THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES 
 
 ^wmmm^i
 
 ^ on the last date stamped bel' 
 
 ^ATEt^oim^L^2r 
 
 ^3^„GEU^,CAU«'
 
 Inferniitbnal ^triixatinn Strics 
 
 EDITED BY 
 
 WILLIAM T. HARRIS, A.M., LL. D. 
 
 Volume XLIII
 
 INTERNATIONAL EDUCATION SERIES 
 
 THE STUDY 
 OF THE CHILD 
 
 A BRIEF TREATISE ON THE 
 PSYCHOLOGY OF THE CHILD 
 
 WITH SUGGESTIONS FOR 
 TEACHERS, STUDENTS, AND PARENTS 
 
 BY 
 
 A. R. TAYLOR, Pn. D. 
 
 PRESIDENT OF THE STATE NORMAL SCHOOL 
 EMPORIA, KANSAS 
 
 ^ 2. f 7 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 
 
 1899
 
 Copyright, 1898, 
 By a. R. TAYLOR. 
 
 Electrotyped and Printed 
 AT THE Appleton Press, U. S. a.
 
 LB 
 
 EDITOK'S PKEFACE. 
 
 In my preface to this sound and wholesome 
 book on child study I will present some thoughts 
 on the symbolic and conventional stages of mind 
 in childhood and on the process by which the child 
 outgrows the symbolic stage of mind. I will then 
 consider the doctrine that concepts are mental 
 images and bring forward the theory that they 
 are not mental images but definitions, and con- 
 clude by discussing imitation as the chief agtivity 
 r\of the child in play and point out the change by 
 ^ which it becomes originality. 
 
 The earlier period of infancy, say up to the 
 
 \ age of six, with average children has been called 
 
 * the symbolic stage, while the later stage, which 
 
 ^ begins somewhere about six and lasts through life, 
 
 is called the " conventional " stage. 
 
 We commonly use the word syniholic in a re- 
 stricted sense — namely, to signify the use of some 
 material object to present an invisible spiritual ob- 
 ject. The wind blows and shows power. It can 
 not be seen, and yet it moves things that can be 
 seen. The breath too is a sort of wind, invisible 
 and yet powerful. The soul moves the body and 
 yet is not seen; it is a sort of wind; it is the
 
 vi THE STUDY OP THE CHILD. 
 
 breath. Such was the infantile way of thinking. 
 Anima, the breath, was used to symbolize the sovil. 
 Its root is a word signifying the blowing of the 
 wind. 
 
 The constant use of the symbol tends to con- 
 vert it into a conventional sign of the spiritual 
 meaning. Anima at first conveyed the idea of 
 breath, before passing to that of soul. The mind 
 gradually shortened its contemplation of the phys- 
 ical meaning and prolonged its stay on the spir- 
 itual meaning and laid greater stress on it. By 
 and by it forgot altogether the physical or mate- 
 rial meaning, and went from the word directly to 
 the idea of vital energy moving the body and pos- 
 sessing thought and feeling. So at last the word 
 anima came to be the conventional sign for soul 
 and lost its symbolic use. The material meaning 
 was forgotten. 
 
 With increasing strength of mind the child 
 grasps relations more and more fully, and by this 
 his conceptions become less and less mere pictures. 
 This is the way that he outgrows the symbolic 
 stage of thought. 
 
 To illustrate this process of growth, consider 
 the chain of causality involved in thinking the fa- 
 miliar object hread. This illustration is used by 
 Professor Noire to explain apperception. Going 
 backward toward the origin of bread we have suc- 
 cessive steps of baking, kneading the dough, mix- 
 ing the meal or fiour with yeast, lard, butter, and 
 other ingredients, the grinding of the grain and 
 sifting the meal, the harvesting of the grain with 
 all its details of cutting, binding sheaves, thresh-
 
 EDITOR'S PREFACE. vii 
 
 ing, etc., the earlier processes of plowing, harrow- 
 ing, sowing the grain, its growth dependent on 
 rain and sunshine. Each one of these links in 
 the chain has side relations to other chains of 
 causality; for example, the yeast put into the 
 bread connects it with hops or some other ferment 
 or effervescent, the lard connects bread with the se- 
 ries of ideas involved in pork-raising, the salt with 
 salt manufacture, the baking Avith the structure 
 of the oven and the fuel. The retrograde series 
 toward the origin is matched with a progressive 
 series toward the future use of the bread. There is 
 the preparation for the table, the set meals, the 
 eating and digestion, the sustenance of life, the 
 strength acquired, the work accomplished by 
 means of it, etc. 
 
 This chain of causation is symbolized in the 
 story of the House that Jack Built and similar 
 inventions. 
 
 In play the child lets one thing stand for an- 
 other, and " makes believe," for instance, that 
 this mud is dough; it can be dried or baked too. 
 But here the chain of causality departs from that 
 of bread. The child can not eat the mud loaf. 
 The mud was not made of meal, flour, yeast, lard, 
 and salt like dough. 
 
 The child begins play by making believe that 
 something is something else, when there is very 
 little resemblance. It is nearly all make-believe 
 at first.* But he makes progress by demanding 
 an increase of resemblance. He takes any stick 
 for a horse at first; then he prefers a stick with 
 a horse's head. Then no stick will do, but he
 
 viii THE STUDY OF THE CHILD. 
 
 must have a hobbyhorse on rockers, with saddle and 
 bridle, and he imitates a gallop by rocking to and 
 fro. His enjoyment of his play was greatest when 
 he had the most make-believe in it. In proportion 
 as he introduces real steps of causality he loses 
 the educative effect of play and he gets less amuse- 
 ment from it. For his enjoyment and educational 
 advantage is proportioned to the amount his im- 
 agination is exercised. When he receives a fin- 
 ished hobbyhorse, with real saddle and bridle and 
 other completed reproductions of the real horse, 
 there is less for his imagination. He soon wearies 
 of the finished, elaborate plaything. 
 
 The child at first understands a very small 
 fragment of the entire process of production of a 
 thing. He pretends that a crooked stick is a 
 scythe. But he is helped by this plaything to 
 understand what is necessary for the real object, 
 the scythe. It must have a blade, and he has a 
 wooden one fastened to his crooked stick. Then 
 he becomes impressed with the necessity of having 
 a blade that will cut. If he gets this he gets a 
 real scythe, and his play has converted itself into 
 work. 
 
 It is the dialectic process of play that it end 
 by becoming work. Carry out the practice of 
 anything and its natural results are its dialectic. 
 The child starts with a stick for a horse and ends 
 only with getting a real horse to ride and drive. 
 There were many steps on the way: First a 
 horse's head to his stick, then a bridle and a whip, 
 then a chair represents a horse and wagon, then 
 a playmate is harnessed as a horse, then a hobby-
 
 EDITOR'S PREFACE. jx 
 
 horse with all the limbs of a horse and with a 
 close imitation of external appearance, then per- 
 haps a dog or a goat harnessed to a toy wagon, 
 then the real horse. 
 
 All the steps in the ascent involve new con- 
 cepts of what is necessary to the real causality. 
 In a causation series the child can now think by 
 definitions and not merely by pictures. This mat- 
 ter of thinking-by-definitions ought to be carefully 
 studied by the teacher in the primary school. 
 
 The belief that concepts or general notions 
 are mental images is very prevalent among psy- 
 chologists. But it would be more correct to say 
 that general notions are not mental images so 
 much as definitions. A definition must state 
 an identity with something else, and a differ- 
 ence. In a mere mental picture identity and dif- 
 ference are not distinctly brought to attention. 
 In the symbolic stage of the mind the distinction 
 between the particular individual and the general 
 class is not fully developed. ^Yhen the child 
 plays or makes believe that this stick is a horse, 
 the identity is brought out, but the difference is 
 kept out of sight and ignored. AYhen the soul is 
 compared to breath and the breath is made a sym- 
 bol of the soul, a slender thread of identity is 
 brought into prominence and the vast field of 
 difference is dropped out of sight. The progress 
 of the child in power of thought is indicated by 
 his ability to analyze by separating the sameness, 
 identity, or resemblance from the differences 
 which manifest themselves. When the child notes 
 a resemblance and classifies an object, and at the
 
 X THE STUDY OF THE CHILD. 
 
 same time notes differences, he has arrived at the 
 stage in which he thinks a definition. The defi- 
 nition first states the object's identity or resem- 
 blance to something else, and secondly points out 
 the difference. This is a bird,- it is yellow. The 
 result is the concept yellow bird; general class, 
 bird; difference or limitation of the class bird to 
 birds of a yellow color. This bird is an eagle, 
 this bird is bald-headed: result, definition of the 
 subclass, bald-headed eagle. 
 
 Now, it is important in entering upon child 
 study to note carefully the difference between 
 thinking with an image and thinking-with-a-defi- 
 nition. The mind of the person mature in 
 thought as well as the mind of the first beginner 
 forms images when he thinks general notions or 
 concepts, but the mature thinker will notice that 
 when he thinks an image he immediately notes its 
 limitations and its inadequateness to correspond to 
 the general definition which constitutes the essen- 
 tial part of the general notion. When the word 
 " horse " is mentioned I think at first of a gray 
 horse, then I notice that I am imaging a special 
 kind of horse and I imagine a sorrel-colored horse, 
 and then a larger horse; one in the attitude of 
 standing still, another in the attitude of running 
 fast. A series of images are formed and dismissed 
 as quickly as formed. In this the mind acts with- 
 out reflecting upon its action. It makes images 
 and at the same time notes that these images are 
 mere examples or illustrations of the general con- 
 cept, and that they do not exhaust it. 
 
 The child at first forms vague and general no-
 
 EDITOR'S PREFACE. xi 
 
 tions. He does not seize particular objects witli 
 all their distinguishing characteristics. He makes 
 out only a very few general marks or attributes. 
 He classes together objects which a more experi- 
 enced power of thought distinguishes. 
 
 Just as the child loses his interest in play when 
 he comes to recognize numerous steps in the caus- 
 ation process, so the child gives up his symbolic 
 thinking, and with it his exclusive reliance on 
 mental pictures, when he comes to notice not only 
 identities but differences. His first definitions are 
 those founded on external appearance. But with 
 the growth of his mind and the observation of the 
 process of causation he comes to note the function 
 of the object and its actions, and he makes his 
 definitions describe acts of causation. With his 
 progress in observing causation the child attains 
 independence of thinking and confidence in him- 
 self. 
 
 Imitation partakes of the nature of symboliz- 
 ing, and it forms a very large element in play. 
 It marks the first beginnings of education. The 
 child who begins to imitate gives evidence of self- 
 consciousness. He notices the activity of another 
 fellow-being and recognizes that activity as pro- 
 ceeding from an energy or will power akin to the 
 power which he himself possesses. He proves to 
 himself the possession of that power by imitating 
 the action in which he is interested. It is evident 
 that imitation, therefore, is a kind of spiritual 
 assimilation, a digesting and making one's own of 
 the act of another. Of course, the purpose is not 
 conscious, but it is really present all the same.
 
 xii THE STUDY OF THE CHILD, 
 
 Whenever children show a passionate interest 
 in discovering properties and qualities in things 
 it is high time for them to leave the kindergarten 
 and take up the work of learning conventional 
 signs, reading, writing, arithmetic, the technical 
 terms of geography, etc. 
 
 So, too, whenever the child loves to trace chains 
 of causation by noticing the effect of other objects 
 upon the thing which he is studying, and when he 
 loves to trace out the effects of the function of 
 his object upon its environment, we note the same 
 ripeness and maturity of the child which enables 
 him to take up work beyond the scope of the kin- 
 dergarten. Such a child can not find symbolic 
 plays and games perfectly congenial to him. He 
 has obtained a higher stage of individual culture 
 and seeks gratification which comes from testing 
 his power of analysis on the external world. He 
 has come to a stage of thinking above the sym- 
 bolic. 
 
 The child outgrows his feeble state of mind, 
 wherein he takes the dead result for the true real- 
 ity, and gradually acquires the ability to think 
 the forces and powers, the causal energies, which 
 bring things into existence and transform those 
 things into other things. 
 
 Imitation has the same course of development 
 as the symbolic thought which passes over into 
 thinking-by-definitions. At first imitation copies 
 the merest external appearances. But it gradually 
 gets possession of the motives and purposes of the 
 action; finally, the imitator may arrive at the 
 fundamental principle which originates the action.
 
 EDITOR'S PREFACE. xiii 
 
 Then the imitator finds no longer his guide and 
 rule in an external model. He finds the rule for 
 his action in his own mind and becomes original. 
 
 The child imitates an external object. It may 
 be another person or it may be an animal or a 
 thing. His imitation is, as I have said, an act of 
 assimilation, an act of making for himself that 
 which he sees made by another, and thereby prov- 
 ing his own causative power. By this action of 
 imitation he therefore grows toward the feeling 
 of responsibility. The act as performed by an- 
 other is none of his. The act as imitated by him- 
 self is his own and he is responsible for it. Imi- 
 tation is therefore an act of the will, just as sym- 
 bolism and thinking-by-definitions is an act .of 
 the intellect. But the first beginnings of imita- 
 tion deal with the merest externalities of the ac- 
 tion imitated. It is the " dialectic " of imitation 
 to leave these externals and strive for a more and 
 more internal relation toward that which it imi- 
 tates. It seizes the motives and purposes of the 
 action and it sees the logical necessity for these 
 purposes and motives. It connects them more 
 and more with its own fundamental principle of 
 action. At last, when it performs the imitated 
 act as an expression of its own purposes and con- 
 victions, imitation has become originality. 
 
 The child should not be hastened unduly in 
 his progress out of symbolism. As long as he has 
 interest and a real delight in the symbol he should 
 be indulged in its employment. So, too, with 
 regard to imitation. The judicious teacher will 
 not seek to deepen the child's insight into motives 
 3
 
 xiv THE STUDY OF THE CHILD. 
 
 and purposes and arouse a too early feeling of re- 
 sponsibility in his mind. In most cases the pres- 
 sure of the society in which the child lives — a so- 
 ciety mostly of grown persons possessed of a deep 
 feeling of responsibility — will hasten the child's 
 development into a view of moral purpose quite 
 soon enough. 
 
 W. T. Harris. - 
 
 Washington, D. C, 3Iay 12, 189S.
 
 EXPLANATOKY. 
 
 For twenty years the subject of Child Study 
 has been growing into prominence in all parts of 
 this country, and many interesting and valuable 
 papers and reports on various phases of the sub- 
 ject have been published from time to time in lead- 
 ing educational journals. Child study societies 
 have been formed in scores of cities, and several 
 State societies are doing a great work in conduct- 
 ing inquiries on an extensive scale. Several nor- 
 mal schools and colleges have been enlisted, and 
 progressive teachers in all classes of schools, to- 
 gether with thousands of mothers, have assisted 
 the investigators by noting and reporting a multi- 
 tude of facts about the life of the child as^it comes 
 into the world and grows into youth and manhood. 
 These observations cover the development of the 
 senses, the growth of perception and of the other 
 mental activities, the awakening of the moral 
 sense ; the emotions, the occupations, the language, 
 the ambitions of children; the ideas which chil- 
 dren have of their rights, of their duties to each 
 other, of punishment, of natural phenomena, of 
 God; the influence of environment, tosrether with
 
 xvi THE STUDY OP THE CHILD. 
 
 many other subjects entering into the physical and 
 mental history of the child. 
 
 So startling have been the results of these in- 
 vestigations that they are already forcing a re- 
 statement of several pedagogical principles and a 
 general readjustment of school work and methods, 
 particularly in the primary and intermediate 
 grades. They are also greatly modifying the train- 
 ing of the children in many homes and are quick- 
 ening the teachers to increased activity and to an 
 interest in the child, which promises great things 
 in the near future. 
 
 The principal aim of this book has been to 
 bring the subject within the comprehension of the 
 average teacher and parent. Technical terms and 
 scientific formula have been avoided as much as 
 possible. The desire to announce new principles 
 has been wholly subservient to that of wishing to 
 serve my fellow-workers by assisting them to a 
 closer relationship with the child. One has well 
 said, " It is strange that the child should "be the 
 last of all God's creatures to be studied scientifical- 
 ly." It is still more strange, however, that we have 
 been content to teach children so long without 
 knowing more about them as individuals. In ex- 
 plaining the work of a certain church, a lady said, 
 " It's folks we're after, not things," and- it is high 
 time that we get after the child as much as after 
 the things we teach him. 
 
 ISTo time has been spent on anatomical descrip- 
 tions; they can easily be found in current text- 
 books on physiology. Teachers and parents gener- 
 ally think it extremely difficult to pursue the study
 
 EXPLANATORY. xvii 
 
 of the child without at least a fair understanding 
 of the elements of psychology. They often forget 
 that the study will give them that very knowledge 
 and that, properly pursued, it is the best possible 
 introduction 1;o psychology in general. So many 
 of the outlines and syllabi submitted for their guid- 
 ance presuppose such knowledge that few under- 
 take to follow them. Every chapter in this book 
 is an attempt to organize the knowledge already 
 possessed by those who know little or nothing of 
 scientific psychology, and to assist them to in- 
 quiries which will give a clearer apprehension of 
 the nature and possibilities of the child. 
 
 Much child study, so called, has been done in 
 such an aimless, fragmentary way that its results 
 have been discouraging to some of its best friends. 
 If these pages assist in dignifying and systematiz- 
 ing the study, the author will be amply repaid. 
 
 Little claim is made to originality in the fol- 
 lowing chapters. Many of the books and period- 
 icals named in the bibliography have served me in 
 greater or less degree, and I cheerfully acknowledge 
 my obligations to the authors for whatever of merit 
 may appear. A reasonable proportion of whatever 
 there may be of the opposite character the kind 
 reader will also charge to them. 
 
 I wish also to acknowledge my obligations to 
 several members of the faculty of the State for- 
 mal School for helpful suggestions. 
 
 A. R. Taylor. 
 
 State Normal School, Emporia, Kansas, 
 June 1, 1898.
 
 Hilda and Josephine grew into icomanhood as 
 fast friends. Hilda married a poor but honest 
 carpenter, and Josephine married a man of large 
 estates who builded her a princely house. He took 
 her to Europe and they visited all the great cities 
 that she might purchase rare treasures for its 
 furnishings. When all was put in place at home, 
 Josephine sent for Hilda arid showed her through 
 every room. But as often as she finished explain- 
 ing the figures on the carpets, the gracefid folds 
 of the draperies, the rich carvings of the furni- 
 ture, the meanings of the pictures and the statu- 
 ary that the masters had painted and chiseled, 
 Hilda ivould say ivith a smile, ''It is indeed beau- 
 tiful, but there is something more beautiful than 
 that.''' In disappointment, Josephine ashed, 
 ''Hilda, what could be more beautiful f'' Hilda 
 slipped her arm into Josephine's, as of old, and 
 said, "Come ivith me.'''' They soon reached Hilda^s 
 humble home, ivith its plain but scrupidously 
 clean white ivalls and doors. Little finger marks 
 ivere seen on the door frame as they entered and a 
 glad laugh greeted them from a ruddy-faced babe 
 in the cradle. Hilda turned and said, "Josephine, 
 there is nothing in all your grand home so beau- 
 tiful as those finger marks on the door and the 
 merry prattle of my siveet babe I " Tears started 
 to Josephine''s eyes as she folded her friend to her 
 breast and said, "Hilda, you are right.'" — After 
 Eugene Field.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 I. — The senses. — Organic ]. 
 II. — The senses (continued). — Temperature 
 III. — The senses (continued). — Taste . 
 IV. — The senses (continued). — Smell . 
 V. — The senses (continued). — Touch . 
 VI.^ — The senses (continued). — Hearing 
 VII. — The senses (continued).— Sight . 
 VIII. — The senses (continued). — General func 
 
 TIONS 
 
 IX. — Consciousness and apperception . 
 X. — Apperception (continued). — Attention 
 
 XI. — Symbolism 
 
 XII. — Language 
 
 XIII. — Muscular or motor control 
 
 54 
 60 
 69 
 76 
 84 
 93 
 106 
 115 
 
 XIV.— The feelings 
 
 XV. — The will and its functions 
 XVI. — The intellect and its functions. — Per- 
 ception, memory, and imagination . . 124 
 XVII. — The intellect and its functions (contin- 
 ued). — Conception, judgment, reasoning 137 
 
 xxi
 
 xxu 
 
 THE STUDY OF THE CHILD. 
 
 CHAPTER 
 
 XVIII. — The self, habit, and character 
 XIX. — Children's instincts and plays 
 XX. — Manners and morals . 
 — XXI. — Normals and abnormals 
 - XXII. — Stages of growth, fatigue poin 
 XXIII. — Conclusions .... 
 Bibliography .... 
 
 t, etc. 
 
 PAGK 
 151 
 
 159 
 1G8 
 179 
 195 
 208 
 311
 
 ANALYSIS OF CONTENTS. 
 
 Preface by the editor, pages v to xiv. 
 
 I. Symbolic vs. conventional. 
 
 i. How the child outgrows the symbolic. 
 
 3. Concepts not mental pictures but definitions. 
 
 4. Imitation and how it grows into originality. 
 
 Pages xxxvii to xliii. 
 
 INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 5. The infinite possibilities of the child. 
 
 6. Various definitions of education. 
 
 7. Subjects of instruction as a means. 
 
 8. The study of the child is the study of the 
 
 man. 
 
 9. How and where children are to be studied. 
 
 10. The relation of this knowledge to education. 
 
 11. Suggestions and cautions. 
 
 12. The place to begin. 
 
 Chapter I, pages i to 6. 
 
 THE ORGANIC SENSES. 
 
 13. How the child wakes to conscious life. 
 
 14. The significance of a sense-defect.
 
 xxiv THE STUDY OP THE CHILD. 
 
 15. The need for intelligent management. 
 
 16. The organic senses proper. 
 
 17. Their relation to the child's temperament. 
 
 18. The errors of ignorance. 
 
 Chapter II, pages 7 to 11. 
 
 THE SENSE OF TEMPERATURE. 
 
 19. Warm, cold, and neutral spots. 
 
 20. Differences in the temperature of children. 
 
 21. Skin diseases involved in this sense. 
 
 22. Relation of temperature to work and order. 
 
 23. Tests for normal temperature. 
 
 24. First sense to give knowledge of external 
 
 world. 
 
 25. Practical value of this sense. 
 
 Chapter III, pages 12 to 17. 
 
 THE SENSE OF TASTE. 
 
 26. The origin and growth of taste. 
 
 27. Necessity for its proper cultivation. 
 
 28. The function of taste in knowledge-getting. 
 
 29. Its value in the arts and sciences. 
 
 Chapter IV, pages 18 to 2}. 
 
 THE SENSE OF SMELL. 
 
 30. Its order in intellectual value. 
 
 31. Relation to the physical well-being of the 
 
 child. 
 
 32. Diseases of the organ, symptoms and sug- 
 
 gestions.
 
 ANALYSIS OF CONTENTS. xxv 
 
 ;^^. The aesthetic value of smell. 
 
 34. Its value in the arts and sciences. 
 
 Chapter V, pages 24 to 30. 
 
 THE SENSE OF TOUCH. 
 
 35. Its nature. 
 
 ;^6. Its function in giving knowledge of the ex- 
 ternal world. 
 
 37. Its various functions in the physical economy. 
 
 38. Distinction between passive and active touch. 
 
 39. The office of symbolism in touch. 
 
 40. The extent of its cultivation — Helen Kellar. 
 
 Chapter VI, pages 31 to 40. 
 
 THE SENSE OF HEARING. 
 
 41. How it differs from the senses already named. 
 
 42. Stage of development at birth. 
 
 43. Necessity for its careful protection. 
 
 44. Its great intellectual value in giving knowl- 
 
 edge [a) through pitch, (/') through in- 
 tensity, (c) through quality or timbre, (d) 
 of direction, (e) of distance. 
 
 45. Its aesthetic value. 
 
 46. Its practical value. 
 
 47. Relation to language. 
 
 Chapter VII, pages 41 to 53. 
 
 THE SENSE OF SIGHT. 
 
 48. The king of the senses. 
 
 49. How the newborn child sees.
 
 xxvi THE STUDY OF THE CHILD. 
 
 50. Its intellectual value. 
 
 51. The knowledge given by the purely visual 
 
 function of the eye. 
 
 52. The union of the visual and muscular sensa- 
 
 tions. 
 
 53. Dependence of sight upon touch — symbolism. 
 
 54. The aesthetic value of sight. 
 
 55. The care of the eye — diseases and tests. 
 
 Chapter VIII, pages 54 to 59. 
 
 GENERAL FUNCTIONS OF THE SENSES. 
 
 56. The means of communicating with the exter- 
 
 nal world. 
 
 57. The action of the sensory nerves. 
 
 58. The dependence of the mind upon the deli- 
 
 .cacy of the senses. 
 
 59. The sensation continuum. 
 
 60. Relative prominence of sensations in the life 
 
 of the child and adult. 
 
 61. How the senses are cultivated. 
 
 Chapter IX, pages 60 to 68. 
 
 CONSCIOUSNESS AND APPERCEPTION. 
 
 62. The bridge from the physical to the mental. 
 
 63. How sensations come into consciousness. 
 
 64. The rise of the idea of identity and difference. 
 
 65. The process of apperception. 
 
 66. How knowledge and experience organize a 
 
 child. 
 
 67. The law of apperception. 
 
 68. The law of association.
 
 ANALYSIS OF CONTENTS. - xxvii 
 
 Chapter X, pages 69 to 75. 
 
 ArrERCEPTION (continued) — ATTENTION, 
 
 69. The function of interest. 
 
 70. Value, the law of. 
 
 71. The law of interest. 
 
 72. The law of disengagement or dissociation. 
 
 73. Attention and concentration. 
 
 74. Accuracy, rapidity, and comprehension in 
 
 attention. 
 
 75. Apperception — when complete. 
 
 76. Definition of relation. 
 
 Chapter XI, pages 76 to 83. , 
 
 SYMBOLISM. 
 
 77. An object the expression of an idea. 
 
 78. Words as symbols. 
 
 79. The symbolizing power of sensations. 
 
 80. Symbolism in mythology, religion, philoso- 
 
 phy. 
 
 81. The story of the symbols. 
 
 82. The meaning of symbols is universal. 
 
 83. Gradations in symbols. 
 
 Chapter XII, pages 84 to q2. 
 
 LANGUAGE. 
 
 84. Symbolism makes language possible. 
 
 85. Children invent language. 
 
 86. How children learn the meaning of words— 
 
 I, 2, 3, 4, 5.
 
 xxviii THE STUDY OP THE CHILD. 
 
 87. The differences in the language of children 
 
 — their cause. 
 
 88. Learning words by imitation. 
 
 89. Function of words in memory. 
 
 90. Suggestions for inquiries. 
 
 91. Transition periods in the use of words. 
 
 92. Transition from the oral to the written word. 
 
 Chapter XIII, pages 93 to 105. 
 
 MUSCULAR OR MOTOR CONTROL. 
 
 93. Relation of sensory and motor nerves. 
 
 94. Movement originates in reflex actions. 
 
 95. The motive power in physical impulse; defi- 
 
 nition of impulse. 
 
 96. The child's organism set up with " com- 
 
 pressed springs." 
 
 97. Mental origin of certain impulses. 
 
 98. How control develops. 
 
 99. Differences in physical control in children. 
 100. Relation to education. 
 
 loi. Motor control in gesture, speech, drawing, 
 writing, vision, facial expression, and man- 
 ual dexterity in general. 
 
 102. Causes of inability to control the movements 
 
 of any organ. 
 
 103. Kinds of movements best adapted to the 
 
 younger children. 
 
 104. Relation of thought and action. 
 
 105. Relation of nerve centers to muscular con- 
 
 trol. Dr. Emerson's views.
 
 ANALYSIS OF CONTENTS. xxix 
 
 Chapter XIV, pages io6 to 114. 
 
 THE FEELINGS. 
 
 106. The nature of feelings in general. 
 
 107. Sensations as feelings. 
 
 108. Emotions ; origin and relation to mental ac^ 
 
 tivity. 
 
 109. The mingling of sensations and emotions, 
 no. Relation of emotional nature and physical 
 
 organism. 
 
 111. Classification of emotions. 
 
 112. Affections — loves and likes. 
 
 113. Origin and growth of the affections in chil- 
 
 dren. 
 
 114. Desires and their relation to impulse. 
 
 Chapter XV, pages 115 to 123. 
 
 THE WILL AND ITS FUNCTIONS. 
 
 115. The elements of the will in voluntary bodily 
 
 activity. 
 
 116. Definition and origin of wnll activity. 
 
 117. Desires in relation to the will. 
 
 118. Choice, motive, and volition. 
 
 119. The idealizing and realizing functions of the 
 
 will. 
 
 120. Intellectual control. 
 
 121. Control economizes time and energy. 
 
 122. Practical and prudential control. 
 
 123. Suggested lines of investigation. 
 
 124. The educational process as affected by the 
 
 will, 
 3
 
 XXX THE STUDY OF THE CHILD. 
 
 125. The reactive effect of the various kinds 
 
 of control upon the character of the 
 child. 
 
 126. These forces lead to moral control. 
 
 Chapter XVI, pages 124 to 136. 
 
 THE INTELLECT AND ITS FUNCTIONS — PERCEPTION, MEMORY, 
 AND IMAGINATION. 
 
 127. Consciousness, apperception, and attention 
 
 have already been explained. 
 
 128. Definition of perception — its relation to ap- 
 
 perception. 
 
 129. The laws of association apply to perception 
 
 as well as to apperception. 
 
 130. Experimenting in perception. 
 
 131. Memory and its functions : (a) As related to 
 
 perception and apperception ; [d) as re- 
 lated to the reasoning process; (r) as re- 
 lated to prudential control ; (d) as related 
 to our happiness; (e) as related to lan- 
 guage. 
 
 132. Recollection is memory under the control 
 
 and direction of the will. 
 
 133. Suggested inquiries on memory and recol- 
 
 lection. 
 
 134. Conditions of memory. 
 
 135. Imagination — nature and functions. 
 
 136. Kinds of imagination : [a) Mechanical, (^) 
 
 fancy, (c) creative. 
 
 137. Testing the imagination of children.
 
 ANALYSIS OF CONTENTS. xxxi 
 
 138. Relation of the three image-building activities 
 
 — perception, memory, and imagination. 
 
 139. Active and passive phases of imagination. 
 
 140. The cultivation of the imagination. 
 
 Chapter XVII, pages 137 to 150. 
 
 THE INTELLECT AND ITS FUNCTIONS (CONTINCED) CONCEP- 
 TION, JUDGMENT, AND REASONING. 
 
 141. The twofold significance of the term con- 
 
 ception. 
 
 142. Process of the development of a conception. 
 
 143. Definition and illustration of conception. 
 
 144. Analysis of the process: (i) Attention and 
 
 isolation ; (2) comparison ; (3) abstrac- 
 tion ; (4) synthesis. 
 
 145. Suggested experiments with the child. 
 
 146. Definition and function of judgment. 
 
 147. Elements in a judgment. 
 
 148. Accuracy depends upon — i, 2, 3. 
 
 149. The way the child judges. 
 
 150. Judgment as implicit reasoning. 
 
 151. Definition of the reasoning process. 
 
 152. The syllogism and its elements. 
 
 153. The deductive process explained. 
 
 154. The inductive process and its functions. 
 
 155. The nature of proof; depends upon obser- 
 
 vation, experimentation, and reasoning. 
 
 156. The physical side to reasoning and the other 
 
 mental activities. 
 
 157. The origin and development of the reason- 
 
 ing faculty in the child.
 
 xxxii THE STUDY OF TEE CHILD. 
 
 Chapter XVllI, pages 151 to 158. 
 
 THE SELF, HABIT, AND CHARACTER. 
 
 158. The definition of self. 
 
 159. How the child makes himself. 
 
 160. Definition and functions of habit. 
 
 161. Education and habit. 
 
 162. Habit and character. 
 
 163. Origin and kinds of habit. 
 
 164. Suggested inquiries on children's habits. 
 
 165. Effect of plays. 
 
 Chapter XIX, pages 159 to 167, 
 
 children's instincts and plays. 
 
 166. Instincts and impulses. 
 
 167. The order in which instincts develop. 
 
 168. The various products of instincts and im- 
 
 pulses. 
 
 169. The social instinct, the impulse to fellow- 
 
 ship. 
 
 170. How it develops in the child. 
 
 171. The plays of children, their nature and im- 
 
 portance. 
 
 172. The most popular plays; the range needs 
 
 revision. 
 
 173. Children should be taught how to play. 
 
 174. Play as related to the child's future occu- 
 
 pations. 
 
 175. Effects of play upon the child's social life.
 
 ANALYSIS OP CONTENTS. xxxiii 
 
 Chapter XX, pages 168 to 178. 
 
 MANNERS AND MORALS. 
 
 176. The relation of the social to the moral in- 
 
 stinct. 
 
 177. Some code of manners common to all people. 
 
 178. Politeness should not be confused with good 
 
 manners. 
 
 179. The development of good manners in chil- 
 
 dren largely dependent upon good man- 
 ners in the home. 
 
 180. The virtues that lie at the basis of good 
 
 manners. 
 
 181. Suggested inquiries concerning the manners 
 
 of children. 
 
 182. Origin of the moral instinct. 
 
 183. Relation of moral to prudential control. 
 
 184. The child's first impulses are to be true; 
 
 illustrations. 
 
 185. When moral character appears. 
 
 186. Tests for the children. 
 
 187. The three elements in moral culture — right 
 
 knowing, right loving, and right doing. 
 
 188. Conscience defined and analyzed — i, 2, 3, 
 
 4. 5- 
 
 189. The development of right motives is the 
 
 most delicate problem in education. 
 
 190. Simple rules for their development — i, 2, 3, 
 
 4, 5, 6.
 
 xxxiv THE STUDY OF THE CHILD. 
 Chapter XXI, pages 179 to 194. 
 
 NORMALS AND ABNORMALS. 
 
 191. Distinction between normals and abnormals. 
 
 192. Precocious and defective children. 
 
 193. Inherited diseases and deformities may be 
 
 due (a) to similar diseases or deformities 
 in parents, {^) to constitutional weakness 
 of parents, or (c) to bad habits of parents. 
 Authorities cited in support of statement. 
 
 194. Inherited physical deformity usually means 
 
 mental deformity. Maudsley's views. 
 
 195. The gradations from the strictly normal, to 
 
 the completely unbalanced mind. Super- 
 intendent Klock's conclusions. 
 
 196. Relation of physical and mental defectives 
 
 to moral defectives. 
 
 197. Four classes of moral defectives. 
 
 198. Causes of moral defection: (a) Heredity; 
 
 (<^) environment ; (c) education and train- 
 ing. 
 
 199. Illustrations of the injustice of teachers and 
 
 others in the treatment of offenders. 
 
 200. Belated development in children — causes and 
 
 remedies. 
 
 201. Suggested investigations. Time to be given 
 
 to abnormals.
 
 ANALYSIS OF CONTENTS. xxxv 
 
 Chapter XXII, pages 193 to 207. 
 
 STAGES OF GROWTH, FaTIGUE POINT, ETC. 
 
 202. Infancy, childhood, and youth ; character- 
 
 istics of each. Changes in transition from 
 one to another. 
 
 203. Ideals and motives changing; methods of 
 
 management must change also. 
 
 204. Stage of development should determine the 
 
 kind of punishment to be administered. 
 
 205. The fatigue point in children — illustrations; 
 
 causes and remedies; school programs. 
 
 206. The aesthetic instinct — its origin, growth, and 
 
 function ; relation to the true and the good. 
 
 207. The unconscious or subconscious influences 
 
 that affect the child. Waldstein's views 
 of the relation of the conscious and un- 
 conscious influences. Illustrations of the 
 effect of the latter upon language, upon 
 character. 
 
 208. The general function of sympathy ; origin 
 
 of sympathy. The test of the true teacher. 
 
 Chapter XXIII, pages 208 to 210. 
 
 CONCLUSIONS. 
 
 209. Topics suggested for additional study. 
 
 210. Teachers' clubs; mothers' clubs. 
 
 211. Bibliography.
 
 INTKODUCTOEY. 
 
 If asked for the name of that which is at once 
 most like and most unlike God, almost any one 
 would answer, Tlie lobe in the cradle. In it are 
 all the attributes of God, but they are there in 
 potentia only. They are there in kind, but in the 
 least quantity that can possibly exist. God has 
 the same attributes, but in quantity limitless, in 
 knowledge boundless, in majesty supreme. Be- 
 tween these two extremes are men in all stages of 
 development. If we represent the progress or the 
 growth of the child toward God by a triangle, we 
 shall find the babe at the apex, h, the youth slight- 
 ly out on the base line at y, and the growing man 
 
 at different stages, m, m', m", m'", beyond, in vary- 
 ing development up toward God standing at the 
 other end of the base and filling the triangle at an 
 infinite distance away. How near the apex" some 
 men remain ! How far on toward God some men 
 advance ! Who knows just where stand Moses
 
 xxxviii THE STUDY OF THE CHILD. 
 
 and Plato and Paul and Bacon and Milton and 
 Kepler and Newton and Knox and Mozart and 
 Wesley, and all that mighty host of men who 
 walked amid the stars and dared to think God's 
 thoughts after him? On, on to the right, away 
 beyond the ken of ordinary mortals, they are still 
 advancing in wisdom and power that one day, it 
 is said reverently, shall make them approach even 
 to God himself. 
 
 Here lies in my hand a young bird; all it can 
 be, all it can do, may now be written at once by 
 any one. Who dare say what that babe lying in 
 yonder cradle shall be and do? Who is able to 
 place a limit upon the result of its efforts at reach- 
 ing up toward the Infinite? 
 
 Various attempts have been made to state the 
 object of education. Plato would have it to be the 
 perfection of all the powers of man. Dante de- 
 clared it to be to fit man for eternity. Milton 
 thought it to be to regain what man lost in 
 Adam's fall., Spencer says that it is to prepare 
 man for complete living. Rosenkranz makes the 
 object to be to develop the theoretical t.nd practical 
 reason in man, to give him freedom. Few, how- 
 ever, seem to emphasize fully the idea that its end 
 is to advance the youth in his efforts to become 
 like the Infinite. In his image is he created, and 
 every activity exerted should be a striving to real- 
 ize the possibilities thus assured. 
 
 Much has been written upon the sacredness of 
 the child and the great responsibility resting upon 
 parent and teacher; but however keenly any one 
 may have felt it all, there come a weightier sig-
 
 INTRODUCTORY. xxxix 
 
 nificance and a deeper meaning as this liiglier end 
 of education becomes more clear. He no longer 
 teaches geography and arithmetic as an end but as 
 a means. He no longer finds satisfaction in dis- 
 covering that his children know all al)out trade 
 winds and simooms, about Aristides and George 
 Washington, about the Faerie Queene and Evange- 
 line, but rather in discovering that their minds 
 are growing in power to think and that they are 
 enlarging in grasp and vision with each day's 
 efforts. 
 
 In studying the child, we are in reality study- 
 ing the man. In studying it, we are enabled to 
 see the steps by which the material becomes spir- 
 itual, blind physical impulse becomes unerring 
 skill, the finite becomes the infinite. The proper 
 study of mankind is man, but he who knows not 
 the child will never know the man. 
 
 All other sciences center around the science of 
 the child, for there is no other which does not 
 contribute in some way to our understanding of 
 him. Those upon which we must depend most 
 directly are, of course, anatomy, physiology, and 
 hygiene, with all their various subdivisions; ethics, 
 logic, and psychology, including their genetic and 
 practical phases. It Avas out of the study of man 
 that these sciences came, and on that account they 
 are valuable as guides to the study of the child. 
 
 No one can profitably engage in child study 
 without children to study — not one child only, but 
 many children. Some valuable contributions to 
 the subject have been made by those who have 
 devoted their time to the study of one child, but
 
 xl THE STUDY OF THE CHILD. 
 
 only as the results of a large number of such in- 
 vestigations are collated can any reliable infer- 
 ences be drawn. Reading about children is not 
 studying children, and little good will come of it. 
 They must be studied in their homes, in their 
 plays, in the schoolroom, at their work, at their 
 books, asleep, awake, alone, with their inferiors 
 and their superiors, in moments of despondency 
 and in moments of triumph, wherever they may 
 reveal themselves to us and wherever we' may be 
 able to gain admittance to their real selves. Some 
 children will be found apt, wide-awake, aggressive; 
 others slow, sluggish, passive. Some have perfect 
 physical organisms, others defective eyesight or 
 hearing, or possibly a growing deformity in limb 
 or body. Some imitate instantly, others have lit- 
 tle motor control. Some are as lovable as angels; 
 others vicious to an extreme. Some will be found 
 simple and natural; others artificial and affected; 
 some tractable, others unmanageable. 
 
 But these discoveries are worth nothing, if the 
 study of the children ends here. A physician is 
 of no value if he stops w^hen he has taken the 
 diagnosis of a case. He must now proceed with 
 the application of a remedy, a process that requires 
 even greater skill. So the student of the child 
 must immediately set about to discover the most 
 economic means and methods of correcting the 
 defects in the child and of stimulating its nor- 
 mal activities. All these investigations should re- 
 sult in giving us an idea of what constitutes a 
 normal child and in helping to understand the 
 laws of his development. Many people are as ex- 
 
 >>*
 
 INTRODUCTORY. xli 
 
 acting in their demands of the child as they are of 
 a full-groAvn man or woman, forgetting absolutely 
 the great difference between the two — physically, 
 mentally, and morally. It is of vital importance 
 that we know what we may expect of the child. 
 ISTearly as many children are ruined by the un- 
 reasonable demands made upon them as by the 
 neglect sadly too common. How quickly and gen- 
 erously do the flowers respond to the tender, in- 
 telligent touch of the housewife— and yet even 
 more generously does the child respond to the 
 solicitations of one who knows its impulses and 
 sympathizes with its every need. 
 
 Much of value will be found in recalling one^s 
 childhood and the experiences and impressions of 
 those days when the heart was young and the 
 mind was thrilling at its first acquaintance with 
 things that long since have been regarded as 
 commonplace and insignificant. This process 
 helps us to put ourselves in the place of the child, 
 and to think and feel as he thinks and feels. 
 Memory may not be very clear on many points, 
 but what does reappear brings us much nearer to 
 the child than we were before. 
 
