UC-NRLF 
 
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The Scientific Study of Infant 
 Intelligence 
 
 A LECTURE 
 
 BY 
 
 HENRY T. BLAKE 
 
THE SCIENTIFIC STUDY OF 
 INFANT INTELLIGENCE 
 
 A. LECTURE 
 
 BY 
 
 HENRY T. BLAKE 
 
 Copyright 1902 
 
 by 
 
 THE TUTTLE, MOREHOUSE & TAYLOR COMPANY 
 New Haven, Conn. 
 
343 
 
 PRELUDE 
 
 THE VERSATILE BABY. 
 
 Dramatis Persona. 
 Ma, the baby's mother. 
 Pa, the baby's father. 
 Baby, the boy himself. 
 Chorus, sisters, cousins, aunts, grandma. 
 
 Ma Come, Baby, show these people here 
 How very smart you are. 
 Call Pa. 
 
 Baby Ba ! ba ! Bopup. 
 
 Chorus Precious heart, 
 
 How very smart. 
 
 Pa Now, darling, sing that pitty song, 
 " Baa ! baa ! black sheep," for pa. 
 Baa ! baa ! 
 
 BabyTte, ! ba ! Bopup. 
 
 Chorus Well, I declare. 
 
 What genius rare ! 
 
 Ma And now, my precious little one, 
 Say by by to papa. 
 Ta-ta. 
 
 Baby'B&\ ba! Bopup. 
 
 Chorus. 
 
 O, wonderful ! magnificent ! his like was never seen ; 
 A most precocious youth is this whose weeks are but eighteen. 
 To say so much, and; pke-to say. ib alt so very plain ! 
 His equal ne'er has been before, -'nor Iwill be e'er again. 
 Upon his natal day the, Fatss,- in, union must* have smiled, 
 For nothing else'could ksfrfe -prodiieed^s Versatile a child. 
 
 [Curtain.] 
 
 (From Harper's Magazine.) 
 
LECTURE 
 
 LADIES AND GENTLEMEN: 
 
 One of the most cheering indications connected with the 
 scientific progress of the present day, is an awakening interest 
 in the character and habits of various classes of our fellow 
 beings who have hitherto been deemed worthy of little or no 
 consideration. Influenced by this humane tendency, a number 
 of European philosophers and savants, for a period of years 
 extending back as far as 1856 and even earlier, have devoted 
 profound attention to the growth of mind in infants, especially 
 their own ; and have given to an admiring world accounts and 
 results of experiments and observations made in their respec- 
 tive nurseries. The important, nay, startling discoveries they 
 made as to the hitherto unsuspected intelligence of European 
 babies, at length attracted notice on this side of the ocean also, 
 and Brother Jonathan's patriotic emulation was speedily 
 aroused. At the annual meeting of The American Social 
 Science Association in 1881 public attention was called by the 
 Department of Education to the notorious apathy with which 
 parents have been accustomed to view the intellectual achieve- 
 ments and mental development of their offspring. A most 
 interesting and valuable report on the subject was made by 
 the Department, which report with accompanying documents 
 was published in January, 1882, for popular instruction and 
 use. Its importance as the first step toward inaugurating a 
 new era in human progress may be inferred from a statement 
 made by the chairman of that department in his opening 
 address : He actually declares that " the secretary has devised 
 a plan by which to interest the mother in her child's growth "; 
 
 [This Lecture was given in March, 1889, in " The Mechanics' Course" of 
 the Sheffield Scientific School of Yale University, and some months later 
 before "The Scientific Society of Bridgeport, Conn." It is now printed by 
 request of friends, some of whom have recently attained to parental or 
 grand-parental dignity and who desire to have in permanent form all the 
 light which science affords to guide them in their new responsibilities.] 
 
 3.12659 
 
.VL; : 4 
 
 and he buoyantly adds that "one intelligent woman who is 
 interested in this subject will kindle an interest which will 
 spread throughout an entire town" The noble plan which is 
 thus proposed to remedy that glaring evil of maternal indiffer- 
 ence which has hitherto weighed like an incubus on the 
 infant's progress, is happily most simple and effective. It is 
 merely that parents shall hereafter daily and hourly register 
 in a volume suitably prepared all of the baby's good and evil 
 actions its brilliant and stupid utterances and achievements, 
 and its mental and physical outgoings and shortcomings. That 
 the parent shall in fact open a set of books, and keep a running 
 account with every baby produced, in which its intellectual 
 debits and credits shall be carefully entered and posted, so that 
 an exact balance of its mental and moral value may be ascer- 
 tained at any given instant. " The importance (so reads the 
 Report) of making some systematic effort to record the devel- 
 opment of infant life has occupied the thoughts of many peo- 
 ple in various countries for a long period. This Department 
 has undertaken the difficult task of collecting statistics, and has 
 issued circulars in the form of a register for such statistics." 
 A copy of the register in blank form is appended to the paper 
 and a number of parental reports based upon it which were 
 received during the previous year are printed, revealing the 
 mental development of various babies under the scientific 
 rather than pet designations of "Case A," "Case B," etc., to which 
 more particular reference will be made hereafter. A letter to 
 the secretary is also published from Dr. Darwin expressing his 
 interest in the proposed investigations into the mental and 
 bodily development of infants. " Very little," he mournfully 
 remarks, " is at present accurately known on this subject ; and 
 I believe that isolated observations will add but little to our 
 knowledge ; whereas tabulated results from a very large num- 
 ber of observations systematically made, would throw much 
 light on the sequence and period of development of the several 
 faculties." We heartily respond to these inspiring words of 
 Dr. Darwin, and cordially recommend the free use of the 
 registers. No family can afford to be without them, and it 
 would even be well for those without infants to keep a liberal 
 supply on hand for use in case of accident or unexpected emer- 
 
5 
 
 gencies. Children cry for them ; and when these mental and 
 moral inventories shall have been fully filled up, and duly veri- 
 fied under oath, we would earnestly advocate the tabulation of 
 the infants also according to their respective merits ; and then 
 would even go so far as to recommend out of compliment to 
 Dr. Darwin the survival of the fittest ! 
 
