THE FIRST THREE YEARS OF CHILDHOOD. 599 



their parents. A little boy, staying for two or three months with his 

 uncle, wovild show how his mother managed in reference to him, and 

 cry and gesticulate if things were not done as she did them. He would 

 himself follow the rule of conduct that he tried to impose upon others. 

 " It is very bad to lie," said he ; " that gives mamma much pain — that 

 makes her cry." As for the rest, the moral sense is slowly modified, 

 according to the circumstances in which the child is placed. Both sym- 

 pathy and the desire to please play an important part in the develop- 

 ment of the moral faculties. A little girl of forty months was greatly 

 afflicted when her mother said to her, "I am angry with baby." She 

 was, for the most part, indifferent to her father's scoldings, whom she 

 was accustomed to hear cry out at her, and threaten her. The young 

 Tiedemann, when he was two years and five months old, said, when he 

 thought he had done something good, " Everybody will say that is a 

 good little boy." When he was naughty, if he were told, " The neigh- 

 bors will see you," he ceased immediately. The moral sense is one of 

 the faculties most susceptible of modification by education. 



The love of justice sometimes manifests itself. A little boy, the 

 first time he told a lie, was shut in the closet, and when he was set free 

 he cried out, struck with the importance attached to his fault, *' But, 

 mamma, perhaps I am not punished enough for a fault so grave." 

 Some children are open-handed to liberality ; others, on the contrary, 

 have the instinct of ownership strongly developed, the instinct of ap- 

 propriation is also manifested, and sometimes becomes the instinct of 

 stealing. Finally, almost all children are cruel ; it is hard to prevent 

 them from hurting animals. A little girl, two years old, very affec- 

 tionate and caressing, passed three fourths of the day tormenting an 

 old dog. The best children are betrayed into striking even those they 

 fondly love. 



CoN'CLUSiox — We find the germs of all the faculties in the little 

 child, and sensations are the food upon which they grow. We may 

 even say that the essential facultie's are innate, since the nervous cen- 

 ters that manifest them are already organized at the moment of birth. 

 The method followed by M. Perez is the scientific method ; observation 

 abounds in his work ; perhaps, however, some inductions repose upon 

 disputable interpretations. But, be this as it may, the book of M. 

 Perez is full of interest, and can not fail to be of great utility in a 

 study so important, so curious, and so long neglected as the psychology 

 of infants. 



