Herrick, Notes on Child Experiejices. 121 



No. 7. Bad number, trying to be good but always fail- 

 ing. Is redeemed in part by the fact that when multiplied by 

 2, he becomes even. 



No. 8. Like No. 2. Always liked. 



No. 9. A soldier (this probably because the boy form- 

 erly amused himself by converting the figure into a skeleton sol- 

 dier). The character was always supposed to be " mean." 



No. 10. Big old man with a white beard and snowy locks. 

 Of a benevolent disposition and always smiling. 



No. II. Jolly, happy-go-lucky individual, with an idiotic 

 grin, equally ready to go on either side. 



No. 12. Stern old fellow, always on the right side. 



No. 13. Mean, like No. i. 



No. 50. Sneak. 



No. 100. Like No. 10. 



While there is no doubt that some of the coloring of the 

 associated feelings has arisen from the difficulties of use in 

 arithmetic and from the struggles with the tables, yet the evi- 

 dence is good that these ideas date from an early period and 

 are fairly constant. The same boy habitually regards a pro- 

 cess in arithmetic as a battle in which the figures are engaged 

 on opposite sides. 



It may be added that the effect of the extreme tendency 

 to predicate human attributes to objects and to introduce the 

 anthropomorphic element into experience is apparently bad, 

 tending to lead the child to shift responsibility and perhaps to 

 become morbid and fatalistic. This tendency may persist long 

 after the individual has ceased to have any real faith in the ideas. 

 Solitary children are especially exposed to the evil and are like- 

 ly to acquire the associated habit of talking to themseves which 

 tends to perpetuate it. Improper religious teaching is also a 

 prolific source of this evil, which, in its last extreme, is relig- 

 ious insanity, so-called. 



II. — Hallucinations of Vision in Children. 



It is probable that visual hallucinations are much more 

 common among children than among adults. The plasticity of 



