Oil the Color- Vocabulary of Children. 1 5 



Violet was very seldom correctly named. Indeed, it is 

 very rarely properly conceived by more experienced people. 

 It is doubtless true that the common idea of violet would 

 place it among the reds, whereas a moment's thought would 

 convince most persons that it more nearly resembles the 

 blues. The name seems to be comparatively unused, and 

 almost never employed in every-day life to denote the real 

 color. The very interesting results of the incorrect answers 

 in this color will be considered presently. It will be noticed 

 that the ignorance respecting violet and orange offers con- 

 vincing proof of the absence of color-instruction in the schools. 

 In my opinion this circumstance adds not a little to the inter- 

 est of these results. 



Among the additional colors first employed with children 

 ten years old, brown was by far the most readily named, and 

 indeed ranks with green and yellow. Owing to the smaller 

 number of individuals examined I shall merely compare the 

 results with those already given, and refer the reader to the 

 final tables containing the right and wrong answers of each 

 separate color. Drab was correctly named by about one- 

 third of the children. There was less difference between 

 the accuracy of boys and girls in drab and also in purple 

 (which was less surely named) than in pink and orange. 

 Gray was named correctly nearly as often as purple ; while 

 lilac, crimson, and scarlet were reduced to the rank of violet. 

 That gray and drab were named scarcely more correctly than 

 purple, and much less so than brown can be accounted for 

 only by their great resemblance, and by the numerous words 

 used for tints closely allied to them. 



It may be interesting to give the proportion of correct 

 answers to the nine chief colors, for each year and sex. 

 This table will show the rate and time of improvement. 



The girls make very little progress after the eleventh year. 

 The greatest gain of the boys also occurs before this age, yet 

 they are still quite inferior to the girls. The boys continue 

 advancing, until at seventeen there is less difference between 

 the sexes than at any previous period. 



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