 Caution should always be observed and hasty 
 generalizations avoided. One swallow does not 
 make a summer, neither does one observation es- 
 tablish a law. The slightest change in conditions 
 has overthrown many a finely spun theory. We 
 are dealing with the mind, not with physical 
 forces. The most sensitive instrument ever in- 
 vented by man does not compare with it in deli- 
 cacy. The impulses that direct its activities come
 
 xlii THE STUDY OP THE CHILD. 
 
 from depths that no plummet has yet fathomed, 
 and progress must necessarily be slow. 
 
 Do not forget that the study you are asked 
 to make is not necessarily for the purpose of 
 contributing the results to the profession in gen- 
 eral, but rather for the particular benefit of your 
 particular children and of yourself as their 
 teacher. Your enlightenment and their advance- 
 ment are more important than anything else. 
 Let love and interest in them and in them alone 
 l^rompt you in it all. 
 
 Child study generally begins with the babe's 
 first conscious movements, though an exhaustive 
 treatment of the subject would include its pre- 
 natal life as well. Those of our readers who may 
 care to know more of the various views of the 
 genesis of certain physical and mental activities 
 would do well to consult Perez's First Three Years 
 of Childhood, Preyer's The Senses and the Will, 
 and Compayre's Intellectual and Moral Develop- 
 ment of the Child. 
 
 The mystery of conscious life, both in its ori- 
 gin and development, confronts us at the very 
 beginning of the study. No other phenomenon in 
 the universe approaches it in sublimity, no other 
 so fascinates us by its delicate subtleness. The 
 force of gravitation that holds the stars in their 
 courses, the fervent heat that melts down moun- 
 tains and tosses them into the sky, the bolt of 
 lightning that shivers the towering monarchs of 
 the forest, powerful though they be, know not 
 themselves nor direct a single one of their myriad 
 activities. That strange and wonderful attribute,
 
 INTRODUCTORY. xliii 
 
 conscious life, is reserved for the child, the man. 
 It sits ruler and king over every activity of tlie 
 soul and over the mighty forces that hitherto have 
 recognized no master save their Creator. 
 
 As the senses awaken the child into this con- 
 scious life, they are treated in the opening chap- 
 ters.
 
 THE STUDY OP THE CHILD. 
 
 CHAPTEE I. 
 
 THE SENSES. — ORGANIC. 
 
 It is through the senses that the child wakes 
 to conscious life, through them that he becomes ac- 
 quainted with the outer world, which he is to know 
 and of which he is to become a counterpart. With- 
 out them the child lies dormant in his cradle, 
 sleeping away his days, not even knowing of an 
 outer world, nor dreaming of his own mighty pos- 
 sibilities. With his senses he explores the universe 
 round about him and eventually becomes its mas- 
 ter. Upon their sensitiveness and perfection his 
 progress depends. No greater joy comes to a new 
 mother than the assurance that the child has a 
 perfect body and perfect eyes and ears, but it is 
 seldom that she recognizes the full significance of 
 such a boon. Those eyes and ears are not only 
 to enable him to place himself in space and com- 
 municate with his fellows, but to furnish him the 
 materials, the food upon which his mind is to feed 
 and grow. They are not only to give him a knowl- 
 edge of the sensuous world round about him, but 
 also of those higher relations and harmonies that 
 knit soul with soul and with the Infinite. 
 4 1
 
 2 THE STUDY OP THE CHILD. 
 
 It is important that mother and teacher know 
 at once the tremendous significance of any phys- 
 ical defect, particularly as it may in any way per- 
 tain to the nervous system of the child. What- 
 ever disturbs or obstructs, however slightly, the 
 natural and spontaneous movement of tli« sensor 
 or motor activities may have a vast influence in 
 shaping the intellectual life and the moral char- 
 acter of the child. Two seemingly parallel straight 
 lines may be hut an inch apart at their origin and 
 yet he ten feet apart at the end of a mile. Intel- 
 lectual dullness and moral obliquity are usually 
 due to some physical deformity, though often so 
 insignificant as to escape notice. 
 
 Some time since, twenty bad boys in a certain 
 city were chosen for the sense test, and it was dis- 
 covered that every one of them was defective in 
 vision or hearing, or both. Twenty good children 
 were selected, and it happened that all were perfect 
 in both senses. It would be dangerous to general- 
 ize from this that all physical defectives are moral- 
 ly defective, or that all perfect nervous systems 
 are morally without reproach, but that the tend- 
 ency of each is here emphasized there can be no 
 question. A sound mind in a sound body means 
 more than that the body should be healthy; it 
 means that every part of the physical organ- 
 ism should be continuously and efficiently per- 
 forming its proper function. There are notable 
 cases of individuals, physically defective from 
 birth, attaining to great mental power and spir- 
 itual excellence, but at what cost few people can 
 imagine.
 
 THE SENSES.— ORGANIC. 3 
 
 Though derangement may not clearl}- manifest 
 itself in the young child, its presence may often be 
 detected by an expert and corrected by judicious 
 treatment. jNIany an eye that was Aveak at birth 
 has been put out by ignorant or careless nurses; 
 many an ear that scarce had taken form has been 
 ruined by those who loved the child best. Many 
 a child has lost one sense or both through the 
 neglect of ignorance or caprice. On the other 
 hand, physicians tell us that one half of the 
 children with defective hearing can easily be 
 cured, if taken in time; the same is true of 
 those defective in eyesight. Is this, then, 
 a light theme to which we are giving atten- 
 tion ? 
 
 It does not seem wise to spend much time in 
 discussing the lower senses, for they give us little 
 knowledge, comparatively speaking. And yet they 
 are of the highest importance. All those sensa- 
 tions which may be embraced under the one term, 
 organic, such as the feelings arising from the gen- 
 eral state of the body or of the vital and vegetative 
 organs, make up the tone of the body as a whole 
 and give it that peculiar physical character which 
 manifests itself in what is known as the tempera- 
 ment of the individual. The general disposition 
 of the child is so largely determined by the degree 
 of perfection with which the digestive, assimilative, 
 circulatory, respiratory, and lymphatic functions 
 are performed, that no student of the child can 
 afford to overlook them. The old notion that the 
 bile exercises a controlling influence over the dis- 
 position of the individual is simply expanded in
 
 4 THE STUDY OF THE CHILD. 
 
 these days to embrace all the forces named above. 
 That a child whose stomach is souring and efferves- 
 cing half the day should be amiable and attentive 
 to his work, can not be expected; that one whose 
 circulation is heavy and sluggish should naturally 
 be apt and quick in perception and response, is out 
 of harmony with all experience; that one whose 
 physical condition is never animated nor buoyant, 
 can without effort be cheerful and aggressive, is one 
 of the things few thoughtful people believe. And 
 yet, in spite of all this, we are almost continually 
 overlooking the physical cause of children's tem- 
 peraments and dispositions* and seeking to correct 
 them by scolding, punishing, and other traditional 
 and irrational remedies. Often a child has been 
 whipped for failing to complete work assigned in 
 an allotted time, when the effort required would 
 have completely prostrated him ; he has been boxed 
 for restlessness, when one good, wholesome meal 
 would have appeased a hunger that would not let 
 him be still; he has been ridiculed for melancholy 
 that diet and exercise only could drive away; he 
 has been degraded for failing to prepare a lesson, 
 when headache or indigestion was wholly re- 
 sponsible. Fretfulncss, restlessness, ennui, indiffer- 
 ence, stupidity, willfulness, timidity, nervousness, 
 impulsiveness, and many kindred mental maladies 
 in children that perplex and annoy and defeat the 
 teacher and parent are the natural products of 
 disorders in digestion, circulation, or some other 
 purely physiological function. It is nothing less 
 than a crime for any one to ignore the real cause 
 of such manifestations in the child and to attempt
 
 THE SENSES.— ORGANIC. 5 
 
 to correct them b}^ reproof and punishment. Such 
 treatment only aggravates the trouble, soon mak- 
 ing it chronic, whereas a rational treatment would 
 generally give permanent physical relief and then 
 the mental distemper would easily yield, often even 
 disappearing of its own accord. There are few 
 full-grown men and women of such equable tem- 
 peraments that they are not more or less disturbed 
 by similar causes. If this be the case with those 
 whose \\'ills have been trained through a course 
 of years, how much more it must be true of chil- 
 dren whose every action is dictated so largely by 
 physical imi^ulses. 
 
 These facts need neither elaboration nor illus- 
 tration; but they do need repetition and empha- 
 sis. Many a child has been roughly shaken for 
 crying, when a pin was later discovered to be the 
 cause of the trouble. Others have been dosed and 
 drugged for peevishness that was caused by thirst 
 only. Others, again, have been jolted on a friendly 
 but a villainously mistaken knee for screaming, 
 Avhen every jolt but intensified the awful pain 
 Avith which colic was already stabbing the child. 
 Thus blindly do we attempt to relieve and correct 
 the physical and mental ills of the babe. Do we 
 approach it with more wisdom when it is five 
 years of age? If the healthy action of these 
 various organic functions is so important in the 
 formation of the child's temperament and dis- 
 position, then a thorough theoretical and prac- 
 tical knowledge of food principles, of hygiene, 
 of symptoms and remedies, of the structure, 
 development, and function of every organ of
 
 6 THE STUDY OP THE CHILD. 
 
 the body, as well as of the relations of all these 
 to the psychical activities, is little enough to 
 demand of every mother. That such knowledge 
 is uncommon makes the need of it the more com- 
 mon.
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE SENSES (CONTINUED). — TEMPERATURE. 
 
 The organic senses just mentioned embrace 
 those senses not so clearly differentiated in the 
 consciousness as the six senses generally recog- 
 nized. They give us a knowledge of muscular 
 movement, of hunger and thirst, of fatigue, of 
 respiration, of disease, feelings of relish, of de- 
 pression, of exhilaration, etc. Few of them are 
 localized. They pertain rather to the system as a 
 whole than to any particular part of it. 
 
 The sense of temperature is now clearly dis- 
 tinguished from the sense of touch and really 
 makes the seventh sense, if those above mentioned 
 are still embraced in the term organic. Take a 
 toothpick or a sharp-pointed lead pencil and touch 
 various parts of the palm of the hand and it will 
 sometimes appear warm and sometimes cold, with 
 occasional places where neither effect appears. By 
 the use of delicate instruments the presence and 
 location of these warm, cold, and neutral spots 
 have been definitely determined and mapped. It 
 would appear that certain nerve filaments have 
 special temperature functions entirely distinct 
 from those of touch. That the warm and cold 
 spots are more numerous and more sensitive in
 
 8 THE STUDY OF THE CHILD. 
 
 some people than in others is readily seen in the 
 ease with which some people handle hot bars, hot 
 plates, etc., or with which they put their hands or 
 feet into hot water, or drink hot liquids, while 
 others are almost thrown into spasms when they 
 attempt it. The character of the epidermis — the 
 outer skin — has much to do with the sensitiveness 
 to heat or cold. The calloused hand of a black- 
 smith or a cook enables him to handle hot pokers 
 and stove lids that would blister the tender fingers 
 of a child. A mother not infrequently scalds the 
 feet of her child by forcing them into water which 
 is " hardly warm " to her toughened fingers, and 
 so brings on disorders far more serious than that 
 which she was striving to cure. Many a babe's 
 mouth is sorely blistered by a hot gargle that the 
 nurse, accustomed to drink boiling-hot tea three 
 times a day, declares to be " just warm, now 
 dearie." Hot plasters and poultices are clapped 
 on the little innocents without intelligence or 
 mercy for the same reasons, and incalculable in- 
 jury is thus done to a multitude of children. 
 
 Incidentally, it should here be mentioned that 
 some children are naturally warmer-blooded and 
 need less clothing than others ; they are often suf- 
 fering from the heat in a room where others are 
 perfectly comfortable. They need food with more 
 nitrogeny)us and less fatty material in it than their 
 colder-blodded fellows. I had a neighbor whose 
 veins were always surcharged with rich blood, who 
 kept his home four or five degrees cooler in win- 
 ter than the normal, G8° to 70°, and his children 
 with thinner blood were constantly suffering more
 
 THE SENSES.— TEMPERATURE. 9 
 
 or less in consequence. Another, with sluggish 
 arteries, kept his home so warm that his boys and 
 girls, inheriting tlieir mother's vigorous tempera- 
 ment, were often nervously prostrate. They took 
 cold nearly everywhere they went, and certain seri- 
 ous ills were surely chargeable to nothing else. 
 
 If this were strictly a mother's book, I would 
 enter into details concerning a variety of skin dis- 
 eases in which the temperature sense is more or less 
 involved, and which contribute their full share 
 toward the development of the disposition of the 
 child, but I shall content myself with a mere refer- 
 ence to them and with a reminder that there are 
 far higher reasons for getting rid of them prompt- 
 ly than merely for the sake of the comfort and 
 health of the child. 
 
 Sufficient has been said, however, to sliow the 
 teacher the necessity of studying the temperature 
 problem as applied to every child in his classes. 
 It is impossible to have an equable temperature in 
 every part of a room, particularly when heated by 
 a stove, but it is possible to put the colder-blooded 
 and the thinl}^ clad near the stove and the others 
 in more distant parts of the room. It is also 
 possible to manage the heat so as to keep it near 
 the normal. The health of the children requires 
 it; comfort, good order, and effective instruction 
 are impossible without it. Friendly feeling and 
 interest in work seldom develop in a cold room ; 
 reflective thought and keen analysis are paralyzed 
 in a hot one. Many teachers owe their failure in 
 keeping order to inability to keep the sclioolroom 
 properly ventilated and heated.
 
 10 THE STUDY OF THE CHILD. 
 
 The test for the normal temperature of a child 
 is possibly best made by conferring with the 
 mother, and by a few inquiries of the child him- 
 self from day to day. Thermometers applied to 
 the body will be of little avail. It will take but 
 a week or two for a teacher to discover whether 
 a pupil is above or below the average normal and 
 to seat him accordingly. Of course, he should not 
 make the mistake of thinking that temperature 
 alone must decide the question of location. Some 
 children are very sensitive to draughts, while others 
 seem to be affected little by them. The seeds of 
 permanent ill health or of fatal disease may easily 
 be given root in a single day by neglecting these 
 precautions. 
 
 Two seemingly parallel straight lines may he hut 
 an inch apart at their origin and yet he ten feet apart 
 at the end of a mile. So these little things may not 
 seem of much moment at present, hut in a few years 
 their effect is too sadly realized. 
 
 The intellectual value of the senses thus far 
 mentioned is very small. They simply give us a 
 knowledge of the condition of the physical organ- 
 ism in a general and in a specific way; some of 
 them not even localizing a disorder or a want of 
 the body — as thirst, hunger, etc. The temperature 
 sense is easily recognized as one step higher in the 
 series, for it not only gives us a knowledge of the 
 general temperature of the body, but of individual 
 parts of the body as well. Further, it is the first to 
 give us a knowledge of the external world, but 
 even that knowledge is limited to the simple in- 
 formation concerning its temperature as com-.
 
 THE SENSES.— TEMPERATURE. H 
 
 pared witli that of the body. While the others per- 
 mit a child to say, " 1 am hungry, I am tired, I 
 feel my hand moving, I have the colic, I am sick 
 at the stomach," this sense permits him to say, " I 
 am cold," and to add, " It is cold," meaning some- 
 thing outside of himself, as the air, a chair, water, 
 the bed, the poker, etc. 
 
 The organic senses give him immediate knowl- 
 edge of his physical well- or ill-being only, while 
 his skill in many of the arts is dependent in large 
 measure upon the delicacy with which he discrimi- 
 nates temperature. The thermometer serves a 
 useful purpose in many of them, but if the artisan 
 relies upon it alone he will be a poor workman in- 
 deed. The need, then, of great care in cultivat- 
 ing this sense for the sake of bodily comfort and 
 bodily health is almost equaled by the practical 
 demands made in everyday life. Few more help- 
 less creatures can be imagined than those who have 
 lost the sense by which they appreciate heat or 
 cold, and so are liable to sustain frightful injury 
 without being conscious of it until it is revealed 
 by some other sense. So, in a practical way, how 
 sorry a laundress is the girl who has not learned 
 how to test the temperature of her sadiron, or how 
 provoking is a cook who is unable to discover the 
 right temperature of her oven by a single sweep 
 of her hand, how culpable is a housekeeper or a 
 teacher if she lack in ability to notice the changes 
 in the temperature of the rooms in which the chil- 
 dren live. A part, then, of every child's education 
 is to learn how to use this sense skillfully and 
 profitably.
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE SENSES (CONTINUED). — TASTE. 
 
 Possibly the first sense to begin differentiat- 
 ing is that of taste. The first food entering the 
 mouth not only satisfies hunger, but is grateful 
 to the taste as well. It may be that the newborn 
 child is provided with taste buds that respond 
 even more generously than they do later, for the 
 specific purpose of encouraging it to take the food 
 Nature has provided. At any rate, a very short 
 time suffices to enable it to discriminate between 
 the sweet and wholesome milk and the insipid or 
 adulterated article, as many nurses can fully tes- 
 tify. From such a simple beginning, skill in dis- 
 tinguishing among foods grows until many thou- 
 sand different kinds can easily be detected. So 
 highly may this sense be educated that it is said 
 that expert tea tasters in the employ of the great 
 tea houses can easily recognize as high as fifty dif- 
 ferent kinds of teas that have been mixed and 
 steeped together. Epicures and lovers of the table 
 in general are not necessarily gormands and glut- 
 tons, for they find their highest enjoyment not 
 in the amount they eat, but rather in its ability to 
 awaken pleasurable taste. Ten times more labor 
 is put upon foods and drinks to make them pala- 
 13
 
 THE SENSES.— TASTE. 13 
 
 table than is put upon them to make them whole- 
 some. Nine cooks out of ten work to tickle the 
 palate more than to insure ready digestion. The 
 " best " things at the average table are those that 
 awaken a new and pleasing sensation at the time 
 of eating, rather than comfort afterward. Even 
 the staples come to the table with subtle flavors 
 that the ingenuity of the cook has dexterously 
 added. Fruits in incredible variety are cultivated, 
 not so much for their nutritive quality as for their 
 ability to awaken corresponding variety in relish. 
 The forests of the earth are searched for nuts and 
 oils and leaves and roots that may stimulate a 
 wider range of pleasure in the mouth of man. 
 Luxuries, those dishes that delight the palate but 
 serve little as tissue builders, cost us more money 
 than the necessaries of life. Many men are kept 
 poor to the end of their days because most of their 
 earnings go into this red-hot hopper! More sick- 
 ness and physical misery are caused by eating 
 highly seasoned food than by any dozen other 
 causes combined. That which Nature designed as 
 a gentle stimulus to taste and to digestion has 
 too generally become the scourge to both. Nature 
 intended that taste and digestion should be warm 
 friends: we have often made them bitter enemies. 
 Then, for purely physical reasons, the proper cul- 
 tivation of the sense of taste assumes proportions 
 in the care and culture of the child that few peo- 
 ple understand. It is just as important as exer- 
 cise or sleep. 
 
 Parents insist on their children eating slowly 
 and chewing their food well, but, while that is es-
 
 14 THE STUDY OF THE CHILD. 
 
 sential, there are other weighty things in the law 
 also. When they are apprehended, they will read 
 somewhat as follows: 
 
 For the first dozen years of a child's life his 
 sense of taste should be developed with the same 
 care as the control and use of his voluntary muscles 
 or of any of the organs of the body. Highly sea- 
 soned foods and stimulating drinks should seldom 
 be given him. On the contrary, wholesome food 
 in sufficient variety of kind and flavor should be 
 given to make eating a pleasure and to maintain 
 easy digestion and healthy growth. Children's 
 appetites are the best spices at any table. If they 
 be wanting, it is poor economy to resort to arti- 
 ficial means. It frequently happens that a child 
 refuses every dish on the table and clamors for 
 one that his rugged father finds it difficult to 
 digest. It is better that he eat nothing until the 
 next meal than to yield to his appeal. A month's 
 indulgence in such demands often insures dys- 
 pepsia before the child is twenty years of age. 
 Of course, it is as cruel and unreasonable to force 
 children to eat things for which they have an aver- 
 sion, as it would be to force them to look at colors 
 .that pain the eye. With very few resources and 
 very little tact any mother may easily discover 
 what suitable dishes her children like and provide 
 them in sufficient variety to make every meal a 
 delight. Simple foods satisfy children, and the 
 change should come in variety and not in sea- 
 soning. 
 
 This is not the place to enter into the discus- 
 sion of the subject of the preparation of food, but
 
 THE SENSES.— TASTE. 15 
 
 it should be said that the art of cooking is being 
 revolutionized in these days, and that what a poor 
 cook has been covering up with sugar and salt and 
 pepper and spices, the new cook is presenting in 
 both a palatable and a digestible form with the 
 merest suggestion of the spice box. All hail to the 
 new system, but it has a great work yet to do in 
 solving the problem for the normal development of 
 the sense of taste in the child. With that under 
 proper control, the health problem solves more 
 easily. 
 
 The sense of taste is not to be cultivated by 
 suppressing and confining it to a few foods. The 
 greater the number and variety of the simpler 
 forms, Nature's own productions, the less demand 
 will there be for foods of the hot tamale order. 
 But even here great harm may be done in nurtur- 
 ing a desire for change that may react, begetting 
 disorders similar to those just mentioned. The 
 intimate relationship between the mind and the 
 vegetative system is so close that the former can 
 never be ignored in considering the food problem. 
 Imagination and emotion powerfully affect both 
 taste and digestion. The course to be pursued in 
 the case of each individual child can only be de- 
 termined as his tastes, already awakening, are dis- 
 covered and the resources of his family are known. 
 Then the problem for the mother .is not to find 
 ways and means for pandering to them, but for 
 correcting and educating them. Lectures may do 
 them little good, but the right kind of dishes Avill 
 sooner or later accomplish the end. 
 
 Not only is all this to be done for the sake of
 
 16 THE STUDY OF THE CHILD. 
 
 the health of the child, but for his moral char- 
 acter as well. Taste for highly seasoned food and 
 stimulating drinks almost invariably becomes ap- 
 petite, consuming and uncontrollable, later in life. 
 Its long train of evils need not be rehearsed here. 
 No heart is so pure, no soul so noble, that phys- 
 ical appetite long unrestrained does not corrupt. 
 Every mother has it in her power to form the 
 tastes and appetites of her children. They are 
 always formed, but the process of re-forming is 
 frequently a heartbreaking failure. Crimes hide- 
 ous and revolting might easily have been prevented 
 by a little intelligence and firmness in shaping the 
 tastes of the child for food and drink. Nothing 
 'ever written is truer than this. 
 
 This sense is also intended to contribute to 
 man's physical enjoyment. Its proper cultivation 
 refines and enlarges that enjoyment not only in 
 a sensuous way, but in an intellectual way as well. 
 So intimately is the delicate discrimination of 
 foods allied to good judgment in an intellectual, 
 and particularly in an aesthetic way, that the 
 word taste is universally used in distinguishing 
 men and women of refined culture from those of 
 the commoner sort. 
 
 The sense of taste is used in many of the arts 
 and sciences, though possibly not so generally as 
 that of smell and the others to be mentioned here- 
 after. Every good cook — and half of the human 
 race ought to be good cooks — needs a highly culti- 
 vated taste to test the quality of her mixtures and 
 dishes; she is helpless without it. The mineralo- 
 gist, the grocer, the pharmacist, the physician, the
 
 THE SENSES.— TASTE 17 
 
 fruit dealer, the confectioner, the dairyman, the 
 restaurateur, the baker, and many other profes- 
 sional, industrial, and commercial people find 
 highly developed taste invaluable. x\. great army 
 of men and women are employed in the prepara- 
 tion and sale of foods. The excellence of every 
 pound prepared or sold is dependent upon the de- 
 gree of cultivation of the taste of manufacturer 
 and tradesman. Everywhere 3'ou turn you easily 
 see the practical value of an educated taste. 
 
 \
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE SENSES (CONTINUED). SMELL. 
 
 In the order of intellectual value the sense 
 of smell is next to be noted. It also serves a dou- 
 ble function, subjective and objective. For some 
 time after birth it is not differentiated from the 
 other physical senses, but at about the age of three 
 months begins to serve as a help in distinguishing 
 food and soon after to contribute materially to the 
 sensuous pleasures of the child. With taste, it 
 stands a watchful guardian to protect the system 
 from injurious foods. It also adds much to the 
 relish of many dishes by mingling the enjoyment 
 of their aroma with that of their flavor. The 
 grateful feeling throughout the whole body ac- 
 companying slight changes in temperature serves 
 well as an introduction to the higher physical 
 pleasures that fragrant odors produce. Poets sing 
 of the delights of the bath and of the gentle 
 zephyrs that lull to restful sleep, but their lyres 
 assume a lighter, quicker movement as they de- 
 scribe the odors of the 
 
 " May-flowers blooming around them ; 
 Fragrant, filling the air with a strange and wonderful 
 sweetness." 
 18
 
 THE SENSES.— SMELL. 19 
 
 For the physical well-being alone, the organ 
 of smell needs that same careful attention that 
 any other sense organ demands. Its structure is 
 easily understood b}^ reference to any work on 
 anatomy or physiology. The delicacy of the 
 Schneiderian membrane, on which are spread out 
 the fine filaments of the olfactory nerve and 
 against which the odorous particles must pass, is, 
 however, not so generall}' appreciated as it ought 
 to be. The turbinated chambers are kept pliable 
 and sensitive by a regular supply of moisture 
 whose slight variation affects at once both the 
 ability to distinguish odors and the health of the 
 organ. Probably no other organ so quickly re- 
 veals a great variety of bodily disorders. It serves 
 as a distress flag, giving notice of internal derange- 
 ment. It is liable to painful diseases of its own, 
 such as catarrh, polypi, adenoidal growths, etc. 
 Most of them are more incident to childhood than 
 to manhood, and unless promptly detected and 
 suppressed become the generators of a whole brood 
 of ills that make life miserable for one's com- 
 panions as well as for himself. Sometimes the' 
 trouble originates in one duct, sometimes in both. 
 It frequently happens that the sense of smell in a 
 child is practically destroyed, and that an offensive 
 disease has fastened itself upon him before the 
 parents know that an3i;hing is wrong. No child 
 ever has a cold, or a fever, or frontal inflamma- 
 tions of any character, that may not settle in that 
 tender network of bone and nerves at the base of 
 the nose. Skin eruptions are likely to find a home 
 there also. Occasionally some insect or some hard
 
 20 THE STUDY OP THE CHILD. 
 
 substance lodges in one of the canals and endan- 
 gers even the life of the child. The only safe 
 course with children is to be constantly on the 
 lookout for disorders. Sympathetic intimacy with 
 them will usually bring them to you on the slight- 
 est disturbance in this or in any other organ, and 
 their appeal should have instant and intelligent 
 response. The derangement may not seem serious 
 and it may be but temporary. If it be serious, 
 however, or if it does not appear serious and yet 
 is persistent, medical assistance should be sought. 
 Often these nasal affections are manifestations of 
 systemic disturbances, but, whether one or the 
 other, remedies can not too quickly be applied. 
 
 Two seemingly parallel straight lines may be hut 
 an inch apart at their origin and yet lie ten feet apart 
 at the end of a mile, and a nasal disorder that 
 appears very slight in the child may in manhood be 
 robbing life of all its pleasure. 
 
 This little volume would grow to undue pro- 
 portions if space should be taken to describe the 
 diseases to which the different sense organs are 
 subject, together with their symptoms and reme- 
 dies, and yet the object would not be attained if 
 simple methods of discovering the affections were 
 not presented. The closing of one nostril by ex- 
 ternal pressure with the finger and the child's 
 effort to force air through the other as he expels 
 it from the lungs readily reveals obstructions and 
 frequently removes them. The inability of the 
 child to breathe through his nostrils, which is the 
 way Nature intended, is always cause for atten- 
 tion, though in case of colds not necessarily for
 
 THE SENSES.— SMELL. 21 
 
 uneasiness. If a child of six or seven has no cold, 
 and yet can not distinguish the odors of flowers, 
 perfumes, kinds of fruit, etc., the cause of it should 
 he ascertained as soon as possible and its removal 
 intelligently attemi)ted. Very simple remedies may 
 prove effectual at once. Possibly the development 
 of this sense is a little belated and the presentation 
 of a few strikingl}^ different odors may at once 
 arouse and stimulate it. If the child complains 
 of dull pains or of pressure between the eyes for a 
 week or two, it is a sure sign of incipient catarrh, 
 or of a kindred disease, and needs skillful treat- 
 ment. 
 
 To the general feeling of well-being, when the 
 other senses already mentioned are responding nat- 
 urally, the sense of temperature may possihly add 
 the slightest glimmer of the aesthetic element, but 
 it comes into grateful prominence with the growth 
 of the sense of smell. In addition to its utility as 
 a factor in determining the nature of food, smell 
 also proves of great value in an intellectual and 
 practical way. It assists in getting knowledge of a 
 thousand things in the world round about us. The 
 botanist is dependent upon it for distinguishing 
 many varieties of plants; the mineralogist would 
 be sorely handicapped in classifying minerals if his 
 sense of smell were to fail him; the biologist with- 
 out a good nose would be almost as bad as a miner 
 without a lantern; the chemist would be in greater 
 confusion than Pandora, when she opened her 
 famous box, if he were unable to discover the odor 
 of the various compounds in his laboratory. What 
 is true of the sciences is also as true of the arts.
 
 22 THE STUDY OF THE CHILD. 
 
 Many diseases are revealed to the physician large- 
 ly by their odor. The plumber and gasfitter would 
 not earn his salt who could not discover the pres- 
 ence of deleterious or poisonous gases by their 
 peculiar odor. Without this sense the cook could 
 hardly know that a stew is burning, a sauce is fer- 
 menting, an egg is addled, or that a dish will 
 prove relishable at the table. Without this sense 
 one would succeed poorly in handling drugs, per- 
 fumery, groceries, farm products of all kinds, etc. 
 Without it what wovdd become of 
 
 '• The butcher and the baker 
 And the candlestick maker?" 
 
 Properly trained, it is a good insurance against 
 fire, for it often reveals the presence of fire in the 
 house long before any other sense discovers it. 
 
 The sense of smell as an aesthetic sense has 
 already been mentioned. It has always been 
 prized, even among barbarous nations, for its 
 pleasure-producing capacities; the sweet-smelling 
 unguent and the musk-scented ointment are as 
 popular among the wild men of Borneo as among 
 the dilettante of the salons of Paris. Fragrant 
 odors vied with the cithara and the harp in the 
 entertainments at the royal palaces of Egypt, of 
 Assyria, of Phoenicia, of Greece, and of Kome. As 
 guests entered, the glad welcome of sweet music 
 was even excelled by the sweeter perfumes, whose 
 fragrance filled the ambient air; the rich tapes- 
 tries, the multicolored rugs, the luxurious couches 
 exhaled the attar of roses, the aroma of myrrh and 
 of the pomegranate; while fine spray, laden with
 
 THE SENSES.— SMELL. 23 
 
 lavender, fell in lloating mists over the fair com- 
 panjr as they passed around and among the rare 
 plants that added their wealth of beauty to the 
 splendor of the scene, (ientle ladies through all 
 the ages have sought the choicest waters and per- 
 fumes for their toilets, and they are now regarded 
 as necessaries in the boudoir of every cultivated 
 woman, whether Christian or pagan. But how- 
 ever successfully art may bring captive these rare 
 extracts from Nature's rarest laboratories, the per- 
 fumed air of springtime, of summer, and of au- 
 tumn gray, freighted with the blushes of opening 
 flowers, with the rustle of nodding grain, and 
 the aroma of the mellowing fruit, awakens har- 
 monies and images of subtler beauty and deeper 
 meaning. 
 
 But much of this is known to everybody, and 
 it finds a place here simply to emphasize more 
 fully the importance of the care and culture of 
 the sense of smell. The noseless man knows less 
 by far than many people imagine. Into w^hatever 
 walk or occupation in life a child is to go, he wall 
 need for his physical well-being, for his general 
 knowledge, for his aesthetic enjoyment, for his 
 practical use, a sensitive, delicately discriminating 
 sense of smell. The health of the organ is the 
 first requisite, but that is important only as en- 
 abling it to profit by training and to attain imto 
 the highest possible perfection. The means at 
 hand are so various and so al)undant that further 
 suggestions will be withheld until the chapter on 
 general methods of cultivating the senses is 
 reached.
 
 CHAPTEE V. 
 
 THE SENSES (CONTINUED). — TOUCH. 
 
 The cliild enters the world furnished with 
 all the instruments necessary for becoming ac- 
 quainted with it, for protecting itself against it, 
 and for finally becoming its master. Nature 
 kindly anticipated the coming by providing the 
 child with a more or less perfect covering, so that 
 the shock of transition shall not be too great. In 
 spite of this fact, it frequently happens that even 
 a slight change of temperature or the contact with 
 its clothing, though ever so soft, produces great 
 pain. What effect the manner of handling the 
 child in these first few hours or days has upon its 
 future life, the Infinite only knows; but that it 
 has a right to intelligent, sympathetic care, none 
 but a brute denies. Nature still remains its friend, 
 and slowly hardens the epidermal cells, so that 
 soon the extreme sensitiveness is gone and the 
 child rests quietly in its crib. The delicate termi- 
 nal nerve filaments that at first were easily set on 
 fire are covered a little more fully, and all over 
 the body companion filaments begin to respond 
 in an orderly, pleasurable way to outside pres- 
 sure. 
 
 Through the sensations thus aroused the child 
 24
 
 THE SENSES.— TOUCH. 25 
 
 soon begins an acquaintance with the external 
 world and succeeds in localizing, or placing, at 
 least in a general way, the objects touching it. 
 What a wonderful thousand-direction sense is this 
 sense of touch! As the babe lies in the cradle, 
 nothing can come in contact with it on back or 
 front, on hand or foot, above or below, right or 
 left, but that the news is instantly carried to the 
 brain. If the object be rough or sharp, irritation 
 results; if it be soft or smooth, gratification. 
 
 The sense of touch increases in sensitiveness 
 and delicacy much more rapidly in some parts of 
 the body than in others. If two toothpicks, or 
 pencils, or a pair of dividers be separated slightly 
 at the points and lightly pressed against the 
 cheek of a child, he will probably declare that 
 there is but one point touching him, but if applied 
 to the lips, tip of the tongue, or finger, he will 
 immediately say there are two. If now the dis- 
 tance between the points be increased and applied 
 again to the cheek, he may detect two points, but 
 on being applied to the neck, only one. The thigh 
 is found to possess less power of discrimination 
 than any other part of the body; the fingers and 
 the tongue tip the greatest. This difference in 
 discrimination is due to the difference in the dis- 
 tances between the various nerve endings of the 
 sense of touch. One great peculiarity about them 
 is that they seem to multiply with use. There are 
 also differences in what is called the threshold value 
 of touch — that is, the degree of pressure required 
 to awaken sensation. This also varies in different 
 parts of the body and in different persons.
 
 26 THE STUDY OF THE CHILD. 
 
 The offices of this sense in the physical econ- 
 omy are easily seen to be various. It is essential 
 to the protection of all parts of the body against 
 injury, and, like the sense of temperature, is more 
 sensitive in parts that are most susceptible to 
 harm. It immediately reveals the presence of in- 
 sects and vermin of every description; of objects 
 in the way or coming against it, whether sharp 
 or dull, rough or smooth, hard or soft; and of too 
 great pressure or constriction of any part of the 
 clothing. Through association, it indirectly re- 
 veals much concerning such objects that is not 
 given by pressure proper. What miserable crea- 
 tures we should be if compelled to wait for a fly 
 to bite or a mosquito to fill his nib before know- 
 ing of his presence. Think of the suffering which 
 would everywhere ensue if we could know nothing 
 of a rough substance until continual rubbing 
 against it had produced rawness or inflammation 
 of the skin. The sense of touch is the special 
 guardian of the eye. Whenever it fails in its duty 
 there, intense suffering may result. It also pre- 
 vents the ears and mouth and nose from many a 
 sad mishap. Contact with the tongue often reveals 
 the nature of food by association before the sense 
 of taste has been aroused, and, so together with 
 smell, touch assists taste to discriminate among 
 foods and to protect the system against offensive 
 or poisonous substances. 
 
 This passive touch is greatly re-enforced and 
 multiplied by the addition of muscular movements 
 and their associated sensations. It is then called 
 active touch, because the voluntary muscles are
 
 THE SENSES.— TOUCH. 27 
 
 exercised in !jringin<^ any part of the body desired 
 into contact with an object. As an illustration, 
 the arm may be thrown around a column, the feet 
 run over a ball, the lingers clasped around an ink 
 bottle, tlie hand slipped rapidly over a book, and 
 in each case the varying pressure, combined with 
 the different muscular sensations, reveals the shape 
 and surface of the object. It is now conceded that 
 the idea of solidity itself, the idea of three dimen- 
 sions — length, breadth, and thickness — is derived 
 through active touch. Without it, every object 
 would appear flat and no adequate conception of 
 the positions of objects in space could be attained. 
 This co-operation of the muscles gives the touch a 
 sufficient number of simultaneous or of rapidly 
 successive sensations to enable the mind to deter- 
 mine the shape, size, surface, texture, and hardness 
 of an object. j\Iuch skill in discriminating, as 
 with the other senses, develops slowly and develops 
 with practice only. The time comes, however, 
 when the amount of muscular movement required 
 is very slight in any given case and by a process 
 of association and symbolism, to be explained later, 
 the mind instantly recognizes the characteristics 
 named. The distance from one part of an object 
 to another is revealed by the observed amount of 
 muscular effort required to move the hand or part 
 of the hand from one to the other. The distance 
 between objects is determined in the same way, 
 though other muscles may be used and other parts 
 of the body, or the whole body, moved, as in the 
 case of walking or jumping. 
 
 Though afterward, by association and symbol-
 
 28 THE STUDY OP THE CHILD. 
 
 ism, this special function of touch is hirgely as- 
 sumed by sight, the accuracy of sight perception 
 as well as of the information still furnished us by 
 touch, is entirely dependent upon the way in which 
 the sense of touch is educated in the child. This 
 sense is sometimes defective or belated, and what 
 is often ascribed to the dullness of the child's in- 
 tellect or to inattention and indifference is found 
 upon investigation to be due to one of the causes 
 named. The test can easily be made by placing 
 in the child's hand a variety of forms, surfaces, 
 and textures for him to compare. He should not 
 be tested on his ability to designate by the proper 
 terms, for that tests his memory and not his phys- 
 ical sense, but upon his ability to pick out two or 
 more things of similar shape, surface, or texture; in 
 a similar way, by touch only, also to tell relative 
 sizes of objects. If he be found lacking, the divider 
 and pressure tests may also be used. It is highly 
 probable that few cases will be found where daily , 
 exercises in discriminating by touch will not in a 
 reasonable time show surprisingly happy results. 
 Mere guesses should not be allowed. Accurac}', 
 then rapidity, must be the constant aim. If, after 
 a few weeks, no appreciable progress is discover- 
 able, a physician should make an examination and 
 advise upon the course to be pursued. The cause 
 may not lie in the peripheral nor in the afferent 
 nerves, but in the brain, and the sooner known the 
 better. Possibly methods of educating the sense 
 have been wrong; possibly general nervous de- 
 rangement frustrates the efforts; possibly in some 
 way the child's mind has not yet learned how to
 
 THE SENSES.— TOUCH. 29 
 
 treat the sensations that arc constantly pouring 
 into his little soul, and some gentle means must be 
 used to make that connection between mind and 
 body which, in some way, failed at the critical mo- 
 ment when Xature intended it should be made. 
 
 The intellectual value of touch, the power to 
 give us knowledge of the external world, is seldom 
 placed high enough. Without the sense of touch 
 the child would not only see things flat, but the 
 myriad forms that fill the earth and sky would 
 never be known to him. AW of them would be 
 alike to him — neither rough nor smooth, fine nor 
 coarse, sharp nor blunt, round nor square, far nor 
 near, in high nor low relief. In fact, he would 
 have no idea in the concrete or in the abstract of 
 any such qualities. He would, in manhood, be 
 tumbling downstairs, over chairs, into the fire- 
 place, into the washtub, and everywhere else, just 
 as he does in childhood before this sense has taught 
 him the relief and relations of objects. Without 
 it he would know neither sea nor land, wood nor 
 mineral. If man were deprived of the sense of 
 touch, every loom, every ship, every railway car, 
 every industry in which man is engaged, would 
 instantly stop. All these are dependent upon its 
 high cultivation for their successful condiict. No 
 matter for what occupation a child is intended, 
 the education of this sense is of vital importance. 
 Whether he becomes a blacksmith or a farmer, 
 he will discover not only its everyday use, but its 
 value in buying his food and clothing and the 
 furnkshings for his house. In selling his wool or 
 buying sheep, the woolgrower will find his profits
 
 30 THE STUDY OF THE CHILD. 
 
 largely in his skill in detecting the value of both 
 by feeling. The sense of touch discovers many de- 
 fects which escape the best of eyes. If he becomes 
 a weaver, a watchmaker, a dealer in fine fabrics, a 
 surgeon, an oculist, a dentist, a musician, an 
 artist, a bank cashier, the possession of delicate 
 and finely discriminating touch is absolutely es- 
 sential. It must ever be remembered that child- 
 hood is the only time when the resources of this 
 sense can be profitably developed. Fair efficiency 
 may be secured by beginning later in life, but rare 
 power is seldom attained. Some children inherit 
 great delicacy of touch, but whatever Nature sup- 
 plies them may be multiplied many fold by intelli- 
 gent cultivation. 
 
 The extent to which touch is cultivated in 
 some of the schools for defectives is shown in the 
 skill with which the blind and deaf read raised 
 letters in English and German. Superintendent 
 Hammond states that Helen Kellar gets the 
 thought of a friend by placing her fingers on his 
 lips and her thumb on his throat as he speaks! 
 At the World's Fair she visited the art gallery, 
 and after passing her hand over the head and face 
 of several pieces of statuary, said of one, "This 
 face feels ^ad." It was the statue of Melancholy! 
 She seems to have " brain cells in her finger tips."
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE SENSES (CONTINUED). — IIEAEING. 
 
