Nagel, Color-Sense of a Child. 221 



a bright pink cannot be distinguished by either of these dichro- 

 mates from a bright blue-green. The child was, however, not to 

 be confused. I may, too, at once mention that in his case all 

 further experiments argued against the assumption of a dichro- 

 matic and in favor of that of a trichromatic color vision. 



After I had continued these experiments for five days, the child 

 was able to point to any reddish portion of any object. He did 

 this at times, too, unasked. 



When the boy had thus been taught to heed one color, it was 

 easy, as I had supposed, to impress on him the names of others and 

 to teach him to recognize them. It was, indeed, much easier than 

 I had thought. He learned in a few minutes to recognize and to 

 name green, blue, black and white. 



In fact, during the whole of the remaining period given to these 

 observations, I never heard him name black or white incorrectly. 

 When I mentioned for the first time the word "schwarz" (black) 

 in his presence, it made a great impression on him. I spoke it in 

 a deep, hollow voice, pointing, at the same time, toward the black 

 piece of paper. I spoke the word "weiss" (white) in a high, clear 

 tone. He imitated the sounds of my voice and recognized the 

 colors easily, although obviously with the assistance of these 

 associations. 



I was astonished at the sure feeling which he at once manifested 

 for the term "green." The experience with red was here repeated; 

 I had taught the child the name "green" by showing him several 

 examples of a deep, somewhat dark green, whereupon he at once 

 and unasked pointed to several bright green and even gray-green 

 squares, which he had not been told were green, saying: "those 

 are green, too." From this moment on he knew green just as 

 surely as red, and could find it easily and quickly among reds, 

 browns, blues, grays and violets of the most various shades and 

 hues. 



In regard to certain statements of Preyer it is particularly 

 noteworthy that the discrimination between green, on the one 

 hand, and gray and blue, on the other, was made at once and with 

 full certainty. In discriminating green from gray (both colors 

 being presented simultaneously in various degrees of saturation) 

 my son far excelled me, a deuteranope (green-blind), making dis- 

 tinctions that I could not possibly make. 



