to the style of the telegraphic dispatch are now numerous, e. g.: _tain milch_: there is no milk here. _lammee aus_, _lampee aus_: the flame, the lamp, is gone out. _dass la-okk_: that is the dressing-gown (schlafrock). _diss nicht la-okk_: this is not the dressing-gown. his wishes the child expresses by means of _verbs_ in the infinitive or of substantives alone. thus, _papa auf-tehen_ (papa, get up), _frü-tükken_ (breakfast), _aus-taigen_ (get out), _nicht blasen_ (not blow--in building card-houses), _pieldose aufziehn_ (wind up the music-box), and _biback_ (i should like a biscuit). into these sentences of one, two, and three words there come, however, single adverbs not before used and indefinite pronouns, like _[=e][=e]n_ and _[)e]_ in _tann [=e][=e]n nicht_ or _tann[)e] nicht_, for "kann _er_ nicht" or "kann _es_ nicht." _butter drauf_ (butter on it), _mama auch tommen_ (mamma come, too), _noch mehr_ (more), _blos wasser_ (only water), _hier_ (here), are the child's own imperatives. _schon wieder_ (again) he does indeed say of his own accord on fitting occasions; but here he is probably repeating mechanically what he has heard. in all, the forming of a word that had not been heard as such, or that had not come from what had been heard through mutilation, has been surely proved in only a single instance. the child, viz., expressed the wish (on his seven hundred and ninety-sixth day) to have an apple pared or cut up, by means of the word _messen_. he knows a knife (messer) and names it rightly, and while he works at the apple with a fork or a spoon or anything he can get hold of, or merely points at it with his hand, he says repeatedly _messen_! only after instruction did he say _messer neiden_ (mit dem messer schneiden--cut with the knife). here for the first time a wholly new word is formed. the concept and the word "knife" ("messer") and the concept, "work with the knife," were present, but the word "schneiden" (cut) for the last was wanting, as also was "schälen" (pare). hence, both in one were named _messen_ (for "messern," it may be). the two expressions that used to be heard many times daily, the name _wolà_ for the nurse mima (mary) and _atta_, have now almost disappeared. _atta wesen_ for "draussen gewesen" (been out) is still used, it is true, but only seldom. in place of it come now _weg_, _fort_, _aus_, and _allall_, in the sense of "empty," "finished." the too comprehensive, too indefinite concept _atta_ has broken up into more limited and more definite ones. it has become, as it were, differentiated, as in the embryo the separate tissues are differentiated out of the previously apparently homogeneous tissue. in the period of rapid development now attained, the child daily surprises us afresh by his independent applications of words just heard, although many are not correctly applied, as _tochen haiss_ (boiling hot), said not only of the milk, but also of the fire. when words clearly comprehended are used in a different sense from that in which adults use them--_incorrectly_ used, the latter would say--there is, however, no _illogical_ employment of them on the part of the child. for it is always the fact, as in the last example, that the concept associated with the word is taken in a more extended sense. the very young child infers a law from a few, even from two observations, which present some agreement only in one respect, and that perhaps a quite subordinate respect. he makes inductions without deliberation. he has heard milk called "boiling hot," he feels its warmth, and then feels the warmth of the stove, consequently the stove also is "boiling hot"; and so in other cases. this logical activity, the _inductive_ process, now prevails. the once favorite monologues, pure, meaningless exercises of articulation, of voice and of hearing, are, on the contrary, falling off. the frequent repetition of the same syllable, also of the same sentence (_lampee aus_), still survives particularly in animated expressions of wish, _erst essen_ (first eat), _viel milch_ (much milk), _mag-e-nicht_ (don't like it). desire for food and for playthings makes the child loquacious, much more than dislike does, the latter being more easily manifested by means of going away, turning around, turning away. the child can even beg on behalf of his carved figures of animals and men. pointing out a puppet, he says _tint aïn tikche apfl!_ für das kind _ein_ stückchen apfel! (a bit of apple for the child.) notwithstanding these manifold signs of a use of words that is beginning to be independent, the sound and word imitation continues to exist in enlarged measure. echolalia has never, perhaps, been more marked, the final words of sentences heard being repeated with the regularity of a machine. if i say, "leg die feder hin" (lay the pen down)! there sounds in response a _feder hin_. all sorts of tones and noises are imitated with varying success; even the whistle of the locomotive, an object in which a passionate interest is displayed; the voices of animals; so also german, french, italian, and english words. the french nasal "n" (in _bon_, _orange_), however--even in the following months--as well as the english "th," in _there_ (in spite of the existence of the right formation in the fifteenth month), is not attained. the child still laughs regularly when others laugh, and on his part excites merriment through exact reproduction of separate fragments of a dialogue that he does not understand, and that does not concern him; e. g., _da hastn_ (da hast du ihn) (there you have him), or _aha sist[)e]_ (siehst du) (do you see)? or _um gottes willen_ (for god's sake), the accent in these cases being also imitated with precision. but in his independent use of words the accentuation varies in irregular fashion. such an arbitrary variation is _bitté_ and _bi-t[)e]_. _beti_ no longer appears. as a noteworthy deficiency at this period is to be mentioned the feeble memory for often-prescribed answers to certain questions. to the question of a stranger, "what is your name?" the child for the first time gave of his own accord the answer _attsell_ (axel), on the eight hundred and tenth day of his life. on the other hand, improper answers that have been seriously censured remain fixed in his recollection. the impression is stronger here. the weakness of memory is still shown most plainly when we try to make intelligible to the child the numerals one to five. it is a failure. the sensuous impression that _one_ ball makes is so different from that which two balls make, the given words _one_ and _two_ sound so differently, that we can not help wondering how one and two, and likewise three, four, five, are confounded with one another. a _question_ has not yet been uttered by the child. the frequent _ist das_ signifies merely "das ist," or it is the echo of the oft-heard question, "was ist das?" and is uttered without the tone of interrogation. the articles are not used at all yet; at any rate, if used, they are merely imitated without understanding. the defects of articulation are now less striking, but only very slowly does the correct and distinct pronunciation take the place of the erroneous and indistinct. we still have regularly: _bücher-rank_ for bücherschrank (book-case). _fraï takkee_ " fräulein starke (miss starke). _[=e]r[)e]_, _tseer_ " schere (shears). _raïb[)e]_, _raiben_ " schreiben (u. zeichnen) (write or draw). _nur_ " schnur (string). _neiderin_ " schneiderin (tailoress). _dsön_ (also _schön_) " schön (pretty). _lafen_ " schlafen (sleep). _pucken_ " spucken (spit). _dsehen_ (also _sehen_) " sehen (see). the sounds "sch" and "sch" in the "st" as well as in the "sp" ("schneiden, spiel") are often omitted without any substitute (_naid[)a]_, _taign_, _piel_); more seldom their place is supplied by "s," as in _swer_ = "schwer" for "müde." yet _ks_, _ts_ are often given with purity in _bex_, _bux_, _axl_. the last word is often pronounced _ats[)e]l_ and _atsli_ (heard by him as "axeli"), very rarely _akkl_; in "aufziehen" the "z" is almost always correctly reproduced. further, we still have _locotiwe_ for locomotive. _nepf_ " knöpfe (buttons). _ann-nepf_ " anknöpfen. _nits_ " nichts (nothing). "milch" is now permanently named correctly; no longer _mimi_, _mich_; wasser, _wassa_, no longer _watja_. but "gefährlich" is called _fährlich_; "getrunken," _trunken_. the twenty-eighth month is characterized by a rapid increase of activity in the formation of ideas, on the one hand, and by considerably greater certainty in the use of words, on the other. ambition is developed and makes itself known by a frequent _laïnee_ (_allein_, alone). the child wants to undertake all sorts of things without help. he asks for various objects interesting to him, with the words _ding haben_ (have the thing). that the faculty of observation and of combination is becoming perfected, is indicated by the following: the child sees an ox at the slaughter-house and says _mumu_ (moo-moo); i add "todt" (dead); thereupon comes the response _mumu todt_, and after a pause the child says, of his own accord, _lachtett_ (_geschlachtet_, slaughtered); then _blut heraus_ (blood out). the beginning of self-control is perceived in this, that the child often recollects, of himself, the strict commands he has received to refrain from this and that. thus, he had been accustomed to strike members of the family in fun, and this had been forbidden him. now, when the inclination seizes him still to strike, he says emphatically _nicht lagen_ (_schlagen_,--not strike), _axel brav_ (good). in general the child names himself only by his name, which he also tells to strangers without being asked. his parents, and these alone, are mostly named _papa_ and _mama_, but often also by their names. the following is a proof of independent thinking while the understanding of language is still imperfect: at breakfast i say, "axel is breakfasting with papa, is he not (_nicht wahr_)?" he replies earnestly, with genuine child-logic, _doch wahr_ (but he _is_)! the earlier appellation _swer_ and _wer_ (schwer--heavy) for müde (tired) is preserved. this transference, like the other one, _locotiwe wassa trinkt_, when the engine is supplied with water, is the intellectual peculium of the child. the number of such childish conceptions has now become very large. on the other hand, the words independently formed out of what has been heard are not numerous: _beisst_ for gebissen (bitten), _reit_ " geritten (ridden), _esst_ " gegessen (eaten), _wesen_ " gewesen (been), _austrinkt_ " ausgetrunken (drunk up), _tschulter_ " schulter (shoulder), must be considered as mutilations, not as new formations. the great number of words correctly pronounced and used continues, on the other hand, to increase. there are even decided attempts to use single _prepositions_: _nepfe_ (knöpfe) _für mama_ (buttons for mamma) may be simple repetition, like _axel mit papa_; but as utterances of this kind were not formerly repeated by him, though just as often made in his hearing, the understanding of the "für" and "mit" must now be awakened. from this time forth the understanding of several prepositions and the correct use of them abide. in addition there come into this period the first applications of the _article_. however often this part of speech may have been reproduced from the speech of others, it has never been said with understanding; but now in the expressions _um'n hals_ and _für'm axel_ (around the neck and for (the) axel) there lies the beginning of right use of the article, and, indeed, also in the months immediately succeeding, almost solely of the definite article. but more significant psychogenetically than all progress of this kind in the manipulation of language is the questioning that becomes active in this month. although i paid special attention to this point from the beginning, i first heard the child ask a question of his own accord on the eight hundred and forty-fifth day of his life. he asked, "where is mima?" from that time on questions were more frequent; but in the time immediately following this his question was always one relating to something in space. the word "where?" continued for a long time to be his only interrogative. he has also for a long time understood the "where?" when he heard it. if, e. g., i asked, "where is the nose?" without giving any hint by look or otherwise, this question has for months past been correctly answered by a movement of the child's arm to his nose. it is true that my question, "what is that?" a much more frequent one, is likewise answered correctly, although the word "what?" has never been used by the child. his cleverness in reproducing even foreign expressions is surprising. the words pronounced for him by italians (during a pretty long sojourn on lake garda), e. g., _uno_, _due_, _tre_, are given back without the least german accent. "quattro," to be sure, became _wattro_, but _ancora piccolo_ was absolutely pure. the imitation of the marching of soldiers, with the frequent cry _batelón eins s[)u]ai_ (battalion, one, two), already gives him the greatest pleasure. the imagination that is active in it is to be discerned, however, rather in gestures than in words. how lively the child's power of imagination is appears also in the fact that flat figures rudely cut out of newspaper, to represent glasses and cups, are carried to the mouth like real ones. the _articulation_ has again become a little more perfected, but in many respects it is still a good deal deficient; thus, in regard to the "sch," he says: _abneiden_ for abschneiden (cut off). _hirn_ " stirn (forehead). _verbrochen_ " versprochen (promised). _lagn_ " schlagen (strike). _runtergeluckt_ " heruntergeschluckt (swallowed). _einteign_ " einsteigen (get in). on the other hand, _aus-teign_ (aussteigen) (alight). other defects of articulation are shown by the following examples: _topf_ for klopfen (knock). _üffte_ " lüften (take the air). _leben_ " kleben (adhere). _viloa, viloja,_ " viola. _dummi_ " gummi (gum). the _l mouillé_ can not be at all successfully given at the beginning of this month (_bat[)e]l[=o]n_ for "bataillon"), and the nasal sounds in "orange" and "salon" offer insuperable difficulties (up to the second half of the fourth year). at the end of this month, however, i heard a _ganzee bataljohn_ (_j_ like english _y_). "orange" continued to be, after _oraanjee_ had been given up, _orohs[)e]_. the softening (mouilliren--_nj_ = _ñ_) was inconvenient in this case. quite correctly named at this period were eye, nose, cheek, tongue, mouth, ear, beard, hair, arm, thumb, finger. meaningless chatter has become much more rare. on the other hand, the child is in the habit of making all sorts of remarks, especially in the morning early after waking, for a quarter of an hour at a time and longer without interruption, these remarks for the most part consisting of a noun and verb and relating to objects immediately about him. monologues also are given in a singing voice, syllables without meaning, often a regular singing, the child meantime running many times around the table; besides, his strong voice is not seldom practiced in producing high tones without any outward occasion; and, finally, it is worthy of note that sometimes in sleep, evidently when the child has a vivid dream, a scream is uttered. talking in his sleep first appeared in his fourth year. the greatest advance in the twenty-ninth month consists in the employment of the personal pronoun in place of his own name: _bitte gib mir brod_ (please give me bread) was the first sentence in which it appeared. "ich" (i) is not yet said, but if i ask "who is 'me'?" then the child names himself with his own name, as he does in general. through this employment, more and more frequent from this time forth, of the pronoun instead of the proper name, is gradually introduced the inflection of the verbs he has heard; but at this time the imperative has its place generally supplied by the infinitive: _p[)a]p[)a] s[=a]gn_ and _ssooss sitzen_. sentences composed by himself, or heard and then used by him, like _das meckt_ (schmeckt) _sehr gut_ (that tastes very good), are rare; yet the discrimination between regular and irregular verbs has already begun to be made. to be sure, the question "where have you been?" is answered with _paziren gegeht_ (goed to walk), and _ausgezieht_ is said for _ausgezogen_ (drawed out), also _geseht_ (seed) instead of _gesehen_ (seen); but at the same time frequently _eingetigen_ and _ausgetigen_, instead of _ein-_ and _aus-geteigt_. an interesting, rare misformation was _grefessen_ for "gefressen." the verbs most frequently used seem to be "haben" (have) and "kommen" (come), and the forms "hat" and "kommt" are indeed correctly used sometimes, e. g., _viel rauch kommt heraus_ (much smoke comes out), and _gleich kommt kaffee_ (the coffee is coming). while the infinitives "haben" and "kommen" are uttered several times a day, the infinitive "sein" (to be) is never heard; but of this auxiliary verb "ist" and "wesen" are used, the latter for "gewesen." in every instance where the child expresses a desire by means of a verb, he simply takes the infinitive; e. g., he hears, as he sits in the room, the noise of the railway-train at a distance, and he says, _locotiwe sehen_. further, _numbering_ begins to be active to a noteworthy degree. although the numerals are already well known to the child, he still confounds them on all occasions, and in view of the absolute failure of the many attempts to teach the child the significance of the numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, one might infer that he has not yet perceived the difference between, e. g., 3 matches and 4 matches; yet counting is already taking place, though in very unexpected fashion. the child began, viz., on the eight hundred and seventy-eighth day, suddenly, of his own accord entirely, to count with his nine-pins, putting them in a row, saying with each one, _eins_ (one)! _eins!_ _eins!_ _eins!_ afterward saying _eins!_ _noch eins_ (one more)! _noch eins!_ _noch eins!_ the process of adding is thus performed without the naming of the sums. the questioning that appeared in the previous month, the surest sign of independent thought in the child, is somewhat more plainly manifest; but "where" alone serves as the interrogative word, and that in its proper sense: where is hat? "which, who, why, when" are not spoken by the child and doubtless not understood, for, although succession in time is in many cases clear to him ("first eat," "then," "now"), yet in many other cases he does not know how to express distinctions of time; just as in comparing many and few, large and small objects, the quantity is wrongly given. thus he says correctly, when many counters are to be brought together, _zuviel_ (too many), but says _zuviel_ wrongly for _zuwenig_ (too little) when there is too little butter on his bread. in this case the _zuviel_ (too much) sounds almost like irony, which, of course, is out of the question at his age. "too much" and "too little" are confounded in the same way as 5 and 2. yet, in another respect the memory has made a considerable gain. expressions long since forgotten by those about the child are suddenly without assignable occasion sometimes uttered again with perfect distinctness, and the child even applies fitly what he has observed. thus, he brings matches when he sees that some one wants to light a candle. i say to him, "pick up the bread-crumbs." upon this the child comes forward, though very slowly, cries out suddenly, _get broom_, recollecting that he has seen the carpet swept, goes and gets the broom, and sweeps the crumbs away. his memory for the utterances of animals as they have been made for him is very good. if i ask, e. g., "what does the duck say?" the answer is _kuak kuak_. he has gained also in certainty in naming the separate parts of a drawing, especially of a locomotive, so that one chief condition of speech, in the full sense of the word--memory--may be said to be well developed. articulation, on the contrary, makes slow progress. "hirsch" is called _hirss_, "schwalbe" _walbe_, "flasche" _flassee_. the following are generally correctly pronounced: _treppe_, _fenster_, _krug_, _kraut_, _kuchen_, _helm_, _besen_, _cigarre_, _hut_, _giesskanne_, _dinte_, _buch_, _birne_. for "barometer, thermometer," he says _mometer_, for "schrauben" _raubn_, for "frühstücken" (to breakfast) still often _fri-ticken_. in the _thirtieth month_ the independent activity of thought develops more and more. when the child is playing by himself, e. g., he often says to himself: _eimerchen ausleeren_ (make pail empty); _hackemesser_ (chopping-knife). thus his small vocabulary serves him at any rate for making clear his own ideas. already his thinking is often a low speaking, yet only in part. when language fails him, he first considers well. an example: the child finds it very difficult to turn crosswise or lengthwise one of the nine-pins which he wants to put into its box, and when i say, "round the other way!" he turns it around in such a way that it comes to lie as it did at the beginning, wrongly. he also pushes the broad side of the cover against the small end of the box. the child evidently understands the expression "round the other way"; but as the expression is ambiguous (the head of the nine-pin may go to the left, to the right, up, down, back, forward), we can understand that the pin should be turned now one way and again another way, and even brought back to its original position. then appears the child's own deliberation without words--without any speaking at all, low or loud--until after frequently repeated packing and unpacking hardly any hesitation is shown. many utterances show how easily at this period objects that have only a slight resemblance to one another or only a few qualities in common are included in one concept. when a roasted apple is peeled, the child sees the peel and says (thinking of his boiled milk, which he saw several hours previous, but which is not now present), _milch auch haut_ (milk skin too). similar is the expression _kirche läutet_ (church rings) when the tower-clock strikes. the child forms concepts which comprehend a few qualities in unity, and indeed without designating the concept always by a particular word, whereas the developed understanding more and more forms concepts with many qualities and designates them by words. hence the concepts of the child have less content and more extent than those of adults. for this reason they are less distinct also, and are often ephemeral, since they break up into narrower, more distinct concepts; but they always testify to activity of thought. a greater intellectual advance, however, is manifested at this time in the first intentional use of language in order to bring on a game of hide-and-seek. a key falls to the floor. the child picks it up quickly, holds it behind him, and to my question, "where is the key?" answers _nicht mehr da_ (no longer there). as i found in the following months no falsehood, in the proper sense of the word, to record, but rather that the least error, the most trivial exaggeration, was corrected at once by the child himself, with peculiarly _naïve_ seriousness, in a little story, with pauses between the separate words, so, too, in the present case the answer _nicht mehr da_ is no falsehood, but is to be understood as meaning that the key is no longer to be seen. the expression of the face was roguish at the time. the sole interrogative word continues still to be "where?" e. g., _where is ball?_ the demonstratives _da_ (there) and _dort_ (yonder) (_dort ist nass_--wet) were more frequently spoken correctly in answer. the "i" in place of his own name does not yet appear, because this word does not occur frequently enough in conversation with the child. the bad custom adults have of designating themselves in their talk with little children, not as in ordinary conversation by the word "i," but by the proper name, or as "aunt," "grandma," etc., postpones the time of saying "i" on the part of children. _me_ is pretty often used at this period, for the reason that it is frequently heard at meal-times in "give me!" _bitte, liebe mama, gib mir mehr suppe_ (please, dear mamma, give me more soup) is, to be sure, learned by heart; but such sentences are at the proper time and in the proper place modified and even independently applied. _noch mehr_, _immer noch mehr_, _vielleicht_, _fast_ (more, more yet, perhaps, almost), are also expressions often properly employed, the last two, however, with uncertainty still. _fast gefallen_ (almost fell) the child says when he has actually fallen down. although declension and conjugation are as yet absolutely lacking, a transition has become established from the worst form of dysgrammatism to the beginning of correct diction by means of the more frequent use of the plural in nouns (_rad_, _räder_), the more frequent employment of the article (_för d[)e] papa_), the not very rare strong inflection (_gegangen_ instead of the earlier _gegeht_; _genommen_ instead of the earlier _genehmt_). to be sure, the infinitive still stands in the place of the participle and the imperative in by far the great majority of cases. the auxiliaries are often omitted or employed in strange misformations, e. g., "where have you been?" answer, _paziren gewarent_ [something like _they wented 'alk_] (wir waren spazieren, spazieren gewesen). in _articulation_ no perceptible progress is to be recorded. the objects known from the picture-book are indeed for the most part rightly named, but new ones often have their names very much distorted--e. g., "violine" is persistently called _wiloïne_. the "sch" is occasionally given correctly, but _s-trümpfe_, _auf-s-tehen_ is the rule. the answer that has been learned to the question, "how old are you?" "seit november zwei jahre," is given _wember wai jahr_. the way in which the child learns the correct pronunciation is in general twofold: 1. through frequent hearing of the correct words, since no one speaks as he himself does; thus, e. g., _genommen_ took the place of _genehmt_ without instruction. 2. through having the words frequently pronounced on purpose for him to imitate with the utmost attention. thus, e. g., the child up to this time always said _locotiwe_ and _locopotiwe_. i exhorted him a few times earnestly to say "locomotive." the result was _loco-loco-loco-mo-tiwe_, and then _locomotiwe_, with exact copying of the accent with which i spoke. singing also is imitated. his memory for words that denote objects is very good; but when expressions designating something not very apparent to the senses are to be learned, he easily fails. thus, the left and the right foot or arm, the left and the right cheek or hand, are very often correctly named, but often falsely. the difference between left and right can not be exactly described, explained, or made imaginable to the child. in the _thirty-first month_ two new questions make their appearance: the child asks, _welches papier nehmen?_ (what paper take?) after he has obtained permission to make marks with the pencil, i. e., to _raiben_ (write and draw), and _was kost die trommel?_ (what does the drum cost?) now the indefinite article appears oftener; it is distinctly audible in _halt n biss-chen wasser!_ more surprising are individual new formations, which disappear, however, soon after their rise; thus, the comparative of "hoch." the child says with perfect distinctness _hocher bauen_ (build higher) in playing with wooden blocks; he thus forms of himself the most natural comparative, like the participle _gegebt_ for "gegeben." in place of "uhr-schlüssel" (watch-key) he says _slüssl-uhr_ (key-watch), thus placing the principal thing first. he makes use of the strange expression _heitgestern_ in place of "heute" (to-day), and in place of "gestern" (yesterday). the two latter taken singly are confounded with each other for a long time yet. sentence-forming is still very imperfect: _is smoke_ means "that is smoke" and "there is smoke"; and _kommt locomotiwe_ stands for "da kommt eine oder die locomotive" (there comes a, or the, engine). at sight of the bath-tub, however, the child says six times in quick succession _da kommt kalt wasser rein, marie_ (cold water is to go in here, mary). he frequently makes remarks on matters of fact, e. g., _warm out there_. if he has broken a flower-pot, a bandbox, a glass, he says regularly, of his own accord, _frederick glue again_, and he reports faithfully every little fault to his parents. but when a plaything or an object interesting to him vexes him, he says, peevishly, _stupid thing_, e. g., to the carpet, which he can not lift; and he does not linger long over one play. his occupation must be changed very often. the imitations are now again becoming less frequent than in the past months, and expressions not understood are repeated rather for the amusement of the family than unconsciously; thus, _ach gott_ (oh god!) and _wirklich grossartig_ (truly grand). yet the child sometimes sings in his sleep, several seconds at a time, evidently dreaming. the pronunciation of the "sch," even in the favorite succession of words, _ganzes batalljohn marss_ (for "marsch") _eins_, _zwei_, is imperfect, and although no person of those about him pronounces the "st" in "stall, stehen" otherwise than as "scht," the child keeps persistently to _s-tall_, _s-tehen_. the pronunciation "scht" began in the last six months of the fourth year of his life, and in the forty-sixth month it completely crowded out the "st," which seems the more remarkable as the child was taken care of by a mecklenburg woman from the beginning of the fourth year. in the _thirty-second month_ the "i" began to displace his own name. _mir_ (_gib mir_) and _mich_ (_bitte heb mich herauf_, please lift me up) had already appeared in the twenty-ninth to the thirty-first month; _ich komme gleich_, _geld möcht ich haben_ (i am coming directly, i should like money), are new acquirements. if he is asked "who is _i_?" the answer is, _der axel_. but he still speaks in the third person frequently; e. g., the child says, speaking of himself, _da ist er wieder_ (here he is again), _axel auch haben_ (axel have, too), and _mag-[)e] nicht_, thus designating himself at this period in fourfold fashion, by _i_, _he_, _axel_, and by the omission of all pronouns and names. although _bitte setz mich auf den stuhl_ (please put me on the chair) is learned from hearing it said for him, yet the correct application of the sentence, which he makes of himself daily from this time on, must be regarded as an important advance. the same is true of the forming of clauses, which is now beginning to take place, as in _weiss nicht, wo es ist_ (don't know where it is). new also is the separation of the particle in compound verbs, as in _fällt immer um_ (keeps tumbling over). longer and longer names and sentences are spoken with perfect distinctness, but the influence of the dialect of the neighborhood is occasionally perceptible. his nurse is the one who talks most with him. she is from the schwarzwald, and from her comes the omission of the "n" at the end of words, as in _kännche_, _trocke_. besides, the confounding of the surd, "p," with the sonant, "b" (_putter_), is so frequent that it may well be taken from the thuringian dialect, like the confounding of "eu" and "ei" (_heit_). the only german sounds that still present great difficulties are "sch" and "chts" (in "nichts"). the memory of the child has indeed improved, but it has become somewhat fastidious. only that which seems interesting and intelligible to the child impresses itself permanently; on the other hand, useless and unintelligible verses learned by rote, that persons have taught him, though seldom, for fun, are forgotten after a few days. in the _thirty-third month_ the strength of memory already mentioned for certain experiences shows itself in many characteristic remarks. thus the child, again absent from home with his parents for some weeks, says almost every evening, _gleich blasen die soldaten_ (the soldiers, i. e., the band, will play directly), although no soldier is to be seen in the country far and wide. but at home the music was actually to be heard every evening. at sight of a cock in his picture-book the child says, slowly, _das ist der hahn--kommt immer--das ganze stück fortnehmt--von der hand--und laüft fort_ ("that is the cock--keeps coming--takes away the whole piece--out of the hand--and runs off"). this narrative--the longest yet given, by the way--has reference to the feeding of the fowls, on which occasion the cock had really carried off a piece of bread. the doings of animals in general excited the attention of the child greatly. he is capable even of forgetting to eat, in order to observe assiduously the movements of a fly. _jetzt geht in die zeitung--geht in die milch!_ _fort thier! geh fort! unter den kaffee!_ (now he is going into the newspaper--going into the milk! away, creature! go away! into the coffee!) his interest is very keen for other moving objects also, particularly locomotives. how little clearness there is in his conceptions of animal and machine, however, appears from the fact that both are addressed in the same way. when his father's brother comes, the child says, turning to his father, _neuer_ (new) _papa_; he has not, therefore, the slightest idea of that which the word "father" signifies. naturally he can have none. yet selfhood (ichheit) has come forth at this period in considerably sharper manifestation. he cries, _das ding haben! das will ich, das will ich, das will ich, das spiel möcht ich haben!_ (have the thing! i want it, i should like the game.) to be sure, when one says "komm, ich knöpfs dir zu" (come, i will button it for you), the child comes, and says, as an echo, _ich knöpfs dir zu_ (i will button it for you), evidently meaning, "button it for me"! he also confounds _zu viel_ (too much) with _zu wenig_ (too little), _nie_ (never) with _immer_ (always), _heute_ (to-day) with _gestern_ (yesterday); on the contrary, the words _und_, _sondern_, _noch_, _mehr_, _nur_, _bis_, _wo_ (and, but, still, more, only, till, where) are always used correctly. the most striking mistakes are those of conjugation, which is still quite erroneous (e. g., _getrinkt_ and _getrunkt_ along with _getrunken_), and of articulation, the "sch" (_dsen_ for "schön") being only seldom pure, mostly given as "s" or "ts." "toast" is called _toos_ and _dose_. after the first thousand days of his life had passed, the observation of him was continued daily, but not the record in writing. some particulars belonging to the following months may be noted: many expressions accidentally heard by the child that excited the merriment of the family when once repeated by him, were rehearsed times without number in a laughing, roguish, obtrusive manner, thus, _du liebe zeit_. the child also calls out the name of his nurse, _marie_, often without meaning, over and over again, even in the night. he calls others also by this name in manifest distraction of mind, often making the correction himself when he perceives the mistake. more and more seldom does the child speak of himself in the third person, and then he calls himself by his name, never saying "he" any more. usually he speaks of himself as "i," especially "i will, i will have that, i can not." gradually, too, he uses _du_ in address, e. g., _was für hübsen rock hast du_ (what a handsome coat you have)! here the manner of using the "was" is also new. on the ten hundred and twenty-eighth day _warum_ (why?) was first used in a question. i was watching with the closest attention for the first appearance of this word. the sentence ran, _warum nach hause gehen? ich will nicht nach hause_ (why go home? i don't want to go home). when a wheel creaked on the carriage, the child asked, _was macht nur so_ (what makes that)? both questions show that at last the instinct of causality, which manifested itself more than a year before in a kind of activity of inquiry, in experimenting, and even earlier (in the twelfth week) in giving attention to things, is expressed _in language_; but the questioning is often repeated in a senseless way till it reaches the point of weariness. _warum wird das holz gesnitten?_ (for "gesägt"--why is the wood sawed?) _warum macht der frödrich die [blumen] töpfe rein?_ (why does frederick clean the flower-pots?) are examples of childish questions, which when they receive an answer, and indeed whatever answer, are followed by fresh questions just as idle (from the standpoint of adults); but they testify plainly to a far-reaching independent activity of thought. so with the frequent question, _wie macht man das nur?