288 



SCIENCE. 



[Vol. VII. , No. 164 



hundreds more lawyers and doctors than can ob- 

 tain a decent living. 



The remedy for all this must lie largely in tech- 

 nical education. Teach a trade and the practical 

 application of principles, and inculcate the lesson 

 that no calling is dignified in itself, but it becomes 

 what those who follow it choose to make it. We 

 believe that Professor Thompson's essay is a posi- 

 tive contribution to our knowledge of this subject, 

 and therefore should be carefully studied by all 

 who are interested in education. 



Nicholas Murray Butler. 



THE CHARACTERS OF CHILDREN AS EVI- 

 DENCED BY THEIR POWERS OF OBSER- 

 VATION. 



The study of the powers of observation in 

 children has been seldom attempted in a sys- 

 tematic way ; and yet, with the tendencies and 

 aims of modern education, there can scarcely be 

 any subject from which might be expected more 

 fruitful results. Professor Farlow, in his recent 

 address before the Society of naturalists, has as- 

 serted that the schools, in the last six or seven 

 years, have made no perceptible progress in de- 

 veloping these powers, and that, so far as ele- 

 mentary training is concerned, we are about 

 where we were ten years ago. Fm-thermore, in 

 his own experience, he finds that the tendency of 

 education, in the lower schools at least, is to im- 

 pair, rather than to sharpen, the natural powers 

 in this respect. Considering how important an 

 element of successful work, in most careers, this 

 faculty is, one cannot fail to appreciate the value 

 of experiments that may throw light upon 

 remediable mental defects, or upon mental excel- 

 lences, in childhood. 



At the suggestion of Mr. Francis Galton, Mrs. 

 Sophia Bryant, D.Sc, has recently 1 attempted 

 a series of such experiments, the results of which, 

 though subject to fallacies, will point out a fruit- 

 ful line of investigation. 



Her method was the analysis of the character- 

 istics evinced in the description of given objects 

 by a number of school-children, all of whom 

 wm of the same age (thirteen years), and un- 

 known to her. For this purpose they were al- 

 lowed to remain for about ten minutes in a room 

 which they did not know, and were then required 

 to w rite a description of it. The one first de- 

 scribed was a schoolroom, having certain features 

 in common with other schoolrooms familiar to the 

 children, hut having certain others peculiar to it- 

 -i It. and a sufficient amount of ornament, in pic- 



1 Jovm. anthropol. inst. of Great Britain and Ireland, 

 xv. 888, February, 18C6. 



tures and otherwise, to redeem it from being quite 

 prosaic. The results of her analyses were after- 

 wards compared with the characteristics as given 

 by the children's teachers ; from which compari- 

 sons, in many cases, striking agreements were 

 found. Of course, in such experiments, as the 

 author rightly says, only repeated and varied 

 trials can eliminate the chances of error; and 

 much less weight should be attached to negative 

 than to positive results. The points thus brought 

 out were as follows : — 



1°. In the perception of an object a logical dis- 

 tinction is made between the sense-impression and 

 the apprehension of it by the mind, as between 

 the passive and active factors of perception. Ap- 

 prehension is essentially the bringing of the new 

 into relation with the old, and thus interpreting 

 the new by means of the old. 



In the ratio of these two factors of perception 

 to each other, there were found signs of great 

 variety. Impressions were sometimes numerous 

 and faithful where the power of giving them a 

 meaning, and thus perceiving them fully, was 

 clearly very slight, or at least inoperative. In 

 such cases the perception was what would be 

 ordinarily called unintelligent. In other cases the 

 impressions either made, or at any rate dwelt 

 upon, were fewer, but the apprehension of them 

 was very complete. This completeness of appre- 

 hension or understanding occasionally passed be- 

 yond the limits of full and accurate perception 

 into pure inference. Sometimes the inference 

 was correct, and that not by chance, since it had 

 the marks of having been cautiously conducted. 

 Such little phrases as ' I suppose,' or ' it is likely,' 

 are tell-tales here, as marking off the cautious 

 from the reckless thinker. This latter person was 

 betrayed also by a very unmistakable hastiness of 

 inference, which in the bad cases degenerated into 

 actual false perception. For instance : the name 

 ' C. W.' in the corner of a picture was reported as 

 'M. W.,' this being the name of a girl in school 

 whom the young observer knew very well. 



It was found, as indeed might naturally be ex- 1 

 pected, that the false perceivers were nearly al- 

 ways ready apprehenders, who, apparently digress- 

 ing into actual inference, inferred carelessly, and] 

 projected their false inferences into false percep-j 

 tions. The carelessness of such inference is of aJ 

 very simple character : the impressions to the testl 

 of which the inference should be brought arel 

 there, and it is not brought to the test. This, 

 argues absence of the impulse to criticise, which; 

 is the basis of accurate habits of thought. Feeble- 

 ness of the impressions is, it must be admitted, a 

 negative cause Cor the false perceptions, since the 

 test is thus kept in the background : but it is only 



