4 !!% C.tlDDADV/). .viV.IIRPAUY./)^ tVAfllNtVI^I^V/». . K-KMNCKIf r . s CJ ? ySOl^ ^/5a3AINn3WV^ ^.yOJIWDJO^ ^ÄOJITVD-dO'»^ ^ERS/^ ^lOSANCflfj^ > v/ _ f i, > CT 55 %a3AiNrt-3WV "^öAHvaan-^ ^öAavaan# -5^lllBRARY6}r^ .^WtUNIVtW/A >A;lOSANCElfX;> "^/Sa^AINIlJWV ^OFCAllFOff^ il^i m ^5MFUNIVER% ^lOSANCFier^ o •j^33Nvsoi^ "^/saaAiNrt-awv IVER% ^lUBRARYÖ/, AStilBRARYö/. § 1 \r^ ^ vsov^ "^/jajAiNnawv^ ^äojiivdjo^ ^.JOdnvDjo^ IVER5//. v.'n' ^lOSANCFier^ %89AINn-3WV' ^OFCAllFOftij^ ^^oKwrn^ ^OFCAIIFO^. A>\X-\\VMCMVI If 'vnr-iiNivrKV>^ .vltA-ANI.riM:.. EDITED BY WILLIAM T. HARRIS, A. M., LL. D. VOLUuVE VII. THE INTERNATIONAL EDUCATION SERIES. 12mo, cloth, uniform binding. THE INTERNATIONAL EDUCATION SERIES was projected for the pur- pose of bringing together in orderly arrangement the best writings, new and old, upon educational subjects, and presenting a complete course of reading and training for teachers generally. It is edited by W. T. Harris, LL. 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APPLETON AND COMPANY 1893 44649 CoPTniGHT, 1888, bt d. appleton and company. \ \ \ ^ EDITOR^S PREFACE. A CAEEFUL study of this work will do ranch to put one in possession of the method of studying mental growth in children. Parents and teachers will iind this method of observation invaluable, inasmuch as it will make experience constantly profitable. Experience, it is true, marshals its train of facts be- fore us in an endless succession every day of our lives. But, without scientific method, one fact does much to obliterate all others by its presence. Out of sight, they are out of mind. Method converts unprofitable experi- ence, wherein nothing abides except vague and uncertain surmise, into science. In science the present fact is deprived of its ostentatious and all-absorbing interest, by the act of relating it to all other facts. We classify the particular with its fellow-particulars and it takes its due rank. Such classification, moreover, eliminates from it the unessential elements. The method of science, as Herbart pointed out involves the ascertainment and fixing of quantitative relations. " Every theory," says he, " to admit of com- parison with experience, must be developed until the same embodies the modifications of quantity found in that experience." * * See "Journal of Speculative Philosophy," vol. xi, p. 251, J, F, Herbart on the application of mathematics to psychology. vi EDITOR'S PREFACE. The characteristics of accuracy and precision which make science exact are derived from quantity. Fix the order of succession, the date, the duration, the locaHty, the environment, the extent of the sphere of influence, the number of manifestations, and the number of cases of intermittence, and you have exact knowledge of a phenomenon. When stated in quantitative terms, your experience is useful to other observers. It is easy to verify it or to add an increment. By quantification, science grows and grows continually, without retrograde movements. One does not forget, of course, that there is some- thing besides the quantitative and altogether above the quantitative. The object itself is more important than its quantitative relations. The soul as a self-active essence is the object in psychology. Science determines the quantitative relations of its phenomenal manifesta- tion. In other words, science determines exactly the time when, the place where, the duration and frequency, the extent and degree of the manifestation of this self- activity in the body and through the body. The nature of feelings, volitions, and ideas in them- selves, is the object of introspective psychology and metaphysics. But all will concede that parents and teachers are directly interested in the order of develop- ment of the soul from its lower functions into its higher ones, and are consequently concerned with these quan- titative manifestations. The author's comj)arisons between the steps of prog- ress in the child and the same in other animals consti- tute one of the most valuable features in this book. It is worth re23eating that the supreme interest to us EDITOR'S PREFACE. y^ in these observations is the development from lower degrees of intelligence to higher ones. The immense interval that separates plant life from animal life is almost paralleled by the interval between the animal and the human being. From mere nutrition to sensa- tion is a great step ; from mere sensation to the con- scious employment of ethical ideas and the perception of logical necessity and universality, is an equal step. Yet it is to be assumed that the transitions exist in all de- grees, and that the step from any degree to the next one is not difficult when the natural means is discovered. It is this means that comparative psychology is discovering. The infant is contemplated in the process of gaining command over himself. His sense-organs gradually become available for perception ; his muscles become controllable by his will. Each new acquisition becomes in turn an instrument of further progress. Exact science determines when and where the ani- mal phase leaves off and the purely human begins — where the organic phase ends and the individual begins. The discrimination of impulsive, reflexive, and instinct- ive movements, all of them organic, throws light on the genesis of mind out of its lower antecedent. Imita- tion is the first manifestation of the transition from the organic to the strictly spiritual. In this connection it is, before all, an important ques- tion, "What is the significance of the relapse into uncon- scious instinct through the formation of habit ? We do an act by great special efiort of the will and intellect ; we repeat it until it is done with ease. It gradually lapses into unconscious use and wont, and has become instinctive and organic. We need not suggest the bear- Viii EDITOR'S PREFACE. ing of this question on education, wliicli deals so mucli with the formation of habits, and yet seems to aim always at bringing to consciousness in the pupil all of his unconscious presuppositions. Education deals in explanations. It exhumes for the individual his social history, his cosmical evolution, and sets before him in a systematic form the logical structure of his thinking, of his language, of his ethical and sesthetical motives. It turns his attention through mathematics upon the neces- sary forms which all phenomena assume. Everywhere education proceeds from the particular being before the senses to the general form of its existence, and drags into consciousness what has been hitherto merely organic — involved and implied but unperceived. Education, in fact, lifts us to the contemplation of the universal in each individual. Then by the aid of general ideas we are able to recall the particular facts, or drop them out of sight, at our pleasure. Learning by science to comprehend principles — which may be defined as energies moving according to their own laws — we be- come independent of memory to a great degree, and may let the instances which formed our ladder of discovery drop away. We thus arrive at what the School-men called the angelic form of knowing. The work of Professor Preyer before us contains three parts, respectively devoted to {a) the develop- ment of the senses, (h) the will, and (c) the intellect. Parts first and second are contained in this volume ; and part third, with three appendices, forms a second vol- ume, to follow immediately. William T. HLarkis. Concord, Mass., February, 1888. AUTHOR'S PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION I PROPOSED to myself a number of years ago, the task of studying the child, both before birth and in the period immediately following, from the physiologi- cal point of view, with the object of arriving at an ex- planation of the origin of the separate vital processes. It was soon apparent to me that a division of the work would be advantageous to its prosecution. For life in the embryo is so essentially different a thing from life beyond it, that a separation must make it easier both for the investigator to do his work and for the reader to follow the exposition of its results. 