STUDIES OF CHILDHOOD. 809 



actions may be a mere outcome of this hiding propensity, and the 

 accompanying wish that you should not get the hidden thing. 

 Refusals to tell secrets, or, as C called them, " private se- 

 crets " (a fine distinction), show the same thing. A child, when 

 badgered, is most jealous in guarding what he has been told, or 

 what his fancy has made a secret. The little ruses or " acted 

 lies " to which I am now referring seem to me at the worst an 

 attempt to put off the scent in what is regarded as a private mat- 

 ter, and to have the minimum of intentional deception. 



More distinct marks of mendacity appear when the child 

 comes to use language and offers statements which if he reflected 

 he might know to be false. It may readily be thought that no 

 child who has the intelligence to make statements at all could 

 make false ones without some little consciousness of the falsity. 

 But here I suspect we judge harshly, applying adult tests to cases 

 where they are inappropriate. Anybody who has observed chil- 

 dren's play and dramatic talk and knows how readily and com- 

 pletely they can imagine the nonexistent so as to lose sight of the 

 existent, will be chary of using the word lie. There may be sol- 

 emn sticklers for truth who would be shocked to hear the child 

 in play saying, " I am a coachman," " Dolly is crying," and so 

 forth. But the discerning see nothing to be alarmed at here. 

 Similarly, when a little girl of two years and six months, after 

 running over a pretty long series of sounds devoid of all mean- 

 ing, said, " It's because you don't understand me, papa." Here 

 the love of mystery and secrecy, aided by the dramatic impulse, 

 made the nonsense real talk. The wee thing doubtless had a 

 feeling of superiority in talking in a language which was unin- 

 telligible to her all- wise papa. 



On much the same level of moral obliquity are those cases 

 where a child will say the opposite of what it is told, turning 

 authoritative utterances upside down. A quaint instance is 

 quoted by Compayre' from Guyau. Guyau's little boy (age not 

 given) was overheard saying to himself, " Papa parle mal, il a dit 

 sevette; bebe parle bien, il dit serviette." Such reversals are a kind 

 of play too ; the child is weary of being told he is wrong, and for 

 the moment imagines himself right and his elders wrong, im- 

 mensely enjoying the idea. 



A graver-looking case presents itself when an "untruth" is 



uttered in answer to a question. C , on being asked by his 



mother who told him something, answered "Dolly." False, and 

 knowingly false, somebody will say, especially when he learns 

 that the depraved youngster instantly proceeded to laugh. But 



let us look a little closer. The question had raised in C 's little 



mind the idea that somebody had told him. This is a process 

 of suggestion, which as we shall see presently, sways a child's 