_ (how is that done?) it is to be said, further, that i found the endeavor impracticable to ascertain the order of succession in which the child uses the different interrogative words. it depends wholly on the company about him at what time first this or that turn of expression or question is repeated and then used independently. "why" is heard by him, as a rule, less often than "what?" and "how?" and "which?" still, it seems remarkable that i did not once hear the child say "when?" until the close of the third year. the sense of space is, to be sure, but little developed at that time, but the sense of time still less. the use of the word "forgotten" (_ich habe vergessen_) and of "i shall" (do this or that) is exceedingly rare. the articulation was speedily perfected; yet there was no success at all in the repetition of french nasal sounds. in spite of much pains "salon" remained _salo_, "orange" _orose_; and the french "je" also presented insuperable difficulties. of german sounds, "sch" alone was seldom correct. it was still represented by _s_; for example, in _sloss_ for "schloss," _ssooss_ for "schooss." his fondness for singing increases, and indeed all sorts of meaningless syllables are repeated with pleasure again and again, much as in the period of infancy, only more distinctly; but, just as at that time, they can not all be represented on paper or even be correctly reproduced by adults. for a considerable time he was fond of _[=e]-la_, _[=e]-la_, _la_, _la_, _la_, _la_, in higher and higher pitch, and with unequal intervals, _lálla-lálla_, _lilalula_. in this it was certainly more the joy over the increasing compass and power of his voice that stimulated him to repetition than it was the sound of the syllables; yet in the thirty-sixth month he showed great pleasure in his singing, of which peculiar, though not very pleasing, melodies were characteristic. the singing over of songs sung to him was but very imperfectly successful. on the other hand, the copying of the manner of speaking, of accent, cadence, and ring of the voices of adults was surprising, although echolalia proper almost ceased or appeared again only from time to time. grammatical errors are already becoming more rare. a stubborn fault in declension is the putting of _am_ in place of _dem_ and _der_, e. g., _das am mama geben_. long sentences are formed correctly, but slowly and with pauses, without errors, e. g., _die blume--ist ganz durstig--möcht auch n bischen wasser haben_ (the flower is quite thirsty--would like a little water). if i ask now, "from whom have you learned that?" the answer comes regularly, _das hab ich alleine gelernt_ (i learned it alone). in general the child wants to manage for himself without assistance, to pull, push, mount, climb, water flowers, crying out repeatedly and passionately, _ich möcht ganz alleine_ (i want to [do it] all alone). in spite of this independence and these ambitious inclinations, there seldom appears an invention of his own in language. here belongs, e. g., the remark of the child, _das bett ist zu holzhart_ (the bed is too wooden-hard), after having hit himself against the bed-post. further, to the question, "do you like to sleep in the large room?" he answered, _o ja ganz lieberich gern_; and when i asked, "who, pray, speaks so?" the answer came very slowly, with deliberation and with pauses, _nicht-nicht-nicht-nicht-nicht-niemand_ (not--nobody). how far advanced is the use of the participles, which are hard to master, is shown by the sentence, _die milch ist schon heiss gemacht worden_ (the milk has already been made hot). the child's manner of speaking when he was three years old approximated more and more rapidly to that of the family through continued listening to them and imitation of them, so that i gave up recording it; besides, the abundant--some may think too abundant--material already presented supplies facts enough to support the foundations of the history of the development of speech in the child as i have attempted to set it forth. a systematic, thorough-going investigation requires the combined labor of many, who must all strive to answer the same questions--questions which in this chronological survey are, in regard to one single individual, in part answered, but in part could merely be proposed. to observe the child every day during the first thousand days of his life, in order to trace the historical development of speech, was possible only through self-control, much patience, and great expenditure of time; but such observations are necessary, from the physiological, the psychological, the linguistic, and the pedagogic point of view, and nothing can supply their place. in order to secure for them the highest degree of trustworthiness, i have adhered strictly, without exception, to the following rules: 1. i have not adopted a single observation of the accuracy of which i was not _myself_ most positively convinced. least of all can one rely on the reports of nurses, attendants, and other persons not practiced in scientific observing. i have often, merely by a brief, quiet cross-examination, brought such persons to see for themselves the erroneous character of their statements, particularly in case these were made in order to prove how "knowing" the infants were. on the other hand, i owe to the mother of my child, who has by nature a talent for observation such as is given to few, a great many communications concerning his mental development which have been easily verified by myself. 2. every observation must _immediately_ be entered in writing in a diary that is always lying ready. if this is not done, details of the observations are often forgotten; a thing easily conceivable, because these details in themselves are in many ways uninteresting--especially the meaningless articulations--and they acquire value only in connection with others. 3. in conducting the observations every artificial strain upon the child is to be avoided, and the effort is to be made as often as possible to observe without the child's noticing the observer at all. 4. all training of the one-year-old and of the two-year-old child must be, so far as possible, prevented. i have in this respect been so far successful that my child was not until late acquainted with such tricks as children are taught, and was not vexed with the learning by heart of songs, etc., which he was not capable of understanding. still, as the record shows, not all unnecessary training could be avoided. the earlier a little child is constrained to perform ceremonious and other conventional actions, the meaning of which is unknown to him, so much the earlier does he lose the poetic naturalness which, at any rate, is but brief and never comes again; and so much the more difficult becomes the observation of his unadulterated mental development. 5. every interruption of one's observation for more than a day demands the substitution of another observer, and, after taking up the work again, a verification of what has been perceived and noted down in the interval. 6. three times, at least, every day the same child is to be observed, and everything incidentally noticed is to be put upon paper, no less than that which is methodically ascertained with reference to definite questions. in accordance with these directions, tested by myself, all my own observations in this book, and particularly those of this chapter, were conducted. comparison with the statements of others can alone give them a general importance. what has been furnished by earlier observers in regard to children's learning to speak is, however, not extensive. i have collected some data in an appendix. chapter xix. development of the feeling of self, the "i"-feeling. before the child is in a condition to recognize as belonging to him the parts of his body that he can feel and see, he must have had a great number of experiences, which are for the most part associated with _painful feelings_. how little is gained for the development of the notion of the "i" by means of the first movements of the hands, which the infant early carries to the mouth, and which must give him, when he sucks them, a different feeling from that given by sucking the finger of another person, or other suitable objects, appears from the fact that, e. g., my child for months tugged at his fingers as if he wanted to pull them off, and struck his own head with his hand by way of experiment. at the close of the first year he had a fancy for striking hard substances against his teeth, and made a regular play of gnashing the teeth. when on the four hundred and ninth day he stood up straight in bed, holding on to the railing of it with his hands, _he bit himself on his bare arm_, and that the upper arm, so that he immediately cried out with pain. the marks of the incisors were to be seen long afterward. the child did not a second time bite himself in the arm, but only bit his fingers, and inadvertently his tongue. the same child, who likes to hold a biscuit to the mouth of any member of the family to whom he is favorably disposed, offered the biscuit in the same way, entirely of his own accord, to his own foot--sitting on the floor, holding the biscuit in a waiting attitude to his toes--and this strange freak was repeated many times in the twenty-third month. the child amused himself with it. thus, at a time when the attention to what is around is already very far developed, one's own person may not be distinguished from the environment. vierordt thinks that a discrimination between the general feelings [i. e., those caused by bodily states] and the sensations that pertain to the external world exists in the third month. from my observations i can not agree with him; for, although the division may begin thus early, yet it does not become complete until much later. in the ninth month the feet are still eagerly felt of by the little hands, though not so eagerly as before, and the toes are carried to the mouth like a new plaything. nay, even in the nineteenth month it is not yet clear how much belongs to one's own body. the child had lost a shoe. i said, "give the shoe." he stooped, seized it, and gave it to me. then, when i said to the child, as he was standing upright on the floor, "give the foot," in the expectation that he would hold it out, stretch it toward me, he grasped at it with both hands, and labored hard to get it and hand it to me. how little he understands, even after the first year of his life has passed, the difference between the parts of his own body and foreign objects is shown also in some strange experiments that the child conducted quite independently. he sits by me at the table and strikes very often and rapidly with his hands successive blows upon the table, at first gently, then hard; then, with the right hand alone, hard; next, suddenly strikes himself with the same hand on the mouth; then he holds his hand to his mouth for a while, strikes the table again with the right hand, and then on a sudden strikes his own head (above the ear). the whole performance gave exactly the impression of his having for the first time noticed that it is one thing to strike oneself, one's own hard head, and another thing to strike a foreign hard object (forty-first week). even in the thirteenth month the child often raps his head with his hand to try the effect, and seems surprised at the hardness of the head. in the sixteenth month he used not unfrequently to set the left thumb against the left side of the head, and at the same time the right thumb against the right side of the head, above the ears, with the fingers spread, and to push at the same time, putting on a strange, wondering expression of face, with wide-open eyes. this movement is not imitated and not inherited, but invented. the child is doubtless making experiments by means of it upon the holding of the head, head-shaking, resistance of his own body, perhaps also upon the management of the head, as at every thump of the thumbs against the temporal bones a dull sound was heard. the objectivity of the fingers was found out not much before this time by involuntary, painful biting of them, for as late as the fifteenth month the child bit his finger so that he cried out with pain. pain is the most efficient teacher in the learning of the difference between subjective and objective. another important factor is the _perception of a change produced by ones own activity_ in all sorts of familiar objects that can be taken hold of in the neighborhood; and the most remarkable day, from a psychogenetic point of view, in any case an extremely significant day in the life of the infant, is the one in which he first experiences the _connection of a movement executed by himself with a sense-impression following upon it_. the noise that comes from the tearing and crumpling of paper is as yet unknown to the child. he discovers (in the fifth month) the fact that he himself in tearing paper into smaller and smaller pieces has again and again the new sound-sensation, and he repeats the experiment day by day and with a strain of exertion until this connection has lost the charm of novelty. at present there is not, indeed, as yet any clear insight into the nexus of cause; but the child has now had the experience that he can himself be the cause of a combined perception of sight and sound regularly, to the extent that when he tears paper there appears, on the one hand, the lessening in size; on the other hand, the noise. the patience with which this occupation--from the forty-fifth to the fifty-fifth week especially--is continued with pleasure is explained by the gratification at being a cause, at the perception that so striking a transformation as that of the newspaper into fragments has been effected by means of his own activity. other occupations of this sort, which are taken up again and again with a persistency incomprehensible to an adult, are the shaking of a bunch of keys, the opening and closing of a box or purse (thirteenth month); the pulling out and emptying, and then the filling and pushing in, of a table-drawer; the heaping up and the strewing about of garden-mold or gravel; the turning of the leaves of a book (thirteenth to nineteenth month); digging and scraping in the sand; the carrying of footstools hither and thither; the placing of shells, stones, or buttons in rows (twenty-first month); pouring water into and out of bottles, cups, watering-pots (thirty-first to thirty-third months); and, in the case of my boy, the throwing of stones into the water. a little girl in the eleventh month found her chief pleasure in "rummaging" with trifles in drawers and little boxes. her sister "played" with all sorts of things, taking an interest in dolls and pictures in the tenth month (frau von strümpell). here, too, the eagerness and seriousness with which such apparently aimless movements are performed is remarkable. the satisfaction they afford must be very great, and it probably has its basis in the feeling of his own power generated by the movements originated by the child himself (changes of place, of position, of form) and in the proud feeling of being a cause. this is not mere playing, although it is so called; it is _experimenting_. the child that at first merely played like a cat, being amused with color, form, and movement, has become a _causative being_. herewith the development of the _"i"-feeling_ enters upon a new phase; but it is not yet perfected. vanity and ambition come in for the further development of it. above all, it is _attention_ to the _parts of his own body_ and the _articles of his dress_, the nearest of all objects to the child's eye, that helps along the separation in thought of the child's body from all other objects. i therefore made special observation of the directing of his look toward his own body and toward the mirror. in regard to the first i took note, among other facts, of the following: _17th week._--in the seizing movements, as yet imperfect, the gaze is fixed partly on the object, partly on _his own hand_, especially if the hand has once seized successfully. _18th week._--the very attentive regarding of the fingers in seizing is surprising, and is to be observed daily. _23d week._--when the infant, who often throws his hands about at random in the air, accidentally gets hold of one hand with the other, he regards attentively both his hands, which are often by chance folded. _24th week._--in the same way the child fixes his gaze for several minutes alternately upon a glove held by himself in his hands and upon his own fingers that hold it. _32d week._--the child, lying on his back, _looks_ very frequently _at_ his _legs_ stretched up vertically, especially at his _feet_, as if they were something foreign to him. _35th week._--in every situation in which he can do so, the child tries to grasp a foot with both hands and carry it to his mouth, often with success. this monkey-like movement seems to afford him special pleasure. _36th week._--his own hands and feet are no more so frequently observed by him without special occasion. other new objects attract his gaze and are seized. _39th week._--the same as before. in the bath, however, the child sometimes looks at and feels of _his own skin_ in various places, evidently taking pleasure in doing so. sometimes he directs his gaze to his legs, which are bent and extended in a very lively manner in the most manifold variety of positions. _55th week._--the child looks for a long time attentively at a person eating, and follows with his gaze every movement; grasps at the person's face, and then, after _striking himself on the head_, fixes his gaze on his own hands. he is fond of playing with the fingers of the persons in the family, and delights in the bendings and extensions, evidently comparing them with those of his own fingers. _62d week._--playing with his own fingers (at which he looks with a protracted gaze) as if he would pull them off. again, one hand is pressed down by the other flat upon the table until it hurts, as if the hand were a wholly foreign plaything, and it is still looked at wonderingly sometimes. from this time forth the gazing at the parts of his own body was perceptibly lessened. the child _knew_ them as to their form, and gradually learned to distinguish them from foreign objects as parts belonging to him; but in this he by no means arrives at the point of considering, "the hand is mine, the thing seized is not," or "the leg belongs to me," and the like; but because all the visible parts of the child's body, on account of very frequently repeated observation, no longer excite the optic center so strongly and therefore appear no longer interesting--because the experiences of touch combined with visual perceptions always recur in the same manner--the child has gradually become accustomed to them and _overlooks_ them when making use of his hands and feet. he no longer represents them to himself separately, as he did before, whereas every new object felt, seen, or heard, is very interesting to him and is separately represented in idea. thus arises the definite separation of object and subject in the child's intellect. in the beginning the child is new to himself, namely, to the representational apparatus that gets its development only after birth; later, after he has become acquainted with himself, after he, namely, his body, has lost the charm of novelty for him, i. e., for the representational apparatus in his brain, a dim feeling of the "i" exists, and by means of further abstraction the concept of the "i" is formed. the progress of the intellect in the act of _looking into the mirror_ confirms this conclusion drawn from the above observations. for the behavior of the child toward his image in the glass shows unmistakably the gradual growth of the consciousness of self out of a condition in which objective and subjective changes are not yet distinguished from each other. among the subjective changes is, without doubt, the smiling at the image in the tenth week, which was probably occasioned merely by the brightness (sigismund). another boy in the twenty-seventh week looked at himself in the glass with a smile (sigismund). darwin recorded of one of his sons, that in the fifth month he repeatedly smiled at his father's image and his own in a mirror and took them for real objects; but he was surprised that his father's voice sounded from behind him (the child). "like all infants, he much enjoyed thus looking at himself, and in less than two months perfectly understood that it was an image, for if i made quite silently any odd grimace, he would suddenly turn round to look at me. he was, however, puzzled at the age of seven months, when, being out of doors, he saw me on the inside of a large plate-glass window, and seemed in doubt whether or not it was an image. another of my infants, a little girl, was not nearly so acute, and seemed quite perplexed at the image of a person in a mirror approaching her from behind. the higher apes which i tried with a small looking-glass behaved differently. they placed their hands behind the glass, and in doing so showed their sense; but, far from taking pleasure in looking at themselves, they got angry and would look no more." the first-mentioned child, at the age of not quite nine months, associated his own name with his image in the looking-glass, and when called by name would turn toward the glass even when at some distance from it. he gave to "ah!" which he used at first when recognizing any person or his own image in a mirror, an exclamatory sound such as adults employ when surprised. thus darwin reports. my boy gave me occasion for the following observations: in the eleventh week he does not see himself in the glass. if i knock on the glass, he turns his head in the direction of the sound. his image does not, however, make the slightest impression upon him. in the fourteenth and fifteenth weeks he looks at his image with utter indifference. his gaze is directed to the eyes in the image without any expression of pleasure or displeasure. in the sixteenth week the reflected image is still either ignored or looked at without interest. near the beginning of the seventeenth week (on the one hundred and thirteenth day) the child for the first time regards his image in the glass with unmistakable attention, and indeed with the same expression with which he is accustomed to fix his gaze on a strange face seen for the first time. the impression appears to awaken neither displeasure nor pleasure; the perception seems now for the first time to be distinct. three days later the child for the first time undoubtedly laughed at his image. when, in the twenty-fourth week, i held the child again before the glass, he saw my image, became very attentive, and suddenly turned round toward me, manifestly convincing himself that i stood near him. in the twenty-fifth week he for the first time stretched out his hand toward his own image. he therefore regarded it as capable of being seized. in the twenty-sixth week the child is delighted at seeing me in the glass. he turns round toward me, and evidently _compares_ the original with the image. in the thirty-fifth week the child gayly and with interest grasps at his image in the glass, and is surprised when his hand comes against the smooth surface. in the forty-first to the forty-fourth week, the same. the reflected image is regularly greeted with a laugh, and is then grasped at. all these observations were made before a very large stationary mirror. in the fifty-seventh week, however, i held a small hand-mirror close to the face of the child. he looked at his image and then passed his hand behind the glass and moved the hand hither and thither as if searching. then he took the mirror himself and looked at it and felt of it on both sides. when after several minutes i held the mirror before him again, precisely the same performance was repeated. it accords with what was observed by darwin in the case of anthropoid apes mentioned above (p. 197). in the fifty-eighth week i showed to the child his photograph, cabinet-size, in a frame under glass. he first turned the picture round as he had turned the hand-mirror. although the photographic image was much smaller than the reflected one, it seemed to be equally esteemed. on the same day (four hundred and second) i held the hand-mirror before the boy again, pointing out to him his image in it; but he at once turned away obstinately (again like the intelligent animal). here the incomprehensible--in the literal sense--was disturbing. but very soon came the insight which is wanting to the quadrumana, for in the sixtieth week the child saw his mother in the mirror, and to the question, "where is mamma?" he pointed to the image in the mirror and then turned round, laughing, to his mother. now, as he had before this time behaved roguishly, there is no doubt that at this time, after fourteen months, original and image were distinguished with certainty as such, especially as his own photograph no longer excited wonder. nevertheless, the child, in the sixty-first week, is still trying to feel of his own image in the glass, and he licks the glass in which he sees it, and, in the sixty-sixth week, also strikes against it with his hand. in the following week for the first time i saw the child make grimaces before the glass. he laughed as he did it. i stood behind him and called him by name. he turned around directly, although he saw me plainly in the glass. he evidently knew that the voice did not come from the image. in the sixty-ninth week signs of vanity are perceived. the child looks at himself in the glass with pleasure and often. if we put anything on his head and say, "pretty," his expression changes. he is gratified in a strange and peculiar fashion; his eyebrows are raised, and the eyes are opened wide. in the twenty-first month the child puts some lace or embroidered stuff about him, lets it hang down from his shoulders, looks round behind at the train, advancing, stopping, eagerly throwing it into fresh folds. here there is a mixture of apish imitation with vanity. as the child had, moreover, even in the seventeenth month, been fond of placing himself before the glass and making all sorts of faces, the experiments with the mirror were no longer continued. they show the transition from the infant's condition previous to the development of the _ego_, when he can not yet see distinctly, to the condition of the developed _ego_, who consciously distinguishes himself from his image in the glass and from other persons and their images. yet for a long time after this step there exists a certain lack of clearness in regard to names. in the twenty-first month the child laughs at his image in the glass and points to it when i ask, "where is axel?" and at my image when asked, "where is papa?" but, being asked with emphasis, the child turns round to me with a look of doubt. i once brought a large mirror near the child's bed in the evening after he had gone to sleep, so that he might perceive himself directly upon waking. he saw his image immediately after waking, seemed very much surprised at it, gazed fixedly at it, and when at last i asked, "where is axel?" he pointed not to himself but to the image (six hundred and twentieth day). in the thirty-first month it still afforded him great pleasure to gaze at his image in the glass. the child would laugh at it persistently and heartily. animals show great variety of behavior in this respect, as is well known. a pair of turkish ducks, that i used to see every day for weeks, always kept themselves apart from other ducks. when the female died, the drake, to my surprise, betook himself by preference to a cellar-window that was covered on the inside and gave strong reflections, and he would stand with his head before this for hours every day. he saw his image there, and thought perhaps that it was his lost companion. a kitten before which i held a small mirror must surely have taken the image for a second living cat, for she went behind the glass and around it when it was conveniently placed. many animals, on the contrary, are afraid of their reflected image, and run away from it. in like manner little children are sometimes frightened by the discovery of their own shadows. my child exhibited signs of fear at his shadow the first time he saw it; but in his fourth year he was pleased with it, and to the question, "where does the shadow come from?" he answered, to our surprise, "from the sun" (fortieth month). more important for the development of the child's _ego_ than are the observation of the shadow and of the image in the glass is the learning of speech, for it is not until words are used that the higher concepts are first marked off from one another, and this is the case with the concept of the _ego_. yet the wide-spread view, that the "i"-_feeling_ first appears with the beginning of the use of the word "i," is wholly incorrect. many headstrong children have a strongly marked "i"-feeling without calling themselves by anything but their names, because their relatives in speaking with them do not call themselves "i," but "papa, mamma, uncle, o mamma," etc., so that the opportunity early to hear and to appropriate the words "i" and "mine" is rare. others hear these words often, to be sure, especially from children somewhat older, and use them, yet do not understand them, but add to them their own names. thus, a girl of two and a half years, named ilse, used to say, _ilse mein tuhl_ (ilse, my chair), instead of "mein stuhl" (bardeleben). my boy of two and three fourths years repeated the "i" he heard, meaning by it "you." in the twenty-ninth month _mir_ (me) was indeed said by him, but not "ich" (i), (p. 171). soon, however, he named himself no more, as he had done in the twenty-third and even in the twenty-eighth month (pp. 147-167), by his first name. in the thirty-third month especially came _das will ich! das möcht ich!_ (i wish that, i should like that) (p. 183). the fourfold designation of his own person in the thirty-second month (p. 180)--by his name, by "i," by "he," and by the omission of all pronouns--was only a brief transition-stage, as was also the misunderstanding of the "dein" (your) which for a time (p. 156) meant "gross" (large). these observations plainly show that the "i"-feeling is not first awakened by the learning of words, for this feeling, according to the facts given above, is present much earlier; but by means of speech the _conceptual_ distinction of the "i," the self, the mine, is first made exact; the development, not the origin, of the "i"-feeling is simply favored. how obscure the "i"-concept is even after learning the use of the personal pronouns is shown by the utterance of the four-year-old daughter of lindner, named olga, _die hat mich nass gemacht_ (she has made me wet), when she meant that she herself had done it; and _du sollst mir doch folgen, olga_ (but you must follow me, olga), the latter expression, indeed, being merely said after some one else. in her is noteworthy, too, the confounding of the possessives "his" and "her," e. g., _dem papa ihr buch auf der mama seinen platz gelegt_ (her book, papa's, laid in his place, mamma's) (lindner); and yet in these forms of speech there is an advance in the differentiation of the concepts. all children are known to be late in beginning to speak about themselves, of what they wish to become, or of that which they can do better than others can, and the like. the _ego_ has become an experience of consciousness long before this. all these progressive steps, which in the individual can be traced only with great pains, form, as it were, converging lines that culminate in the fully developed feeling of the personality as exclusive, as distinct from the outer world. thus much the purely physiological view can admit without hesitation; but a further unification or indivisibility or unbroken permanence of the child's _ego_, it can not reconcile with the facts, perfectly well established by me, that are presented in this chapter. for what is the significance of the fact, that "to the child his feet, hands, teeth, seem a plaything foreign to himself"? and that "the child bit his own arm as he was accustomed to bite objects with which he was not acquainted"? "seem" to what part of the child? what is that which bites in the child as in the very young chick that seizes its own toe with its bill and bites it as if it were the toe of its neighbor or a grain of millet? evidently the "subject" in the head is a different one from that in the trunk. the _ego_ of the brain is other than the _ego_ of the spinal marrow (the "spinal-marrow-soul" of pflüger). the one speaks, sees, hears, tastes, smells, and feels; the other merely feels, and at the beginning, so long as brain and spinal marrow have only a loose organic connection and no functional connection at all with each other, the two _egos_ are absolutely isolated from each other. newly-born children with no brain, who lived for hours and days, as i myself saw in a case of rare interest, could suck, cry, move the limbs, and feel (for they stopped crying and took to sucking when something they could suck was put into their mouths when they were hungry). on the other hand, if a human being could be born with a brain but without a spinal marrow and could live, it would not be able to move its limbs. when a normal babe, therefore, plays with its feet or bites itself in the arm as it would bite a biscuit, we have in this a proof that the brain with its perceptive apparatus is independent of the spinal marrow. and the fact that acephalic new-born human beings and animal embryos deprived of brain, as soltmann and i found, move their limbs just as sound ones do, cry just as they do, suck and respond to reflexes, proves that the functions of the spinal marrow (inclusive of the optic thalami, the corpora quadrigemina and the cervical marrow) are independent of the cerebral hemispheres (together with the corpus striatum, according to soltmann). now, however, the brainless living child that sucks, cries, moves arms and legs, and distinguishes pleasure from displeasure, has indisputably an individuality, an _ego_. we must, then, of necessity admit two _egos_ in the child that has both cerebrum and spinal marrow, and that represents to himself his arm as good to taste of, as something to like. but, if two, why not several? at the beginning, when the centers of sight, hearing, smell, and taste, in the brain are still imperfectly developed, each of these perceives for itself, the perceptions in the different departments of sense having as yet no connection at all with one another. the case is like that of the spinal marrow, which at first does not communicate, or only very imperfectly communicates, to the brain that which it feels, e. g., the effect of the prick of a needle, for the newly born do not generally react upon that. only by means of very frequent coincidences of unlike sense-impressions, in tasting-and-touching, seeing-and-feeling, seeing-and-hearing, seeing-and-smelling, tasting-and-smelling, hearing-and-touching, are the intercentral connecting fibers developed, and then first can the various representational centers, these "i"-makers, as it were, contribute, as in the case of the ordinary formation of concepts, to the formation of the corporate "i," which is quite abstract. this abstract "i"-concept, that belongs only to the adult, thinking human being, comes into existence in exactly the same way that other concepts do, viz., by means of the individual ideas from which it results, as e. g., the forest exists only when the trees exist. the subordinate "i's," that preside over the separate sense-departments, are in the little child not yet blended together, because in him the organic connections are still lacking; which, being translated into the language of psychology, means that he lacks the necessary power of abstraction. the co-excitations of the sensory centers, that are as yet impressed with too few memory-images, can not yet take place on occasion of a single excitation, the cerebral connecting fibers being as yet too scanty. these co-excitations of parts of the brain functionally different, on occasion of excitation of a part of the brain that has previously often been excited together with those, form the physiological foundation of the psychical phenomenon of the formation of concepts in general, and so of the formation of the "i"-concept. for the special ideas of all departments of sense have in all beings possessed of all the senses--or of four senses, or of three--the common quality of coming into existence only under conditions of time, space, and causality. this common property presupposes similar processes in every separate sense-center of the highest rank. excitations of one of these centers easily effect similar co-excitations of centers that have often been excited together with them through objective impressions, and it is this similar co-excitement extending itself over the cerebral centers of all the nerves of sense that evokes the composite idea of the "i." according to this view, therefore, the "i" can not exist as a unit, as undivided, as uninterrupted; it exists only when the separate departments of sense are active with their _egos_, out of which the "i" is abstracted; e. g., it disappears in dreamless sleep. in the waking condition it has continued existence only where the centro-sensory excitations are most strongly in force; i. e., where the attention is on the strain. still less, however, is the "i" an aggregate. for this presupposes the exchangeability of the component parts. the seeing _ego_, however, can just as little have its place made good by a substitute as can the hearing one, the tasting one, etc. the sum-total of the separate leaves, blossoms, stalks, roots, of the plant does not, by a great deal, constitute the plant. the parts must be joined together in a special manner. so, likewise, it is not enough to add together the characteristics common to the separate sense-representations in order to obtain from these the regulating and controlling "i." rather there results from the increasing number and manifoldness of the sense-impressions a continually increasing growth of the gray substance of the child's cerebrum, a rapid increase of the intercentral connecting fibers, and through this a readier co-excitement--association, so called--which unites feeling with willing and thinking in the child. this union is the "i," the sentient and emotive, the desiring and willing, the perceiving and thinking "i." chapter xx. summary of results. of all the facts that have been established by me through the observation of the child in the first years of his life, the _formation of concepts without language_ is most opposed to the traditional doctrines, and it is just this on which i lay the greatest stress. it has been demonstrated that the human being, at the very beginning of his life, not only distinguishes pleasure and