 The work thus laid out for parents in this country by the 
 Social Science Association eight years ago does not appear to 
 have since borne the fruit that might have been reasonably 
 expected. Mothers and fathers, and even grandparents, have 
 been backward in coming forward to obtain the registers. The 
 " one intelligent woman " who was to feel an interest in the 
 subject, and to " spread it through an entire town," has yet to 
 be discovered ; and it is partly in the hope that she may be 
 found in this audience that I have consented to address you 
 this evening. For it must be confessed that the principal hope 
 of science for progress in this beneficent work rests on the 
 female sex. A baby, as is well known, is in every well regu- 
 lated family, so far as its father is concerned, a pitiable and 
 neglected object. Its advent is welcomed by him with no gen- 
 erous enthusiasm. Its physical beauties are unobserved ; its 
 mental precocities are ignored or depreciated; and its vocal 
 and linguistic performances, instead of exciting emotions of 
 delight and pride, have too often only served to stimulate the 
 paternal wrath and profanity. Even Dr. Franklin with all his 
 breadth of intellect and sound practical sense despairingly 
 exclaimed : " What is the use of a baby ? " and rather than try 
 to solve such a hopeless problem preferred to expose himself 
 to the imminent risk of being struck by lightning. Unfor- 
 tunately Dr. Franklin's aversion to this branch of scientific 
 inquiry has been too widely shared by fathers who have been 
 more favored than he with opportunities to pursue it. The 
 average paterfamilias, when aroused from the ragged edge of 
 an uneasy slumber by the howling of his infant cherub, rarely 
 trims the lamp of science in a calm, philosophic mood, or will- 
 ingly expends any midnight oil except that of castor or goose 
 grease. J^or will he on such occasions, if he can help it, stand 
 long in his airy garb coolly to investigate the true inwardness 
 of the infant's mental organism or to record impartially the 
 
bottom facts of its physical phenomena. May we not hope, 
 that when the registers shall have come into general use in the 
 nursery, this reproach of paternal indifference and wasted 
 opportunity will exist no longer ? We may at least congratu- 
 late ourselves that science, which has achieved so great results 
 in utilizing refuse like coal tar, street sweepings and sewerage, 
 has now taken up the baby with almost equal prospects of suc- 
 cessful results. And surely no more auspicious time could 
 occur than now for that much needed intelligent woman to 
 arise and paint the town red, when even our national admin- 
 istration installed in the White House submits to the paramount 
 sway of Baby McKee. 
 
 As we have already seen, the art of recording the steps of 
 mental progress in infants had not been entirely unknown even 
 before the registers were invented in 1882. Among the more 
 important publications which had appeared up to that time, 
 containing carefully kept diaries of the vocal and mental 
 accomplishments of different babies, were papers by the dis- 
 tinguished M. Hyppolite Taine, by Professor Darwin and by 
 Frederick Pollock and others. Also a French work by M. 
 Bernard Perez which was last year translated into English 
 under the title of "The first three years of Childhood" and 
 a lecture on " Psychogenesis " by Professor Preyer of Jena, 
 since developed into two good-sized volumes, English trans- 
 lations of which have been published very recently. It is 
 worthy of notice that all these investigators, when they began 
 to write on the subject, had just been blessed with their first-born 
 offspring. By a curious coincidence they had also just awaked 
 to the fact so strongly presented by the American Association 
 Report, that the psychology of babies had not attracted a fail- 
 share of attention on the part of their parents, grandparents, 
 sisters, cousins or aunts, and that the great need of the times 
 is to do justice to their extraordinary intellectual merits. By 
 a singular and most happy circumstance it also occurred, as is 
 plain to the most casual reader, that the particular infants with 
 which these authors were severally specially concerned were 
 most favorable subjects of investigation, by reason of being 
 among the brightest and best of infants which up to that time 
 had ever been born. M. Taine, it is true, says in a depre- 
 
7 
 
 eating way, that his u subject " was " a little girl whose mental 
 development took the ordinary course, being neither precocious 
 nor the reverse " : but it is only too evident that in this cau- 
 tious language he either underestimates or deliberately under- 
 states the brilliant qualities of his offspring and it is hardly 
 credible that so intelligent an observer as M. Taine could 
 have been unconscious of the fact, however parental modesty 
 may have struggled to conceal his convictions. The records 
 of M. Perez concerning infant development are much more 
 general. They relate with scientific impartiality the acts of 
 numerous infant prodigies besides his own, and are especially 
 full in celebrating those of a certain infant phenomenon whom 
 he calls " Young Tiedemann," and who we learn " was the 
 son of Tiedemann, a philosopher of the 18th century." The 
 father of this young gentleman, it appears, kept a diary of the 
 infant's doings a hundred years ago, and the first recorded 
 indication of his genius is that " On the first day after his 
 birth, he would when inspiring suck anything put into his 
 mouth." A still stronger corroboration of his philosophic 
 parentage appears in the fact (if it is a fact) that " at five days' 
 old he appeared to laugh without any particular motive," but 
 this statement staggers the credulity of M. Perez, as it makes 
 him out, to use his own language, " altogether too remarkably 
 precocious." Notwithstanding M. Perez's caution in accept- 
 ing this and other stories of this infant's precocity, he narrates 
 many about which he evidently has no doubt ; fortunately he 
 is careful always to refer to the hero of them as "Young 
 Tiedemann," lest his readers might suspect that in a moment 
 of forgetfulness he was relating some intellectual feat of "Old 
 Tiedemann," though indeed some of them would be hardly 
 credible even of a philosopher of the 18th century. Thus we 
 are gravely assured and expected to believe that "Young 
 Tiedemann," before he was 13 days' old, would " reject dif- 
 ferent medicines after having tasted them several times," and 
 his philosophic progenitor is unable to account for so singular a 
 proceeding except upon the theory that " he distinguished 
 them from his food by their sineU." At the age of four 
 months this sense of smell had become so acute that when he 
 saw anyone else taking a drink, " he would twist his mouth as 
 
if he were himself tasting something." Bnt the most remark- 
 able proof of his discernment was given at the age of 13 
 months, when he collected a number of cabbage stalks and set 
 them up in a group to represent his father and associate phil- 
 osophers of the 18th century. Upon this achievement M. 
 Perez exclaims with admiration that "the future savant" must 
 have been " exceptionally gifted with precocious talents ! " 
 One more instance of the intellectual precocity of this won- 
 derful youth must suffice. It is recorded that at the age of 
 four months lacking three days " Young Tiedernann tried for 
 amusement to make all sorts of movements and to take dif- 
 ferent postures.'' The importance of this circumstance, as 
 Captain Cuttle would observe, " lies in the bearings of it." 
 That Young Tiedemann had at an earlier age been accustomed 
 " to make all sorts of movements and to take different pos- 
 tures " is more than likely : but it was at the exact age of four 
 months lacking three days that he tried to do it for amuse- 
 ment. From the fact that he only tried, the inference is 
 strong that his pleasantry was not appreciated and that he was 
 promptly sat down on, at least in a figurative sense, by his 
 more serious-minded guardians. 
 
