December 1, 1887.] 



KNOVy^LEDGK ♦ 



39 



A STUDY OF CHILDHOOD. 



3HE profoundest philosophers of our day have 

 not thought it beneath them to discuss 

 matters which are commonly legarded as 

 outside the domain of science, in a trul}' 

 scientific spirit. Faraday analysed a tear ; 

 Darwin has based important theoretical 

 views on the analysis of a smile, a frown, 

 a sneer, a gesture of hand or head or shoulders. Darwin 

 noted in particular the expression of the emotions in very 

 young children — a subject of inquiry of extreme importance 

 when it is considered that, according to the Darwinian 

 theory of the origin of man, we should find in very young 

 children the strongest indications of those characteristics 

 which link the human race with races next below them in 

 the animal world. In the unborn child may be traced the 

 various stages of progress, from the ascidian to fish-like and 

 thence to reptilian forms, and so onwards to the lower and 

 thence to the higher mammalian type. The newly-born 

 child shows in many chai'acteristics, which disappear with 

 advancing years, his kinship to the most advanced mam- 

 malian type short of man. As tiine passes, the simian 

 characteristics are replaced by those which are now recog- 

 nised only in uncivilised races — the progression not ending 

 in infancy, however, or even in early youth, but (at any rate 

 with the best representatives of civilised races) continuing 

 into middle life, i^ince our kinship with savage human 

 races is not questioned (though for aught that appeal's it 

 might very well have been doubted, and is, indeed, as it is, 

 altogether misundei-stood by many), there is more scientific 

 interest in the study of the very young child, whose move- 

 ments and characteristics, carefully observed, throw clearest 

 light on the question of man's kin.ship with the higher 

 mammalian types. 



Hitherto the mental and physical development of very 

 young children has not been .systematically studied. Tiede- 

 mann, in the last century, gave some attention to the sub- 

 ject, but his work has little value in the present day.. In a 

 work of some 4-10 pages, Professor Preyer, of the University 

 of Jena, made the first three years of a child's life the sub- 

 ject of careful and systematic study. He carefully con- 

 sidered the progress of the child from week to week, or the 

 apparent cessation of progress in various parts of the 

 child's development, and attempted to explain the various 

 phenomena successively observed. It is hardly necessary 

 to say that the standpoint from which Professor Preyer 

 observed and made his inferences was that of the evolu- 

 tionist. Aided by his studj- of the ways and habits of the 

 young of lower forms. Professor Preyer anah'sed the phe- 

 nomena of the infant mind with a success which perhaps he 

 otherwise would hardly have been able to achieve. 



Professor Preyer worked on a single suhject — a boy of his 

 own. Here, at the outset, it is to be noticed that while 

 many of his observations may be such as would have been 

 noted in other cases, perhaps in all, observations made on 

 one child c<annot ])Ossibly be regarded as estal)lishing general 

 laws of infantile development. If we consider how much 

 children difler in such matters as the time when they begin 

 to talk and to walk, we shall see reasons for believing that 

 they difTer also greatly in those other matters more deliciite 

 of observation, with which Professor Preyer here deals. I 

 have had opportunities of noting the development of four- 

 teen infiints, in one family (my own), in which one might 

 fairly expect a greater uniformity than among children of 

 diflerent families : and I can answer for it that the dilTer- 

 ences as to such matters as first noticing light, distin- 

 guishing colour, making first attempts at touching, grasping^ 



and so forth, recognising and responding to varying ex- 

 pressions of the parents' or nurse's countenance, etc., are very 

 great indeed. Professor Preyer recognises this, of course. 

 He knows that such dififerences exist among the young of 

 all i-aces. He compares as far as possible his own observa- 

 tions with those of others. But it is important to notice 

 how very necessary in this research are abundant observa- 

 tions made on a great number of children belonging to 

 difTerent families. 



Almost every day Professor Preyer made observations 

 three times, morning, noon, and evening, on his little "sub- 

 ject." He made experiments, also, unhampered by the 

 customary modes of infantile training, which would, of 

 course, have interfered with his operations. Necessarily, 

 however, he had to rely for some of his observed facts on 

 others. He found an ally in Mme. Preyer, who probably 

 took quite as much interest in the child's progre.'^s as he did. 

 Whether on one or two occasions she may not have misin- 

 terpreted what she saw in a manner unduly complimentary 

 to the child's intellect, our deponent .sayeth not ; it .seems 

 not wholly impossible. 



The first sense considered was sight, though probably 

 feeling is the first sense exercised. He considers that 

 sensibility to light exists from the moment of birth. Yet 

 probably this sensibility is more alive to the sense of feeling 

 than to that of sight. Be this as it may, the infant from 

 the first closed its eyes when exposed to a strong light. 

 With regard to actual sight, as denoted by the fixing of the 

 eyes on objects, Pi'ofessor Preyer says that up to the tenth 

 day he noticed no movements indicating that the child fixed 

 its eyes on an object. The child seemed only to look at 

 objects before it up to that time. Now here ob.servation 

 will show that infants differ gi-eatly. I am sure some 

 children fix their eyes on objects long before the tenth day ; 

 and I knew of one case, a little girl of my own (exceedingly 

 nervous and supersensitive throughout her short life of 

 eight months), of whom I should say that she certainly 

 followed with her eyes in the most definite way a light 

 which was being shifted about in the room in which she 

 was born, when she was less than half an hour old, were it 

 not that the thing seems so incredible I am half disposed to 

 think it can only have been some strange chance which 

 caused her eyes thus to move. Daring the few minutes 

 that I was allowed by an authoritative nurse to watch the 

 little creature, her eyes while open — say in all some fifty or 

 sixty seconds — were constantly fixed on the light and fol- 

 lowed it when it was moved. On the following evening, when 

 she was some twenty hours old, thei'e could be no mistake 

 about it; but during the day (Christmas Day, 1871) I had 

 no opportunity of noting whether objects not so well defined 

 as a light were equally noticed (or rather, looked at, for there 

 may have been no noticing in the matter). Professor Preyer 

 says that a child niav " turn its head towards a .source of 

 light — as the winr'ow, just as it turns its head towards the 

 breast, through an association with pleasure." Yet this, I 

 think, can hardly be the explanation of the observed fact 

 that an infant less than twenty-four hours old turned its 

 eyes on such an object as the flame of a wax candle. In 

 fact. Professor Preyer puts such an observation as this at a 

 much later date. " The second stage," he says, " is reached 

 on the eleventh day, when the child, after staring at one 

 bright object (the author's face), turns the head to another, a 

 light, near it ; and the third stage is entered upon on the 

 twenty-third da)/, when the child follows a candle, held one 

 metre (say 34 feet) before the eyes, to the right and left, 

 upwards and downwards, with the ei/es and without any 

 movement of the head." This third stage, I can answer for 

 it, was entered upon by my little daughter before she had 

 reached her twenty-first hour, and unless I was greatly 