discomfort, but may also have single, distinct sensations. he behaves on the first day differently, when the appropriate sense-impressions exist, from what he does when they are lacking. the first effect of these feelings, these few sensations, is the association of their traces, left behind in the central nervous system, with inborn movements. those traces or central impressions develop gradually the personal _memory_. these movements are the point of departure for the primitive activity of the intellect, which separates the sensations both in time and in space. when the number of the memory-images, of distinct sensations, on the one hand, on the other, of the movements that have been associated with them--e. g., "sweet" and "sucking"--has become larger, then a firmer association of sensation-and-movement-memories, i. e., of excitations of sensory and motor ganglionic cells takes place, so that excitement of the one brings with it co-excitement of the other. sucking awakens the recollection of the sweet taste; the sweet taste of itself causes sucking. this succession is already a separation _in time_ of two sensations (the sweet and the motor sensation in sucking). the separation in space requires the recollection of two sensations, each with one movement; the distinction between sucking at the left breast and sucking at the right is made after one trial. with this, the first act of the intellect is performed, the first perception made, i. e., a sensation first localized in time and space. the motor sensation of sucking has come, like the sweet taste, _after_ a similar one, and it has come between two unlike relations in space that were distinguished. by means of multiplied perceptions (e. g., luminous fields not well defined, but yet defined) and multiplied movements with sensations of touch, the perception, after considerable time, acquires an object; i. e., the intellect, which already allowed nothing bright to appear without boundary-lines, and thus allowed nothing bright to appear except in space (whereas at the beginning brightness, as was the case even later with sound, had no limitation, no demarcation), begins to assign a cause for that which is perceived. hereby perception is raised to _representation_. the often-felt, localized, sweet, warm, white wetness, which is associated with sucking, now forms an idea, and one of the earliest ideas. when, now, this idea has often arisen, the separate perceptions that have been necessary to its formation are united more and more firmly. then, when one of these latter appears for itself, the memory-images of the others will also appear, through co-excitement of the ganglionic cells concerned; but this means simply that the _concept_ is now in existence. for the concept has its origin in the union of attributes. attributes are perceived, and the memory-images of them, that is, accordingly, memory-images of separate perceptions, are so firmly associated that, where only one appears in the midst of entirely new impressions, the concept yet emerges, because all the other images appear along with it. language is not required for this. up to this point, those born deaf behave exactly like infants that have all the senses, and like some animals that form concepts. these few first ideas, namely, the individual ideas, or sense-intuitions that are generated by the first perceptions, and the simple general ideas (of a lower order), or concepts, arising out of these--the concepts of the child as yet without language, of microcephali also, of deaf-mutes, and of the higher animals--have now this peculiarity, that they have all been formed exactly in this way by the parents and the grandparents and the representatives of the successive generations (such notions as those of "food," "breast"). these concepts are not innate; because no idea can be innate, for the reason that several peripheral impressions are necessary for the formation of even a single perception. they are, however, inherited. just as the teeth and the beard are not usually innate in man, but come and grow like those of the parents and are already implanted, piece for piece, in the new-born child, and are thus hereditary, so the first ideas of the infant, his first concepts, which arise unconsciously, without volition and without the possibility of inhibition, in every individual in the same way, must be called hereditary. different as are the teeth from the germs of teeth in the newly-born, so different are the man's concepts, clear, sharply defined by words, from the child's ill-defined, obscure concepts, which arise quite independently of all language (of word, look, or gesture). in this wise the old doctrine of "innate ideas" becomes clear. ideas or thoughts are themselves either representations or combinations of representations. they thus presuppose perceptions, and can not accordingly be innate, but may some of them be inherited, those, viz., which at first, by virtue of the likeness between the brain of the child and that of the parent, and of the similarity between the external circumstances of the beginnings of life in child and parent, always arise in the same manner. the principal thing is the innate aptitude to perceive things and to form ideas, i. e., the innate intellect. by aptitude (anlage), however, can be understood nothing else at present than a manner of reacting, a sort of capability or excitability, impressed upon the central organs of the nervous system after repeated association of nervous excitations (through a great many generations in the same way). the brain comes into the world provided with a great number of impressions upon it. some of these are quite obscure, some few are distinct. each ancestor has added his own to those previously existing. among these impressions, finally, the useless ones must soon be obliterated by those that are useful. on the other hand, deep impressions will, like wounds, leave behind scars, which abide longer; and very frequently used paths of connection between different portions of the brain and spinal marrow and the organs of sense are easier to travel even at birth (instinctive and reflexive processes). now, of all the higher functions of the brain, the ordering one, which compares the simple, pure sensations, the original experiences, and first sets them in an order of succession, viz., arranges them in time, then puts them side by side and one above another, and, not till later, one behind another, viz., arranges them in space--this function is one of the oldest. this ordering of the sense-impressions is _an activity of the intellect that has nothing to do with speech_, and the _capacity_ for it is, as immanuel kant discovered, present in man "as he now is" (kant) _before_ the activity of the senses begins; but without this activity it can not assert itself. now, i maintain, and in doing so i take my stand upon the facts published in this book, that just as little as the intellect of the child not yet able to speak has need of words or looks or gestures, or any symbol whatever, in order to arrange in time and space the sense-impressions, so little does that intellect require those means in order to form concepts and to perform logical operations; and in this fundamental fact i see the material for bridging over the only great gulf that separates the child from the brute animal. that even physiologists deny that there is any passage from one to the other is shown by vierordt in his "physiology of infancy" (1877). the fundamental fact that a genuinely logical activity of the brain goes on without language of any sort, in the adult man who has the faculty of speech, was discovered by helmholtz. the logical functions called by him "unconscious inferences" begin, as i think i have shown by many observations in the newly-born, immediately with the activity of the senses. perception in the third dimension of space is a particularly clear example of this sort of logical activity without words, because it is developed slowly. in place of the expression "unconscious," which, because it has caused much mischief, still prevents the term "unconscious inferences" from being naturalized in the physiology of the senses and the theory of perception, it would be advisable, since "instinctive" and "intuitive" are still more easily misunderstood, to say "wordless." wordless ideas, wordless concepts, wordless judgments, wordless inferences, may be inherited. to these belong such as our progenitors often experienced at the beginning of life, such as not only come into existence without the participation of any medium of language whatever, but also are never even willed (intended, deliberate, voluntary), and can not under any circumstances be set aside or altered, whether to be corrected or falsified. an inherited defect can not be put aside, and neither can the inherited intellect. when the outer angle at the right of the eye is pressed upon, a light appears in the closed eye at the left, not at the right; not at the place touched. this optical illusion, which was known even in newton's day, this wordless inductive inference, is hereditary and incorrigible; and, on the other hand, the hereditary wordless _concept_ of food can neither be prevented from arising nor be set aside nor be formed otherwise than it was formed by our ancestors. innate, to make it once more prominent, is the faculty (the capacity, the aptitude, the potential function) of forming concepts, and some of the first concepts are hereditary. new (not hereditary) concepts arise only after new perceptions, i. e., after experiences that associate themselves with the primitive ones by means of new connecting paths in the brain, and they begin in fact before the learning of speech. a chick just out of the shell possesses the capacity to lay eggs--the organs necessary--in fact the future eggs are inborn in the creature; but only after some time does it lay eggs, and these are in every respect similar to the first eggs of its mother. indeed, the chicks that come from these eggs resemble those of the mother herself; thus the eggs have hereditary properties. new eggs originate only by crossing, by external influences of all sorts, influences, therefore, of experience. so, too, the new-born child possesses the capacity of forming concepts. the organs necessary for that are inborn in him, but not till after some time does he form concepts, and these are in all nations and at all times quite similar to the first concepts formed by the child's mother. indeed, the inferences that attach themselves to the first concepts will resemble those which were developed in the mother or will be identical with them; these concepts have, then, hereditary properties. new concepts originate only through experience. they originate in great numbers in every child that learns to speak. if the fact that children utterly ignorant of speech, even those born deaf, already perform logical operations with perfect correctness, proves the intellect to be independent of language, yet searching observation of the child that is learning to speak shows that only by means of verbal language can the intellect give precision to its primitive indistinct concepts and thereby develop itself further, connecting ideas appropriately with the circumstances in which the child lives. it is a settled fact, however, that many ideas must already be formed in order to make possible the acquirement of speech. the existence of ideas is a necessary condition of learning to speak. the greatest intellectual advance in this field consists in this, that the specific method of the human race is discovered by the speechless child--the method of expressing ideas aloud and articulately, i. e., by means of expirations of breath along with various positions of the larynx and the mouth and various movements of the tongue. no child _invents_ this method, it is _transmitted_; but each individual child _discovers_ that by means of sounds thus originating one can make known his ideas and thereby induce feelings of pleasure and do away with discomfort. therefore he applies himself to this process of himself, without instruction, provided only that he grows up among speaking people; and even where hearing, which serves as a means of intercourse with them, is wanting from birth, a life rich in ideas and an intelligence of a high order may be developed, provided that written signs of sound supply the place of sounds heard. these signs, however, can be learned only by means of instruction. the way in which writing is learned is the same as the way in which the alalic child learns to speak. both rest upon imitation. i have shown that the first firm association of an idea with a syllable or with a word-like combination of syllables, takes place exclusively through imitation; but a union of this sort being once established, the child then freely invents new combinations, although to a much more limited extent than is commonly assumed. no one brings with him into the world a genius of such quality that it would be capable of inventing articulate speech. it is difficult enough to comprehend that imitation suffices for the child to learn a language. what organic conditions are required for the imitation of sounds and for learning to speak i have endeavored to ascertain by means of a systematic collection, resting on the best pathological investigations, of all the disturbances of speech thus far observed in adults; and the daily observation of a sound child, who was kept away from all training as far as possible, as well as the frequent observation of other children, has brought me to the following important result: that every known form of disturbance of speech in adults finds its perfect counterpart in the child that is learning to speak. the child can not _yet_ speak correctly, because his impressive, central, and expressive organs of speech are not yet completely developed. the adult patient can _no longer_ speak correctly, because those parts are no longer complete or capable of performing their functions. the parallelism is perfect even to individual cases, if children of various ages are carefully observed in regard to their acquirement of speech. as to facts of a more general nature, we arrive, then, at the three following: 1. the normal infant understands spoken language much earlier than he can himself produce through imitation the sounds, syllables, and words he hears. 2. the normal child, however, before he begins to speak or to imitate correctly the sounds of language, forms of his own accord all or nearly all the sounds that occur in his future speech and very many others besides, and delights in doing it. 3. the order of succession in which the sounds of speech are produced by the infant is different with different individuals, and consequently is not determined by the principle of the least effort. it is dependent upon several factors--brain, teeth, size of the tongue, acuteness of hearing, motility, and others. only in the later, intentional, sound-formations and attempts at speaking does that principle come under consideration. in the acquirement of every complicated muscular movement, dancing, e. g., the difficult combinations which make a greater strain on the activity of the will are in like manner acquired last. heredity plays no part in this, for every child can learn to master perfectly any language, provided he hears from birth only the one to be learned. the plasticity of the inborn organs of speech is thus in the earliest childhood very great. to follow farther the influence that the use of speech as a means of understanding has upon the intellectual development of the child lies outside the problem dealt with in this book. let me, in conclusion, simply give a brief estimate of the questioning-activity that makes its appearance very early after the first attempts at speech, and also add a few remarks on the development of the _"i"-feeling_. the child's questioning as a means of his culture is almost universally underrated. the interest in causality that unfolds itself more and more vigorously with the learning of speech, the asking why, which is often almost unendurable to parents and educators, is fully justified, and ought not, as unfortunately is too often the case, to be unheeded, purposely left unanswered, purposely answered falsely. i have from the beginning given to my boy, to the best of my knowledge invariably, an answer to his questions intelligible to him and not contrary to truth, and have noticed that in consequence at a later period, in the fifth and the sixth and especially in the seventh year, the questions prove to be more and more intelligent, because the previous answers are retained. if, on the contrary, we do not answer at all, or if we answer with jests and false tales, it is not to be wondered at that a child even of superior endowments puts foolish and absurd questions and thinks illogically--a thing that rarely occurs where questions are rightly answered and fitting instruction is given, to say nothing of rearing the child to superstition. the only legend in which i allow my boy to have firm faith is that of the stork that brings new babes, and what goes along with that. with regard to the development of the "i"--feeling the following holds good: this feeling does not awake on the day when the child uses for the first time the word "i" instead of his own name--the date of such use varies according as those about it name themselves and the child by the proper name and not by the pronoun for a longer or a shorter period; but the "i" is separated from the "not-i" after a long series of experiences, chiefly of a painful sort, as these observations have made clear, through the _becoming accustomed to the parts of one's own body_. these, which at first are foreign objects, affect the child's organs of sense always in the same manner, and thereby become uninteresting after they have lost the charm of novelty. now, his own body is that to which the attractive objective impressions (i. e., the world) are referred, and with the production by him of new impressions, with the changes wrought by him (in the experimenting which is called "playing"), with the experience of being-a-cause, is developed more and more in the child the feeling of self. with this he raises himself higher and higher above the dependent condition of the animal, so that at last the difference, not recognizable at all before birth and hardly recognizable at the beginning after birth, between animal and human being attains a magnitude dangerous for the latter, attains it, above all, by means of language. but if it is necessary for the child to appropriate to himself as completely as possible this highest privilege of the human race and through this to overcome the animal nature of his first period; if his development requires the stripping off of the remains of the animal and the unfolding of the responsible "i"--then it will conduce to the highest satisfaction of the thinking man, at the summit of his experience of life, to go back in thought to his earliest childhood, for that period teaches him plainly that he himself has his origin in nature, is intimately related to all other living creatures. however far he gets in his development, he is ever groping vainly in the dark for a door into another world; but the very fact of his reflecting upon the possibility of such a door shows how high the developed human being towers above all his fellow-beings. the key to the understanding of the great enigma, how these extremes are connected, is furnished in the history of the development of the mind of the child. appendixes. a. comparative observations concerning the acquirement of speech by german and foreign children. among the earlier as among the later statements concerning the acquirement of speech, there are several that have been put forth by writers on the subject without a sufficient basis of observed facts. not only buffon, but also taine and his successors, have, from a few individual cases, deduced general propositions which are not of general application. good observations were first supplied in germany by berthold sigismund in his pamphlet, "kind und welt" ("the child and the world") (1856); but his observations were scanty. he noted, as the first articulate sounds made by a child from thüringen (rudolstadt), _ma_, _ba_, _bu_, _appa_, _ange_, _anne_, _brrr_, _arrr_: these were made about the middle of the first three months. sigismund is of the opinion that this first lisping, or babbling, consists in the production of syllables with only two sounds, of which the consonant is most often the first; that the first consonants distinctly pronounced are labials; that the lips, brought into activity by sucking, are the first organs of articulation; but this conjecture lacks general confirmation. in the second three months (in the case of one child in the twenty-third week, with other healthy children considerably earlier) were heard, for the first time, the loud and high _crowing_-sounds, uttered by the child spontaneously, jubilantly, with lively movements of the limbs that showed the waxing power of the muscles: the child seemed to take pleasure in making the sounds. the utterance of syllables, on the other hand, is at this period often discontinued for weeks at a time. in the third quarter of the first year, the lisping or stammering was more frequent. new sounds were added: _bä_, _fbu_, _fu_; and the following were among those that were repeated without cessation, _bäbäbä_, _dädädä_; also _adad_, _eded_. in the next three months the child manifested his satisfaction in any object by the independent sound _ei_, _ei_. the first imitations of sounds, proved to be such, were made after the age of eleven months. but it is more significant, for our comprehension of the process of learning to speak, that long before the boy tried to imitate words or gestures, viz., at the age of nine months, he distinguished accurately the words "father, mother, light, window, moon, lane"; for he looked, or pointed, at the object designated, as soon as one of these words was spoken. and when, finally, imitation began, musical tones, e. g., f, c, were imitated sooner than the spoken sounds, although the former were an octave higher. and the _ei_, _ei_ was repeated in pretty nearly the same tone or accent in which it had been pronounced for the child. sneezing was not imitated till after fourteen months. the first word imitated by the child of his own accord (after fourteen months) was the cry "neuback" (fresh-bake), as it resounded from the street; it was given back by the child, unsolicited, as _ei-a_. as late as the sixteenth month he replied to the word _papa_, just as he did to the word _ida_, only with _atta_; yet he had in the mean time learned to understand "lantern, piano, stove, bird, nine-pin, pot"--in all, more than twenty words--and to indicate by a look the objects named; he had also learned to make the new imperfect sounds _pujéh_, _pujéh_, _tupe tupe téh_, _ämmäm_, _atta_, _ho_. in the seventeenth month came in place of these sounds the babbled syllables _mäm_, _mam_, _mad-am_, _a-dam_, _das_; in the case of other children, syllables different from these. children often say several syllables in quick succession, "then suddenly stop as if they were thinking of something new--actually strain, as if they must exert themselves to bring their organs to utterance, until at last a new sound issues, and then this is repeated like the clack of a mill." along with this appears the frequent doubling of syllables, as in _papa_, _mama_. the boy, at twenty months, told his father the following, with pretty long pauses and animated gestures: _atten--beene--titten--bach--eine--puff--anna_, i. e., "wir waren im garten, haben beeren und kirschen gegessen, und in den bach steine geworfen; dann kam anna" (we were in the garden, ate berries and cherries, and threw stones into the brook; then anna came). the observations of sigismund are remarkable for their objectivity, their clearness of exposition, and their accuracy, and they agree with mine, as may easily be seen, in many respects perfectly. unfortunately, this excellent observer (long since deceased) did not finish his work. the first part only has appeared. moreover, the statements as to the date of the first imitations (see pp. 83, 108, 109, 118, 121) are not wholly in accord with one another. i. e. löbisch, likewise a physician, in his "entwickelungsgeschichte der seele des kindes" ("history of the development of the mind of the child," vienna, 1851, p. 68), says: "naturally the first sound formed in the mouth, which is more or less open, while the other organs of speech are inactive, is the sound resembling _a_, which approximates sometimes more, sometimes less, nearly to the _e_ and the _o_.[d] "of the consonants the first are those formed by closing and opening the lips: _m_, _b_, _p_; these are at first indistinct and not decidedly differentiated till later; then the _m_ naturally goes not only before the _a_ but also after it; _b_ and _p_ for a long time merely commence a syllable, and rarely close one until other consonants also have been formed. a child soon says _pa_, but certainly does not say _ab_ until he can already pronounce other consonants also (p. 79). "the order in which the sounds are produced by the child is the following: of the vowels, first _a_, _e_, _o_, _u_, of course not well distinguished from _a_ at the beginning; the last vowel is _i_. of the consonants, _m_ is the first, and it passes by way of the _w_ into _b_ and _p_. but here we may express our astonishment that so many writers on the subject of the order of succession of the consonants in the development of speech have assigned so late a date to the formation of the _w_; schwarz puts it even after _t_, and before _r_ and _s_. then come _d_, _t_; then _l_ and _n_; _n_ is easily combined with _d_ when it precedes _d_; next _f_ and the gutturals _h_, _ch_, _g_, _k_, the _g_ and _k_ often confounded with _d_ and _t_. _s_ and _r_ are regarded as nearly simultaneous in their appearance; the gutturals as coming later, the latest of them being _ch_. still, there is a difference in this respect in different children. for many produce a sound resembling _r_ among the first consonant sounds; so too _ä_, _ö_, _ü_; the diphthongs proper do not come till the last." these statements of löbisch, going, as they do, far beyond pure observation, can not all be regarded as having general validity. for most german children, at least, even those first adduced can scarcely claim to be well founded. h. taine (in the supplement to his book on "intelligence," which appeared in a german translation in 1880) noted, as expressions used by a french child in the fifteenth month, _papa_, _maman_, _tété_ (nurse, evidently a word taken from the word _têter_, "to nurse or suck at the breast"), _oua-oua_ (dog, in all probability a word said for the child to repeat), _koko_ (cock, no doubt from _coq-coq_, which had been said for the child), _dada_ (horse, carriage, indicating other objects also, no doubt; a demonstrative word, as it is with many german children). _tem_ was uttered without meaning for two weeks; then it signified "give, take, look, pay attention." i suspect that we have here a mutilation of the strongly accentuated _tiens_, which had probably been often heard. as early as the fourteenth month, _ham_ signified "i want to eat" (_hamm_, then _am_, might have had its origin in the echo of _faim, as-tu faim?_ (are you hungry?)). at the age of three and a half months this child formed only vowels, according to the account; at twelve months she twittered and uttered first _m-m_, then _kraaau_, _papa_, with varying intonation, but spoke no word with a recognizable meaning. in the tenth month there was an understanding of some questions. for the child, when asked "where is grandpapa?" smiled at the portrait of the grandfather, but not at the one of the grandmother, which was not so good a likeness. in the eleventh month, at the question "where is mamma?" the child would turn toward her mother, and in like manner toward the father at the question, "papa"? a second child observed by taine made utterances that had intellectual significance in the seventh week, for the first time. up to the age of five months _ah_, _gue_, _gre_ (french) were heard; in the seventh month, also _ata_, _ada_. in his reflections, attached to these and a few other observations of his own, taine rightly emphasizes the great power of generalization and the peculiarity the very young child had of associating with words it had heard other notions than those common with us; but he ascribes too much to the child's inventive genius. the child guesses more than it discovers, and the very cases adduced (_hamm_, _tem_), on which he lays great weight, may be traced, as i remarked above parenthetically, to something heard by the child; this fact he seems to have himself quite overlooked. it is true, that in the acquirement of speech _one_ word may have several different meanings in succession, as is especially the case with the word _bébé_ (corresponding to the english word _baby_), almost universal with french children; it is not true that a child without imitation of sounds invents a word with a fixed meaning, and that, with no help or suggestion from members of the family, it employs its imperfectly uttered syllables (lallsylben) consistently for designating its ideas. among the notes of wyma concerning an english child ("the mental development of the infant of to-day," in the "journal of psychological medicine and mental pathology," vii, part i, pp. 62-69, london, april, 1881), the following, relating to the acquisition of speech, are to be mentioned: at five months the child began to use a kind of language, consisting of six words, to indicate a desire or intention. _ning_ signified desire for milk, and was employed for that up to the age of two years. (the word may possibly have been derived from the word _milk_,[e] frequently heard.) at nine months the child made use of the words _pretty things_ for animals; at ten months it formed many small sentences. the child practiced itself in speaking, even without direct imitation of words just spoken, for at the age of two years it began to say over a number of nursery rhymes that nobody in the house knew, and that could not have been learned from other children, because the child had no intercourse with such. at a later period the child declared that the rhymes had been learned from a former nurse, whom it had not seen for nearly three months. thus the articulation was perfecting itself for weeks before it was understood. the exercises of the child sounded like careless reading aloud. the book of prof. ludwig strümpell, of leipsic, "psychologische pädagogik" (leipsic, 1880, 368 pages), contains an appendix, "notizen über die geistige entwickelung eines weiblichen kindes während der ersten zwei lebensjahre" ("notes on the mental development of a female child during the first two years of life"); in this are many observations that relate to the learning of speech. these are from the years 1846 and 1847. in the tenth week, _ah! ah!_ was an utterance of joy; in the thirteenth, the child sings, all alone; in the nineteenth comes the guttural utterance, _grrr_, but no consonant is assigned to this period. in the first half-year are heard distinctly, in the order given, _ei_, _aga_, _eigei_, _ja_, _ede_, _dede_, _eds_, _edss_, _emme_, _meme_, _nene_, _nein_. in the eighth month, there is unmistakable understanding of what is said; e. g., "where is the tick-tack?" in the ninth, _am_, _amme_, _ap_, _pap_, are said; she sings vowels that are sung for her. in the eleventh month, imitation of sounds is frequent, _kiss_, _kiss_; at sight of the tea-kettle, _ssi_, _ssi_; she knows all the people in the house; calls the birds by the strange name _tibu_. echolalia. in the fourteenth month, needles are called _tick_ (_stich_ = prick or stitch). to the question, "where is emmy?" the child points, correctly, to herself; says distinctly, _kopf_ (head), _buch_ (book), _roth_ (red), _tante_ (aunt), _gut_ (good), _mann_ (man), _baum_ (tree); calls the eye (auge) _ok_, pruscinsky _prrti_, the dog _uf, uf_. in the seventeenth month, simple sentences are spoken; she speaks to herself. in the nineteenth month, she calls herself by her name, and counts _twei_, _drei_, _ümpf_, _exe_, _ibene_, _atte_, _neune_ (zwei, drei, fünf, sechs, sieben, acht, neun--2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9); in the twenty-second month, she talks a good deal to herself, and makes very rapid progress in the correct use of words and the formation of sentences. from the diary kept by frau von strümpell concerning this daughter and a sister of this one, and kindly placed at my disposal in the original, i take the following notes: in the eighth month, _mamma_, in the tenth, _papa_, without meaning. in the eleventh month, the child's understanding of what is said to her is surprising, and so is her imitation. to "guten tag" (good-day) she responds, _tata_; to "adieu," _adaa_. a book, which the child likes to turn the leaves of, she calls _ade_ (for a b c). the first certain association of a sound learned with a concept seems to be that of the _ee_, which has often been said to her, with wet, or with what is forbidden. _amme am_ _om_, "amme komm" (nurse come) (both imitative), is most frequently repeated, _papa_ seldom. the _r_ guttural, or rattled, is imperfectly imitated. in the thirteenth month, the little girl says, _tippa tappa_, when she wants to be carried, and responds _te te_ to "steh! steh" (stop)! she now calls the book _a-be-te_ (for a b c). pigeons she calls _kurru_; men, in the picture-book, _mann mann_. when some one asked, "where is the brush?" the child made the motion of brushing. to the questions, "where is your ear, your tooth, nose, hand, your fingers, mamma's ear, papa's nose?" etc., she points correctly to the object. on her mother's coming into the room, _mamam_; her father's, _papap_. when the nurse is gone, _amme om, amme am_. the mother asked some one, "do you hear?" and the child looked at her and took hold of her own ears. to the question, "how do we eat?" she makes the motion of eating. she says _nein_ when she means to refuse. "dank" (thank) is pronounced _dakkn_. "bitte" (i beg, or please) is correctly pronounced. she understands the meaning of spoon, dress, mirror, mouth, plate, drink, and many other words, and likes to hear stories, especially when they contain the words already known to her. in the fifteenth month "mathilde" is given by her as _tilda_ and _tida_. at sight of a faded bouquet she said _blom_ (for blume, flower). she says everything that is said to her, though imperfectly; produces the most varied articulate sounds; says _ta, papa, ta_ when she hands anything to a person; calls the foot (fuss) _pss_, lisping and thrusting out the tongue. she often says _omama_ and _opapa_. in the seventeenth month, ring is called _ning_, wagen (carriage), _uagen_, sophie, _dsofi_, olga, _olla_ krank (ill), _kank_, pflaume (plum), _pluma_, satt (satisfied, as to hunger), _datt_, hände-waschen (washing the hands), _ander-uaschen_, schuh and tuch (shoe and cloth), _tu_, strumpf (stocking), _tumpf_, hut (hat), _ut_, suppe (soup), _duppe_. _mama kum bild dat bank_, is for "mama komm, ich habe das bilderbuch, erzähle mir dazu etwas, dort setz' dich zu mir" (m., come, i have the picture-book; tell me something in it; sit there by me). in the eighteenth month, "where is omama?" is answered with _im garten_; "how are omama and opapa?" with _sund_ (for gesund, well); "what is omama doing?" with _näht_ (she is sewing). the black apollo is called _pollo wurz_ (schwarz, black). the sister of this child, in the tenth month, applied the word _mama_ to her mother, _pap pap_ and _papap_ to her father, but was less sure in this; _tj[=e]-t[=e]_ were favorite syllables. when asked, "where is tick-tack?" she looks at the clock on the wall. a piercing scream is an utterance of joy. in the fifteenth month, _apapa_ is her word for grandfather, and is roguishly used for grandmother. she says _aben_ for "haben" (have), _tatta_ for "tante" (aunt), _apa_ (for _uppa_) means "i want to go up." her imitation of what is said is very imperfect, but her understanding of it is surprising. in the nineteenth month she makes much use of her hands in gesture instead of speaking. _kuker_ is her word for "zucker" (sugar), _bildebu_ for "bilderbuch" (picture-book). but she habitually calls a book _omama_ or _opapa_ (from the letters of her grandparents). clara is pronounced _clala_, christine, _titine_. in the twentieth month, her mother, after telling her a story, asked, "who, pray, is this, i?" and the child replied, "_mamma"_ "and who is that, you?" "_bertha, bertha_" (the child's name) was the answer. at this period she said, _bertha will_; also _paren_ (for fahren, drive), _pallen_ (fallen, fall), _bot_, (brot, bread), _atig_ (artig, good, well-behaved), _mal_ (noch einmal, once more), _muna_ (mund, mouth), _aujen_ (augen, eyes), _ol_ (ohr, ear), _tirn_ (stirn, forehead), _wanne_ (wange, cheek, and wanne, bath-tub), _aua_ (august), _dute_ (gute) _mama_, _päsche_ (equipage), _wasar tinken_ (wasser trinken, drink water) _dabel_ (gabel, fork), _lüssel_ (schlüssel, key), _is nits_ (ist nichts, is nothing), _mula_ (milch, milk), _ass_ (heiss, hot). another remarkable observation is the following from the fifteenth month. it reminds one of the behavior of hypnotized adults. on her grandmother's birthday the child said some rhymes that she did not easily remember (there were six short verses, thirty-four words). one night soon after the birthday festival the little girl said off the verses, "almost for the first time without any stumbling, in her sleep." from this we see how