 Though this performance of young Tiedemann breaks the 
 record of infantile agility as an expression of amusement, yet 
 similar demonstrations have been known at even an earlier age 
 from other intellectual motives. M. Perez himself refers to a 
 " little boy " whose name is not given but which it would have 
 been agreeable to know (not necessarily for publication, but 
 simply as a guaranty of good faith), who on the second day of his 
 life when dressed " gesticulated in a manner painful to see and 
 especially when his arms were put into the sleeves." Whether 
 this preference for the absence of clothing was due to ambi- 
 tion on the part of the young man to take part in a boat race, 
 or whether it arose from a general masculine indifference to 
 the subject of dress is uncertain, but it is worth while to con- 
 trast it with the early development of feminine interest in the 
 opposite direction. Thus we learn from Prof. Preyer that a 
 little girl only 14 days old " gazed with surprise " at the fash- 
 ionable hat of a lady who approached her. The statement has 
 an air of probability, except that " surprise " seems rather a 
 
mild word for the emotions which an intelligent child, at least 
 of the present day, would naturally display at first sight of 
 such an extraordinary object. Another little girl " 3-| months 
 old " could not only indicate where her feet were but also dis- 
 tinguished her dress which she seemed to take for a part of 
 her person," and who furthermore showed " a strong passion 
 for colorT So early a chromatic infatuation is rare in the 
 recorded cases, but Dr. Alcott assures us that it was sur- 
 passed in the case of his eldest daughter, who u on the 10th 
 day after her birth, had her attention arrested by the con- 
 trasted colors of her mother's dress, and her attention was 
 accompanied by a smile" We are not informed whether the 
 smile was one of approval or derision, or whether it was one 
 of those unmeaning, non-committal smiles which M. Perez 
 declares " often occurs before the age of a month." He adds, 
 " children of two months laugh, but without seeming to know 
 that the laugh expresses anything." Dr. Darwin, however, 
 repels this sweeping charge of idiotic cachinnation, and while 
 admitting that his first infant did not truly smile till 45 days 
 old, declares that at a little over three months he laughed with 
 a keen appreciation of humor and suggestively adds, " we 
 should remember how early puppies and kittens begin to play." 
 The question how early infants begin to smile is a burning one 
 among the various investigators, who differ widely in their 
 conclusions. The truth is that the correctness of their obser- 
 vations is often open to doubt, since very many demonstrations 
 which these eminent but inexperienced male philosophers took 
 for smiles, would probably have been pronounced by any prac- 
 tical female nurse to be " nothing but wind." We are not so 
 skeptical on this point, however, with reference to the smiling 
 of Case E, reported in the Social Science pamphlet. This case 
 was composed of two boys " both of whom," it is stated, u were 
 born in Connecticut, together with their parents." Such a 
 complex form of contemporaneous birth is very unusual in 
 Connecticut, and infants with so happy an experience both as 
 to the locality and the circumstances of their origin might be 
 expected to show a special degree of cheerfulness. We are 
 therefore not greatly staggered to learn that Case E, No. 1, at 
 eight weeks "tries to smile," while Case E, No. 2, "at eight 
 2 
 
10 
 
 weeks smiles beautifully." So confident is the happy mother of 
 the correctness of her observations that she declares that she had 
 " prepared a circular on the subject to forward to her Vassar 
 friends " but why to them is not very apparent. But not- 
 withstanding a few exceptional cases, the melancholy fact 
 seems clearly established that babies not born in Connecticut 
 do not smile at a very early age. Indeed, MM. Perez and 
 Taine declare, and other writers generally agree with them, 
 that " agreeable sensations are not manifested before the age 
 of two months." "While we fear that this accords with the 
 ordinary experience, we confess that we cannot, in looking 
 through the records, discover any good reason why agreeable 
 sensations should have been manifested by the infants reported 
 on, considering the experiments to which they were subjected. 
 Thus we learn that " passing the feather of a quill over the 
 eyes and nose of a child 15 days old, made it frown." The 
 nurse of Case C reports that she " could wash through his 
 eyes, or throw water in them, without his closing them. Tap- 
 ping him all around the eye within half an inch of it, he does 
 not move till the taps reach the nose near the inner angle, 
 when he partially winks." Shaking the fist in the infant's 
 face, tickling the soles of his feet, " rattling pasteboard boxes 
 containing comfits " close to its ear, sneezing suddenly and 
 violently, and making unexpected hideous noises " resembling a 
 loud snore," are all specified as excellent experiments to call 
 forth the expression of agreeable sensations. The blank 
 " registers " suggest a still better one by requesting informa- 
 tion of the earliest age at which the child first notices the prick 
 of a pin ; to answer which inquiry of course requires an inces- 
 sant prodding with that implement from the moment of its 
 birth. Possibly this last test or something similar not yet 
 devised may be successful in proving the infant susceptible to 
 emotions of pleasure, but for the present it seems to be agreed 
 that even with every encouragement of this kind he don't fully 
 know how to enjoy himself. 
 
 A partial compensation for this unhappy condition is sought 
 for by some philosophers in the theory that as a general rule 
 babies suffer little discomfort from things that are disagreeable. 
 As a remarkable illustration of this tempering of the wind to 
 
II 
 
 the shorn lamb, it has been asserted that infants are nearly or 
 quite insensible to bad smells : which, if true, is a very fortu- 
 nate circumstance for the baby. Whether this insensibility 
 ever exists or not, and if so, when it disappears has been a sub- 
 ject of some discussion. M. Perez, who was a very careful 
 observer, seems to incline to the total insensibility view, while 
 most other writers agree that babies make odorous comparisons 
 even at a very early age. The most interesting experiments 
 on this point are those made by a German savant, an indefati- 
 gable, merciless tester of baby sensibilities of all sorts, bearing 
 the amiable name of Kussmauler, of whom more will be 
 said hereafter. This ingenious person smeared infants with 
 asaf cetida, petroleum, DippePs oil and other pungent and odorous 
 liquids, and by this means conclusively proved that a baby's 
 smelling instinct may be developed cent per cent. Professor 
 Preyer tried more agreeable perfumes upon his child with much 
 more limited success. u In the 15th month freshly ground coffee 
 and cologne water held under his nose made no impression at 
 all till the end of the month, by which time the cologne water 
 u made him laugh." It was not, he says, till the end of 18 
 months that " genuine snuffing," by which he means smelling 
 in a really scientific way, was manifested. It is possible, how- 
 ever, that Professor Preyer's child was peculiarly unsusceptible 
 to the sensation of smell on account of what he calls "the sur- 
 prising immobility of its nose." " which rarely moved/' he 
 says, " before the end of the 7th month." What particular 
 acrobatic feats the professor expected the infant's nose to per- 
 form before the 7th month it is hard to say, but by the end of 
 that time it seems to have become more agile or more appre- 
 ciative, for the professor records that it would then " turn up " 
 significantly at his approach. From this fact it would appear 
 that there are cases in which a wise child nose its own father, 
 and also has a decided opinion about him. 
 
