STUDIES OF CHILDHOOD. 189 



thought of as substantial ; at least this is suggested by the follow- 

 ing story from the Worcester collection : A girl aged nine years 

 was looking out and seeing the wind driving the snow in the direc- 

 tion of a particular town, Milbury, whereupon she remarked, " I'd 

 like to live down in Milbury," Asked why, she replied : " There 

 must be a lot of wind down there ; it's all blowing that way." 



Children are, as may be seen in this story, particularly inter- 

 ested in the movements of things. Movement is the clearest and 

 most impressive manifestation of life. All apparently spontane- 

 ous or self-caused movements are accordingly taken by children 

 as by primitive man to be the sign of life, the outcome of some- 

 thing analogous to their own impulses. Hence, the movements of 

 falling leaves, of running water, of feathers, and the like are espe- 

 cially suggestive of life. Some children in the infant department 

 of a London Board School were asked what things in the room 

 were alive, and they promjjtly replied, the smoke and the fire. Big 

 things moving by an internal mechanism of which the child knows 

 nothing, more especially engines, are of course endowed with life, 

 and the author of The Invisible Playmate tells us that his little 

 girl wanted to stroke the "dear head " of a locomotive. 



What is more extraordinary, the child's impulse to give life to 

 many things often leads him to overlook the fact that movement 

 is caused by an external force, and this even when the force is ex- 

 erted by himself. The boy C , on finding the cushion he was sit- 

 ting upon slipping from under him in consequence of his own 

 wriggling movements, pronounced it alive. In like manner chil- 

 dren ascribe life to their moving playthings. Thus C 's sister 



when five years old stopped one day trundling her hoop, and turn- 

 ing to her mother exclaimed : " Ma, I do think this hoop must be 

 alive, it is so sensible ; it goes where I want it to." Another little 

 girl, two years and a quarter old, on having a string attached to 

 a ball put into her hand, and after swinging it round mechanically 

 began to notice the movement of the ball, saying to herself, "Fun- 

 ny ball ! " In both these cases, although the movement was di- 

 rectly caused by the child, it was certainly in the first case and 

 apparently in the second attributed to the object. This tendency 

 to attribute self-movement and will to toys survives in the older 

 player. Do we not when playing billiards or bowls catch our- 

 selves talking and thinking of the moving body as having a will 

 of its own, and capable of carrying out our purpose if it only 

 would, and equally capable, alas ! of maliciously thwarting it ? 



Children are disposed, too, to form their own ideas about the 

 mechanism of these spontaneous-looking movements. The exami- 

 nation of the mystery of a mechanical toy may set the young brain 

 trying to construct a whole theory of motion. How far children 

 apply this idea of machinery to their own movements I have not 



