no POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



Anotlier person recollects when lie walked for the first time. 

 He knows lie was less than a year and a half old. He represents 

 himself as walking from one lady to another, holding on to a chair, 

 and very much pleased with his exploit. 



A third person writes us : " When I was weaned, I for several 

 days asked for ma nini, or sucking-bottle, and they told me that a 

 dog had carried it off. So when I saw a dog I would say, ' The 

 tou-tou has carried off ma nini.'' This was when I was fourteen 

 months old." The fact was often mentioned to him. 



Among other recollections of early age we find one of a 

 painful disorder of the eyes, one of a surgical operation, and one of 

 setting out in a boat on the Aisne (at a spot to which the person re- 

 turned frequently during his childhood). 



Among the examples of recollections relating to five or six years 

 of age is this : " I see again the class of little ones in the primary 

 school which I had just entered; the master, a gentleman whose 

 eye-glasses impressed me very much, was standing at his desk, ruler 

 in hand, and accosted the person who was with me. During this 

 time I stood up and looked at the wall covered with colored pictures 

 and maps, at the blackboard, and the pupils' benches. I was then 

 about six years old. Your list of questions was the occasion of my 

 calling up this recollection." Another, while writing his answer, 

 recalls a vision of his nurse, who loved him, sitting in the kitchen 

 sewing. The subjects of other " delayed " recollections were a 

 lunatic who was greatly frightened by the war of 1870, a fire, the 

 death of the respondent's father, which caused a change in his life, 

 and entering school. 



A very clear difference is noticeable between the persons whose 

 earliest recollection relates to the age of about one year, and those 

 in whom it corresponds to five or six years. The former have many 

 memories of an age of which the latter have none — that is, the date 

 of the first recollection is in relation with the date of others. A 

 person who recalls an event that happened when he was one year 

 old, remembers also a number of events of two or three years of age, 

 and is able to recall the current of his life after the age of five or six 

 years. On the other hand, a person whose first recollection dates 

 from the age of five years, begins to have several from six or seven 

 years of age, and remembers the current of his life from eight, nine, 

 or ten years. It would be interesting to collect facts concerning the 

 infancy of these several persons and see if there is not some marked 

 difference in them. 



The opinion most generally current concerning the subject of 

 the earliest recollections of infancy is that of Taine: '^ The primi- 

 tive impression was accompanied by an extraordinary degTee of 



