8 12 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



Edith, remarked to her: "That's a pretty name. My baby is 

 Eleanor. Isn't that a pretty name ? " On being thus questioned 

 she felt in a dreadful difficulty, for she did not like the sound of 

 " Eleanor," and yet feared to be rude and say so. She got out of 

 it by saying she did not like the name as well as " Edith." 



These temptations and struggles, which may impress them- 

 selves on memory for the whole of life, illustrate the influence of 

 older persons' wishes and expectations on children's statements. 

 It is possible that we have here to do with something akin to 

 " suggestion," that force which produces such amazing results on 

 the hypnotized subject, and which is known to be a potent influ- 

 ence for good or for evil on the young mind. A leading question 

 of the form : u Isn't this pretty ? " " Aren't you fond of me ? " 

 may easily overpower for a moment the child's own conviction, 

 superimposing that of the stronger mind. Such passive state- 

 ments coming from a mind overridden by another's authority are 

 not to be confused with conscious falsehoods. 



This suggestion often combines with other forces. Here is a 

 good example : A little American girl, sent into the oak shrubbery 

 to get a leaf, saw a snake, which so frightened her that she ran 

 home without the leaf. As cruel Fate would have it, she met her 

 brothers and told them she had seen a " sauger." " They knew " 

 (writes the lady who recalls this reminiscence of her childhood) 

 " a difference between snakes and their habits, and, boylike, 

 wanted to tease me, and said, "Twas no sauger it didn't have a 

 red ring round its neck, now, did it ? ' My heated imagination 

 saw just such a serpent as soon as their words were spoken, and 

 I declared it had a ring about its neck." In this way she was led 

 on to say that it had scars and a little bell on its neck, and was 

 soundly rated by her brothers as a " liar." * Here we have a case 

 of " illusion of memory" induced by suggestion acting on a mind 

 made preternaturally sensitive by the fear from which it had not 

 yet recovered. If there was a germ of mendacity in the case, it 

 must have sprung from the half-conscious shrinking from the 

 brothers' ridicule, the wish not to seem utterly ignorant about 

 these boyish matters, the snakes. Yet who would say that such 

 swift, unseizable movements of feeling in the dim background of 

 consciousness made the child's quick responses lies in the proper 

 sense of the word ? 



It seems paradoxical, yet is, I believe, indisputable, that a large 

 part of childish untruth comes upon the scene in connection with 

 moral authority and discipline. We shall see by and by that 

 unregenerate child-nature is very apt to take up the hostile atti- 

 tude of self-defense toward those who administer law and inflict 



* Sara E. Wiltse, The Christian Union, vol. xl, No. 26. 



