STUDIES OF CHILDHOOD. 7 



new room. But when once it has grown accustomed to certain 

 rooms it will feel a new room to be strange, and eye its features 

 with a perceptibly anxious look. My little girl at the age of seven 

 months and a third gave unmistakable signs of such vague appre- 

 hension on changing her abode a change which involved that of 

 human surroundings also. She looked about her half wonder- 

 ingly, half timidly, struck by the strangeness of the scenery, of 

 the faces, and of the voices. Later, when experience and imagi- 

 nation are added, a child will show a still more marked shrinking 

 from strange rooms. Thus a boy retained up to the age of three 

 years and eight months the fear of being left alone in strange 

 hotels or lodgings. Yet entrance on a strange abode does not by 

 any means always excite this reaction. A child may have his 

 curiosity excited, or may be amused by the odd look of things. 

 Thus one boy, on being taken at the age of fifteen months to a 

 fresh house and given a small plain room, looked round and 

 laughed at the odd carpet. Children even of the same age appear 

 in such circumstances to vary greatly with respect to the relative 

 strength of the impulses of fear and curiosity. 



How different children's mental attitude may be toward the 

 new and unfamiliar is illustrated by some notes on a boy sent me 

 by his mother. This child, " though hardly ever afraid of strange 

 people or places, was very much frightened as a baby of familiar 

 things seen after an interval." Thus " at ten months he was ex- 

 cessively frightened on returning to his nursery after a month's 

 absence. On this occasion he screamed violently if his nurse left 

 his side for a moment for some hours after he got home, whereas 

 he had not in the least objected to being installed in a strange 

 nursery." The mother adds that " at thirteen months, his mem- 

 ory having grown stronger, he was very much pleased at coming 

 to his home after being away a fortnight." This case looks puz- 

 zling enough at first and seems to contradict the laws of infant 

 psychology. Perhaps the child's partial recognition was accom- 

 , panied by a sense of the uncanny, like that which we experience 

 when a place seems familiar to us, though we have no clear recol- 

 lection of having seen it before. 



What applies to places applies also to persons ; a sudden change 

 of customary human surroundings by the arrival of a stranger on 

 the scene is apt to trouble the child. 



At first all faces seem alike to the child. Later, unfamiliar 

 faces excite something like a grave inquisitorial scrutiny. Yet 

 for the first three months there is no distinct manifestation of 

 fear of strangers. It is only later, when attachment to human 

 belongings has been developed, that the intrusion of strangers, 

 and especially the proposal of a stranger to take the child, calls 

 forth clear signs of displeasure and the shrinking away of fear. 