 " Sweet is every sound, 
 The moan of doves in immemorial elms, 
 The murmuring of innumerable bees." 
 
 The sense of hearing is the next in the order 
 of Nature's wise and beneficent provisions for 
 the child. All the senses thus far described are 
 contact senses, but this one gives us information 
 about objects far and near. Without it all exist- 
 ence would be as still as the chamber of death. 
 Man's knowledge and man's pleasure would be cur- 
 tailed beyond measure, while his progress in self- 
 development would be exceedingly slow and diffi- 
 cult. The embarrassment which deafness in one 
 ear produces is sad enough, but when both are 
 bereft of the power to hear, much of life has gone 
 out. 
 
 Authorities differ as to the stage oi develop- 
 ment of the ear at the time of the birth of the 
 child, though the explanation is probably found 
 in the fact that it varies in different children. 
 In some, sounds are apparently appreciated al- 
 most immediately, while in others several hours 
 or even days elapse before any kind of sound' 
 affects the child. A friend tells me that on the 
 
 31
 
 32 THE STUDY OF THE CHILD. 
 
 morning after her babe was born it was fright- 
 ened almost into convulsions by the explosion of 
 a cannon firecracker near her window. Preyer 
 says that his little son was surely deaf until the 
 fourth day. Compayre reminds us that auditory 
 sensibility wisely develops slowly: " By hearing 
 too soon the child would run the risk of not hear- 
 ing for the rest of his life. Too strong a vibra- 
 tion breaks the string of a harp or of a violin; so 
 sounds too intense, if felt, would bruise or injure 
 an organ so delicate and unexercised. Nature, 
 then, has judiciously protected the child against 
 the shock of too numerous or too violent sensa- 
 tions in leaving him dull of hearing for a few 
 weeks." All this being true, it again emphasizes 
 the necessity for intelligent, loving care during 
 the very first weeks of the child's life. An old- 
 time philosopher woke his children up every morn- 
 ing with sweet strains from his violin, lest a too 
 violent shock might jar and disturb the harmony 
 of the transition from sleep to wakefulness. What 
 hushed and soothing adagios ought to awaken this 
 babe and introduce him into the wonderful life he 
 now enters ! 
 
 If you are familiar with the internal structure 
 of the ear, all of the above is easily understood. 
 You can readily see that the delicate tympanic 
 membrane at the base of the external auditory 
 canal could not only be easily injured or broken 
 by any sharp or loud noise, but by almost any kind 
 of quick concussion which would force the air 
 into the ear. It does not take much of a jar to 
 disarrange the finely balanced machinery of the
 
 THE SENSES.— HEARING. 33 
 
 middle or of the internal ear, and no care should 
 be considered too great for its protection. Chil- 
 dren's diseases are just as likely to settle in a weak 
 spot as the diseases of adults, and for this reason 
 any slight disorder in the ear may soon become 
 serious. From various causes, these just men- 
 tioned being among them, authorities estimate 
 that from fifty to sixty per cent of the children 
 are more or less defective in hearing. It is also 
 claimed that by judicious treatment the percentage 
 can be reduced to fifteen or twenty. The advan- 
 tage of a better acquaintance with this important 
 sense organ is thus further emphasized. 
 
 The diseases in and about children's ears often 
 become chronic very early in life and in many 
 families are a source of constant concern. Ordi- 
 nary earache easily runs off into stabbing, stick- 
 ing pains, producing delirium, and leaving sore- 
 ness and tenderness in the whole side of the head 
 for days after. It is hardly possible to conceive a 
 more excruciating pain than that which frequently 
 accompanies discharges from the ear in scrofulous 
 children or in children who are recovering from 
 scarlatina, measles, smallpox, etc. Some children 
 seldom take a cold without inflammation of the 
 ear at once following. Often the trouble is in the 
 swelling and partial closing of the Eustachian tube, 
 or in the lodgment of an insect or of some hard 
 substance, or the accumulation of wax in the outer 
 canal, or in some affection of the mastoid bone 
 just above and behind the ear. But whatever or 
 wherever it is, it demands skillful and sympathetic 
 treatment. Usually danger gives notification iu 
 6
 
 34 THE STUDY OP THE CHILD. 
 
 slight deafnesSj in tingling sensations, in whistling 
 noiseSj and in characteristic buzzing and roaring 
 sounds hours or even days before severe pains force 
 attention. That which seems trifling at lirst may 
 become chronic and ineradicable in a fortnight, 
 hence the need for early attention to such symp- 
 toms. Every mother and every teacher ought to 
 be acquainted with simple remedies to apply, but 
 when these fail an aurist or a physician should be 
 consulted without delay. 
 
 In intellectual value the sense of hearing ranks 
 next to that of sight, though touch might possibly 
 with reason contend for the second place. It gives 
 us the three great characteristics of sound — pitch, 
 intensity, and quality or timhre — and also direc- 
 tion and distance by association and symbolism. 
 Distance is approximately determined by the in- 
 tensity or volume of the sound as compared with 
 what we happen to know of it when near by, com- 
 bined with changes in timbre, which experience 
 has taught us distance makes. So expert do travel- 
 ers and hunters become in estimating distance by 
 sound that it serves them almost as well as the eye. 
 The temperature and humidity of the air, to- 
 gether with its degree of homogeneousness, affect 
 all such estimates. Direction is discovered by the 
 relative intensity of the sound upon the two ears, 
 the short distance between them, combined with 
 the difference produced by their different rela- 
 tions to the line of the advancing sound waves, 
 being sufficient to enable very young children to 
 discriminate without much difficulty. If inability 
 to do this with reasonable certainty is discovered
 
 THE SENSES.— HEARING. 35 
 
 in children of school age, it is sufFicient cause for 
 further inquiry. 
 
 All normal ears easily recognize pitch in a 
 general way, though ability to distinguish clearly 
 the various tones of the diatonic scale comes with 
 education. Every child that can not readily dis- 
 tinguish high from low tones is defective, and if 
 reasonable effort fails to develop this power, it is 
 evidence of some organic defect that needs pro- 
 fessional treatment. The proper test is simply to 
 produce sounds, first of marked difference in 
 pitch, as 1, 5, 8 of the scale ; then of less difference, 
 as 1, 3, 5, 8; then the whole scale; then minor 
 divisions — sharps and flats. The voice or any 
 musical instrument may be used. It will some- 
 times be found that a child can distinguish pitch 
 in a piano or an organ, and not do it in vocal 
 tones, or in the latter and not in the former; and 
 yet, after a little practice, the inability may dis- 
 appear. Where the physical ability is small, the 
 intellectual may come in to re-enforce it, and per- 
 ception thus be easily exercised. On the other 
 hand, the former may be great and the latter so 
 weak that fine discrimination is impossible. Every 
 test made should keep these two elements con- 
 stantly in mind. Much time is wasted in music 
 and reading in attempts to force pupils to recog- 
 nize pitch without having given them any proper 
 training for developing ability to do it. There is 
 just the same necessity for a well-graded series of 
 exercises through a course of years for the cultiva- 
 tion of the physical side of pitch perception as for 
 the education of the muscles in writing or draw-
 
 36 THE STUDY OF THE CHILD. 
 
 ing. It might as well be understood, once for all, 
 that skill in perception is attained only by intelli- 
 gent exercise of the sense organs, and that every 
 attempt to get along without it must result in utter 
 failure. The organization of apperceptive organs 
 on the mental side is impossible without corre- 
 sponding organization in the sensory ganglia. 
 Differences in pitch can no more be recognized, 
 except through corresponding nerve power in the 
 auditor}'' apparatus, than can the different tones 
 be produced without properly trained vocal cords. 
 The self can react to interpret sounds through the 
 sensation only, and its multiplicity of shades is the 
 result of education. 
 
 To read well, talk well, sing well, play on any 
 musical instrument, or to enjoy vocal expression 
 or instrumental music of any kind requires a nice 
 appreciation of the varying shades of pitch. 
 Childhood is the best time for its cultivation, 
 though its growth should be directed and not un- 
 duly hastened. The child has plenty of time. 
 The rarest powers, as well as the rarest fruit, prefer 
 to take their own time for ripening. The range 
 of pitch perception should be constantly extend- 
 ing, while the fine shades of distinction are being 
 attained. 
 
 Tones are also distinguished by their quality 
 or timbre. By quality is meant that characteris- 
 tic which enaliles us to distinguish among tones of 
 the same pitch and intensity; to recognize their 
 soiirce as of a bird or of an organ, or of the human 
 voice, and the particular emotions they express. 
 Quality is due to the nature and number of over-
 
 THE SENSES— HEARING. 37 
 
 tones accompanying the fundamental or pitch 
 tone. If a violin string be loosely made, the tone, 
 whatever the pitch, will be more or less diffuse 
 and rough; if it be compactly formed, the tone 
 will have corresponding compactness and smooth- 
 ness; so of a bell, solid or porous. This accounts 
 for the diiference in the quality of the voice as the 
 vocal cords are inflamed or in the natural condi- 
 tion. Ears that hear at all usually appreciate 
 emphatic differences in quality. The test is easily 
 made by discovering whether a child can distin- 
 guish among voices of different persons, dift'erent 
 forms of the same voice, vocal utterances of dif- 
 ferent animals, or the tones of dift'erent musical 
 instruments, noises, etc. Surprising results will 
 often show themselves in these tests. Where in- 
 ability to make the general discriminations exists, 
 the causes may be any of those already stated, and 
 similar treatment should be used. Where children 
 are to be handled in classes, those more ready in 
 noting quality can afford to wait a little until the 
 others approximate them in skill, though this sug- 
 gestion should not be followed too rigidly. 
 
 Intensity, or volume, is the force or momentum 
 of a sound and is dependent upon the swing or am- 
 plitude of the waves producing it. Ears that read- 
 ily appreciate the other characteristics mentioned 
 may still be unable to distinguish this one, at least 
 with any degree of fineness. " // " and " pp " 
 mean about the same to them. Use same pitch, or 
 same quality, with similar means, as suggested in 
 preceding paragraphs, increasing and decreasing 
 intensity, to discover effect upon the child. For,
 
 38 THE STUDY OP THE CHILD. 
 
 of course, effect on the child is the measure of the 
 child's ability. Often sounds of great volume will 
 produce intense pain. A child of mine could not 
 be persuaded to stay near a brass band while it was 
 playing because it gave her a severe earache. The 
 ringing of a church bell drove a neighbor's child 
 almost into convulsions. The curfew whistle is 
 blowing as I write, and my dog falls prostrate as 
 usual and begins a pitiful whine. All these and 
 scores of other facts of a kindred nature will be 
 discovered in testing hearing. It would be a feel- 
 ingless and resourceless teacher or parent, indeed, 
 who could not easily find ways of protecting and 
 helpiug these sensitive children.^ A moment's 
 thought would reverse the order now followed in 
 many families. 
 
 The aesthetic value of the sense of hearing is 
 too well known to need any elaboration. Tiie art 
 as well as the science of music is dependent en- 
 tirely upon the ability of the ear to receive and 
 transmit sounds of infinite variety in pitch and 
 quality and intensity. As the rarest and noblest 
 aspirations of the soul find expression in song, 
 they are also awakened by song as it is received 
 and interpreted by the refined sense of hearing. 
 Among the fine arts, music is the first to minister 
 to the child. The rhythm of the nurse's gentle 
 lullaby quiets it almost the first hour after birth, 
 and the sweet melodies of its early years soothe a 
 thousand sorrows and transport it from many a 
 turbulent passion to peaceful sleep — 
 
 Where dreams are songs, 
 And trundle-beds are fairies' chariots.
 
 THE SENSES.— HEARING. 39 
 
 As music serves to express the emotions of 
 youth and manhood, it rises in dignity and state- 
 liness, finding its highest mission in voicing the 
 longings of the human soul for the Infinite. By 
 virtue of this intimate relationship to the finer 
 sentiments, its ethical value can hardly be over- 
 estimated. A man with a cultivated ear has poor 
 excuse for being immoral. 
 
 The value of this sense in a practical way is 
 easily enough seen, but teachers and parents are 
 often slow in understanding what its loss means to 
 a child who is suffering from some affection which 
 may injure or destroy it permanently. This chap- 
 ter has already urged immediate attention to such 
 cases, and they are mentioned again, with the hope 
 that some poor child may be profited thereby. 
 
 Tivo seemingly parallel straight lines maij he hut 
 an inch apart at their origin and yet he ten feet apart 
 at the end of a mile. Some children are thirty years 
 in groicing deaf, some twenty, some ten, some five, 
 some one! 
 
 There are too many partially deaf people in 
 every community. Every such one is badly handi- 
 capped in his business and social relations. How 
 many men lose good positions because of defective 
 hearing! How many sad and fatal accidents are 
 due to the same cause! The new education can 
 do no better service to the oncoming generations 
 than to preserve and perfect this sense in the chil- 
 dren. 
 
 The clear understanding of language is de- 
 pendent upon ability to hear well. Often the 
 deepest meaning and the finest shades of thought
 
 40 THE STUDY OF THE CHILD. 
 
 are lost because an accent, a subvocal, or a little 
 slur of the voice escapes notice. A child is thought 
 dull or stupid who could not be otherwise, for he 
 seldom hears anything that is said at home or in 
 the schoolroom. I visited a classroom not long 
 since, and found that pupils in the rear were cran- 
 ing their necks to see the diagrams on the board 
 and hear the explanations given. Some soon gave 
 up in despair and settled down in a listless way to 
 await the end of the recitation. Inquiry developed 
 the fact that nearly one third of them heard little 
 of any recitation. Under such conditions what 
 could be expected of them? A superintendent in 
 a small city reports that he found forty pupils in 
 his schools who were occupying rear forms and 
 who could hear little said by teacher or pupils at 
 the front. 
 
 Various general tests have been suggested, the 
 watch test being frequently named, but the human 
 voice is the best for the home and the classroom. 
 It is that which it is important the children should 
 hear. Let it be of the usual tone, and let chil- 
 dren who hear it with difficulty be given seats near 
 the teacher, the others ranging back in the order 
 of ability to hear. Sight and the sense of tempera- 
 ture must also control in the assignment of seats, 
 as suggested in discussing them. In the home, 
 the place at the fireside and at the table, where 
 most of the talk can easily be heard, should always 
 be given to the child whose hearing is less acute 
 than that of the others. If proper care is observed, 
 such cases rapidly improve with opportunity and 
 exercise, and the defect usually entirely disappears.
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 THE SENSES (CONTINUED). — SIGHT. 
 
 We are now to study the king of all the senses 
 — ^the sense of sight. It, like sound, is not a con- 
 tact sense. Rays of light are transmitted through 
 space by an intangible medium called ether. So 
 faithfully does it do its duty that the eye is thus 
 permitted to see objects lying hundreds of millions 
 of miles away, a distance so great that no one can 
 form any adequate conception of it. While the 
 telephone transmits the human voice so that it can 
 be heard a thousand miles away, the telescope ex- 
 tends the power of the eye so that a vast multitude 
 of heavenly bodies are brought to view which 
 otherwise would not have been known to exist. 
 The wonderful resources of this sense and its vital 
 importance in every moment of our waking hours 
 give it the high place above assigned. 
 
 In structure its mechanism is not so difficult to 
 understand as that of the ear, though the rods 
 and cones underneath the retina perplex the stu- 
 dent somewhat. At birth the eyes of some chil- 
 dren are more fully developed than those of oth- 
 ers, though it is probable that none of them at first 
 have more than the faintest sensation of light. 
 In a few days they begin to notice any bright light, 
 
 41
 
 <L, 
 
 42 THE STUDY OP THE CHILD. 
 
 as that of a lamp, but the most painstaking inves- 
 tigators incline to the belief that there is very little 
 discrimination among objects for a fortnight, and 
 then only among those of bright colors. 
 
 Compayre reminds us that the child at first 
 sees only in front of him and that he does not see 
 objects to the right or left. This can be shown 
 easily by shifting a light or a bright colored ob- 
 ject either way in front of him. He soon loses it 
 and gazes vacantly into space. The same authority 
 also cites the fact that all young children are my- 
 opic, seeing objects only at short range. The first 
 is due to the fact that the child has not yet learned 
 the art of moving its eyes so as to change the 
 field of vision; the second, to the fact that the eye 
 is not yet completely developed and that the power 
 of focal adjustment has not yet been attained. 
 Experiments of this nature during the first four 
 or five months of a child's life will reveal some 
 very interesting things about the growth of sight 
 perception, among them the surprising fact that 
 nearly all children are cross-eyed at birth and some 
 of them for many months after. The co-ordina- 
 tion of the movements of the muscles controlling 
 the eyeballs is necessary before rapid progress can 
 be made in distinguishing objects by sight; this is 
 often not fully attained before the age of four or 
 five. 
 
 The intellectual value of this sense needs no 
 particular discussion here. So much of our knowl- 
 edge comes through it that the value of the other 
 senses is often overlooked. If one sees a thing, 
 he is supposed to know all about it. Seeing has
 
 THE SENSES.— SIGHT. 43 
 
 become the synonym for understanding, and when 
 we have explained a matter to any one we quickly 
 ask, "Do you see it?" The direct knowledge 
 given us by the eye is of hue, tint, and intensity. 
 By hue is meant the more or less positively defined 
 colors; by tint, the varying shades due simply to 
 the small quantity of a color or hue showing itself 
 in a mixture or background of white or some lead- 
 ing color; by intensity, the amount of light re- 
 ceived from an object by the eye. The first is de- 
 pendent upon the relative rapidity of the wave 
 movements, red being the lowest and violet the 
 highest; the second and third are already suffi- 
 ciently explained. By the infinite number of com- 
 binations of these three, the perception of the ex- 
 ternal world is made so definite that no two human 
 beings out of the billion and a half now living 
 appear exactly alike to the cultivated eye; no two 
 of the endless quintillions of leaves that cover the 
 earth are found to agree in every detail. Every- 
 where is variety; the bright and the somber, the 
 red and the gold, the light and the dark, the green 
 and the yellow, the blue and the crimson, the glow 
 of the evening sunset, the dancing of the silver- 
 tipped waves, the wild sprangles of the restless 
 lightning, are ever revealing through the eye the 
 nature and the resources of the universe of matter 
 and of force. 
 
 The purely visual function of the eye is greatly 
 multiplied and extended by its union with the 
 muscular movements of the body, the neck, and 
 the eyeballs, as already intimated. By the aid of 
 the first two the whole range of the horizon,
 
 44 THE STUDY OF THE CHILD. 
 
 around and above, can be swept almost in an 
 instant, and objects distinguished and located with 
 surprising accuracy. At first consciously, then 
 more or less unconsciously, the muscular sensations 
 serve as a measure of the angles passed over in 
 the movement and the visual sensation is the only 
 one prominent in the perception. But when the 
 eyeballs of children of school age or of adults are 
 observed, they will be seen to be as restless as 
 globules of mercury, turning hither and thither 
 and everywhere on the slightest occasion. Few of 
 these movements are purposeless. They are made 
 so as to take in the whole of an object and its 
 surroundings; they are repeated and reversed 
 again and again, that each detail of color and tint 
 and shade and form and relation may be verified. 
 These muscular sensations also merge in conscious- 
 ness with the purely visual, and the knowledge de- 
 rived is usually attributed to the latter. Then 
 there are two sets of delicate ciliary muscles inside 
 the eyeball itself; one adjusts the size of the pupil 
 so that the proper amount of light may be ad- 
 mitted to the internal eye, the other adjusts the 
 lenses of the eye in looking at objects at vary- 
 ing distances, so as to focus the rays coming from 
 them upon the retina. Though the movements 
 of these internal muscles are so slight, they evi- 
 dently enter into conscious sensation fully enough 
 to assist eye-perception in determining the shape, 
 distance, and size of objects. 
 
 The dependence of sight upon touch has al- 
 ready been mentioned. At first all objects seem 
 flat to the child, and right up against him, as it
 
 THE SENSES.— SIGHT. 45 
 
 were. Exercising a natural impulse to touch them, 
 he puts out his hand and finds that they are a little 
 distance from him, or even beyond his reach. 
 Through a long course of experimenting, he learns 
 to measure in a rough way the distance to any ob- 
 ject by the amount of muscular effort necessary 
 to reach it. In like manner also he gets an idea, 
 of its form and size, including its depth as well 
 as its height and breadth. The eye follows all 
 these movements, and the associated visual and 
 muscular sensations of the eye proper become so 
 assimilated with them that on their recurrence, 
 without touch, they serve to symbolize the touch 
 sensations, and thus give knowledge which touch 
 alone had been supplying. So by this wonderful 
 principle of symbolism the eye gradually usurps 
 this function of touch, and tells us whether objects 
 are rough or smooth, liquid or solid, fibrous or 
 crystalline, round or elliptical, oblong or square, 
 flat or in relief, sharp or dull, large or small, fixed 
 or moving, far or near; and all of this by the mi- 
 nute differences seen in the shades and colors of 
 the various parts of a body or of different bodies. 
 Thus it not only enhances the value of touch, but 
 makes itself almost a universal sense, for this prin- 
 ciple of symbolism enables it to act in place of 
 other senses also, as explained in Chapter II. 
 
 The gesthetic value of the senses also reaches 
 its climax in the sense of sight. Bright colors 
 awaken interest and pleasure in a very young 
 child. Their combinations in almost any fantastic 
 way gratify and delight him. "With the develop- 
 ment of his intellectual nature the feeling of har-
 
 46 THE STUDY OF THE CHILD. 
 
 mony is aroused only as certain colors are associ- 
 ated, and, later, aesthetic taste finds satisfaction 
 in tints and colors of the rarer hue. 
 
 Even in the most cultivated minds Nature and 
 art never cease to kindle the emotion of beauty 
 through color and shade alone. But the percep- 
 jtion of form, as touch drops out, also awakens the 
 emotion of the beautiful. Order, proportion, sym- 
 metry, and grace in form appeal to the finer and 
 less sensuous elements of our nature more easily 
 than does color. Form itself serves to purify and 
 spiritualize the aesthetic feelings. Certain classec 
 of movements, particularly those of animals, pos- 
 sibly due to the concrete forms they suggest, beget 
 similar emotions. When color and form and move- 
 ment are harmoniously combined, the most pleas- 
 urable effects are produced. 
 
 A liberal education and a successful life are 
 so clearly dependent upon the perfection and skill 
 in the use of the eyes that their care and training 
 ought to constitute a large part of the responsibil- 
 ity of every parent and teacher. It is a long dis- 
 tance from that vacant, expressionless look of the 
 newborn babe to that eye so full of meaning and 
 understanding in the richly endowed man, and 
 some intelligent hand must help to its attain- 
 ment. The aid to give children with normal eyes 
 is suggested in the next chapter. 
 
 In certain families almost every child is trou- 
 bled with some affection of the eye; in others, 
 weak or diseased eyes are unknown. Heredity 
 shows its trail in no other sense more clearly. 
 Many of these diseases are of the eyelids, not af-
 
 THE SENSES.— SIGHT. 47 
 
 fecting the eyeball at all, and are merely tem- 
 porary; others, though external, are very serious 
 and gradually extend to the eyeball, even to the 
 optic nerve. The surface of the eyeball is subject 
 to diseases of a similar nature, sometimes originat- 
 ing there and extending to the eyelids. All such 
 disorders should be treated by physicians or by 
 experienced nurses. The orders they give should 
 be strictly followed, even though " there is no 
 danger." Many eyes have been ruined by the 
 carelessness or indilference of those whose love and 
 interest ought to have taught them better. 
 
 These disorders are easily seen, but those that 
 directly affect the sense of sight are usually dis- 
 coverable only by closer examination. The ex- 
 periments with the lighted candle or lamp for dis- 
 covering the first sight sensations, range of field 
 to right and left, distance at which objects are evi- 
 dently lost to view, constitute a series which should 
 be repeated at first from day to day, and then 
 from week to week until such time as there seems 
 to be but little change. The progress, rapid or 
 slow, which the child makes in extending his 
 range of vision by association with muscular move- 
 ments and with touch should be most carefully 
 noted. At times he will be found to have made 
 great progress, and too much care can not be taken 
 to discover the cause. Bright objects, as balls of 
 colored yarn, may early be substituted for the 
 lighted candle, afterward being varied with those 
 of softer colors. No attempt shoiild he made to 
 stimulate the eye to iindue activity nor to test its 
 endurance at any time, particularly with little chil-
 
 48 THE STUDY OF THE CHILD. 
 
 dren. The eyes of children are often injured 
 greatly by gazing too long at a bright light. I 
 remember, when past thirty, experimenting with 
 an electric light to discover its power, and, though 
 I was soon able to stare it out of countenance, I 
 found, as the cars started off, that I was totally 
 blind. Fortunately, the paralysis was temporary, 
 but how much the contest has affected my sight 
 since has always been a problem. A student of 
 mine was blind for several days and suffered with 
 weak eyes for years as a result of walking a mile 
 at midday with the reflections of the bright sun- 
 light from the snow crystals pouring into her face 
 at every step. Reading from a brightly illuminated 
 page has a similar effect. These experiences are 
 so common and so well known that any one who 
 endangers a child's eyes in such a way is little 
 short of a criminal. 
 
 Should these experiments with the babe reveal 
 any peculiarity at any time, there ought to be no 
 alarm. It sometimes happens that a child ap- 
 pears to be making considerable progress for sev- 
 eral days and then apparently loses all power 
 gained. The cause may be interest in something 
 else, or weariness, or a slight temporary weakness 
 in the eyes. If the child is later in observing the 
 light than other children, it may be the better 
 for him, as earlier appreciation might do him 
 harm. If, however, he pays no attention to it 
 when ten days old, a physician's advice should be 
 promptly sought, possibly even before that time 
 if suspicions are aroused. Should the retrogres- 
 sion above mentioned continue for a few days, or
 
 THE SENSES.— SIGHT. 49 
 
 should no progress be making, the same ever-safe 
 counselor should be called in. 
 
 Not only should objects of different colors be 
 used, but also of different sizes and forms, espe- 
 cially as the child is running around and getting 
 acquainted with the outside world. Though, as 
 stated, all small children are short-sighted to some 
 extent, ability to adjust the eye to objects within 
 reasonable range should be clearly showing itself 
 as the child enters school. If parents do their 
 duty, they will inform the teacher of any defects 
 in vision. By noting the ease or difficulty with 
 which the children read writing on the blackboard 
 or the words in their books, teachers will at once 
 discover reasons for further tests. The short- 
 sighted children should be placed where they can 
 see the work on the board, and they should be 
 permitted to keep their eyes near the paper as 
 they read or copy or figure. Weak eyes should not 
 be confused with myopic eyes, for the former see 
 with difficulty at any distance, while the latter 
 see easily within their own range. The former 
 need more light; the latter, a proper focus, which 
 proper distance only can give, though suitable 
 glasses will aid both. Among older children, long- 
 sighted, hyperopic, eyes will occasionally be dis- 
 covered. In serious cases of myopia or hyperopia, 
 expert oculists should be consulted and proper 
 glasses secured. The reason for consulting a spe- 
 cialist is that the child should not only have 
 glasses that will enable him to see well, but that 
 will also serve to gradually correct his defect. 
 Where the cases are not very serious, the child
 
 50 THE STUDY OF THE CHILD. 
 
 should be seated in the schooh'oom as siiggested, 
 and permitted to hold his book or paper at the 
 distance best adapted to his eyes. He should, 
 however, be encouraged in a friendly way to move 
 his book a little nearer the normal distance ffom 
 time to time, in order to stimulate readjustment 
 to the new focus. There should be no haste about 
 this, for if the child has made appreciable ]»og- 
 ress in correcting defects in four or five yews it 
 is cause for congratulation. It is probablefthat 
 the increase in skill in apprehending words and 
 objects will also relieve the embarrassment in my- 
 opic and hyperopic children, as they soon learn 
 to get along without such clear eye pictures as 
 their more fortunate neighbors are accustomed to 
 have. 
 
 The most difficult cases to manage are those 
 known as astigmatic, and those in which the foci 
 of the two eyes are at unequal distances, thus con- 
 fusing the image, particularly at certain ranges. 
 There seems to be no remedy for these defects save 
 in glasses properly fitted. The former is quite com- 
 mon, and is a prolific source of headache. Thou- 
 sands of cases of chronic headache have been 
 promptly cured by the use of glasses. Though the 
 astigmatism may be very slight, the constant strain 
 on the fine nerves and muscles of the internal eye 
 produces most acute pain in the head. This same 
 effort in myopic and hyperopic eases produces the 
 same result. A ministerial friend tells me that a 
 teacher forced his son, who was afflicted with my- 
 opia, to hold his book at the " regulation dis- 
 tance " and in the regulation position as he read
 
 THE SENSES.— SIGHT. 51 
 
 or studied, and that the headache resulting threw 
 him into sucli nervous disorders that at least once 
 a fortnight he was obliged to keep him out of 
 school for three or four days. A lady friend tells 
 me that her little daughter had been coming home 
 every day for months with a bad headache, and 
 that she was losing all interest in school, when 
 the writer visited the city and urged the teachers 
 to test the sight and hearing of their pupils. This 
 girl was found defective in eyesight and given a 
 front seat. In two weeks her headache was all 
 gone, and her interest in school had returned. A 
 multitude of similar cases might be given, but 
 these must suffice. If this paragraph awakens its 
 readers to a fuller understanding of the intimate 
 connection between overstrained eyes and head- 
 ache among children and adults, somebody will 
 be remembered most kindly by them. 
 
 For a little more definite test of the defects 
 just named, Snellin's cards, bought of jewelers 
 and dealers in spectacles nearly everywhere for ten 
 cents, will be found serviceable. 
 
 The fact has already been mentioned that the 
 eyes of little children are often crossed more or 
 less, and that the power to move both together 
 may develop but slowly. It is important that 
 nothing be done which will tend to cause a child 
 to try to look in two directions at the same time. 
 Slowly moving an object not too small, in various 
 directions at some distance before him, carefully 
 excluding anything from the right or left which 
 might attract him, will encourage the two eyes to 
 move together. This repeated from day to day
 
 52 THE STUDY OF THE CHILD. 
 
 will assist the child in co-ordinating the muscles 
 and attaining the power to move tliem together. 
 Very small objects should not be used, neither 
 should anything be placed so near as to force the 
 child to try to look over his nose. The disposi- 
 tion to show a child off by having him look cross- 
 eyed is vicious and criminal. 
 
 Cataract is a well-known disease of the eye, 
 but its early symptoms often escape notice, and 
 sight is gone before any attempt is made to pre- 
 serve it. At the first suggestion of a discoloration 
 of the pupil, medical aid should be sought. 
 
 Children are continually getting something in 
 their eyes — a particle of dust, a cinder, a thorn — 
 and everybody ought to know how to remove it. 
 Put a toothpick above the eyelid and quickly re- 
 verse the lid over it, thus usually exposing the for- 
 eign substance. With a silk handkerchief gently 
 remove the intruder. If the substance be imbed- 
 ded in the eyeball, great care must be exercised lest 
 permanent injury result to it. Only an expert 
 should be permitted to handle this delicate organ 
 if the case be serious. 
 
 In the selection of text-books and reading 
 matter generally for children, fine print and 
 masses of letters and figures should be avoided. 
 Eyes may be ruined in a fortnight by too close 
 application to solid matter of this kind. In visit- 
 ing a class recently, I found twenty boys, four- 
 teen to seventeen years of age, complaining about 
 weak eyes. Many of them had never thought of 
 weak eyes before entering the class, but a month 
 of study over fine print and compact columns had
 
 THE SENSES. -SIGHT. 53 
 
 caused them incalculable distress. Good, clear 
 type, well leaded, on white paper will prevent such 
 trouble. Some blackboards are not lit for use. 
 Half of the pupils do not write their work on the 
 board so that it can be seen without strain. The 
 light in many schoolrooms is very poor; often too 
 much, often not enough; often from the right 
 when it ouuht to be from the left.
 
 CHAPTEE VIII. 
 
 THE SENSES (CONTINUED). GENEKAL FUNCTIONS. 
 
 We have now become somewhat acquainted 
 with each of the senses, its specific nature, its par- 
 ticular office or function, its value in an intellec- 
 tual, aesthetic, and practical way, the diseases to 
 which it is subject, the tests which may be ap- 
 plied in discovering defects, and some of the meth- 
 ods to be used in correcting them; we have also 
 discovered the importance of all this informa- 
 tion in the education of the child. It remains for 
 us to inquire into the general functions of the 
 senses, and to find their further relation to his 
 physical and mental life. 
 
 Whatever may be oiir theories regarding tho- 
 exact nature of the mental power with which the 
 child is endowed at birth, all agree that without 
 some means of receiving communication from the 
 material world outside the mind must lie dor- 
 mant, no development resulting. The senses fur- 
 nish this means of communication. Though we 
 are ignorant of the nature of the connection be- 
 tween the nerve cells of the brain and the mind, 
 of the way in which certain kinds of nerve excita- 
 tion are unerringly given practically the'^-^ame 
 meaning by one and all minds, we are not withdut 
 54
 
 THE SENSES.— GENERAL FUNCTIONS. 55 
 
 some definite knowledge of the way in which 
 these external objects awaken brain activity. Each 
 nerve filament has direct commiuiication with the 
 brain, so that we may regard the nervous organ- 
 ism as a great telegraphic or tcleijlionic system, 
 with the brain as the receiving or central station. 
 If a nerve filament capable of appreciating heat 
 motion is excited by a warm body in contact, by 
 concussion, by friction, or by chemical action, the 
 excitation is carried on its own nerve line to the 
 brain, and there entering consciousness is inter- 
 preted as heat. In no other way can a child get 
 knowledge of temperature. If a terminal filament 
 capable of appreciating pressure be excited by 
 some body coming against it, that peculiar kind 
 of nerve excitement is also carried to the brain by 
 its connecting line. In that way only can a child 
 get knowledge of the presence of an external body 
 and of the nature of its surface. In a similar way 
 stimuli act, each in its own way, upon the various 
 sensory nerve filaments, producing specific kinds 
 of nerve excitation, thus making the child ac- 
 quainted with the characteristics of the world of 
 external objects. The fidelity with which this 
 transmission is made determines, in great part, 
 the extent and accuracy of the child's knowledge. 
 If this delicate machinery is not in perfect order, 
 not working with precision, confusion naturally 
 results. 
 
 As you are observing the children, you will'*'' 
 see how rapidly they grow in power to distin-f 
 guish objects and to note their qualities. The 
 more frequently a sense is excited within certain
 
 56 THE STUDY OF THE CHILD. 
 
 bounds, and with slightly varying stimuli, the 
 more sensitive it becomes and the finer the dis- 
 tinctions it presents to the mind. The physical 
 senses as the media of communication between 
 the mind and the external world serve their full 
 l^urpose only as they are gaining in ability to 
 appropriate and transmit an increasing number of 
 shades of differences in color, in tone, in form, in 
 intensity. The mind can proceed no faster in 
 gaining power to make such discrimination than 
 the senses, hence the need for the intelligent se- 
 lection of means and methods that their progress 
 may be as rapid and as economical as possible; 
 hence also the reminder that every educational 
 scheme which is not based upon sense-perception 
 must fail. 
 
 At that point where the self and the not-self 
 meet, the mind must respond, or nothing but brain 
 activity results. The clock may strike a thousand 
 times, objects may pass many times back and forth 
 before the eyes, the fragrance of flowers fill every 
 corner of the room, but unless the mind gives 
 special attention no sensations proper are aroused, 
 and one sits oblivious to it all. These excitations 
 do enter in a slight Avay into consciousness, how- 
 ever, making up a sort of substratum — a sensation 
 continuum, as Dr. DeA\'ey and others call it — 
 which affects more or less the general tone of the 
 self, no matter in what it happens to be absorbed 
 at the time. Any one of them may be quickly 
 exalted into consciousness and made the special 
 object of attention, while the others are left still 
 involved in the subconscious mass. This may be
 
 THE SENSES.— GENERAL FUNCTIONS. 57 
 
 illustrated at any time by suddenly stopping what- 
 ever you may be doing and noting, one after an- 
 other, the many things which you were really see- 
 ing and hearing and feeling and even tasting and 
 smelling, and yet of which you were not at all 
 conscious. This experiment will enable you to see 
 clearly that unless the mind specifically differenti- 
 ates a sensation from its companions and interprets 
 it, gives it meaning, and associates it with the ob- 
 ject producing it, there can be no knowledge 
 gained. The sensation itself is not knowledge, but 
 without it there could be no knowledge. It is 
 pure feeling, and becomes knowledge only as it is 
 given meaning. Active as a physical force speed- 
 ing its way to the brain, it can do nothing now but 
 passively wait at the portal for the mind to take 
 hold of it and give it meaning. Its various char- 
 acteristics, due to its sources, soon become familiar 
 to the mind, and sensation and object seem merged 
 in one. 
 
 Sensations occupy a more prominent part in 
 the life of the child than of the adult, for they are 
 practically his only mental food. What a man 
 would discover about an object by reflection and 
 reason, the child finds out only through the senses. 
 He must pull it, bite it, stamp on it, look down its 
 mouth, smell it, scratch it, throw it about, no 
 matter whether it be a kitten or a brownie. Ho 
 tears the choicest rose to pieces, because that is 
 the only way he can find out Avhat is inside. He 
 pounds away on a drum or an old tin pan, because 
 it affords him pleasing entertainment, and in that 
 way he learns something about it. His mind feeds
 
 58 THE STUDY OF THE CHILD. 
 
 on sensations just as tlie body feeds on bread and 
 meat. He is naturally as bungry for tbem as he 
 is for his meals. To deny tbem to bim is to do 
 him as much harm as to deny him food. As we 
 take pains in supplying the latter, the former 
 should with equal intelligence and with equal lib- 
 erality be provided for him. By this it should not 
 be understood that he is to be permitted to de- 
 stroy everything that he can get his hands on — 
 though there ought to be many things given him 
 for that purpose if he so inclines — but that objects 
 in variety, particularly from the outside world, 
 should always be at his disposal, always be coming 
 into his little world. Many children would do less 
 damage to the furniture if this propensity could 
 only be given indulgence by allowing them to tear 
 some worthless things to bits once in a while. It 
 needs direction, not suppression — direction not in 
 a specific way in these early years, but in a general 
 way. There are thousands of things with which 
 he may become familiar by such management, and 
 that too without realizing that he is making any 
 special effort to learn. This informal education in 
 these years is just as important as the formal edu- 
 cation of the schoolroom which he is soon to enter. 
 The sensations thus constantly crowding in 
 upon the child will, however, give him little valu- 
 able knowledge unless he be wisely, though in- 
 formally, guided in getting the meaning out of 
 them. He must be helped to understand them. 
 With very little aid he will make great progress 
 himself. Each discovery of a new power or activ- 
 ity in himself will give him entertainment for a
 
 THE SENSES.— GENERAL FUNCTIONS. 59 
 
 whole day. lie may make mistakes without num- 
 ber, but care will sooner or hiter bring liim around 
 to correct most of them himself. There is no 
 need for worry that he is losing a multitude of 
 ()})portunities to learn things. A thousand acorns 
 are destroyed where one grows into a tree, and 
 ten thousand flowers bloom A\'here one produces 
 fruit. The wise child is that one who knows ever}- 
 thing he sees; not the one who can tell all tlie 
 stories he has had read to him. 
 
 Furnishing, then, as the senses do, the mate- 
 rials which are to be worked up into knowledge, 
 everything said in the preceding chapters concern- 
 ing their relation to the mind and concerning the 
 importance of keeping them in vigorous, healthy 
 condition ought to be growing more clear. It is 
 important that weakness or latency or disease in 
 any sense organ receive special attention as already 
 suggested, but in our zeal we must not forget that 
 the normal children may be going wrong through 
 our neglect. In her efforts to encourage a delicate 
 appetite in one child, a mother may allow another 
 to become the slave of an artificial or uncontrolled 
 appetite. In shielding one from excessive use of 
 his eyes, she may overlook the fact that another 
 is losing his eyesight in reading fine print or in 
 trying to write fine copies for his teacher in pen- 
 manship. If boys and girls with perfect senses 
 are making no greater progress in sense-perception 
 than their less fortunate mates, somebody is at 
 fault. They ought to be advancing more rapidly, 
 in making nice distinctions and accurate observa- 
 tions than their defective classmates.
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 CONSCIOUSNESS AND ArPEECEPTION. 
 
 The bridge over from the physical to the men- 
 tal is found in consciousness. For our present 
 purpose consciousness may be defined as the self 
 knowing its own states or activities. It is that 
 which distinguishes the animal from the plant, 
 and which in the child enables him to recognize 
 himself as a thinking, feeling, self-active being. 
 It enters into every mental activity, and is the 
 one great characteristic of all minds. For this rea- 
 son many authorities prefer to call the various men- 
 tal activities phases of consciousness. 
 
 As heretofore explained, external forces, no 
 matter how tumultuously they may assail the 
 nervous organism, nor how faithfully they may be 
 carried to the brain, can not enter the mind save 
 through the door of consciousness. Even pain, 
 as a toothache or a headache, slips below conscious- 
 ness when something else is given a place in it. 
 The power to adjust the mind so as to give one 
 sensation a place in consciousness to the exclu- 
 sion of others is just as much a matter of attain- 
 ment as any other power mentioned in this book. 
 Harriet Martineau as a young girl visited the sea- 
 shore with some friends, and, being of a very 
 60
 
 CONSCIOUSNESS AND APPERCEPTION. 01 
 
 nervoiTS disposition, was so excited that she at first 
 was unable to see the breakers or to hear tiiem 
 beating against the rocks. Observe the children 
 in your circle for a few days, and note how often 
 they have similar experiences. 
 