1 have, therefore, discussed by itself, life before birth, the " Physiology of the Embryo." The vital phenomena of the human being in the earliest period of his independent exist- ence in the world are, again, so complicated and so vari- ous in kind, that here too a division soon appeared ex- pedient. I separated the physical development of the newly-born and the very young child from his mental development, and have endeavored to describe the latter in the present book ; at least, I hope that, by means of personal observations carried on for several years, I have furnished facts that may serve as material for a future description. X AUTHOR'S PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION. A forerunner of the work is a lecture, " Psycho- genesis " (the Genesis of Mind), given before a scientific association at Berhn on the 3d of January, 1880, and soon after made public * in my book, " Naturwissen- Bchafth'che Thatsachen und Probleme " (" Facts and Problems of ]^atural Science ") Berlin, 1 880. This sketch has given manifold incitement to fresh observations. But great as is the number of occasional observations in regard to many children, I do not thus far know of diaries regularly kept concerning the mental development of individual children. IsTow pre- cisely this chronological investigation of mental prog- ress in the first and second years of life presents great difllculties, because it requires the daily registering of experiences that can be had only in the nursery. I have, notwithstanding, kept a complete diary from the birth of my son to the end of his third year. Occupy- ing myself with the child at least three times a day — at morning, noon, and evening — and almost every day, with two trifling interruptions, and guarding him, as far as possible, against such training as children usually re- ceive, I found nearly every day some fact of mental genesis to record. The substance of that diary has passed into this book. 'No doubt the development of one child is rapid and that of another is slow ; very great individual differ- ences appear in children of the same parents even, but the differences are much more of time and degree than of the order in which the steps are taken, and these * See Jour. Spec. Philos. for April, 1881, for an English transla- tion of this lecture of Professor Preyei'. — Ed. AUTHOR'S PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION. xi steps are the same in all individuals ; tliat is the im- portant matter. Desirable as it is to collect statistics concerning the mental development of many infants — the activity of their senses, their movements, especially their acquirement of speech — yet the accurate, daily repeated observation of one child — a child sound in health, having no brothers or sisters, and whose devel- opment was neither remarkably rapid nor remarkably slow — seemed at least quite as much to be desired. I have, however, taken notice, as far as possible, of the experiences of others in regard to other normal children in the first years of life, and have even compared many of these where opportunity offered. But a description of the gradual appearance of brain- activity in the child, along with the most careful obser- vation of his mental ripening, would be only a begin- ning. The development of mind, like the development of body, must be regarded as dating back far beyond the origin of the individual being. If the infant brings into the world a set of organs which begin to be active only after a long time, and are absolutely useless up to that time — as, e. g., the lungs were before birth — then the question, To what causes do such organs and functions owe their existence? can have but one answer — heredity. This, to be sure, explains nothing ; but dim as the notion is, much is gained toward our understanding of the matter, in the fact that some functions are inherited while others are not. What is acquired by experience is only a part. The question whether a function of the brain, on which everything depends in the development of the child's xn AUTHOR'S PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION. mind, is inherited or acquired, must be answered in each individual case, if we would not go astray in the laby- rinth of appearances and hypotheses. Above all, we must be clear on this point, that the fundamental activities of mind, which are manifested only after birth, do not originate after birth. If they had previously no existence at aU, we could not discover whence they come or at what time. The substance of a hen's egg that has been fecundated, but is frozen as hard as a stone, certainly has no sensation ; but after thawing and three weeks' warming, that same substance, changed into a living chicken, has sensation. The capacity of feeling, in case of the fulfillment of certain outward conditions, if it be not a property of the egg, must have originated during incubation from mat- ter incapable of sentiency ; that is, the material atoms must not only have arranged themselves in a different order, receiving through their union and separation dif- ferent chemical properties, as actually happens; must not only have changed their physical properties — e. g., elasticity, solidity, etc., which are partly dependent on the chemical, partly independent of them — as likewise happens; but these atoms must have gained entirely new properties which were neither chemically nor physically indicated beforehand, were not to be assumed or predicated. For neither chemistry nor physics can attribute to the substances that constitute the egg other than chemical and physical properties. But if the warming, ventilation, evaporation, and liberation of carbonic acid have had their normal course during incubation, then these new mental properties present themselves, and that without the possibility of their AUTHOR'S PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION. xv ual experience alone ; rather must each one, by means of his experience, lili out and animate anew his inherited endowments, the remains of the experiences and activi- ties of his ancestors. It is liard to discern and to decipher tlie mysterious writing on the mind of the child. It is just that which constitutes a chief problem of this book. Peeyek. Jena, October 6, 1881. AUTHOR'S PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. The first edition of tins book appeared in October, 1881. Just two years afterward, a second became ne- cessary. This dillers from the former chiefly in abbre- viation of the statements coming from other persons, and not indispensable ; in improvements in form; in a more careful and exact formulation of general conclu- sions ; and in a considerable enlargement of the material of facts in support of these conclusions. In respect to the last point, the communications that have come to me by letter, from the most various sources, have been of great value. To all those who have gratified me by sending their observations concerning the mental development of the child during his earliest years, I here express my thanks for the interest they have taken in my presentation, and for the help they have afliorded me in the laborious work. The mental life of the human being is, in fact, so hard to investigate in its development, that very many persons must co-operate in the work ; the individual can oversee but little of it. The evolution of the mind resembles a stream into which no one descends twice. Like that, it issues from obscure depths as a clear AUTHOR'S PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION, xvü spring ; the water trickles but scantily at first into the light of day, and gathers slowly and in stillness to a murmuring brook. Soon, however, its waves beat with increasing movement against the banks. The bottom is no longer clearly visible. Farther on, foaming gorges pour themselves into the still clear, but agitated waters, which only the solid rocks can restrain. In like man- ner self-will breaks against the resisting order of the world. When, at length, tbe torrent has victoriously opened its path in the mountains, and has adapted itself to its environment, then it hastens on, sometimes spark- ling and smooth, sometimes roaring powerfully, as if, like the turbulent boy, it would reach distant goals, and yet