On the Color- Vocabulary of Children. 23 



profitably engage the attention of those interested in the 

 improvement of methods and means of elementary educa- 

 tion. If children's conceptions of such simple sensations as 

 color are so unsatisfactory, what is to be inferred regarding 

 their mental pictures of more complex objects, as bird or tree ; 

 saying nothing of abstractions like goodness, or humanity ? 



A vagueness of perception is observed in the answers to 

 all colors ; though in the less common ones there are other 

 elements of uncertainty, which partly conceal the lack of 

 clearness. The practical effect of these results is to give 

 emphasis to the advice of those educatprs who urge the train- 

 ing of the senses in our public schools. The attention needs 

 stimulation, and no other means is so well adapted to this end. 



The character of the incorrect answers to red deserves 

 some attention. Why do so few of the assigned colors in 

 any degree resemble red .'' It may be thought that they are 

 merely chance names that happened to come into the minds 

 of puzzled children. There must have been some determin- 

 ing cause as to what words should be used. Why should 

 green be substituted so often for yellow and blue, and scarcely 

 at all for red .-' It also will be noticed that green is seldom 

 given for pink, scarlet, crimson, or purple. Yellow is very 

 rarely assigned to blue, or any color containing blue. In 

 neither of these cases is the converse true. Hence we can- 

 not conclude anything regarding the substitution of colors 

 nearly complementary. A few of the "other" names given 

 to red were specific, as scarlet and cardinal. 



The results in blue clearly contradict the popular impres- 

 sion that " many persons do not know the difference between 

 blue and green." Only thirty-three among more than two 

 thousand called blue green. This belief in the indefiniteness 

 of the two colors is owing to their proximity and inter- 

 mingling. If the pigments nearly approach the types, few 

 children will mistake one for the other. If seen together, no 

 one with normal eyes would think them more closely related 

 than red and orange. In this case the names also would be 

 interchanged much less frequently than if the colors were 



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