6 S 2 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



attack. A child of four, on being crossed, would bang bis chair 

 and then proceed to vent his displeasure on his unoffending toy- 

 lion, banging him, jumping on him, and threatening him with the 

 loss of his dinner. Hitting is in some cases improved upon by- 

 biting. The boy C was for some time vigorously mordant 



in his angry fits. Another little boy would under similar circum- 

 stances bite the carpet. 



Here we have expressive movements which are plainly brutal, 

 which assimilate the aspect of an angry child to that of an angry 

 savage and angry animal. The whole outward attitude is one of 

 fierce, ruthless assault. The insane, I am told, manifest a like 

 wildness of attack in fits of anger, smashing windows, etc., and 

 striking anybody who happens to be at hand. 



Yet these are not all the manifestations. Childish anger has 

 its wretched aspect. There is keen suffering in these early experi- 

 ences of thwarted will and purpose. A little boy rather more than 

 a year old used, when crossed, to throw himself on the floor and 

 bang the back of his head ; and his brother, when fourteen months 

 old, would similarly throw himself on the floor and bang the back 

 of his head, biting the carpet as before mentioned. This act of 

 throwing one's self on the floor, which is common during this early 

 period, and is apparently quite instinctive, is the expression of the 



utter dejection of misery. C 's attitude when crossed, gathered 



into a heap on the floor, was eloquent of this infantile despair. 

 Such suffering is the immediate outcome of thwarted purpose, and 

 must be distinguished from the moral feeling of shame which 

 often accompanies it. 



Such stormy outbursts vary, no doubt, from child to child. 



Thus, C 's sister in her angry moments did not bite or roll on 



the floor, but would dance about and stamp. Some children show 

 little if anything of this savage furiousness. Among those that 

 do show it, it is often a temporary phenomenon only. 



This anger, it is to be noted, is due to mere check of will by 

 will, and would show itself to some extent even if there were no 

 intervention of authority. Thus a child will show himself angry, 

 resentful, and despairingly miserable if another child gets effective 

 hold of somethingwhich he wants to have. Yet it is undoubtedly 

 true, as we shall see, that these little storms are most frequently 

 called up by the imposition of authority, and are a manifestation 

 of what we call a defiant attitude. 



This slight examination may suffice to show that with the child 

 self its appetites, its satisfactions is the center of its existence, 

 the pivot on which its action turns. I do not forget the real and 

 striking differences here, the specially brutal form of boys' anger 

 as compared with that of girls, the partial atrophy of some of these 

 impulses e. g., jealousy in the more gentle and affectionate type 