would cling to the heart of the mother, to moderate the spring-tide of the gushing life. At last, mirror-like in its calmness, powerfully dis- pensing blessings and diffusing life, it becomes master of itself, and loses itself in the ocean out of which it once arose. Throughout the whole course, from the spring to the river's mouth, the spectator sees the flow, sees the before and the after ; he knows, too, that it is the same ele- ments that are hastening forward, though often united with new ones, and becoming changed ; that many of these, indeed, pass oif into vapor, but the river is ever the same. So is it also with the mind. From birth to death, the play of its waves does not cease ; new im- pressions are mingled with old ones, many are forgotten and changed, yet the individuality remains to the last, and before the self {Ich) has come to the knowledge, whither the restless hastening forward is really leading, the hastening is at an end. xviii AUTHOR'S PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. Thus, the highest questions of themselves press upon the observer of the child, upon the physiologist and the philosopher, the teacher and the educator, the physician and the psychologist, the philanthropist and the pastor, in the joyous form of the smiling, rosy face of the child, but at the same time these questions are as im- penetrable as is in general the great mystery of be- comino; and of ceasinfij to be. The Authok. Jena, April 38, 1884. COE"TENTS. PAGE Preface by the Editor v Preface to First Edition ix Preface to Second Edition xvi Introduction by Professor G. Stanley Hall . . . xxi FIRST PART. DEVELOPMENT OF THE SENSES. CHAPTER I.— Sight 2 Sensibility to Light, 2. Discrimination of Colors, 6. Movements of the Eyelids, 23. Movements of the Eyes, 34. Direction of the Look, 41. Seeing Near and Dis- tant Objects, 50. Interpretation of what is Seen, 60. Sight in New-Born Animals, 66. II. — Hearing 73 Deafness of the Newly-Born, 72. First Sensations and Perceptions of Sound, 76. Hearing in New-Born Animals, 91. III. — Feeling (or Touch) 96 Sensibility of the Newly-Born to Contact, 96. First Perceptions of Touch, 108. Sensibility to Tempera- ture, 111. IV.— Taste 116 Sensibility to Taste in the Newly-Born, 116. Com- parison of the Impressions of Taste, 123. Taste in New-Born Animals, 137. v.— Smell 130 Capacity of Smell in the Newly-Born, 130. Discrimi- nation of Impressions of Smell, 133. Smell in New- Born Animals, 136. XX CONTENTS. CHAPTEB PAGB VI, — Earliest Okganic Sensations and Emotions . . 140 Feelings of Pleasure in General, 141. Unpleasant Feelings in General, 146. Feeling of Hunger, 152. Feel- ing of Satiety, 157. Feeling of Fatigue, 158. Fear, 164. Astonishment, 172. VII. — Summary of General Results 176 SECOND PART. DEVELOPMENT OF WILL. YIIL — Movements of the Child as Expressions of Will . 188 Recognition of the Child's Will, 188. Classification of the Child's Movements, 195. IX. — Impulsive Movements 201 X. — Reflex Movements 211 XL — Instinctive Movements 235 Instinctive Movements of New-Born Animals, 235. Development of the Power of Seizing, 241. Sucking, Biting, Chewing, Tooth-Grinding, Licking, 257. Hold- ing the Head, 263. Learning to Sit, 267. Learning to Stand, 269. Learning to Walk, 271. XII. — Imitative Movements 282 XIII. — Expressive Movements 293 The first Smiling and Laughing, 294. Pouting of the Lips, 301. Kissing, 304, Crying and Wrinkling of the Forehead, 307, Shaking the Head and Nodding, 311. Shrugging the Shoulders, 317. Begging with the Hands, and Pointing, 318. XIV. — Deliberate Movements 325 XV. — Summary of General Results 334 miRODUCTIOX TO THE AMERICAN EDITION. If one would train and break horses, however un- manageable, like Willis J. Powel, who perhaps ex- celled all others in this art before or since, he must, like him, study long and patiently the nature of the horse. If one would raise sheep with greatest success, he must, like the English herdsman who said that he and his family were Cotswold people and knew nothing what- ever of Southdowns, serve a long apprenticeship in learning the habits, instincts, and all the conditions that affect sheep development favorably or unfavorably. The principle has long been a commonplace with breed- ers and trainers of domestic animals, although many naturalists now believe that for him who wiU long and patiently study and think and feel his way down and back into the soul of a particular animal, there are pos- sibilities both of scientific discovery and of control and modification of brute instinct undreamed of before. The trained agent of charity organizations, who la- bors among the poor, must prepare himself for eflS- ciency by careful study of the way in which individual poor people, and even beggars, think, feel, live, and act. The modem prison-keeper studies criminals till he be- comes an expert in the psychology of crime. The mis- xxii INTRODUCTION TO THE AMERICAN EDITION. sionarj first studies the existing beliefs and superstitions of the savage races among whom he is to labor, or, if not, his work is but httle more effective than if he did not take the trouble to learn their language. Teachers as a rule do not study the nature of the children they instruct in any such way, and that for the following reasons : First, their business, as too often viewed, is not to educate or unfold, a process to which all have a right, but to instruct, or infuse set courses and sums of information to which the nature of the child may or may not have a right. Secondly, many think they have all the knowledge of childhood they require, from memory of their own childish years. This is wrong. Mental and moral growth necessarily involves increasing oblivion of everything of childhood save mere incidents, and even these are, other things being equal, remembered inversely as the degree of develop- ment to fullness of maturity. What remains from this source often misleads and has no regulative value for the teacher. Thirdly, many think a course in a text- book in psychology supplies this need. This is prob- ably the gravest mistake of all. All such books I know are far too abstract and schematic, too much devoted to definition or in some cases even controversy, too com- monplace and traditional in their subject-matter, so as to be sometimes an impediment to the fine tact and instinct that, in minds of finest fiber, divine, perhaps half unconsciously, the needs and individual nature of children. The living, playing, learning child, whose soul he- redity has freighted so richly from a past we know not how remote, on whose right development all good INTRODUCTION TO TUE AMERICAN EDITION, xxiii causes in the world depend, embodies a truly element- ary psychology. All the fundamental activities are found, and the play of each psychic process is so open, simple, interesting, that it is strange that psychology should be the last of the sciences to fall into line in the great Baconian change of base to which we owe nearly all the reforms, from Comenius down, which distin- guish schools of today from those of the sixteenth century. It is a striking fact that nearly every great teacher in the history of education who has spoken words that have been heeded has lived for years in the closest personal relations to children and has had the sympathy and tact that gropes out, if it can not see clearly, the laws of juvenile development and the lines of childish interests. Among all the nearly fourscore studies of young children printed by careful empirical and often thorough- ly scientific observers, this work of Preyer is the fullest and on the whole the best. It should be read by teach- ers and parents even of older children, as the best ex- ample of the inductive method applied to the study of child-psychology. The development of each sense, and the unfold ment of the power of voluntary motion, are traced with great fullness ; and stiU more attention is devoted to the growth of the ability to speak, with a suggestive co-ordination of the progressive stages of decay of the linguistic centers in aphasia and allied forms of disease. A work on the whole so good awakens a desire for still further advance along the same lines. Not only does