 Note also how quickly a child becomes inter- 
 ested and so wholly absorbed in some object that 
 it is difficult to turn his attention to anything 
 else. Probably in some cases it is pure willful- 
 ness, but it is more often due to our inability to 
 get into his consciousness. He does not hear, be- 
 cause he is seeing. He does not see, because he 
 is hearing. He does not hear nor see you, be- 
 cause he is seeing or hearing something else. He 
 may not have more pleasure iii it than he would 
 in you or in what you are trying to offer him, but 
 the latter pimply does not get into his conscious- 
 ness sufficiently, if at all. I have two very little 
 friends who, I am assured, love me and frequently 
 call up good times they have had with me, but I 
 often pass them with a friendly " Good morn- 
 ing " that, does not affect them any more than it 
 does the man in the moon. This explains why 
 children often do not hear when mother calls. 
 Illustrative of the opposite, however, is the case 
 of a little friend that quietly notified her mother, 
 who had spent some minutes calling her, though 
 she was lying in the grass near by, that- she was 
 " playing cow, and so, of course, couldn't hear! " 
 
 By its function consciousness is a differentiat- 
 ing activity, and, as the sensory ganglia in the 
 brain of tlie newborn babe are scarcely differenti- 
 ated, there is little or nothing to come into con-
 
 62 THE STUDY OF THE CHILD. 
 
 sciousness with any degree of distinctness. Dis- 
 comfort or pain, without location or definition, 
 causes him to cry, but the effort is purely reflex- 
 ive. It is possible that by his very_ cry he rouses 
 consciousness to recognize sound as distinct from 
 pain if perchance the latter has in some manner 
 already found a place there. Consciousness knows 
 feelings, states, as well as activities, and the con- 
 tinuation or repetition of any new and marked 
 sensation is Nature's method of starting the men- 
 tal life of the child. How feeble must be this first 
 glimmer in conscious life! But it is a glimmer, 
 and it is of life! Th^ movement thus begun en- 
 ables consciousness to distinguish the different 
 senses from each other, and then the different 
 affections of the same sense, as already explained, 
 expanding and strengthening at every step. 
 
 In these early days the child lies enveloped in 
 a mass of common feeling, almost exclusively 
 sensuous, and the pleasure that comes as one feel- 
 ing after another is slightly lifted above its com- 
 panion feelings in consciousness is ju^ as grate- 
 ful to him as the satisfaction which food brings 
 to his appetite. 
 
 But while consciousness is discovering differ- 
 ences in these feelings, in some way also one feel- 
 ing begins to remind the child of another which 
 he once experienced, and the two great relations 
 which enter into all knowledge, difference and 
 identity, are recognized. What are these relations? 
 Simply of difference and likeness in certain sensa- 
 tions or feelings. But the grasping of these rela- 
 tions constitutes knowledge. As a new sensation
 
 CONSCIOUSNESS AND APPERCEPTION. 63 
 
 comes into consciousness, the only meaning which 
 it can get is that it is like another which was once 
 there. Slowly, yet rapidly enough for the safety 
 of the brain, skill in recognizing this likeness and 
 its opposite, unlikeness, comes to the child. Many 
 times the new is interpreted by means of the old 
 until the mind becomes less dependent upon the 
 latter, and gets the meaning of the new immedi- 
 ately by " reading itself into it." This process is 
 called apperception. As consciousness begins .as- 
 serting itself, each succeeding effort reacts upon 
 it, as exercise reacts upon a hand or arm, increas- 
 ing its strength and skill, and gives it added power 
 to act in similar lines. So to the interpretation or 
 to the discovery of relation in each new sensation 
 it brings increased ability. This reaction, this 
 effect upon the self after each effort, is called re- 
 tention. Understanding this, you can see that 
 whereas in the first acquaintance with a new sen- 
 sation or experience we consciously bring the old 
 to bear upon it to find out its likeness or differ- 
 ence, we are afterward able to bring the self, as 
 organized by the past experiences, to bear upon it, 
 and thus get its meaning at once without con- 
 scious comparison. This is what is meant by 
 " reading one's self into it." You can also easily 
 see that, in whatever general lines a child may be 
 exercising his activity, his apperceptive powers, 
 or so-called apperceptive organs, will be cor- 
 respondingly increased. If he uses his eyes, he 
 will soon attain skill in interpreting eye sensa- 
 tions; if his ears, in interpreting sound. If he 
 live among miners, he will the more readily dis-
 
 64 THE STUDY OF THE CHILD. 
 
 cern anything pertaining to mining; if among 
 sailors, anything pertaining to the sea; if among 
 farmers, anything pertaining to the farm. As he 
 exercises his mind in counting, he becomes skilled 
 in the art of computation; in classifying plants, he 
 gains in ability to distinguish flowers and fruits; 
 in naming the stars, he rises to a ready apprehen- 
 sion of the constellations. It is for this reason 
 that the same experience- means one thing to a 
 scientist and another thing to a merchant; that a 
 piece of marble means one thing to a sculptor and 
 another to a geologist; that a jardiniere of deli- 
 cately branching plants means a vase of maiden- 
 hair ferns to one child and " a pot of green feath- 
 ers " to another; that the word reed means a long, 
 slender grass stalk to the son of a countryman and 
 a thin strip of brass to the son of an organ-maker; 
 that the cross is a symbol of freedom to one man 
 and of oppression to another. 
 
 Everything that comes into the life of the 
 child, whether through his environment, his oc- 
 cupation, his companions, or his books, affects 
 him, organizes him, in such a way as to determine 
 in great measvire the meaning which he will put 
 into and get out of each succeeding experience. 
 However strange it may seem, tlie only meaning a 
 child gets out of a thing is that which he puts into it. 
 Whatever he is himself he will in kind be getting 
 out of each new experience. If you wish to find 
 out all about a boy, get him to express himself 
 freely in words and actions about some thing 
 which you can bring to his notice. His words 
 and actions are approximately about the object,
 
 CONSCIOUSNESS AND APPERCEPTION. 65 
 
 but they are as truly about himself. In them he 
 reveals what he knows, what he is, as clearly as 
 a burnished mirror reflects his ruddy face; indeed, 
 the only thing he sees in an object is himself, and 
 it is himself that he reads not into but in that 
 object. 
 
 Put a robin's egg or nest on the desk and 
 adroitly get the boys and girls to talking about it 
 at recess while you are apparently busy at some- 
 thing else. Take mental notes and write them out 
 afterward. Test them in the same way with a tad- 
 pole, a violet, a strawberry, a snail, a praying 
 mantis, a butterfly, a dragon fly, a cotton plant, a 
 lump of anthracite coal, and you will soon learn 
 more about those children and their homes — what 
 they talk about, what they read, where they have 
 been, what they are thinking about, what Icind of 
 language they use, what manners they have, what 
 ideas of right and wrong, what they lack, what 
 they retain, whether they are accurate or loose in 
 their observations, whether they reason well or 
 poorly — than you could learn in a whole year by 
 direct questions. 
 
 Give a child an idea of a rectangle, and start 
 him around to find all the rectangles he can see 
 in the room. He will name the windows, the 
 doors, the blackboards, the slates, the desks, the 
 books, the walls, the ceiling, the panes of glass. 
 Try him again with a circle, a triangle, with an 
 idea of wood, of cloth, of a nail head, a leaf, a 
 pencil, a chair. In all cases he will recognize these 
 in objects presented to him only as he is able to 
 see that in them which is in himself as idea. This 
 8
 
 66 THE STUDY OF THE CHILD. 
 
 simple principle, so easily verified in children, con- 
 trols every onward movement in knowledge-get- 
 ting, however slight, and a thorough understand- 
 ing of it is essential to any profitable study of 
 their development. 
 
 A few simple experiments additional will help 
 us to formulate the laws in accordance with which 
 apperception acts. Give a child a piece of candy. 
 He instantly puts it into his mouth and gets pleas- 
 ure out of it. Some time after, let him choose 
 from several articles in your hand, among which 
 is a stick of candy like the former, and he prompt- 
 ly picks it up. Vary the test from time to time 
 with sticks of differing forms and colors. As long 
 as the likeness is evident the recognition is ready 
 enough. Gradually his knowledge extends until 
 he will with fair certainty pick candy of any form 
 or color from among a variety of articles, even 
 though some of them may be round and colored so 
 as at least to suggest the first stick he ate. It 
 does not take any one long to see that similarity 
 in form or color enables the child to discover the 
 second as a stick of candy, and also to see that the 
 association of the sweet taste with that of form 
 and color in the one experience was sufficient to 
 suggest sweet taste again when the form and color 
 in the second stick were recognized. He could 
 see by similarity that the second was a stick of 
 candy, and that, being a stick of candy, it must 
 also be sweet. In both cases he reads his former 
 experience into it, and gets its meaning as a stick 
 of candy. The law of aTiperception by similarity, 
 then, may be stated as follows:
 
 CONSCIOUSNESS AND APPERCEPTION. 67 
 
 When the mind recognizes elements in an ex- 
 perience as similar to those in a previous experi- 
 ence, it immediately gives the new experience the 
 same meaning as the old. 
 
 This law is dependent upon the great law of 
 association which may now be stated: 
 
 The elements of which any experience is com- 
 posed become so related in the mind by the associa- 
 tion that the recurrence of one tends to bring bach 
 the others. 
 
 This law not only makes apperception but all 
 knowledge-getting possible. At sight of the stick 
 of candy, the sensation of taste also returns to the 
 mind; at sight of a hot poker, the fact that it will 
 burn comes back to the child; at sound of the 
 bark of the dog, comes also the picture of the dog; 
 at the touch of its fur, the picture of a cat and 
 of its sharp claws; at sight of the chair, the pic- 
 ture of a man sitting on it; at the sound of the 
 clock striking the hour of nine, the children sing- 
 ing the Gloria for the opening of school. These 
 last illustrations show how contiguity in time or 
 place may help the apperceptive process as well 
 as similarity. 
 
 It must be clear enough to any teacher that 
 the principle of apperception sufficiently explains 
 the need for a sequence of studies and of subjects 
 in each study, so that the learning process will be 
 easy, natural, economical. It also shows that any 
 method of instruction which adheres strictly to 
 the class plan and ignores the differences in the 
 individual pupils is illogical and wasteful. It is 
 more important that the teacher find out the facts
 
 68 THE STUDY OF THE CHILD. 
 
 already mentioned in this chapter concerning the 
 kind and extent of each child's knowledge, to- 
 gether with his skill in using what he knows in 
 getting further knowledge, than that he should 
 have all of the information which the best set of 
 school records in the world can give. The best 
 training which can be given a child is not that 
 which fills his head with facts, but that which 
 enables him to use to the best possible advantage 
 the facts wdiich he does get. The man with small 
 capital and great capacity is sure to be rich; the 
 man with great capital and little capacity will soon 
 be poor. The principle holds just as well in the 
 mental and spiritual world.
 
 CHAPTEE X. 
 
 APPERCEPTION (CONTINUED). — ATTENTION. 
 
 The reason that a certain experience means 
 one thing to one child and another to a second is 
 dne in large measure, as has been explained, to 
 the differences in their previons experiences and 
 education. If a rabbit is brought into the room, 
 one child will flee from it, while another will im- 
 mediately fondle it; one will notice its color, an- 
 other its fur, another its ears, another its tail, 
 another its teeth, another its eyes, another the 
 way it runs. If a doll is brought in, one will speak 
 of its clothes, another of its face, another of its 
 hands, another of its hair, another of the mate- 
 rial of which it is made. If you pronounce the 
 word corn to the children, one will think of canned 
 corn, another of popcorn, another of corn grow- 
 ing in the field, another of corn meal, another of 
 sweet corn, another of Kaffir corn, another of 
 broom corn, another of the corn on father's big 
 toe; still others may think of a grain of corn, its 
 shape, its color, its size, its use, etc. 
 
 An additional reason for this great variety in 
 the things first noticed and first mentioned by 
 them will be found, if you carry the experiments 
 far enough, in the fact that they are the ones in 
 
 69
 
 70 THE STUDY OF THE CHILD. 
 
 which for the time at least the children are most 
 interested. This interest is caused by the pleas- 
 ure which is given the child at the time or which 
 it has experienced in the past. The pleasure may 
 be enhanced by the familiarity or the novelty of 
 the object, or of some element or elements in it. 
 It may be sensuous or intellectual, real or im- 
 agined. It is this which gives it value. Any- 
 thing has value for us which has power to con- 
 tribute to our enjoyment. The fur of the rabbit 
 is soft to the touch, and so delights the child; 
 the snow-white of its tail in contrast with the 
 brownish gray of its body pleases the eye, and so 
 he becomes interested in its color. The bright 
 ribbons on the doll stimulate the optic nerve, and 
 interest is quickened at once. The mention of 
 corn calls up the roasting ears at yesterday's din- 
 ner, because of the enjoyment they furnished. It 
 must be remembered that the term pleasure is ap- 
 plied to every kind of feeling, whatever its source, 
 which is in harmony with our being. Its oppo- 
 site term, pain, is applied to feelings not in har- 
 mony with it. Interest may arise from the latter 
 as well as from pleasure, and so value may be 
 either positive or negative. Value may be natural 
 or acquired — that is, it may belong to the object 
 itself or it may be due to the particular meaning 
 it has for us. Two knives may be exactly alike, 
 but one is a present from mother, and therefore 
 is worth a thousand times as much as the other. 
 A lock of hair may be soft and silken, and as such 
 please all who look at it, but to the one who recog- 
 nizes it as the dear curls of a loved baby it has
 
 APPERCEPTION.— ATTENTION. 71 
 
 value and interest which is heyond computation. 
 A lump of silver ore lying- on the mountain side 
 is nothing but an ordinary stone to us, but it sets 
 the imagination of an experienced miner on fire. 
 The more knowledge one may have about an ob- 
 ject the greater will be the variety of interest it 
 arouses. 
 
 The reason a child picks out one object from 
 among several is found, then, in the interest it 
 arouses in him, or in the value it has for him be- 
 cause of its ability to arouse pleasure. It is for 
 the same reason that he selects and exalts above 
 the others some particular element in an object, 
 as, for instance, its color, its shape, its texture, its 
 taste, its odor, its utility, its past associations. The 
 following laws may easily be verified: 
 
 The mind attaches most value to that which 
 gives it most pleasure, antipicated or realized. 
 
 Whatever gives or promises pleasure or pain 
 to the child aivahens interest. 
 
 The element in an experience which possesses 
 the m'.ost value to the child comes at once into 
 prominence in consciousness, the others talcing a 
 subordinate place in apperception or dropping out 
 of notice entirely. 
 
 The first may be called the law of value; the 
 second, the law of interest; the third, the law of 
 disengagement or of dissociation. If it were not 
 for these laws, everything w^ould mean practically 
 the same thing to us, and differentiation w^ould 
 be a very laborious and unsatisfactory process. 
 Without interest, knowledge would be shorn of 
 much of its charm and life of all its zest. It
 
 72 THE STUDY OF THE CHILD. 
 
 breaks up monotony, and constantly incites the 
 mind to new adjustments. These laws lie at the 
 basis of educational principles, and no method of 
 instruction can wisely ignore them. 
 
 As stated before, a variety of elements, of sen- 
 sations, always lie in mass in consciousness. Some 
 force is necessary to push or pull one of them into 
 prominence. If one of the stimuli have sufficient 
 value in the way of intensity or quality or pitch 
 to arouse interest, pain or pleasure, consciousness 
 immediately apprehends it, and it becomes the ob- 
 ject of attention. This is the reason we increase 
 the volume of the voice or change its quality in 
 order to attract the attention of one who is ab- 
 sorbed in something else. A very small child soon 
 learns the philosophy of such a course, and so 
 cries louder or with a different tone in case mother 
 does not promptly respond. 
 
 When the mind is concentrated upon some 
 particular element in an experience, it is said to 
 be giving attention. This is essential to all apper- 
 ception, to all knowledge. The reason for the 
 selection of a particular element to the exclusion 
 of others has already been sufficiently explained. 
 The isolation from the others must be so complete 
 that it will not be confused with them. That 
 being secured, the self must be brought to bear 
 upon that element by adjusting all of its powers 
 to it so as to find its meaning. There is very great 
 difference in merely looking at a thing to the ex- 
 clusion of other things, and in turning the whole 
 of one's activities upon it in order to interpret it. 
 There will be no meaning in it until the mind dis- 
 
 1
 
 APPERCEPTION. -ATTENTION. 73 
 
 covers correspondence between the new elements 
 and those with which it is already familiar. It is 
 for this reason that rapidity in adjustment should 
 be sought constantly. Many children wear their 
 eyes out staring at a thing, imagining that they 
 are giving attention. If they are not at the same 
 time actively engaged in fitting themselves to it, 
 as it were, there is little hope of their becoming 
 any the wiser. A further word in the way of illus- 
 tration may be in place. A child was given a key. 
 He immediately toddled to the door and tried to 
 insert it in the keyhole. Had he not brought to 
 bear upon it his past knowledge and discovered 
 identity or likeness, such a movement would have 
 had no significance whatever. I gave a word, 
 felicific, to a class of young men and women not 
 long since. It had no meaning to them, in spite 
 of all their efforts to " remember." I suggested a 
 division of the word, and lo! one of them saw at 
 once his old friends felix and felicity, and another 
 recognized in fie the essence of fiction, and they 
 were not Latin students either. A little practice 
 following enabled them to adjust their knowledge 
 of words to the interpretation of many strangers 
 with surprising facility. I stepped off the train 
 once at midnight in a blinding storm and started 
 to find a hotel I had been told was not far away. 
 I soon discovered that I was lost, when a flash of 
 lightning, though lasting but an instant, revealed 
 a score of objects to me. Almost before it was 
 gone I had brought to bear upon them all the 
 description given me, and had located the hotel so 
 accurately that I was able to go directly to its door.
 
 74 TEE STUDY OF THE CHILD. 
 
 Accuracy is as important in the adjustment as 
 rapidity. In one sense, we may say that there is 
 really no adjustment that is not accurate. If the 
 process lack intelligence and self-control, flurry, 
 confusion, and waste must result. There is a kind 
 of superficial adjustment which comes so easily 
 and so quickly that the deeper meanings are en- 
 tirely overlooked. Dr. Baldwin very aptly calls 
 such attention liquid attention, for it as quickly 
 loses the effect of the new knowledge as water loses 
 the form of the vessel from which it has been 
 poured. 
 
 Follow up all of this with a variety of tests and 
 experiments, and discover how and why children 
 differ in the rapidity and accuracy of their ad- 
 justment to common things. Find how easily they 
 are deceived and how quickly they learn to adjust 
 themselves with greater ease. 
 
 Apperception is not complete, however, until 
 this adjustment has resulted in uniting or identify- 
 ing the new element with others already familiar 
 to the mind. The disengagement which took it 
 away from its companion elements in conscious- 
 ness makes possible its association and alliance 
 with others of its own kind and name. The recog- 
 nition of some such relationship is, of course, 
 essential to the adjustment already described, but 
 the final stage reacts, intensifies, and reaffirms the 
 identification and assimilation, so that the mean- 
 ing takes definite form as an idea. The idea may 
 be simple or complex, depending upon the num- 
 ber of elements which the mind may relate and 
 combine with it. Practice enables the child to
 
 APPERCEPTION.— ATTENTION. 75 
 
 hold in mind an increasing number of relations, 
 and his attention becomes " many-sided " — that is, 
 he is able to apprehend and give meaning at once 
 to many elements in an experience. 
 
 Hold some strange object before the class for 
 an instant, then discover how many things each 
 pupil can name in writing about it. Find out, if 
 possible, why some of them saw so little in it. 
 Their own explanations may be of value in adapt- 
 ing means and methods to their needs. 
 
 The term relation has been used several times, 
 and its meaning ought not to be misunderstood. 
 It is simply the connection which the mind gives ob- 
 jects because of the discovery of common or like ele- 
 ments. It is that which enables a child to con- 
 nect or to see the whole in the part, the cause in 
 the effect, the class in the individual, the resem- 
 blance or contrast of one object with another in 
 color, or form, or size, or texture. It leads to all 
 identification and differentiation. By it knowl- 
 edge rises from the individual to the class, the re- 
 lation, the common element, becoming more ideal 
 and more universal with each succeeding experi- 
 ence.
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 SYMBOLISM. 
 
 Each object in the universe is the expression 
 of an idea. No flower of the field, no pebble by 
 the wayside, no bird that skims the air, no star 
 that glimmers in the wide expanse of heaven, can 
 be what it is save as the realization, the concrete 
 individual expression of that which first existed 
 as idea. Each stands as the sign of the idea out 
 of which it was born. That idea is its true mean- 
 ing, and it is that, and that alone, which we 
 strive to find in all knowledge-getting. A child 
 wishes to communicate the idea to me that he has 
 hurt his finger; he holds it up and moans. In 
 getting the meaning of his gesture and cry, I am 
 simply getting the idea of which they are the 
 expression or the sign. He brings an apple and 
 a knife and lays them on my lap. The meaning 
 of this act is the idea that originated and directed 
 it. He utters a word, and its meaning is the idea 
 he chose it to express. He draws a rough picture; 
 it is meaningless save as I find the idea prompting 
 it. What is true of everything that the child or 
 the man creates or does is also true of everything 
 that God creates, whether it be a mountain or a 
 continent, a dewdrop or an ocean, a tree or a lion. 
 76
 
 SYMBOLISM. Y7 
 
 Everything having form, whether in art or nature, 
 is the sign of an idea, and gets significance from 
 that fact, and tliat only. 
 
 Wliatever stands in jDhice of an idea as its 
 representative is called its sign, its symbol. It 
 may be an object, a color, an odor, a taste, a move- 
 ment, a gesture, a sound, a word. It may suggest 
 the idea by its inherent character or by conven- 
 tional agreement. As an example of the former, 
 the word rush by its sound suggests the idea and 
 the action for which it stands; the same is true of 
 the words cluck, buzz, thrush, sneeze, etc. As 
 an example of the latter, see the words in this 
 sentence. A slight likeness of meaning suggests 
 an object as a sign or symbol of an idea. In this 
 way the square became the symbol of integrity; 
 the chain, of fellowship; the dove, of innocence; 
 the egg, of life; the eye, of frankness. By virtue 
 of its relationship the part is able to symbolize 
 the whole, as a sail the ship; a chimney, a house; 
 a hand, the body; so the cause symbolizes the ef- 
 fect, as a match, a fire; a drought, short crops; a 
 runaway horse, danger; so an instrument symbol- 
 izes an action, as the sword, war; the pen, peace; 
 cordage and anchor, commerce; the retort, sci- 
 ence. Each has its true meaning only as the idea 
 for W'hich it stands is apprehended. Accidental 
 association often gives an object great powder as 
 a symbol. The cross thus became the symbol of 
 riiristianity; the garter, of a great order of 
 knighta; the crescent, of the Ottoman Empire. By 
 its intimate relationship Avitli the everyday life 
 of a people, a plant or a flower becomes the sym-
 
 78 THE STUDY OF THE CEILD. 
 
 bol for a nation, as the shamrock for Ireland; the 
 thistle for Scotland; the rose for England; the lily 
 for France; the lotus for Egypt. 
 
 Ideas rise from objects. Engrossed with the 
 former, we forget that the office of the latter is 
 to serve as symbols, as tangible expressions of that 
 which existed in another mind. Objects have no 
 other right to be. While at first all the ele- 
 ments of an object must be apprehended through 
 the senses before its full meaning can be under- 
 stood, it soon happens, as a result of association 
 and familiarity, that one element is sufficient to 
 enable the mind to apprehend the whole object 
 and get its full meaning. As an illustration, the 
 odor is sufficient to call up the full picture of the 
 rose; the taste, of an apple; the voice, of a friend; 
 the ears, of a rabbit; a feather, of an ostrich; a 
 letter, of a word. All of the foregoing depends 
 upon the principle of symbolism. The wiser one 
 becomes, the deeper and wider becomes the mean- 
 ing of every sensuous element, the less dependent 
 is he upon his sensations, for each sensation in- 
 creases in symbolizing power — that is, in power 
 to stand as the representative of other sensations 
 and corresponding meanings. I hear the ringing 
 of a bell, and instantly there comes to my mind 
 the eye picture of a bell, its shape, its material, 
 its size, and also of the word bell. I hear the 
 word hell pronounced, and I at once image the 
 sound of a bell, together with the other qualities 
 just mentioned, and possibly also image the writ- 
 ten or printed Avord bell, and probably also the 
 muscular movement necessary to write it.
 
 SYMBOLISM. 79 
 
 The sound of the bell or of the word bell may 
 also stimulate the imaging of the building in 
 which it is located, its use, its history, etc. You 
 probably now understand what was meant by one 
 sense symbolizing another, and how it happens 
 that in simply tasting an object you are able to 
 tell its shape, its texture, and its color, qualities 
 that can come directly only through touch and 
 sight; that in simply looking at an object you are 
 able to tell whether it is smooth or rough, far or 
 near — qualities and relations that originally came 
 through touch and muscular sensation only. You 
 must also see in this the incalculable value of 
 symbols in all knowledge-getting. They vast- 
 ly multiply the mind's power of attaining 
 knowledge both in rapidity and comprehensive- 
 ness. 
 
 The term symbol is often used of objects hav- 
 ing a profound meaning or relationship, in many 
 cases far beyond the understanding of the unin- 
 itiated or of the average mind. The symbolisms 
 of mythology, of some systems of religion, or 
 of philosophy, reveal their beauty only to those 
 who make them objects of special study. It is 
 also used in other ways, but for our present 
 purpose these uses ought not to be confounded 
 with the use as explained in the preceding para- 
 graphs. 
 
 If the function of all concrete, sensuous mate- 
 rial is now clear, then everything you see about 
 you is aglow with meaning, everything has a story 
 to tell you. It is a principle easily recognized in 
 psychology that an idea can be communicated
 
 80 THE STUDY OF THE CHILD. 
 
 from one mind to another only by giving it some 
 physical existence, which in turn the receiving 
 mind idealizes or interprets. The sensuous world 
 has another function, however, than that of merely 
 serving as the repository of an idea or a group of 
 ideas. It through the nervous organism stimu- 
 lates mental activity and invites interpretation. 
 There is nothing that remains silent. Everything 
 knocks at the portals of the mind through some 
 of the senses and clamors for recognition. It 
 catches the rays of the sun and hurls them into 
 the eye, saying, " Look at me." It swings back 
 and forth, driving the sound waves into the ear, 
 saying, " Hear me." It rubs against you, saying, 
 " Feel me." It rushes into the nostrils, insisting 
 that you smell it, and squeezes the papillae on the 
 back of the tongue, urging you to taste it. In 
 these ways it forces itself into the consciousness 
 of the child and, as already explained, there sur- 
 renders its meaning, the idea it embodies. Every 
 time the same sensations are aroused the same 
 idea — that is, the same meaning — arises. The 
 sensation is that which is interpreted, and in a 
 way is a symbol, but it is projected and so inti- 
 mately associated with the object causing it that 
 to all intents and purposes they are one. In ex- 
 amining a sensation which an object produces, we 
 usually have no other thought than that we are 
 examining the object itself. This is more true of 
 the child, for he has not yet learned the philoso- 
 phy of the process. 
 
 An idea is always general in its nature. A 
 symbol, as an object, is individual, but in mean-
 
 SYMBOLISM. 81 
 
 ing is general or universal. By saying that it is 
 universal we mean that the same meaning or the 
 same thought would arise in apperceiving all the 
 objects of the class of objects to which that par- 
 ticular object belongs. The power of a symbol, 
 then, is determined by the depth and comprehen- 
 siveness of meaning it contains for the apperceiv- 
 ing mind. The less of the sensuous in proportion 
 to the meaning it bears, the greater its ability to 
 serve the mind. We must not forget that nothing 
 has meaning which is not given it by the mind 
 itself, and that an object is dependent upon the 
 mind for its symbolizing value. Place an object 
 before a child, say a hat. Discover what he knows 
 about it. Draw now the merest outline of the hat 
 on the board. He will probably see nothing there 
 but some " curved lines." Fill up the outline a 
 little, and he may see nothing more. Shade and 
 work in details, developing relief. When the pic- 
 ture can hardly be distinguished from the real 
 hat, he exclaims, " It is a hat." Eepeat the pro- 
 cess for a few days, and he will soon learn to recog- 
 nize a hat in the slightest outline you can place 
 upon the board. Parts of three circles, ^ 
 
 slightly modified, symbolize not that ^ \~^ 
 hat, but the whole hat tribe to him. ( ) 
 
 Long before this he had heard the 
 word hat, and that had served to stand in place 
 of the hat itself and to symbolize hats in gen- 
 eral. Write now the word ]iai on the board, 
 and by the association of the spoken word, the 
 hat, and the picture of the hat, it serves first to 
 call up the particular hat, and then to symbolize 
 9
 
 82 THE STUDY OF THE CHILD, 
 
 the idea of hats in general. It is readily seen that 
 the mere outline has greater symbolizing power 
 than the fully shaded picture, and that the word 
 hat has more than either. Kepeat the experiment 
 with other objects and with other children, and 
 note their varying abilities in interpretation. Dis- 
 cover why some symbols have greater meaning 
 to some children than to others, and why some 
 have greater meaning to all. 
 
 The age when children are able to see in a 
 colored picture the representation of the object 
 varies greatly. A very young child will show some 
 interest in himself as seen in the mirror, but prob- 
 ably the life in the face, as shown both by expres- 
 sion and movement, affords the explanation of it. 
 If the face were perfectly still, the recognition 
 would come later. Objects in motion are always 
 the earliest to attract the attention of the child. 
 The interest first shown in colored pictures is due 
 more to the presence of the color than to any ap- 
 preciation of the form. 
 
 Before a child seems able to distinguish col- 
 ored pictures he has by association learned the 
 meaning of a few words, and is already using those 
 valuable symbols. They serve a marvelous pur- 
 pose in enabling him to receive or communicate 
 an idea concerning an object when the object itself 
 is absent. If he wishes a drink, he may go to the 
 pitcher and try to pour out some water. In lieu 
 of that he may simply say " drink,'^ and the same 
 idea is conveyed. As soon as he learns the great 
 convenience of words as symbols, he is disposed to 
 discard gestures as rapidly as possible, and be-
 
 SYMBOLISM. 83 
 
 comes hungry for words. At first, words mean 
 objects and actions to liini, tlien relations and 
 qualities, their ideal significance becoming more 
 abstract and less sensuous until they serve as sym- 
 bols of pure ideas, and not simply as representa- 
 tives of objects and their phenomena.
 
 CHAPTEE XII. 
 
 LAXGUAGE. 
 
 Symbolism makes language possible, the whole 
 vocabulary of a people being a great system of 
 symbols, each the repository, the representative of 
 a thought from which it came and for which it 
 speaks. As already stated, many of these words 
 originated in an effort to imitate sounds made by 
 animals or by bodies in motion; others are purely 
 arbitrary forms agreed upon to represent ideas. 
 Many words that originally belonged to the former 
 class have become so modified by long usage that 
 their source is not recognized save by those who 
 make language an object of special study. Many 
 words, at first used to express sensuous feelings 
 and ideas only, through figurative use at last serve 
 to express the highest emotions and thoughts of 
 the human soul. 
 
 If children who have not learned to use lan- 
 guage were left alone, they would easily invent 
 a language of their own, though, of course, it 
 would contain a limited range of words as com- 
 pared with the vocabulary of their parents. The 
 impulse to expression is characteristic of every 
 child. He is not satisfied simply with expression, 
 but strives to express himself in such a way as to 
 84
 
 LANGUAGE. 85 
 
 be understood b}' others. Xo matter what kind 
 of a sound he utters or what kind of a gesture 
 he makes, if he finds himself understood by some 
 one else he adopts that sound or gesture to express 
 that same idea in the future. Every child has 
 some words or gestures of his own manufacture 
 which he finds profitable to use even after he has 
 learned by imitation the words and gestures used 
 by his associates. 
 
 A child at my table one day, when thirsty, 
 uttered a sound resembling the caw of a tired 
 crow, and the mother, divining its want, gave it 
 a drink. That peculiar sound served the same pur- 
 pose for many months, until by imitation it began 
 to use the word drink. A little friend called 
 sugar " gogo " for a year or more before she at- 
 tempted to say sugar. Another habitually ex- 
 tended a finger toward any object he wished and 
 closed it quickly, repeating the process with great 
 rapidity until his wish was gratified. A little niece 
 used the word hum for large, and as she learned 
 the names of things long persisted in saying 
 " bum-bed," " bum-apple," '" bum-cat," etc. Even 
 small children agree among themselves to call cer- 
 tain objects and actions by certain " made-up " 
 names. In many cases the children agree upon 
 some prefix or suffix to attach uniformly to all 
 words they use, and make a language which is 
 often difficult for adults and strangers to under- 
 stand. Dr. Oscar Chrisman has gathered a mass 
 of interesting information concerning children's 
 secret languages, which shows how fertile are th^ir 
 little brains in devising vocabularies of their own.
 
 86 THE STUDY OF THE CHILD. 
 
 The utility of the language spoken by those 
 about him is so easily seen by the child that as 
 soon as he has picked up a few words he becomes 
 as greedy for others as the Sylene Dragon did for 
 children to swallow. He catches them up on 
 every hand, putting them into immediate use with 
 such intelligence and accuracy as to surprise every- 
 body about him. Pie apprehends the meaning of 
 hundreds of them intuitively, seldom asking for 
 their definition. I have yet to discover the child 
 that before attempting to read has asked for the 
 meaning of the more common conjunctions, prepo- 
 sitions, interjections, demonstrative pronouns, and 
 adjectives. The meaning of many of them readily 
 reveals itself in their concrete association, but the 
 slight hint even thus often given shows with what 
 insight the child is already endowed. Few chil- 
 dren learn words in a formal way, and yet at the 
 age of six many of them have amassed a vocabu- 
 lary of from fifteen to eighteen hundred words 
 which they can nse with fair accuracy. I know a 
 healthy child two years of age that speaks but ten 
 words, and yet Holden reports that his son spoke 
 three hundred and ninety-seven words at the same 
 age. Superintendent J. M. Greenwood reports a 
 little girl of fifteen months using sixty words, and 
 at two years of age using five hundred. The study 
 of children's vocabularies is one of the most fas- 
 cinating and instructive phases of our subject. 
 The following conclusions may be verified in a few 
 weeks of investigation: 
 
 1. That after children have learned a few 
 dozen words they readily appropriate the new
 
 LANGUAGE. 87 
 
 words they hear, recalling them as needed, without 
 having made any apparent effort to remember 
 them. 
 
 2. That children more readily understand and 
 use such words as stand as symbols for the objects 
 and activities with which they are surrounded, 
 picking up relation words with similar ease. 
 
 3. That while children of the same age vary 
 greatly in the number of words in their vocabu- 
 laries, they seem to have a sufficient number to 
 express their ideas, showing that their knowledge 
 and vocabularies grow at approximately the same 
 rate, and revealing also the function of language 
 in knowledge-getting. 
 
 4. That children learn words used of objects 
 or actions present much more readily than when 
 they hear them read out of books or used in stories. 
 
 5. That almost without exception children 
 who hear good English at home make few gram- 
 matical mistakes, but soon fall into grievous errors 
 on associating with other children or with adults 
 whose speech is faulty. 
 
 I have been surprised at the purity of the dic- 
 tion of some very small children. It was as chaste 
 and appropriate as that of an Irving or a Gold- 
 smith, there being no affectation nor stiffness, no 
 high-sounding phrases nor cumbrous words about 
 it. Years ago I made the acquaintance of two 
 little boys who were talking like philosophers, 
 using words of Latin and Greek origin with dar- 
 ing assurance. I discovered the explanation in 
 the fact that their father was a man of few words, 
 and that their mother used Anglo-Saxon only 
 
 ■v
 
 88 THE STUDY OF THE CHILD. 
 
 when some word of foreign extraction was not at 
 hand. She encouraged the boys to go to the dic- 
 tionary for words to use rather than to their as- 
 sociates. Both of them were slow tliinkers and 
 measured talkers. I recently met a boy of eleven 
 in the mountains whose home had been there since 
 childhood, and found him wonderfully versed in 
 the geology of the locality, using technical terms 
 with an ease that would give him a hearing in an 
 academy of science. 
 
 As already remarked, children seldom lack for 
 words to express their ideas. This is particularly 
 true of children of from three to twelve years of 
 age. The confusion and hesitancy of the youth is 
 not generally found earlier in life. Children either 
 tell what they know or frankly say they do not 
 know. They may often be wrong in what they 
 say, but if they think they know a thing they usu- 
 ally have a word for it. If these things be true, 
 the cultivation of a child's language in these earlier 
 years — years in which we have been exalting sense- 
 perception — needs to be given greater prominence 
 than is now accorded it. Nearly one fourth of 
 his life in the public schools is spent on grammar, 
 and when that subject is finished he talks and 
 writes with no more ease, comparatively speaking, 
 than when he took up the study. Grammar is 
 too often taught as a means of helping a child 
 correct his language, whereas proper guidance in 
 those years when he was learning language as 
 naturally as he was learning to w^alk would have 
 made all such work vmnecessary. 
 
 It is a great error to suppose that the child
 
 LANGUAGE. 89 
 
 learns to use words intelligently by imitation. He 
 pronounces them by imitation^ and nses them in 
 a mechanisal way as he has heard others use them; 
 but unless their significance is apprehended, they 
 are soon cast aside and forgotten. Words become 
 a part of his mental furniture, his mental organ- 
 ism, or they prove of little service. The child has 
 no more use for words without meaning than he 
 has for dolls without heads. Words have meaning 
 only as they symbolize that which he knows. If 
 the knowledge and the word are both born in the 
 same experience, they are indissolubly bound to- 
 gether thereafter. They can not be forced upon 
 the child without doing violence to his nature, 
 making him constrained and artificial. This 
 serves to indicate not only the way in which words 
 become a part of the child, but also the classes 
 of words which he should be expected to master. 
 Experiment with several children and note their 
 inability to cope with abstract terms, however 
 small, and yet how quickly they appropriate large 
 words if they but express a familiar idea or an 
 idea which their past knowledge or capacity now 
 enables them to comprehend. Difficulty in pro- 
 nunciation may cause a child to avoid or discard 
 a word, hence the simpler and more euphonious 
 vernacular forms are better suited to him. Many 
 words are understood by small children long be- 
 fore they attempt to use them, as will easily be 
 noted by any observer. 
 
 There comes a time in the child's life when 
 words serve a greater purpose than merely to ex- 
 press or communicate ideas of things present.
 
 90 THE STUDY OP THE CHILD. 
 
 They serve also as blocks by means of which a past 
 experience is rebuilt or an imaginary one de- 
 scribed. It is then that their symbolize value is 
 more evident, for they now represent mental pic- 
 tures instead of physical objects and activities. 
 This new step in the use of language is fraught 
 with weighty moment for the child. If with a few 
 words he can recall the details of a past experience, 
 locating it in time and space, he must also have 
 taken a great step forward in mental activity. 
 Test some of your younger children and see — 
 
 (1) WTiat proportion of them readily recall the 
 details of some occurrences of the week before; 
 
 (2) Whether the children with the larger vo- 
 cabularies are as active and accurate as the others. 
 
 Describe some interesting scene in your own 
 life, and make similar tests. In both cases you 
 will find that some children who do not lack 
 words in describing what is present to the senses 
 are surprisingly helpless in attempts to describe 
 what they see in the mind as an image only. If 
 possible, discover the cause. It may simply be 
 lack of experience; it may be something else. 
 Whatever it is, the need for intelligent, sympa- 
 thetic guidance in the transition is clear enough. 
 Words and mind must work in as close alliance 
 here as in sense-perception. 
 
 As the child judges and reasons, his language 
 must serve him another purpose. You have no- 
 ticed how difficult it is to get many children to 
 compare objects or pictures directly present be- 
 fore them, particularly when the qualities are not 
 very prominent or very clearly' defined. When,
 
 LANGUAGE. 91 
 
 however, the absent objects are held before the 
 mind by means of their names only, the difhculty 
 is multiplied many times over. Here words serve 
 their highest function, and the success of the child 
 in loading them up with meaning is profoundly 
 tested. 
 
 The transition from the use of words applied 
 to individual objects to their use in designating 
 classes of objects or of activities is often easily 
 made by children, and yet some of them accom- 
 plish it very slowly and very laboriously. The 
 use of particles and of inflections to distinguish 
 number and gender puzzles them seriously at 
 times. Amusing mistakes of both kinds are fre- 
 quently related of the children in every household 
 at family reunions. The blunders in the use of 
 synonyms and homonyms are exceedingly com- 
 mon among children who hear language a little 
 above their comprehension, or who are required 
 to commit passages to memory without under- 
 standing their meaning. The following illustrate 
 them: A little friend of mine was given the text, 
 " The Son of man came into the world not to be 
 ministered unto but to minister." She went off 
 repeating it to herself, and returned in a few mo- 
 ments, surprising her monitor by saying, " The 
 Son of man came not to be preachered unto but 
 to preacher." " A double-minded man is un- 
 stable in all his ways " was, after a similar effort, 
 announced as follows, " A double-minded man is 
 in the stable all the time." Another little sprite 
 in the same family who had heard " The Goblins " 
 recited attempted it herself, and where the boy 
 
 /f
 
 92 THE STUDY OF THE CHILD. 
 
 quickly dons his '^ roundabout " she assuringly as- 
 serted that he put on his " whereabouts." A study 
 of these movements in the language of the child 
 will not only prove interesting in themselves, but 
 will be fruitful of suggestions in a pedagogical 
 way. 
 
 The various transitions in the use of language 
 already mentioned are more or less critical stages 
 in the child's mental development, but the step 
 by which he also grasps the words as eye pictures 
 is no less critical. That a few straight lines and 
 curves having no characteristic common with the 
 objects they symbolize should have meaning as 
 well as the spoken word is as much of a marvel 
 to every child as it was to the Indians who held 
 Captain John Smith prisoner. In these days of 
 reading and writing, the learning of both by the 
 children is taken as a matter of coursfe by parents 
 and teachers, but so much in their intellectual life 
 is dependent upon the method by which it is ac- 
 complished that it becomes at once one of the 
 greatest problems that confront the teacher. Our 
 limitations prevent further discussion here, but 
 we hope not further inquiry and study on the 
 part of the reader. 
 
 On language as related to muscular control, 
 see the latter part of the next chapter.
 
 CHAPTEE XIII. 
 
