STUDIES OF CHILDHOOD. 585 



dramatic spectacle, in the case of the less instructed child the 

 illusion is apt to become more complete. I have several striking- 

 stories about the effect of pictures on children's minds. A picture 

 seems very much of a toy to a child. A baby of eight or nine 

 months will talk to a picture as to a living thing; and some- 

 thing of this tendency to make a fetich of a drawing survives 

 much later. 



A quaint anecdote is recorded in a collection of children's 



thoughts recently published in America.* One day F , a boy of 



four, called on a friend, Mrs. C , when she had just received a 



picture, a scene in winter, in which persons were represented as 



going to church, some on foot and others in sleighs. . . . F 



wanted to know where they were going, and Mrs. C told 



him. The next day he came and noticed the picture, and looked 



at Mrs. C and then at the picture, and said, "Why, Mrs. 



C , them people haven't got there yet, have they ? " What, 



it may be asked, did the boy mean by his question ? Did he in 

 his vivid imaginative realization actually confuse the representa- 

 tion with the reality represented, after the manner of the sail- 

 ors who, visiting a theater where the actors were representing a 

 struggle of smugglers with a captain, took the performance to 

 be a reality and rushed on the stage in order to protect the cap- 

 tain ? There seems to be less excuse for confounding represen- 

 tation and reality in the case of the picture than in that of the 

 stage. Perhaps, however, the boy F was less stupid than is 

 here suggested. Did he, as the result of an intense realization 

 of the scene pictured, excogitate the idea that the picture must 

 at least represent something actual that is to say, going on at 

 the moment ? Here is an opportunity for the mind quick to dis- 

 entangle childish thought. 



However this be, the vivid realization of pictures by children 

 is a well-certified fact. Here is a story of a little boy, aged three 



years and some months : " His mother had gone to the sea and L 



(the child) was staying at his grandfather's. One day he was 

 looking at a picture of a stormy sea, and on the sea was a little 

 boat with an old man and a girl in it. He had heard the story of 

 Grace Darling and her father, and at once decided that the picture 

 represented them. After talking about them for some time his 

 thoughts turned to his mother, and he began to imagine all sorts 

 of things about her : ' And mamma is on de tea (sea) in a ickle 

 (little) boat, and de waves are dashing over it, and (with great 

 excitement) it will be turned over and mamma ill be drowned, 

 and de master (one of the names for himself) will not be dere to 

 tave (save) her ! ' By this time the big tears were rolling down 



* The Study of Children at the State Normal School at Worcester, Mass. 