much more quickly in regard to articulation and independent use of words both these girls (the first of whom weighed only six pounds at birth) learned to speak than did sigismund's boy, my own boy, and others. darwin observed (_a biographical sketch of an infant_ in "mind, a quarterly review of psychology and philosophy," july, 1877, pp. 285-294) in a son of his, on the forty-seventh day of his life, a formation of sounds without meaning. the child took pleasure in it. the sounds soon became manifold. in the sixth month he uttered the sound _da_ without any meaning; but in the fifth he probably began to try to imitate sounds. in the tenth month the imitation of sounds was unmistakable. in the twelfth he could readily imitate all sorts of actions, such as shaking his head and saying "ah." he also understood intonations, gestures, several words, and short sentences. when exactly seven months old, the child associated his nurse with her name, so that when it was called out he would look round for her. in the thirteenth month the boy used gestures to explain his wishes; for instance, he picked up a bit of paper and gave it to his father, pointing to the fire, as he had often seen and liked to see paper burned. at exactly the age of a year he called food _mum_, which also signified "give me food," and he used this word instead of beginning to cry as formerly. this word with affixes signified particular things to eat; thus _shu-mum_ signified sugar, and a little later licorice was called _black-shu-mum_. when asking for food by the word _mum_ he gave to it a very strongly marked tone of longing (darwin says an "interrogatory sound," which should mean the same thing). it is remarkable that my child also, and in the tenth week for the first time, said _mömm_ when he was hungry, and that a child observed by fritz schultze (dresden) said _mäm-mäm_. probably the syllable has its origin from the primitive syllable _ma_ and from hearing the word "mamma" when placed at the breast of the mother. of the facts communicated by the physiologist vierordt concerning the language of the child ("deutsche revue" of january, 1879, berlin, pp. 29-46) should be mentioned this, that a babe in its second month expressed pleasure by the vowel _a_, the opposite feeling by _ä_. this is true of many other children also. in the third and fourth months the following syllables were recognizable: _mam_, _ämma_, _fu_, _pfu_, _ess_, _äng_, _angka_, _acha_, _erra_, _hab_. a lisping babe said, countless times, _hab_, _hob_, _ha_. these syllables coincide in part with those given by other observers. the _pf_ and _ss_ only have not been heard by me at this age, and i doubt whether _f_, for which teeth are needed, was produced with purity so early. in the second and third years a child pronounced the following words: _beb_ (for bös, naughty); _bebe_ (besen, _beesann_, broom); _webbe_ (wasser, _watja_, water); _wewe_ (löwe, _löwee_, lion); _ewebau_ (elephant, _elafant_); _webenau_ (fledermaus, _lebamaunz_, bat); _babaube_ (blasebalg, _ba-abats_, bellows); _ade_ (hase, hare); _emele_ (schemel, footstool); _gigod_ (schildkröte, tortoise). these examples illustrate very well the mogilalia and paralalia that exist in every child, but with differences in each individual. sigmatism and parasigmatism and paralambdacism are strongly marked. at the same time the influence of dialect is perceptible (tübingen). the pronunciations given in parentheses in the above instances were regularly used by my boy in his twenty-sixth month when he saw the pictures of the objects named in his picture-book. (in jena.) one would not suppose beforehand that _watja_ and _webbe_ have the same meaning. from the ten examples may be seen, further, that _f_, _l_, _r_, _s_, _t_ present more difficulties of articulation than _b_, _w_, _m_, _g_, and _d_; but neither must this be made a general conclusion. the _w_ (on account of the teeth) regularly comes later than the _b_, _m_, and _r_. in the third year vierordt noted down the following narration. i put in brackets the words omitted by the child: _id. mama ... papa gäge_ [es] ist [eine] mama [und ein] papa gewesen _unn die habe wai didi gabt_ und diese haben zwei kinder gehabt, _unn, didi ... waud._ und [die] kinder [sind in den] wald [gegangen] _unn habe ohd duh_ und haben holz geholt; _na ... an e gugeeide guju_ dann [sind sie] an ein zuckerhäuschen gegangen _unn habe gäg_ und haben gegessen; _no ad die egg gag_ dann hat die hexe gesagt: _näg näg neidi_ "nucker, nucker neisle _wie. immi. eidi_ wer [krabbelt] mir am haüsle?" _no habe die didi gag_ dann haben die kinder gesagt: _die wid, de immi immi wid_ ["der wind, der wind, das himmlische kind"] der wind, der himmlische, himmlische wind. (there were once a mama and a papa, and they had two children. and the children went into the woods and fetched wood. then they came to a little sugar house and ate. then the witch said: "nucker, nucker neisle, who is crawling in my little house?" then the children said: "the wind, the wind, the heavenly child"--the wind, the heavenly, heavenly wind.) i told the same story to my boy for the first time when he was two years and eighteen days old. he repeated, with an effort: _ess ets aine mama unn ain papa edam (wesen)._ _unn (unt) diesa abn wais (twai) kinna (tinder) ghatf (dehappt)._ _unn die kinna sint (dsint) in den walt tegang (gangen)._ _unn-daben (habn) holz (olz) geh[=o]l (ohlt)._ _dann sint (dsint) sie an ain utsom-händom (zuke-häussn) zezan (gangn)._ _unn (unt) habn (abn) ge ... (dessen)._ _dann hatt die hetse (hekksee) dsa (tsakt)._ _nanuck (nuke nuke) nana nainle (naisle)._ _wer ... (drabbelt) mir am häultje (äusle)._ _dann baben (habn) die ... (tinder) ze-a (dsagt)._ _der wi[)e]ds (wind) ... (der fint)._ _ds[=e]r wenn daz (das) himmelä (immlis) khint (tint)._ where the periods are, his attempts were all vain. at any rate, he would say _pta-pta_ as he usually did in fruitless efforts at imitating sounds. just two months after these first attempts, the same child recited for me the narrative, using the expressions in the parentheses; this indicated a distinct progress in articulation. a year after the first attempt, he easily repeated the whole, with only a single error. he still said _himmelä_, and then _himmliss_, for "himmlische." a third boy (düsseldorf) repeated the narrative much better, as early as his twenty-fifth month. he made only the following errors, which were noted by his mother, and kindly communicated by her to me: _gewesa_ for gewesen _gehat_ " gehabt _gehat_ } _gehakt_ } " gesagt _gegannen_ " gegangen _hamen_ " haben _hind hie_ " sind sie _kabbell_ " krabbelt _himmli-he_ " himmlische _fai_ " zwei _kinner_ " kinder _wlad_ " wald _hol-l-l-t_ " holz _uckerhäussen_ " zuckerhäuschen _hekes_ " hexe _neissel_ " neisle _häussel_ " häusle the _ss_ between two vowels was imperfect, reminding one of the english "th" and the german "sch" and "s." the child could not at this time be brought to learn by heart. we see, from these three versions, how unequal the capacity for articulation is in its development, and how varied it is in regard to the omission of difficult consonants and the substitution of others in place of them, as well as in regard to transposition, e. g., in _wand_, _walt_, _wlad_ (wald), _wenn_, _wid_, _wi[)e]ds_, _fint_ (wind)--and this even in the same individual. as no one thus far has instituted comparisons of this sort, one more example may be given. the verses taught by sigismund to his child (for whom i use the sign s) of twenty-one months, were often repeated by my boy (a), of twenty-five months, to me, and by the boy from düsseldorf (d), in his twenty-fifth month, to his mother: s. a d. [_______________________] 21st month. 25th month. 27th month. 25th month. guter tute tuten tuter guter mond bohnd monn mond mund du gehst du tehz du gehts du dehst du gehs so stille so tinne so tilte so tille ho tille durch die duch die durch die durch die durch die abendwolken aten-bonten aben-woltn abendwolkn abehtwolken him in in in hin gehst so tehz so gehts so dehst so gehs so traurig tautech (atich) treuja trauig terauhig und ich und ich unn ich und ich und ich fühle büne felam fühle fühle dass ich dass ich dess ich dass ich dass ich ohne ruhe one ule ohno ruhge ohne ruhe ohni ruhe bin bin bin bin bin guter tute hotten tuter guter mond bohnd mohn mond mond du darfst du atz du dafp du darfst du darf es wissen es bitten es witsen es wissen es wissen weil du so bein du so leil du so weil du so weil du ho verschwiegen bieten wereidsam verwiegen werwiegen bist bitz bits bist bits warum amum wa-um warum wahum meine meine meine meinhe meine thränen tänen tänen thränen tänen fliessen bieten flietjam fliessen fliessen und mein und mein und mein und mein und mein herz so ätz so hetz so erst so hetz ho traurig ist atich iz treutjam its trauig ist taudig ist errors 24 26 13 18 the errors are very unlike, and are characteristic for each child. the fact that in the case of a the errors diminished by half within two months is to be explained by frequency of recitation. i may add that the inclination to recite was so often lacking that a good deal of pains was required to bring the child to it. from the vocabulary of the second year of the child's life, according to the observations of sigismund and myself, the following words of frequent use are also worthy of notice: [ vater mutter anna milch kuh pferd | (father) (mother) (milk) (cow) (horse) s. | _atte_ _amme_ _anne_ _minne_ _muh_ _hotto_ | _ätte_ _ämme_ _dodo_ | _tate_ _ämmäm_ _päd_ | _fatte_ _mämme_ [ _matte_ {_va-ata_ _mama_ _anna_ _mimi_ _mumuh_ _otto_ p. {_papa_ _mukuh_ _pfowed_ { _fowid_ vogel mund nase ohr haare finger da (bird) (mouth) (nose) (ear) (hair) (there) s. _piep-piep_ _mund_ _ase_ _ohn_ _ale_ _finne_ _da_ p. _piep_, _pipiep_ _mum_ _nane_ _o-a_ _ha-i_ {finge _da_ {wi-er adieu guten tag fort ja nein (good-day) (away) (yes) (no) s. _adé_ _tag_ _fot_ _ja_ _nein_ p. _adjee_ _tatach_ _wott_ _ja_; _jaja_ _neinein_ grossmutter kuk zucker karl grete (grandmother) (sugar) {_tosutte_ _o-tute_ _zucke_ _all_ _ete_ s. {_abutte_ {_osmutte_ p. {_a-mama_ _kuk_ _ucka_ _kara_ _dete_ {_e-mama_ sigismund noticed the following names of animals (in imitation of words given to the children): _bä_, _put_, _gikgak_, _wäkwäk_, _huhu_, _ihz_ (hinz). i did not find these with my child. sigismund likewise observed _baie-baie_ for wiege (cradle), which my child was not acquainted with; _päpä_ for verborgen (hidden); _eichönten_ for eichhörnchen (squirrel); _äpften_ for äpfelchen (little apple); _mädsen_ and _mädis_ for mädchen (girl); _atatt_ for bernhard; _hundis_ for hundchen, the thüringian form of hündchen (little dog); _pot_ for topf (pot); _dot_ for dort (yonder). on the other hand, both children used _wehweh_ for schmerz (pain); _caput_ for zerbrochen (broken to pieces); _schoos_, _sooss_ for "auf den schooss möcht ich" (i want to get up in the lap); _auf_ for "hinauf möchte ich gehoben werden" (i want to be taken up); _toich_ for storch (stork); _tul_ for stuhl (chair). a third child in my presence called his grandmother _mama-mama_, i. e., twice-mamma, in distinction from the mother. this, however, does not necessarily imply a gift for invention, as the expression "mamma's mamma" may have been used of the grandmother in speaking to the child. other children of the same age do very much the same. the boy d, though he repeated cleverly what was said, was not good at naming objects when he was expected to do this of himself. he would say, e. g., _pilla_ for spiegel (mirror). at this same period (twenty-five months) he could not yet give the softened or liquid sound of consonants (mouilliren). he said _n_ and _i_ and _a_ very plainly, and also _i-a_, but not _nja_, and not once "ja"; but, on the contrary, always turned away angrily when his father or i, or others, required it of him. but as late as the twenty-eighth month echolalia was present in the highest degree in this very vigorous and intelligent child, for he would at times repeat mechanically the last word of every sentence spoken in his hearing, and even a single word, e. g., when some one asked "warum?" (why) he likewise said _warum_ without answering the question, and he continued to do it for days again and again in a vacant way, with and without the tone of interrogation (which he did not understand). from this we see again plainly that the imitation of sounds is independent of the understanding of them, but is dependent on the functions of articulation. these functions are discussed by themselves in the work of prof. fritz schultze, of dresden, "die sprache des kindes" ("the language of the child," leipsic, 1880, 44 pp.). the author defends in this the "principle of the least effort." he thinks the child begins with the sounds that are made with the least physiological effort, and proceeds gradually to the more difficult sounds, i. e., those which require more "labor of nerve and muscle." this "law" is nothing else than the "loi du moindre effort" which is to be traced back to maupertuis, and which was long ago applied to the beginnings of articulation in children: e. g., by buffon in 1749 ("oeuvres complètes," paris, 1844, iv, pp. 68, 69), and, in spite of littré, again quite recently by b. perez[f] ("les trois premières années de l'enfant," paris, 1878, pp. 228-230, _seq._) but this supposed "law" is opposed by many facts which have been presented in this chapter and the preceding one. the impossibility of determining the degree of "physiological effort" required for each separate sound in the child, moreover, is well known. besides, every sound may be produced with very unequal expenditure of force; but the facts referred to are enough for refutation of the theory. according to schultze, e. g., the vowels ought, in the process of development of the child's speech, to appear in the following order, separated in time by long intervals: 1. ä; 2. a; 3. u; 4. o; 5. e; 6. i; 7. ö; 8. ü. it is correct that _ä_ is one of the vowels that may be first plainly distinguished; but neither is it the first vowel audible--on the contrary, the first audible vowel is indistinct, and imperfectly articulated vowels are the first--nor can we admit that _ä_ is produced with less of effort than is _a_. the reverse is the case. further, _ö_ is said to present "enormous difficulties," and hence has the place next to the last; but i have often heard the _ö_, short and long, perfectly pure in the second month, long before the _i_, and that not in my child alone. from the observations upon the latter, the order of succession appears to be the following: indeterminate vowels, _u_, _ä_, _a_, _ö_, _o_, _ai_, _ao_, _i_, _e_, _ü_, _oeu_ (french sound in coeur), _au_, _oi_. thus, for the above eight vowels, instead of 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, the order 3, 1, 2, 7, 4, 6, 5, 8, so that only _i_ and _ü_ keep their place. but other children give a varying order, and these differences in the order of succession of vowels as well as of consonants will certainly not be referred to the "influence of heredity." two factors of quite another sort are, on the contrary, to be taken into account here in the case of every normal child without exception, apart from the unavoidable errors in every assigned order growing out of incomplete observation. in the earliest period and when the babbling monologues begin, the cavity of the mouth takes on an infinitely manifold variety of forms--the lips, tongue, lower jaw, larynx, are moved, and in a greater variety of ways than ever afterward. at the same time there is expiration, often loud expiration, and thus originates entirely at random sometimes one sound, sometimes another. the child _hears_ sounds and tones new to him, hears his own voice, takes pleasure in it, and delights in making sounds, as he does in moving his limbs in the bath. it is natural that he should find more pleasure in some sounds, in others less. the first are more frequently made by him on account of the motor memories that are associated with the acoustic memories, and an observer does not hear the others at all if he observes the child only from time to time. in fact, however, almost all simple sounds, even the most difficult, are formed in purity before they are used in speaking in the first eight months--most frequently those that give the child pleasure, that satisfy his desires, or lessen his discomfort. it is not to be forgotten that even the _ä_, which requires effort on account of the drawing back and spreading out of the tongue, diminishes discomfort. the fretful babe feels better when he cries _u-ä_ than when he keeps silent. the second factor is determined by the surroundings of the child. those sounds which the child distinctly hears he will be able to imitate correctly sooner than he will other sounds: but he will be in condition to hear most correctly, first of all, the sounds that are most frequent, just because these most frequently excite the auditory nerve and its tract in the brain; secondly, among these sounds that are acoustically most sharply defined, viz., first the vowels, then the resonants (m, n, ng); last, the compound "friction-sounds" (fl, schl). but it is only in part that the surroundings determine this order of succession for the sounds. another thing that partly determines and modifies this order is the child's own unwearied practice in forming consonant-sounds. he hears his own voice now better than he did at an earlier period when he was forming vowels only. he most easily retains and repeats, among the infinitely manifold consonants that are produced by loud expiration, those which have been distinctly heard by him. this is owing to the association of the motor and the acoustic memory-image in the brain. these are the most frequent in his speech. not until later does the mechanical difficulty of articulation exert an influence, and this comes in at the learning of the compound sounds. hence there can not be any chronological order of succession of sounds that holds good universally in the language of the child, because each language has a different order in regard to the frequency of appearance of the sounds; but heredity can have no influence here, because every child of average gifts, though it may hear from its birth a language unknown to its ancestors, if it hears no other, yet learns to speak this language perfectly. what is hereditary is the great plasticity of the entire apparatus of speech, the voice, and with it a number of sounds that are not acquired, as _m_. an essential reason for the defective formation of sounds in children born deaf is the fact that they do not hear their own voice. this defect may also be hereditary. the treatise of f. schultze contains, besides, many good remarks upon the _technique_ of the language of the child, but, as they are of inferior psychogenetic interest, they need not be particularly mentioned here. others of them are only partially confirmed by the observations, as is shown by a comparison with what follows. gustav lindner ("twelfth annual report of the lehrer-seminars at zschopau," 1882, p. 13) heard from his daughter, in her ninth week, _arra_ or _ärrä_, which was uttered for months. also _äckn_ appeared early. the principle of the least effort lindner finds to be almost absolutely refuted by his observations. he rightly remarks that the frequent repetitions of the same groups of sounds, in the babbling monologues, are due in part to a kind of pleasure in success, such as urges adults also to repeat their successful efforts. thus his child used to imitate the reading of the newspaper (in the second half-year) by _degattegattegatte_. in the eleventh and twelfth months the following were utterances of hers in repeating words heard: _ómama_, _oia_ (rosa), _batta_ (bertha), _ächard_ (richard), _wiwi_ (friedchen), _agga_ (martha), _olla olla_ (olga, her own name). milch (milk) she called _mimi_, stuhl (chair) _tuhl_, laterne (lantern), _katonne_, the whistle of an engine in a neighboring factory, _wuh_ (prolonged, onomatopoetic), paul, _gouch_, danke (thank you), _dagn_ or _dagni_, baum (tree), _maum_. another child substituted _u_ for _i_ and _e_, saying _hund_ for "kind," and _uluwant_ for "elephant"; thus, _ein fomme hund lass wäde much_ for "ein frommes kind lass werden mich" (let me become a pious child). lindner's child, however, called "werden" not _wäde_ but _wegen_; and "turnen" she called _tung_, "blau" _balau_. at the end of the second year no sound in the german language presented difficulties to the child. her pronunciation was, however, still incorrect, for the correct pronunciation of the separate sounds does not by any means carry with it the pronunciation of them in their combinations. this remark of lindner's is directly to the point, and is also confirmed, as i find, by the first attempts of the child of four years to read a word after having learned the separate letters. the learning of the correct pronunciation is also delayed by the child's preference of his original incorrect pronunciation, to which he is accustomed, and which is encouraged by imitations of it on the part of his relatives. lindner illustrates this by good examples. his child continued to say _mimela_ after "kamilla" was easy for him. not till the family stopped saying it did "kamilla" take its place. at the age of three and a half years the child still said _gebhalten_ for "behalten" and _vervloren_ for "verloren," as well as _gebhüte_ for "behüte." "grosspapa" was called successively _opapa_, _gropapa_, _grosspapa_. grossmama had a corresponding development. "fleisch" (meat) was first called _jeich_, then _leisch_; "kartoffeln" (potatoes) _kaffom_, then _kaftoffeln_; "zschopau" _sopau_, _schodau_, _tschopau_; "sparbüchse" (savings-box) _babichse_, _spabichse_, _spassbüchse_, _sparzbüchse_; "häring" (herring, also gold-fish) _hänging_. a sound out of the second syllable goes into the first. the first question, _isn das?_ from "was ist denn das?" (what is that, pray?) was noticed in the twentieth month; the interrogative word _was?_ (what) in the twenty-second month. wo? (where) and wohin? (whither) had the same meaning (that of the french _où?_), and this as late as in the fourth year. the word "ich" (i) made its appearance in the thirtieth month. as to verbs, it is to be mentioned that, with the child at two years of age, before the use of the tenses there came the special word denoting activity in general: thus he said, when looking at a head of christ by guido reni, _thut beten_, instead of "betet" ("does pray," instead of "prays"). the verb "sein" (be) was very much distorted: _warum warst du nicht fleissig gebist?_ (gebist for gewesen) (why have you not been industrious?). (cf., pp. 172, 177.) he inflected _bin_, _binst_ (for bist), _bint_ (ist), _binn_ (sind), _bint_ (sind and seid), _binn_ (sind). further, _wir isn_ (wir sind, we are), and _nun sei ich ruhig_ (sei for bin) (now i am quiet), and _ich habe nicht ruhig geseit_ (_habe_ for "bin" and _geseit_ for "gewesen") (i have not been quiet), are worthy of note, because they show how strong an influence in the formation of words during the transition period is exerted by the forms most frequently heard--here the imperative. the child used first of all the imperative; last the subjunctive. the superlative and comparative were not used by this child until the fourth year. the observations of lindner (edited anew in the periodical "kosmos" for 1882) are among the best we have. in the case of four brothers and sisters, whose mother, frau dr. friedemann, of berlin, has most kindly placed at my disposal trustworthy observations concerning them, the first articulate sounds heard were _ärä_, _hägä_, _äche_, and a deep guttural, rattling or snarling sound (schnarren); but the last was heard from only one of the children. the above syllables contain three consonants (_r_, _h_, _ch_) that are declared by many, wrongly, to be very late in their appearance. these children in their first attempts at speaking often left out the first consonant of a word pronounced for them, or else substituted for it the one last heard, as if their memory were not equal to the retaining of the sounds heard first: e. g., in the fifteenth month they would say _t[)e]_, _t_ for _hut_ (hat), _lale_ for _rosalie_; in the twenty-fourth, _kanke_ for _danke_ (thank you), _kecke_ for _decke_ (covering), _kucker_ for _zucker_ (sugar), _huch_, _huche_ for _schuh_, _schuhe_ (shoe, shoes), fifteenth month. in the last two cases comes in, to explain the omission, also the mechanical difficulty of the _z_ and _sch_. the oldest of these children, a girl, when a year old, used to say, when she refused anything, _ateta_, with a shake of the head. she knew her own image in the glass, and pointed at it, saying _täte_ (for _käte_). in the following table the roman figures stand for the month; f_{1}, f_{2}, f_{3}, f_{4}, for the four children in the order of their ages. no further explanation will be needed: viii. _papa_ distinctly (f_{1}); _dada_, _da_, _deda_, first syllables (f_{4}); _derta_ for _bertha_ (f_{1}). x. _dada_, name for all possible objects (f_{2}); _papa_ (f_{3}); _ada_, _mama_, _detta_ (f_{4}). xii. _puppe_ (doll) correctly; _täte_ for _käte_ (f_{1}); _ida_, _papa_, _tata_ for _tante_ (aunt); _täte_ (f_{4}). xiii. _mama_, _detta_ for _bertha_; _wauwau_ (f_{2}); _lala_ (f_{4}). xiv. _ba_ for _baden_ (bathe) (f_{2}). xv. _hia_ for _ida_; _ate_ for _artig_ (well-behaved); _da_ for _danke_; _bappen_ for _essen_ (eat); _piep_; _ja_, _nein_ (yes, no) correctly (f_{1}). xvi. _ei_ (egg) correctly; _feisch_ for _fleisch_ (meat); _waffer_ for _wasser_ (water); _wuffe_ for _suppe_ (f_{1}); _tatte_ for _tante_; _tittak_; _hut_ (f_{3}). xix. _at_ for _katze_ (cat); _duh_ for _kuh_ (cow); _w[=a]n_ for _schwan_ (swan); _nine_ for _kaninchen_ (rabbit); _betta_ for _blätter_ (leaves); _butta_ for _butterblume_ (buttercup); _fiedemann_ for _friedemann_; _täti_ for _käti_ (f_{1}); _gad_ for _gerade_ (straight); _kumm_ for _krumm_ (crooked) (f_{3}). xx. _fidat_ for _zwieback_ (biscuit); _tierdatten_ for _thiergarten_ (zoölogical garden); _waden_ for _wagen_ (carriage); _nähnaden_ for _nähnadel_ (needle); _wewette_ for _serviette_ (napkin); _teid_ for kleid (dress); _weife_ for seife (soap); _famm_ for _schwamm_ (sponge); _tonnat_ for _konrad_; _potne_ for _portemonnaie_; _hauf_ for _herauf_ (up here); _hunta_ for _herunter_ (down here); _hiba papa_ for _lieber_ (dear) _papa_ (f_{1}); _tü_ for _thür_ (door); _bau_ for _bauen_ (build); _teta_ for _käte_; _manna_ for _amanda; ta_ for _guten tag_ (good-day); _ku_ for _kugel_ (ball) (f_{2}); _appudich_ for _apfelmuss_ (apple-sauce); _mich_ for _milch_ (milk); _ule pomm_ for _ulrich komm_ (ulrich come); _ku_ for _kuchen_ (cake); _lilte_ for _mathilde_ (f_{3}). xxi. _teine_ for _steine_ (stones); _bimelein_ for _blümelein_ (little flowers); _mamase_ for _mamachen_ (little mama); _tettern_ for _klettern_ (climb); _papa weint nis_ (papa doesn't cry), first sentence (f_{1}); _mamase, täte artig--tuss_ (means _mamachen, käte ist wieder artig, gib ihr einen kuss_) (mamma, darling, katy is good again, give her a kiss) (f_{1}); _amanda's hut_, _mamases hirm_ (for schirm) (amanda's hat, mamma's umbrella), first use of the genitive case (f_{1}); _mein buch_ (my book); _dein ball_ (thy ball) (f_{1}); _das?_ for _was ist das?_ (what is that?) in the tone of interrogation (f_{1}) _dida_ for _ida_; _lala_ for _rosalie_; _fadi_ for _fahne_ (flag); _büda_ for _brüderchen_ (little brother); _hu-e_ for _schuhe_ (shoes); _mai maich_, for _meine milch_ (my milk) (f_{2}). xxii. _kusch_ for _kuss_ (kiss); _sch_ generally used instead of _s_ for months (f_{3}). xxiii. _koka_ for _cacao_; _batt_ for _bett_ (bed); _emmu_ for _hellmuth_ (light-heartedness); _nanna mommom_ (bon-bon); _papa_, _appel_ for _papa_, _bitte einen apfel_ (papa, please, an apple) (f_{2}); _petscher_ for _schwester_ (sister); _till_ for _still_; _bils_ for _milch_; _hiba vata_ for _lieber vater_ (dear father) (f_{3}). xxiv. _pija eine_ for _eine fliege_ (a fly); _pipik_ for _musik_. sentences begin to be formed (f_{3}). xxv. _pater_ for _vater_ (father); _appelsine_ for _apfelsine_ (orange) (f_{2}). all these observations confirm my results in regard to articulation, viz., that in very many cases the more difficult sounds, i. e., those that require a more complicated muscular action, are either omitted or have their places supplied by others; but this rule does not by any means hold good universally: e. g., the sound preferred by f_{3}, _sch_, is more difficult than _s_, and my child very often failed to produce it as late as the first half of the fourth year. in the twenty-second month, in the case of the intelligent little girl f_{1}, numbering began suddenly. she took small stones from a table in the garden, one after another, and counted them distinctly up to the ninth. the persons present could not explain this surprising performance (for the child had not learned to count) until it was discovered that on the previous day some one had counted the stairs for the child in going up. my child did not begin to count till the twenty-ninth month, and, indeed, although he knew the numbers (their names, not their meaning), he counted only by adding one to one (cf. above, p. 172). sigismund's boy, long before he formed sentences, on seeing two horsemen, one following the other at a short interval, said, _eite_ (for reiter)! _noch eins!_ this proves the activity of the faculty of numbering. the boy f_{3}, at the age of two and two thirds years, still said _schank_ for _schrank_ and _nopf_ for _knopf_, and, on being told to say _sch-r-ank_ plainly, he said _rrr-schank_. this child from the thirty-first month on made much use of the interrogative words. _warum?_ _weshalb?_ he asked at every opportunity; very often, too, _was?_ _wer?_ _wo?_ (why? wherefore? what? who? where?); sometimes _was?_ four or five times when he had been spoken to. when the meaning of what had been said was made plain, then the child stopped asking questions. the little girl f_{4}, in her thirteenth month, always says, when she sees a clock, _didda_ (for "tick-tack," which has been said to her), and imitates with her finger the movement of the pendulum. it was noticed of this child that, when not yet five months old, she would accompany a song, sung for her by her mother, with a continuous, drawling _äh-äh-äh_; but, as soon as the mother stopped, the child became silent also. the experiment was one day (the one hundred and forty-fifth of the child's life) repeated nine times, with the same result. i have myself repeatedly observed that babes in the fourth month respond to words spoken in a forcible, pleasant manner with sounds indeterminate often, with _ö-[)e]_ and other vowels. there is no imitation in this, but a reaction that is possible only through participation of the cerebrum, as in the case of the joyous sounds at music at an earlier period. the date at which the words heard from members of the family are for the first time clearly imitated, and the time when the words of the mother-tongue are first used independently, depends, undoubtedly, with children in sound condition, chiefly upon the extent to which people occupy themselves with the children. according to heinr. feldmann (_de statu normali functionum corporis humani_. inaugural dissertation, bonn, 1833, p. 3), thirty-three children spoke for the first time (_prima verba fecerunt_) as follows: 14 15 16 17 18 19 month. 1 8 19 3 1 1 children. of these there could walk alone 8 9 10 11 12 month. --^- ---^-- 3 24 6 children. according to this, it is generally the case (the author presumably observed rhenish children) that the first independent step is taken in walking several months earlier than the first word is spoken. but the statement of heyfelder is not correct, that the average time at which sound children learn to walk ("laufen lernen") comes almost exactly at the completion of the twelfth month. the greater part of them are said by him to begin to walk a few days before or after the 365th day. r. demme observed that the greater part began to walk between the twelfth and eighteenth months, and my inquiries yield a similar result. sigismund's boy could run before he imitated words and gestures, and he did not yet form a sentence when he had more than sixty words at his command. of two sisters, the elder could not creep in her thirteenth month, could walk alone for the first time in the fifteenth month, step over a threshold alone in the eighteenth, jump down alone from a threshold in the nineteenth, run nimbly in the twentieth; the younger, on the other hand, could creep alone cleverly at the beginning of the tenth month, even over thresholds, could take the first unsteady steps alone in the thirteenth, and stride securely over the threshold alone in the fifteenth. in spite of this considerable start the younger child was not, by a great deal, so far advanced in articulation, in repeating words after others, and in the use of words, in her fifteenth month, as the elder was in her fifteenth. the latter spoke before she walked, the former ran before she spoke (frau von strümpell). my child could imitate gestures (beckoning, clinching the fist, nodding the head) and single syllables (_heiss_), before he could walk, and did not learn to speak till after that; whereas the child observed by wyma could stand firmly at nine months, and walk soon after, and he spoke at the same age. inasmuch as in such statistical materials the important thing is to know what is meant by "speaking for the first time," whether it be saying _mama_, or imitating, or using correctly a word of the language that is to be spoken later, or forming a sentence of more than one word--and yet on these points data are lacking--we can not regard the laborious inquiries and collections as of much value. children in sound condition walk for the most part before they speak, and understand what is said long before they walk. a healthy boy, born on the 13th of july, 1873, ran alone for the first time on the 1st of november, 1874, and formed his first sentence, _hia muta ji_ ("marie! die mutter ist ausgegangen," _ji_ = adieu) (mary, mother has gone out), on the 21st of november, 1875, thus a full year later (schulte). more important, psychogenetically, are observations concerning the forming of new words with a definite meaning before learning to speak--words not to be considered as mutilations, imperfectly imitated or onomatopoetic forms (these, too, would be imitations), or as original primitive interjections. in spite of observations and inquiries directed especially to this point, i have not been able to make sure that any inventions of that sort are made before there has taken place, through the medium of the child's relatives, the first association of ideas with articulate sounds and syllables. there is no reason for supposing them to be made by children. according to the foregoing data, they are not thus made. all the instances of word-inventions of a little boy, communicated by prof. s. s. haldemann, of the university at philadelphia, in his "note on the invention of words" ("proceedings of the american philological association," july 14, 1880) are, like those noted by taine, by holden (see below), by myself, and others, onomatopoetic (imitative, pp. 160, 91). he called a cow _m_, a bell _tin-tin_ (holden's boy called a church-bell _ling-dong-mang_ [communicated in correspondence]), a locomotive _tshu, tshu,_ the noise made by throwing objects into the water _boom_, and he extended this word to mean throw, strike, fall, spill, without reference to the sound. but the point of departure here, also, was the sound. in consideration of the fact that a sound formed in imitation of it, that is, a repetition of the tympanic vibrations by means of the vibrations of the vocal cords, is employed as a _word_ for a phenomenon associated with the sound--that this is done by means of the faculty of generalization belonging to children that are intelligent but as yet without speech--it is perfectly allowable, notwithstanding the scruples and objections of even a max müller, to look for the origin of language in the imitation of sounds and the repetition of our own inborn vocal sounds, and so in an imitation. for the power of forming concepts must have manifested itself in the primitive man, as is actually the case in the infant, by movements of many sorts before articulate language existed. the question is, not whether the roots of language originated onomatopoetically or interjectionally, but simply whether they originated through imitation or not. for interjections, all of them, could in no way come to be joined together so as to be means of mutual understanding, i. e., words, unless one person imitated those of another. now if the alalic child be tested as to whether he forms new words in any other way than by imitation and transformation of what he imitates, i. e., whether he forms them solely of his own ability, be it by the combination of impulsive sounds of his own or of sounds accidentally arising in loud expiration, we find no sure case of it. sound combinations, syllables--and those not in the least imitated--there are in abundance, but that even a single one is, without the intervention of the persons about the child, constantly associated with one and the same idea (before other ideas have received their verbal designation--likewise by means of the members of the family--and have been made intelligible to the child), can not be shown to be probable. my observations concerning the word _atta_ (p. 122 _et al._) would tend in that direction, were it not that the _atta_, uttered in the beginning without meaning, had first got the meaning of "away," through the fact that _atta_ was once said by somebody at going away. so