 MUSCULAR OR MOTOR COXTROL. 
 
 The nerves controlling the voluntary muscles 
 of the body lie everywhere in pairs, one for the 
 right and one for the left side. Branching off 
 from the spinal cord, they divide and subdivide 
 into delicate filaments that reach even the mi- 
 nutest muscles of the body. They parallel the 
 sensory nerves, which carry information of periph- 
 eral disturbance to the brain. Through them the 
 movements of all the organs are directed. As ac- 
 curate information concerning the stimuli that 
 arouse sensation is dependent upon the healthy 
 and prompt action of the sensor or afferent nerves, 
 so intelligent and effective motor control is de- 
 pendent upon similar conditions in the motor or 
 efferent nerves. The earlier movements of the 
 child are due almost entirely to reflex action, 
 many of them serving useful ends in its physical 
 economy. Their automatic nature is easily shown 
 when the child has reached the stage of develop- 
 ment in which it begins to direct the same move- 
 ments by its own will, for much of the inborn 
 skill, having served its purpose, then suddenly dis- 
 appears, and control is regained only by intelligent 
 
 and patient practice. 
 
 93
 
 94 THE STUDY OF THE CHILD. 
 
 Whatever may be the mystery of connection 
 between the mind and the nervous system, this 
 much is clear, that the fact of such a connection 
 can not he denied. It is also clear that this won- 
 derful mechanism of the human frame becomes 
 responsive to the demands of the will only through 
 education and training. Purely reflex impulses 
 may throw the head and arms and body. and legs 
 about in a promiscuous way, satisfying the phys- 
 ical cravings for activity, but the putting of a 
 hand or a foot in a certain chosen spot is a very 
 different thing. " Making both ends meet " — that 
 is, grasping the toes — for the first time is a great 
 feat in motor control. The movements of the 
 facial muscles in taking food or crying or smiling 
 have little of the purely voluntary element in them 
 until they are used for a purpose more or less defi- 
 nitely outlining in the mind of the child. When 
 any movement comes clearly into the conscious- 
 ness of the child as of his own origination and 
 direction, he has leaped beyond the bonds of the 
 mere animal and already entered into the realms 
 of spiritual existence; he is already building ideals 
 and realizing them; the wisest man on the earth 
 can do no more. By these movements and their 
 accompanying sensations he gradually differenti- 
 ates himself from the outside world, and discovers 
 himself and it as having mutually independent 
 existences: the one moving at his will, the other 
 fixed and stable. 
 
 For lack of space we can not tarry over the 
 multitude of interesting experiments in motor 
 control which the child makes in the first months
 
 MUSCULAR OR MOTOR CONTROL. 95 
 
 of his life, though they would throw much light 
 upon the problem later on. A knowledge of the 
 details of the structure of muscles in general and 
 of their functions is necessary to its proper appre- 
 hension, and it might be well to refresh the mem- 
 ory a little before proceeding further. The mo- 
 tive power originating all muscular movement is 
 physical impulse, which has been well defined as 
 felt pressure to activity. That " felt pressure " 
 may arise wholly from the accumulation of sur- 
 plus nervous or muscular energy which seeks to 
 discharge itself in exercise of some kind or as a 
 reflex movement in response to some external 
 stimulus, or it may arise from the presence of some 
 thought, some idea, in the mind which awakens 
 a mental impulse to its realization. This mental 
 impulse in some magic way arouses a physical 
 impulse, and the condition for action is at once 
 attained. 
 
 The purely physical origin of the impulse is, 
 of course, more marked in the growing child than 
 later in life. His whole organism is set up as with 
 compressed springs. A full-grown, vigorous man 
 is forced into the little space the child now occu- 
 pies, and he must expand to that man's stature 
 and that man's adroitness and skill. For that pur- 
 pose he eats and sleeps and exercises; for it he 
 crams every little cell in .his body with nourish- 
 ment until it is alive with energy. No wonder 
 he rolls and runs and jumps and tumbles and pulls 
 and pushes and twists from the moment he opens 
 his eyes in the mornin.2 until he is put to bed at 
 night. He can not help it. He ought not to help
 
 96 THE STUDY OF THE CHILD. 
 
 it. It is natural with him. That is the way he 
 grows. He is kneading himself as a woman kneads 
 dough, and for practically the same purpose. That 
 which he eats must be mixed through and through 
 him, losing itself in him and becoming a part of 
 him. The excellence of both bread and child de- 
 pends upon the thoroughness of the kneading. 
 The energy with which the child is constantly 
 charging thus fulfills its mission. 
 
 Study the children in your circle and jot down 
 your conclusions concerning the physical and men- 
 tal condition of those whose impulses to exercise 
 are freely indulged and of those who are inclined 
 to exercise but little. 
 
 Whether the impulse is of physical or mental 
 origin, its direction and control belong to the in- 
 tellect. Whether the child is crawling or rolling 
 or walking or reaching out his hands as he has 
 something more or less clearly in mind for which 
 he is trying to reach or which he is trying to do, 
 he calls certain muscles into action which he 
 thinks will accomplish that end. The knowledge 
 of the muscles to use and the skill to control 
 them come through a long course of experimenta- 
 tion. At his first voluntary efforts to reach out 
 to something the child bends over with his whole 
 body, instead of extending his hand alone, often 
 losing his balance and doubling up in a helpless 
 heap. As he tries to crawl, the same thing occurs. 
 In both cases certain instinctive impulses to pro- 
 tection throw out the arms and hands and legs 
 and feet, one or all, to little practical purpose at 
 the time it may be, but revealing at least vaguely
 
 MUSCULAR OR MOTOR CONTROL. 97 
 
 to the child their function and use. A lew such 
 experiences add sufficiently to the child's knowl- 
 edge to start him to experimenting with them, 
 and he soon learns how to move them independ- 
 ently of each other, and also how to move them 
 together at his will. Spend a short time each day 
 for a few weeks with a little child, and see how 
 he learns to suppress certain superfluous and ob- 
 structive movements and to develop others that 
 serve his purpose. Watch him as he takes hold 
 of an object, as a pencil, as he tries to lift a spoon- 
 ful of food to his mouth, as he balances himself 
 by his chair and essays to walk, as he attempts 
 to pronounce a word he hears you speak, as he is 
 doing the multitude of little things which his 
 ever-changing moods suggest to him. Compare his 
 movements with those of other children of simi- 
 lar age, and, if possible, find the reason for the 
 differences you may discover. 
 
 Your observations will show you that some 
 children are more active than others; that some 
 of the sluggish ones move with great precision, 
 while some of the active ones are always blunder- 
 ing; that some use three or four times as much 
 energy in doing certain things as others; that 
 some seem to lose all control of their muscles at 
 times, while others are never disconcerted; that 
 the movements of the whole arm or the whole leg 
 are gradually broken up into movements of the 
 forearm, the hand, the fingers, the lower leg, the 
 foot, the toes, just as the movements of the whole 
 body were broken up into those of its larger parts; 
 that with practice the movement in all cases be- 
 10
 
 98 THE STUDY OF THE CHILD. 
 
 comes more and more definite; that less and less 
 stimulus is required to incite activities as control 
 becomes more complete; that the clearer the idea 
 in the mind of the child of what he wishes to do, 
 the more readily he accomplishes it; that with 
 each repetition a movement is the more easily 
 reproduced, and soon becomes almost automatic; 
 and that emotional and physical control grow ap- 
 proximately together. For the purpose of verify- 
 ing these and discovering additional facts, ask 
 the children to thread a needle, draw a straight 
 line, walk a chalk line on the floor, touch the 
 thumb with one finger, and then move the other 
 fingers on the same hand independently, etc. 
 
 You never had any doubt that muscular con- 
 trol is to be learned by every child, but ere you 
 have half finished the experiments suggested you 
 have probably discovered that muscular control 
 may be greatly aided by education, and also that 
 there is much to learn about conducting the opera- 
 tion. Not only is the healthy and symmetrical 
 development of the child dependent upon it, but 
 his ability to execute the varied and delicate move- 
 ments demanded in the attainment of skill in all 
 physical activity. Grace in standing or sitting or 
 walking is attained only by muscular control in 
 accordance with ideal standards. It comes in 
 many cases slowly and laboriously, but early and 
 intelligent instruction will greatly facilitate its 
 acquirement. For details consult some good au- 
 thority on physical exercises for children. This 
 is a good place, however, to say that no forcing 
 process will avail. Nature never gets in a hurry.
 
 MUSCULAR OR MOTOR CONTROL. 99 
 
 We can furnish conditions; she does the rest. 
 Learn a lesson from the fiekls. Some of the most 
 graceful animals in them were the most ungainly 
 in their infancy. Physical constitution must af- 
 fect progress in physical control, and the attempt 
 so often made to compel uniformity in children's 
 movements can but result in distortion and medi- 
 ocrity. It is well known that many children are 
 easy and natural in their movements until some 
 fatal day self-consciousness suddenly develops, 
 and the consequent embarrassment sadly inter- 
 feres with self-control. A word in sport, un- 
 friendly criticism, consciousness of inferiority or 
 superiority, slight physical indisposition, failure 
 in something attempted, lack of confidence in 
 self, etc., are among the causes producing it. I 
 once knew a child who, because of a mishap in 
 his first effort to walk, did not attempt it again for 
 nearly a year. Another alarmed her parents be- 
 cause after an evident effort to talk at the usual 
 time she remained dumb until nearly three years 
 of age. Imagine their relief when one day she 
 broke out like a magpie, astounding them all by 
 the accuracy and fluency of her utterances! In 
 this educative process, as in every other, sympa- 
 thy and encouragement are two essentials. 
 
 "VMien you reflect that gesture, speech, draw- 
 ing, writing, vision, facial expression, and all man- 
 ual dexterity, in addition to the movements al- 
 ready mentioned, depend upon perfect muscular 
 control, its relation to the art and the artisan side 
 of life becomes clear enough. Too often physical 
 control means simply suppression of impulses.
 
 100 THE STUDY OF THE CHILD. 
 
 This is the negative side only. Its positive and 
 practical side is seen in every effort which man 
 makes to accomplish work, whether in the way of 
 moving a part or all of himself or of shaping and 
 molding something external to himself. There 
 are a hundred and fifty thousand words in the 
 English language alone, and yet in sound they are 
 easily distinguished. As each one of them can 
 be pronounced only by making its characteristic 
 combination of muscular movements in the vocal 
 organs, the question of motor control as related to 
 language rises at once to a dignity scarcely less 
 than that of thought control itself. That the 
 child by a few years' experimenting can place these 
 muscles under such control as to enable him to 
 make instantly the combination necessary to pro- 
 duce a sound he has just heard is cause for per- 
 petual wonder. lie learns much by pure imita- 
 tion, but only the larger muscular movements in 
 speech can be learned that way. All the fine 
 shades of tone and volume and accent can be 
 produced only as he learns by experimentation the 
 corresponding shades of muscular movement. 
 
 Sound utterance calls at once into requisition 
 the delicate muscles of the vocal cords, the mus- 
 cles controlling the form of the mouth and the 
 movements of the lips and the muscles regulating 
 respiration. Vocal expression in speaking, read- 
 ing, and singing is dependent upon the ease and 
 skill with which all of these muscles are con- 
 trolled. The sensitiveness and delicacy of their 
 response is in proportion to the fineness and mo- 
 bility of their structure. Both are attained by
 
 MUSCULAR OR MOTOR CONTROL. 101 
 
 patient and intelligeut cultivation. By it the ear 
 pictures of certain sounds become so intimately 
 associated with their counterparts, the muscular 
 pictures, that the presence of the former in the 
 mind instantly and without effort accurately calls 
 back the latter. Successful voice culture always 
 has this for its end. Faulty articulation, stam- 
 mering, lisping, lack of force, unpleasant quality, 
 wrong pitch, etc., are generally due to inability 
 to control properly the muscles named. The rem- 
 edy has already been named, but it must be re- 
 membered that the fault may lie in the ear pic- 
 ture and not in the muscular picture. My friend. 
 Professor Jones, tells me that he frequently has 
 pupils in his classes who persist in singing fiat or 
 sharp, and that he requests them not to sing at 
 all until they can sing the correct note. Some- 
 times they are silent for several days, and all at 
 once they sing in perfect accord with the others. 
 It is probable that during the interim they have 
 been more or less unconsciously trying to produce 
 the corresponding muscular movement as they 
 have been correcting the ear picture of the sound. 
 In reading and in singing by note, the eye picture 
 and the muscular picture must be equally sug- 
 gestive and interchangeable. The sight of the 
 word or note instantly sets the machinery in mo- 
 tion to utter it. Long practice is Just as necessary 
 here as in the other case. This is the explanation 
 of the inability of some people to sing by note 
 who readily sipg " by ear." The explanation is 
 scientifically correct, for they have learned to sing 
 by fitting their muscular movements to the ear
 
 102 THE STUDY OF THE CHILD. 
 
 and not to the eye picture. It is for the same 
 reason that one person plays on the violin or other 
 musical instrument by ear or by eye (note) only; 
 the muscles of the hand and arm are trained to re- 
 spond to but one class of mental pictures, and are 
 helpless in the presence of the other. 
 
 Muscular control easily falls into grooves, and 
 into very narrow grooves, too. The good penman 
 may not be able to do anything in drawing. He 
 may write vertically with dispatch and elegance, 
 but make a poor scrawl in " natural slant." A 
 good artist may be a poor penman. A fluent 
 speaker of the German language may never suc- 
 ceed in pronouncing an English word correctly. 
 One may be able to play beautifully on the piano, 
 and yet scarcely play Old Hundred on the organ so 
 that it will be recognized. 
 
 All physical education includes muscular con- 
 trol. To secure the best results for the children, 
 the exercises should be both of a class and of an 
 individual character; the former to meet gen- 
 eral, the latter, individual needs. Lack of ability 
 to perform certain movements may be due to 
 weakness as well as to lack of control. Certain 
 muscles may be behind their companions in de- 
 velopment, and hence may need special cultiva- 
 tion. 
 
 It is not within the province of our plan to 
 enter into details concerning motor control in 
 the various arts, however interesting the subject 
 might be. ^Manual training embraces penmanship, 
 drawino-, modeling, the use of tools in general, 
 each leading up to useful and gainful occupa-
 
 MUSCULAR OR MOTOR CONTROL. 103 
 
 tions, requiring the ready command of all the 
 voluntary muscles, particularly those of the arms 
 and fingers. As success in life is to be so largely 
 dependent upon the deftness and endurance of 
 arms and fingers, every child is entitled to the edu- 
 cation that insures both. Dexterity in any of the 
 arts is best attained by anticipating them in child- 
 hood and youth, when the whole organism is await- 
 ing direction, and when it easily responds to 
 treatment. In later life form and movement are 
 fixed, changes being made with difficulty; hence 
 training makes little progress, and rare skill sel- 
 dom results. It is on this account that motor 
 control assumes such importance in childhood; for 
 this reason that methods of teaching the subjects 
 mentioned so vitally affect the future as well as 
 the present well-being of the child. Movement 
 and muscular control are the only things worth 
 striving for in his earlier years; the finished prod- 
 uct will come in its proper time. All exercises in 
 penmanship and drawing which cramp the fingers 
 or interfere with the free movement of the muscles 
 do more harm than good. In every case the larger 
 and freer movements should come first, the finer 
 and the more restricted later. This is the law of 
 all control. That children in the lower grades 
 write well is not necessarily a compliment to the 
 teacher. I have seen several children who were 
 Ijeautiful penmen at eight or ten years of age, 
 and yet at twelve or fourteen were such scrawlers 
 that they could hardly read their own writing. 
 Finger exercises on the piano, the organ, the type- 
 writer, and other instruments must be in accord
 
 104 THE STUDY OF THE CHILD. 
 
 with the laws governing the development of phys- 
 ical control, as many poor children have learned 
 to their sorrow and at great expense of time and 
 labor. 
 
 We have said that by experience the proper 
 muscular movements for doing certain things be- 
 come pictured in the mind the same as pictures 
 furnished by the eye and the ear, and that they 
 become so intimately associated with one or both 
 of the latter that they mutually suggest each 
 other. The cause of this suggestion is found ii? 
 the fact that the association has made them parts 
 of the same experience, the same whole, the same 
 picture. At first, the intellect and will are re- 
 quired to direct the movement, but with repetition 
 attention becomes less and less necessary, and 
 both are left free to think and plan while the 
 movement goes on to completion. As an illustra- 
 tion, I am now writing the words in this sentence; 
 as I start to write each one of them, I am think- 
 ing about what word to write next, but the mus- 
 cular movement necessary to write each continues 
 " of its own accord " until the word is finished. 
 So complete has become the alliance that the self 
 in thought and the self in action are one and the 
 same thing. This is the ideal in all motor train- 
 ing, particularly on the art and the artisan side. 
 It is a mistake to suppose that in learning to write 
 words the eye picture is the only one that must 
 be clearly defined. The muscular picture by 
 which each is written is just as important, and 
 when the child has made it as fully a part of him- 
 self as the eye picture he is in no danger of mis-
 
 MUSCULAR OR MOTOR CONTROL. 105 
 
 spelling it; hence the importance of accuracy and 
 rapidity on the part of the children as they learn 
 to write words. 
 
 That muscular control is dependent upon the 
 condition of the nervous system is easily seen in 
 any child; indeed, the organization of the mus- 
 cular system carries with it the organization of 
 the nervous system also. Every vital function, 
 every activity of the body is controlled and regu- 
 lated by it. Destroy the nerves, and the life of 
 the tissue is destroyed also. Muscular control 
 implies brain control as well. To secure the hap- 
 piest results physical culture, contrary to the 
 method so generally in vogue, should begin at the 
 nerve centers and work outward. With intelligent 
 exercise nerves grow in responsiveness as well as 
 in sensitiveness and delicacy. But as the nervous 
 system is the immediate servant of the mind, the 
 nerve centers are best reached through it. Dr. 
 C. W. Emerson says: " Certain mental states pro- 
 duce definite effects upon the vocal organs. In- 
 duce such states of mind as shall produce the de- 
 sired effect in vocal expression. The mental states 
 operate directly through the cranial nerves upon 
 the vocal organs, and instantaneously change their 
 activity." 
 
 Feelings and will as related to motor control 
 will be considered in the next two chapters. For 
 the relation of play, see the chapter on that sub- 
 ject.
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 THE FEELINGS. 
 
 The state of the self produced by the excita- 
 tion of the nerves is called sensation. The action 
 of the waves of light produces the sensation of 
 sight; the waves of sound, the sensation of hear- 
 ing, etc. All these sensations are called feel- 
 ings. They are feelings, however, whose origin 
 is purely sensuous. As was explained in a former 
 chapter, the mass of physical feelings or sensations 
 with which the child is constantly filled constitutes 
 in large measure his conscious self. Feelings are 
 the internal side of the self. They are the self 
 alive internally vdth movement. As the pulse- 
 beats are the sign of the existence of the physical 
 life, so the feelings are the sign in consciousness 
 of the existence of the mental life. They are al- 
 ways forcing themselves into consciousness as a 
 whole, making the tone or temperament of the 
 child, and as individuals demanding particular at- 
 tention to the exclusion of others. Feelings are 
 purely mental states in distinction from mental 
 activities. These " states " are, however, internal 
 activities. They bear in a general way the same 
 relation to the mental activities of thought and 
 will that cellular activities do to muscular activi- 
 106
 
 THE PEELINGS. 107 
 
 ties. Without the first in either case tlie other 
 could not arise. 
 
 The second class of feelings is called emotions. 
 They are produced hy the presence of some 
 thought in the mind. Their origin is wholly 
 mental. They accompany all intellectual activity 
 and owe their characteristics to it as sensations 
 owe their characteristics to the nature of the phys- 
 ical stimulus. As some sensations are pleasurahle 
 and others painful, so also are the emotions. Both 
 get their agreeable or disagreeable character from 
 their harmony or lack of harmony with the self. 
 If in harmony, satisfaction and pleasure result; 
 if out of harmony, the opposite. Sensations pre- 
 cede the thought, and are that out of which the 
 mind gets meaning or thought. Emotions rise 
 as the idea comes, and may be said to follow it. 
 Hold an apple before a child; the sensation of y 
 
 sight occurs, and he interprets it as that of an 
 apple; immediately an emotion of pleasure arises. 
 Bring him some bitter medicine; following the 
 sensation and thought of what it is comes a feel- 
 ing of displeasure. He hears some one speak, and. 
 recognizes the soimd as that of mother's voice; 
 emotions of pleasure fill his soul. He hears a 
 bark, and recognizes it as that of a dog that has 
 bitten him; fear at once possesses him. He is ex- 
 pecting pudding for dinner, and mother brings 
 him pie instead; disappointment possesses him as 
 he sees what it is. In all these cases sensations 
 only would result had he not given them meaning. 
 Fmotions followed only after the sensations were 
 interpreted.
 
 108 THE STUDY OP TDE CHILD. 
 
 Sensations always mingle more or less with 
 emotions, each enhancing the pleasure or pain of 
 the other according as they happen to be in or 
 out of accord. The sound of a voice is more pleas- 
 ing to the child as there mingles with it the emo- 
 tion arising from the discovery that it is mother's 
 voice. The bark of the dog suddenly becomes 
 harsh as the child discovers that it is that of the 
 biting dog instead of his own little pet, as he had 
 supposed. A keepsake is more gratifying to the 
 eye than its mate of the same material and form 
 because of the emotions it begets. For this reason 
 childre,n's emotions and interests are aroused most 
 ■ readily by poetry and music. The jingle of words, 
 the rapid recurrence of rhythm and rhyme, and 
 the abrupt changes in movement, pitch, and vol- 
 ume excite sensations, sustain the attention, and 
 quicken the emotions. Hey diddle, diddle, the cat 
 and the fiddle, has far more pleasure and interest 
 for the child than the cat and the violin. RocTc-a- 
 hye bahy upon the tree top would have died the day 
 it was born had there been only the motion of 
 ordinary prose in it. 
 
 Children's emotions usually reveal themselves 
 in nervous activity of some kind. It does not 
 take an expert to read a child's feelings in the 
 expression on his face, the light of his eye, or 
 the movements of his hands and arms. Only as 
 a child learns to dissemble can he repress the 
 revelation. In some children, as you will see by 
 observation, the sympathy between the nervous 
 system, both vegetative and cerebro-spinal, is 
 much more intimate and responsive than in others.
 
 THE FEELINGS. 109 
 
 A little nephew of mine had such a telltale coun- 
 tenance that even the slightest shades of emotion 
 were constantly expressing themselves in the eve^- 
 changing lights and shadows that played over his 
 face. His complexion was as pure and clear as 
 truth itself, and the freshness of each returning 
 blush made me feel that I was nearer the actual 
 soul of the child than I had ever been before. 
 Wonder, pleasure, doubt, confidence, fear, anger, 
 surprise, humor, embarrassment, annoyance, dis- 
 appointment, weariness, supplanted each other in 
 quick succession, outrivaling in variety and beauty 
 the rarest combinations of tints that the most cost- 
 ly kaleidoscopes unfold. Discover how many of 
 the children in your circle are " so nervous " 
 that they become perceptibly or violently agitated 
 as any of the above-named emotions arise; note 
 how the agitation expresses itself. Classify the re- 
 sults in each case, and, if possible, discover the 
 cause. In fright, some will blush and some will 
 blanch. Why? Discover how the emotions affect 
 appetite, digestion, respiration, circulation, sleep, 
 motor control in general, etc. 
 
 In your investigations you -^-ill find that the 
 well-balanced emotional nature is usiially a sign 
 of a healthy, well-balanced physical organism, re- 
 affirming the idea of their interdependence and 
 emphasizing the importance of everything that has 
 been said concerning the care and development of 
 the body of the child. You will doubtless also 
 discover that you have often dealt unjustly with 
 children because of your lack of knowledge of this 
 fact; that often the very evil you had been try-
 
 110 THE STUDY OP THE CHILD. 
 
 ing to cure had but been grievously aggravated by 
 the methods you had pursued. Experiment now 
 in controlling the emotions of the children by giv- 
 ing them appropriate things to think about, and 
 note how promptly physical agitation subsides as 
 some gentler emotion replaces a violent or an un- 
 pleasant one. 
 
 ]\Iany interesting reports have been published 
 on inquiries made concerning the presence and 
 origin of the different emotions in the child, and 
 you will be pleased to make similar investigations 
 in your circle. They seem to show in a general 
 way that many children are entirely devoid of 
 fear even after they enter their teens, and that 
 a small per cent grow into manhood and woman- 
 hood without knowing what fear is save by hear- 
 say; others display fear when but a few months 
 old. The emotion of fear is a stranger to some 
 children until a serious accident has happened 
 to them or their friends, and then they become 
 very timid. Some fear animals,' others ghosts, 
 others burglars, others thunder and lightning, 
 others father and mother, others a steam engine, 
 a bridge, water, death, a gun, ridicule, darkness, 
 etc. One colored girl reports to a friend of mine 
 that she fears nothing except a feather! Each 
 of the emotions afford abnndant data in similar 
 variety. They all throw a flood of light u])on the 
 course to bo pursued in the care and management 
 of the child. 
 
 You are referred to works more advanced for 
 a full discussion of the various classes of emotions. 
 Emotions may get their characteristics from the re- 
 
 1
 
 THE FEELINGS. HI 
 
 lation of the experience to the present time; those 
 arising from a present experience may be called 
 immediate; from recalling a past experience, retro- 
 spective; from looking forward to a future experi- 
 ence, prospective. They may get their general 
 characteristics from the objects awakening them, 
 as personal and impersonal. The personal emo- 
 tions include the social, moral, and religious emo- 
 tions; the impersonal include the intellectual and 
 Eesthetic. Some of these will be treated in inde- 
 pendent chapters. 
 
 The third great class of feelings is the affec- 
 tions, or the loves and likes. Affections are to be 
 distinguished from the two preceding classes in 
 that they are feelings which result from the new 
 adjustment of the self toward objects which have 
 produced pleasing sensations or emotions. The 
 self naturally goes out in a kindly flow of feeling 
 toward that which produces either. Emotions and 
 sensations are not thus projected. Love must have 
 an object. Likes and loves are always pleasurable, 
 reacting upon the self and intensifying the pleas- 
 ure of the emotions of which they may be regarded 
 as the overflow. Dislikes and hates are the result 
 of painful sensations and emotions, and the flow 
 of feelings is away from rather than toward that 
 which causes them. Likes and loves identify the 
 self and the object in interest. Dislikes and hates 
 hold them apart. Likes and loves wish well and 
 take pleasure in the well-being of their objects as 
 they do of themselves. Dislikes and hates wish ill 
 and take pleasure in the misfortunes of their ob- 
 jects — persons or things.
 
 112 THE STUDY OF THE CHILD. 
 
 Children retjpond in loves and likes with sur- 
 prising promptness. They very early show a pref- 
 erence for the nurse who handles them so tender- 
 ly and hums to them so softly, as well as for the 
 food that gratifies their palate and allays their 
 hunger. ]\Iany a mother has found it extremely 
 difheult to displace a nurse in the affections of 
 her child, because the bias had already been given 
 before she was able to give him her attention. In 
 a similar way she finds it almost impossible to get 
 him to eat a different kind of food from that which 
 he has already learned to like. Subterfuges and 
 imitations with no end of coaxing are necessary 
 in many cases to overcome antipathy for other 
 foods. A few sticks of candy, a merry romp, a 
 buggy ride, a kind word in time of need, will, as 
 any one knows, quickly kindle a child's love for 
 the giver. That children's affections are very 
 fickle and are easily transferred is probably due 
 as much to lack of memory in the new pleasure 
 as to anything else. Where the kindly treatment 
 has been of long continuance, however, the affec- 
 tion even in very young children is not so easily 
 disturbed as many people imagine. 
 
 If you will make inquiries concerning the chil- 
 dren in your circle, you will find many interest- 
 ing facts pertaining to the origin, development, 
 and extinction of likes and loves. You will see 
 on what slight provocation an affection may spring 
 up and how intense it may be for a few days or 
 weeks, and then how suddenly it may disappear. 
 In some cases the cause of the affection may be 
 discovered at once, and in others no special reason
 
 THE FEELINGS. 113 
 
 may show itself. Be sure to note the things which 
 most easily arouse the alfections of children, and 
 what changes take place in their preferences as 
 they grow older. Some children will be found 
 to possess little or no affection in the true sense 
 of the word, while others respond generously to 
 every force that touches them kindly. 
 
 Loves may be classified according to their ob- 
 jects, as love of kindred, love of friends, love of 
 home, love of country, love of society, love of prop- 
 erty, love of power, love of action, love of knowl- 
 edge, love of truth, etc., each having a variety of 
 subdivisions which may readily be discovered by 
 you. The undue preponderance of one of these or 
 the absence of any one of them in a child should 
 raise at once an inqiiiry concerning its cause. 
 
 The fourth class of feelings is called desires. 
 Your investigations have shown you that the chil- 
 dren not only love that which contributes to their 
 pleasure and happiness, but that an impulse to 
 possession, to the assurance of the continuance of 
 that object in its present relations to them, is also 
 usually present in some degree. 
 
 Such an impulse is called a desire. Love re- 
 sponds more or less blindly to its stimulus, which 
 is also true of desires in the earlier stages of the 
 child's life. Then its impulsive character is more 
 prominent; but later its object is selected with 
 some discrimination, and its intellectual side ap- 
 pears. On account of the close relationship of 
 the desires and affections, the classes of both are 
 practically the same. Appetites are physical de- 
 sires. Desires are satisfied in the sensation or 
 11
 
 114 THE STUDY OF THE CHILD. 
 
 emotion which their gratification begets. By ex- 
 perience the child learns what objects or classes 
 of objects produce certain sensations and emotions, 
 and he very early begins the regulation of his de- 
 sires in accordance with that knowledge. Such 
 regulation is naturally directed to physical desires 
 first, and next to those of a higher order. Desires 
 Avhose gratification produce pain, or less pleasure 
 than others, are repressed, or subordinated to those 
 whose satisfaction insures him greater enjoyment. 
 He suppresses a desire for the time being, that its 
 gratification may be more complete in the future. 
 Gradually physical desires and those relating to 
 the self alone become subordinated to the moral 
 desires and to those affecting the pleasure and 
 happiness of his fellows. This process of organiz- 
 ing the desires and its reactive effect on the char- 
 acter of the child will be treated further in the 
 chapter on the Will.
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 THE WILL AXD ITS FUNCTIONS. 
 
 Motor control has already been explained. 
 The physical impulse furnishes the motive power 
 for all muscular activity. As there is no motion 
 in the steam engine without steam, so there is no 
 motion in the body without the impulse. As the 
 engineer directs the steam in the engine, so the 
 intellect guides the power arising in the impulse 
 to the execution of certain specific movements. 
 These two elements, physical impulse and intel- 
 lect, constitute the will in all voluntary bodily 
 activity. 
 
 Will is simply the self originating and direct- 
 ing its oivn activities. The initiatory movement 
 is always found in impulse; the selecting and di- 
 recting, in the intellect. The intellect fixes upon 
 some end to reach, some particular movement to 
 execute, some work to perform, and regulates the 
 motive power of the impulse in such a way as to 
 accomplish it effectively. 
 
 The body is under control when it responds 
 easily and promptly to the demands which the in- 
 tellect makes upon it. This concrete will action, 
 which begins in a very simple way with the child, 
 gradually organizes and brings under control the 
 
 115
 
 116 THE STUDY OF THE CHILD. 
 
 entire locomotive machinery of the body, includ- 
 ing impulses and the muscular and nervous sys- 
 tems. While he is thus gaining control of his 
 physical powers, his mental impulses are also slow- 
 ly rising into consciousness and re-enforcing the 
 physical impulses. The latter diiferentiate into 
 well-defined appetites or physical desires, while the 
 former as clearly objectify and become distinct 
 mental desires. So largely are bodily and mental 
 activities moving together in the earlier years of 
 the child's life that the control of the former 
 means practically also the control of the latter. 
 His mental life differentiates from his physical 
 life very slowly. Each serves and strengthens the 
 other as the former is attaining that high posi- 
 tion in which it alone is to be master. In the 
 process physical appetites and desires gradually 
 become subordinated to mental desires, and pru- 
 dential and moral control begin to define. 
 
 Desires are impulses directed toward objects 
 which it is thought will give pleasure or profit. 
 Impulses, as pure felt pressure, are not consciously 
 directed toward any object or class of objects. 
 Through experience the child recognizes in a gen- 
 eral way at least the character of the impulse, and 
 recalls objects which once satisfied it. Naturally 
 he sets them up for consideration, and the impel- 
 lent force carries him toward one, then toward an- 
 other, possibly toward all, often producing puz- 
 zling confusion. This is what is called confiict or 
 clash of impulses or desires. The child determines 
 the question of preference by estimating the vary- 
 ing abilities of the different objects to satisfy the
 
 THE WILL AND ITS FUNCTIONS. 117 
 
 generic impulse out of which the desires have 
 risen. He selects that one which in his judgment 
 possesses the greatest power, and all of the impel- 
 lent forces press toward it, the different impulses 
 and desires yielding at once to that one which was 
 in the line of the choice just made. Many things 
 affect the estimate and the choice; the child's for- 
 mer experiences, his education, his environments, 
 his needs, the advice of others, etc. 
 "^ The choice once made, the desire is re-enforced 
 by the new impulse resulting from the conscious 
 possibility of satisfaction, and thus motive power 
 for its realization is supplied. In all the move- 
 ment thus far feeling and intellect have been re- 
 acting upon each other for the purpose of fixing 
 definitely upon the end to be attained and in clear- 
 ing the deck for action. These things being done, 
 it now remains for the mind to select the means 
 by which the end is to be realized. The factors 
 that control the selection of ends also control the 
 selection of means. Suppose the desire be for a 
 drink : a glass of water being near, the impulse 
 is directed through the muscles of the arm for 
 bringing the glass to the mouth. If it be to di- 
 vide an apple, the impulse, under similar direction 
 in each case, moves the hand to the pocket for a 
 knife, both hands open it, and both are used in 
 performing the operation. If it be to utter a cer- 
 tain word, the impulse is directed through the ap- 
 propriate muscles. This final executive act of tbe 
 will is called volition. 
 
 The above analysis shows that there are two 
 clearly defined functions of the will: they are the
 
 118 THE STUDY OF THE CHILD. 
 
 idealizing and realizing functions. The will sets 
 up the ends to be attained, and proceeds to attain 
 them also. In the above illustrations, as in all 
 motor control, the realizing function is dependent 
 upon the readiness with which the physical or- 
 ganism responds to the directive force of the mind. 
 The object of manual training in all its branches 
 is to develop such perfect harmony of action be- 
 tween the idealizing and realizing activities or 
 functions of the will that little or no attention 
 need be given to the latter. As skill in any 
 line approximates perfection, the movement be- 
 comes so nearly automatic that muscular effort is 
 practically reduced to nothing. The mind is thus 
 left free to attend to the formation and retention 
 of the ideal which is realizing. The tool of the 
 expert graver and the nimble fingers of the mod- 
 eler alike work out unerringly the invisible lines 
 which the mind busily runs for them. 
 
 The physical organism, however, is not the 
 only part of himself which the child must con- 
 trol. Attention, as explained in a former chapter, 
 is not the concentration of muscular or nervous 
 energy, but of the mental activities. Every volun- 
 tary act of the mind is just as much an act of the 
 will as is every voluntary physical movement. 
 Notion building, judgment, recollection, thinking, 
 etc., are possible only to him who controls these 
 activities as fvilly as he controls the various mus- 
 cles of the body. It requires an act of the will to 
 distinguish between a pen and its holder, to put 
 a dog and his collar together in a mental picture, 
 to determine that one orange is larger than an-
 
 THE WILL iND ITS FUNCTIONS. II9 
 
 other, to rebuild the picture of a bird seen yester- 
 day, to discover the cause of the withering of the 
 rose in the vase on the table, to get the meaning 
 of the line — 
 
 Kind hearts are more than coronets. 
 
 Mental impulses and desires are suppressed, 
 subordinated, and organized in the same manner 
 as the physical, and the process needs little further 
 explanation. One of the principal things to re- 
 member is that time and practice are required in 
 both cases. It is the function of physical and 
 manual training to develop and perfect control 
 and skill in every bodily organ. It is the function 
 of education on the mental side to accomplish 
 the same thing for the mental activities. Freedom 
 in the use of the latter is just as essential as in the 
 use of the former. The child needs to be trained 
 so that he can do more than simply turn his at- 
 tention to a subject to the exclusion of others. He 
 must attain to that poAver which will enable him 
 to bring at once to its comprehension and solu- 
 • tion the whole of himself, his past knowledge, his 
 •past experiences, his accumulated strength. 
 
 Control as related to the will and as thus far 
 considered merely places the child in possession 
 of himself as he may wish to serve immediate ends. 
 He is now, as it were, familiar with his tools, and 
 knows how to use them. A little inquiry, how- 
 ever, will show that another class of ends has been 
 building up out of his experience. The mastery 
 of his physical powers is to serve a higher purpose 
 than the immediate gratification of his impulses,
 
 120 THE STUDY OP THE CHILD. 
 
 the awakening of pleasurable sensations and emo- 
 tiotis. The skillful use of his mental faculties 
 has a higher mission than the mere satisfaction 
 which comes from their exercise. The economic 
 value of both has already been suggested. Con- 
 trol saves energy and time. It insures definiteness 
 and accuracy. It multiplies vastly the amount of 
 work which may be accomplished. Learning from 
 his experiences, the child sees not only that one 
 object or action may serve him better than an- 
 other, but that one of two or three or many may 
 in the end bring him all of the profit and enjoy- 
 ment that all the others could have brought. In 
 other words, he learns not only the way to accom- 
 plish a certain end with the least expenditure of 
 mental and ph^'sical force, but he learns also to 
 select an end which will be the most fruitful in 
 results. 
 
 Control thus keeps advantage constantly in 
 view. It makes one end serve as a means to an- 
 other. It denies itself present gratification for 
 future gratification and profit; or, better, it finds 
 present enjoyment in the anticipation of a future 
 enjoyment which it sets machinery in motion to ' 
 insure. Control organizes itself upon a prudential 
 basis. Everything that the child or the man does 
 is determined beforehand by weighing its advan- 
 tage or disadvantage. He buttons up his coat 
 collar to keep from getting a sore throat; he saves 
 his pennies that he may buy a ball; he learns his 
 letters that he may be able to read; he is a good 
 boy that he may win his mother's approbation; he 
 exercises that he mav grow strong; he talks re-
 
 THE WILL AND ITS FUNCTIONS 121 
 
 spectfuUy to a larger bo}- that he may not catch a 
 threshing; he carries in a large boxful of wood 
 in the afternoon that he may not be compelled 
 to go out in the dark after more; he treats his 
 playmates kindly that they may love him; he sows 
 that he may reap. In all of this he gradually 
 learns how one thing depends upon others, and 
 organizes all these means so that they mutually 
 contribute toward higher- or more far-reaching ad- 
 vantage. He becomes somewhat of a business 
 man, working for pay, making or raising things 
 to sell, buying and selling, studying the laws of 
 production and of trade, developing insight, cau- 
 tion, self-denial, confidence. 
 
 The discussion thus far has probably made will 
 and control sufficiently clear to guide you more 
 fully in your observations with the children. Veri- 
 fy each of the statements concerning the origin 
 and growth of the will. Discover how largely 
 the younger children are creatures of impulse, and 
 what forces are each day conspiring to their con- 
 trol. What is the connection of the feelings in 
 general with the various kinds of control? If 
 any of the children have " weak wills," what is 
 the cause? Why do some children have good phys- 
 ical and intellectual control and yet lack pru- 
 dence? Why do others possess the latter and lack 
 the others? How much may be attributed to poor 
 health or to home government? How much of 
 the control is due to outside pressure as the in- 
 centive of some reward or the fear of punishment? 
 How much is due to the child's own desire and 
 ability to realize the ideals for himself? What
 
 122 THE STUDY OF THE CHILD. 
 
 physical obstacles seem to be in the way? How 
 far is the control natural and spontaneous? Why 
 are some children so far behind others? Are any 
 of them possessed of evil spirits, or do they sim- 
 ply need some loving, sympathetic, painstaking 
 friend to assist them in their efforts at getting 
 control of themselves? 
 
 This last question suggests the relationship 
 which wills bear to one another. They are always 
 affecting one another for better or for w^orse. The 
 far-reaching influence of a child's playmates, 
 though unconsciously directed, is known to every- 
 body. The educational process as a whole is well 
 defined as ihe influencing of one will hy another in 
 a more or less methodical way in order to assist it 
 to an ideal development. The education of the will, 
 the development of control in its many-sided 
 senses, is the real end and aim of all education. 
 The will of the child may be influenced in a purely 
 infectious way or by intelligent counsel and as- 
 sistance. It can not be accomplished by a few 
 spasmodic efforts from time to time, but only by 
 that same slow and regular process by which Na- 
 ture produces all of her rarest creations. 
 
 In the attainment of control the same law 
 holds as in all other mental activity. Each effort 
 reacts upon the child, making him stronger for 
 the succeeding experience. The gain each time 
 may be imperceptible, but at the end of a series 
 will manifest itself clearly enough. In that way 
 he goes on from strength to strength, choosing 
 more intelligently, more promptly, more accurate- 
 ly; executing more easily, more skillfully, more
 
 THE WILL AND ITS FUNCTIONS. 123 
 
 effectively; becoming more resourceful, more de- 
 liberate, more self-reliant. The reaction upon the 
 self affects all sides of the child's emotional na- 
 ture, and gives that balance and poise to the char- 
 acter which insures self-possession and intelligent 
 action even under unexpected and trying diffi- 
 culties. 
 
 Will reaches its highest function in moral con- 
 trol — that is, control of the self in accord with an 
 ideal of right. Pure advantage as a motive here 
 yields to a higher desire — that of right doing. 
 Some children very early distinguish between 
 right and wrong; others long confuse the idea of 
 advantage with that of right. They are apt to 
 think that whatever gives them or gives their 
 friends pleasure is right, and that whatever gives 
 them pain is wrong. All are moved quickly by 
 the incentive of advantage, particularly if the ad- 
 vantage is immediate, but the incentive to be true 
 affects many of them very slowly. The child nat- 
 urally thinks more about getting and having than 
 about doing and being. The general movement by 
 which moral control is obtained is the same as that 
 just explained in prudential control. Tts further 
 discussion will be found in the chapter on Manners 
 and Morals.
 
