764 



PKOCEEDINGS OF SECTIOX J. 



That is why I am reading this paper, but I cannot claim to speak 

 with the avithoritativeness and completeness which is begotten of 

 exhaustive study. As a member of the Child Study Association, I 

 am interested in the question of child study. I trust that I may 

 succeed in interesting some of you. 



Ever since there have been educational systems and educators the 

 child has always been in a sense an object of study, but the child- 

 study of to-day is different from what it has been in the past. You 

 will have to look in the supplement of Webster's Dictionary to find 

 the term. Child-study is carried on with considerable enthusiasm in 

 America, and the psychologist i^aldwin goes so far as to say that it 

 has become a fad to be pursued by parents and teachers who know 

 little about the principles of scientific method. Even if that is so, it 

 ■does not detract from the value, of the work done by eminent scientific 

 investigators, chief among whom is G. Stanley Hall, President of 

 Clark University, who began his work in America a little over twenty 

 years ago. 



There is a British Child Stud}- Association which has been in 

 existence, I think, about ten years, with several branches in England 

 and Scotland. 



There was a Child Study Association in Sydney, but that has 

 been transformed into a Parents and Teachers' Union. The subject of 

 child-study is now referred to in the course of logic and mental 

 philosophy prescribed for students of the University of Sydney. 

 We may speak of the science of child-study as a new science, but it is 

 for all that the product of older ones. From the sciences of physi- 

 ology, embi*yol©gy, medicine, psychology, and anthropology, we have 

 learnt much about the child, but the facts culled by each science have 

 remained as isolated groups, until by the new science of child-study 

 they have been brought together to form a systen^atised branch of 

 knowledge having reference to one specific object, the child. 



The scientist pursues knowledge for its own sake, as well as for 

 any practical purpose. Science is interesting as well as useful, and in 

 the science of child-study we need not draw any sharp distinction 

 between its purely scientific and its utilitarian aspects. As a pure 

 science it is full of interest to the student, keeping him in touch with 

 such sciences as physiology, psychology, anthropology', heredity, ethics, 

 and education. As an applied science it is of especial value to the 

 parent, the teacher, and the social reformer. 



The newly-born child has a little over one-quarter its adult 

 height, but only one-nineteenth part of its adult weight. In two and 

 a half years it should have about half its adult height, and nearly 

 one-fifth of its adult weight. As the child grows its parts do not 

 grow in equal ratio. If they did, the adult, according to our notions, 

 would be a monstrosity, with enormous head, long trunk, huge paunch, 

 short arms and legs. The skeleton grows in weight twenty-six fold, 

 the nuiscles forty-eight, the lungs twenty, the heart twelve, and the 

 brain three and a half. The brain almost ceases to grow in size and 

 weight before the age of puberty, but other organs, like the heart., 

 lungs, and liver, keep on growing till old age. Man is not built like 

 the "one-hoss shay." As children grow in height they cease to grow 

 in weight; as they grow in weight they cease to grow in height. 



