DARWINISM IN THE NURSERY. 675 



satisfactory manner. Many of the inferences drawn are no doubt 

 mucli more open to question, and tliey are liere put forward chiefly 

 with the purpose of drawing the attention of those much better 

 able to judge of the value and bearing of the facts than the present 

 writer. 



It is curious how little has been written on the natural history 

 of the human infant in its normal state. "We have, of course, an 

 abundant medical literature on the ailments and care of young 

 children, but the many eminent physicians who have written on 

 the subject have confined their attention almost entirely to abnor- 

 mal or diseased conditions. Even in studying the healthy physi- 

 ological processes the primary idea has been to gain the kind of 

 knowledge which would be available in the treatment of disease 

 rather than that which might illustrate the history of the develop- 

 ment of the race, and this may easily account for many facts of 

 very considerable value for the latter purpose being overlooked 

 or not appreciated at their proper value. 



It is plain that a typically healthy infant, in which Nature's 

 processes go on without the interference of medical art, will, after 

 the first crisis of its entry on an independent existence is over, 

 scarcely come under the notice of the physician at all. 



The three classes of persons who are brought into close enough 

 contact with the objects under discussion to study their habits and 

 characteristics are medical men, nurses, and parents. The first 

 have been already dealt with. Of the second class we may say 

 that their knowledge, although doubtless profound, and derived 

 both from tradition and observation, does not seem very available 

 for the purposes of science. This has hitherto been my experi- 

 ence, for although in nearly every case where questions were asked 

 there was every assumption and appearance of superior erudition, 

 yet it seemed almost impossible to tap the supply. 



Parents, as a rule, from the very nature of their relationship to 

 their offspring, are obviously unable to look on them with the cold, 

 impartial gaze of the scientific investigator. At any rate, experi- 

 ence has proved that very little has resulted from their observa- 

 tions. The parental bias must, more or less, vitiate results ; and 

 the average mother, in spite of many unquestioned merits, is about 

 as competent to take an unprejudiced view of the facts bearing 

 on the natural history of her infant as a "West African negro 

 would do to carry out an investigation of the anatomy and physi- 

 ology of a fetich. 



There are some illustrious exceptions, and Darwin himself, in 

 his Expression of the Emotions and Descent of Man, gives an ac- 

 count of some very interesting observations on several of his own 

 children when infants. Several salient traits seem, however, to 

 have completely escaped him, and some of these, which will be 