 CHAPTEE XVI. 
 
 THE INTELLECT AND ITS FUNCTIONS. — PERCEP- 
 TION, MEMORY, AND IMAGINATION. 
 
 Consciousness, apperception, and attention 
 have been defined and explained. They are gen- 
 eral functions of the intellect, entering as they do 
 more or less into all mental activity. It remains 
 to examine the special functions of perception, 
 memory, imagination, conception, judgment, and 
 reasoning. The treatment of each must necessarily 
 be brief. 
 
 Perception is the act of getting knotvledge of 
 individual objects present to the senses. It is the 
 initial stage in all apperception. It tells us sim- 
 ply what a thing is as present before us; gives us 
 its form, color, texture, material, weight, surface, 
 parts, movements — summing all up in a mental 
 picture whose wider relations and fuller meanings 
 are discovered by apperception proper or by com- 
 parison and reasoning. An object is lying by 
 my paper as I write. Through perception I dis- 
 cover a handle, its shape, and the material out of 
 which it is made; a long blade is attached at one 
 end and two small blades at the other. Though 
 I may not know its name, I have the picture of 
 a knife clearly defined in my mind. The knowl- 
 124
 
 THE INTELLECT AND ITS FUNCTIONS. 125 
 
 edge of any or of all of the parts together is called 
 perception, and yet you readily see that more or 
 less of my past experience has gone into the 
 building up of the picture and given it the mean- 
 ing it now possesses; in so far as this is true, there 
 is a suggestion of apperception — that is, a percep- 
 tion to which has been added a meaning greater 
 than that which lies in the object unrelated to any 
 past experience. A second look at the knife shows 
 me that it is mine; that it is a valuable knife; 
 that it is of modern make; that it is fit for cer- 
 tain kinds of work only; all this and much more 
 is apperceived. I once saw a lady alight from 
 a train and fall into the arms of a company 
 awaiting her. All were in tears and were dressed 
 in deep black. Perception gave me this knowl- 
 edge. Apperception told me that there were sor- 
 row and mourning and death and broken hearts 
 and vacant chairs. On the wall is a small paint- 
 ing. Through perception I get the form of a 
 house, of leafless trees, of broken fences, of alter- 
 nations of dark and light colors stretching away 
 over and beyond the house, of a round white spot 
 above, of blotches of white paint covering the 
 roof of the house and hiding the earth from view. 
 Through apperception I know that it is winter, 
 that it is midnight and cold and lonely and deso- 
 late. Perception, in a word, tells us what things 
 present are and apperception tells what they mean. 
 The educated and the uneducated perceive things 
 about alike, but the educated and the experi- 
 enced apperceive far more in everything they meet 
 than the others.
 
 126 THE STUDY OF THE CHILD. 
 
 The laws of association and dissociation apply 
 to perception as well as to apperception. Percep- 
 tion locates objects in time and space, giving them 
 relations to one another and to the self. The 
 process of distinguishing objects from one another 
 and of noting the various elements that compose 
 them and the characteristics peculiar to them, to- 
 gether with their resemblances, is of the utmost 
 importance in the child's life. Its value in the 
 intellectual life depends primarily upon its ac- 
 curacy and, secondarily, upon its rapidity and 
 many-sidedness. Sluggishness of action and nar- 
 rowness of vision must ever debar the child from 
 attaining to a wide knowledge of things. The 
 mental side of all knowledge gained directly 
 through the senses is perception, and much of the 
 discussion concerning their functions and their 
 culture should be reviewed here. 
 
 To show how^ apperception affects perception, 
 several figures, some of them reproductions, are 
 given on the opposite page. They will be found 
 valuable as well as entertaining in experimenting 
 with the children. As soon as the children find 
 themselves deceived in the figures they will be- 
 come very wary, and proceed with such caution 
 that many of them can not readily be misled 
 again. Notice the particular temperaments most 
 generally making mistakes. Take now several 
 small wooden balls or cubes of varying sizes, two 
 or three of each being of the same size, and test 
 the children's ability to distinguish among them. 
 Some of the smaller balls or cubes should be skill- 
 fully loaded inside with shot, so as to be equal in
 
 Vui. 1. 
 
 a c 
 
 Fig. 2. 
 
 Fig. 3 
 
 b 
 
 Fig. 5. 
 
 Fig. 4. 
 
 A 
 
 A 
 
 Fig. 6. 
 
 —b 
 d 
 
 Fig. 8, 
 
 Fig. 11. 
 
 Fig. 10. 
 
 /////////// 
 /////////// 
 
 Fig. 12. 
 
 Fif?. 1. Is the diameter of the circle > or < than the side of the 
 square? Fig. 2. Which is longer, ah or hc% Fig. 3. Which of the 
 rectangles is the longer? Fig. 4. Which horizontal diameter is the 
 greater? Fig. 5. Which is the longer, ah or h c% Fig. 6. Which is 
 the greater distance, ah or c (Z ? Fig. 7. Is the line c d or the line e e 
 parallel to ahi Figs. 8 and 9. Which is the longer, a b or he'} Fig. 
 10. Which is the longer, a or c ? Does the book, J, open toward or 
 froni you? Fig. 11. Which is the longer, ah ov c d\ Fig, 12. At 
 which end do these lines converge ? 
 
 If these figures are placed on the blackboard or transferred to 
 chart paper, they can be used with excellent success before the 
 classes.
 
 THE INTELLECT AND ITS FUNCTIONS. 127 
 
 weight to the next larger size. See what effect 
 the suggestiveness of size has upon the estimate 
 of weight. Your own experience will suggest to 
 you a number of tests serving a similar purpose. 
 
 Memory is the act of recalling the picture of a 
 past experience. The experience must come back 
 approximately as it occurred, and the self must 
 recognize it as having been an experience of its 
 own in a certain more or less definite time and 
 place. Its value depends also upon its accuracy, 
 its rapidity, and its comprehensiveness. Without 
 memory there could be no progress in knowledge- 
 getting. However valuable the presentative ac- 
 tivities already described may be, if memory be 
 wanting their cultivation and development are im- 
 possible. They reciprocally affect each other. 
 Perception makes little advancement if memory is 
 not following closely behind. 
 
 As each experience helps to an understanding 
 of the next, the place of memory is easily enough 
 seen. This particular function is so important 
 that the question naturally arises whether mem- 
 ory ought to be made to serve any other purpose. 
 If a past experience contains one or more elements 
 similar to those of the present experience, the law 
 of suggestion is usually potent enough to pro- 
 voke its spontaneous recall and application to the 
 new experience without any special effort of the 
 mind. If you will watch the children at their 
 plays, you will see how fully this law controls. 
 Watch them at their house games, and see how 
 much more readily many of them learn details 
 than do their elders. See also how quickly an 
 
 12
 
 128 THE STUDY OP THE ClUhD. 
 
 experience in one line is used by the child to help 
 him in understanding another when their similar- 
 ity seems very slight even to you. Under such 
 demands note how little repetition is necessary 
 to enable many children to recall the aids that 
 unlock the meaning to the new experience. Chil- 
 dren seldom worry about remembering things. 
 They remember them only as they creep into their 
 consciousness by the laws already named. They 
 do little feeling around in the past until they 
 grow older or until the task is set before them. 
 This great function of memory being so evident, 
 the advantage of certain lines of sequence in the 
 everyday experiences of the child needs no fur- 
 ther argument. Art is thus made possible. 
 
 But memory serves another great purpose in 
 furnishing to the self its past experiences in order 
 that it may reason about them and discover the 
 principles and laws involved in them, their like- 
 nesses and differences, their nature and value. 
 You have noticed how difficult it is for some chil- 
 dren to see the similarity or dissimilarity of two 
 things you are talking about, particularly as they 
 are compelled to hold one of them in the memory. 
 The vagueness of details in the memory picture 
 Qnd its disposition to slip away entirely were con- 
 stantly defeating you. Induction and deduction 
 are both impossible without memory. The more 
 readily a child recalls experiences having common 
 elements, the more accurately and the more rapid- 
 ly does he discover a body of laws and principles. 
 Such discoveries react upon the mind, multiply- 
 ing with wonderful rapidity the child's power of
 
 THE INTELLECT AND ITS FUNCTIONS. 129 
 
 retention and recollection. Science and philoso- 
 phy are thus assured. 
 
 Memory also serves a great end in a prudential 
 way. Half of the misfortunes of childhood come 
 because the child forgets what he has experienced 
 or what has been told him. Out of memory cau- 
 tion quickly develops and control becomes pos- 
 sible. The memory of yesterday's bumping pre- 
 vents another tumble downstairs to-day; of this 
 morning's sting, the handling of another wasp; 
 of father's displeasure, the loss of the hatchet; of 
 last night's sore throat, exposure to cold. Not 
 always promptly, nor with all children, do these 
 results follow, but sooner or later they come and 
 grow into a system with untold benefits to the in- 
 dividual and to society. 
 
 The pleasures of memory are not excelled by 
 those of the imagination, of which poets so pro- 
 fusely sing. Childhood hours — mother's lullaby, 
 the fragrance of the apple blossoms, the songs of 
 the robin, the stories round the old hearthstone, 
 the Thanksgiving dinner, the midnight visit of 
 Kris Kringle, the little red schoolhouse in the 
 neck of the woods, the jingle of sleigh bells, the 
 thrill of love's first dream, the visit to Aunt 
 Mary's, the old singing school, the old oaken 
 bucket, the cows winding slowly o'er the lea, the 
 night when troth Avas plighted, the day when we 
 first entered a home of our own — are but a 
 few of the multitude of beautiful visions which 
 ever and anon drive out the care of to-day and 
 fill the soul with happiness. Even the sorrows 
 and struggles of the past have a halo about them
 
 130 THE STUDY OF THE CHILD, 
 
 that makes their remembrance dear to every 
 heart. 
 
 In efforts at expressing thought by symbols, 
 particularly by language, memory serves another 
 great function. Facts, events, dates, names, 
 places, persons, forms, colors, movements, princi- 
 ples, laws, must be recalled in an orderly way that 
 the mind may carry on a connected line of 
 thought; words with which to express the idea 
 appropriately must also reappear at the exact time 
 needed. Happy is the child to whom all these 
 come spontaneously. But, generally speaking, 
 special effort is necessary for their recall, and 
 memory takes the form of recollection. 
 
 Recollection is memory under control and direc- 
 tion of the ivill. By utilizing the laws of associa- 
 tion and suggestion, the will rebuilds a former 
 experience, slowly or rapidly as the degree of fa- 
 miliarity may permit. By this it must not be 
 understood that memory proper, as spontaneous, 
 reproduces a past experience without any mental 
 effort whatever, but simply that such effort is re- 
 duced to a minimum. Every mental state is an 
 activity, as has been explained, memory not ex- 
 cepted. In recollection will and effort come into 
 prominence in consciousness as factors. Ability 
 to recall a part or all of an experience at will is 
 invaluable in any occupation or profession the 
 youth may enter. 
 
 Discover whether your children are recalling 
 spontaneously or with evident effort; how many 
 remember places better than names, facts better 
 than principles; what they see better than what
 
 THE INTELLECT AND ITS FUNCTIONS. 131 
 
 they hear; what interests them better than what 
 does not; what is recent as compared with what 
 is remote; what they understand as compared 
 with what they do not. Find out what effect phys- 
 ical depression or fear has upon memory; whether 
 they remember names better than dates, and the 
 cause of it; what is the effect of repetition. Do 
 they remember poetry better tlian prose? If so, 
 why? Find out also whether you are not making 
 life a burden to them in requiring them to " com- 
 mit to memory " many things that would remain 
 with them with little effort if given later on, and 
 whether there are not many things which they 
 could easily appropriate now that you are with- 
 holding for the future. 
 
 If your inquiries are pursued far enough, you 
 will have material sufficient to keep you thinking 
 for a long time. Your conclusions will prove 
 about as follows: 
 
 The more clearly a child understands a sub- 
 ject, 
 
 The more it affects his personal interests and 
 needs. 
 
 The more vivid the original impression, 
 
 The more definitely it is related to his other 
 knowledge. 
 
 The more carefully the natural sequence is 
 followed in approaching it, 
 
 The less will be the effort necessary for its 
 recall. Eepetition and writing as memory aids 
 will probably take a subordinate place in your 
 methods, though not losing their value entirely. 
 Correct habits in knowledge-getting will seem
 
 132 THE STUDY OF THE CHILD. 
 
 more desirable than a great amount of knowledge 
 itself. 
 
 Imagination is the third great notion or pic- 
 ture-forming activity of the intellect. Its function 
 is to embody the ideal in co7icrete forms. Percep- 
 tion gives us the idea of an object. Imagination 
 reverses the process. It starts with the idea and 
 expresses it in some individual form. It is cre- 
 ative. It produces new forms. These may be con- 
 structed in a mere mechanical way, with little or 
 no definite purpose in view, or in accord with the 
 highest ideals of the human soul. In their origin 
 they may be almost exclusively emotional or as 
 exclusively intellectual. They range all the way 
 from the laying of a few sticks together in a cer- 
 tain w^ay to the carving of the Apollo Belvidere; 
 from the potato-masher to the linotype; from "Ba, 
 ba, black sheep " to the book of Job; from the 
 rude hut to the towering cathedral; from the crude 
 sketches of the simple-minded peasant to the 
 noble frescoes of the Vatican. Out of imagina- 
 tion rises the beautiful world of art, inspiring and 
 refining the race. It touches every side of life, 
 and makes progress possible. 
 
 In its simpler and more mechanical form the 
 imagination is largely inventive, the end being to 
 construct something rather than to express or em- 
 body an idea, or even to produce something to 
 serve a specific purpose. Children will often labor 
 for hours to build a mud dam or a block house, 
 and then destroy it in an instant without a 
 shadow of compunction. Their plays constantly 
 call into requisition their imaginative powers, and
 
 THE INTELLECT AND ITS FUNCTIONS. 133 
 
 the marvelous freedom with which they make, 
 destroy, burn, kill, tiy, die, come to life again, be-, 
 come rich, lose all their property, sail to the moon, 
 administer medicine, become grandmothers, sol- 
 diers, sailors, merchants, showmen, monkeys, dogs, 
 cats, horses, bears, sheep, fairies, griffins, cow- 
 boys, ghosts, or angels — all in imagination — is well 
 known to everybody. There is just as much art 
 in all this as there is in the pictures the child 
 draws or the models he makes from clay. This 
 process of modifying the things he is, the things 
 he has, and the things he sees and hears, but fore- 
 casts what he will be doing in youth and man- 
 hood. The greater the skill which he attains in 
 putting his experiences into new forms and in de- 
 vising ways and means of doing things, the better 
 will be his preparation for active life. 
 
 Eead or tell a story to the children, and dis- 
 cover the differences in the pictures which they 
 form of it. Some will note every detail, others 
 scarcely any. Ask them to tell an original story 
 or act an original part, and note the differences 
 among them. Give half of the girls dolls and the 
 other half scraps of ribbons and dress goods; give 
 half of the boys water-color paints and brushes 
 and the other half sand pans; keep busy yourself, 
 but watch them and see what they do. Give them 
 curious toys, and discover who will find out first 
 how to play with them. Give them all simple puz- 
 zles and see who will find their way out first. 
 Show them pictures and give all a chance to tell 
 what they see in them. Give them rings, colored 
 sticks, colored beads, colored strips of paper, pen-
 
 134 THE STUDY OF THE CHILD. 
 
 cils, soft clay, needles and thread, etc., and see 
 •what they make out of them. Note particularly 
 who are original and who follow others. Find 
 where all get their ideas for the new forms. Which 
 are more imaginative, boys or girls? Note also 
 who seem to take more pleasure in color than in 
 form pictures. The study will have special value 
 if you discover the causes of the differences among 
 the children, and note the influence which a little 
 suggestion from you may have. 
 
 The inquiries just suggested are intended more 
 for the smaller children, but you will readily de- 
 vise methods for making appropriate tests with 
 older children. Compare the memoranda and dis- 
 cover how the imagination in the different ages 
 varies. New themes now interest them. Images 
 form more rapidly. Delicacy and fineness begin 
 to characterize them. They bear the stamp of 
 individuality. Ornamentation in some cases and 
 utility in others show the trend of emotion or 
 thought. Have them read The Building of the 
 Ship, The Village Blacksmith, Maud Muller, Snow 
 Bound, and tell you the stories in their own lan- 
 guage. Ask them to describe a certain landscape, 
 yesterday's thunderstorm, the old mill, and note 
 the plainness of some and the rich coloring of 
 others. You will find some extremely practical, 
 others visionary and fanciful; some resourceful, 
 others wholly lacking in originality and creative 
 power. 
 
 In its highest sense as creative, imagination 
 seeks to produce forms that will symbolize uni- 
 versal ideas, with little sensuous material to ex-
 
 THE INTELLECT AND ITS FUNCTIONS. 135 
 
 press great truths. Its test is its weight of mean- 
 ing; its themes, the deepest emotions of the 
 hnman heart. As the youth begins to think and 
 to feel deeply, he begins to catch the deeper mean- 
 ings of the creations of Nature and of art, and 
 to long to express them himself. Lack of space 
 forbids elaboration, but the development of the 
 child's imagination from the purely mechanical 
 to fancy and to the higher forms of creative activ- 
 ity is one of the most fruitful themes for inquiry 
 and study. 
 
 Perception, apperception, and memory de- 
 pend much upon imagination for the filling out 
 of the details in the mental pictures they form. 
 It is sometimes so active that the child is self- 
 deceived, for it covers up the real elements in an 
 object with the wealth of associated elements 
 which it immediately images. Memory pictures 
 are often most unreliable for the same reason and 
 because of the inability of the child to distinguish 
 between the old and the new elements present. 
 On this account children are often punished for 
 falsehoods for which they are not responsible, or 
 at most not wholly to blame. 
 
 An imagination that simply understands and 
 appreciates what another constructs is sometimes 
 called passive. That which constructs is called 
 active. The terms may help to a distinction, but 
 it is easily seen that all imagination is active; that 
 however suggestive and complete the creation of 
 another may be, it is still necessary for the receiv- 
 ing mind to construct its own picture in order to 
 get its meaning. The greatest painting in the
 
 136 THE STUDY OF THE CHILD. 
 
 world is but a varicolored canvas to him who 
 knows not how to give it relief and life. Even 
 Home, Sweet Home has scarcely more than rhythm 
 to him who as he reads can not construct the pic- 
 tures of the palaces and their gay throngs, the 
 thatched cottages and the humble hearth-stones, 
 the caroling birds and the lonely exile. 
 
 Like the other picture-forming activities, im- 
 agination everywhere obeys the laws of association 
 and suggestion, often responding to the slightest 
 stimulus, constructing and building, combining 
 and recombining, " turning even airy nothingness 
 to forms and shapes " of beauty and of use. It is 
 to this rare faculty that we owe the wealth of fig- 
 ures that illuminate and vivify the world of litera- 
 ture. 
 
 The cultivation, direction, and control of the 
 imagination of the child demand understanding 
 and skill of the highest order. Into its upbuilding 
 flows every current of his mental life. Upon its 
 genius every ideal and every destiny depend.
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 THE INTELLECT AND ITS FUNCTIONS (CONTINUED). 
 CONCEPTION, JUDGMENT, SEASONING. 
 
 EvEEY act of the mind is more or less com- 
 plex, calling into exercise as it does a variety of 
 activities. Its name depends npon the activity 
 most prominent in consciousness. Imagination is 
 dependent npon memory for its materials, mem- 
 ory upon perception, perception upon sensation. 
 In certain measure, also, the reverse is true, as 
 has been explained. Apperception involves them 
 all. The additional general intellectnal processes 
 named are conception, judgment, and reasoning. 
 
 Formerly the term conception had a twofold 
 signification. It was used as synonymous with per- 
 ception, or individual notion, and also as signify- 
 ing the notion of a class. It is now fast losing the 
 former meaning and is being used in the latter 
 sense. It will be used here as applied to mental 
 pictures as general notions only. ISTotions of 
 classes are built up by analysis and synthesis much 
 in the same way as notions of individual objects. 
 As an illustration, a child meets for the first time 
 a few dozen apples of different varieties. He ex- 
 amines one and finds it nearly spherical, with a 
 positive indentation and a stem at one end and a 
 
 137
 
 138 THE STUDY OF THE CHILD. 
 
 slight depression with rudiments of leaves at the 
 other. He notes the covering, the difference in 
 the outside and the inner part of the flesh, the 
 kinds of seeds and seed cases, the texture and 
 taste. He examines another, and a score of them, 
 and discovers that in all these things they prac- 
 tically agree. Some are larger than others; some 
 are tart, some sweet, some mealy, some soft, others 
 hard. They vary in color and a little in gen- 
 eral shape, but the points of likeness recur so 
 often and are so clearly marked that they enter 
 into the notion or mental picture of the class 
 apple as a whole. He recognizes objects as apples 
 only as they possess those characteristics. A large 
 number of green leaves are examined. Each leaf 
 is found to be flat, to possess a midrib with 
 branches and a network of veins, to be composed 
 of a pulpy cellular center, to have a stem on which 
 it rises from the twig, though varying greatly in 
 form, in margin, in thickness, and in special char- 
 acter of venation. The common or like elements 
 are united into a mental picture of leaves in gen- 
 eral — a picture which any ordinary leaf will fit. 
 If you were to mold a leaf out of clay, or cut one 
 out of paper, or draw a picture of one, in all cases 
 you would make it more or less in accord with this 
 general notion or picture. What is true of the 
 apple or leaf is also true of the triangle, or square, 
 or sphere, or fish, or star, or house, or wagon, or 
 flower. 
 
 For the above reasons a conception may be de- 
 fined as an image ivliicli symbolizes the general pro- 
 cesses by which all the individual memibers of the
 
 THE INTELLECT AND ITS FUNCTIONS. 139 
 
 class to which it belongs are constructed. The con- 
 ception of a triangle is that of a polygon with 
 three sides and three angles. With that image only 
 in the mind, you may construct ten thousand tri- 
 angles, no two being alike save in the requirement 
 of the conception — three sides and three angles. 
 Sometimes few, sometimes many elements enter 
 into the conception to distinguish the class from 
 other classes. In a simple way life is the only ele- 
 ment that enters into the conception of animate 
 objects to distinguish them from inanimate ob- 
 jects; the spinal column to distinguish the class 
 vertebrates from the invertebrates; solidity to dis- 
 tinguish ice from water. It is true that in each 
 case other characteristic elements may be implied, 
 but they follow by virtue of the existence of the 
 ones named. 
 
 The anal3'sis of the process just explained 
 shows the following steps: 
 
 1. Attention to one particular element found 
 common to all the individuals of the class, as 
 the sphericity in the apples, the midrib in the 
 leaves, the three angles in the triangles, life in 
 animate beings, etc. 
 
 2. The comparison of the element as discov- 
 ered in the individual members of the class and 
 of other classes and the verification of identity 
 and difference. 
 
 3. The gradual separation or abstraction of 
 that common element from the individuals in the 
 class and its formation in the mind purely as an 
 abstract mental image. 
 
 4. The union or synthesis of the several ele-
 
 140 THE STUDY OF THE CHILD. 
 
 ments found common to all the individuals in the 
 class into one whole, making the concejjtion 
 proper. 
 
 It must be apparent that the greater the care 
 taken in verifying the common elements, and the 
 greater the number of individuals examined, the 
 more accurate and complete will be the concep- 
 tion. 
 
 The preceding paragraphs may be made clearer 
 by taking some small cubes of different material 
 and following up the steps through which you 
 lead the children in helping them to form a con- 
 ception of a cube. When you think they have a 
 fair idea of it, put the cubes out of sight and give 
 them some clay out of which to mold a cube. 
 The definition of a concept wall then mean much 
 more to you. After helping them to a mental 
 picture of a square, give them pencils to draw it, 
 and what has been said will appear still plainer. 
 Make a number of similar experiments; you will 
 probably observe that what you are doing is very 
 much like " teaching school," but that you have 
 possibly been overlooking the importance of each 
 step in the notion-building process. The investi- 
 gation will show you that some children easily 
 pick out the more important and characteristic 
 common — that is, like — elements, while others 
 note the more superficial and the more variable. 
 As an illustration, one child will speak of the 
 sphericity of the apples, while another will men- 
 tion their color; one will note the rib and vena- 
 tion structure of the leaf, while another will be 
 absorbed in the outline of the margin. The con-
 
 THE INTELLECT AND ITS FUNCTIONS. 141 
 
 sequence in the first case is that the fundamental 
 likenesses are discovered and a correct concep- 
 tion easily built up, while in the other the difl'er- 
 ences are noted and an adequate notion is im- 
 possible. 
 
 All knowledge-getting, however simple or com- 
 plex the process, results in conceptions — that is, in 
 general notions. The process is a universalizing 
 process — that is, the mind uses the individual to 
 build the general idea. The meaning of every 
 individual is to be found only in the common — 
 the like — elements of the individuals of the class 
 to which it belongs. That the child should be 
 taught to form conceptions accurately, rapidly, 
 and comprehensively needs then no urging. 
 
 Judgment is the process of discovering and veri- 
 fying the relations of things. It hds been called the 
 typical act of knowledge. The two great relations 
 are those of identity and difference. These rela- 
 tions may be of form, size, color, texture, move- 
 ment, quality, quantity, time, space, part and 
 whole, cause and effect, etc. Every sentence is a 
 formal statement of a Judgment. The child says 
 the apple is red. He means that the color agrees 
 with his mental pictures of redness. He says that 
 the knife is sharp, and means that its edge agrees 
 with his notion of sharpness. He says that the 
 dog runs fast, that the house is large, the time is 
 long, the tree is far away, the stove is hot, the iron 
 is heavy, the baby is crying, and ten thousand 
 other things, for similar reasons. It was stated 
 in the last paragraph that the knowledge-getting 
 process is a universalizing process. Look now at
 
 142 THE STUDY OF THE CHILD. 
 
 each of the above sentences and see that tlie sub- 
 ject is an individual object, and that the predicate 
 — that which tells something about the subject — 
 is an abstract, universal notion or conception that 
 had already been built up in the mind and with 
 which it was familiar. The child simply finds and 
 puts the individual object in the class where it 
 belongs — the apple with the red things, the knife 
 with the sharp things, the dog with the fast run- 
 ners, the house with the large things, the time 
 with the long things, the tree with the far-away 
 things, etc. 
 
 There are, then, in every judgment, as in every 
 sentence, a perception and a conception; the for- 
 mer expressed in the subject and the latter in the 
 predicate. The former is the individual and the 
 latter the universal. The judgment affirms their 
 agreement or disagreement. Judgment, then, may 
 be defined as finding the universal in the individ- 
 ual. The accuracy of a judgment depends upon 
 three things: (1) The accuracy of the perception, 
 or individual notion; (2) the accuracy of the con- 
 ception, or general notion; (3) the accuracy of 
 the comparison upon which the idea of agreement 
 or disagreement is based. Inaccuracy in any one 
 of these may result in a wrong judgment. You 
 see again how interdependent are all the knowl- 
 edge-getting processes. If now you recall the fact 
 that every mental picture of an object is made up 
 of things learned about it, you will see that in 
 reality each element in it is the result of a judg- 
 ment. You will also see that every affirmative 
 judgment you may make about an object gives
 
 THE INTELLECT AND ITS FUXCTIOXS. I43 
 
 3^011 a new element to put into the mental pic- 
 ture of it. What is true of the individual notion 
 is also true of the general notion. Judgment, 
 then, is also involved in all apperception. At first 
 it appears in consciousness as a formal eilort at 
 discovering likeness and differences, but after- 
 ward it is more or less absorbed in the ready ap- 
 perception of the attributes of objects. It serves 
 as a means of verifying apperception. Psycho- 
 logically speaking, the test of a judgment is its 
 harmony with the other related judgments already 
 formed. 
 
 In its earlier life the child seems to apprehend 
 likeness and difference intuitively — that is, with- 
 out any special effort at finding them. As already 
 stated, the likeness thus discovered is usually 
 rather of the superficial or the more attractive 
 than of the fundamental order. It is only as he 
 begins to find the less evident or the essential 
 that formal judgment is called into requisition. 
 Here you will discover the principal difference 
 between the judgment of the child and of the 
 man. A knowledge of essentials and of the more 
 universal elements comes only with experience and 
 education. A child's judgment is confined to nar- 
 row limits and to few details. It deals almost 
 exclusively with concrete objects. It is often 
 scarcely more than impulse, but profits and grows 
 wiser by experience. Test your children on their 
 judgment of the lengths of several horizontal 
 lines you draw on the blackboard; the heights of 
 people not standing near together; the colors of 
 ribbons shown them; the likenesses of oranges 
 
 13
 
 1-1:4 THE STUDY OF THE CHILD. 
 
 and lemons, of leaves, of grains, of things very 
 much unlike as well as very much alike. Not 
 only will yon discover how greatly they differ in 
 their ability to judge, but also how greatly each 
 child's judgment will vary in the different classes 
 of objects presented to him. Find out, if pos- 
 sible, the reason in each case. 
 
 Judgment proper endeavors to find the rela- 
 tions between two things, ideas, or objects by di- 
 rect comparison. This process is sometimes called 
 implicit reasoning, though judgment is certainly 
 the better term. It often happens, however, that 
 the comparison can not be directly made between 
 two objects of thought, but that it can be made 
 through the medium of a third. This process is 
 based on the principle that things that are equal 
 to or like a certain other thing must be equal to 
 or like each other. If 3 and 1 equal 4, and 2 and 
 2 equal 4, then 3 and 1 must equal 2 and 2. If 
 a stick is one foot in length and a second stick is 
 also one foot in length, the two sticks must be 
 equal in length. If each of two pencils is like a 
 third, they must be like each other. If cats have 
 retractile claws, and this animal is a cat, it must 
 have retractile claws. The process is still a process 
 of finding likenesses, or a process of identification. 
 It is more complex than judgment, because of the 
 third or intermediate element used for connecting 
 the other two. 
 
 The reasoning process may then be defined as 
 the operation of the intellect ly which the relations 
 of certain things are found through the medium of 
 others. Every reasoning process stated in a com-
 
 THE INTELLECT AND ITS FUNCTIONS. 145 
 
 pact way takes the general form of the syllogism 
 in which but three elements, or notions, enter. 
 So, more definitely speaking, reasofiing is simply 
 -finding the i-elation of two ideas through the medium 
 of a third. Note that there are two notions in a 
 Judgment and three in a syllogism. The elements 
 or terms of a judgment are notions; the elements 
 of a syllogism are judgments, each judgment in 
 a syllogism having two terms. The following is 
 the general form of the syllogism: 
 
 1. y is X. 
 
 2. z is y. 
 
 3. . • . 2 is a;. 
 
 The part which y plays is easily seen. It sim- 
 ply serves as a medium by which the relation of 
 X and z is discovered. If investigation shows that 
 
 1 is true and also that 2 is true, then 3 fol- 
 lows of necessity. 1 is called the major premise, 
 
 2 the minor, and 3 the conclusion; x is called 
 the major term, z the minor, and y the middle. 
 The middle term must be a universal or general 
 notion in at least one of the premises. The major 
 and minor terms must mean the same thing, no 
 more, no less, in each place used. A concrete il- 
 lustration will help to a clearer understanding of 
 the syllogistic form: 
 
 All plants have a circulating fluid called sap. 
 
 This object is a plant. 
 
 .-.This object has a circulating fluid called 
 sap. 
 
 Make other syllogisms of a similar character 
 and see whether such a process is valid. 
 
 The illustration just given is known as a de-
 
 146 THE STUDY OF THE CHILD. 
 
 ductive syllogism. Deduction is the reasoning 
 process whicli froceecls from a general 'principle to 
 a particular fact. Its major premise is always 
 some agreed or some proved principle. An ex- 
 ample of the former is found in the following: 
 
 A polygon having fonr equal sides and four 
 right angles is called a square. 
 
 This polygon has four equal sides and four 
 right angles. 
 
 . • . This polygon is a square. 
 
 Induction is the reasoning process which pro- 
 ceeds from individual facts to general principles 
 and laws. Unless the major premise of the deduc- 
 tive syllogism is agreed upon or is a definition, it 
 must be established in some way as a basis for 
 the argument. This is done by the inductive 
 process just defined. The major premise in the 
 first concrete syllogism was established in some 
 such way as this: One plant after another was ex- 
 amined until a large number, including almost 
 every kind and variety, had been tested and each 
 was found to contain a circulating fluid. What 
 was found true of so many and under such a vari- 
 ety of conditions was supposed to be true of all 
 plants, and hence the general statement — • 
 
 All plants have a circulating fluid. 
 
 The conclusion in the inductive process is 
 l)ased upon the general belief in the uniformity 
 of nature. It holds that whatever is true of the 
 representatives of a class under a sufficient num- 
 ber of varying conditions may be accepted as 
 true of all the members of the class, and conse- 
 quently of the class as a whole. The facts in
 
 THE INTELLECT AND ITS FUNCTIONS. 147 
 
 inductive reasoning are drawn from our experi- 
 ences. 
 
 A child quickly learns to draw general con- 
 clusions from his experiences. A hot stove or 
 poker or lamp chimney or teakettle burns him, 
 and he quickly decides that hot things burn. This 
 gives him at once the major premise for the de- 
 ductive syllogism: 
 
 Hot things will burn me. 
 
 This stove is hot. 
 
 . • . This stove will burn me. 
 
 In many cases children generalize and reach 
 conclusions too quickly. Often one single ex- 
 perience will prove sufficient to satisfy them. A 
 child is snapped at by a dog, and he immediately 
 concludes that all dogs will bite or snap at him. 
 He is given bitter medicine in a spoon, and thinks 
 that everything offered him in a spoon is bitter. 
 A little friend of mine calls everyboc^ nice who 
 gives her candy. I have some large friends who 
 do the same thing, however! As soon as the child 
 thus generalizes about a class of objects, he makes 
 the application very promptly to an individual 
 case. My little girl was very shy of a stranger one 
 morning, but when I told her that he was my 
 friend she went to him at once, nestling down in 
 his arms as though she had known him familiarly 
 for years. At another time I picked her up at 
 the head of the stairway and started downstairs 
 with her head pointing below. She sprang up in- 
 stantly, throwing her arms around my neck, ex- 
 claiming, " Papa, you will let me fall ! " Though 
 I assured her that her " dear papa w^ould not let
 
 148 THE STUDY OF THE CHILD. 
 
 her fall/' she replied, " Well, papa, that is the 
 falling way, anyhow! " 
 
 Proof is anything that convinces the mind of 
 a fact or principle. It may come through observa- 
 tion, experimentation, or reasoning. There can 
 be no reliable reasoning which is not based upon 
 accurate and many-sided observation and experi- 
 mentation. As the mind of the child is satisfied 
 with so little evidence, it is also easily moved to 
 change its views, particularly if pleasure or ad- 
 vantage appears. Henry's mother easily secured 
 a promise from him that he would not play mar- 
 bles for keeps, but when he saw that he was the 
 best player at school he changed his mind about 
 it. The child's reasoning must be in large meas- 
 ure about concrete things, but the process needs 
 no less careful training on this account. Transi- 
 tion is not made at once to abstract reasoning. 
 That comes gradually. Ability to comprehend the 
 abstract comes only by long practice in compre- 
 hending the concrete. Every effort to force the 
 former will prove an injury to the child. 
 
 There is a physiological side to reasoning as 
 well as to perception. Brain cells are the ma- 
 chinery by which the mind thinks. They are, like 
 every other part of the body, developed and per- 
 fected by intelligent exercise. Brain control 
 comes much in the same way as muscular control. 
 Nerve centers are built up, correlated, and made 
 responsive to the varying and increasingly com- 
 plex demands of the mind only in Nature's way 
 and in Nature's time. Eecent investigations show 
 that the nerve cells of the brain probably grow
 
 THE INTELLECT AND ITS FUNCTIONS. 149 
 
 with mental activity by putting out branches that 
 interlace more or less with each other, building 
 up " apperception masses " that act together 
 under appropriate stimuli, thus indefinitely multi- 
 plying the mind's capacity for work. Everybody 
 knows how hard it is to think when his " brain 
 won't work." There is more philosophy in the 
 statement, however, than everybody supposes. A 
 brain that is accustomed to light thinking will 
 no more think deeply than will the hands of a 
 pianist accustomed to light and catchy music play 
 at sight the highest creations of the masters. It 
 is as difficult to train the uncultivated brain of an 
 adult to think and to reason out great problems 
 as it is to train the fingers of a full-grown man 
 to become expert at the piano or the violin. If 
 the mind of a ISTewton were placed in the head of 
 a forester, it would be even more helpless from 
 lack of a proper brain than would the mind and 
 genius of Paderewski from lack of supple fingers if 
 placed in the brain of a blacksmith. The educa- 
 tion of the thinking and reasoning activities of 
 the child, then, should not be postponed to the 
 later years of his school life, but should conscien- 
 tiously and intelligently accompany every stage in 
 his development. When a child, he ought to be 
 permitted to think and to reason as a child. He 
 has plenty of things to think about and to raise 
 questions about if he is exercising his senses a? 
 urged in the opening chapter. Stimulate inquiry 
 and investigation, and his vision will be wider 
 and deeper with every rising sun. 
 
 The first inquiries of the child are more about
 
 150 THE STUDY OF THE CHILD. 
 
 what things are. He soon, however, begins to 
 raise questions about the causes of things. He 
 wishes to know why things are so and so. These 
 questions reveal to you the things about which 
 he is probably able to reason. If you have become 
 familiar wth children's ways of seeing things, you 
 will hardly fail to find the way to help them in 
 their reasoning processes. First find out what 
 they know about the class in general. If that, ap- 
 plied to the inquiry, does not give the answer, 
 guide them by experimentation and induction to 
 discover the proper principle. Of course, there 
 should be nothing formal or mechanical about 
 the process. If every little detail were followed, 
 interest would die at once. In ordinary reason- 
 ing the full form of the syllogism is seldom 
 thought out even by adults, much less by chil- 
 dren. By a single movement the middle term is 
 seen to connect the other two, and their identifica- 
 tion is at once announced. 
 
 Eemember, again, that the end of all knowl- 
 edge-getting is the building up of general or uni- 
 versal notions, and that, as the object of a judg- 
 ment is to add another element to the mental 
 image already forming, so the reasoning process, 
 though by a little longer route, serves the same 
 purpose.
 
 CHAPTEE XVIII. 
 
 THE SELF, HABIT, AND CHAEACTEB. 
 
 The term self has been used frequently in the 
 foregoing pages. It may now be more clearly ex- 
 plained. By the self is meant the child, the man, 
 as the subject from ivhich conscious phenomena con- 
 stantly rise. It is that which responds to the 
 stimuli from the outside world; that which feels 
 and thinks and wills. Its manifold activities con- 
 stitute what is called mind. The self is distin- 
 guished from them only as substance is distin- 
 guished from its qualities or attributes. Essen- 
 tially the self is as its attributes or activities. 
 Knowing them, we know ourselves and other 
 selves also. 
 
 In speaking of the various mental activities, 
 there is frequently a suggestion that they are more 
 or less independent parts of the self, and that as 
 one of them is acting the others are at rest. Mod- 
 ern psychologists are agreed, however, that the 
 self acts as a unit in all cases. If apperceiving, 
 it is the whole self that apperceives; if recollect- 
 ing, it is the whole self that recollects. The inter- 
 dependence of all the intellectual activities is thus 
 made more evident. 
 
 "Wliatever the self does reacts upon it, giving it 
 
 151
 
 152 THE STUDY OP THE CHILD. 
 
 the power to do the same thing again with more 
 ease and more rapidity than before. The more 
 frequently the fingers perform certain movements, 
 the more successfully do they j^erform each suc- 
 ceeding movement. What is it that is stored up 
 in the fingers as a result of each effort? Nothing 
 but ability to do it again, possibly a little better 
 and with a little less exertion. In the course of 
 time the fingers become organized, as it were, to 
 execute, those particular movements, and their 
 efficiency is thus greatly multiplied. In the same 
 way the reaction of mental activity upon the self 
 is constantly organizing it and increasing its power 
 to act. In this way skill comes, and readiness, and 
 comprehension. In this way also come tendencies 
 and dispositions. Though the child be working 
 objectively, thinking about things outside of him- 
 self and making forms and colors to his fancy, 
 he is really making himself. It is this that gives 
 a child's environments, a child's companions, a 
 child's books, and a child's plays such tremendous 
 significance in character-building. The nature of 
 mental food and mental exercise affects the nature 
 of the mental organism far more profoundly than 
 the nature of physical food and physical exercise 
 affects the bodily organism. Eead Hawthorne's 
 Great Stone Face, and then verify what has been 
 said by a study of the children in your circle. 
 
 The sjjudy just suggested will possibly reveal 
 some puzzling problems. Apparent contradic- 
 tions of these statements may be foimd, but their 
 explanation will usually appear in the hereditary 
 dispositions or in the influences at first over-
 
 THE SELF, HABIT, AND CHARACTER. I53 
 
 looked, Eead J. G. Holland's Social Undertow 
 for further enlightenment. 
 
 You have already seen that, as these activities 
 organize into and become a part of the self, they 
 become what is called hahit. At first they are 
 more or less strange and unfamiliar, more or less 
 difficult of execution. That which makes them 
 familiar and easily executed also makes them a 
 part of the self. Nothing is familiar which has 
 not been converted into terms of the self. Under- 
 standing and repetition are the two factors that 
 best bring this about, though the latter often does 
 it in a mechanical way. Hahit is defined as activ- 
 ity resulting from the identification of an action 
 with the self through repetition. When conditions 
 similar to those originally accompanying an act 
 occur, that act aiitomatically — ^that is, without 
 conscious effort — tends to repeat itself. This is 
 in accord with the law of physical and mental 
 activity that when any element of a series recurs, 
 the whole series tends to recur also. The mo- 
 mentum of habit thus carries an act on to com- 
 pletion, leaving the mind free to give attention 
 to any unfamiliar element present. For illustra- 
 tion, when the child has learned to walk, he moves 
 about the yard looking at the birds and talking 
 about them to his little friends, all the while un- 
 conscious of efforts at walking. He is watching 
 the birds and is absorbed in them, and yet he is 
 constantly talking to them or about them, words 
 coming as needed, no effort now being required to 
 recall them or to pronounce them. 
 
