AN INFANT'S PROGRESS IN LANGUAGE. 587 



index to find the date of the birth or death of the particular person in 

 question, is a very different matter. 



And no one should say that he is too humble in station to make 

 care about such things necessary. Fortune's wheel has many surpris- 

 ing turns, and sometimes carries those round with it who least expect 

 to be raised from their station underneath it. To those higher in rank 

 also the due recording of such things is equally important, for many 

 facts concerning their families can be jotted down which must be inter- 

 esting and may be useful to those who come after them, and which 

 their posterity can learn in no other manner. In fact, it seems to me 

 that the higher the state of culture of society becomes, the more care 

 will be demanded in matters which so closely concern the family and 

 the race ; the more society will ask what it is and whence it springs, 

 and in an increased degree will it be true that " the glory of children 

 are their fathers." Gentleman's Magazine. 



-+++- 



AN INFANT'S PROGRESS IN LANGUAGE. 



By FREDERICK POLLOCK. 



THE following notes were made in humble following of Mr. Darwin's 

 and M. Taine's example, at first for my own amusement and with- 

 out any distinct purpose of letting them go further. I found, however, 

 that they grew under my hands, and that the editor of Mind thought 

 further contributions on the subject of children's mental growth would 

 be desirable. Here I have kept in the main to the one point of lan- 

 guage, and, though I have probably omitted much, I think I have set 

 down nothing as fact which has not been actually and distinctly ob- 

 served. Exact dates I have not attempted to give, conceiving that 

 they would be of no use unless for the comparison of a very large num- 

 ber of observations. Children differ so much in forwardness that the 

 time of particular acquisitions seems of little importance as compared 

 with their order. Though I have no pretensions to skill in phonetics, I 

 thought it at least desirable to use some consistent notation for the 

 sounds actually produced. For this purpose I have taken the Indian 

 Government system, with a few additional signs which will speak for 

 themselves. I may explain that in this notation, while a, t, are the 

 long Continental a and i, unaccented a is not the short Continental 

 a, but the obscure or neutral vowel ( ITrvocal) heard in English " at," 

 " that," " but," when not emphatic ; when strongly given, it becomes 

 the full sound of u in emphasized " but." Thus the Punjaub, Lucknow, 

 Kurrachee, of popular use, become in the official spelling Panjab, LaJch- 

 nau, Karachi. " Governor and Company " would be written Gavarnar 



