THE 



POPULAR SCIENCE 

 MONTHLY. 



JUNE, 1876. 



LINGUAL DEVELOPMENT IN BABYHOOD. 1 



By H. TAINE. 



THE following observations were made from day to day and taken 

 down on the spot. The snbject of them was a little girl, whose 

 mental development took the ordinary course, being neither precocious 

 nor the reverse. 



From the first, probably by reflex action, this child cried inces- 

 santly, kicked, moved all its limbs, and perhaps all its muscles. It 

 was also doubtless by reflex action that, during the first week, she 

 moved her fingers, and even grasped for some length of time the finger 

 of another person. Toward the third month, she began to touch with 

 her hands, and to stretch out her arms, but did not yet know how to 

 guide her hand ; she essayed movements of the anterior members, ex 

 periencing the consequent tactile and muscular sensations nothing 

 more. In my opinion, out of this enormous multiplicity of movements, 

 continually repeated, will be separated, by gradual selection, inten- 

 tional movements having an object and attaining it. During the last 

 fifteen days (age, two and a half months) I have observed one move- 

 ment which is plainly an acquired one : on hearing its grandmother's 

 voice, the infant turns its head in the direction from which the sound 

 proceeds. 



There is the same spontaneous training for the use of the voice as 

 for movements. The vocal organ acquires dexterity just as the limbs 

 do. The child learns how to produce such or such a sound just as it 

 learns how to turn the head or the eyes, i. e., by constant efforts. 



Toward the age of three months and a half, while in the country, 

 the child was brought into the open air, and laid upon a carpet spread 

 in the garden. Here, lying on her back or on her face, she for hours 

 at a time would work with all her limbs, uttering a multitude of differ- 



1 Translated from Revue Philosophique by J. Fitzgerald, A. M. 

 tol. ix. 9 