long as proof is wanting, we can not believe that each individual child discovers anew the fundamental fact of the expression of ideas by movements of the tongue; but we have to admit that he has inherited the faculty for such expression, and simply manifests it when he finds occasion for imitations. the first person that has attempted to fix the _number_ of all the words used by the child, independently, before the beginning of the third year of life (and these only), is an astronomer, e. s. holden, director of the observatory of the university at madison, wisconsin. his results in the case of three children have been recently published (in the "transactions of the american philological association," 1887, pp. 58-68). holden found, by help of webster's "unabridged dictionary," his own vocabulary to consist of 33,456 words, with a probable error of one per cent. allowing a probable error of two per cent, his vocabulary would be comprised between the limits of 34,125 words and 32,787 words. a vocabulary of 25,000 words and over is, according to the researches of himself and his friends, by no means an unusual one for grown persons of average intelligence and education. holden now determined in the most careful manner the words actually used by two children during the twenty-fourth month of their lives. a friend in england ascertained the same for a third child. all doubtful words were rigidly excluded. for example, words from nursery rhymes were excluded, unless they were independently and separately used in the same way with words of daily and common use. in the first two cases the words so excluded are above 500 in number. again, the names of objects represented in pictures were not included unless they were often spontaneously used by the children. the lists of words are presented in the order of their initial letters, because the ease or difficulty of pronouncing a word, the author is convinced, largely determines its early or late adoption. in this i can not fully agree with him, on the ground of my own experience (particularly since i have myself been teaching my child english, in his fourth year; he learns the language easily). it is not correct that the pronunciation rather than the meaning makes the learning of a word difficult. thus, in all three of holden's cases, the words that have the least easy initial (s) predominate; the child, however, avoided them and substituted easy ones. holden makes no mention of this; and in his list of all the words used he puts together, strangely, under one and the same letter, without regard to their sound-(phonic) value, vocables that begin with entirely different sounds. thus, e. g., under _c_ are found _corner_ (_k_), _chair_ (tsch), _cellar_ (_s_); under _k_, actually _knee_ (_n_) and _keep_ (_k_), and, under _s_, words that begin with the same _s_-sound as in _cellar_, e. g., _soap_, and also words beginning with the _sch_-sound, _sugar_, and with _st_, _sw_, _sm_, and many others. as the words of the three children are grouped, not according to the _sounds_ with which they begin, but according to their initial _letters_, into twenty-six classes, the author's conclusions can not be admitted. the words must first all be arranged according to their initial _sounds_. when this task is accomplished, which brings _no_ and _know_, e. g., into one class, _wrap_ and _rag_ into a second--whereas they were put in four different classes--then we find by no means the same order of succession that holden gives. the author wrote to me, however, in 1882, that his oldest child _understood_ at least 1,000 words more than those enumerated here, i. e., than those published by him, and that with both children facility of pronunciation had more influence in regard to the use of words than did the ease with which the words could be understood; this, however, does not plainly follow from the printed statements before me, as he admits. when the first-born child was captivated by a new word, she was accustomed to practice it by herself, alone, and then to come and employ it with a certain pride. the second child did so, too, only in a less striking manner. the boy, on the contrary, who was four years old in december, 1881, and who had no ear for music and less pride than his sisters, did not do as they did. further, the statements of the number of all the nouns, adjectives, verbs, and adverbs used by a child of two years are of interest, although they present several errors: e. g., _supper_ makes its appearance twice in the case of the same child under _s_, and _enough_ figures as an adjective. for the three girls, in their twenty-fourth month, the results were: -----------------------|----------------|-----------------|------------ parts of speech. | first child. | second child. | third child. -----------------------|----------------|-----------------|------------nouns | 285 | 230 | 113 verbs | 107 | 90 | 30 adjectives | 34 | 37 | 13 adverbs | 29 | 17 | 6 other parts of speech | 28 | 25 | 11 |----------------|-----------------|------------ total | 483 | 399 | 173 -----------------------------------------------------------------------a fourth child, brother of the first and second, made use (according to the lists kindly communicated to me by the author), in his twenty-fourth month, of 227 nouns--some proper names among them--105 verbs, 22 adjectives, 10 adverbs, and 33 words of the remaining classes (all these figures being taken from the notes of the child's mother). from these four vocabularies of the twenty-fourth month it plainly results that the stock of words and the kinds of words depend primarily on the words most used in the neighborhood of the child, and the objects most frequently perceived; they can not, therefore, be alike in different children. the daughters of the astronomer, before their third year, name correctly a portrait of galileo, and one of struve. a local "tone," or peculiarity of this sort, attaches to every individual child, a general one to the children of a race. i may add that the third child (in england) seems to have been less accurately observed than the others (in madison, wisconsin). great patience and attention are required to observe and note down every word used by a child in a month. without mentioning the name of holden, but referring to his investigations, which, in spite of the defects mentioned, are of the very highest merit, m. w. humphreys, professor of greek in vanderbilt university, nashville, has published a similar treatise, based on observations of his own ("a contribution to infantile linguistic," in the "transactions of the american philological association," 1880, xi, pp. 6-17). he collected, with the help of a dictionary, all the words that a little girl of just two years "had full command of," whether correctly pronounced or not, and whether they appeared exactly in the twenty-fourth month or earlier. he simply required to be convinced that every one of the words was understood and had been spontaneously used, and could still be used. he did not include proper names, or words (amounting to hundreds) from nursery-rhymes, or numerals, or names of the days of the week, because he was not sure that the child had a definite idea associated with them. the vocabulary thus numbered 1,121 words: 592 nouns, 283 verbs, 114 adjectives, 56 adverbs, 35 pronouns, 28 prepositions, 5 conjunctions, and 8 interjections. in this table irregular verb-and noun-forms are not counted as separate words, except in the case of defective verbs, as _am_, _was_, _been_. the author presents the 1,121 words according to their classification as parts of speech, and according to initial _letters_, not according to initial _sounds_, although he himself declares this an erroneous proceeding, as i did in discussing holden's paper. the only reason for it was convenience. in the adoption of a word by the child, difficulty of utterance had some influence in the _first_ year; when the little girl was two years old, this had ceased to have any effect whatever. she had by that time adopted certain substitutes for letters that she could not pronounce, and words containing these letters were employed by her as freely as if the substitutes had been the correct sounds. in regard to the meaning, and the frequency of use dependent upon it, it is to be observed that the simplest ideas are most frequently expressed. when two words are synonymous, one of them will be used exclusively by a child, because of the rarer employment of the other by persons speaking in the child's presence. here, too, the local "tone" that has been mentioned made itself felt; thus, the little girl used the word "crinoid" every day, to designate sections of fossil crinoid stems which abounded in neighboring gravel walks. as to parts of speech, nouns were most readily seized; then, in order, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, pronouns. prepositions and conjunctions the child began to employ early, but acquired them slowly. natural interjections--_wah_, for instance--she used to some extent from the beginning; conventional ones came rather late. the following observations by humphreys are very remarkable, and are, in part, up to this time unique: when about four months old the child began a curious and amusing mimicry of conversation, in which she so closely imitated the ordinary cadences that persons in an adjacent room would mistake it for actual conversation. the articulation, however, was indistinct, and the vowel-sounds obscure, and no attempt at separate words, whether real or imaginary, was made until she was six months old, _when she articulated most syllables distinctly_, without any apparent effort. when she was eight months old it was discovered that she knew by name every person in the house, as well as most of the objects in her room, and the parts of the body, especially of the face. she also understood simple sentences, such as, "where is the fire?" "where is the baby in the glass?" to which she would reply by pointing. in the following months she named many things correctly, thus using words as words in the proper sense. the pronunciation of some final consonants was indistinct, but all initial consonants were distinctly pronounced, except _th_, _t_, _d_, _n_, _l_. these the child learned in the eleventh month. at this period she could imitate with accuracy any sound given her, and had a special preference for _ng_ (_ngang_, _ngeng_), beginning a mimicry of language again, this time using real or imaginary words, without reference to signification. but an obscurity of vowel-sounds had begun again. after the first year her facility of utterance seemed to have been lost, so that she watched the mouths of others closely when they were talking, and labored painfully after the sounds. finally, she dropped her mimicry of language, and, at first very slowly, acquired words with the ordinary infant pronunciation, showing a preference for labials (_p_, _b_, _m_) and linguals (_t_, _d_, _n_, not _l_). presently she substituted easy sounds for difficult ones. in the period from eighteen months to two years of age, the following defects of articulation appeared regularly: _v_ was pronounced like _b_, _th_ (_this_) like _d_, _th_ (_thin_) like _t_, _z_ like _d_, _s_ like _t_, _r_ like _w_, _j_ like _d_, _ch_ like _t_, _sh_ like _t_; further: initial. final. _f_ like _w_, _f_ like _p_, _l_ not at all, _l_ correctly, _g_ like _d_, _g_ correctly, _k_ like _t_, _k_ correctly, and in general correctly, _m_, _b_, _p_, _n_, _d_, _t_, _h_, _ng_, _w_. on the other hand, the initial sounds _bl_, _br_, _li_, _pr_, _fl_, _fr_, _dr_, _tr_, _thr_, _sp_, _st_, became _b_, _b_, _p_, _p_, _w_, _w_, _d_, _t_, _t_, _p_, _t_; and the initial sounds _sk_, _sw_, _sm_, _sn_, _sl_, _gl_, _gr_, _kw_, _kl_, _kr_, _hw_, became _t_, _w_, _m_, _n_, _t_ (for _s_), _d_, _w_, _w_, _t_, _w_, _hw_ (_h_ weak). the letter _y_ was not pronounced at all, at first. from this table, as humphreys rightly observes, may be drawn the following conclusions in regard to the initial sounds of words: when a letter which could be pronounced correctly preceded another, the first was retained, but, if both were represented by substitutes, the second was retained. if, however, the second was one which the child made silent, then she pronounced the first. thus, _tr_ = _t_, _kr_ = _w_ (for _r_), _kl_ = _t_ (for _k_, _l_ being one of her silent letters). with these results should be compared those presented in regard to german children, in the paper of fritz schultze (p. 239 above) (which likewise are not of universal application). the accent was for the most part placed on the last syllable. only one case of the invention of a new word could be established. when the child was about eighteen months old, a fly flew all about her plate when she was eating, and she exclaimed, "the old fly went wiggely-waggely." but at this time the child had already learned to speak; she knew, therefore, that perceptions are expressed by words. notwithstanding, the original invention remains remarkable, unless there may be found in it a reminiscence of some expression out of nursery-talk (cf., p. 238). until the eighteenth month, "no" signified both "yes" and "no." at the end of two years subordinate propositions were correctly employed. this was the case also with a german girl in jena, who, for instance, said, "the ball which puck has" (p. fürbringer). in the case of my boy such sentences did not make their appearance till much later. i had hoped to find trustworthy observations in several other works besides those mentioned. their titles led one to expect statements concerning the acquirement of speech by little children; thus, "das kind, tagebuch eines vaters" ("the child, a father's diary"), by h. semmig (second edition, leipsic, 1876), and the book of b. perez, already named (p. 239). but inasmuch as for the former of these writers the first cry of the newly-born is a "triumphal song of everlasting life," and for the second author "the glance" is associated with "the magnetic effluvia of the will," i must leave both of these works out of consideration. the second contains many statements concerning the doings and sayings of little children in france; but these can not easily be turned to account. the same author has issued a new edition, in abridged form, of the "memoirs," written, according to him, by dietrich tiedemann, of a son of tiedemann two years of age (the biologist, friedrich tiedemann, born in 1781). (_thierri tiedemann et la science de l'enfant. mes deux chats. fragment de psychologie comparée par bernard perez._ paris, 1881, pp. 7-38; tiedemann, 39-78. "the first six weeks of two cats.") but it is merely on account of its historical interest that the book is mentioned here, as the scanty (and by no means objective) notes of the diary were made a hundred years ago. the treatises of pollock and egger, mentioned in the periodical "mind" (london, july, 1881, no. 23), i am not acquainted with, and the same is true of the work of schwarz (mentioned above, p. 224). very good general statements concerning the child's acquisition of speech are to be found in degerando ("l'éducation des sourds-muets de naissance," 1 vol., paris, 1827, pp. 32-57). he rightly maintains that the child learns to speak through his own observation, without attention from other persons, far more than through systematic instruction; the looks and gestures of the members of the family when talking with one another are especially observed by the child, who avails himself of them in divining the meaning of the words he hears. this divining, or guessing, plays in fact a chief part in the learning of speech, as i have several times remarked. new comprehensive diaries concerning the actions of children in the first years of life are urgently to be desired. they should contain nothing but well-established _facts_, no hypotheses, and no repetitions of the statements of others. among the very friendly notes that have been sent to me, the following particularly conform to the above requirements. they were most kindly placed at my disposal by the baroness von taube, of esthonia, daughter of the very widely and honorably known count keyserling. they relate to her first-born child, and come all of them from the mother herself: in the first five months i heard from my son, when he cried, all the vowels. the sound _ä_ was the first and most frequent. of the consonants, on the other hand, i heard only _g_, which appeared after seven weeks. when the child was fretful he often cried _gege_; when in good humor he often repeated the syllables _agu_, _agö_, _äou_, _ogö_, _eia_; then _l_ came in, _ül_. the same sounds in the case of my daughter; but from her i heard, up to her tenth month, in spite of all my observation, no other consonants than _g_, _b_, _w_, rarely _l_, and finally _m_-sounds. with my son at the beginning of the seventh month an r-sound appeared--_grr_, _grrr_, plainly associated with _d_ in _dirr dirr_. these sounds were decidedly sounds of discomfort, which expressed dissatisfaction, violent excitement, sleepiness; and they are made even now by the boy at four years of age when, e. g., he is in pain. in the ninth month _dada_ and _b_, _bab-a_, _bäb-ä_ are added. _agö_ also is often said, and _ö_ still more often. this _ö_ is already a kind of conscious attempt at speaking, for he uses it when he sees anything new, e. g., the dog caro, which he observes with eager attention, as he does the cat, uttering aloud meanwhile _ö, ö_. if any one is called, the child calls in a very loud voice, _ö, oe!_ first imitation. (gestures have been imitated since the eighth month, and the making of grimaces in the child's presence had to be strictly forbidden.) understanding for what is said is also present, for when one calls "caro, caro," in his hearing, he looks about him as if he were looking for the dog. in the tenth month he often repeats _pap-ba_, but it has no significance. if "backe backe kuchen" ("bake cakes," corresponding to our "pat-a-cake") is said to him, he immediately pats his hands as if preparing bread for baking. in the eleventh month _pap-ba_ is dropped. he now says often _dädädädä_, and, when he is dull or excited (_erregt_) or sleepy, _drin, drin_. these _r_-sounds do not occur with my daughter; but since her tenth month she uses _m_-sounds, _mämmä_ when she is sleepy or dull. the boy now stretches out his hand and beckons when he sees any one at a distance. at sight of anything new, he no longer says _ö_, but _äda_ (twelfth month). he likes to imitate gestures with his arms and mouth; he observes attentively the _movements of the lips of one who is speaking_, sometimes _touching_ at the same time the _mouth of the speaker with his finger_. at ten months the first teeth came. in the eleventh month the child was for the first time taken out into the open air. now the _g_-sounds again become prominent--_aga_, _ga_, _gugag_. the child begins to creep, but often falls, and while making his toilsome efforts keeps crying out in a very comical manner, _äch, äch, äch!_ at eleven and a half months a great advance. the child is now much out of doors, and enjoys seeing horses, cows, hens, and ducks. when he sees the hens he says _gog, gog_, and even utters some croaking sounds. he can also imitate at once the sound _prrr_ when it is pronounced to him. if _papa_ is pronounced for him (he has lost this word), he responds regularly _wawa_ or _wawawa_. i have only once heard _wauwau_ from him. if he hears anybody cough, he immediately gives a little imitative cough in fun (vol. i, p. 288), and this sounds very comical. he makes much use of _od_, _ädo_, and _äd_, and this also when he sees pictures. when the boy had reached the age of a year, he was weaned; from that time his mental development was very rapid. if any one sings to him gi ga gack, he responds invariably _gack_. he begins to adapt sounds to objects: imitation of sound is the chief basis of this adaptation. he calls the ducks with _gäk, gäk_, and imitates the cock, after a fashion, names the dog _aua_ (this he got from his nurse), not only when he sees the animal, but also when he hears him bark. e. g., the child is playing busily with pasteboard boxes; the dog begins to bark outside of the house; the child listens and says _aua_. i roll his little carriage back and forth; he immediately says _brrr_, pointing to it with his hand; he wants to ride, and i have to put him in (he had heard _burra_, as a name for riding, from his nurse). when he sees a horse, he says _prr_ (this has likewise been said for him). i remark here that the notion that the child thinks out its own language--a notion i have often met with, held by people not well informed in regard to this matter--rests on defective observation. the child has part of his language given to him by others; part is the result of his own sound-imitations--of animals, e. g.--and part rests on mutilations of our language. at the beginning of the thirteenth month he suddenly names all objects and pictures, for some days, _dodo_, _toto_, which takes the place of his former _ö_; then he calls them _niana_, which he heard frequently, as it means "nurse" in russian. everything now is called _niana_: _dirr_ continues to be the sign of extreme discomfort. _papba_ is no more said, ever; on the other hand, _mamma_ appears for the first time, but without any significance, still less with any application to the mother. the word _niana_ becomes now the expression of desire, whether of his food or of going to somebody or somewhere. sometimes, also, under the same circumstances, he cries _mämmä_ and _mamma_; the dog is now decidedly called _aua_, the horse _prr_. _14th month._--he now names also single objects in his picture-book: the dog, _aua_, the cats, _tith_ (pronounced as in english), _kiss kiss_ having been said for him; horses, _prr_, all birds, _gock_ or _gack_. in the house of a neighbor he observes at once the picture, although it hangs high up on the wall, of the emperor driving in a sleigh, and cries _prrr_. animals that he does not know he calls, whether in the book or the real animals, _aua_ or _ua_, e. g. cows. his nurse, to whom he is much attached, he now calls decidedly _niania_, although he continues to use this word in another sense also. if she is absent for some time, he calls, longingly, _niania_, _niania_. he sometimes calls me _mamma_; but not quite surely yet. he babbles a good deal to himself; says over all his words, and makes variations in his repertory, e. g., _niana_, _kanna_, _danna_; repeats syllables and words, producing also quite strange and unusual sounds, and accumulations of consonants, like _mba_, _mpta_. as soon as he wakes in the morning he takes up these meaningless language-exercises, and i hear him then going on in an endless babble. when he does not want a thing, he shakes his head as a sign of refusal; this no one has taught him. nodding the head as a sign of assent or affirmation he is not yet acquainted with, and learns it much later. the nurse speaks with me of caro; the child attends and says _aua_; he knows what we were talking about. if his grandmother says, "give the little hand," he at once stretches it out toward her. he understands what is said, and begins consciously to repeat it. his efforts to pronounce the word grossmama (grandmamma) are comical; in spite of all his pains, he can not get beyond the _gr_; says _gr-mama_, and finally _goo-mama_, and makes this utterance every time he sees his grandmother. at this time he learns also from his nurse the word _koppa_ as a name for horse, instead of _prr_, _burra_, which, from this time forth, denotes only going in a carriage. _koppa_ is probably a formation from "hoppa koppati," an imitation of the sound of the hoofs. at the end of the fourteenth month, his stock of words is much enlarged. the child plays much in the open air, sees much, and advances in his development; words and sounds are more and more suited to conceptions. he wakes in the night and says _appa_, which means "give me some drink." the ball he calls _ball_; flower, _bume_ (for blume); cat, _katz_ and _kotz_ (katze)--what _kalla_, _kanna_, _kotta_ signify we do not know. he imitates the barking of the dog with _auauauau_. he says _teine_ for steine (stones); calls braten (roast meat) _pâati_ and _pâa_, and brod (bread) the same. if he hits against anything in creeping, he immediately says _ba_ (it hurts). if he comes near a dangerous object, and some one says to him, _ba_, he is on his guard at once. a decided step in advance, at the end of the fourteenth month, is his calling me _mama_. at sight of me he often cries out, in a loud voice and in a coaxing tone, _ei-mamma!_ just as he calls the nurse _ei-niana_. his father he now calls _papa_, too, but not until now, although this sound, _papba_, made its appearance in the tenth month, after which time it was completely forgotten. his grandmother, as he can not get beyond the _gr_, is now called simply _grrru_; not until later, _go-mamma_. _15th month._--he now says _guten tag_ (good-day), but not always at the right time; also _guttag_. he likes to see pictures, and calls picture-books _ga_ or _gock_, probably because a good many birds are represented in them. he likes to have stories told to him, and to have pictures explained or rather named. "hinauf" (up) he calls _üppa_, e. g., when he is to be lifted into his chair. for "unten, hinab" (below, down), he says _patz_. not long ago he repeated unweariedly _pka, pta_ (pp. 139, 144), _mba, mbwa_. at this period he begins to raise himself erect, holding on by chairs and such things. of horses he is passionately fond; but he begins to use the word _koppa_, as the chinese do their words, in various meanings. he calls my large gold hair-pins _koppa_. perhaps in his imagination they represent horses, as do many other objects also with which he plays. berries he now calls _mamma_. he has a sharp eye for insects, and calls them all _putika_, from the esthonian _puttukas_ (beetle), which he has got from the maid. all large birds in the picture-book he now calls _papa_, the word being probably derived from _papagei_ (parrot), which he also pronounces _papagoi_. the smaller birds are called _gog_ and _gack_. his image in the glass he calls _titta_ (esthonian designation for child, doll). does he recognize himself in it (p. 196, _et seq._)? once he heard me in the garden calling some one in a loud voice. he immediately imitated me, and afterward when he was asked "what does mamma do?" he understood the question at once, put out his lips, and made the same sound. he is very uneasy in strange surroundings, in strange places, or among strangers. my bracelet, too, he now calls _kopita_. _mann_ is a new word. _o-patz_ means "playing on the piano," as well as "below, down there." when the piano is played he sings in a hoarse voice, with lips protruded, as well as he can, but does not get the tune. he likes to dance, and always dances in time. _nocho_ (noch, yet) is a new word, which he uses much in place of _mehr_ (more), e. g., when he wants more food. he often plays with apples, which for this reason, and very likely because they are round, he calls _ball_, as he does his rubber ball. yesterday he had baked apples, mashed, with milk. he recognized the apple at once in this altered form, and said as he ate, _ball!_ at this time he was not yet sixteen months old. _16th month._--he is often heard to beg, or rather order, _mamma opatz_ (play the piano). if i do not at once obey, he moves his little hands like a piano-player and begs _tatata_, _tatata_, imitating the music. he likes also to hear songs sung, and can already tell some of them, as _gigagack_, _kucka_ _tralla_. he joins in singing the last of these. _17th month._--he speaks his own name correctly, and when asked "where is adolph?" he points to his breast. as he is always addressed in the third person, i. e., by his name, he does not know any personal pronouns. the syllable _ei_ he often changes to _al_; e. g., he says _papagal_ instead of "papagei." he had some grapes given to him for the first time, and he at once called them _mammut_ (berries). being asked, "how do you like them?" he pressed his hand on his heart in an ecstasy of delight that was comical, crying _ach! ach!_ _18th month._--he comprehends and answers questions; e. g., "where are you going?" _zu tuhl_ (to the chair). "what is that?" _bett tuddu_, i. e., a bed for sleeping. "who gave you this?" _mamma_, _pappa_. he can now say almost any word that is said to him, often mutilating it; but, if pains be taken to repeat it for him, he pronounces it correctly. he often tacks on the syllable _ga_, as if in endearment, _mammaga_, _pappaga_, _nianiaga_. the _forming of sentences is also beginning_, for he joins two words together, e. g., _mamma kommt_ (comes), _papa gut_ (good), _ferd_ (for _pferd_) _halt_ (horse stop). he says _wiebacka_ for zwieback (biscuit), _brati_ for braten (roast meat), goossmama for grossmama (grandmamma). he pronounces correctly "onkel kuno, suppe, fuchs, rabe, kameel." when others are conversing in his presence, he often says to himself the words he hears, especially the last words in the sentence. the word "nein" (no) he uses as a sign of refusal; e. g., "will you have some roast meat?" _nein_. _ja_ (yes), on the other hand, he does not use, but he answers in the affirmative by repeating frequently with vehemence what he wants, e. g., "do you want some roast?" _brati, brati_ (i. e., i do want roast). he gives names to his puppets. he calls them grandmamma, grandpapa, uncle kuno, uncle grünberg, gardener, cook, etc. the puppets are from his noah's ark. now appear his first attempts at drawing. he draws, as he imagines, all kinds of animals: ducks, camels, tigers. he lately made marks, calling out _torch und noch ein torch_ (a stork and another stork). (cf. pp. 172, 247.) the book of birds is his greatest delight. i have to imitate the notes of birds, and he does it after me, showing memory in it. he knows at once stork, woodpecker, pigeon, duck, pelican, siskin, and swallow. the little verses i sing at the same time amuse him, e. g., "zeislein, zeislein, wo ist dein häuslein?" (little siskin, where is your little house?); and he retains them when he hears them often. russian words also are repeated by him. for the first time i observe the attempt to communicate to others some experience of his own. he had been looking at the picture-book with me, and when he went to the nurse he told her, _mamma, bilder, papagei_ (mamma, pictures, parrot). _19th month._--from the time he was a year and a half old he has walked alone. he speaks whole sentences, but without connectives, e. g., _niana braten holen_ (nurse bring roast); _caro draussen wauwau_ (caro outside, bow-wow); _mamma tuddut_ (sleeps, inflected correctly); _decke um_ (cover over); _papa koppa stadt_ (papa driven to city); _mamma sitzt tuhl_ (mamma sits chair); _adolph bei mama bleiben_ (adolph stay with mamma); _noch tanzen_ (more dance); _pappa fuchs machen_ (papa make fox). certain words make him nervous. he does not like the refrain of the children's song of the goat. if i say "darum, darum, meck, meck, meck," he looks at me indignantly and runs off. sometimes he lays his hand on my mouth or screams loudly for the nurse. he gives up any play he is engaged in as soon as i say "darum, darum." _pax vobiscum_ has the same effect. the songs amuse him chiefly on account of the words, particularly through the imitations of the sounds of animals. he knows the songs and asks of his own accord for _kucku esaal_, _kater putz_, _kucku tralla_, but commonly hears only the first stanza, and then wants a different song. lately, however, he listened very earnestly to the three stanzas of "möpschen," and when i asked "what now?" he answered _noch mops_ (more mops). playing with his puppets, he hummed to himself, _tu, tu, errsen, tu tu errsen_. i guessed that it was "du, du liegst mir im herzen," which he had on the previous day wanted to hear often and had tried to repeat. _20th month._--now for the first time _ja_ is used for affirmation, chiefly in the form _ja wohl_ (yes, indeed, certainly), which he retains. "do you want this?" _ja wohl._ being asked "whose feet are these?" he answers correctly, _mine_; but no personal pronouns appear yet. he often retains a new and difficult word that he has heard only once, e. g., "chocolade." to my question, after his grandfather had gone away, "where is grandpapa now?" he answers sorrowfully, _verloren_ (lost). (cf. p. 145.) in his plays he imitates the doings and sayings of adults, puts a kerchief about his head and says, _adolph go stable, give oats_. not long ago, as he said good-night to us, he went also to his image in the glass and kissed it repeatedly, saying, _adolph, good-night!_ _24th month._--he knows a good many flowers, their names and colors; calls pansies "the dark flowers." he also caught the air and rhythm of certain songs, e. g., _kommt a vogel angeflogen, du, du, liegst mir im herzen, machst mir viel serzen_, and used to sing to himself continually when he was on a walk. now that he is four years old, on the contrary, he hardly ever sings. _25th month._--beetles have a great interest for him. he brings a dead beetle into the parlor, and cries, "run now!" his astonishment is great that the creature does not run. if he sees something disagreeable (e. g., he saw the other day an organ-grinder with a monkey), he covers his face with his hands weeping aloud and crying, _monkey go away_. so, too, when he sees strangers. the latin names of flowers and insects are easily retained by him. they are not taught him, he simply hears them daily. _26th and 27th months._--of his childish language he has retained only the term _mammut_, for berries. milk, which he used to call _mima_, is now called _milch_ (cf., pp. 140, 157). the child's use of the personal pronoun is strange. during my absence an aunt of his took my place, and she addressed him for the _first time_ with the word "du" (thou), and spoke of herself as "i," whereas i always called myself "mama." the consequence was that the boy for a long time used "thou" as the first person, "i" as the second person, with logical consistency. he hands me bread, saying, _i am hungry_, or, when i am to go with him, _i come too_. referring to himself, he says, _you want flowers_; _you will play with niania_. all other persons are addressed with "i" instead of "you." he tells his uncle, _there's an awfully pretty gentian in the yard_. he gets the nurse occasionally to repeat the latin names, because they are difficult for her, and his correction of her is very comical. _28th month._--he speaks long sentences. _papa, come drink coffee,_ _please do_. _papa, i drive_ (for "you drive") _to town, to reval, and bring some parrots (bellensittiche)_. he often changes the form of words for fun, e. g., _guten porgen_ (for guten morgen). on going out, he says, with a knowing air, "splendid weather, the sun shines so warm." he alters songs also, putting in different expressions: e. g., instead of _lieber vogel fliege weiter, nimm a kuss und a gruss_, adolph sings, _lieber vogel fliege weiter in die wolken hinein_ (dear bird, fly farther, _into the clouds_, instead of _take a kiss and a greeting_). it is a proof of logical thinking that he asks, at sight of the moon, _the moon is in the sky, has it wings?_ i had been sick; when i was better and was caressing him again, he said, _mama is well, the dear jesus has made mama well with sealing-wax_. "with sealing-wax?" i asked, in astonishment. _yes, from the writing-desk._ he had often seen his toys, when they had been broken, "made well", as he called it, by being stuck together with sealing-wax. he now asks, _where is the dear jesus?_ "in heaven." _can he fly then; has he wings?_ religious conceptions are difficult to impart to him, even at a much later period: e. g., heaven is too cold for him, his nose would freeze up there, etc. he now asks questions a good deal in general, especially _what is that called?_ e. g., _what are chestnuts called?_ "horse-chestnuts." _what are these pears called?_ "bergamots." he jests: _nein, bergapots_, or, _what kind of mots are those?_ he will not eat an apple until he has learned what the name of it is. he would often keep asking, in wanton sport, _what are books called?_ or _ducks?_ or _soup?