388 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



little cliild-heart's first trepidations. Yet this prolific cause of 

 disquietude, wheu once the first alarming effect of strangeness 

 has passed, becomes a main source of interest and delight. Some 

 of Nature's sounds, as those of running water and of the wind, 

 early catch the ear, and excite wonder and curiosity. Miss Shinn 

 illustrates fully in the case of her niece how the interest in sounds 

 developed itself in the first years.* This pleasure in listening to 

 sounds and in tracing them to their origin forms a chief pastime 

 of babyhood. 



^Esthetic pleasure in sound begins to be differentiated out of 

 this general interest as soon as there arises a comparison of quali- 

 ties and a development of preferences. Thus the sound of metal 

 (when struck) is preferred to that of wood or stone. A nascent 

 feeling for musical quality thus emerges which probably has its 

 part in many of the first likings for persons; certain pitches, as 

 those of the female voice, and possibly timbres being preferred to 

 others. 



Quite as soon, at least, as this feeling for quality of sound or 

 tone, there manifests itself a crude liking for rhythmic sequence. 

 It is commonly recognized that our pleasure in regularly recur- 

 ring sounds is instinctive, being the result of our whole nervous 

 organization. We can better adapt successive acts of listening 

 when sounds follow at regular intervals, and the movements 

 which sounds evoke can be much better carried out in a regular 

 sequence. The infant shows us this in his well-known liking for 

 well-marked rhythms in tunes which he accompanies with suit- 

 able movements of the arms, head, etc. 



The first likings for musical composition are based on this 

 instinctive feeling for rhythm. It is the simple tunes, with well- 

 marked, easily recognizable time divisions, which first take the 

 child's fancy, and he knows the quieting and the exciting qual- 

 ities of different rhythms and times. Where rhythm is less 

 marked, or grows highly complex, the motor responses being con- 

 fused, the pleasurable interest declines. It is the same with the 

 rhythmic qualities of verses. The jingling rhythms which their 

 souls love are of simple structure, with short feet well marked off, 

 as in the favorite " Jack and Gill." 



Coming now to art as representative, we find that a child's 

 aesthetic appreciation waits on the growth of intelligence, on the 

 understanding of artistic representation as contrasted with a 

 direct presentation of reality. 



The development of an understanding of visual representation 

 or the imaging of things has already been touched upon. As 

 Perez points out, the first lesson in this branch of knowledge is 



* Op. cit, p. 115 ff. 