 All education takes the form of habit. Noth-
 
 154 THE STUDY OF THE CHILD. 
 
 ing is valuable as knowledge or skill that is not 
 so fully possessed and assimilated with the self 
 that it reacts spontaneously and directly to its ap- 
 propriate stimulus. Habit makes apperception 
 possible. Control is attained with habit. It ex- 
 plains the marked differences among men in 
 their ability to perform certain kinds of work. 
 Ability is called skill, but it becomes skill only 
 as it becomes habit. Both j mental and phy- 
 sical skill comes from practice that makes it hab- 
 it. A man's strength or weakness lies in his 
 habits of thinking and doing. His habits re- 
 veal his character, or, better, his habits are his 
 character. 
 
 Activities that take the form of habit become 
 permanent characteristics of the self as well as its 
 controlling forces. From certain activities come 
 all that brood of evil habits so common among 
 people of all ages — laziness, shiftlessness, pro- 
 crastination, listlessness, slovenliness, skepticism, 
 faithlessness to promises, lying, instability, fault- 
 finding, scolding, self-indulgence, etc. Most for- 
 tunately also come from others the habits that 
 make for righteousness — industry, thrift, punctu- 
 ality, neatness, accuracy, interest, stability, self- 
 denial, truthfulness, gentleness, courage, etc. 
 These facts make it possible for the child to real- 
 ize any ideal of character he may set up. They 
 also show the part the teacher and parent may 
 take in the process. 
 
 Children easily form and easily break habits. 
 Their imitative instincts serve them well. It is 
 usually otherwise with adults. The second part
 
 THE SELF, HABIT, AND CHARACTER. 155 
 
 of the first statement is disputed by many moth- 
 ers. By sad experience they have learned how 
 hard it is to break some bad habits into which 
 their children fall. When, however, they have 
 secured the co-operation of the children, the work 
 is less difQcult, so the statement is permitted to 
 stand. It is admitted, though, that there may 
 be some hopeless cases. A boy, a neighbor of 
 mine, when but seven years of age gravely con- 
 fided to his playmate the conclusion that he had 
 chewed tobacco so long that it would be impos- 
 sible for him to abstain from it! Another of still 
 more tender years had formed such a habit of 
 lying that correctives proved of no avail. Another 
 fell to fighting nearly every boy he met. Prob- 
 ably every household has its truant and its child 
 that goes into spasms and turns "black and 
 blue " whenever punished or denied anything it 
 craves. 
 
 Many of these so-called habits, however, are 
 superficial, and mere temporary stages in the 
 growth of the child. A little friendly counsel re- 
 enforced by wise punishment, if necessary, usually 
 corrects them. Dr. D. M. Harris, of St. Louis, tells 
 me that he spent a few hours one afternoon and 
 a short time on the following morning in show- 
 ins; a little ffirl how she could talk without stam- 
 mering. She had stammered so long that it was 
 supposed to be a physical defect, and efforts at 
 its cure had been abandoned. Imagine her moth- 
 er's delight at the dinner table to hear her speak 
 without any hesitation or defective enunciation 
 whatever. Children often insist that they can
 
 15G THE STUDY OF THE CHILD. 
 
 not overcome certain bad habits tliat some re- 
 minder will readily assist them in correcting. A 
 friend of mine tells me that a little nephew of 
 hers would swear like a trooper when angry. He 
 agreed with his mother that it was very wicked, 
 but he " got so mad." At the conclusion of a lov- 
 ing talk with him one day about the habit, she 
 tied a string around one of his fingers and secured 
 a solemn promise that as long as that string was 
 there he would not swear. Early in the after- 
 noon of the day after he came rushing into the 
 house, crying, " Mamma, mamma, cut this string 
 off my finger quick! " She said, " Why, my 
 boy?" "Oh," he replied, "I am mad at a boy 
 out in the alley, and I must swear at him; cut it 
 quick! " 
 
 As has been remarked already, children's 
 habits, whether good or bad, are easily formed; 
 hence the danger of indulging them too frequently 
 in certain cute expressions and willful pranks. 
 The first " I won't do it! " often provokes a smile, 
 but too often it is not long before it brings hot, 
 scalding tears. Study the habits of your children, 
 and discover the circumstances under which they 
 have risen. Why do some of them lounge con- 
 stantly? Why do some walk with a light, elastic 
 step and others in a shuffling way? Why do some 
 chew their tongues when they write? Why are 
 some tidy and neat and others dirty and slovenly? 
 Why are some always losing things? Why are 
 some invariably ahead of their fellows and others 
 as surely behind them? Why are some always 
 alert and attentive, and others diffident and
 
 THE SELF, HABIT, AND CHARACTER. 157 
 
 listless? Wliy are some constantly complaining 
 and grumbling? Why do some always speak 
 in a loud, self-important way? Why are some 
 so reserved and shy? Why are some habitual- 
 ly blundering, while others seldom make a 
 mistake? Why are some frequently breaking 
 things and others not? Why are some hurting 
 themselves daily and others seldom meeting a 
 mishap? Why are some continually asking ques- 
 tions, while others seldom do it? Why do some 
 usually forget, while others seem to remember 
 everything they meet? Why are some habitually 
 open and frank, while others are reticent and re- 
 served? In seeking answers to these questions, 
 you should not overlook the valuable assistance 
 each child's family may give you, especially the 
 father and mother. Eemember that the mere dis- 
 covery that such habits exist will be of little value. 
 You know that now. Their origin and their cor- 
 rection in each case are the special objects of this 
 study. 
 
 Experiment with the children in habit-T)reak- 
 ing and habit-forming. Discover the relation of 
 the understanding and the emotions. Find under 
 what conditions a child will promptly break a 
 habit. Is a bad habit more easily displaced by 
 suppressing it directly or by building up other 
 habits of an opposite tendency, thus accomplish- 
 ing it indirectly? A¥liat classes of goorl or bad 
 habits appear to aiTeet habits in general? What 
 methods do you find helpful in building up right 
 habits of thinking and doing? What elements in 
 the child seem to give him stableness of character?
 
 158 THE STUDY OF THE CHILD. 
 
 What effect have children's plays upon their char- 
 acter? Review now the functions of physical, in- 
 tellectual, prudential, and moral control in the 
 process of character-forming. In what way are 
 they interdependent?
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 children's instincts and plats. 
 
 Instinct is an inborn disposition to certain ac- 
 tivities. It manifests itself in impulses more or 
 less efficiently directed iq, the attainment of spe- 
 cific ends. The stimulus to action may come from 
 external or internal sources. When the cold " af- 
 fects the nervous system of the wild goose in a. 
 northern latitude, an impulse to action develops 
 and the bird flies to a warmer clime." When a 
 duck goes into the water, the contact awakens 
 the impulse to paddle. " When certain internal 
 stimuli make themselves felt in the caterpillar, 
 it begins at once to weave its shroud." " Prompted 
 by an internal stimulus, the bird starts to build 
 its nest; the human being to mate, to search for 
 a home, and to take up the round of domestic 
 duties toward which his ancestors were likewise 
 impelled. Blind impulses due to nervous tension 
 have from the beginning of history driven men 
 to do certain things." Such an impulse causes a 
 mother to shield her child, a panic-stricken army 
 to flee, a youth to become an artist, an explorer, 
 a scientist, or a philanthropist. These inherent 
 tendencies or instincts predetermine in large meas- 
 ure the history of each life. 
 
 14 159
 
 160 THE STUDY OF THE CHILD. 
 
 The impulse to the satisfaction of the child's 
 first cravings for food suggests at once the idea 
 that all instincts are implanted in the child to 
 satisfy certain general demands of his nature, or, 
 probably better, to impel to the realization of the 
 possibilities of his nature. The impulse to exer- 
 cise is not purposeless. It develops strength and 
 skill. Both anticipate future needs. The impulse 
 to perception, to know things present to the senses, 
 calls into exercise knowledge-getting activities 
 that later are to grapple with the great problems 
 of the universe. The impulse to imitation serves 
 to stimulate both physical and mental activity, 
 and to make education and progress possible. The 
 impulse to expression devises a multitude of ways 
 and means by which mind may communicate its 
 ideas to other minds and, as a result, it produces 
 all-comprehensive language, the rarest creation of 
 the Imman intellect. 
 
 Out of these impulses and instincts have come 
 science and art and philosophy, with their mani- 
 fold blessings for the race. But these instincts 
 alone would have left man an isolated, selfish 
 being, finding pleasure only in the gratification of 
 his own personal desires. Wholly absorbed with 
 his own interests, he would have little regard for 
 the interests of others. His fellows would have 
 borne no nearer relation to him than that borne 
 by other objects, animate or inanimate, in the 
 world about him. The instinct that leads him to 
 seek the companionship of his fellows, and that 
 finds satisfaction in their presence, their sympa- 
 thy, and their co-operation, gives at once a higher
 
 CHILDREN'S INSTINCTS AND PLAYS. 161 
 
 meaning to the other instincts mentioned. The 
 end of all this is not simply the happiness and 
 perfection of the individual, but of the race as 
 well. This impulse to fellowship is called the social 
 instinct. 
 
 Some of the higher species of animals live in 
 pairs, others in communities, flocks, or herds. 
 Man mates, but lives also in communities. The 
 hermit or the recluse is always regarded as an 
 abnormal man. His mode of life interests but 
 seldom attracts. The loneliness of Eobinson 
 Crusoe will ever continue to arouse the sympa- 
 thies of people of all ages. Even in robust health 
 few men or women like to be long alone. When 
 sickness comes, no better medicine than a sym- 
 pathetic friend can be found. Homesickness is a 
 universal disease. The social instinct draws peo- 
 ple together everywhere. It sets them to serving 
 each other. It finds gratification in the happiness 
 and prosperity of all. It recognizes common in- 
 terests, mutual dependence. It bands the people 
 together for mutual protection. It organizes en- 
 terprises for the good of the community as a 
 whole; it establishes schools, churches, govern- 
 ments. The same instinct that draws individuals 
 together into communities draws communities to- 
 gether into larger communities and into states. 
 Thus it awakens the love of home, the love of 
 kindred and of native land. Thus it begets the 
 various institutions of civilization. 
 
 The utter helplessness of the newborn babe 
 confirms, if confirmation were necessary, the idea 
 that man was intended to be a social being. Xext
 
 1G2 'J^HE STCDY OF TJIE CHILD. 
 
 to its physical demands come the demands for 
 the presence of another person. With each first 
 waking moment how imperatively is this demand 
 expressed! With what satisfaction does the child 
 nestle in the warm bosom of its mother and with 
 what manifestations of delight does it soon wel- 
 come the coming of the different members of the 
 household! Few observers have failed to note the 
 intense interest with which children meeting for 
 the first time contemplate one another and how 
 short an association may make them necessary to 
 each other's happiness. Millions of children have 
 been shnt in or tied up because they persisted in 
 running away to the home of a neighbor in order 
 to find some one of their own age to engage in 
 play. The most interesting thing to a little boy 
 or girl is another little boy or girl, hobbyhorses 
 and dolls not excepted. To the child who has 
 had the pleasure of playing with another child 
 there is nothing else in the way of amusement 
 quite so desirable. In many ways older people 
 satisfy this longing of the cliild for fellowship, 
 but the sweetest joys of childhood are missed by 
 the child that has no playmates of approximately 
 his own age. 
 
 /"" A study of the plays of children shows their 
 great resemblance to the more serious occupations 
 of their elders. Children plan and execute with 
 an interest and an energy that flag only when the 
 weary little body demands rest and sleep. They 
 strive to imitate almost every conceivable thing 
 that their elders do. They build houses, make 
 mud pies, plant corn, go to town, teach school.
 
 CHILDREN'S INSTINCTS AND PLAYS. 163 
 
 give i^arties, play doctor, dress the dolls, wash 
 clothes, build tires, break colts, hold revival serv- 
 ices, run lemonade stands, give circus perform- 
 ances, play soldier, hive the bees, make garden, 
 dig coal mines, write letters, banter, quarrel, tight, 
 kill! The earnestness with which they do all 
 this shows its intense reality to them, and shows 
 further that the instincts of childhood do not dif- 
 fer greatly from the instincts of manhood. Play 
 foreshadows the occupations soon to follow. In 
 it the imitative, the inventive, the expressive, the 
 social instincts of the child find their normal sat- 
 isfaction. Play thus becomes the first great period 
 of apprenticeship in the life of the child. In it 
 that physical and intellectual control is attained 
 which assures easy transition to skill in doing 
 work. Play as well as other activities reacts upon 
 the child and helps to make him what he is. 
 
 How, then, can any one overlook the impor- 
 tance of the child's plays? How can any parent 
 or teacher fail to take an abiding interest in every- 
 thing that the child attempts to do? The charac- 
 ter of his play needs the same attention as that 
 given to the character of his food. Some plays 
 call the imitative activities into exercise more 
 prominently than others, some the inventive, some 
 the apperceptive. Some plays quicken the judg- 
 ment, others the memory; some call out the rea- 
 soning powers, others the imaginative; some de- 
 velop n^iuscular strength, others skill. Some chil- 
 dren engage in the same play all day long, others 
 require frequent change; some prefer quiet plays, 
 others the noisy and boisterous; some insist
 
 164 THE STUDY OF THE CHILD. 
 
 on pla3dng indoors, others seek the free open air; 
 some incline to plays that symbolize industrial oc- 
 cupations, others to those that symbolize nature or 
 adventure; some choose games or plays in which 
 there is a contest of mind, others those in which 
 the contest is one of physical strength or skill. 
 A recent inquiry among a large number of boys 
 of eight years of age and upward shows that the 
 popular games among them are black man, crack 
 the whip, duck on the rock, boxing, baseball, foot- 
 ball, etc. The reason almost invariably given was 
 that " it is such fun to beat somebody! " In some 
 cases the brutal nature crept out a little too clear- 
 ly, for such expressions as the following v^^ere not 
 uncommon : " It is such sport to see a fellow tuna- 
 ble over and hurt himself! " " Sometimes you can 
 knock a fellow and black his eye." " It is so 
 funny to see the boys and girls fly off the whip 
 and then go limping away!" "Because you can 
 break an arm or leg sometimes." " If you watch, 
 you can knock the breath out of him." Test the 
 children on all these points. Discover whether 
 the boys and girls like to play together and the 
 reasons for it. What do all these different prefer- 
 ences indicate? What effect have certain classes 
 of plays had upon the school work of the chil- 
 dren? 
 
 The range of a child's plays should be so wide 
 and so carefully selected as to be developing every 
 side of his nature. The kindergarten is most 
 happily organized for this purpose; a study of its 
 principles and methods will throw much light 
 upon the problem. The kindergarten, however, is
 
 CHILDREN'S INSTINCT AND PLAYS. 165 
 
 a school, even though its whole aim is to direct 
 the play instinct of the child, and therefore fails 
 in retaining fully the most essential elements in all 
 true play — spontaneity and freedom. The range is 
 also necessarily very limited. It presupposes a 
 wide range of home plays, and makes them con- 
 trihute to its own games and plays. In fact, it 
 strives to correlate them all in such a way as to 
 make them mutually helpful. The investigation 
 suggested in the last paragraph will show that in 
 nearly every community there are many children 
 who not only have a very limited range of plays, 
 but who are also ignorant of the fact that there 
 are any other plays than those with which they 
 are acquainted. They are narrowed and dwarfed 
 and starved from lack of wholesome, stimulating, 
 thought-provoking plays. When they enter school 
 or start to learn some trade the effect of it all is 
 evident enough. 
 
 Wliat the children play is no more momentous 
 than how they play. Useful plays may be de- 
 vised in abundance, and yet unsatisfactory results 
 follow. The liberal hand is not always the wise 
 hand. To attain the highest good, plays should 
 succeed each other in the order best adapted to 
 the child's capacities and needs. A child may en- 
 tertain himself day after day for a year with the 
 same play, but there can be little growth in it for 
 him after a few successive repetitions. Of course, 
 the child's pleasure must be consulted in the se- 
 lections, else his plays will be of little profit to 
 him. It usually requires very little tact to con- 
 trol his choice, though there is always danger of
 
 166 THE STUDY OF THE CHILD. 
 
 a mother following her own notions and conven- 
 ience rather than the needs of the child. <^It is 
 .always safer to find out the child's instincts and 
 be governed by theni^ The philosophy of a play 
 is a very profound^hing on the mother's side 
 and a very exacting thing on the child's side. 
 In nothing else may superficial child study so 
 easily reveal itself as in the management of play. 
 ,y Children should be taught how to play with 
 the same care that they are taught later in life 
 how to work. If properly led and instructed, they 
 learn a thousand things in their plays that be- 
 come a valuable and a permanent part of their 
 mental and jDhysical being. Many girls become 
 good seamstresses in cutting and fitting dolls' 
 dresses. Many boys learn how to use simple tools 
 in playing carpenter. A little friend of mine 
 learned more about silkworms by caring for a 
 few eggs given her and watching the hatching and 
 the metamorphoses through the spinniiig of the 
 cocoons and the flight of the moths than nine 
 tenths of the high-school students get out of books 
 on entomology. Another became a fair artist in 
 playing with his pencils and his water-color 
 paints. Another learned many interesting facts 
 about great writers in playing " authors," and in 
 after years at school succeeded in passing an ex- 
 amination in which that knowledge served her 
 well. Are not many of Whitcomb Riley's poems 
 surcharged with images garnered in childhood's 
 plays and wanderings? The vividness with which 
 Shakespeare describes " the dainty, dew-impearled 
 flowers, the shadowy forests and the wide-skirted
 
 CHILDREN'S INSTINCTS AND PLAYS. 167 
 
 meads, the weaving spiders and the honey-bags 
 of the bumblebees, the banks where the wild 
 thyme blows and the nodding violet grows," tells 
 plainly enough how he romped and played on 
 many a knoll up and down the beautiful valley 
 of the quiet Avon. It also discloses how richly 
 these ramblings endowed him for the great work 
 of his mature life. 
 
 The effect of play upon the social life of the 
 child and upon his character depends much upon 
 its management. If two children play together 
 happily, one must deny himself all the time for 
 the pleasure of the other, or they must make mu- 
 tual concessions. Few small children are known 
 to play together for any great length of time with- 
 out quarreling. One of them may yield to the 
 other for awhile, but selfishness overreach 3S itself 
 at last and rebellion results. The issue must be 
 settled by an appeal to arms or by concessions 
 from the aggressor. A few lessons usually suffice 
 to convince children that the latter is the better 
 way. Members of the household, particularly the 
 parents, may aid the process greatly by discreet 
 observation, wise repression, and sympathetic 
 counsel. The child is naturally a despot. He 
 knows that he is to rule, and often thinks that 
 he is to rule others rather than himself. His 
 plays furnish the opportunity for the simple les- 
 sons in democracy which he needs in order to an- 
 ticipate the more responsible duties of neighbor 
 and citizen.
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 MANNERS AND MORALS. 
 
 The social instinct, along with all other hu- 
 man instincts, is inventive. It is not satisfied 
 merely with the presence of other people. It 
 soon begins to devise ways and means for its com- 
 pleter gratification. It profits by experiences, as 
 already explained, and learns to respect the in- 
 dividuality of others. It takes pleasure in their 
 pleasure. It grieves when they suffer. It identi- 
 fies itself with them. Sympathy and love, self- 
 denial and service follow. This development being 
 more or less reciprocal in the individual cases, 
 additional ways and means of showing deference 
 and of contributing to the comfort and happiness 
 of one another are easily found. Even children 
 quickly discover that which will please others, 
 and often with rare generosity seek to bestow it. 
 The principle is not disproved in saying that many 
 children and adults serve others because they ex- 
 pect a service in return, nor in saying that they 
 labor to make other people happy because their 
 sensitiveness to the condition of others is so great 
 that they are miserable on seeing them unhappy. 
 
 Out of this spirit of companionship and good 
 will have risen the code of manners generally ob- 
 168
 
 MANNERS AND MORALS. 169 
 
 served in good society. Even Bushmen and Pata- 
 gonians observe simple forms of etiquette in their 
 social intercourse. Pirates and outlaws are as ex- 
 acting in certain social requirements as are the 
 Knickerbockers of New York city. The simple 
 folk of the Scotch Highlands and the humble peas- 
 antry of the Tyrol are models of coilrtesy and 
 good breeding. All civilized people are governed 
 by social customs that are held in as high esteem 
 as the statute laws. They touch every phase of 
 the domestic and the community life. They in- 
 clude the relation of master and servant, of supe- 
 rior and inferior, of peers and equals, of old and 
 young, of friends and strangers, of the same sex 
 and of opposite sexes; they include the proprie- 
 ties of the street, the railway car, the church, the 
 club, the public assembly, the parlor, the dining 
 room, etc. Few men who are lacking in good 
 manners are successful in business or professional 
 life. The secret of the art of managing men is 
 found largely in the art of treating them courte- 
 ously. Emerson says that " address, good man- 
 ners, rules the world." It makes friends, it wins 
 votes, it brings trade, it opens the door to the 
 social circle, it forwards diplomacy, it disarms 
 hostility, it secures co-operation, it everywhere 
 contributes to the comfort and the enjoyment of 
 mankind. The utility of good manners is often 
 overlooked in the education of children. 
 
 ]\Iere politeness should not be confused with 
 good manners. The former is simply the observ- 
 ance of external forms. The latter is the gen- 
 erous expression of the self in friendly deference
 
 170 THE STUDY OF THE CHILD. 
 
 to others. Politeness is more or less studied and 
 artificial; good manners are sympathetic and 
 spontaneous. The former is put on as occasion 
 demands, the latter are so fully a part of the self 
 that they are never easily cast aside. Affectation 
 tries to hide itself in politeness; sincerity expresses 
 itself in good manners. All efforts to teach the 
 children the forms of social intercourse without 
 exalting the kindly spirit above the graceful act 
 must result in making them merely polite. A 
 selfish child may be polite, but not good-man- 
 nered. The essential in all cases is a large heart, 
 a warm heart, and an honest heart. Good man- 
 ners are bred into children; politeness is put on 
 the outside of them. To know how to act in com- 
 pany is but a small part of good manners; it is 
 just as important to know how to act in the family 
 circle and in the associations of everyday life. 
 
 The development of good manners in children 
 is largely dependent upon the presence of good 
 manners in the home. If affection and personal 
 solicitude for each other's comfort control the 
 actions of the older people that gather round 
 the hearthstone, the little children will hardly be 
 long in catching the spirit as well as the action. 
 Children reared in such homes are usually easy 
 and self-possessed in any company. They are 
 not obliged to "put on" when among strangers, 
 and consequently they suffer little embarrassment 
 at any time. 
 
 As previously suggested, every child needs 
 friendly counsel and , advice concerning his ac- 
 tions toward others. There may be occasions
 
 MANNERS AND MORALS. 171 
 
 when he needs to be reminded that he is petulant 
 or selfish, angry or boisterous, forward or obtrusive, 
 thoughtless or cruel, uncouth or vulgar, imperti- 
 nent or disrespectful. There certainly are occasions 
 when he needs to be shown how to be gentle and 
 considerate, to control his temper and to respect 
 the rights of others, to be self-sacrificing and gen- 
 erous, to be modest and retiring. These virtues 
 lie at the very basis of good manners. Every 
 child is entitled to be tanght also the simple mat- 
 ters of form in table etiquette, in entering and 
 leaving the homes of others, in meeting people 
 in the street, in inviting or accepting the com- 
 pany of others, in welcoming and entertaining 
 guests, etc. It is difficult to separate good man- 
 ners from grace of body and from grace in sit- 
 ting, standing, walking, talking, and gesture. 
 These make up part of the social as well as the 
 physical education of the child. 
 
 In the study of the social life of children the 
 inqniries, as in other investigations suggested, 
 should embrace both the facts and their causes. 
 Why are some children coarse and ill-mannered, 
 while others from the same home are refined and 
 agreeable? Why are some familiar with the 
 forms of polite society, and yet arrogant and boor- 
 ish in their relations to other children? Why are 
 some children great favorites with their class- 
 mates, while others have few friends? Wliy are 
 some naturally affable and popular, while others _ 
 are disagreeable in spite of every effort to please? 
 How closely allied to good manners are habits of 
 cleanliness and neatness, good morals, etc.?
 
 172 THE STUDY OF THF] CHILD. 
 
 Manners and morals are not separated very far 
 from each other. Rosenkranz says that moral 
 culture is the essence of social culture. As ex- 
 plained in the preceding paragraphs, all social 
 forms have had their origin in the desire to mul- 
 tiply and enhance the pleasures of social inter- 
 course. That desire rises from love and sympa- 
 thy, the crowning graces of the ideal moral and 
 religious life. Prudential action — that is, action 
 for advantage or profit to the self — may be char- 
 acteristic of much business and social intercourse. 
 If, however, the action is prompted by the motive 
 of good to others, it becomes moral. Prudential 
 control suggests the idea of getting; moral control, 
 the idea of being. The test of a man's prudence 
 is in wbat he has; of his morals, in what he is. 
 The distinguishing characteristics of the former 
 are foresight, vigilance, industry, economy, cour- 
 age, self-possession, perseverance, self-interest; of 
 the latter, integrity, sincerity, fidelity, forbear- 
 ance, sympathy, gentleness, temperance, meek- 
 ness, purity, brotherly kindness, charity. Pru- 
 dential control raises the question, What profit? 
 Moral control, What good? In prudential control 
 the motive is always advantage; in moral control, 
 it may be the good or the bad. The former is 
 judged by its attainments; the latter by its mo- 
 tives. 
 
 The moral idea grows out of the social. The 
 latter recognizes the relations of individuals to 
 each other. The former recognizes its obligation 
 to realize those relations. Whatever it can do to 
 benefit others becomes duty; whatever it can do
 
 MANNERS AND MOKALS. . 173 
 
 for the self which will enhance its power to serve 
 others is also duty. It builds up a personal ideal 
 whose realization becomes a duty, a consuming 
 desire. Actions in conformity with it are called 
 right; those in opposition are called wrong. It is 
 readily seen that moral emotions, moral affections, 
 and moral desires develop with moral ideas. Moral 
 control is attained in the same general way as 
 physical, intellectual, and prudential control, and 
 is the end of all the others. Herbart says that 
 that education which has not morality for its su- 
 preme end must result in hopeless confusion. 
 
 The child's impulses are to be true. Tempta- 
 tion to be untrue comes when he wishes to shield 
 himself against ridicule or punishment, or to as- 
 tonish somebody by a big story. Every one has 
 noticed how particular a little child is to have the 
 minutest details of an incident correctly given. 
 If mother, in relating some household incident 
 that occurred the day before, happens to omit a 
 part of it which she does not care to repeat to 
 the visitor, little Mary is sure to remind her of it 
 and to tell it herself. Erroneous or incomplete 
 notions of a thing at the time of its occurrence 
 easily explain the tenacity Avith which children 
 cling to wrong statements they afterward make 
 concerning it. In other cases, faulty memory, 
 laziness, or indifference may explain what appears 
 to be a deliberate falsehood. Whatever the cause 
 of misrepresentation, the tendency soon becomes 
 a habit unless promptly checked. Once a habit, 
 it begins to breed every sort of deception, and to 
 corrupt the whole moral nature of the child.
 
 174 THE STUDY OF THE CHILD. 
 
 Truth and sincerity are the basic virtues in all 
 morality. Without them there can be no moral 
 character. 
 
 Only when a child begins to distinguish be- 
 tween right and wrong may he be said to have a 
 moral character. The moral element begins to 
 appear when he does what his parents tell him to 
 do because he loves and respects them; when for 
 the same reason he denies himself the pleasure of 
 gratifying a desire to do a forbidden thing. It 
 certainly is not present when he obeys them from 
 fear of punishment — a cat or a dog does the same 
 thing. I once heard a little girl say to her mother, 
 " I did not read that book, because I thought you 
 would not wish me to do it." That is a step 
 further in advance, but she has made greater 
 progress when the discovery that the book is evil 
 immediately begets aversion to it bcause her na- 
 ture finds no pleasure in it. 
 
 Ask a dozen children why they do certain 
 things which you consider morally good, and care- 
 fully note their answers. It will not take long 
 to discover that the moral element lies not in the 
 act itself, but in the motive, the intention. Dis- 
 cover the causes which prompted the reasons given 
 by the children. Some will cite the authority of 
 parent or teacher and others will give their own 
 reasons for their answers. Some will probably, 
 quote apt maxims and others maxims that have 
 no bearing whatever on the subject. How promi- 
 nent is the personal or selfish element in the an- 
 swers? 
 
 The moral instinct or impiilse of the child
 
 MANNERS AND MORALS. 175 
 
 strengthens with every effort he makes to know 
 and to do what is right. The law of reaction is even 
 more clear here than elsewhere. Apperception of 
 the right in each individual case is dependent 
 upon the moral character as then organized; the 
 momentum of the impulse to its realization is 
 similarly dependent. In the beginning he may 
 be doing right things impulsively, or out of 
 pure sympathy, or from a desire to please others, 
 or in obedience to authority, or for personal 
 advantage that may come. Along with the 
 pleasure in right doing gradually develops the 
 sense of obligation and of individual responsi- 
 bility. 
 
 Little progress in moral culture will be mak- 
 ing unless the child's ideas of right being and 
 right doing are daily growing more definite and 
 more clear. He must not only love the truth, 
 but must know what is truth; not only desire to 
 be honest, but must be able to discern what is 
 honest; not only love noble conduct, but have 
 the power to recognize it when he sees it; not 
 only hold purity in high esteem, but know in what 
 purity consists; not only love his fellows, but also 
 understand his duties toward them. ]\Iany people 
 are negatively good, but lack nearly every active 
 moral virtue. 
 
 Conscience is tlie complex activity wliich dis- 
 cerns right and wrong and impels to right action. 
 Its simple analysis shows — 
 
 1. A general idea or conception of right. 
 
 2. Judgment as to the conformity of a par- 
 ticular act to the general idea. 
 
 15
 
 176 THE STUDY OF THE CHILD. 
 
 3. A feeling of obligation to do what the judg- 
 ment affirms to be right. 
 
 4. The effort to perform the act. 
 
 5. The feeling of satisfaction accompanying 
 and following the effort, or dissatisfaction if no 
 effort is made. 
 
 With this analysis before ns it is not difficult 
 to see more fully the dependence of moral char- 
 acter upon environment and education. The 
 problems of right action are incomparably higher 
 than any problems of the physical universe. Their 
 solution in each individual case requires the co- 
 operation of all the activities of the self. How 
 important, then, that everything entering into the 
 life of the child should be tested by its effect 
 upon his moral nature! 
 
 The reason for urging a clear understanding 
 of the real nature of good manners now hardly 
 needs an explanation. If the nobleness of spirit 
 has been keeping pace with the nobleness of man- 
 ners, the transition to good morals is already 
 made. If otherwise, the child has simply been 
 given the power to cover up his true nature and 
 to deceive his fellows at his will. 
 
 The presentation and development of right 
 motives in children is the most delicate problem 
 in ediication. The exercise of authority or of 
 force will not accomplish it. Nagging and scold- 
 ing make little progress toward it. Eewards and 
 prizes will not do much better. Advantage and 
 profit unduly exalt self-interest. Words of ap- 
 preciation and of praise may stimulate to right 
 doing. Respect and affection for others may serve
 
 MANNERS AND MORALS. 1Y7 
 
 as a powerful restraint against evil. Some of 
 these will have but a temporary effect in promot- 
 ing right conduct, while all will lack the essence 
 of the moral life — the impulse to do right for 
 right's sake alone, regardless of personal pleasure, 
 personal profit, or of profit to others. 
 
 This statement should not be construed as 
 meaning that the motives named are at all times 
 unwise and hurtful. All of them, not even ex- 
 cepting the second, may profitably be used in the 
 different stages of the child's development. There 
 are times when he is incapable of appreciating 
 any other motive than that of physical force. 
 There are other times when he will more quickly 
 respond to a promised reward, or to suggestions 
 of advantage, or to words of encouragement, or to 
 an appeal from one whom he respects and loves, 
 or to the simple assurance that an act in question 
 is right. In the development of the child's mo- 
 tives, the following simple rules will be found 
 valuable: 
 
 1. Use negative or restrictive motives spar- 
 ingly, relying rather upon positive motives or in- 
 centives. 
 
 2. Appeal to the motive which the child can 
 appreciate. 
 
 3. Appeal constantly to the highest motive 
 the child can appreciate. 
 
 4. Improve each vantage gained to educate 
 the child to appreciate a higher motive. 
 
 5. Eliminate the personal or selfish element 
 as rapidly as possible. 
 
 6. Be patient for results. Eelax vigilance only
 
 178 THE STUDY OF THE CHILD. 
 
 when the impulse to the good dominates the 
 child's entire being. 
 
 Make the question of motives a frequent study 
 in the management of your children. At what 
 age, if any, are they disposed to ignore the au- 
 thority of their superiors? In what way, if any, 
 does the pubescent period affect the manners and 
 morals of children? What effect has home train- 
 ing had upon them? Are you ruling some of 
 them by sheer authority or by brute force? Are 
 you satisfied simply with their co-operation, even 
 though secured by a low motive, or are you using 
 the various means at your command for develop- 
 ing higher ideals for right action? Are you ap- 
 preciating the sensitiveness of some of the rare 
 little souls intrusted to your care and are you 
 giving them that sympathy and counsel for which 
 they crave every hour of the day? Are you on 
 the alert for the slightest indication of a better 
 spirit and a readier service in each child? Are 
 you living so blameless that every time the child's 
 life touches yours he is quickened to nobler en- 
 deavor?
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 NORMALS AND ABNOEMALS. 
 
 Normal means natural or conformable to a 
 type. The term may be applied to a child that 
 at birth has a perfect body or to one whose phys- 
 ical or mental development is approximately the 
 same as that of the average child of an equal age. 
 If imperfectly formed, or if much beyond or behind 
 in development, he is called abnormal. The term 
 abnormal may be applied to a child who is im- 
 usually bright for his age as well as to one who 
 is unusually stupid; to one who is excessively 
 large for his age as well as to one who is par- 
 ticularly small. It is also applied to any one who 
 is misshapen in any way, or who has unnatural 
 enlargement or atrophy of any physical organ. 
 The variation should be sufficiently marked to be 
 readily noticeable in each case before the term 
 abnormal can be properly applied. 
 
 Unusually bright children are often called 
 precocious; unusually dull, defective. The term 
 exceptional is applied to both classes by many 
 writers. The child of six years of age that knows 
 as much as the average child of ten is as much an 
 object of interest and inquiry as the child at ten 
 that knows no more than the average child at
 
 180 THE STUDY OF THE CHILD. 
 
 six. There is scarcely a schoolroom anywhere in 
 which both are not found. Some cliildren have 
 fine memories, and yet seem utterly wanting in 
 judgment; others remember practically every- 
 thing they hear, but can recall little that they see. 
 Occasionally a child is met that has prodigious 
 mathematical ability and yet can not be made to 
 understand the merest rudiments of language or 
 of science. 
 
 Many children seem to be perfectly formed 
 externally, and yet are seriously defective in one 
 or more of the special senses or in some of the 
 vital organs. While the per cent of children seri- 
 ously defective at birth is small, the per cent more 
 or less deficient is much larger than many peo- 
 ple suppose. Occasionally a family is found in 
 which every child is defective physically, the de- 
 fect being of the eye in one, of the ear in another, 
 possibly of both in a third, of motor control in a 
 fourth, a defect of the brain or of some other 
 organ in a fifth. In many families but one defect- 
 ive child may be found, the others being perfectly 
 formed. In some families a child with a serious 
 physical blemish has not been known for genera- 
 tions. 
 
 Some physically deformed children seem to be 
 little more than freaks, so subtle are the causes 
 producing the deformities. Several cases coming 
 within my personal knowledge are so unusual on 
 both sides of the family that the recognized laws 
 of heredity do not account for them. In some 
 cases the failure of certain bones to ossify proper- 
 ly, the arrested development of the cerebral tis-
 
 NORMALS AND ABNORMALS. 181 
 
 sues, the paralysis of the motor nervous system, 
 the withering or shrinking of an arm or a leg, 
 the atrophy of a special sense, seems to be due to 
 some adventitious or accidental cause, as is fre- 
 quently seen in other animals and in plants. In 
 many children the physical deformities are easily 
 traceable to measles, mumps, spotted fever, spinal 
 meningitis, typhoid fever, whooping-cough, scar- 
 let fever, scrofula, smallpox, and other diseases. 
 In sucli cases, the physical deformity is not usu- 
 ally accompanied by an impairment of the mental 
 faculties. Investigations show that in a large ma- 
 jority of cases spinal curvature, bandy legs, pigeon 
 toes, and distortions of similar character are due 
 to bad habits in sitting, standing, or walking in 
 childhood. Not a few of them may be charged 
 to the unsatisfactory desks in use in the schools. 
 Inherited weakness may be the remote cause in 
 many cases, but proper care might have prevented 
 serious perversion. 
 
 Inherited diseases and deformities may be 
 traced to one of three general causes: a similar 
 disease or deformity in one or both parents, con- 
 stitutional weakness in one or both, or bad habits 
 in one or both. Instances without number might 
 be cited to prove the regularity with which the 
 law of heredity transmits the infirmities of the 
 parents to the children. Its significance would 
 be most appalling were it not for the fact that 
 the same law governs the transmission of physical 
 excellence, and that wise treatment may largely 
 overcome the evils of heredity. Parents conscious 
 of their own constitutional tendencies have by a
 
 1S2 THE STUDY OF THE CHILD. 
 
 rigid system of hygiene maintained such a vigor- 
 ous physical tone in tliemselves and in tlieir chil- 
 dren that the prospective affections have been en- 
 tirely averted. The presence of any constitutional 
 or chronic malady in either parent is always evi- 
 dence of its probable appearance in the children, 
 and if this study does nothing more than put 
 those in authority over them on the alert for the 
 discovery and for the intelligent treatment of 
 such cases, it will deserve well of mankind. It is 
 an interesting fact that certain apparently oppo- 
 site physical temperaments, though constitution- 
 ally weak, bring forth strong and healthy off- 
 spring. This tendency to mutual correction shows 
 itself even in trivial irregularities. A neighbor's 
 nose pointed distinctly to the right. The nose 
 of his wife pointed to the left. The daughter's 
 nose was normal! 
 
 The effect of the habits and occupations of 
 the parents upon their children needs special em- 
 phasis. A few generations of musicians insure 
 the fingers of the coming children to be well 
 adapted to play upon musical instruments. The 
 children of the lacemakers inherit that delicacy 
 and suppleness of the muscles of the hand by 
 which their ancestors have ever excelled their 
 competitors in the markets of the world. Insur- 
 ance companies not only lay great stress upon the 
 constitutional tendencies of a candidate's ances- 
 tors, but also upon his personal habits as well. 
 Anything that affects a man's vitality affects that 
 of his future offspring also. The long train of 
 physical infirmities in children that may easily
 
 NORMALS AND ABNORMALS. 183 
 
 be traced to narcotic habits in one or both parents 
 is well known. The responsibility that a per- 
 sistent user of alcohol or tobacco assumes is now 
 so clearly established that it seems superfluous to 
 appeal to statistics concerning it. 
 
 In the matter of eyesight alone, Dr. T. H. 
 Dinsmore discovers thirty-one defectives out of 
 eighty-six children whose fathers were addicted to 
 alcoholic beverages. Out of three hundred and 
 ninety-nine children whose fathers used tobacco 
 before and after marriage, two hundred and 
 twenty-four had weak eyes. The inquiries in- 
 eluded children of old soldiers who used tobacco 
 before their children were born, and it was found 
 that one hundred and ten out of one hundred and 
 fifty-six examined had impaired vision. It is con- 
 ceded that some of the responsibility should be 
 attributed to the hardships of the field, and pos- 
 sibly to other causes, but the summary contains 
 a plain warning. One of Dugdale's Juke tables 
 shows that but one out of nineteen temperate 
 Jukes was diseased, and that ten out of thirteen 
 intemperate were in ill health. Dr. Tatham, the 
 British registrar-general, believes that the use of 
 alcohol is the chief cause of excessive death rates, 
 and says that the liquor trades are fatal to those 
 who engage in them. His figures show the clergy 
 to be the healthiest people in the world. 
 
 I\ Physical degeneration in parents, whether 
 caused by alcoholism, the opium habit, licentious- 
 ness, or excesses of any other kind, seldom fails 
 to manifest itself in some way in the bodies of its 
 progeny. Sometimes the subtle poison does not
 
 184 THE STUDY OF THE CHILD. 
 
 begin its work until manhood or middle life, but 
 it often discloses its presence in the cradle. Nerv- 
 ous disorders, scrofulous tendencies, proneness to 
 epilepsy, pulmonic weakness, and kindred affec- 
 tions, with their mournful train of miseries, tell 
 too plainly that somebody has violated the laws 
 of Nature. Joseph Cook quotes Oliver Wendell 
 Holmes as saying, in response to the declaration 
 that any disease may be cured if a physician is 
 called early enough, that the statement is true, 
 " but ' early enough ' would usually mean two 
 hundred years in advance." Miss Clark, a high 
 authority, says: " The imbecile is the result of 
 corrupt living, frequently of guilt, sometimes of 
 a line of ancestry unbrightened for a generation 
 by a single responsible moral individual. In every 
 case where a child has not been made imbecile 
 through some prenatal shock, accident, or sick- 
 ness, somewhere in the family annals there have 
 been opium eating, immoral living, drunkenness, 
 insanity, imbecility, or actual crime — perhaps 
 all." Thirty-four per cent of the imbecile chil- 
 dren are the immediate offspring of intemperate 
 parents. 
 