_ he uses the words "to-day, to-morrow," and the names of the days of the week, but without understanding their meaning. instead of saying "_zu mittag gehen_" (go to noon-meal), he says, logically, "zu nachmittag gehen" (go to afternoon-meal). the child does not know what is true, what is actual. i never can depend on his statements, except, as it appears, when he tells what he has had to eat. if riding is spoken of, e. g., he has a vivid picture of riding in his mind. to-day, when i asked him "did you see papa ride?" he answered, _yes, indeed, papa rode away off into the woods_. yet his father had not gone to ride at all. in the same way he often denies what he has seen and done. he comes out of his father's room and i ask, "well, have you said good-night to papa?" _no._ his father told me afterward that the child had done it. in the park we see some crested titmice, and i tell the nurse that, in the previous autumn, i saw for the first time finnish parrots or cross-bills here, but that i have not seen any since. when the child's father asked later, "well, adolph, what did you see in the park?" _crested titmice, with golden crests_ (he adds out of his own invention) _and finnish parrots_. he mixes up what he has heard and seen with what he imagines. truth has to be taught to a child. the less this is done, the easier it is to inoculate him with religious notions, i. e., of miraculous revelation; otherwise one must be prepared for many questions that are hard to answer. _29th month._--sad stories affect him to tears, and he runs away. names of animals and plants he remembers often more easily than i do, and informs me. he reasons logically. lately, when he asked for some foolish thing, i said to him, "sha'n't i bring the moon for you, too?" _no_, said he, _you can't do that, it is too high up in the clouds_. _30th to 33d months._--he now often calls himself "adolph," and then speaks of himself in the third person. he frequently confounds "i" and "you," and does not so consistently use the first person for the second, and the reverse. the transition is very gradually taking place to the correct use of the personal pronoun. instead of _my mamma_, he repeats often, when he is in an affectionate mood, _your mamma_, _your mamma_. some new books are given to him. in the book of beetles there are shown to him the party-colored and the gray, so-called "sad," grave-digger (_necrophorus_). the latter now becomes prominent in his plays. "why is he called the sad?" i asked the child yesterday. _ah! because he has no children_, he answered, sorrowfully. probably he has at some time overheard this sentence, which has no meaning for him, from a grown person. adult persons' ways of speaking are thus employed without an understanding of them; pure verbal memory. in the same way, he retains the names, in his new book, of butterflies (few of them german) better than i do, however crabbed and difficult they may be. this (pure) memory for mere sounds or tones has become less strong in the now four-year-old boy, who has more to do with ideas and concepts, although his memory in other respects is good. in the thirty-seventh month he sang, quite correctly, airs he had heard, and he could sing some songs to the piano, if they were frequently repeated with him. his fancy for this soon passed away, and these exercises ceased. on the other hand, he tells stories a great deal and with pleasure. his pronunciation is distinct, the construction of the sentences is mostly correct, apart from errors acquired from his nurse. the confounding of the first and second persons, the "i" and "you," or rather his use of the one for the other, has ceased, and the child designates himself by _i_, others by _thou_ and _you_. men are ordinarily addressed by him with _thou_, as his father and uncle are; women with _you_, as are even his mother and nurse. this continues for a long time. the boy of four years counts objects, with effort, up to six; numbers remain for a long time merely empty words (pp. 165, 172). in the same way, he has, as yet, but small notion of the order of the days of the week, and mixes up the names of them. to-day, to-morrow, yesterday, have gradually become more intelligible to him. notwithstanding the aphoristic character of these extracts from a full and detailed diary of observations, i have thought they ought to be given, because they form a valuable supplement to my observations in the nineteenth chapter, and show particularly how far independent thought may be developed, even in the second and third years, while there is, as yet, small knowledge of language. the differences in mental development between this child and mine are no less worthy of notice than are the agreements. among the latter is the fact, extremely important in a pedagogical point of view, that, the less we teach the child the simple truth from the beginning, so much the easier it is to inoculate him permanently with religious notions, i. e., of "miraculous revelation." fairy tales, ghost-stories, and the like easily make the childish imagination, of itself very active, hypertrophic, and cloud the judgment concerning actual events. morals and nature offer such an abundance of facts with which we may connect the teaching of language, that it is better to dispense with legends. æsop's fables combine the moral and the natural in a manner unsurpassable. my child tells me one of these fables every morning. footnotes: [d] the vowels have the continental, not the english, sounds. [e] or possibly for the word _drink_, which a child of my acquaintance called _ghing_.--editor. [f] "the first three years of childhood," edited and translated by alice m. christie; published in chicago, 1885. b. notes concerning lacking, defective, and arrested mental development in the first years of life. the data we have concerning the behavior of children born, living, without head or without brain, and of microcephalous children, as well as of idiots and cretins more advanced in age, are of great interest, as helping us to a knowledge of the dependence of the first psychical processes upon the development of the brain, especially of the cerebral cortex. unfortunately, these data are scanty and scattered. very important, too, for psychogenesis, are reports concerning the physiological condition and activity of children whose mental development has seemed to be stopped for months, or to be made considerably slower, or to be unusually hastened. scanty as are the notes i have met with on this matter, after much search, yet i collect and present some of them, in the hope that they will incite to more abundant and more careful observation in the future than has been made up to this time. a good many data concerning the behavior of cretin children are to be found in the very painstaking book, "neue untersuchungen über den kretinismus oder die entartung des menschen in ihren verschiedenen graden und formen" ("new investigations concerning cretinism, or human deterioration, in its various forms and degrees"), by maffei and rösch (two vols, erlangen, 1844). but, in order that these data should be of value, the observed anomalies and defects of the cerebral functions ought to be capable of being referred to careful morphological investigations of the cretin brain. as the authors give no results of _post-mortem_ examinations, i simply refer to their work here. i once had the opportunity myself of seeing a hemicephalus, living, who was brought to the clinic of my respected colleague, prof. b. schultze, in jena. the child was of the male sex, and was born on the 1st of july, 1883, at noon, along with a perfectly normal twin sister. the parents are of sound condition. i saw the child for the first time on the 3d of july, at two o'clock. i found all the parts of the body, except the head, like those of ordinary children born at the right time. the head had on it a great red lump like a tumor, and came to an end directly over the eyes, going down abruptly behind; but, even if the tumor were supposed to be covered with skin, there would by no means be the natural arched formation of the cranium of a newly-born child. the face, too, absolutely without forehead, was smaller in comparison than the rest of the body. i found now, in the case of this child, already two days old, a remarkably regular breathing, a very cool skin--in the forenoon a specific warmth of 32° c. had been found--and slight mobility. the eyes remained closed. when i opened them, without violence, the pupil was seen to be immobile. it did not react in the least upon the direct light of the sun on either side. the left eye did not move at all, the right made rare, convulsive, lateral movements. the conjunctiva was very much reddened. the child did not react in the least to pricks of a dull needle tried on all parts of the body, and reacted only very feebly to pinches; not at all to sound-stimuli, but regularly to stronger, prolonged cutaneous stimuli; in particular, the child moved its arms after a slap on the back, just like normal new-born children, and uttered very harsh, feeble tones when its back was rubbed. when i put my finger in its mouth vigorous sucking movements began, which induced me to offer the bottle--this had not yet been done. some cubic centimetres of milk were vigorously swallowed, and soon afterward the breast of a nurse was taken. while this was going on i could feel quite distinctly with my finger, under the chin, the movements of swallowing. it was easy to establish the further fact that my finger, which i laid in the hollow of the child's hand, was frequently clasped firmly by the little fingers, which had well-developed nails. not unfrequently, sometimes without previous contact, sometimes after it, the tip of the tongue, and even a larger part of the tongue, was thrust out between the lips, and once, when i held the child erect, he plainly gave a prolonged yawn. finally, the fact seemed to me very noteworthy that, after being taken and held erect, sometimes also without any assignable outward occasion, the child inclined its head forward and turned it vigorously both to the right and to the left. when the child had sucked lustily a few times, it opened both eyes about two millimetres wide, and went on with its nursing. an assistant physician saw the child sneeze. these observations upon a human child, two days old, unquestionably acephalous, i. e., absolutely without cerebrum, but as to the rest of its body not in the least abnormal, prove what i have already advanced (vol. i, p. 203), that the cerebrum takes no part at all in the first movements of the newly-born. in this respect the extremely rare case of an acephalous child, living for some days, supplies the place of an experiment of vivisection. unfortunately, the child died so early that i could not carry on further observations and experiments. the report of the _post-mortem_ examination will be published by itself. every observer of young children knows the great variety in the rapidity of their development, and will agree with me in general that a slow and steady development of the cerebral functions in the first four years, but especially in the first two years, justifies a more favorable prognosis than does a very hasty and unsteady development; but when during that period of time there occurs a complete and prolonged interruption of the mental development, then the danger is always great that the normal course will not be resumed. so much the more instructive, therefore, are the cases in which the children after such a standstill have come back to the normal condition. four observations of this kind have been published by r. demme ("19. bericht über das jenner'sche kinderspital in bern, 1882," s. 31 bis 52). these are of so great interest in their bearing on psychogenesis, and they confirm in so striking a manner some of the propositions laid down by me in this book, that i should like to print them here word for word, especially as the original does not appear to have found a wide circulation; but that would make my book altogether too large. i confine myself, therefore, to this reference, with the request that further cases of partial or total interruption of mental development during the first year of life, with a later progress in it, may be collected and made public. it is only in rare cases that microcephalous children can be observed, while living, for any considerable length of time continuously. in this respect a case described by aeby is particularly instructive. a microcephalous boy was born of healthy parents--he was their first child--about four weeks too soon. his whole body had something of stiffness and awkwardness. the legs were worse off in this respect than the arms; they showed, as they continued to show up to the time of his death, a tendency to become crossed. the boy was never able to stand or walk. he made attempts to seize striking objects, white or party-colored, but never learned actually to hold anything. the play of feature was animated. the dark eyes, shining and rapidly moving, never lingered long upon one and the same object. the child was much inclined to bite, and always bit very sharply. mentally there was pronounced imbecility. in spite of his four years the boy never got so far as to produce any articulate sounds whatever. even simple words like "papa" and "mamma" were beyond his ability. his desire for anything was expressed in inarticulate and not specially expressive tones. his sleep was short and light; he often lay whole nights through with open eyes. he seldom shed tears; his discomfort was manifested chiefly by shrill screaming. he died of pulmonary paralysis at the end of the fourth year. the autopsy showed that the frontal lobes were surprisingly small, and that there was a partial deficiency of the median longitudinal fissure. the fissure did not begin till beyond the crown of the head, in the region of the occiput. the anterior half of the cerebrum consequently lacked the division into lateral hemispheres. it had few convolutions also, and the smoothness of its surface was at once obvious. the _corpus callosum_ and the _fornix_ were undeveloped. "the gray cortical layer attained in general only about a third of the normal thickness, and was especially weakly represented in the frontal region." the cerebellum not being stunted, seemed, by the side of the greatly shrunken cerebrum, surprisingly large. in this case the microcephalous of four years behaves, as far as the development of will is concerned, like the normal boy of four months. the latter is, in fact, superior to him in _seizing_, while the former in no way manifests any advantage in a psychical point of view. two cases of microcephaly have been described by fletcher beach (in the "transactions of the international medical congress," london, 1881, iii, 615-626). e. r. was, in may, 1875, received into his institution at the age of eleven years. she had at the time of her birth a small head, and had at no time manifested much intelligence. she could not stand or walk, but was able to move her arms and legs. her sight and hearing were normal. she was quiet and obedient, and sat most of the time in her chair. she paid no attention to her bodily needs. she could not speak and had to be fed with a spoon. after six months she became a little more intelligent, made an attempt to speak, and muttered something indistinctly. she would stretch out her hand when told to give it, and she recognized with a smile her nurse and the physician. some four months later she would grind her teeth when in a pleasant mood, and would act as if she were shy when spoken to, holding her hand before her eyes. she was fond of her nurse. thus there was capacity of observation, there were attention, memory, affection, and some power of voluntary movement. she died in january, 1876. her brain weighed, two days after her death, seven ounces. it is minutely described by the author--but after it had been preserved in alcohol for six years, and it then weighed only two ounces. the author found a number of convolutions not so far developed as in the foetus of six months, according to gratiolet, and he is of opinion that the cerebellum was further developed after the cerebrum had ceased to grow, so that there was not an arrest of the development but an irregularity. the cerebral hemispheres were asymmetrical, the frontal lobes, corresponding to the psychical performances in the case, being relatively pretty large, while the posterior portion of the third convolution on the left side, the island of reil, and the operculum were very small, corresponding to the inability to learn to speak. the author connects the slight mobility with the smallness of the parietal and frontal ascending convolutions. the other case is that of a girl of six years (e. h.), who came to the institution in january, 1879, and died in july of the same year. she could walk about, and she had complete control of her limbs. she was cheerful, easy to be amused, and greatly attached to her nurse. she associated with other children, but could not speak a word. her hearing was good, her habits bad. although she could pick up objects and play with them, it did not occur to her to feed herself. she could take notice and observe, and could remember certain persons. her brain weighed, two days after death, 20-1/2 ounces, and was, in many respects, as simple as that of an infant; but, in regard to the convolutions, it was far superior to the brain of a monkey--was superior also to that of e. r. the ascending frontal and parietal convolutions were larger, corresponding to the greater mobility. the third frontal convolution and the island of reil were small on both sides, corresponding to the alalia. the author is of opinion that the ganglionic cells in this brain lacked processes, so that the intercentral connections did not attain development. a more accurate description of two brains of microcephali is given by julius sander in the "archiv für psychiatrie und nerven-krankheiten" (i, 299-307; berlin, 1868), accompanied by good plates. one of these cases is that of which an account is given by johannes müller (in the "medicinische zeitung des vereins für heilkunde in preussen," 1836, nr. 2 und 3). in the full and detailed treatises concerning microcephali by karl vogt ("archiv für anthropologie," ii, 2, 228) and von flesch ("würzburger festschrift," ii, 95, 1882) may be found further data in regard to more recent cases. many questions of physiological and psychological importance in respect to the capacity of development in cases of imperfectly developed brain are discussed in the "zeitschrift für das idioten-wesen" by w. schröter (dresden) and e. reichelt (hubertusburg). but thus far the methods of microscopical investigation of the brain are still so little developed that we can not yet with certainty establish a causal connection, in individual cases, between the deviations of microcephalic brains from the normal brain and the defects of the psychical functions. the number of brains of microcephali that have been examined with reference to this point is very small, although their scientific value, after thorough-going observation of the possessors of them during life, is immense. for microcephalous children of some years of age are a substitute for imaginary, because never practicable, vivisectory experiments, concerning the connection of body and mind. to conclude these fragments, let me add here some observations concerning a case of rare interest, that of the microcephalous child, margarethe becker (born 1869), very well known in germany. these observations i recorded on the 9th of july, 1877, in jena, while the child was left free to do what she pleased. the girl, eight years of age, born, according to the testimony of her father, with the frontal fontanelle (fonticulus anterior) closed and solid, had a smaller head than a child of one year. the notes follow the same order as that of the observations. _time, 8.15 a. m._--the child yawns. she grasps with animation at some human skulls that she sees on a table near her, and directs her look to charts on the walls. she puts her fingers into her nostrils, brushes her apron with both hands, polishes my watch, which i have offered her and she has seized, holds it to one ear, then to one of her father's ears, draws her mouth into a smile, seems to be pleased by the ticking, holds the watch to her father's other ear, then to her own other ear, laughs, and repeats the experiment several times. her head is very mobile. the child now folds a bit of paper that i have given her, rolls it up awkwardly, wrinkling her forehead the while, chews up the paper and laughs aloud. saliva flows from her mouth almost incessantly. then the child begins to eat a biscuit, giving some of it, however, to her father and the attendant, putting her biscuit to their lips, and this with accuracy at once, whereas in the former case the watch was held at first near the ear, to the temple, and not till afterward to the ear itself. the girl is very lively; she strikes about her in a lively manner with her hands, sees charts hanging high on the walls, points to them with her finger, throws her head back upon her neck to see them better, and _moves her fingers in the direction of the lines_ of the diagrams. at last weariness seems to come on. the child puts an arm around the neck of her father, sits on his lap, but is more and more restless. _8.50._--quiet. to appearance, the child has fallen asleep. _8.55._--awake again. the child _sees_ well, _hears_ well, _smells_ well; obeys some few commands, e. g., she gives her hand. but with this her intellectual accomplishments are exhausted. she does not utter a word. kollmann, who saw this microcephalous subject in september, 1877, writes, among other things, of her ("correspondenzblatt der deutschengesellschaft für anthropologie," nr. 11, s. 132): "her gait is tottering, the movements of the head and extremities jerky, not always co-ordinated, hence unsteady, inappropriate and spasmodic; her look is restless, objects are not definitely fixated. the normal functions of her mind are far inferior to those of a child of four years. the eight-year-old margaret speaks only the word _mama_; no other articulate sound has been learned by her. she makes known her need of food by plaints, by sounds of weeping, and by distortion of countenance; she laughs when presented with something to eat or with toys. it is only within the last two years that she has become cleanly; since then her appetite has improved. her nutrition has gained, in comparison with the first years of life, and with it her comprehension also; she helps her mother set the table, and brings plates and knives, when requested to do so, from the place where they are kept. further, she shows a tender sympathy with her microcephalous brother; she takes bread from the table, goes to her brother's bedside and feeds him, as he is not of himself capable of putting food into his mouth. she shows a very manifest liking for her relatives and a fear of strangers. when taken into the parlor she gave the most decided evidences of fear; being placed upon the table she hid her head in her father's coat, and did not become quiet until her mother took her in her arms. this awakening of mental activity shows that, notwithstanding the extremely small quantity of brain-substance, there exists a certain degree of intellectual development with advancing years. with the fourth year, in the case of m., independent movements began; up to that time she lay, as her five-year-old brother still lies, immovable in body and limbs, with the exception of slight bendings and stretchings." richard pott, who (1879) likewise observed this microcephalous subject, found that she wandered about aimlessly, restlessly, and nimbly, from corner to corner [as if], groping and seeking; yet objects held before her were only momentarily fixated, scarcely holding her attention; often she did not once grasp at them. "the girl goes alone, without tottering or staggering, but her locomotive movements are absolutely without motive, having no end or aim, frequently changing their direction. notwithstanding her size, the child gives the impression of the most extreme helplessness." she was fed, but was not indifferent as to food, seeming to prefer sour to sweet. she would come, indeed, when she was called, but seemed not to understand the words spoken to her; she spoke no word herself, but uttered shrill, inarticulate sounds; she felt shame when she was undressed, hiding her face in her sister's lap. the expression of her countenance was harmless, changeable, manifesting no definite psychical processes. the statements contradictory to those of kollmann are probably to be explained by the brevity of the observations. virchow ("correspondenzblatt," s. 135), in his remarks upon this case, says: "i am convinced that every one who observes the microcephalic child will find that psychologically it has nothing whatever of the ape. all the positive faculties and qualities of the ape are wanting here; there is nothing of the psychology of the ape, but only the psychology of an imperfectly developed and deficient little child. every characteristic is human; every single trait. i had the girl in my room a few months since, for hours together, and occupied myself with her; i never observed anything in her that reminds me even remotely of the psychological conditions of apes. she is a human being, in a low stage of development, but in no way deviating from the nature of humanity." from these reports it is plain to be seen that for all mental development an hereditary physical growth of the cerebrum is indispensable. if the sensuous impressions experienced anew in each case by each human being, and the original movements, were sufficient without the development of the cerebral convolutions and of the gray cortex, then these microcephalous beings, upon whom the same impressions operated as upon other new-born children, must have had better brains and must have learned more. but the brain, notwithstanding the peripheral impressions received in seeing, hearing, and feeling, could not grow, and so the rudimentary human child could not learn anything, and could not even form the ideas requisite for articulate voluntary movement, or combine these ideas. only the motor centers of lower rank could be developed. in peculiar contrast with these cases of genuine microcephaly stands the exceedingly remarkable case, observed by dr. rudolf krause (hamburg), of a boy whose brain is not at all morbidly affected or abnormally small, but exhibits decidedly the type of the brain of the ape. the discoverer reported upon it to the anthropological society ("correspondenzblatt a.a. o., s. 132-135) the following facts among others: "the skull and brain belonged to a boy who was born on the 4th of october, 1869, the last of four children. paul was scrofulous from his youth. he did not get his teeth until the end of his second year, and they were quite brown in color and were soon lost. according to the statement of paul's mother, he had several successive sets of teeth. it was not until the fifth year that he learned to walk. he was cleanly from the third year, but not when he felt ill. his appetite was always good up to his last sickness of four weeks. his sleep was habitually undisturbed. he was of a cheerful temperament, and inclined to play; as soon as he heard music he would dance, and sing to the music in rather unmelodious tones. when teased he could be very violent; he would throw anything he could lay his hands on at the head of the offender. he liked the company of others, especially of men. by the time he was four years old he had learned to eat without help. paul was very supple, was fond of climbing, and had great strength in his arms and hands especially; these had actually a horny appearance, and thus reminded one of the hands of the chimpanzee. he could sit on the ground with his legs wide apart. his gait was uncertain, and he was apt to tumble; he ran with knees bent forward and legs crooked; he was fond of hopping, and seemed particularly ape-like when doing so. the great-toe of each foot stood off at an angle from the foot, and thus gave the impression of a prehensile toe. i thought at first that this deviation had its origin in the fact that the child, on account of his uncertainty in walking, wanted to get a broader basis of support; but i afterward gave up that opinion, because i have never found an instance of a similar habit in other children with diseased heads, e. g., hydrocephalous children. paul could speak but little, could say hardly any words except _papa_ and _mama_, and even these he did not until late learn to pronounce in two syllables; he uttered for the most part only sounds that resembled a grunt. he imitated the barking of a dog by the sound _rrrrrr_. he frequently stamped with feet and hands, clapped his hands together, and ejaculated a sort of grunting sound, just as i have observed in the case of gorillas and chimpanzees. "paul was smaller than children of his age; on his right eye he had from his youth a large leucoma; the eyelids had generally a catarrhal affection, and were in a state of suppuration. the head looked sore; the forehead was small. paul had a strongly marked tendency to imitation. his whole being, his movements, were strikingly ape-like. he was decidedly neglected by his parents, was generally dirty in appearance, and i really think the early death of the child was induced by the slight care taken of him. paul was taken sick at the beginning of december, 1876, with an acute bronchial catarrh, and died on the 5th of january, 1877, at the age of seven and a quarter years. "if you look at the cranium and the brain here, which belonged to the child just described, there are lacking in the first place all the characteristics of microcephaly. the cranium possesses a capacity of 1,022 cubic centimetres, and the brain weighs 950 grammes; they do not deviate, therefore, from the normal condition. but let the cranium, where it is laid open by the saw, be observed from within, and we notice an _asymmetry of the two hemispheres of the brain_; the cranium is pushed somewhat forward and to the right. the _partes orbitales_ of the frontal bone are higher and more arched than is usual, in consequence of which the _lamina cribrosa_ of the ethmoid bone lies deeper, and room is given for the well-known conformation of the ethmoidal process in the brain. the cerebral convolutions are plainly marked upon the inner surface of the cranium. the facial cranium shows no deviations. there is no prognathism. the formation of the teeth alone is irregular; one pre-molar tooth is lacking above and below in the jaw, and, in fact, there is no place for it. the incisors and the pre-molar teeth are undergoing change. "the two cerebral hemispheres are asymmetrical; in the region where the parieto-occipital fissure is situated on the left hemisphere, the two hemispheres diverge from each other and form an edge which curves outward and backward, so that the cerebellum remains uncovered. on the lower surface of the frontal lobes there exists a strongly marked ethmoidal prominence. neither of the fissures of sylvius is quite closed, the left less so than the right; the operculum is but slightly developed, and the island of reil lies with its fissures almost entirely uncovered. this conformation reminds us throughout of the brain of the anthropoid apes. the two _sulci centrales sive fissuræ rolandi_ run straight to the border of the hemisphere, less deeply impressed than is normally the case, without forming an angle with each other. very strongly and deeply impressed _sulci præcentrales_ seem to serve as substitutes for them. the _sulcus interparietalis,_ which begins farther outward than in the ordinary human being, receives the _sulcus parieto-occipitalis_--a structure in conformity with the typical brain of the ape. the _sulcus occipitalis transversus_, which is generally lightly stamped in man, extends here as a deep fissure across over the occipital lobe, thus producing a so-called simian fissure, and the posterior part of the occipital lobe has the appearance of an operculum. the _fissura calcarina_ has its origin directly on the surface of the occipital lobe, does not receive until late the _fissura parieto-occipitalis_, and goes directly, on the right side, into the _fissura hippocampi_. this abnormal structure also is typical for the brain of the ape. "the _gyrus occipitalis primus_ is separated from the upper parietal lobe by the _sulcus parieto-occipitalis_, a formation that, according to gratiolet, exists in many apes. the _gyrus temporalis superior_ is greatly reduced on both sides, and has an average breadth of only five millimetres; it is the one peculiarity that recalls emphatically the brain of the chimpanzee, which always has this reduced upper temporal convolution. "we have here, then, a brain that scarcely deviates from the normal brain in volume, that possesses all the convolutions and fissures, seeming, perhaps, richer than the average brain in convolutions, and that is in every respect differentiated; and notwithstanding all this it approximates, in its whole structure, to the simian rather than to the human type. had the brain been placed before me without my knowing its origin, i should have been perfectly justified in assigning this brain to an anthropoid ape standing somewhat nearer to man than does the chimpanzee." no second case of this sort has thus far been observed. c. reports concerning the process of learning to see, on the part of persons born blind, but acquiring sight through surgical treatment. also some critical remarks. i. the chesselden case. the following extracts are taken from the report published by will. chesselden in the "philosophical transactions for the months of april, may, and june, 1728" (no. 402, london, pp. 447-450), or the "philosophical transactions from 1719 to 1733, abridged by j. eames and j. martyn" (vii, 3, pp. 491-493, london, 1734): "though we say of the gentleman that he was blind, as we do of all people who have ripe cataracts, yet they are never so blind from that cause but that they can discern day from night, and, for the most part, in a strong light distinguish black, white, and scarlet; but they can not perceive the shape of anything.... and thus it was with this young gentleman, who, though he knew these colors asunder in a good light, yet when he saw them after he was couched, the faint ideas he had of them before were not sufficient for him to know them by afterward, and therefore he did not think them the same which he had known before by those names.... "when he first saw, he was so far from making any judgment about distances, that he thought all objects whatever touched his eyes (as he expressed it) as what he felt did his skin, and thought no objects so agreeable as those which were smooth and regular. he knew not the shape of anything nor any one thing from another, however different in shape or magnitude; but upon being told what things were, whose form he before knew from feeling, he would carefully observe, that he might know them again. but, having too many objects to learn at once, he forgot many of them, and (as he said) at first he learned to know and again forgot a thousand things in a day. having often forgot which was the cat and which the dog, he was ashamed to ask; but catching the cat (which he knew by feeling), he was observed to look at her steadfastly, and then, setting her down, said, 'so, puss, i shall know you another time.' he was very much surprised that those things which he had liked best did not appear most agreeable to his eyes, expecting those persons would appear most beautiful that he loved most, and such things to be most agreeable to his sight that were so to his taste. we thought he soon knew what pictures represented which were showed to him, but we found afterward we were mistaken, for about two months after he was couched he discovered at once they represented solid bodies, when to that time he considered them only as party-colored planes or surfaces diversified with variety of paint; but even then he was no less surprised, expecting the pictures would feel like the things they represented, and was amazed when he found those parts, which by their light and shadow appeared now round and uneven, felt only flat like the rest, and asked which was the lying sense, feeling or seeing? "being shown his father's picture in a locket at his mother's watch and told what it was, he acknowledged a likeness, but was vastly surprised, asking how it could be that a large face could be expressed in so little room. "at first he could bear but very little sight, and the things he saw he thought extremely large; but, upon seeing things larger, those first seen he conceived less, never being able to imagine any lines beyond the bounds he saw. the room he was in he said he knew to be but part of the house, yet he could not conceive that the whole house could look bigger. before he was couched he expected little advantage from seeing, except reading and writing. blindness, he observed, had this advantage, that he could go anywhere in the dark much better than those who could see, and after he had seen he did not soon lose this quality nor desire a light to go about the house in the night. "a year after first seeing, being carried upon epsom downs and observing a large prospect, he was exceedingly delighted with it and called it a new kind of seeing; and now being lately couched of his other eye, he says that objects at first appeared large to this eye but not so large as they did at first to the other, and, looking upon the same object with both eyes, he thought it looked about twice as large as with the first couched eye only, but not double, that we can anywise discover." remark on the first case. although this chesselden case is the most famous of all, and the most frequently cited, it belongs, nevertheless, to those most inaccurately described. it is, however, not only the first in the order of time, but especially important for the reason that it demonstrates in a striking manner the slow acquirement of space-perception by the eye, and also the acquirement of the first and second dimensions of space (cf. vol. i, p. 57). ii., iii. the ware cases. one of these cases is that of a boy, who at the age of seven years recovered his sight which he had lost in the first half-year of his life. the surgeon who performed the operation, james ware, writes ("philosophical transactions of the royal society for 1801," ii, london, 1801, pp. 382-396): "the young w. appeared to be a healthy, perfect child; his eyes in particular were large and rather prominent. about the end of his first year, a number of persons passing in procession near his father's house, accompanied with music and flags, the child was taken to see them; but, instead of looking at the procession, it was observed that, though he was evidently much pleased with the music, his eyes were never directed to the place from whence the sound came. his mother, alarmed by this discovery, held silver spoons and other glaring objects before him at different distances, and she was soon convinced that he was unable to perceive any of them. a