Preyer not continue his studies into school age, but he has not attempted, like Perez, to trace the un- Xxiv INTRODUCTION TO THE AMERICAN EDITION. foldment of sentiments and emotions, nor, like Herbart and Ziller, to tabulate the spontaneous interests of chil- dren. The most hopeful ett'ort yet made in this direc- tion was begun three years ago in the institution with which the translator of this work is connected, and may be described as follows, as characterized substantially in the words of the principal, E. H. Russell : Systematic observation of children is made a part of the regular work of this normal school, with a view of enlarging the scope of the ordinary study of psychology, to render it more objective and useful, to bring the prospective teachers into closer and better relations to children, and to gather a store of facts whereby in time to increase and rectify our present unsatisfactory knowledge of child-nature. The method is : First, to ex|Dlain to the students, at the beginning of the second half-year in school, how to improve their opportunities on the street, at home, in families of friends, of noticing minutely the spontaneous, unconstrained activities, bodily and mental and physical, of children of all ages, at play, study, or work, etc. Then, at the earliest convenient moment, concise record is made on blanks with printed headings, and colored — e. g., white for personal observation, red for second-hand facts, etc. Tlie records, now some five or six thousand in number, are classified, so far as can be, under memory, imagination, deceit, ignorance, mechani- cal construction, moral sense, etc., etc. Precisely what the value of this material will be it is now too soon to say, but as to its good effects on the powers of observa- tion, tact, psychologic knowledge and interest of those who make them, there can be no question wliatever. The students soon become more inte.'ested in children INTRODUCTION TO THE AMERICAN EDITION. xxv and their ways, and more skillful in dealing with them ; and some acquire mucli ingenuity in following out the more complicated and obscure processes of child-life. They also acquire right habits of observation and in- vestigation generally, learning in some degree the cau- tion, discrimination, and veracity required in studying nature. It is so interesting that students must be rather restrained than impelled to the work ; and graduates are believed to be distinctly guided toward best success and pleasure in their vocation by these studies, and display intelligence and sympathy in dealing with troublesome ■^children. Many of the essays of the graduating class are based on this work. While commending this book to American teachers generally, the writer desires to commend the Worcester method of psychogenetic study to the careful attention of principals of normal schools. G. Stanley Hall. Johns Hopkins University, January 7, 18S8. EXPLANATION OF ABBREVIATED CITATIONS. Kussmaul : " Untersuchungen über das Seelenleben des neuge- borenen Menschen " (" Investigations concerning the Mental Life of the New-Born Human Being "), 1859 (38 pp.) ; and " Störungen der Sprache " (" Disturbances or Obstructions of Speech "), 1877. Genzmer : " Untersuchungen über die Sinneswahrnehmungen des neugeborenen Menschen " (" Investigations concerning the Sense-Perceptions of the New-Born Human Being"), 1873 (re- printed 1882, 25 pp.). Sigisraund : " Kind und Welt " (" The Child and the World "), 1856. Grustav Lindner : in Twelfth Annual Report of the " Lehrer- seminars in Zschopau," 1882, and in the periodical "Kosmos," 1883. Frau Dr. Friedemann ; Frau Professor von Strümpell ; and Herr Ed. Schulte— to these the author is under particular obligation for MSS. All other references, sources of information, and names of au- thors are given without abbreviation. THE MIND OF THE CHILD. FIRST PART. DEVELOPMENT OF TEE SENSES. The foundation of all mental development is tlie activity of tlie senses. We can not conceive of any- thing of the nature of mental genesis as taking place without that activity. Every sense-activity is fourfold in its character: First, there is an excitement of the nerves ; then comes sensation / and not until the sensation has been local- ized in space and referred to some point in time, do we have a jperception. When, further, the cause of this is apprehended, then the perception becomes an idea. The adult human being is a person who is responsi- ble, who acts according to his own pleasure, and is capa- ble of independent thought. For our understanding of his psychical states and processes, it is of great impor- tance to know what is the condition of things as to the above stages of sense-activity, in the newly-born, and in the infant, who is not responsible, who does not act ac- cording to his pleasure, and does not think at all. I have therefore instituted many observations con- cerning the gradual perfecting of the senses at the 2 THE MIND OF THE CDILD. beginning of life, and I commence with a description of them. In these observations I have had especially in mind the prominent part played in the mental devel- opment of the child, at the earliest period, by the sense of sight. CHAPTEE I. SIGHT. The observations with regard to the development of the sense of sight during the first years relate to sensibility to Ught, discrimination of colors, movements of the eyelids, movements of the eyes, direction of the look, seeing of near and distant objects, and interpreta- tion of what is seen. To these are attached some state- ments concerning sight in new-born animals. 1. Sensibility to Light. My child's sensibiKty to light, when he was held toward the window in the dusk, five minutes after birth, did not seem unusually great. For he opened and shut his eyes, with alternate movement, so that the space between the lids was al)Out five millimetres wide. Soon after, I saw in the twilight both eyes wide open. At the same time the forehead was wrinkled. Long before the close of the first day, the child's ex- pression, as he was held with his face toward the win- dow, became suddenly different when I shaded his eyes with my hand. The dim light, therefore, undoubtedly made an impression, and, to judge from his physiog- SIGHT. 3 nomy, an agreeable one ; for the shaded face had a less contented look. On the second day the eyes close quickly when a candle is brought near them ; on the ninth, the head is also turned away vigorously from the flame, w^hen the candle is brought near, immediately after the awaking of the child. The eyes are shut tight. But, on the following day, the child being in the bath, when a candle was held before him at a distance of one metre, the eyes remained wide open. The sensitiveness to light is, therefore, so much greater at the moment of waking than it is a short time afterward, that the same object causes at the one time great annoyance and at the other time pleasure. Again, on the eleventh day, the child seemed to be much pleased by a candle burning before him at a dis- tance of one half a metre, for he gazed at it steadily with wide-open eyes, as he did also, later, at a shining curtain-holder, when the bright object was brought into his line of vision, so that it was in tlie direction in which he seemed to be gazing. If I turned the child away, he became fretful and began to cry ; if I turned him to the light again, then his countenance resumed the expression of satisfaction. To verify this, I held the child that same day at the same distance before a burning candle, once immediately after his waking, and again after he had been awake some time in the dark. In both cases he shut his eyes. That he liked moderately bright daylight was appar- ent from the frequent turning of his head toward the window when I turned him away from it. This tv^dst- ing of the head became the rule on the sixth day ; on 4 THE MIND OF THE CHILD. the seventh it was often repeated, and every time that the face was turned toward the window the expression of satisfaction was unmistakable. I have repeatedly made the observation that, when the light falls upon the face of sleeping infants they suddenly close the eyes more tightly, without waking, and this from the tenth day on. In the case of my child, I found the pupils in ordi- nary daylight for the most part more contracted than is the case in adults — certainly less than two millimetres in diameter; and the lessening of the sj)ace between the lids, at sight of a bright surface of snow or of a shining summer cloud, was likewise more frequent and more persistent than with adults, during the whole period of observation. Brightly-shining objects, appearing in the field of vision, often produce, from the second month on, excla- mations of delight. But other highly-colored objects also easily rouse the attention of the infant. In the tenth month he is pleased when the lamp is lighted in the evening ; he laughs at the light, and reaches after the bright globe. Of the observations of others concerning the sensi- bility of new-born human beings to light, the following are to be mentioned : 1. Fully-matured children just born shut the eyes quickly and convulsively when exposed to bright light. Individuals, also, among children born two months too soon, distinguish between light and darkness on the second day. 2. In the very first hours the pupil of the eye con- tracts in a bright light, and expands in light less bright. SIGHT. 