728 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



tion of persons and objects about them are good, but who seem to 

 stop short at the point where these individual perceptions and 

 memories should be grouped together into general ideas. There 

 is an inherent activity in the brain of a child which leads to 

 thought and soon to actions and speech ; yet there are children 

 who never get to the point of definite purposeful activity. Such 

 children are usually in constant motion, but their movements 

 have no object. Such children can not be taught to talk, or, if 

 they can be instructed in repeating words after another, they seem 

 to attach little significance to the words that they say, and appear 

 to have no spontaneous wish to talk. Back of any spontaneous 

 desire to speak, there must be the idea which presses for utter- 

 ance, and thus we conclude from the study of these defective, 

 speechless creatures that while perception may be active, the 

 mind has not grasped the subjects perceived, has not gone on to 

 any generalization about them, or initiated a train of thought to 

 issue in action or articulation. Such a child, then, reveals to us 

 the order of progress in mental growth. It has the rudimentary 

 power of simple perception and memory and association of 

 memories; but it lacks the next higher power of thought, the 

 power to group ideas together, to contrast them with each other, 

 to generalize. And since it is this generalizing and analyzing 

 power which stimulates thought and leads to natural curiosity, 

 we find such children fail to give evidence of that desire for 

 knowledge which a healthy child displays. 



Another type of child far less defective is not uncommonly 

 seen, who has nevertheless failed to reach that point of develop- 

 ment which is evidenced by the power of self-control. These 

 children may have the power to recognize objects, to analyze their 

 qualities, to reason upon them, and to accumulate a little store of 

 knowledge. They can talk, and learn to do many acts of a com- 

 plex nature and of delicate manipulation. But the power of con- 

 centration of the mind upon a definite subject, the power of 

 paying strict attention to one thing to the exclusion of all recog- 

 nition of the thousand impressions which ordinarily press in upon 

 consciousness and which the attentive mind ignores, this power 

 they seem to lack, and hence, because of this defect in the atten- 

 tive faculty, or of the power of controlling and directing mental 

 action, these children are incapable of giving any stable direction 

 to their life and conduct. I have a young man under my obser- 

 vation who is capable and active mentally in many directions, 

 has apparently no gross intellectual defects, yet who complains 

 that he is iitterly unable to direct his mind continuously to any 

 topic. He is a college graduate, but for the past ten years he has 

 drifted about from one occupation or profession to another 

 eager for a time in each, then losing all interest, finding himself 



