NOVEMBEB 17, 1911] 



SCIENCE 



671 



to be able to play checkers would indicate 

 simply that he had developed the power of 

 attending to this sort of thing beyond 

 what most normal children of this age 

 spontaneously manifest; though if it were 

 thought to be worth while the typical child 

 could easily be trained to do this thing 

 with a greater or less degree of success. 



But while a two-year-old might be able 

 to attend to the sort of situation presented 

 on a checker board, he might at the same 

 time be utterly deficient in attending to 

 an unfamiliar human face so that he could 

 recognize it the next time he saw it, and 

 especially so that he might know whether 

 to laugh or to cry in the presence of the 

 stranger. It can scarcely be doubted that 

 it requires a much higher order of intel- 

 lectual process to discern the traits of a 

 stranger in order to discover what to do 

 with regard to him, than to learn to move 

 checkers on a board, or to tell that six and 

 six make twelve, or to solve a problem in 

 cube root or quadratic equations, or to 

 speak seven different languages, and so on. 

 The analysis of a human personality, and 

 the interpretation of what is observed, is 

 a more complicated matter than the analy- 

 sis of any situation presented in mathe- 

 matics. More factors have to be taken 

 account of in deciding what sort of atti- 

 tude to assume toward a person than to 

 solve any problem in calciilus. And more- 

 over, these factors are very subtly related 

 to one another; they are plastic and dy- 

 namic, and extremely variable as compared 

 with mathematical phenomena. One can 

 take his time about a problem in Euclidean 

 geometry. The relations to be discovered 

 will not change from one moment to 

 another; they are static and permanent. 

 They are not affected by environing con- 

 ditions, which characteristic makes them 

 far more simple psychologically than any 

 living thing, and especially than a human 



being, whose expressions, which the child 

 must apprehend and interpret, vary with 

 a varying environment, so that they are 

 likely to be constantly passing from one 

 variety into another. But even so, every 

 normal child of two years of age is con- 

 stantly analyzing living, and particularly 

 human beings, and drawing more or less 

 correct inferences from the phenomena ob- 

 served. A typical two-year-old child 

 knows what sort of an attitude to take 

 toward his father and mother and brothers 

 and sisters and servants in many of their 

 different moods. If he has come in eon- 

 tact with people outside the family, he may 

 be able to adjust himself fairly well to a 

 considerable number of people who may 

 differ from one another in various respects. 

 The child of this age who has pets knows 

 how to deal with them appropriately to 

 their main distinguishing traits; and he 

 will modify his attitude toward them ac- 

 cording as their expressions change. 

 When it comes to inanimate objects, the 

 young child understands the essential na- 

 ture of a large number of them, so that he 

 can adapt himself to them. 



From the standpoint of precocity, all 

 this vital knowledge of living and inani- 

 mate things, which the typical two-year- 

 old possesses, is far more wonderful than a 

 knowledge of the forms of words, or opera- 

 tions with numbers, or even applying geo- 

 metrical formulae to particular problems. 

 It seems reasonable to say that every nor- 

 mal five-year-old child has performed 

 much more difficult feats in discovering 

 the qualities of human beings say, and ad- 

 justing himself to them, than would be 

 essential in learning to speak sentences in 

 Spanish, French, German and Greek. 

 This statement will doubtless be ques- 

 tioned by one who has not reflected upon 

 the matter; but the reason it may seem ex- 

 treme is becavise it is more in line with 