 Inherited physical deformity means mental 
 deformity, particularly when the former is an 
 affection of the cerebral or sensory nerves, or even 
 of the motor organism. So positively has this 
 been demonstrated that in the treatment of feeble- 
 minded and insane children, as well as of adults, 
 physicians attempt to correct physical disorder 
 first. With the normal physical functions re- 
 stored, mental equilibrium also ordinarily returns.
 
 NORMALS AND ABNORMALS. 185 
 
 Maudsley says, " No one nowadays who is engaged 
 in the treatment of mental disease doubts that he 
 has to do with the disordered function of a bodily 
 organ — of the brain." Uf er asserts that " by far 
 the larger part of mental disturbance in children 
 is due to bodily complaints; a good proportion of 
 these can be cured, whereas, if ignored, incurable 
 diseases will arise." 
 
 The gradations from the strictly normal mind 
 to the completely unbalanced mind follow very 
 closely the gradations from the perfect nervous 
 organism to that state of the brain in which all 
 cerebral action is uncontrolled and uncontrollable. 
 Intellectually speaking, the term normal is usu- 
 ally applied to a variety of minds even slightly 
 defective in some directions, just as the term 
 normal is applied to bodies which are approxi- 
 mately perfect. It should be borne in mind that 
 every case varying from the normal, inside and 
 outside the range just named, is, if not merely 
 slow in development, just so much away toward 
 imbecility or insanity. The causes leading to 
 mental defects are, in general, the same as those 
 already mentioned as leading to physical defects. 
 Some investigators think that mental traits are 
 often directly transmitted by inheritance, though 
 others maintain that the physical traits are re- 
 sponsible for the transmission in all cases. How- 
 ever that may be, mental activity and mental 
 growth are dependent upon the facility and ex- 
 actness witii which the physical organism per- 
 forms its functions. If any of the sense organs 
 be defective, there must be a corresponding lack
 
 186 THE STUDY OF THE CHILD. 
 
 of perception of the external world, and a conse- 
 quent retardation in mental development. Super- 
 intendent Klock, after a thorough examination 
 of the pupils in the Helena city schools, says that 
 " in cases where children have attended school 
 regularly for from eight to twelve years, and are 
 from six months to two years behind in their 
 grades, the loss of time is due almost invariably 
 to defective eyesight or hearing, one or both." 
 The mind is dependent upon the senses for the 
 material which it elaborates into knowledge. Its 
 higher activities develop normally only as the 
 lower supply material in abundance and variety, 
 hence the disadvantage under which every sense- 
 defective labors. 
 
 Physical and mental defectives are, generally 
 speaking, moral defectives. It is well to remem- 
 ber here that a moral defective is not necessarily 
 actively bad. He may be simply motiveless, or 
 without impulse to moral action of any kind. 
 Four classes of morally defective children may be 
 recognized: 
 
 1. The harmless, passive sort, little energy, 
 little strength in desire of any kind. 
 
 2. Those inclined to the good, though with 
 little will power, easily misled. 
 
 3. The stubborn, evil-minded, cruel, sensu- 
 ous passions prominent, intellectually dull. 
 
 4. The cunning, dishonest, inclined to petty 
 thieving and to sneaking tricks, intellectually 
 bright. 
 
 All these classes of moral abnormals, more 
 or less defined, are often found in one school-
 
 NORMALS AND ABNORMALS. 187 
 
 room. In a few localities they embrace a dan- 
 gerously large proportion of the school children. 
 As a consequence their management becomes a 
 most perplexing problem. The intelligent treat- 
 ment of moral defects must ever depend upon a 
 knowledge of their origin. 
 
 Pathologists and criminologists generally agree 
 that the law of heredity accounts for moral tem- 
 peraments as fully as for the physical and intel- 
 lectual. The authenticated story of the Juke 
 family already mentioned may be approximately 
 duplicated a thousand times over. In one hun- 
 dred and fifty years " the descendants of one man, 
 a hunter and fisher, a hard drinker, jolly and com- 
 panionable, averse to steady toil, working hard by 
 spurts and idling by turns, becoming blind in his 
 old age, and entailing his blindness upon his chil- 
 dren and grandchildren," contributed one hun- 
 dred and forty criminals and offenders, including 
 seven murderers. This showing does not include 
 the long list of paupers, harlots, roustabouts, 
 drunkards, petty thieves undetected, liars, cheats, 
 disturbers of the peace, etc. Eibot tells of an edu- 
 cated man who secretly indulged in the alcoholic 
 habit. Only one of his five children lived to ma- 
 turity. That one was cruel almost from birth, 
 and delighted in torturing animals in every con- 
 ceivable way. He soon proved physically and 
 mentally feeble, and at nineteen went to the in- 
 sane asylum. Morel examined one hundred and 
 fifty " children of the commune," ranging from 
 ten to seventeen years of age, and says: "I am 
 confirmed in my previous convictions as to the
 
 188 THE STUDY OF THE CHILD. 
 
 baneful effects produced by alcohol, not only in 
 the individuals who use this detestable drink to 
 excess, but also in their descendants. On their 
 depraved physiognomy is impressed the threefold 
 stamp of physical, intellectual, and moral de- 
 generacy." 
 
 The transmission of certain kinds of immoral 
 instincts is also clearly established. In some 
 families it is lying; in others, cattle-stealing, 
 homicide, burglary, pocket-picking, quarreling, 
 incendiarism, dishonesty, forgery, licentiousness, 
 etc. Eecently a newspaper stated that a noted 
 cattle thief had been killed, and added signifi- 
 cantly that several other members of his family 
 are now serving sentences in the penitentiary for 
 cattle-stealing. 
 
 But heredity is not the only force effectively 
 at work in a child's early life corrupting his moral 
 nature. Environment, as a deadly nightshade, 
 insidiously pours its venom into his heart. 
 Breathing the fetid air of an ill-ventilated, drunk- 
 en home, hearing nothing but oaths and obscene 
 words from dissolute and vicious parents, mingling 
 with foul-mouthed, mischief-plotting companions, 
 taught that to lie and steal and fight make the 
 ideal man, is it a wonder that the boy enters 
 school " morally abnormal " ? His hereditary 
 tendency -being enforced by such environment 
 and training, it were a miracle if it were other- 
 wise. From such a home as that all the way up 
 to the ideal fireside are homes lacking in varying 
 degrees the spirit and assistance necespary to build 
 up true moral character. Put a child blest with
 
 NORMALS AND ABNORMALS. 189 \ 
 
 a royal inheritance in such an environment, and 
 what must be his fate? 
 
 This much space has been given to ilhistrate 
 the causes that produce weak and abnormal chil- 
 dren in the hope that sufficient interest may be 
 aroused to insure a more exhaustive study of the 
 unfortunates who ever appeal to us for sympathy 
 and help. The average teacher and parent is too 
 much disposed to ignore the presence of these fun- 
 damental defects in his children, and to treat them 
 with a harshness that aggravates rather than re- 
 lieves the infirmity. They overlook the law that 
 the slightly abnormal tendencies of early child- 
 hood, unless intelligently corrected, may even in 
 early manhood bring utter ruin to body and mind. 
 Two seemingly parallel straight lines may le lut an 
 inch apart at their origin and yet he ten feet apart 
 at the end of a mile! Sufficient has been said to 
 show that defectives are common enough to re- 
 quire that all persons intrusted Avith the care and 
 culture of children should familiarize themselves 
 with the peculiarities of each child's physical, men- 
 tal, and moral nature, and treat it as its individual 
 needs demand. The average child has been given 
 too much attention; the exceptionals, both above 
 and below the average, too little. There has been 
 a vast waste in our attempts to teach children in 
 the mass rather than as individuals; to force them 
 to come up to certain ideal standards rather than 
 to take the time to find and to apply the means 
 which their individual natures demand. Igno- 
 rance and thoughtlessness on the part of parents 
 and teachers will not be excused much longer.
 
 190 THE STUDY OF THE CHILD. 
 
 Many teachers accidentally discover facts con- 
 cerning their pupils after they have done them 
 great injustice. A personal friend tells me that 
 one day a pupil asked for the repetition of an ex- 
 planation of a principle which he had just given. 
 He had taken much time and great care in giv- 
 ing it and thought all understood it. With con- 
 scious impatience, he exclaimed, " I should think 
 that even an idiot could understand that." Her 
 eyes filled with tears and, as the class filed out, 
 she remained in her chair sobbing convulsively. 
 He apologized for his language, and asked why 
 she was so deeply affected. She replied: "Sir, 
 my mother is in an insane asylum, and we chil- 
 dren are in constant dread lest we may go there 
 too. I feared you might be telling the truth, and 
 that I am possibly already an idiot." Though he 
 has taught many years since, he assures me that 
 he has never again spoken unkindly to a pupil. 
 
 Some years ago a teacher in one of the grades 
 was annoyed by the slowness of one of his pupils, 
 and in desperation took her by the back of the 
 neck and shook her severely. She had been af- 
 flicted a long time with spinal weakness, but at 
 the opening of the year her parents hoped her 
 sufficiently convalescent to enter school again. 
 Her slowness was caused by her malady and her 
 intense desire not to do anything which might 
 cause its return. No wonder that was an anxious 
 night in that household! In a spelling class the 
 other day I asked the students to criticise the 
 work of their classmates, and to mark the mis- 
 spelled words. One of them complained to me
 
 NORMALS AND ABNORMALS. 191 
 
 tliat lier critic had marked three words in her 
 writing speller that were correctly spelled, though 
 they had been spelled aloud for her guidance. The 
 next day I took occasion to speak of the matter, 
 assuring them that each critic would be held re- 
 sponsible for his work. As the class was dis- 
 missed, the critic mentioned came to me and con- 
 fessed. I asked why she did it. She replied: " My 
 eyes! I suppose it must be my eyes.^' Examination 
 showed that she was right, and her many blun- 
 ders were all explained. I had occasion once to 
 reprimand, for the third or fourth time, a young 
 woman who had been giving me much anxiety by 
 her repeated indiscretions. She smiled as I spoke 
 of her offenses, and giggled as I assured her that 
 she was at the point of suspension. In surprise, 
 I asked why she received my reproof with such 
 levity. She answered that often when she wanted 
 to cry she laughed, and that often when she 
 wanted to laugh she cried. With a word or two, 
 I excused her from the room and sought further 
 light. It came from a friend, who said: "That 
 young woman has suffered from childhood with 
 epilepsy. For a year or more she had been so 
 nearly well that her parents were assured last 
 summer by her physician that if she could be 
 sent among strangers for awhile she would prob- 
 ably forget her affliction, and in her new sur- 
 roundings attain perfect health and self-control. 
 She undoubtedly told you the truth about her 
 crying and laughing muscles becoming crossed at 
 times. Epileptics can hardly be expected to be 
 either intellectually or morally normal." 
 16
 
 192 THE STUDY OF THE CHILD. 
 
 A little fellow who was trying " awfully hard " 
 to be good said to his teacher one day: " It is 
 easy for you to be good. Your father was a min- 
 ister. My father was bad, and drank and swore 
 and gambled, and sometimes I feel that I must 
 do just as he did." A young colored girl in the 
 South said to a noble woman who had befriended 
 her, " When I see how wicked so many of my 
 kindred are, I often wonder whether it can be 
 possible that I shall always live an upright life." 
 These children, and thousands of others like 
 them, are in the schools of every State in the 
 Union. And yet you often hear people speak of 
 "the sickly, sentimental doctrine of heredity!" 
 
 But in addition to these there is also a great 
 army of children more or less belated in develop- 
 ment along some of the lines heretofore men- 
 tioned. The bright, active child is encouraged 
 and given a better chance than his sluggish broth- 
 er. The natural modesty of one and the froward- 
 ness of another may explain the difference in their 
 mental growth, for one has hesitated to improve 
 an opportunity without encouragement, while the 
 other boldly took advantage of it. The former 
 fails to get the experience he needs, while the 
 latter may gain even more than he needs. One 
 child is sent to school because he likes to go, and 
 another is kept at home occasionally because he 
 likes work better than school. Ere long he loses 
 class standing and, after a few spasmodic efforts 
 at attendance, drops out of school forever. This 
 whole chapter is a special plea for the children 
 that for the various reasons cited do not get so
 
 NORMALS AND ABNORMALS. 193 
 
 good a start as some of their more fortunate broth- 
 ers and sisters. Some of them are the rarest spir- 
 its that ever breathed, but all, no matter what 
 their ancestry or what their talents, are entitled 
 to that sympathy and encouragement which will 
 give them an equal chance with their fellows in 
 the struggle for life. The abnormal tendencies 
 of the race are to be corrected by purifying the 
 blood and perfecting the powers of the individual 
 child. 
 
 The suggestions already offered in the various 
 chapters will guide in many of these inquiries, but 
 a few additional ones are here given: Note the 
 peculiarities in each child and seek for their 
 causes. If a child is disposed to be active, does 
 his activity have a purpose, or is it evidently aim- 
 less and purposeless? Discover whether he is 
 sensitive or hysterical; whether he " goes to 
 pieces " easily; whether he is exceedingly voluble, 
 but apparently knows little about anything; 
 whether, though apparently trying, he is failing 
 to make any progress in the work assigned him; 
 whether he is wanting in ideals and motives; 
 whether he is interested in trivial things or in 
 matters of importance; whether the shape of his 
 head is suggestive of feeble cranial capacity; 
 whether the face indicates unusual cunning or 
 shrewdness; whether the mouth and lips provoke 
 g, suspicion of vulgarity or sensuality; whether he 
 is retiring, sullen, despondent, sanguine, persever- 
 ing, standing still, or growing; whether he is de- 
 fective in speech or muscular control. Whether 
 he is conscious of his defects and whether his
 
 194: THE STUDY OF THE CHILD. 
 
 fellow-pupils are treating him in such a way as 
 to increase his embarrassment. 
 
 The question frequently arises as to the 
 amount of time that should be given to defective 
 or delinquent children. The answer must be 
 found in the needs of all. The interests of aU 
 should not be sacrificed for the benefit of the few. 
 The aggressive, ambitious children must not be 
 held back until the slow ones catch up. Absolute 
 uniformity is impossible, much less desirable. If 
 reasonable time and effort fail to accomplish any- 
 thing with a child, he should be put exclusively 
 under individual supervision or sent to a school 
 devoted to serious and obstinate defectives. It 
 should not be supposed that child study means 
 the neglect of Nature's favored ones. It means 
 such an acquaintance with every child as will 
 enable the parent and teacher to adopt such meth- 
 ods of instruction and to produce such environ- 
 ments as will insure the most rapid progress pos- 
 sible in the development of all classes.
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 STAGES OF GKOWTH, FATIGUE POINT, ETC. 
 
 For lack of space several important subjects 
 intimately related to the child's growth and well- 
 being must be treated with great brevity. 
 
 Infancy, childhood, and youth are the three 
 stages through Avhich the child passes in his move- 
 ment toward manhood. Sense-perception is the 
 chief characteristic of his intellectual life in in- 
 fancy, memory and imagination become active in 
 childhood, thinking and reasoning predominate 
 in youth. Infancy is the stage of dependence. 
 It' is spent at home, because of the individual 
 sympathy and individual supervision then re- 
 quired. The period of childhood in a general way 
 may be said to extend from the fifth to the twelfth 
 year. At the beginning of this period the child 
 is supposed to have attained sufficient develop- 
 ment and self-control to enable him to mingle 
 with children outside of his own household with- 
 out much personal supervision; to enable him to 
 take care of himself under ordinary circumstances; 
 and to warrant his being sent to school. Youth 
 begins with the pubescent period, at about the 
 age of twelve. Independence and restlessness 
 under restraint manifest themselves here more em- 
 
 195
 
 196 ^THE STUDY OF THE CHILD. 
 
 phatically than in either preceding period. The 
 new impulses which the radical physical changes 
 at this time beget start the youth into new lines 
 of inquiry and investigation, not infrequently de- 
 veloping irreverence, heedlessness, selfishness, and 
 disobedience to an unfortunate degree. The 
 grades in the public schools most diificult to gov- 
 ern are those embracing children from eleven to 
 fourteen years of age. 
 
 Each of these three periods has several other 
 characteristics peculiar to itself which observation 
 will reveal. The way in which the child adjusts 
 himself to the new environment as he leaves home 
 to enter the schoolroom is an interesting and in- 
 structive study. This is one of the critical periods 
 of his life, and for the successful transition dis- 
 creet management is imperative. In many cases 
 the approach of the pubescent period may be dis- 
 covered through the mental changes in the child, 
 even before the physical changes are manifest. 
 The dispositions of infancy and childhood, wheth- 
 er good or bad, now usually become positively 
 prominent, and character more clearly defines. 
 Some surprising changes in mental power also 
 occur. A child with a poor memory may sud- 
 denly show rare ability in remembering things; 
 one sluggish in perception throughout childhood 
 may become apt in discernment; one with a vivid 
 imagiriatiori may become indifferent and prosy; 
 one of habitually happy disposition may show 
 symptoms of discontent or melancholy. If the 
 transition be healthy and natural, the intelligent 
 education and training of infancy and childhood
 
 STAGES OF GROWTH, FATIGUE POINT. 197 
 
 begin at once to show results in superior judg- 
 ment, in clear moral conceptions, and in a well- 
 balanced will. These three stages in the child's 
 development can not be definitely assigned to the 
 limits mentioned, but they are sufficiently ap- 
 proximate to assist parent and teacher to a better 
 understanding of the more critical years in the 
 child's life and to suggest the need for a thorough 
 understanding of ways and means adapted to each 
 stage. 
 
 Children's ideals and motives are constantly 
 changing and methods of instruction and of man- 
 agement must change with them. Many a youth 
 is alienated from his father because his father does 
 not understand him. He has failed to note that 
 the child is a child no longer, but that he is reach- 
 ing up into manhood and is thinking and reason- 
 ing for himself; that he is on that account entitled 
 to have his own views and preferences heard with 
 reasonable consideration. Many a youth goes out 
 into the world for the sympathy and fellowship 
 that are denied him at home. 
 
 The stage of the child's development should 
 control in the administration of punishment. In- 
 discriminate punishment is worse than the indis- 
 criminate use of medicine, however bad that may 
 be. The old idea that retribution should be the 
 controlling aim in the punishment of children is 
 as cruel as it is unreasonable. That idea with very 
 little suggestion comes into more or less promi- 
 nence in the mind of the child anyhow. Punish- 
 ment should in general be administered for the 
 purpose of quickening the child's perception of
 
 198 THE STUDY OF THE CHILD. 
 
 right and wrong and of assisting him to resist 
 temptation. Children err more often from lack 
 of discernment than from lack of desire to do right. 
 They are only learning what is right and what is 
 wrong. Their characters are in the formative 
 state and the spirit of helpfulness should always 
 govern the inculcation of motives, whether through 
 the positive forces of instruction and guidance or 
 through the negative force of punishment. As a 
 means of correction, punishment should serve for 
 a temporary purpose only. The great and ever- 
 active forces in character-building are sympathy 
 and counsel, not punishment, as already explained 
 in the chapter on Manners and Morals. Methods 
 of correction which are slowly driving the child 
 away from parent or teacher are their own con- 
 demnation. Nothing but that intimate acquaint- 
 ance with the individual child demanded in the 
 foregoing chapters will suffice for the wise de- 
 termination of the necessity for punishment and 
 of the kind of punishment that will prove most 
 effective. Differences in disposition, in physical 
 temperament, in sex, in stage of development, 
 in home life, in previous education, in motive, 
 etc., should control in all cases. . There is, un- 
 fortunately, a widespread tendency to set up a 
 multitude of little rules, for whose infraction 
 the children are punished as impulse prompts. 
 A late report shows that probably five times as 
 many punishments, great and small, are inflicted 
 as a result of a petty whim or for the violation of 
 rules of propriety as for violation of the weightier 
 laws embraced in the Ten Commandments. Chil-
 
 STAGES OP GROWTH, FATIGUE POINT. 199 
 
 dren are far more reasonable than is generally 
 supposed; if this be kept in mind, the problem 
 of punishment solves with less difficulty. 
 
 Tlie fatigue point is a profitable subject in child 
 study. It has already been incidentally mentioned 
 in connection with the eye. If you look for a few 
 moments at a small red spot on a light-colored 
 object and then look at a white surface, you will 
 see a green spot of about the same shape and size 
 as the former. This phenomenon is explained by 
 the fact that in looking intently at the red spot 
 the capacity of the nerve cells for appreciating 
 the red color is slightly exhausted, while their 
 capacity to appreciate the green, its complemen- 
 tary color, is not called into exercise at all. When 
 the eye turns to the white surface, the capacity 
 to appreciate the green being more acute, it 
 promptly brings that color into prominence at the 
 expense of the red. The regular tick, tick, of the 
 clock becomes tick, tack, because of the slight dif- 
 ference in the exhaustive effects upon the auditory 
 nerve cells. The sense of taste may grow tem- 
 porarily obtuse to any substance because its nerve 
 cells also become weary from the demands made 
 upon them. This law of fatigue governs every 
 organ of the body, including the muscles and the 
 whole cerebro-spinal system. Eest and sleep are 
 as necessary to the child's health and development 
 as exercise. It is doubtful whether he can get too 
 much sleep in infancy; few take too much in child- 
 hood. Both rest and sleep have a higher purpose 
 than simply to relieve the child of his sense of 
 weariness. Weariness is but a sign by which Na-
 
 200 THE STUDY OP THE CHILD. 
 
 ture gives notice that strength is disappearing, 
 and that tissues must be rebuilt and restored. That 
 is a heartless taskmaker indeed, who ignores the 
 law of fatigue in the management of children. 
 
 Weariness seems to be chronic with some chil- 
 dren. It is often said of a certain child or of a 
 certain man, " He was born tired." Such people 
 "are more probably afflicted with laziness which 
 may or may not be inherited. Inquiry will show 
 you, however, that there are some genuine cases 
 of chronic weariness among children, due possibly 
 to weak constitutions, to lung trouble, to heart 
 affection, to nervous depression, to lack of vital- 
 ity, to continued overexertion, to lack of nourish- 
 ing food, to lack of exercise, to worry, or to some 
 kindred cause. All these cases appeal at once 
 for kinder consideration than is usually given, 
 but healthy children make the same appeal. It 
 is no more important that the former be made 
 healthy and vigorous than that the latter be kept 
 so. Some children naturally tire more quickly 
 than others. It ought not to be expected that all 
 children should do an equal amount of work in 
 the same time any more than that all should be 
 able to lift equal weights. Work done represents 
 just so much strength used. If all must do the 
 same work, it means that some must be under a 
 high tension and that others must be doing less 
 than they are able. The child should he required 
 to do no more than that tvhich he can do without 
 overexertion, and which will gradually develop ad- 
 ditional power from day to day. Excessive weari- 
 ness at any time means that the work has been
 
 STAGES OP GROWTH, FATIGUE POINT. 201 
 
 too heavy for the child or that it has been con- 
 tinued too long. Frequent rest periods and vari- 
 ety in work are demanded by every child. 
 
 It matters little whether the work assigned be 
 physical or mental. The brain tires as well as 
 any other part of the body. Some kinds of brain 
 work are more exhaustive than others. Statistics 
 show that school programs which ignore the law 
 of fatigue are most wasteful in results. Dr. 
 W. 0. Krohn has tested about forty thousand 
 children with reference to the period of the day 
 when memory is most retentive. He found that 
 if the subjects were taken indifferently during the 
 first school hour of the day, the average retentive 
 power of the pupils was eighty-nine per cent; for 
 the last hour of the morning, sixty-three per cent; 
 for the first hour of the afternoon, seventy-five 
 per cent; for the last hour in the afternoon, sev- 
 enty-seven per cent. This shows very conclusively 
 that memory is twenty-six per cent more effective 
 during the first morning hour than during the 
 last. When the order of the subjects was read- 
 ing, grammar, arithmetic, geography, and history, 
 the average was eighty-ninCj fifty-eight, sixty- 
 eight, and seventy-six per cent respectively; when 
 the order was arithmetic, elementary science, read- 
 ing, drawing, geography, and history, the average 
 was eighty-nine, seventy-nine, eighty-two, and 
 eighty-six per cent. This last arrangement of 
 studies increases the retentive power of the aver- 
 age pupil over that of the hit-or-miss program 
 sixteen per cent for the third hour, seven per cent 
 for the fourth, and nine per cent for the last hour
 
 202 THE "STUDY OF THE CHILD. 
 
 of the day. In other words, a rational arrange- 
 ment of the school program increases the memory 
 power of the children from ten to twelve per cent 
 for the day as a whole — a saving of one year in ten 
 in the school life of the child by this means alone. 
 Accuracy and attention tests by other investigators 
 show approximately the same results, though the 
 inquiries have been confined within narrow limits. 
 In collating data on these questions many errors 
 creep in, but the figures are sufficiently definite 
 to show how fruitful in results to the home and 
 the school further inquiries may prove. Of course, 
 the program problem is not to be solved by mem- 
 ory tests alone. Some one is yet to do the chil- 
 dren a great service in determining specifically the 
 most profitable study and recitation hours for the 
 different subjects. 
 
 A study of the child which ignores the aesthetic 
 instinct would be incomplete. Art realizes itself 
 in expression, or, possibly better, art is expression. 
 Its finer forms are poetry, music, architecture, 
 sculpture, drawing, and painting. In their earlier 
 stages they evidently served a utilitarian purpose, 
 or at most served to give tangible expression to 
 commonplace ideas. The beautiful forms in na- 
 ture kindled impulses to imitate them, and aes- 
 thetic taste slowly developed, becoming more dis- 
 criminating and more refined with each succeed- 
 ing generation. In some such way the child 
 begins and progresses in drawing and painting. 
 The first or the hundredth picture may be very 
 crude indeed to us, but it is perfect to him, for it 
 expresses an idea. As long as it symbolizes that
 
 STAGES OF GROWTH, FATIGUE POINT. 203 
 
 to him, it has a mission. Eead a story to the chil- 
 dren, asking them all to draw pictures of the most 
 interesting parts of it. The collection will show 
 the points in the story most vividly affecting them, 
 and will probably demonstrate the fact that the in- 
 tellectual rather than the esthetic activities dic- 
 tate the kinds of pictures they draw. These draw- 
 ings will also help you to discover the indications 
 of artistic promise among your pupils. It is prob- 
 able, though, that in most of the children the emo- 
 tions of the beautiful are aroused through music 
 and song long before they are perceptibly respond- 
 ing to color and form. 
 
 The harmony of knowledge and experience is 
 called truth; the harmony or agreement of truth, 
 as ideal, with concrete forms is called beauty; the 
 harmony of truth and personal action is called 
 right. The intimate relationship of the beautiful 
 with the true and the good makes its cultivation 
 essential to the highest attainments in the other 
 two. In the properly educated child the pleasures 
 of the higher senses gradually displace those of 
 the lower, and in their turn they become subordi- 
 nated to the pleasures of the intellectual life. The 
 fine arts, appealing as they do directly to 'the senses 
 of hearing and sight, thus become a powerful fac- 
 tor in developing the finer instincts of the child's 
 nature. They stimulate the imagination and 
 quicken all the higher activities of the self. For 
 this reason every child should be surrounded with 
 beautiful things of nature and of art. The home, 
 however humble, should be architecturally a 
 model, inside and out; its furniture, though plain.
 
 204 THE STUDY OP THE CHILD. 
 
 should be in good taste, both in design and ar- 
 rangement; the yard should be beautified by orna- 
 mental shrubs and trees, flowering plants contrib- 
 viting their wealth of color to the scene. Such a 
 home costs no more than the ungainly looking 
 boxes which many people set up in barren plots 
 and call a house and its educative effect is beyond 
 estimate. With books on the shelves and pictures 
 on the walls selected with the same taste and judg- 
 ment, though they be few, the ideal home environ- 
 ment is complete, provided always that a conse- 
 crated mother's heart warms every nook and cor- 
 ner in it. What is desirable in the home is, in its 
 way, also desirable in the schoolhouse. All the 
 forces that can be brought to conspire for the cul- 
 tivation of the esthetic sense will contribute also 
 to the making of gentler, truer manhood. Super- 
 intendent Powell, of Washington, says that since 
 manual training, including drawing, clay model- 
 ing, and simple designing, have been introduced 
 into the city schools, many ill-kept and degraded 
 homes have been revolutionized both in appear- 
 ance and morals. The children take matters into 
 their own hands and become the schoolmasters of 
 their parents, transforming repulsive hovels into 
 cozy, inviting homes. It is an easy step from 
 beauty of form and beauty of language to beauty 
 of thought and action, for they are always mutual- 
 ly strengthening and refining each other. 
 
 The unconscious or subconscious influences 
 that alike affect the child and the man are not less 
 powerful in shaping the child's tastes and char- 
 acter than those coming consciously into his life.
 
 STAGES OF GROWTH, FATIGUE POINT. 205 
 
 The atmosphere of his environment permeates 
 every fiber of his being, giving liim tone and tem- 
 perament that long years of effort can not entirely 
 overcome. Waldstein says that the essentials in 
 education are " about the same among all civi- 
 lized nations, and that the conscious self is sub- 
 stantially the same wherever schools and colleges 
 exist." The subconscious self, however, which is 
 " built up out of that countless multitude of sub- 
 conscious impressions from the surroundings, cus- 
 toms, language, national types, physical effects of 
 climate, and many other sources is widely differ- 
 ent." So effective and yet so subtle are these 
 subconscious forces in infancy and childhood in 
 organizing this fundamental self that doubtless 
 much is attributed to heredity which really owes 
 its existence to them. Conscious imitation is al- 
 ways accounted a great factor in education. In 
 these earlier years unconscious imitation is con- 
 tinually reacting upon the child and molding him 
 after the pattern of those with whom he constantly 
 associates. After I had reached manhood I trav- 
 eled for nearly a month with a friend who lisped 
 in speaking certain words. Afterward, to my 
 surprise, I found myself lisping a little, and it 
 was years before I was entirely free from it. A 
 distinguished professor in a Western college 
 stammers slightly; so did his father, and so does 
 every one of his five children. There seems to 
 be no physical reason for it. May it not be due 
 wholly to subconscious imitation? One of the 
 most popular teachers of English in the West tells 
 me that she is constantly fighting the influence of
 
 206 THE STUDY OP THE CHILD. 
 
 the incorrect language of her pupils upon her own 
 language. To this principle is due the fact that a 
 child who reads only books written by masters of 
 diction unconsciously perfects himself in literary 
 style. For all practical purposes, a few years of 
 such reading is worth more than a set course in 
 rhetoric. How important, then, that every book 
 put into the hand of the child, whether at home or 
 in the schoolroom, be the most perfect book on 
 the subject that the genius of man has created! 
 The relation of these subconscious elements to 
 knowledge was discussed in connection with the 
 sensation continuum in Chapter VIII, and it is 
 hoped that their function in education has been 
 sufficiently emphasized in several places to pre- 
 vent their being overlooked by any reader of this 
 book. 
 
 The function of sympathy in the care and cul- 
 ture of children has been recognized ever since 
 Eve named her firstborn, but its unselfish exercise 
 is not so general as its antiquity would warrant us 
 to expect. The social instinct finds its most grate- 
 ful satisfaction in sympathy, in the consciousness 
 of being the object of disinterested affection and 
 interest. The child as naturally responds to sym- 
 pathy as does the plant to moisture and sunshine. 
 Many even of his physical impulses await the en- 
 couragement of sympathy. His intellectual and 
 moral impulses still more fully depend upon it. 
 Whatever contributes to the child's pleasure at- 
 tracts him, and its unconscious influence upon him 
 is assured. The greatest direct educative force 
 that can be brought to bear upon the child is
 
 STAGES OF GROWTH. FATIGUE POINT. 207 
 
 sympathy; that sympathy which counts no sacri- 
 fice too great that may result in good to him; that 
 sympathy which prompts an exhaustive study of 
 his nature and of the various forces by which he 
 may attain to the stature of the highest manhood; 
 that sympathy that goes out alike to the rich and 
 the poor, to the favored and the ill-favored, to the 
 keen-witted and the dullard, to the faithful and 
 the faithless; that sympathy which is long-suffer- 
 ing and kind, which endureth all things, which 
 never faileth. Sympathy is the mother of patience 
 and the inventor of devices. Its touch never chills, 
 its resources never fail. If the study of the child 
 does not quicken affection and interest for it, you 
 are not called to its service, either as parent or 
 teacher. If you are not moved to give it the best 
 of your life, your work must in large measure be 
 vain. The great teachers have ever been men and 
 women of warm hearts and of unselfish devotion. 
 
 IV
 
 CHAPTER XXin. 
 
 CONCLUSIONS. 
 
 If this book accomplishes its purpose, you 
 are now fairly well prepared to enter upon the 
 study of the child, for what has been said is in- 
 tended simply to serve as an introduction to child 
 nature and child problems. Many subjects dis- 
 cussed, as well as others not mentioned at all, are 
 treated quite exhaustively in a scientific way by 
 expert investigators, and their assistance will be 
 found of much value upon any line which may at- 
 tract you. (See the brief bibliography on pages 
 211 to 215.) 
 
 The following additional topics are among 
 those worthy a full chapter in any book on the 
 child: The religious ideas of children, the sense of 
 humor in children, the indications of genius, the 
 tendency to deterioration, curiosity and wonder, 
 the different intellectual activities as affected by 
 race, reaction time, the artistic sense, illusions, 
 dreams, hypnotic suggestions, the origin of fear, 
 the child as the child's teacher, the pubescent peri- 
 od, the effect of idleness, mental differences of the 
 sexes, prejudices of children, spinal curvature, its 
 causes and remedies, children's pranks, children's 
 ideas of number, children's drawings, children in 
 208
 
 CONCLUSIONS. 209 
 
 storyland, books for children, the Sunday after- 
 noon problem, the poetry and music adapted to 
 child life, the function of fairy tales, the true 
 office of the home. 
 
 Local clubs for child study are wonderful aids 
 to its effectiveness. Each club of teachers will 
 find the interest and profit greatly enhanced by 
 enlisting the co-operation of specialists within its 
 circle. Physicians, dentists, oculists, neurologists, 
 nurses, ministers, psychologists, scientists, and au- 
 thors are usually pleased to be asked for papers or 
 addresses on subjects coming within the range of 
 their experience. A few intelligent mothers will 
 make invaluable members. The program at such 
 club meetings should include reports on per- 
 sonal observations and investigations. It should 
 bear a logical sequence to its predecessor, and the 
 discussions should not drift off into aimless and 
 profitless generalities. A review of many subjects 
 as outlined in this book will make a good year's 
 work for a club. The tendency common in some 
 clubs to spend most of the time in research con- 
 cerning abnormal children is unAvise. It is impera- 
 tive that the normal child be made the center of 
 the study and that he be the model to which all 
 the others shall be conforming in their develop- 
 ment. It is equally unwise for experiments and 
 tests to be conducted in such a way as to destroy 
 the naturalness of the child or to excite self-con- 
 sciousness unduly, or to mention little peculiarities 
 that by the attention thus given them become less 
 easy for the children to outgrow. Follow the 
 methods of the wise physician in it all.
 
 210 THE STUDY OF THE CHILD. 
 
 Mothers' clubs, composed exclusively of moth- 
 ers, are forming in some localities. The zest with 
 which they enter upon the study of these problems 
 shows that the homes of our land as well as the 
 schoolrooms are soon to receive the direct bene- 
 fit of this great movement. The ideal condition 
 in education is to be realized when intelligent 
 teachers and intelligent mothers are cordially co- 
 operating in the training of the children.
 
 BIBLIOGRAPHY. 
 
 A COMPLETE list of books and of articles on the 
 child and directly related subjects would itself 
 make a small volume. The following named will 
 be found of great value to the general as well as to 
 the special student: 
 
 Apperception. Karl Lange. D. C. Heath 
 & Co. 
 
 Body and Mind. Henry Maudsley. D. Apple- 
 ton & Co. 
 
 The Growth of the Brain. H. B. Donaldson. 
 Charles Scribner's Sons. 
 
 Boyhood of Great Men. J. G. Edgar. Harper 
 Brothers. 
 
 Brain Work and Overwork. H. C. Wood, Jr. 
 P. Blakiston, Son & Co. 
 
 Children's Ways, James Sully. D. Appleton 
 &Co. 
 
 The Child and Childhood in Folk Thought. 
 Alexander F. Chamberlain. Macmillan & Co. 
 
 Children of the Poor. Jacob A. Riis. Charles 
 Scribner's Sons. 
 
 Studies of Childhood. James Sully. D. Ap- 
 pleton & Co. 
 
 211
 
 212 THE STUDY OP THE CHILD. 
 
 The Child, its Spiritual Nature. Henry K. 
 Lewis. Macmillan & Co. 
 
 Children's Rights. Kate D. Wiggin. Hough- 
 ton, Mifflin & Co. 
 
 Child Study Monthly. W. D. Krohn and Al- 
 fred Bayliss, editors, Chicago. 
 
 First Three Years of Childhood. Bernard 
 Perez. E. L. Kellogg & Co. 
 
 The Study of Children. Francis Warner. Mac- 
 millan & Co. 
 
 Dependent, Defective, and Delinquent Classes. 
 Charles E. Henderson. D. C. Heath & Co. 
 
 The Education of the Central Nervous System. 
 Eeuben P. Halleck. Macmillan & Co. 
 
 The Eyesight and How to Care for it. Charles 
 H. Burnett. P. Blakiston, Son & Co. 
 
 The Family, an Historical and Social Study. 
 Charles F. Thwing. Lee & Shepard. 
 
 Habit and Instinct. Lloyd Morgan. Edwin 
 Arnold, London. 
 
 Hearing and How to Keep it. Charles H. 
 Burnett. P. Blakiston, Son & Co. 
 
 Heredity. Th. Eibot. D. Appleton & Go. 
 
 Hereditary Genius. Francis Galton. D. Ap- 
 pleton & Co. 
 
 The Hygiene of the Eye in School. Hermann 
 Cohn. Simpkin, Marshall & Co., London. 
 
 The Intellectual and Moral Development of 
 the Child. G-. Compayre. D. Appleton & Co. 
 
 The Jukes. E. L. Dugdale. C. P. Putnam's 
 Sons. 
 
 Juvenile Offenders. W. D. Morrison. D. Ap- 
 pleton & Co.
 
 BIBLIOGRAPHY. 213 
 
 Mental Affections in Cliildliood and Youth. 
 Langdon Down. J. A. Churchill, London. 
 
 • Mentally Deficient Children. G. E. Shuttle- 
 worth. H. K. Lewis, London. 
 
 Mentally Feeble-minded Children. Fletcher 
 Beach. J. A. Churchill, London. 
 
 Mental Development of the Child. W. Preyer. 
 D. Appleton & Co. 
 
 The Moral Instruction of Children. Felix 
 Adler. D. Appleton & Co. 
 
 Methods of Mind Training. Catharine Aiken. 
 Harper Brothers. 
 
 The ISTorthwestern Journal of Education. J. 
 H. Miller, editor. J. H. Miller, Lincoln, Nebraska. 
 
 The Pedagogical Seminary, vols, i, ii, and iii. 
 Valuable articles on nearly every phase of the 
 subject. G. Stanley Hall, editor. J. H. Orpha, 
 Worcester, Massachusetts. 
 
 The Physiology of the Senses. John G. Mc- 
 Kendrick and William Snodgrass. Charles Scrib- 
 ner's Sons. 
 
 Practical Lessons in Psychology. W. 0. Krohn. 
 The Werner Company. 
 
 Proceedings of National Educational Associa- 
 tion. Papers in child study and other departments 
 in volumes for 1894, 1895, 1896, and 1897. 
 
 Psychology and Psychic Culture. Eeuben P. 
 Halleck. American Book Company. 
 
 Psychology. John Dewey. Harper Brothers. 
 
 Eesponsibility in Mental Disease. Henry 
 Maudsley. D. Appleton & Co. 
 
 The Subconscious Self. Louis Waldstein. 
 Charles Scribner's Sons.
 
 214 THE STUDY OF THE CHILD. 
 
 Symbolic Education. Susan E. Blow. D. Ap- 
 pleton & Co. 
 
 The Mind of the Child, vol. i. The Senses 
 and the Will, vol. ii. Development of the Intel- 
 lect. W. Preyer. D. Appleton & Co. 
 
 Studies in Education. Earl Barnes. Leland 
 Stanford Junior University. 
 
 Studies in Home and Child Life. Mrs. S. M. 
 I. Henry. Fleming H. Eevell Company. 
 
 Transactions of the Illinois Society for Child 
 Study. The Werner Company. 
 
 Valuable articles on the subject of child study 
 have been published recently in nearly all the 
 great educational periodicals. The following 
 papers by Oscar Chrisman, Ph. D., of the State 
 Normal School of Kansas, will repay perusal: Se- 
 cret Language of Children, Science, vol. xxii, p. 
 303, and vol. xxiii, p. 18; The Hearing of Chil- 
 dren, Pedagogical Seminary, vol. ii, p. 397; Child 
 Study, a New Department of Education, Forum, 
 vol. xvi, p. 728; One Year with a Little Girl, 
 Educational Review, vol. ix, p. 52; Children's Se- 
 cret Language, Child Study Monthly, vol. ii, p. 
 202; How a Story affected a Child, Child Study 
 Monthly, vol. ii, p. 650; The Hearing of School 
 Children, Northwestern Monthly, vol. viii, p. 31; 
 Motor Control: its Nature and Place in the Phys- 
 ical and Psychical Life of the Child, State Normal 
 IMonthly, vol. x, p. 3; The Secret Language of 
 Cliildren, Northwestern Monthly, vol. viii, pp. 
 187, 375, 550; Exceptionals, State Normal Month- 
 Iv, vol. X, p. 51 ; The Eeligious Ideas of a Child, 
 Child Study Monthly, vol iii, p. 510; Paidology,
 
 BIBLIOGRAPHY. 215 
 
 the Science of the Child, Educational Eeview, vol. 
 XV, p. 269; The Kesults of Child Study, Educa- 
 tion, vol. xviii, p. 323; The Secret Language of 
 Children, Century Magazine, vol. Ivi, p. 54; Re- 
 ligious Periods in Child Growth, Educational Ee- 
 Review, vol. xvi, p. 39. 
 
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