surgeon was consulted, who, on examining the eyes, pronounced that there was a complete cataract in each. all thoughts of assisting his sight were (for the present) relinquished. as soon as he could speak it was observed that when an object was held close to his eyes he was able to distinguish its color if strongly marked, but on no occasion did he ever notice its outline or figure. i performed the operation on the left eye on the 29th of december, 1800. the eye was immediately bound up, and no inquiries made on that day with regard to his sight. on the 30th i found that he had experienced a slight sickness on the preceding evening. on the 31st, as soon as i entered his chamber, the mother with much joy informed me that her child could see. about an hour before my visit he was standing near the fire, with a handkerchief tied loosely over his eyes, when he told her that under the handkerchief, which had slipped upward, he could distinguish the table by the side of which she was sitting. it was about a yard and a half from him, and he observed that it was covered with a green cloth (which was really the case), and that it was a little farther off than he was able to reach.... desirous to ascertain whether he was able to distinguish objects, i held a letter before him at the distance of about twelve inches, when he told me, after a short hesitation, that it was a piece of paper; that it was square, which he knew by its corners; and that it was longer in one direction than it was in the other. on being desired to point to the corners, he did it with great precision and readily carried his finger in the line of its longest diameter. i then showed him a small oblong bandbox covered with red leather, which he said was red and square, and pointed at once to its four corners. after this i placed before him an oval silver box, which he said had a shining appearance, and presently afterward that it was round, because it had not corners. a white stone mug he first called a white basin, but soon after, recollecting himself, said it was a mug because it had a handle. i held the objects at different distances from his eye and inquired very particularly if he was sensible of any difference in their situation, which he always said he was, informing me on every change whether they were brought nearer to or carried farther from him. i again inquired, both of his mother and himself, whether he had ever before this time distinguished by sight any sort of object, and i was assured by both that he never had on any occasion, and that when he wished to discover colors, which he could only do when they were very strong, he had always been obliged to hold the colored object close to his eye and a little on one side to avoid the projection of the nose. no further experiments were made on that day. on the 1st of january i found that he felt no uneasiness on the approach of light. i showed him a table-knife, which at first he called a spoon, but soon rectified the mistake, giving it the right name and distinguishing the blade from the handle by pointing to each as he was desired. he called a yellow pocket-book by its name, taking notice of the silver lock in the cover. i held my hand before him, which he knew, but could not at first tell the number of my fingers nor distinguish one of them from another. i then held up his own hand and desired him to remark the difference between his thumb and his fingers, after which he readily pointed out the distinctions in mine also. dark-colored and smooth objects were more agreeable to him than those which were bright and rough. on the 3d of january he saw from the drawing-room window a dancing bear in the street and distinguished a number of boys that were standing round him, noticing particularly a bundle of clothes which one of them had on his head. on the same evening i placed him before a looking-glass and held up his hand. after a little time he smiled and said he saw the shadow of his hand as well as that of his head. he could not then distinguish his features; but on the following day, his mother having again placed him before the glass, he pointed to his eyes, nose, and mouth. the young w., a remarkably intelligent boy (of seven years), gave the most direct and satisfactory answers to every question that was put to him, and, though not born blind, certainly had not any recollection of having ever seen. the right eye was operated upon a month after the left, but without the least success." in regard to the other case, ware writes: "in the instance of a young gentleman from ireland, fourteen years old, from each of whose eyes i extracted a cataract in the year 1794, and who, before the operation, assured me, as did his friends, that he had never seen the figure of any object, i was astonished by the facility with which, on the first experiment, he took hold of my hand at different distances, mentioning whether it was brought nearer to or carried farther from him, and conveying his hand to mine in a circular direction, that we [ware and another physician] might be the better satisfied of the accuracy with which he did it." in this case, as in others of like nature, ware could not, "although the patients had certainly been blind from early infancy," satisfy himself "that they had not, before this period, enjoyed a sufficient degree of sight to impress the image of visible objects on their minds, and to give them ideas which could not afterward be entirely obliterated." ware found, moreover, that, in the case of two children between seven and eight years of age, both blind from birth, and on whom no operation had been performed, the knowledge of colors, limited as it was, was sufficient to enable them to tell whether colored objects were brought nearer to or carried farther from them; for instance, whether they were at the distance of two inches or four inches from their eyes; and he himself observes that they were not, in strictness of speech, blind, though they were deprived of all useful sight. remarks on the second and third cases. it is a surprising thing, in the account of the former case, that nothing whatever is said of the behavior of the patient on the first and on the fourth day after the operation. we must assume that he passed the first day wholly with his eyes bandaged. further, the boy pointed out four corners of a box, while the box had eight; yet no inference can be drawn from this, for possibly only one side of the box was shown to him. the most remarkable thing is the statement of the patient that he saw the _shadow_ of his hand in the glass. this circumstance, and the astonishing certainty, at the very first attempts to estimate space-relations, in the discrimination of round and angular, and in the observation that the table was somewhat farther from him than he could reach, show what influence the mere ability to perceive colors has upon vision in space. before the operation, w. distinguished only striking colors from one another; but he could perceive nearness and distance of colored objects, within narrow limits, by the great differences in the luminous intensity of the colors. he distinguished with certainty dimness from brightness. accordingly, when he noticed a decrease in the brightness of a color, he inferred the distance of the colored object from the eye, regulating his judgment also by touch. thus the boy had, before the operation, some perception of space with the eye, and it is not much to be wondered at, considering his uncommon intelligence, that he, soon after the operation (probably attempts at seeing were secretly made by the patient on the first day) learned to judge pretty surely of space-relations--much more surely than a person born blind learns to judge in so short a time. besides, it is not to be forgotten that, while it is true that the cataract had become completely developed at the end of the first year of life, there is no proof that the child was unable to see during the first months. at that time images, as in the second case, may have unconsciously impressed themselves, with which, at a later period, more accurate space-ideas may have been associated, through the sense of touch, than is the case with persons born completely blind. ware concludes, from his observations- 1. "when children are born blind, in consequence of having cataracts in their eyes, they are never so totally deprived of sight as not to be able to distinguish colors; and, though they can not see the figure of an object, nor even its color, unless it be placed within a very short distance, they nevertheless can tell whether, when within this distance, it be brought nearer to or carried farther from them. 2. "in consequence of this power, whilst in a state of comparative blindness, children who have their cataracts removed are enabled immediately on the acquisition of sight to form some judgment of the distance, and even of the outline, of those strongly defined objects with the color of which they were previously acquainted." both these conclusions are simply matter of fact. it only needs explanation how the distance and outlines of objects can be known after the operation _in consequence of_ the ability described in the first proposition. that distance is actually estimated at once in consequence of this power, is clear; not so with the outlines. how can round and angular be distinguished, when only colors and gross differences of intensity and saturation are perceived? ware gives no solution of the difficulty, but thinks that, because the colors appeared more intense, the previously imperfect ideas concerning distances might be improved and extended, so that they would even give a knowledge of the boundary-lines and of the form of those things with the color of which the patients were previously acquainted. but this improvement of the ideas concerning distance can not lead directly to discrimination of the limits of objects, and is itself hypothetical, inasmuch as we might expect, _immediately_ after the operation, on account of the enormous difference in the luminous intensity, an uncertainty in the judgment. but such uncertainty appeared only in a slight degree in both the cases, a thing possible only because there had already been sufficient experiences with the eye. but these experiences, as is frequently stated, were absolutely lacking in regard to the limits and the form of objects. here another thing comes in to help. evidently, an eye that distinguishes only colors sees these colors always only as limited; even if it saw only a single color that occupied the whole field of vision, the field would still be a limited one. but the colored field may be small or large, and this difference may be noticed before the operation. if the object--one of vivid coloring--is long and narrow, the patient, even before the operation, will see it otherwise than if it is, with the same coloring, short and broad. and suppose he merely observes that not the whole field of vision is colored. if the whole field is colored, there is, of course, an entire lack of angles; on the other hand, if the whole field of vision is not filled by the colored object, then it is--however faintly--divided, and the lines of division, i. e., the indistinct boundary-lines of the objects whose color is perceived, may be either like the natural limits of the entire field of vision, i. e., "round," or unlike them, i. e., "angular." if, now, the obstacle is suddenly removed, the patient (even if he did not before the operation distinguish angular and round by the eye) must yet perceive which of the objects before him resemble in contour the previous field of vision, i. e., are round, and which do not; for the round contour of his field of vision is familiar to him. but w. had learned, through the sense of touch, that what is not round is angular. he would, therefore, even if he could perceive colors when the whole field of vision was filled--a matter on which we have no information--be able to guess the outlines of some objects soon after the operation, merely on the ground of his experiences before it. it was guess-work every time, as appears from the confounding of knife and spoon, mug and basin. the boy must have thought, "how would it be if i felt of it?" and, as he had before the operation frequently observed that whatever had the same contour as his field of vision, or a contour similar to that, was round, he could, after the operation, distinguish round and not round--a thing which a person born blind, on the other hand, and knowing nothing of his field of vision, because he has never had any, can never do. on the whole, the two ware cases are by no means so important as the franz (see below) and chesselden cases, because the boy, w., had ample opportunity up to his seventh year for learning to distinguish different colors according to their quality and luminous intensity; because he must have known the limits of his field of vision, and could in any case, by means of touch, correct and relatively confirm his very frequent attempts to guess at forms and distances by the eye. finally, it is not known whether he became blind before or immediately after his birth, or, as is most probable, not till some months after birth. the same is true of the second case. iv, v. the home cases. everard home makes the following statement in the "philosophical transactions of the royal society," london, 1807, i, pp. 83-87, 91: "1. william stiff, twelve years of age, had cataracts in his eyes, which, according to the account of his mother, existed at the time of birth. from earliest infancy he never stretched out his hand to catch at anything, nor were his eyes directed to objects placed before him, but rolled about in a very unusual manner. the eyes were not examined till he was six months old, and at that time the cataracts were as distinct as when he was received into the hospital. he could at that time (july 17, 1806) distinguish light from darkness, and the light of the sun from that of a fire or candle; he said it was redder and more pleasant to look at, but lightning made a still stronger impression on his eyes. all these different lights he called red. the sun appeared to him the size of his hat. the candle-flame was larger than his finger and smaller than his arm. when he looked at the sun, he said it appeared to touch his eye. when a lighted candle was placed before him, both his eyes were directed toward it, and moved together. when it was at any nearer distance than twelve inches, he said it touched his eyes. when moved farther off he said it did not touch them, and at twenty-two inches it became invisible. "on the 21st of july the operation of extracting the crystalline lens was performed on the left eye. light became very distressing to his eye. after allowing the eyelids to remain closed for a few minutes, and then opening them, the pupil appeared clear, but he could not bear exposure to light. on my asking him what he had seen, he said, 'your head, which seemed to touch my eye,' but he could not tell its shape. on the 22d the light was less offensive. he said he saw my head, which touched his eye. on the 23d the eye was less inflamed, and he could bear a weak light. he said he could see several gentlemen round him, but could not describe their figure. my face, while i was looking at his eye, he said was round and red. from the 25th of july to the 1st of august there was inflammation. on the 4th of august an attempt was made to ascertain the powers of vision; it became necessary to shade the glare of light by hanging a white cloth before the window. the least exertion fatigued the eye, and the cicatrix on the cornea, to which the iris had become attached, drew it down so as considerably to diminish the pupil. the attempt had therefore to be postponed. "on the 16th of september the right eye was couched. the light was so distressing to his eye that the lids were closed as soon as it was over. the eyes were not examined with respect to their vision till the 13th of october; the boy remained quiet in the hospital. on this day he could discern a white, red, or yellow color, particularly when bright and shining. the sun and other objects did not now seem to touch his eyes as before, they appeared to be at a short distance from him. the right eye had the most distinct vision, but in both it was imperfect. the distance at which he saw best was five inches. when the object was of a bright color, and illuminated by a strong light, he could make out that it was flat and broad; and when one corner of a square substance was pointed out to him, he saw it, and could find out the other, which was at the end of the same side, but could not do this under less favorable circumstances. when the four corners of a white card were pointed out, and he had examined them, he seemed to know them; but when the opposite surface of the same card, which was yellow, was placed before him, he could not tell whether it had corners or not, so that he had not acquired any correct knowledge of them, since he could not apply it to the next colored surface, whose form was exactly the same with that, the outline of which the eye had just been taught to trace.... "2. john salter, seven years of age, was admitted into st. george's hospital on the 1st of october, 1806, with cataracts in both eyes, which, according to the accounts of his relations, had existed from his birth. the pupils contracted considerably when a lighted candle was placed before him, and dilated as soon as it was withdrawn. he was capable of distinguishing colors with tolerable accuracy, particularly the more bright and vivid ones. on the 6th of october the left eye was couched. the eye was allowed ten minutes to recover itself; a round piece of card, of a yellow color, one inch in diameter, was then placed about six inches from it. he said immediately that it was yellow, and, on being asked its shape, said, 'let me touch it, and i will tell you.' being told that he must not touch it, after looking for some time, he said it was round. a square, blue card, nearly the same size, being put before him, he said it was blue and round. a triangular piece he also called round. the different colors of the objects placed before him he instantly decided on with great correctness, but had no idea of their form. he saw best at a distance of six or seven inches. he was asked whether the object seemed to touch his eye; he said, 'no,' but when desired to say at what distance it was, he could not tell. the eye was covered, and he was put to bed and told to keep himself quiet; but upon the house-surgeon going to him half an hour afterward, his eye was found uncovered, and he was looking at his bed-curtains, which were close drawn. the bandage was replaced, but so delighted was the boy with seeing, that he again immediately removed it. the house-surgeon could not enforce his instructions, and repeated the experiment about two hours after the operation. upon being shown a square, and asked if he could find any corners to it, the boy was very desirous of touching it. this being refused, he examined it for some time, and said at last that he had found a corner, and then readily counted the four corners of the square; and afterward, when a triangle was shown him, he counted the corners in the same way; but in doing so his eye went along the edge from corner to corner, naming them as he went along. next day he told me he had seen 'the soldiers with their fifes and pretty things.' the guards in the morning had marched past the hospital with their band; on hearing the music, he had got out of bed and gone to the window to look at them. seeing the bright barrels of muskets, he must in his mind have connected them with the sounds which he heard, and mistaken them for musical instruments. twenty-four hours after the operation the pupil of the eye was clear. a pair of scissors was shown him, and he said it was a knife. on being told he was wrong, he could not make them out; but the moment he touched them he said they were scissors, and seemed delighted with the discovery. "from this time he was constantly improving himself by looking at, and examining with his hands, everything within his reach, but he frequently forgot what he had learned. on the 10th i saw him again. he went to the window and called out, 'what is that moving?' i asked him what he thought it was. he said: 'a dog drawing a wheelbarrow. there is one, two, three dogs drawing another. how very pretty!' these proved to be carts and horses on the road, which he saw from a two-pair-of-stairs window. "on the 19th the different colored pieces of card were separately placed before his eye, and so little had he gained in thirteen days that he could not, without counting their corners one by one, tell their shape. this he did with great facility, running his eye quickly along the outline, so that it was evident he was still learning, just as a child learns to read. he had got so far as to know the angles, when they were placed before him, and to count the number belonging to any one object. the reason of his making so slow a progress was, that these figures had never been subjected to examination by touch, and were unlike anything he had been accustomed to see. he had got so much the habit of assisting his eyes with his hands, that nothing but holding them could keep them from the object. "on the 26th the experiments were again repeated on the couched eye. it was now found that the boy, on looking at any one of the cards in a good light, could tell the form nearly as readily as the color." from these two instructive cases home concludes: "that, where the eye, before the cataract is removed, has only been capable of discerning light, without being able to distinguish colors, objects after its removal will seem to touch the eye, and there will be no knowledge of their outline, which confirms the observations made by chesselden. "that where the eye has previously distinguished colors, there must also be an imperfect knowledge of distances, but not of outline, which, however, will be very soon acquired, as happened in ware's cases. this is proved by the history of the first boy, who, before the operation had no knowledge of colors or distances, but after it, when his eye had only arrived at the same state that the second boy's was in before the operation, he had learned that the objects were at a distance and of different colors. "that when a child has acquired a new sense, nothing but great pain or absolute coercion will prevent him from making use of it." vi. the wardrop case. james wardrop reports ("philosophical transactions of the royal society for 1826," iii, 529-540, london, 1826): "a girl who was observed, during the first months of her infancy, to have something peculiar in the appearance of her eyes and an unusual groping manner which made her parents suspect that she had defective vision, had an operation performed on both eyes at the age of about six months. the right eye was entirely destroyed in consequence. the left eye was preserved, but the child could only distinguish a very light from a very dark room without having the power to perceive even the situation of the window through which the light entered, though in sunshine or in bright moonlight she knew the direction from which the light emanated. in this case no light could reach the retina except such rays as could pass through the substance of the iris. until her forty-sixth year the patient could not perceive objects and had no notion of colors. on the 26th of january i introduced a very small needle through the cornea and the center of the iris; but i could not destroy any of the adhesions which had shut up the pupillar opening. after this operation she said she could distinguish more light, but she could perceive neither forms nor colors. on the 8th of february the iris (a portion of it) was divided. the light became offensive to her. she complained of its brightness, and was frequently observed trying to see her hands; but it was evident that her vision was very imperfect, for, although there was an incision made in the iris, some opaque matter lay behind the opening, which must have greatly obstructed the entrance of light. "on the 17th of february a third operation. the opening was enlarged and the opaque matter removed. the operation being performed at my house, she returned home in a carriage, with her eye covered only with a loose piece of silk, and the first thing she noticed was a hackney-coach passing, when she exclaimed, 'what is that large thing that has passed by us?' in the course of the evening she requested her brother to show her his watch, concerning which she expressed much curiosity, and she looked at it a considerable time, holding it close to her eye. she was asked what she saw, and she said there was a dark and a bright side; she pointed to the hour of twelve, and smiled. her brother asked her if she saw anything more. she replied, 'yes,' and pointed to the hour of six and to the hands of the watch. she then looked at the chain and seals, and observed that one of the seals was bright, which was the case. the following day i asked her to look again at the watch, which she refused to do, saying that the light was offensive to her eye and that she felt very stupid, meaning that she was much confused by the visible world thus for the first time opened to her. "on the third day she observed the doors on the opposite side of the street and asked if they were red, but they were, in fact, of an oak-color. in the evening she looked at her brother's face and said that she saw his nose. he asked her to touch it, which she did. he then slipped a handkerchief over his face and asked her to look again, when she playfully pulled it off and asked, 'what is that?' "on the sixth day she told us that she saw better than she had done on any preceding day; 'but i can not tell what i do see. i am quite stupid.' she felt disappointed in not having the power of distinguishing at once by her eye objects which she could so readily distinguish from one another by feeling them. "on the seventh day she observed that the mistress of the house was tall. she asked what the color of her gown was, to which she was answered that it was blue. 'so is that thing on your head,' she then observed, which was the case; 'and your handkerchief, that is a different color,' which was also correct. she added, 'i see you pretty well, i think.' the teacups and saucers underwent an examination. 'what are they like?' her brother asked her. 'i don't know,' she replied, 'they look very queer to me, but i can tell what they are in a minute when i touch them.' she distinguished an orange, but could form no notion of what it was till she touched it. she seemed now to have become more cheerful, and she was very sanguine that she would find her newly acquired faculty of more use to her when she returned home, where everything was familiar to her. "on the eighth day she asked her brother 'what he was helping himself to?' and when she was told it was a glass of port wine, she replied, 'port wine is dark, and looks to me very ugly.' she observed, when candles were brought into the room, her brother's face in the mirror as well as that of a lady who was present; she also walked for the first time without assistance from her chair to a sofa which was on the opposite side of the room and back again to the chair. when at tea she took notice of the tray, observed the shining of the japan-work, and asked 'what the color was round the edge?' she was told that it was yellow, upon which she remarked, 'i will know that again.' "on the ninth day she came down-stairs to breakfast in great spirits. she said to her brother, 'i see you very well to-day,' and came up to him and shook hands. she also observed a ticket on a window of a house on the opposite side of the street ('a lodging to let'), and her brother, to convince himself of her seeing it, took her to the window three separate times, and to his surprise and gratification she pointed it out to him distinctly on each trial. "she spent a great part of the eleventh day looking out of the window, and spoke very little. "on the twelfth day she went to walk with her brother. the clear blue sky first attracted her notice, and she said, 'it is the prettiest thing i have ever seen yet, and equally pretty every time i turn round and look at it.' she distinguished the street from the foot-pavement distinctly, and stepped from one to the other like a person accustomed to the use of her eyes. her great curiosity, and the manner in which she stared at the variety of objects and pointed to them, exciting the observation of many by-standers, her brother soon conducted her home, much against her will. "on the evening of the thirteenth day she observed that there was a different tea-tray, and that it was not a pretty one, but had a dark border, which was a correct description. her brother asked her to look in the mirror and tell him if she saw his face in it, to which she answered, evidently disconcerted: 'i see my own; let me go away.' "on the fourteenth day she drove in a carriage four miles, and noticed the trees, and likewise the river thames as she crossed vauxhall bridge. at this time it was bright sunshine, and she said something dazzled her when she looked on the water. "on the fifteenth day she walked to a chapel. the people passing on the pavement startled her, and once when a gentleman was going past her who had a white waistcoat and a blue coat with yellow buttons, which the sunshine brought full in her view, she started so as to draw her brother, who was walking with her, off the pavement. she distinguished the clergyman moving his hands in the pulpit, and observed that he held something in them. this was a white handkerchief. "on the sixteenth day she went in a coach through the town, and appeared much entertained with the bustle in the streets. on asking her how she saw on that day, she answered: 'i see a great deal, if i could only tell what i do see; but surely i am very stupid.' "on the seventeenth day, when her brother asked her how she was, she replied: 'i am well, and see better; but don't tease me with too many questions till i have learned a little better how to make use of my eye. all that i can say is, that i am sure, from what i do see, a great change has taken place, but i can not describe what i feel.' "on the eighteenth day, when pieces of paper one inch and a half square, differently colored, were presented to her, she not only distinguished them at once from one another, but gave a decided preference to some colors, liking yellow most, and then pale pink. when desirous of examining an object, she had considerable difficulty in directing her eye to it and finding out its position, moving her hand as well as her eye in various directions, as a person when blindfolded or in the dark gropes with his hands for what he wishes to touch. she also distinguished a large from a small object when they were both held up before her for comparison. she said she saw different forms in various objects which were shown to her. on asking what she meant by different forms, such as long, round, and square, and desiring her to draw with her finger these forms on her other hand, and then presenting to her eye the respective forms, she pointed to them exactly; she not only distinguished small from large objects, but knew what was meant by above and below. a figure, drawn with ink, was placed before her eye, having one end broad and the other narrow, and she saw the positions as they really were, and not inverted. "she could also perceive motions, for, when a glass of water was placed on the table before her, on approaching her hand near it, it was moved quickly to a greater distance, upon which she immediately said: 'you move it; you take it away.' "she seemed to have the greatest difficulty in finding out the distance of any object; for, when an object was held close to her eye, she would search for it by stretching her hand far beyond its position, while on other occasions she groped close to her own face for a thing far removed from her. "she learned with facility the names of the different colors, and two days after the colored papers had been shown to her, on coming into a room the color of which was crimson, she observed that it was red. she also observed some pictures hanging on the red wall of the room in which she was sitting, distinguishing several small figures in them, but not knowing what they represented, and admiring the gilt frames. on the same day she walked round a pond, and was pleased with the glistening of the sun's rays on the water, as well as with the blue sky and green shrubs, the colors of which she named correctly. "she had as yet acquired, by the use of her sight, but very little knowledge of any forms, and was unable to apply the information gained by this new sense, and to compare it with what she had been accustomed to acquire by her sense of touch. when, therefore, a silver pencil-case and a large key were given her to examine with her hands, she discriminated and knew each distinctly; but when they were placed on the table, side by side, though she distinguished each with her eye, yet she could not tell which was the pencil-case and which was the key. "on the twenty-fifth day after the operation she drove in a carriage for an hour in the regent's park, and asked more questions, on her way there, than usual, about the objects surrounding her, such as, 'what is that?' 'it is a soldier,' she was answered. 'and that? see, see!' these were candles of various colors in a tallow-chandler's window. 'who is that that has passed us just now?' it was a person on horseback. 'but what is that on the pavement, red?' it was some ladies who wore red shawls. on going into the park she was asked if she could guess what any of the objects were. 