634 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



be distinguished in the babblings. Gradually the voice became more 

 steadily modulated. When the child wanted some new thing, besides 

 stretching out its arms and looking at it, it signified its desire by the 

 same sound it had been accustomed to utter when it wanted to be 

 nursed. At the same time the syllables pa, at, ta, ha, da, ma, na, 

 common to children of all nations, were uttered plainly and frequently. 

 They had no meaning, and were only the consequences of the involun- 

 tary exercises of the vocal apparatus. 



Very imperfect imitations of sounds were noticed toward the end of 

 the first six months. The power of distinguishing words when spoken 

 began to appear at about the same time. The baby turned its head 

 when it was called, and it was taught to do such little acts as give its 

 hand when asked to. Still, the store of words it knew was not larger 

 or more comprehensive than that of a well-trained hunting-dog. The 

 enormous intellectual interval between the child and the trained animal 

 was manifested less by its connection of definite objects with certain 

 changes of sound than by its feeble attempts to repeat the syllable or 

 the word when the impression recurred to which they corresponded. 



Great progress is made in the imitation of sounds after the third 

 half-year. Numerous objects are correctly pointed out in answer to 

 questions, and many words are spoken with a broken articulation, but 

 in a correct sense. The child's advancement in the power of forming 

 notions becomes wonderfully rapid, and it learns to connect its ideas, 

 to compare and reflect before it has acquired the use of any consider- 

 able number of words, and while it still expresses its thoughts by ges- 

 tures more than by words. 



The powers of articulation become well developed at the beginning 

 of the fourth half-year, although the child may still not be able to 

 pronounce all the sounds of his language ; but an intelligent child is 

 able to understand many more words than he can repeat, and will also 

 repeat, in a parrot-like way, many words that he does not understand, 

 if they please him or he finds that his speaking them pleases others. 



The organs of articulation have a wonderful flexibility, putting it 

 into the power of the child to learn to pronounce the sounds of any 

 language which may be taught him with an ease and accuracy which 

 can never be gained later in life. The child's own language is, how- 

 ever, crude and elementary, consisting in the main of inarticulate 

 sounds, looks, gestures, parts of words that are mangled beyond all 

 recognition, and onomatopoetic expressions. The way he learns to 

 speak is incomprehensible to the keenest observer. He cries, laughs, 

 babbles, smacks, crows, squeals, and understands what is said to him 

 long before he speaks ; and after he has touched, looked, listened, and 

 tasted innumerable times, after he has amused himself and got tired 

 with a thousand efforts to imitate, after he has been at first unable to 

 repeat, and often would not repeat words, then he speaks spontaneously. 

 At first he speaks in such a way as to make a single word answer for 