 It would seem from this significant gesture of Professor 
 Preyer's infant that even a baby's tolerance of disagreeable 
 things can have a limit. Indeed, there are other indications 
 on record to the same effect. M. Perez speaks of a child 11 
 months old which showed a marked aversion for " a little bark- 
 ing black dog, also for the rod that he was whipped with [at 
 
12 
 
 11 months] and a syringe." As an illustration of the sym- 
 pathy which infants feel for others, he tells us of a French 
 child 16 months old who burst into tears on seeing his father 
 take a shower bath. The cause in this case might seem inade- 
 quate to the effect but for the explanation by M. Perez that the 
 old gentleman was washing himself by advice of a physician, so 
 that the sight must have been to the child quite rare and unex- 
 plainable. Possibly the operation effected such a complete 
 change in the patient's appearance that he became unrecog- 
 nizable, or the parent may have vigorously manifested his 
 own discomfort in the unaccustomed ablutionary experience. 
 At all events he declared to M. Perez that he was finally " obliged 
 to put the child out of the room away from the painful sight," 
 and added, " this sympathetic sensibility touched me deeply." 
 The infant's agitation was certainly not owing to a native gen- 
 tleness or tenderness of spirit, for M. Perez asserts that this 
 same child displayed toward cats the most unfeeling disposi- 
 tion. He admits that children in general regard cats as beings 
 having no rights which they are bound to respect, nevertheless 
 he considers the interest of children in animals one of their 
 most conspicuous traits. " Dogs, cats, sheep, birds, chickens," 
 he says, " are all par excellence their objects of recreation, 
 instruction and affection." As an illustration of this affection- 
 ate interest he cites the case of a child six months old, which, 
 being left alone with a turtle, half tore off one of its feet, and 
 when the nurse arrived was pulling off another. This statement 
 certainly raises a strong presumption of affection for the turtle 
 on the part of the baby, but there is still room for doubt as to 
 its conclusiveness. The reptile employed in the experiment 
 was probably the common land turtle, which is of a dull, 
 unsympathetic nature, not likely to call out the child's emo- 
 tional feelings. It is therefore uncertain whether the vivisec- 
 tion proceedings referred to were in a loving or scientific spirit. 
 In the interest of science it is to be hoped that some infant 
 whose affectionate disposition is in doubt, may be supplied with 
 a snapping turtle more likely to reciprocate its gentle atten- 
 tions. Is there not in this audience some bachelor uncle or 
 nervous inmate of a boarding house who to settle the question 
 in some such case would be willing to furnish a turtle, pro- 
 vided he or she may also be allowed to select the baby ? 
 
13 
 
 The reference we have already made to the valuable investi- 
 gations of Kussmauler into the progress of infant develop- 
 ment suggests the propriety of referring with more particu- 
 larity to the important discoveries made by himself, Professor 
 Genzmer, Professor Preyer and other German philanthropists 
 with respect to baby sensibilities and endurance. 
 
 The assiduous course of study and experiment pursued by 
 these energetic investigators ranks them as friends of the 
 infant race hardly surpassed by the good King Herod. For- 
 tunately for science, two of them, at least, Kussmauler and 
 Genzmer, had peculiar facilities for pursuing their philan- 
 thropic inquiries, being practitioners in a foundling hospital. 
 Here they not only found an abundance of raw material, but 
 had no fear of hindrance by that usual bane of scientific prog- 
 ress an unscientific and excitable mother or nurse within 
 reach of their hair. Under these happy conditions it is safe 
 to say that the scientific study of infant intelligence did not 
 fall into innocuous desuetude ; and few asylums ever contained 
 a greater number of spoiled children than that in which these 
 industrious psychologists, " with ghoulish glee," worked the 
 babies under their charge for all they were worth in develop- 
 ing their infant faculties. 
 
 Without going too much into the details of each experiment, 
 it will be interesting and instructive to specify a few of them 
 briefly with their results, as a guide and encouragement to 
 future observers. One object was to test the development of 
 the infant's physical senses, and the experiments were naturally 
 directed to the different organs by which the several senses are 
 exercised. Thus to ascertain the state of the infant's eyesight, 
 Professor Preyer continued for several months assiduously to 
 brandish his hands and jerk his head threateningly toward his 
 child's face, and was rewarded by finding that by these persua- 
 sions the child could in 60 days be induced to wink, and after 
 14 weeks became so frightened that it would throw up both 
 its arms. To produce winking, it has been ascertained that 
 thrusting the finger close to the baby's eye is much less effec- 
 tive than the whole hand : but poking the finger into the eye, 
 or against the lid, never fails ; while suddenly blowing into the 
 face with a tube will, he assures us, make it wink with uncom- 
 3 
 
mon quickness. At the end of the 30th week a fine result in 
 the way of winking may also be produced by rapidly opening 
 and closing a green fan at 18 inches from the face. A beau- 
 tiful squint may be obtained as late as the 20th month by plac- 
 ing the end of the finger at the tip of the baby's nose ; and 
 Professor Preyer seems to have adopted this plan to correct a 
 singular habit which his infant had contracted of gazing, at its 
 own forehead. Professor Preyer also discovered that if, dur- 
 ing the first two days of the infant's existence, a lighted candle 
 is repeatedly flourished close to its eyes it will be brought 
 "into a general state of discomfort," and if "a very sensitive 
 infant, will be made to cry." Whether the Preyer baby was a 
 sensitive infant or not does not appear, but this interesting 
 experiment on its eyesight seems to have been kept up till 
 the 15th month, when either partially blinded at last, or exas- 
 perated beyond further endurance, it "grasped the flame of 
 the candle with its hands." This incident appears to have 
 greatly amused the professor, and elicits the jocose remark 
 that the child " will never do it again." 
 
 Not less instructive are the researches made by the different 
 investigators into the baby's sense of hearing. The question 
 whether new born infants can hear or not has been in dispute. 
 Some appear to hear more readily than others. The best 
 method of testing the child's capacity in any given case is said 
 to be shouting, whistling and clapping the hands in its ears for 
 the first four weeks. At the end of that period if it does not 
 respond it will be known to be deaf and dumb : but whether 
 born so or made so by the experiment will always be doubtful. 
 Kussmauler made loud, discordant noises near the ears of new- 
 born children while they were awake without disturbing them 
 much, but Feldsbauch got better results by clapping his hands 
 violently over them while they were asleep. Champney's 
 child, however, when sleeping did not succumb to this test, 
 and he was forced to resort to a hard slamming of the door so 
 as to shake the bed. Genzmer hammered a bell with an iron 
 rod for 24 days at different distances from the ear, ranging 
 from one inch to 20 inches, in order to set the eyelids to quiver- 
 ing, and generally succeeded : his toughest subject he says was 
 " a very phlegmatic child " who held out pretty well till the 8th 
 