5 3. If oue eye of the new-bom child is shut while the other is open, then the pupil of the latter expands. 4. Infants from two to four days old, sleeping in the dark, shut the lids tightly, and even awake with a start when the bright light of a candle comes very near their eyes. To these statements of Prof. Kussmaul, the first of which, in particular, I can confirm. Dr. Genzmer adds that the eyes of the newly-born, when suddenly exposed to bright light, make a movement of convergence ; and that sensitive infants are brought into a state of general discomfort and made to cry, by a sudden glare of light, or by a quickly-changing, dazzling light ; this I can confirm. The alternate shutting and opening of the eyes, that is often to be seen in infants exposed to bright light, was seen by Genzmer even in a sleeping child two days old — a remarkable observation, which waits confirmation. On the other hand, I never saw a new- bom child bear dazzlingly bright light quietly with open eyes. Assertions of an experience contrary to this may, perhaps, rest on the observation of children born blind. From all the foregoing statements we conclude that, with fully-matured new-born human beings, sensi- bility to light is normally present either directly after birth, or a few minutes, or at most a few hours, after birth ; that light and darkness are discriminated in sen- sation ; further, that the reflex arc from the optic nerve to the oculomotor lus already performs its function — especially is this true of the filaments that contract the pupils. Here, then, we have an inborn reflex, and that of a double sort, since both pupils contract when the light reaches one of them. Further, at the beginning, 6 THE MIND OF THE CHILD. sensibility to liglit on awaking, or after being awhile in the dark, amounts to an aversion to light ; yet a dim light is already soiiglit, and therefore is not unpleasant, Finally, we infer that after some days ordinary daylight, or a brilliant and brightly-shining object, excites cheer- fulness, the aversion to light disappears, and the head is turned oftener to the window. 2. Discrimination of Colors. At what age the child is capable of distinguishing colors, at least red, yellow, green, and blue, it is hard to determine. In the first days, it is certain that only the difference of light and dark is perceived, and this im- perfectly ; moreover (according to Flechsig), the tractus ojjticus, which in the matured child is still gray at first, does not get its nerve medulla, and with that its perma- nent coloring, till three or four days after birth. And even then the differentiation of simultaneous bright and dark impressions proceeds slowly. The first object that made an impression on account of its color, upon my boy, w^s probably a rose-colored curtain which hung, brightly lighted by the sun but not dazzlingly bright, about a foot before the child's face. This was on the twenty-third day. The child laughed and uttered sounds of satisfaction. As the smooth, motionless, bright-colored surface alone occupied the whole field of vision, it must have been on account either of its brightness or of its color that it was the source of pleasure. In the evening of the same day, the flame of the candle, at the distance of one metre, caused quite similar expressions of pleas- ure when it was placed before the eyes, which had been gazing into empty space ; and so did, on the forty- SIGHT. ij ßecond day, the sight of colored tassels in motion, but in this ease the movement also was a source of pleasure. In the eighty-fifth week, when I undertook the first systematic tests, with counters alike in form but unlike in color, no trace of discrimination in color was as yet to be discerned, although without doubt it already ex- isted. Diflierent as were the impressions of sound made by the words " red," " yellow," " green," " blue " (these were certainly distinguished from one another), and well as the child knew the meaning of " give," he was not able to give the counters of the right color, even when only " red " and " green " were called for. We are not to infer from this, however, an inability of the eye to distinguish one color from another, for here it is essential to consider the difiiculty of associating the sound of the word " red " or " green " with the proper color-sensation, even when the sensation is present. At this time, before the age of twenty-one months, there must have been recognition not only of the vary- ing intensity of light (white, gray, black), but also of the quality of some colors, for the delight in striking colors was manifest. Yet in the case of little children, even after they have begun to speak, it can not be determined without searching tests what colors they distinguish and rightly name. In order, then, to ascertain how the separate colors are related to one another in this respect, I have made several hundred color-tests with my child, beginning at the end of his second year. These I used to apply every day in the early morning, for a week ; then, after an interval of a week, again almost every day, but in a different manner — as will be shown directly. 8 THE MIND OF THE CHILD. In all these tests I made use of the colored ovals which Dr. II. Magnus, of Breslau, gives in his " Tafel zur Erziehung des Farbensinnes " (1879), (" Chart for the Training of the Color-Sense "). After the names "red" and "green" had been re- peatedly pronounced while the corresponding colors were presented, then these two colors were simply pre- sented and the questions, " Where is red ? " and " Where is green ? " were put, always in alternation. The trials were absolutely without result in the eighty-sixth and eighty-seventh weeks. After an interval of twenty-two weeks, on the seven hundred fifty-eighth day, I received eleven times a right answer, six times a wrong answer. On the following day the answers were right seven times, wrong five times ; on the day after that, nine times right, five times wrong. From this it seemed probable, already, that the two colors were distin- guished, either on accouiit of their quality or on ac- count of their brightness, and that the right names were often associated with them. To my surprise, however, on the seven hundred sixty-third day the answers were right fifteen times and wrong only once, and on the fol- lowing day ten times right and not once wrong. The child had therefore firmly grasped the connection of the sound-impressions " red " and " green " with two differ- ent light-impressions. For such proportions as those of the above numbers exclude the possibility of chance. I carried the test further. To red and green I added yellow, and wlien the three colors were lying near one another, each one was rightly pointed out in answer to the question where it was. Then came a disinclination on the part of the child to continue, such as often makes SIGHT. 