On the Color- Vocabulary of Children. 1 1 



from one to five minutes ; yet it seldom exceeded tiiree 

 minutes. Slow or backward children were given time to 

 think ; and all appearance of haste was avoided. While the 

 child was finding one answer, I made a record of the answer 

 preceding. 



Although many children five years old may be superior in 

 every way to their classmates several years older, it yet 

 seemed better to make age the basis of comparison rather 

 than the artificial classification of the schools. Children ten 

 years old and naturally bright are often classed temporarily 

 with those five or six years old, because they have been 

 deprived of book instruction. Their sense-perceptions may 

 be as keen and as fully developed, and their vocabulary of 

 terms as large, as that of children equal in age but several 

 years in advance of them in the school course. 



It ought to be said that no systematic instruction about 

 color had ever been given in these schools. A few teachers 

 occasionally gave lessons on the "primary " and " secondary " 

 colors. Some first-grade teachers also used colored paper 

 and sticks for aids in drawing, designing, and numbers, with- 

 out more than incidental attention to the colors. Compari- 

 son of the city schools with a few country schools in which 

 colors had never been used failed to reveal the slightest influ- 

 ence of the "color-teaching" in the city. 



As before stated, the investigation was undertaken prima- 

 rily with a view to determine the accuracy of the color-sense 

 in the young. ^ I have, therefore, excluded the answers of 

 those found to be deficient in the sense of color, and shall 

 tabulate them separately for comparison with the answers of 

 normal children. For the purpose of comparison with the 

 results given by Preyer and Holden, the ratio of correct 

 answers by children five, six, and seven years old is given 

 separately for each age. The results obtained from the older 

 pupils are given in groups of three years each. It was not 

 deemed necessary to employ more than the very common 

 colors with the younger pupils. Even pink was omitted from 



^ The results obtained will soon be published. 

 215 