15- 
 day, when he gave symptoms of objecting to the rattling at five 
 inches from his ear. The results, after trying this on 15 chil- 
 dren, were found to be very uncertain. Dr. Moldenhaur 
 adopted what Professor Preyer calls " a much better mode of 
 proceeding." He made use of a French toy called " the cri- 
 cri, which gives a loud, brief, disagreeable sound with dis- 
 cordant high overtones," and held it "quite close to the ear " 
 with great success, as the child invariably jumped at the first 
 trial. Fifty children were tested, of whom ten were less than 
 12 hours old. The results were highly satisfactory. Eyelids 
 quivered, foreheads wrinkled, "then came head movements, 
 mostly single, short twistings of the head ; finally starting, 
 accompanied by violent quivering of the head, the arms, and 
 the upper part of the body. Sleeping children awoke and 
 screamed." The same inventive genius, Dr. Moldenhaur, con- 
 ceived the original idea of awakening the child's musical taste 
 by applying a tuning fork in strong vibration against its head 
 as a sounding board ; but as Professor Preyer discouragingly 
 records, he got no definite results, " owing to the sensitiveness 
 of the skin." Dr. Deneke, not discouraged by this failure, 
 procured a pair of cymbals and banged them together close to 
 the ear of an infant six hours old, at which demonstration the 
 baby very sensibly " shut his eyes tighter every time." Pro- 
 fessor Preyer in the 21st week of his child beat a gong 
 before it in order to give it a tranquil expression while sitting 
 for its photograph. He reports as the result that the child 
 "was transfixed with astonishment "; a rigidity the more remark- 
 able when we consider the extraordinary flexibility of its 
 organism, for he solemnly assures us that by putting coal 
 into the stove behind the same child it could be made to turn 
 its head around nearly 180 degrees. A little girl nine months 
 old who, it is declared, "sang beautifully to the piano," was 
 treated to a tin horn accompaniment until she " wept bitterly." 
 And Professor Preyer, on the 25th day after his child was 
 born, proudly records that he startled it into convulsive fright 
 by standing before it and suddenly shouting " JAH !" 
 
 With respect to the infantile sense of taste, the recorded 
 experiments are not so numerous, but they evince the same 
 commendable thoroughness and ingenuity. This branch of 
 
inquiry has also some connection with that relating to smell, 
 which we have already remarked upon. In order to cultivate 
 in infants a correct judgment in matters of pure taste, Kuss- 
 mauler and Genzmer stuffed into the mouths of more than 40 
 newly-born children different substances successively, including 
 salt, quinine, tartaric acid and sugar, and discovered that they 
 all made " grimaces " at everything except the sugar. By close 
 observation it was ascertained that the character of these 
 " grimaces " differed in correspondence with the dose. There 
 was a "bitter grimace" and a " sour grimace " and incipient 
 saltatory movements when the drugs were administered, while 
 the sugar, after the child discovered that it was sugar, produced 
 a "sweet expression." Some other experiments, including 
 Genzmer's rubbing of petroleum and asafoetida on the baby's 
 lips, are properly discarded by Professor Freyer as incon- 
 clusive, since they involved the sense of smell ; and he cor- 
 rectly suggests that the proper method in such cases is to 
 bandage the child's eyes and tightly hold its nose when the 
 drug is introduced ; since under those circumstances the 
 expression of its countenance, whether pleased or otherwise, 
 will be solely due to the taste of the medicine. 
 
 The experiments on the infant's sense of touch or feeling 
 have been much more varied and lively, but we can only refer 
 to a few of them. Professor Preyer is authority for the 
 singular fact that new-born children can be made to scream 
 by pinching and spanking. Tickling of the nose produces 
 sneezing and winking, and if persistently kept up, "move- 
 ments of the head and the hands, and even tears" a remarkable 
 precocity, since children, he says, " generally shed no tears on 
 the first days of life"; but he forgets that most children are 
 not so fortunate as to have a scientific parentage. Kussmauler 
 and Genzmer poked fingers into babies' eyes, and blew into 
 their faces and found that the baby ordinarily closed the eye 
 poked or blown upon. Following up this curious discovery, 
 it has been found that tickling the nose on the tip makes the 
 baby shut both eyes. Tickling one side makes it shut the eye 
 on that side. Tickling and slapping the sole of its foot makes 
 it wiggle the leg ; and sometimes both legs. Pricking with 
 needles, if thoroughly done, is apt to make it restless " after 
 
two seconds, but a sound slapping is better because then it is 
 explained " the force of the stimulus is exerted on a greater 
 number of nerve extremities." A very valuable discovery 
 made by Professor Preyer is that a screaming baby can be 
 instantly quieted by thrusting a finger deeply into its ear. 
 This expedient answers, however, only for the first six months ; 
 after that it fails. Another strange fact stated by Professor 
 Preyer is that if a new-born child is slapped it cries out 
 "without knowing where it was slapped, nor (what is more 
 probable) the cause of the blow ;" and he adds that " it is not 
 till the blows fall frequently on different parts of the body 
 that distinctions of space come gradually into the child's mind 
 as well as sensations of pain." Genzmer stuck glass rods 
 down babies' throats to see if they would choke, and they did ; 
 he applied an ice-cold iron rod to different parts of their 
 bodies to make them lively, and it did; but although he 
 pricked their feet, noses, upper lips and hands until the blood 
 came, Professor Preyer declares that they did not respond " till 
 after two days." He suggestively adds that if " fifty needle 
 pricks had been applied simultaneously" there might have 
 been a quicker response, and Kroner found in 1882 that new- 
 born babes could be set to screaming and distorting their faces 
 by giving them a strong electric shock. After this no doubt 
 remains that infants have feelings, whatever may be said of 
 the philosophers ; and we are not surprised to learn that 
 Kussmauler alone has noticed in young infants symptoms of 
 nausea, or that Genzmer dissents from Dr. Darwin's dictum 
 that babies do not shed tears before they are two months old. 
 Before leaving this part of our subject we must refer to 
 those most interesting phenomena of infant life, the reflex 
 movements ; so called because they are made without reflec- 
 tion. These curious movements were first discovered by 
 Taine in 1870, and his observations have since been confirmed 
 by later writers. Taine thus described them as they were 
 exhibited in his own first-born progeny. " From the first, 
 probably by reflex action, this child cried incessantly, kicked, 
 moved all its limbs and perhaps all its muscles." Darwin 
 noticed the same peculiarities in his own first baby. " During 
 the first seven days," he says, " various reflex actions, namely 
 