9 color-tests impossible in children so young. When the trial was repeated, he was inattentive, and he confound- ed the three colors with one another. On the following day, the seven hundred sixty-üfth, green especially was confounded with yellow. The answers on five days of the one hundred tenth week were : Right. Wrong. Red 26 10 Green 24 7 Yellow 23 5 Total 73 23 Blue was now added as a fourth color. The answers in eight trials, during the time from the end of the one hundred tenth to the beginning of the one hundred twelfth week, were : Eight. Wrong. Red 32 14 Green 31 8 Yellow 34 2 Blue 27 12 Total 124 36 Often, especially on being asked " Where is blue ? " the child would considei- long, observe the four colors attentively before deciding, and then give me the color quickly. It appears evident that yellow is recognized more surely than are the other colors. Yellow seems to be the easiest to distinguish, and hence the easiest also to retain in memory. I made other tests of the same sort, which showed the superiority of yellow. Then violet was added as the fifth color, called " lila," as easier to speak, and a different way of conducting the experi- ment was adopted. IQ THE MIND OF THE CHILD. I laid eacli color separately before the eliild and asked, "What is that?" He answered, 7Toot [Eng. pronunciation tcrote'] (for roth, red), delp, depp^ gelp (for gelh, yellow), rihn, ihn [Eng. pr. reen^ een] (for (/run, green), balau (for Uau, blue), and Ulla (for Ula) violet). In the one hundred twelfth week the answers in four trials were : Eight. Wrong. Red 10 2 Yellow 9 Green 9 1 Blue 5 7 Violet 11 1 Total 44 11 Here, too, yellow is foremost ; it was named cor- rectly nine times, not once wrongly named. Blue comes last. It was confounded especially with green and vio- let. If the child's attention failed, I broke off. Afterward the tests were continued in both ways combined ; but these proved to be great consumers of time. It often happens that the child takes no interest in the colors. Sometimes, from roguishness, he will not name the color he knows, and will not point out or give me the one I ask for. At other times he himself brings the box that holds the color-ovals, and says wawa = " Farbe " (color), in expectation of a lesson. The trials in which the attention is undivided are, how- ever, not numerous. Gray is added. In the one hundred twelfth and one hundred thirteenth weeks five tests yielded the follow- ing answers : SIGHT. IX Right. Wrong. Red l(j 3 Yellow 23 1 Green 14 5 Blue 10 15 Violet 18 1 Gray 10 2 Total 90 27 Yellow maintains the first place, being rightly named in twenty-two instances, and wrongly only once. The judgment in regard to blue is the %vorst ; "fifteen wrong judgments to ten right ones. It is noteworthy that in this series, as in the preceding, violet is rightly named oftener than green. I now bade the child, repeatedly, to place together the ovals of the same color. After much moving hither and thither, he succeeded with yellow, red, rose, green, and violet, but very incompletely. The expressions "light" and " dark," before the names of the colors, were beyond the child's understanding. So the saturated and the less saturated colors, the light and the dark, were, as before, indicated by the common name of the quality alone. Four trials with the colors mixed, during the time from the one hundred fourteenth to the one hundred six- teenth week, resulted as follows : Right. Wrong. Red 15 1 Yellow 13 Green 4 7 Blue 3 10 Violet 11 2 Gray 6 Brown 4 Rose 1 3 Black 3 Total 59 23 12 THE MIND OF THE CHILD. Blue was especially confounded witli violet, also with green. All very pale colors were confounded with gray, all dark ones with black. The order in which the colors were recognized, i. e., rightly named, is now the following: Yellow best of all, then red, violet, green ; and worst of all, blue. On other days I laid before the child, as I had done previously, a single color, with the question, what it was, and marked the answer wrong if it were not given right immediately. The colors are now called by the child Tott^ delp^ drün^ hlau^ lila, grau, sicarz, 7'osa, hraun. Four trials in the one hundred fourteenth and one hundred fifteenth weeks yielded the answers : Right. Wrong. Red 13 Yellow 11 Green 7 9 Blue 5 13 Violet 10 3 Gray 1 3 Brown 4 1 Rose '. 3 3 Black 4 Total 58 32 For the first five colors this trial gives the same or- der of succession as above. Blue and green are very uncertain ; blue is called drün (meant for grün) and lila (violet), green is called gray ; and, oftener still, nei- ther blue nor green is named at all ; while yellow, and red, and black, are given correctly and quickly. I now let the child take out of the box of colored ovals one after another of them, at pleasure, name it, SIGHT. 13 and give it to me. At the first trial he seized at ran- dom ; at the second he sought his favorite color, yellow. Two trials in the one hundred lifteenth week : Right. Wrong. Red 6 Yellow 8 Green 1 2 Blue 5 Violet 4 1 Gray 1 5 Brown 1 Rose 3 2 Black 2 Total 25 16 The result is the same as above. Red, yellow, and black are the only colors that are surely recognized. I now made no more trials for two months. The child spent the larger part of the day in the open air, with me, on a journey ; the greater part of the time was spent in the neighborhood of Lake Garda. In the one hundred twenty-first week, an occasional examination showed a greater uncertainty than before. Blue was scarcely once named rightly, in spite of the most urgent cautions. When the trials were resumed, after our return, the result was bad. I took the colored counters in my hand and put questions. At the very first questioning, yellow was indeed named rightly three times, and not wrongly at all ; but red was twice wrong- ly and not once rightly named. 1 got the following answers in the one hundred twenty-fourth week, in the first four trials with all the colors after the interval : 14 THE MIND or THE CHILD. Right. Wrong. Red 17 Yellow 22 Green 18 Blue 13 Violet 9 4 Gray 5 Brown 4 3 Rose 3 4 Black 3 Orange 3 Total 58 49 Here it is still more evident than before tliat red and yellow are already more surely recognized and more correctly named than green and blue. On the eight hundred sixty-sixth day the child, without being con- strained, took colors out of the box and gave them to me, naming them as he did so. The colors that were mistaken for one another were rose, gray, and pale green ; brown and gray ; green and black ; finally, blue and violet. In the following experiments, also, the child every time took the colors out of the box and gave them to me, telling the names at the same time, without the least direction. Five trials out of the one hundred twenty- fourth and one hundred twenty-fifth weeks gave : Right. Wrong. Red 29 1 Yellow 16 Green • 4 Blue 6 Violet 14 Gray 8 Rose 14 5 Brown 7 3 Black 3 Orange 6 Total 80 34 SIGHT. 15 Red and yellow are eagerly sought and almost al- ways riglitly named; blue and green avoided and al- ways named wrongly (e. g,, as lila, swarz). I now re- moved all the red and yellow colors from the collection, and let the child give to me, and name as many of the remaining ones as he could on a stretch. Now that red and yellow are wanting, however, he shows from the first a less degree of interest, and in the case of green he says " Papa tell ! " In all other cases he had a name for the color he took. If that was wrong, it was always corrected by me, often by the child himself ; but it was always entered in the record as wrong, if the first an- swer was wrong. In the one hundred twenty-fifth and one hundred tw^euty-sixth weeks six trials were made in which this method was strictly observed and the follow- ing judgments were registered : Eight. Wrong. Green 2 19 Blue 6 20 Violet 20 3 Gray 6 Rose 19 6 Brown 15 Black 7 2 Orange 11 7 Total 80 63 The brighter colors were at first selected. The child confuses orange {owos, as he calls it) with yellow, blue with violet, green with gray, black with brown. I tried repeatedly to induce the child to place to- gether the colors that seemed to him alike, but it was a total failure. Then I asked for single colors by their names, but the results of this procedure were Ukewise 16 THE MIND OF THE CHILD. poor. (This on tlie eiglit hundred