346 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



discontented, are usually of delicate make and evince instability and 

 poor vitality. Those who are loquacious, voluble and inquisitive lack 

 inhibition or control. 



Courageous children are usually healthy and strong in mind and 

 body. Timidity has a physical basis, but may be acquired from bad 

 environment, habitual discouragement. The ' only child in the family ' 

 in 66 per cent, shows disadvantageous traits; they are usually of poor 

 health, lacking much of normality, both mental and physical. The 

 1 youngest child/ the ' only boy ' or the ' only girl ' often displays 

 many striking resemblances to the ' only child.' - 



Classification of grades of mental deviation is only important 

 for purposes of teaching. Types of mind there are, and they must be 

 fully appreciated that individuals may secure the right kind of in- 

 fluence and training. Degrees and qualities of mentality are even more 

 important, because by this means we may know where to place the 

 individual, how much control to insist upon, how much compulsion to 

 exert on the parents. Types of all the adolescent insanities merge 

 into each other. Those who have the charge of young children may 

 have no need of psychiatric training, but they do need to employ a com- 

 mon-sense recognition of abnormalities, deviations, obliquities, patent 

 enough to the intelligent observer. Children of pronounced dominant 

 impulses may exhibit at times self-will, naughtiness, ill temper, even 

 exuberant imagination to the point of mendacity, buoyancy or apathy 

 in changing moods, and yet become wholesome admirable citizens. 

 Distinct and continued nervousness, fretfulness, timidity, brooding, 

 causeless variations in moods, cruelty, vengefulness, should put us on 

 our guard and warrant suspicion of deep-seated perturbations fore- 

 shadowing psychoses. 



Educational methods are still defective in many particulars. Tra- 

 dition holds us in a powerful grasp. In the public, and in most 

 private schools, the course of study is analogous and aims to meet the 

 supposed needs of the child of average intelligence. This would be 

 well enough if certain fundamental truths were recognized by both 

 school boards and parents. Custom has created a public opinion from 

 which it is difficult to appeal. For instance, it is a fact that all chil- 

 dren develop on some lines more rapidly than on others, in differing 

 degrees of rapidity. In one there may be exhibited early motor apti- 

 tudes with late intellectual capacities. In another the reverse, yet at 

 a certain age they may be to all intents equal. One child may acquire 

 language, grammar, and the elements of literature early, with a late 

 grasp of numbers, arithmetic, the natural sciences. Another may 

 reverse this, and yet at a given time these two may be on a par. It 

 will be plain that to get the best results due allowances should be made 



2 See article by the author, Brit. Jour. Childrens' Diseases, January, 1905. 