IB- 
 sneezing, yawning, stretching, and of course sucking and 
 screaming, were well performed by the infant." And M 
 Perez asserts that infants in general make " vague incoherent 
 movements with their arms and legs, striking right and left 
 without any definite object." M. Taine informs us that he 
 succeeded in obtaining an excellent display of these move- 
 ments by laying his " subject on her face on a carpet in the 
 garden," and that in this luxurious position " she for hours at a 
 time would work with all her limbs, uttering a multitude of 
 different cries and exclamations consisting exclusively of vowel 
 sounds." "This went on," he says,. "for several months." 
 Darwin improved on this experiment by tickling the sole of 
 the infant's foot, which thereupon, he says, " performed a jerk- 
 ing movement accompanied by a curling of the toes"; but 
 Preyer was unable to achieve a similar success although he 
 industriously inserted pins into various parts of the infant's 
 person. It would appear however that this infant of Preyer's 
 was a somewhat unfavorable subject for the experiment, as he 
 had a habit of biting his own arms, fingers and tongue, 
 pounding hard objects against his teeth and beating his own 
 head with his fists. The Professor remarks that the child, 
 while thus thumping its own head, " seemed astonished at its 
 hardness." This suggestion throws a ray of light upon its 
 failure to respond to the stimulus of the pins, for it shows that 
 its actions were not reflex but reflective ; and it is probable 
 that the pin experiment when carefully tried on a less con- 
 templative infant will be a complete success. Much remains 
 to be learned as to the cause and purposes of these mysterious 
 movements, but the following lucid explanation by a writer in 
 " Mind " of certain complex movements of his own infant and 
 its reasons therefor, if correct, will go far to exonerate the race 
 of infants from the charge of M. Perez that they move their 
 arms and legs without any definite object. The writer says 
 "the purpose of the flexion of the thighs on the belly was 
 probably partly to relieve the tension of the suddenly con- 
 tracted abdominal muscles ; but the movement of the arms 
 (and partly those of the legs also) probably had for their 
 cause the necessity for relief by a i nervous discharge of great 
 amplitude? otherwise called a sneeze." To clear up this sub- 
 
19 
 
 ject entirely, however, farther experiments seem to be neces- 
 sary. 
 
 We are glad to see that all the students in this infant school 
 of physiology appreciate the importance of investigating the 
 influence of hereditary qualities on their offspring. By this 
 means it may be hoped the talents and virtues of the parents 
 as well as the children will be spread upon the record, and this 
 will furnish a powerful incentive to make the registers full 
 and truthful. Dr. Darwin, whom we should naturally expect 
 to take notice of remote ancestral traits, remarks with a par- 
 donable complacency that the vocal performances of his 
 infant resembled those of the anthropoid apes. Professor 
 Preyer also is struck with a close similarity of his baby to the 
 same species of the Simian tribe, and thus establishes a near 
 relationship between his own family and that of Dr. Darwin. 
 Numerous other points of close resemblance between babies 
 and monkeys, such as wrinkling the forehead, grasping the 
 feet with the hands, shutting both eyes when sneezing, 
 mimicry, etc. are declared by these observers to be common to 
 all infants. But upon this delicate and dangerous point I 
 venture no opinion. I content myself with imitating the 
 prudent example of some of our Biblical critics, who merely 
 state all the theories without committing themselves to any. 
 Doubtless all intelligent mothers and grandfathers will be on 
 the alert to discover and report new facts that may throw 
 light on the question. However this may be, the view is held 
 by all the authorities that the very young baby is an embodied 
 reproduction of the barbaric ages of the human race. A late 
 American writer declares that every life is a mere recapitula- 
 tion of " man's ancestral progress upwards from his primitive 
 savage condition," and that " the sooner all parents recognise 
 the fact that their infants are in truth born savages, the better 
 it will be for those infants." By close observation of the baby, 
 therefore, as materialized history, many new facts have been as- 
 certained respecting the habits of primeval man. Thus Pro- 
 fessor Preyer informs us that the starting of babies a few days 
 old at a sudden sound, is a relic of the frights of their barbarian 
 ancestors. The custom generally observed by new-born babies 
 of lying on their backs, and at a later period of creeping or 
 rolling as a means of locomotion, is, it appears, an exact repro- 
 
2O 
 
 duction of similar practices on the part of pre-historic men 
 before they invented the Jess convenient and agreeable habits 
 of standing and walking. These latter accomplishments in 
 fact, it is now found, are not natural to human beings, for as 
 Professor Preyer declares, " it is merely the advantage which 
 the upright position affords in the universal competition of 
 living beings with each other, which long ago made that posi- 
 tion habitual and hereditary." An English youth four days old, 
 named Clifford, " grasped his father's forefinger and made an 
 abortive effort to carry it to his mouth," and thus afforded 
 incontestable proof of the "survival of a deeply-organized 
 cannibal instinct." From the circumstance that in this youth 
 " crying of the really miserable sort took place before smiling 
 or even cooing," the same reflective parent deduces the dis- 
 covery that " in the history of the human race the need of mak- 
 ing known pains and wants was the more urgent and so was 
 the first one to be satisfied." 
 
 At the end of the eighth week young Clifford " showed his 
 first traceable germs of sympathy " by cooing when coaxed, 
 but these sympathetic expressions soon gave way to " scolding 
 noises"; very fortunately for the cause of chronological 
 science, since thus was revealed the " period in human history 
 when men began to exercise power and coercion over one 
 another." The same historical authority, Clifford, Jr., by gazing 
 at the face of a clock, and at the flickering of a fire-flame, dis- 
 closed " the primitive feeling respecting the second selves, or 
 the ghosts of things," and by "shrieking at an ugly doll, and 
 kicking at the sight of strangers," made known " the countless 
 experiences of peril which the race endured when in its pre- 
 social Ishmaelitic condition." Not to be outdone in prehistoric 
 discovery, Dr. Darwin's boy ran away at sight of an ele- 
 phant in the Zoological gardens, and thus proved to a dem- 
 onstration that elephants formerly lived in Great Britain and 
 terrified the monkeys. 
 
 It must be confessed in connection with this subject of 
 heredity, that while the writers on infant psychology have 
 shown so deep an interest in tracing back the ancestral traits 
 of their offspring to the days of primeval man, they seem to 
 be generally somewhat reserved about making deductions 
 connected with the mental and moral qualities of the babies' 
 
21 
 
 more immediate parentage. This is the more remarkable 
 since with respect to physical characteristics they show by no 
 means the same reticence. Indeed some of them incline to the 
 view that even a high respect on the part of the parent toward 
 some distinguished individual, without any relationship, may 
 cause the infant to exhibit in a singular degree some personal 
 peculiarity of such individual. Thus a college professor in 
 Massachusetts writes with great pride that his baby bears an 
 astonishing resemblance to Agassiz with respect to baldness 
 and hopes that the likeness may ever continue. But it is with 
 mental qualities that we are now concerned, and with regard 
 to these it seems to be unanimously agreed by all the authori- 
 ties that all those which are disagreeable or disreputable are 
 derived from remote barbarian ancestors ; it necessarily 
 follows therefore that the opposite traits are inherited from 
 the nearest progenitors ; and this may account for the very 
 modest and limited reference made by the different writers to 
 their infants' virtues. 
 