seventy-ninth day.) Finally, I took a single color at a time and asked, " What is that?" In four trials in the one hundred twenty- sixth, one hundred twenty-seventh, and one hundred twenty-eighth weeks, the ausweis were : Right. Wrong. Red 11 (1) Yellow 11 Green 1 14 Blue 1 11 Violet 12 1 Gray 6 1 Rose 11 2 Brown 10 Black 6 1 Orange G 2 and (1) Total 75 34 For green and blue — which are confounded with gray when they are light, and with black when they are dark — there is probably a less degree of sensibility, certainly a less interest. Blue is still called lila. Be- sides, it is very difficult to direct the attention persist- ently to the colors. The child, although tested only in the early hours of morning, seeks now other means of entertaining himself. Now and then he makes a mis- take in speaking. (Errors of this kind are indicated by parentheses) But on the eight hundred ninety-eighth day every color was rightly named — green and blue, to bs sure, only after some guessing. In six trials in the 0!ie hundred twenty-ninth, one hundred thirty-hfth, one hundred thirty-sixth, one hundred thirty-seventh, and one hundred thirty-eightli weeks the child took the colors and gave them to me, naming them. The answers were : SIGHT. lY Ripht. Wrong. Red 27 1 Yellow 27 Green 2 14 Blue 2 13 Violet 15 2 Gray 5 1 Rose 10 3 Brown 14 Black 5 1 Orange 12 3 Total ivS 38 There is confounding of colors as before. The only thing new is the designation gai^nix (for gar nichts, " nothing at all ") for green and blue. Unknown colors are now often named green — e. g., blue. In a bouquet of yellow roses these were designated as yellow, but the leaves were obstinately called garnix, and so likewise were very whitish colors, whose quality is, however, recognizable at once, in a moderate light, by adults ac- quainted with colors. On the nine hundred thirty-fourth day there was this remarkable utterance when green and blue were placed before the child : grin hlau I'avn e nicht, grosse mann kann grin hlau, which meant (as appeared from similar utterances), "I can't give green and blue rightly; a grown person can." Green was mostly called gray ; very rarely (inquiringly) it was called red ; blue was named lila. In the one hundred thirty-first and one hundred thirty-fourth weeks I made three trials, asking for colors which I laid out ; in the one hundred thirty- eighth and one hundred thirty-ninth weeks, in three trials, sometimes the child took the colors himself, some- times I put them before him. The answers were : 18 THE MIND OF THE CHILD. Right. Wrong. Red 14 1 Yellow 24 Green 4 13 Blue 15 Violet 9 5 Gray 5 Rose 9 2 Brown 11 1 Black 7 1 Orange 10 1 Total 93 39 Here begins at last the right naming of green, while blue is not yet so often correctly designated. The child took the colors of his own accord and named them in three trials, in the one hundred thirty-ninth, one hundred forty-first, and one hundred forty-sixth weeks, as follows : Right. Wrong. Red 19 2 Yellow 13 Green 2 3 Blue 3 11 Violet : 6 1 Gray 1 3 Rose 3 Brown 10 Black 3 Orange 8 1 Total 66 19 The red tmce misnamed was dark. The word " green " was now rightly applied continually to leaves and to meadows, and, before the completion of the third year, blue also was almost invariably designated correct- ly, if the attention w^as not diverted. SIGHT. 19 "With regard to tlie order in which the colors were rightly named up to the thirty-fourth month, the total result is as follows : JUDGMENTS. PER ( 3ENT. Right. 233 79 235 139 39 76 47 35 101 61 Wrong. Right. Wrong. I. Yellow 8 8 36 24 7 29 23 33 123 151 96-7 90-8 86-7 85 3 84-8 72-4 67-1 51-5 45-0 28-8 3-3 II. Brown 9-3 III. Red 13-3 IV. Violet 14-7 V. Black VI. Rose 15-3 27-6 VII. Oranj?e 32-9 VIII. Grav^. 48-5 IX. Green 550 X. Blue 71-3 Total 1,044 442 70-3 29-7 Thus, of the four principal colors, yellow and red are named rightly much sooner than are green and blue ; and yellow first — brown is (dull) yellow — then red. That the color-sensations, green, blue, and violet, exist in very different proportions, is probably not a peculiar- ity of the individual. Violet, which was mnch oftener named rightly than were green and blue, contains the already well-known red, and may appear to the child as a dirty red, or as dark red. For it is in fact probable that blue and greenish-blue were perceived in the earliest period, not as blue and greenish-blue, but as gray and black. That green of every sort is not named rightly till very late, may be owing, in part, to a stronger ab- sorption of light, by means of the blood of the vessels of the retina. Although the place of the clearest vis- ion, in the back part of the eye, is free from blood-ves- sels, yet the other colors which, like yellow, orange, red, and brown, reach the retina undimmed, in great exten- 20 THE MIND OF THE CHILD. sion, have, on that account, an advantage over green and bhie, which are most easily confounded with gray. Even in the fourth year, bhie was still often called gray in the dusk of morning, when it appeared to me distinctly blue. The child would wonder that his light- blue stockings had become gray in the night. This I observed on three days. Gray is, without doubt, along with white and black, rightly known long before the first discrimination of colors, but is often wrongly named, for the reason that green and blue are probably perceived as gray. The right naming of it became the rule before the end of the third year, whereas yellow was rightly named, al- most invariably, nearly a year earlier. To this color the pigment of the yellow spot is most helpful. Red may also have an advantage, in the fact that in bright daylight, when the eyes are shut, especially when snow is on the ground, that is the only color in the field of vision [i. e., the eyelids are translucent, and we perceive red] ; as black is the only one before we fall asleep in the dark. On the whole we must, accordingly, declare the child to be still somewhat lacking in sensibility to the cold colors in the second year and the first half of the third year ; a conclusion with which occasional observa- tions concerning other children harmonize. At any rate, by very many children, yellow is first rightly named and blue last. One boy began, before he had reached the age of four months, to prefer a brilliant red to other colors.'^ All children prefer, like him, at this * According to Genzmer : " Untersuchungen über die Sinnes- wahrnehmungen des neugeborenen Menschen," 1859. SIGHT. 21 age and long after, the whitish colors, without regard to their quality. The incapacity of tlie two-years-old child to name blue and green correctly can not be attributed solely to his possible inability to associate firmly the names "bhie" and "green"' (which he has heard and which he uses fluently) with his possibly distinct sensations ; for " yellow " and " red " have already been used cor- rectly many months before. If green and blue were as distinct as yellow and red in his sensation, then there would not be the least occasion for his giving them wrong names, and preferring red and yellow to them in all circumstances. The child does not yet linow what green and blue signify, although he is already acquaint- ed with yellow and red. Neither does he yet know what " green " means when, in the one hundred ninth and one hundred twelfth weeks of his life, he apparent- ly distinguishes "red" and "green" correctly. Green is at this time, for him, merely something that is not red. I have yet to mention that my child, at the begin- ning of his third year, moved and handled himself with smrprising sureness and quickness in the semi-darkness of twilight ; he thus discriminated well between light and dark. And at the beginning of his fourth year he named correctly all the colors except the very dark or the pale ones, particularly even the most varying shades of green and blue, to the astonishment of those who had been occasionally present at the color-lessons here described, and who had witnessed his numerous errors. Other children, with sound eyes, are likewise per- fectly sure in their naming of colors at the age of three 4 22 THE MIND OF THE CHILD. years, thougli very iiucertain at tlie age of two years. A boy of two and two-thirds years was impressed by the colors in the following order : 1, dark violet ; 2, yellow ; 3, red ; 4, blue ; 5, green. Here the first named was singled out before the others on account of its being dark.