'oh, yes,' she replied, 'there is the sky; that is the grass; yonder is water, and two white things,' which were two swans. "when she left london, forty-two days after the operation, she had acquired a pretty accurate notion of colors and their different shades and names. she had not yet acquired anything like an accurate knowledge of distance or of forms, and, up to this period, she continued to be very much confused with every new object at which she looked. neither was she yet able, without considerable difficulty and numerous fruitless trials, to direct her eye to an object; so that, when she attempted to look at anything, she turned her head in various directions, until her eye caught the object of which it was in search." remarks on the sixth case. this case has been adduced as a proof that the sense of sight is sufficient, without aid from the sense of touch, to perceive whether an object is brought nearer the eye or carried farther from it. but john stuart mill rightly observes, in opposition to this ("dissertations and discussions," ii, 113; london, 1859), that the observation we are concerned with was not made "till the eighteenth day after the operation, by which time a middle-aged woman might well have acquired the experience necessary for distinguishing so simple a phenomenon." besides, she was very uncertain in her judgment of distances, and, in her attempts to seize with the hand new and distant objects, she frequently acted exactly like an infant. vii. the franz case. j. c. a. franz, of leipsic, communicates the following to the "philosophical transactions of the royal society" (by sir benjamin c. brodie), (london, 1841; i, pp. 59-69): "f. j. is the son of a physician. he is endowed with an excellent understanding, quick power of conception, and retentive memory. at his birth, both eyes were found to be turned inward to such an extent that a portion of the cornea was hidden by the inner canthus, and in both pupils there was a yellowish-white discoloration. that the strabismus and cataract of both eyes in this case were congenital is evident from the testimony both of the parents and of the nurse. the latter held a light before the eyes of the child when he was a few months old, of which he took no notice. i ascertained also from her that the eyeballs did not move hither and thither, but were always turned inward, and that but rarely either the one or the other was moved from the internal canthus. "toward the end of the second year, as was stated to me, the operation of keratonyxis was performed on the right eye, upon which a severe iritis ensued, terminating in atrophy of the eyeball. within the next four years two similar operations were performed on the left eye without success. the color of the opacity became, however, of a clearer white, and the patient acquired a certain sensation of light, which he did not seem to have had before the operation. "at the end of june, 1840, the patient, being then seventeen years of age, was brought to me. i found the condition of things as follows: both eyes were so much inverted that nearly one half the cornea was hidden. the left eye he could move voluntarily outward, but not without exertion; it returned immediately inward when the influence of the will had ceased. the left eyeball was of the natural size and elasticity. the patient had not the slightest perception of light with the right eye; the stimulus of light had no effect on the pupil. the pupil of the left eye, which was not round, but drawn angularly downward and inward, did not alter in dimension with the movements of the eye nor from the stimulus of light. on examining the eye by looking straight into it through the pupil, the anterior wall of the capsule appeared opaque in its whole extent, and of a color and luster like mother-of-pearl. on looking from the temporal side in an oblique direction into the pupil, there was visible in the anterior wall of the capsule a very small perpendicular cleft of about one line and a quarter in length. "this cleft was situated so far from the center of the pupil that it was entirely covered by the iris. with this eye the patient had a perception of light, and was even capable of perceiving colors of an intense and decided tone. he believed himself, moreover, able to perceive about one third of a square inch of any bright object, if held at the distance of half an inch or an inch from the eye, and obliquely in such a direction as to reflect the light strongly toward the pupil. but this, i am convinced, was a mere delusion, for all rays of light falling in the direction of the optic axis must have been intercepted and reflected by the opaque capsule. by these rays, therefore, a perception of light, indeed, might be conveyed, but certainly no perception of objects. on the other hand, it seems probable that the lateral cleft in the capsule permitted rays of light to pass into the interior of the eye. but as this small aperture was situated entirely behind the iris, those rays only would have permeated which came in a very oblique direction from the temporal side. admitting, then, these rays of light to pass through the cleft, still on account of their obliquity they could produce but a very imperfect image, because they impinged upon an unfavorable portion of the retina. moreover, i satisfied myself by experiments, that the patient could not in the least discern objects by sight. my experiments led me to the conclusion that his belief that he really saw objects resulted solely from his imagination combined with his power of reasoning. in feeling an object and bringing it in contact with the eyelids and the cheek, an idea of the object was produced, which was judged of and corrected according to the experience he had gained by constant practice. "the patient's sense of touch had attained an extraordinary degree of perfection. in order to examine an object minutely he conveyed it to his lips. "on the 10th of july, 1840, i performed an operation on the left eye. the light was so painful to him that i could not try any experiments immediately after the operation. both eyes were closed with narrow strips of court-plaster, and treated with iced water for forty-eight hours. the patient suffered from _muscæ volitantes_, and could not bear even a mild degree of light falling on the closed lids. after the lapse of a few weeks, the _muscæ volitantes_ were greatly mitigated, and the intolerance of light ceased. "on opening the eye for the first time on the third day after the operation, i asked the patient what he could see; he answered that he saw an extensive field of light, in which everything appeared dull, confused, and in motion. he could not distinguish objects. the pain produced by the light forced him to close the eye immediately. "two days afterward the eye, which had been kept closed by means of court-plaster, was again opened. he now described what he saw as a number of opaque watery spheres, which moved with the movements of the eye, but when the eye was at rest remained stationary, and then partly covered each other. two days after this the eye was again opened. the same phenomena were again observed, but the spheres were less opaque and somewhat transparent; their movements more steady; they appeared to cover each other more than before. he was now for the first time able, as he said, to look through the spheres, and to perceive a difference, but merely a difference, in the surrounding objects. when he directed his eye steadily toward an object, the visual impression produced by the object was painful and very imperfect, because the eye, on account of its intolerance of light, could not be kept open long enough for the formation of the idea as derived from visual sensation. the appearance of spheres diminished daily; they became smaller, clearer, and more pellucid, allowed objects to be seen more distinctly, and disappeared entirely after two weeks. the _muscæ volitantes_, which had the form of black, immovable, and horizontal stripes, appeared, every time the eye was opened, in a direction upward and inward. when the eye was closed he observed, especially in the evening, in an outward and upward direction, an appearance of dark blue, violet, and red colors; these colors became gradually less intense, were shaded into bright orange, yellow, and green, which latter colors alone eventually remained, and in the course of five weeks disappeared entirely. as soon as the intolerance of light had so far abated that the patient could observe an object without pain, and for a sufficient time to gain an idea of it, the following experiments were made on different days. "_first experiment._--silk ribbons of different colors, fastened on a black ground, were employed to show the complementary colors. the patient recognized the different colors, with the exception of yellow and green, which he frequently confounded, but could distinguish when both were exhibited at the same time. he could point out each color correctly when a variety was shown him at the same time. gray pleased him best; the effect of red, orange, and yellow was painful; that of violet and brown not painful, but disagreeable. black produced subjective colors, and white occasioned the recurrence of _muscæ volitantes_ in a most vehement degree. "_second experiment._--the patient sat with his back to the light, and kept his eye closed. a sheet of paper on which two strong black lines had been drawn, the one horizontal, the other vertical, was placed before him, at the distance of about three feet. he was now allowed to open the eye, and after attentive examination he called the lines by their right denominations. when i asked him to point out with his finger the horizontal line, he moved his hand slowly, as if feeling, and pointed to the vertical; but after a short time, observing his error, he corrected himself. the outline in black of a square [six inches in diameter], within which a circle had been drawn, and within the latter a triangle, was, after careful examination, recognized and correctly described by him. when he was asked to point out either of the figures, he never moved his hand directly and decidedly, but always as if feeling, and with the greatest caution; he pointed them out, however, correctly. a zigzag and a spiral line, both drawn on a sheet of paper, he observed to be different, but could not describe them otherwise than by imitating their forms with his finger in the air. he said he had no idea of those figures. "_third experiment._--the windows of the room were darkened, with the exception of one, toward which the patient, closing his eye, turned his back. at the distance of three feet, and on a level with the eye, a solid _cube_ and a _sphere_, each of four inches diameter, were placed before him. i now let him open his eye. after attentively examining these bodies, he said he saw a _quadrangular_ and a _circular_ figure, and after some consideration he pronounced the one a _square_ and the other a _disk_. his eye being then closed, the cube was taken away, and a disk of equal size substituted and placed next to the sphere. on again opening his eye he observed no difference in these objects, but regarded them both as disks. the solid cube was now placed in a somewhat oblique position before the eye, and close beside it a figure cut out of pasteboard, representing a plane outline prospect of the cube when in this position. both objects he took to be something like flat quadrates. a pyramid, placed before him with one of its sides toward his eye, he saw as a plane triangle. this object was now turned a little, so as to present two of its sides to view, but rather more of one side than of the other; after considering and examining it for a long time, he said that this was a very extraordinary figure; it was neither a triangle, nor a quadrangle, nor a circle; he had no idea of it, and could not describe it. 'in fact,' said he, 'i must give it up.' on the conclusion of these experiments i asked him to describe the sensations the objects had produced, whereupon he said that immediately on opening his eye he had discovered a difference in the two objects, the cube and the sphere, placed before him, and perceived that they were not drawings; but that he had not been able to form from them the idea of a square and a disk, _until he perceived a sensation of what he saw in the points of his fingers_, as if he really touched the objects. when i gave the three bodies, the sphere, cube, and pyramid, into his hand, he was much surprised that he had not recognized them as such by sight, as he was well acquainted with them by touch. these experiments prove the correctness of the hypothesis i have advanced elsewhere on the well-known question put by mr. molyneux to locke, which was answered by both these gentlemen in the negative. "_fourth experiment._--in a vessel containing water to about the depth of one foot was placed a musket-ball, and on the surface of the water a piece of pasteboard of the same form, size, and color as the ball. the patient could perceive no difference in the position of these bodies; he believed both to be upon the surface of the water. pointing to the ball, i desired him to take up this object. he made an attempt to take it from the plane of the water; but, when he found he could not grasp it there, he said he had deceived himself, the objects were lying in the water, upon which i informed him of their real position. i now desired him to touch the ball which lay in the water with a small rod. he attempted this several times, but always missed his aim. he could never touch the object at the first movement of his hand toward it, but only by feeling about with the rod. on being questioned with respect to reflected light, he said that he was always obliged to bear in mind that the looking-glass was fastened to the wall in order to correct his idea of the apparent situation of objects behind the glass. "when the patient first acquired the faculty of sight, all objects appeared to him so near that he was sometimes afraid of coming in contact with them, though they were in reality at a great distance from him. he saw everything much larger than he had supposed from the idea obtained by his sense of touch. moving and especially living objects, such as men, horses, etc., appeared to him very large. if he wished to form an estimate of the distance of objects from his own person or of two objects from each other without moving from his place, he examined the objects from different points of view by turning his head to the right and to the left. of perspective in pictures he had, of course, no idea; it appeared to him unnatural that the figure of a man represented in the front of a picture should be larger than a house or mountain in the background. all objects appeared to him perfectly flat. thus, although he very well knew by his touch that the nose was prominent and the eyes sunk deeper in the head, he saw the human face only as a plane. though he possessed an excellent memory, this faculty was at first quite deficient as regarded visible objects: he was not able, for example, to recognize visitors, unless he heard them speak, till he had seen them very frequently. even when he had seen an object repeatedly he could form no idea of its visible qualities without having the real object before him. heretofore when he dreamed of any persons, of his parents, for instance, he felt them and heard their voices, but never saw them; but now, after having seen them frequently, he saw them also in his dreams. the human face pleased him more than any other object. although the newly-acquired sense afforded him many pleasures, the great number of strange and extraordinary sights was often disagreeable and wearisome to him. he said that he saw too much novelty which he could not comprehend; and, even though he could see both near and remote objects very well, he would nevertheless continually have recourse to the use of the sense of touch." final remarks. to the seven reports upon cases of persons born blind and afterward surgically treated, which are here presented in abridged form from the english originals, may be added some more recent and more accessible ones, one by hirschberg ("archiv für opthalmologie," xxi, 1. abth., s. 29 bis 42, 1875), one by a. von hippel (ibid., xxi, 2. abth., s. 101), and one by dufour ("archives des sciences physiques et naturelles," lviii, no. 242, april, 1877, p. 420). the cases reported here are those most discussed. i have given them considerably in detail in order that the reader may form an independent judgment concerning the behavior of persons born blind and then operated upon, as that behavior is described _before_ the modern physiological controversy over empiricism and nativism. helmholtz ("physiologische optik," § 28) mentions, besides those of chesselden and wardrop and ware, which he gives in abridged form, some other cases also. others still may be found in froriep's "notizen" (xi, p. 177, 1825, and iv, p. 243, 1837, also xxi, p. 41, 1842), partly reported, partly cited (the latter according to franz). in addition to the cases here given of persons born blind and then surgically treated--persons not able to see things in space-relations before becoming blind--one more case is to be mentioned; it is that of a girl who in her seventh year (probably in consequence of the effect of dazzling sunlight) lost her sight completely, but recovered it again at the age of seventeen years after being treated with electricity. she had to begin absolutely anew to learn to name colors like a child; all measure of distance, perspective, size, had been lost for her _by lack of practice_ (as o. heyfelder relates in his work "die kindheit des menschen," second edition, erlangen, 1858, pp. 12-15). he says, p. 12, that the patient had been eight years blind; p. 13, that she had been ten years so. such cases prove the great influence of experience upon vision in space, and show how little of this vision is inborn in mankind. when we compare the acquirement of sight by the normal newly-born child and the infant with that of those born blind, we should, above all, bear in mind that the latter in general could make use of only _one_ eye, and also that on account of the long inactivity of the retina and the absence of the crystalline lens, as well as in consequence of the numerous experiences of touch, essential differences exist. notwithstanding this, there appears an agreement in the manner in which in both cases vision is learned, the eye is practiced, and the association of sight and touch is acquired. the seventh case in particular shows plainly how strong the analogies are. these cases are sufficient to refute some singular assertions, e. g., that all the newly-born must see objects reversed, as even a buffon ("oeuvres complètes," iv, 136; paris, 1844) thought to be the fact. my boy, when i had him write, in his fifth year, the ordinary figures after a copy that i set for him, imitated the most of them, to my surprise, always in a reversed hand (spiegelschrift, "mirror-hand"); the 1 and the 4 he continued longest to write thus, though he often made the 4 the other way, too, whereas he always wrote the 5 correctly. this, however, was, of course, not owing to imperfect sight, but to incomplete transformation of the visual idea into the motor idea required for writing. other boys, as i am given to understand, do the same thing. for myself, i found the distinction between "right" and "left" so difficult in my childhood, that i remember vividly the trouble i had with it. singularly enough, buffon assumed, in 1749, that the neglect of the double images does not yet take place at the beginning of life. johannes müller, in 1826, expresses the same view. but, inasmuch as in the first two or three weeks after the birth of a human being, in contrast with many animals, nothing at all can as yet be distinctly seen, it is not allowable to maintain that everything must be seen double. rather is it true that everything is seen neither single nor double, since the very young child perceives, as yet, no forms (boundary-lines) and no distances, but merely receives impressions of light, precisely as is the case with the person born blind, in the period directly after an operation has been performed upon his eyes. schopenhauer (in his treatise on "sight and colors," first edition, leipsic, 1816, p. 14) divined this truth. he says, "if a person who was looking out upon a wide and beautiful prospect could be in an instant wholly deprived of his intellect, then nothing of all the view would remain for him except the sensation of a very manifold reaction of his retina, which is, as it were, the raw material out of which his intellect created that view." the new-born child has, as yet, no intellect, and therefore can not, as yet, at the beginning, see; he can merely have the sensation of light. this opinion of mine, derived from observation of the behavior of newly-born and of very young infants (cf. the first chapter of this book), seems to me to be practically confirmed in an account given by anselm von feuerbach in his work on kaspar hauser (anspach, 1832, p. 77). "in the year 1828, soon after his arrival in nuremberg, kaspar hauser was to look out at the window in the vestner tower, from which there was a view of a broad and many-colored summer landscape. kaspar hauser turned away; the sight was repugnant to him. at a later period, long after he had learned to speak, he gave, when questioned, the following explanation: "'when i looked toward the window it always seemed to me as if a shutter had been put up close before my eyes, and that upon this shutter a colorer had wiped off his brushes of different colors, white, blue, green, yellow, and red, all in motley confusion. individual things, as i now see them, i could not, at that time, perceive and distinguish upon it; it was absolutely hideous to look upon.'" by this, as well as by the experiences with persons born blind and afterward surgically treated, it is clearly demonstrated that colors and degrees of brightness are severally apprehended before forms and distances can be perceived. the case must be the same with the normal human child in the first weeks after birth. after discrimination of the luminous sensations, the boundary-lines of bright plane surfaces are next clearly discerned; then come forms, and, last of all, the distances of these. with reference to this progress of the normal infant in learning to see, the accounts of persons born blind and afterward surgically treated are again of great value. after the famous question put by molyneux to locke, whether an intelligent person, blind from birth, would be able immediately after an operation to distinguish a sphere from a cube by means of the eye alone, had been answered in the negative, the opinion was accepted as satisfactory that such a person learns the distinction only by means of the sense of touch. thus, the perception of difference would come later, after the sight of different forms, only by means of the tactual memory. in truth, however, very many forms are discerned as different purely by means of the eye, without the possibility of aid from any other sense. phenomena exclusively optical, which, like the rainbow, can not be apprehended by touch or by hearing, are distinctly perceived by the child at a very early period. without touching, the different forms of objects would be perceived by means of sight alone, and that even by a child unable to touch, through movements of the eyes and head, changes of bodily position, of attitude and posture, and through practice in accommodation and in the observation of differences of brightness. the fact correctly predicted by molyneux, that those born blind but afterward surgically treated can not, by means of the eye alone, distinguish the form of a sphere from that of a cube, must accordingly be supplemented to this extent, viz., that such persons are capable, just as are normal children who can see, of learning this difference of form by means of the eye alone without the direct intervention of the sense of touch; for the co-ordination of the retinal excitations in space and time by means of the intellect, quite independently of all impressions from other departments of sense, is possible, and is in countless cases actual, just as is the learning of differences of form solely by means of the sense of touch in children who are born blind and never learn to see. the end. d. appleton & co.'s publications. new volumes in the international education series. _education from a national standpoint_. by alfred fouillée. translated and edited, with a preface, by w. j. greenstreet, m. a., st. john's college, cambridge; head master of the marling school, stroud. 12mo. cloth, $1.50. fouillée's work is a timely and valuable contribution to the discussions of some of the important educational questions that are at present claiming attention in both this country and europe. _systematic science teaching. a manual of inductive elementary work for all instructors in graded and ungraded schools, the kindergarten, and the home_. by edward gardnier howe. 12mo. cloth, $1.50. a thoroughly practical and reliable guide to elementary instruction in science has long been a desideratum, and this work, embodying the results of fourteen years of actual classroom tests, will satisfactorily meet such a demand. the volume gives a general outline of work for the first three years. _the education of the greek people, and its influence on civilization_. by thomas davidson. 12mo. cloth, $1.50. "this work is not intended for scholars or specialists, but for that large body of teachers throughout the country who are trying to do their duty, but are suffering from that want of enthusiasm which necessarily comes from being unable clearly to see the end and purpose of their labors, or to invest any end with sublime import. i have sought to show them that the end of their work is the redemption of humanity, an essential part of that process by which it is being gradually elevated to moral freedom, and to suggest to them the direction in which they ought to turn their chief efforts. if i can make even a few of them feel the consecration that comes from single-minded devotion to a great end, i shall hold that this book has accomplished its purpose."--_author's preface_. _the evolution of the massachusetts public-school system. a historical sketch in six lectures_. by george h. martin, a. m., supervisor of public schools, boston, massachusetts. 12mo. cloth, $1.50. the public discussion that arose from professor martin's papers upon the topic treated in this work will make the complete collection of the essays of much interest to a large circle of readers. in the present volume the author aims to show the evolutionary character of the public-school history of the state, and to point out the lines along which the development has run and the relation throughout to the social environment, and incidentally to illustrate the slow and irregular way by which the people under popular governments work out their own social and intellectual progress. _the pygmies_. by a. de quatrefages, late professor of anthropology at the museum of natural history, paris. with numerous illustrations. 12mo. cloth, $1.75. in this interesting volume the author has gathered the results of careful studies of the small black races of africa, and he shows what the pygmies of antiquity really were. the peculiar intellectual, moral, and religious characteristics of these races are also described. _woman's share in primitive culture_. by otis tufton mason, a. m., curator of the department of ethnology in the united states national museum. with numerous illustrations. 12mo. cloth, $1.75. "a most interesting _résumé_ of the revelations which science has made concerning the habits of human beings in primitive times, and especially as to the place, the duties, and the customs of women."--_philadelphia inquirer_. "mr. mason's volume secures for woman her glory as a civilizer in the past, and by no means denies her a glorious future."--_new york tribune_. _schools and masters of sculpture_. by a. g. radcliffe, author of "schools and masters of painting." with 35 full-page illustrations. 12mo. cloth, $3.00. "the art lover will find in miss radcliffe's work a book of fascinating interest, and a thoroughly painstaking and valuable addition to the stock of knowledge which he may possess on the history of the noble art of sculpture."--_philadelphia item_. "it would be difficult to name another work that would be so valuable to the general reader on the same subject as this book."--_san francisco bulletin_. "the work is free of all needless technicalities, and will be of intense interest to every intelligent reader, while of inestimable value to the student of art."--_boston home journal_. _by the same author_. _schools and masters of painting_. with numerous illustrations and an appendix on the principal galleries of europe. new edition, fully revised, and in part rewritten. 12mo. cloth, $3.00; half calf, $5.00. "the volume is one of great practical utility, and may be used to advantage as an artistic guide-book by persons visiting the collections of italy, france, and germany for the first time."--_new york tribune_. _the dawn of civilization_. (egypt and chaldæa.) by prof. maspero. edited by the rev. prof. sayce. translated by m. l. mcclure. with maps and over 470 illustrations. quarto. cloth, $7.50. "the most complete account of ancient egypt ever published."--_chicago herald_. "professor maspero's intimate acquaintance with egypt and its literature, and the opportunities offered him by his position for several years as director of the bulak museum give him a unique claim to speak with authority on the history of the nile valley."--_new york sun_. _popular astronomy: a general description of the heavens_. by camille flammarion. translated from the french by j. ellard gore, f. r. a. s. with 3 plates and 288 illustrations. 8vo. cloth, $4.50. "m. flammarion has produced a work that charms while it interests. he has classified astronomy so perfectly that any person of ordinary intelligence may learn from this book practically all that the men in the observatories know."--_new york times_. "the fullest and most elaborate compendium of popular astronomy.... the book might reasonably be pronounced the most desirable of its kind."--_new york sun_. _life of sir richard owen_. by rev. richard owen. with an introduction by t. h. huxley. 2 vols. 12mo. cloth, $7.50. "the value of these memoirs is that they disclose with great minuteness the daily labors and occupations of one of the foremost men of science of england."--_boston herald_. "a noteworthy contribution to biographical literature."--_philadelphia press_. _dean buckland_. the life and correspondence of william buckland, d. d., f. r. s., sometime dean of westminster, twice president of the theological society, and first president of the british association. by his daughter, mrs. gordon. with portraits and illustrations. 8vo. buckram, $3.50. "next to charles darwin, dean buckland is certainly the most interesting personality in the field of natural science that the present century has produced."--_london daily news_. "a very readable book, for it gives an excellent account, without any padding or unnecessary detail, of a most original man."--_westminster gazette._ _the ice age in north america, and its bearings upon the antiquity of man_. by g. frederick wright, d. d., ll. d., f. g. s. a., professor in oberlin theological seminary; assistant on the united states geological survey. with an appendix on "the probable cause of glaciation," by warren upham, f. g. s. a., assistant on the geological surveys of new hampshire, minnesota, and the united states. new and enlarged edition. with 150 maps and illustrations. 8vo, 625 pages, and index. cloth, $5.00. "not a novel in all the list of this year's publications has in it any pages of more thrilling interest than can be found in this book by professor wright. there is nothing pedantic in the narrative, and the most serious themes and startling discoveries are treated with such charming naturalness and simplicity that boys and girls, as well as their seniors, will be attracted to the story, and find it difficult to lay it aside."--_new york journal of commerce_. "one of the most absorbing and interesting of all the recent issues in the department of popular science."--_chicago herald_. "though his subject is a very deep one, his style is so very unaffected and perspicuous that even the unscientific reader can peruse it with intelligence and profit. in reading such a book we are led almost to wonder that so much that is scientific can be put in language so comparatively simple."--_new york observer_. "the author has seen with his own eyes the most important phenomena of the ice age on this continent from maine to alaska. in the work itself, elementary description is combined with a broad, scientific, and philosophic method, without abandoning for a moment the purely scientific character. professor wright has contrived to give the whole a philosophical direction which lends interest and inspiration to it, and which in the chapters on man and the glacial period rises to something like dramatic intensity."--_the independent_. "... to the great advance that has been made in late years in the accuracy and cheapness of processes of photographic reproduction is due a further signal advantage that dr. wright's work possesses over his predecessors'. he has thus been able to illustrate most of the natural phenomena to which he refers by views taken in the field, many of which have been generously loaned by the united states geological survey, in some cases from unpublished material; and he has admirably supplemented them by numerous maps and diagrams."--_the nation_. _man and the glacial period_. by g. frederick wright, d. d., ll. d., author of "the ice age in north america," "logic of christian evidences," etc. international scientific series. with numerous illustrations. 12mo. cloth, $1.75. "it may be described in a word as the best summary of scientific conclusions concerning the question of man's antiquity as affected by his known relations to geological time."--_philadelphia press_. "the earlier chapters describing glacial action, and the traces of it in north america--especially the defining of its limits, such as the terminal moraine of the great movement itself--are of great interest and value. the maps and diagrams are of much assistance in enabling the reader to grasp the vast extent of the movement."--_london spectator_. richard a. proctor's works. _other worlds than ours: the plurality of worlds, studied under the light of recent scientific researches_. by richard anthony proctor. with illustrations, some colored. 12mo. cloth, $1.75. contents.--introduction.--what the earth teaches us.--what we learn from the sun.--the inferior planets.--mars, the miniature of our earth.--jupiter, the giant of the solar system.--saturn, the ringed world.--uranus and neptune, the arctic planets.--the moon and other satellites.--meteors and comets: their office in the solar system.--other suns than ours.--of minor stars, and of the distribution of stars in space.--the nebulæ: are they external galaxies?--supervision and control. _our place among infinities_. a series of essays contrasting our little abode in space and time with the infinities around us. to which are added essays on the jewish sabbath and astrology. 12mo. cloth, $1.75. contents.--past and future of the earth.--seeming wastes in nature.--new theory of life in other worlds.--a missing comet.--the lost comet and its meteor train.--jupiter.--saturn and its system.--a giant sun.--the star depths.--star gauging.--saturn and the sabbath of the jews.--thoughts on astrology. _the expanse of heaven_. a series of essays on the wonders of the firmament. 12mo. cloth, $2.00. contents.--a dream that was not all a dream.--the sun.--the queen of night.--the evening star.--the ruddy planet.--life in the ruddy planet.--the prince of planets.--jupiter's family of moons.--the ring-girdled planet.--newton and the law of the universe.--the discovery of two giant planets.--the lost comet.--visitants from the star depths.--whence come the comets?--the comet families of the giant planets.--the earth's journey through showers.--how the planets grew.--our daily light.--the flight of light.--a cluster of suns.--worlds ruled by colored suns.--the king of suns.--four orders of suns.--the depths of space.--charting the star depths.--the star depths astir with life.--the drifting stars.--the milky way. _the moon: her motions, aspect, scenery, and physical conditions_. with three lunar photographs, map, and many plates, charts, etc. 12mo. cloth, $2.00. contents.--the moon's distance, size, and mass.--the moon's motions.--the moon's changes of aspect, rotation, libration, etc.--study of the moon's surface.--lunar celestial phenomena.--condition of the moon's surface.--index to the map of the moon. _light science for leisure hours_. a series of familiar essays on scientific subjects, natural phenomena, etc. 12mo. cloth, $1.75. [illustration: john bach mcmaster.] _history of the people of the united states_, from the revolution to the civil war. by john bach mcmaster. to be completed in six volumes. vols. i, ii, iii, and iv now ready. 8vo, cloth, gilt top, $2.50 each. in the course of this narrative much is written of wars, conspiracies, and rebellions; of presidents, of congresses, of embassies, of treaties, of the ambition of political leaders, and of the rise of great parties in the nation. yet the history of the people is the chief theme. at every stage of the splendid progress which separates the america of washington and adams from the america in which we live, it has been the author's purpose to describe the dress, the occupations, the amusements, the literary canons of the times; to note the changes of manners and morals; to trace the growth of that humane spirit which abolished punishment for debt, and reformed the discipline of prisons and of jails; to recount the manifold improvements which, in a thousand ways, have multiplied the conveniences of life and ministered to the happiness of our race; to describe the rise and progress of that long series of mechanical inventions and discoveries which is now the admiration of the world, and our just pride and boast; to tell how, under the benign influence of liberty and peace, there sprang up, in the course of a single century, a prosperity unparalleled in the annals of human affairs. "the pledge given by mr. mcmaster, that 'the history of the people shall be the chief theme,' is punctiliously and satisfactorily fulfilled. he carries out his promise in a complete, vivid, and delightful way. we should add that the literary execution of the work is worthy of the indefatigable industry and unceasing vigilance with which the stores of historical material have been accumulated, weighed, and sifted. the cardinal qualities of style, lucidity, animation, and energy, are everywhere present. seldom indeed has a book in which matter of substantial value has been so happily united to attractiveness of form been offered by an american author to his fellow-citizens."--_new york sun_. "to recount the marvelous progress of the american people, to describe their life, their literature, their occupations, their amusements, is mr. mcmaster's object. his theme is an important one, and we congratulate him on his success. it has rarely been our province to notice a book with so many excellences and so few defects."--_new york herald_. "mr. mcmaster at once shows his grasp of the various themes and his special capacity as a historian of the people. his aim is high, but he hits the mark."--_new york journal of commerce_. "... the author's pages abound, too, with illustrations of the best kind of historical work, that of unearthing hidden sources of information and employing them, not after the modern style of historical writing, in a mere report, but with the true artistic method, in a well-digested narrative.... if mr. mcmaster finishes his work in the spirit and with the thoroughness and skill with which it has begun, it will take its place among the classics of american literature."--_christian union_. * * * * * new york: d. appleton & co., 72 fifth avenue. * * * * * transcriber's notes: non-ascii diacritical marks represented as follows: [=a] a with macron [=aa] aa with macron [=e] e with macron [=ee] ee with macron [=o] o with macron [=oo] oo with macron [=u] u with macron [)a] a with breve [)e] e with breve [)o] o with breve [)u] u with breve [(aa] aa with inverted breve [(au] au with inverted breve [(äu] äu with inverted breve [(ee] ee with inverted breve [(ei] ei with inverted breve [(eu] eu with inverted breve [(oi] oi with inverted breve ['=e] e with macron and acute accent changes to original text: page xxvii ... too high or too low (56), changed "comma" to "fullstop" page xxix _organic sensations and emotions._ changed to "organic sensations and emotions." page 50 a. _central dysarthria and anarthria._ changed to [alpha]. _central dysarthria and anarthria._ page 55 e. g changed to e. g. page 67 inarticulto changed to inarticulate page 91 _hotto_ (horse, from the expression of the carter, "hott-ho (_tt," instead ... changed to _hotto_ (horse), from the expression of the carter, "hott-ho" ("_tt_," instead ... page 103 unsually changed to unusually page 251 reference to the sound). changed to reference to the sound. page 276 microcephalus changed to microcephalous page 302 three several times changed to three separate times 1st page publications list "sysemtatic" changed to "systematic" 3rd page publications list "a noteworthy ... literature.' changed to "a noteworthy ... literature." * * * * * 