 This brings us to an important and most interesting part of 
 our subject ; that which relates to the moral development of 
 infants ; but it is not desirable, if it were possible, to dwell 
 long on this branch of inquiry. Since the doctrines of total 
 depravity and original sin were given up, it has been generally 
 agreed that infants have come directly from Heaven and as 
 cherubs without wings afford the nearest representation pos- 
 sible of the celestial inhabitants. The recorded observations 
 throw a strong light on this attractive theory and clearly show 
 that the moral sentiments of infants are as numerous and as 
 lively as as snakes in Ireland. The lamentable conclusion of 
 all the authorities is that the less said on the subject the better 
 for the feeling of all parties especially in view of the doctrine 
 of heredity. As one writer expresses it, " From two to four 
 years of age children are transparent egotists, very self 
 conscious and almost destitute of moral sense. Their parents 
 are their moral law "; and then follows the natural inference, 
 " Even at five years of age their standard of morality is not 
 high and is liable to frequent and serious relapses." 
 
 After so candid a preface we are not much surprised to find 
 this same writer summing up the entire character of his own 
 baby at the age of twelve to fifteen months in the following 
 
22 
 
 catalogue of its virtues : " Self consciousness, egotism, cre- 
 dulity, impulsiveness, irascibility, jealousy, cruelty, obstinacy, 
 cunning and dissimulation." No doubt the parent of a child 
 which has inherited so many vigorous traits of character is 
 entitled to respect if not to envy, but when he adds that " the 
 virtue of truthfulness must be enforced at the age of twelve 
 to fifteen months, even with a switch," we can only agree 
 with him to the extent that the switch should be applied to 
 that ancestor most nearly responsible for the child's moral 
 obliquities. 
 
 We have taken up so much time with other branches of 
 study in the infant school of psychology that we have but 
 little left for one of the most important of all, the department 
 of philology. In all the published papers the writers expand 
 with enthusiasm over the achievements of the infant intellect 
 in this department. Dr. Darwin proudly declares of his child 
 that when five months and a half old, he uttered an articulate 
 sound "da," but without any meaning attached to it. M. 
 Taine remarks in a more general way and with indisputable 
 truth that " in infants, the vocal organ acquires dexterity just 
 as the limbs do by constant efforts." According to an English 
 writer (Mr. Champneys), this dexterity of the vocal organ was 
 carried by his infant to a very high degree. " The sound," he 
 says, in endeavoring to explain a very extraordinary howl 
 peculiar to this baby, " must have been produced by closing the 
 fauces by the contact of the pillars of the fauces and the soft 
 palate so as to send all the sound through the nose ; the vowel 
 sound being then produced by separating the soft palate and 
 pillars of the fauces and allowing the sound to come through 
 the mouth" That this complicated maneuvering of the vocal 
 organs must have produced an appalling effect is unquestion- 
 able. These however are but rudimentary exercises on the 
 part of the infant, designed by a beneficent providence to 
 qualify him for a higher stage, both of science and art. Some 
 observers, notably MM. Taine and Egger, assert that the 
 infant intellect after a very early period devotes itself with 
 the industry of a lexicographer to the formation of vocabu- 
 laries. As M. Taine expresses it, " several vocabularies may 
 succeed each other in its mind by the obliteration of old 
 words replaced by new ones." " The child," he adds, " is an 
 
23 
 
 original genius. If there existed no language it would dis- 
 cover one or find an equivalent." This rosy view, however, 
 is not sustained by more careful writers ; Professor Preyer, who 
 has an entire volume devoted to the subject, declares that his 
 infant at the age of three years had not invented a word. 
 But it must be recollected that this child had a head of 
 astonishing hardness, and it is not unlikely that he was excep- 
 tionally stupid in the matter of language. Certain it is that 
 by some common instinct, or other intellectual tendency, the 
 infants on record of all nationalities have formed their first 
 language on the same principle, that of syllabic repetition, and 
 that up to a certain point they nearly all have a common 
 vocabulary. It must be admitted that this vocabulary is not 
 very extensive, consisting apparently of only four words, 
 simple but expressive, ma-ma, pa-pa, be-be, ti-tL To this 
 list there should perhaps be added wa-wa for " dog," though 
 M. Taine seems to have lost faith in this word as an appella- 
 tion confined to the canine race in consequence of his infant 
 informing some guests at dinner that the roast mutton was 
 " wa-wa" Similar questions more or less difficult seem likely 
 to arise with regard to other words owing to a want of uni- 
 formity among infant linguists of different nationalities. 
 Thus for a generic word signifying a wish for something to 
 eat, it appears that English and German babies have adopted 
 the syllable " mum." The French baby however calls ener- 
 getically for " ham" Which shall prevail in general use ? As 
 the majority of infants clearly favor the former expression we 
 are inclined to decide that " mum's the word," though in a 
 philosophic point of view " ham " is more truly Baconian. 
 But such technical questions are too abstruse for discussion 
 before a promiscuous audience and must be referred for settle- 
 ment to the next baby show or other symposium of deeply red 
 philologists if a lexicon is to be constructed from the 
 languages of Babel. Before leaving this subject, however, 
 we must express our dissent from a suggestion which Dr. 
 Darwin makes in connection with it. That distinguished 
 philosopher, fired with enthusiasm over the discovery that " the 
 anthropoid ape utters notes in a true musical scale," requests 
 parents to ascertain whether "there is any uniformity in 
 different children in the pitch of their voices under various 
 
24 
 
 frames of mind" This we think is asking too much. The 
 Doctor's family pride carries him too far. It cannot be 
 expected that mothers in general will feel so much interest in 
 the Darwinian family tree, that they will provide phonographs 
 and tuning forks as essential parts of nursery furniture, and 
 then keep nagging their babies into "different frames of mind," 
 in order to ascertain the keys on which Dr. Darwin's hylobate 
 forefathers pitched their screeches. "We are glad to see there- 
 fore that this request is wholly ignored in the registers. 
 
 From the dry and abstract review thus given of the achieve- 
 ments already accomplished by science in this new branch of 
 human development, the imagination can easily soar onward 
 and upward to its future triumphs. When the coming 
 intelligent woman shall have properly fired the parental heart 
 in every town, the fifth great act in the drama of human 
 progress will have opened. The registers will go like la 
 grippe into every house. Mothers, sisters, aunts, grandfathers 
 of course, possibly even fathers, will engage in the scientific 
 study of infant intelligence, and the merits of the newly-born 
 generations will be rolled into the fold of a permanent record 
 with as much precision and certainty as we used to operate 
 last year's puzzle of u The little pigs in clover." Every properly 
 constituted University and every Scientific Association will 
 have its cradle of science and its baby chair of philosophy. 
 Under the stimulus of registration also, a vast improvement 
 may be hoped for in the quality of the registered article. 
 In short, it is not too much to predict that when registration 
 shall have produced its full effects, the millenium itself will 
 have begun, and its prophetic scenes will be realized. For 
 when the wise baby no longer fills his belly with the east 
 wind, but is stuffed with facts, principles, and logical deduc- 
 tions ; in short when the child is born a hundred years old, 
 then the judicious lion looking for a breakfast will undoubt- 
 edly prefer to lie down with a lamb, or even to eat straw 
 like an ox ! Then, the infant, tough, leathery and juiceless, 
 will repel the appetite of even the reptile tribes ; so that then 
 the sucking child shall be able to play safely on the hole of 
 the asp and the weaned child to lay his hand without clanger 
 on the cockatrice's den. 
 
APPENDIX MARCH, 1902 
 
 It is gratifying to record that since the foregoing lecture was delivered, 
 the sought-for Intelligent Woman has come to the front, not as a single 
 individual but as an army with banners and infantry, to maintain the 
 just rights of babyhood, and has kindled an interest not merely 
 throughout an entire town, but through whole continents, and even 
 among the distant Isles of the Orient. A leading scientific journal in- 
 forms us (June, 1900) that "Child-study has recently become a most 
 active department of psychology. It is the serious pursuit of men of 
 science and the fad of women's clubs. A late accession to the magazines 
 devoted to it comes from Japan." And we are proud to know from 
 another journal that "In America more has been done to study the 
 child than in all the rest of the world, and the work has as yet only 
 begun." 
 
 It is pleasing also to note that the study has begun to advance from the 
 mere observation of phenomena to that of training the infant's faculties 
 for future use. Some of the recorded experiments in this direction seem 
 worthy to be mentioned. A scientist in Washington, D. C., we are 
 informed, "commenced the training of his child two years before it 
 was born." This remarkable achievement was accomplished by the use 
 of guinea pigs as proxies for the prospective child to determine in 
 advance its probable mental and moral endowments and its physical 
 capacities of endurance. These having been satisfactorily ascertained 
 and the baby born, the infant soon after its birth was daily plunged into 
 tubs of water of different temperatures in order " to store his brain with 
 memories of all the degrees of heat and cold which any one is likely to 
 encounter in the course of his life." Disks of various colors were fre- 
 quently whirled before its eyes by an electrical machine "as the best 
 possible foundation for an artistic education." Whistles of different 
 pitches were sounded in the ears to develop its musical taste. Fifteen 
 hundred phials containing as many different smells were successively 
 applied at regular intervals to its nose "to build up the necessary smell 
 memories and to teach him great acuteness in discriminating odor from 
 odor." By a similar method its sense of taste was cultivated by poking 
 straws into its mouth ' ' which had been previously dipped in various 
 substances." So successful has been this training that we are told " the 
 child at sixteen months old can distinguish about fifty different tastes 
 and thirty different smells," but by what indications it individualized 
 each of these tastes and smells we are unfortunately not informed. 
 
 We are not surprised to hear that this child at sixteen months old 
 " had a head unusually developed for an infant of its size," and might 
 
26 
 
 have fears that its intellect was being trained disproportionately to its 
 body ; but we are happily relieved upon this point by learning that abun- 
 dant physical exercise was provided, albeit of a rather constrained and 
 involuntary sort. To be more specific we quote verbatim : " That all of 
 the brain cells governing his muscular sense will be fully developed this 
 baby must have every one of the many muscles of his tender body 
 moved systematically and at regular intervals. During this exercise the 
 father keeps before him a manikin showing the position and direction 
 of each muscle. At first the infantile limbs, head and body were moved 
 in different directions by the father's hands until the memories of the 
 muscular feelings were mentally enregistered." ''No single muscle in 
 the child's entire muscular system is neglected by this action contrived to 
 combine mental memories of motion, speed and direction in his brain." 
 
 We are further informed and can easily believe that ' ' all of this odd 
 training is as thoroughly enjoyed by the infant as the ordinary romps of 
 children." It must indeed be an unreasonable baby which would not 
 rejoice to identify each muscle as it is pulled, wrenched or twisted with 
 its representative in the manikin before him, and to mentally enregister 
 its position and direction. For to use the words of an eminent professor 
 of psychology in a recent work, " How can the sensitive soul of the child 
 fail to be allured into an improvement of the opportunity to grasp the 
 simple but important fact that A Aj A 2 A 8 , etc., although successive in 
 time are similar states of consciousness as respects the content of sensa- 
 tion, the tone of feeling evoked, and the motor activities engaged?" 
 
 It is impossible in this brief note to refer to all the valuable contribu- 
 tions which American workers have made to the science of child- 
 study, but it would be unpardonable not to mention some of their labors 
 in the department of moral training. Among the more interesting of 
 these are the investigations made by a western professor into the most 
 convenient and effectual methods of child-punishment. This inquirer 
 has issued blank registers in which parents may record all the offenses 
 which their children commit, the kind of punishment administered in 
 each case and the effect thereof. By this means it will be possible, after 
 a great body of statistics have been collected, to determine the com- 
 parative advantages of the following and other forms of retribution, 
 viz : Spanking, slapping, ear cuffing, birching, strapping, closet in- 
 carceration, banishment to bed, &c., &c. Lest the child should fail 
 normally to afford sufficient opportunity for experiments in all these 
 methods, the professor suggests the expedient of nagging it by arbitrary, 
 unreasonable and senseless commands which may incite it to rebellion. 
 In order to promote respect for parental authority, he recommends that 
 fictitious stories of gross injustice by parents towaud their children be 
 related to the child with the request for its opinion on the case. In 
 California this idea has been somewhat varied and amplified with inter- 
 esting results. By prearrangement several hundreds of teachers read 
 to their school children a story how Jennie painted the parlor chairs 
 with her new box of paints in order to make them look pretty and to 
 please mama. The question was then submitted, "If you had been her 
 
27 
 
 mother what would you have said or done to Jennie ?" Three thousand 
 answers, we are told, were written out by boys and girls ranging from 
 six to eleven years of age. Of the six-year-olds 1,536 girls and 1,770 
 boys voted that Jennie should be whipped. Of the eleven-year-olds 855 
 girls and 1,434 boys voted the same way, though the majority thought 
 justice would be satisfied if Jennie should be sent to bed, or lose her 
 paints. Of the rest of the children 22S thought it would be sufficient 
 to make Jennie promise not to do so again. The great value of this 
 effort to obtain infant views in ethics and penology is somewhat im- 
 paired by the fact that while only 3,000 answers were sent in, the votes 
 as above classified amount to 5,823. So that we are left in doubt what 
 the verdict actually was and in gloomy uncertainty what ought to be 
 done in the not unlikely case that numerous susceptible children, inspired 
 by the celebrity that Jennie obtained, will imitate her artistic achieve- 
 ment. 
 
 Without pursuing the subject further, enough has been said to show 
 that 20th century babies will enter on life with more brilliant prospects 
 than their predecessors for distinguished careers. And it may be further 
 assumed that if many of them do not ultimately occupy places in vari- 
 ous public institutions, including sanitariums, insane asylums and peni- 
 tentiaries, it will not be the fault of the early training they will have 
 received at the hands of enthusiastic votaries of child-study according 
 to methods recommended by experts in that noble branch of humani- 
 tarian philosophy. 
 
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