* A boy of four years, who had received no regular instruction in observing colors, was asked by his father what colors he saw in a brilliant rainbow that was just then defining itself sharply upon the gray sky. The child answered slowly, but with decision, " Red, yellow, green, blue " ; and he afterward, as 1 am informed by his father, Prof. Bardeleben, of Jena, always picked out these principal colors easily among paints, whereas the naming of \dolet, reddish-yellow, and other mixed colors, was difficult for him. 3. Movements of the Eyelids, The eyelids are not often kept apart long in the first days of life. New^ly-born children, even when awake, keep their eyes shut far more than they keep them open. And, when the lids are raised, there appears for the most part a strange asymmetry. One eye remains open while the other is shut. Alternate shutting and open- ing were seen by me frequently from the first to the eleventh day ; afterward more seldom. Yet my child, before the first twenty-four hours were passed, had both eyes wide open, once, at the same time, in the twilight. During the first month the rule was, that when both eyes were open at the same time, they were not open * Frau Dr. Friedemann. SIGHT. 23 equally wide ; tliis was still strikingly noticeable on the thirty-first day. At this time, too, the occasional keep- ing open of one eye only liad not ceased. Further, even when both eyes were closed, the movements of the left and right upper lids were frequently not simulta- neous. Other remarkable irregular (atypische) movements of the lids were seen in connection with the raising and lowenng of the look on one side and on both sides. Especially, in the fifth week, the lids were often raised while the look was directed downward, so that the white sclerotic was visible over the cornea ; a movement that an adult imitates with difiiculty, and that lends to the countenance an expression almost of a character to cause anxiety. But long before the third month the lid fol- lowed the pupil regularly when the look was downward. When, on the contrary, the child, as he lay on his back, directed his glance toward his forehead, which he did without wrinkling his forehead in the least, the lid was not always raised, but it often covered the iris close up to the pupil, sometimes even partially covering the lat- ter; and this I saw repeatedly as late as the eighth week. The " rolling of the eyes " by sick children, the pu- pils going upward and the upper eyelid downward, so that only the white sclerotic remains visible in the space between the hds, is an advanced stage of this physio- logical irregularity, which appears also in hysterical patients. Even toward the end of the third month I saw that when the child looked up (as he was carried on the arm in an upright position), e. g., to a lamp stand- ing high, the eyelid was not completely raised, but here, 24 THE MIND OF THE CHILD. too, tlie pupil was touched by the edge of tlie lid at a tangent. At this time the forehead, which, in the first days, appeared often in horizontal folds, as is the case with monkeys, was either not wrinkled at all or very little, and in exceptional cases, when the look was directed upward. J^ot till the ninety-eighth day was my boy's brow wrinkled when he looked upward, and then not to such a degree as that of an adult, and even in the eighth month the brow was not wrinkled invari- ably ; but from the end of the ninth month it was regu- larly so. This co-ordinate movement is therefore ac- quired, probably because it enlarges the field of vision, when one is looking upward, without making it neces- sary to bend back the head. The raising of the lid along with the downward look was seen in the first days of infant life, up to the tenth day, by Raehlmann, and Witkowski also, and they rightly call attention to the fact that the relation of compidsory dependence between the raising of the lid and the elevation of the cornea does not yet exist at the beginning. The muscle that raises the lid can con- tract at the same time with the lower rectus muscle of the eye ; the upper rectus muscle of the eye may con- tract without the one that lifts the lid : later, this can no longer be done. There must be, then, at the begin- ning, within the province of tlie oculomotorius, an in- dependence of the separate branches, that is afterward lost. The co-excitement of the branch that goes to the elevator of the lid (levator palpebras), on occasion of the excitement of the branch going to the elevator of the glance (rectus superior), in the upper division of the oculomotorius, is accordingly something acquired — is SIGHT. 25 learned afresli by eacTi individual human being— on ac- count of the help it gives in the act of seeing. Just so, according to our observations, the perfectly useless ex- citement of the elevator-branch on occasion of the ex- citement of the branch that goes to the muscle that depresses the glance (rectus inferior) in the lower di- vision of the oculomotorius, though frequent at first, is so persistently omitted farther on, that adults are hard- ly able to contract at the same time the lid-elevator and the eye-depressor (rectus inferior), i, e., to direct the look downward with the eye wide open. Consequently, the movements under consideration — of the upper eye- lid upward in looking up, and downward in looking down — are not inborn in human beings. On the other hand, the closing of the lid when it is exposed to a strong light, as well as the contracting of the pupil in light, is inborn. But the case here is one of rellex action of the optic nerve : on the one hand, upon the orbicularis branch of the facialis ; on the other hand, upon the h'is branch of the oculomotorius, not therefore a case of associated movements, but of purely sensori-motor reflexes. The quick shutting of the eye by a sudden move- ment of the lid, followed immediately by the opening of it — what is called winking — does not appear, as is well known, in new-born or in very young infants. The fact is well established that they bear the sudden approach of a hand to the eye without moving the lid ; whereas, later in life, every one in such circumstances shuts the eye for an instant, or even starts back at the first approach, just as after an actual touch — and this even when there is a pane of glass before the face — un- 26 THE MIND OF TEE CHILD. less special practice in the control of this reflex move- ment leads in manhood to the voluntary inhibition of it. I have determined the time in the case of my child at which the first winking occurred as a sign of fright at any sudden impression, and as an expression of sur- prise at a new impression made upon the sense of sight. My experience is as follows : I put my hand suddenly near the face of the child, as he lay quiet with open eyes, without the least reaction on his part, on the sixth, eighth, eleventh, twelfth, twenty-second, twenty-fifth, fiftieth, and fifty-fifth days. During this period the softest touch of the lashes, of the edges of the lids, of the conjunctiva, or the cornea, occasioned an immediate closing of the lid. The drop- ping of the hd up to the twelfth day was, however, decidedly slower than it is in adults. On the fifty- seventh and fifty-eighth days I noticed that winking made its appearance for the first time, occurring when I put my head quickly near the child's face ; but, on repeating the experiment several times, both eyes re- mained open. On the sixtieth day, the quick, simul- taneous shutting and opening of both eyes in case of fright at a quick approach to the face (just as in case of a sudden loud sound), is already the rule. At such times the child often throws up both arms quickly, alike whether he is lying down or is held in the arms. This is the case especially as late as the fourteenth week. At this time, however, there was not observable any start- ing back with the head, or the upper part of the body, at the rapid approach of my face to his ; whereas the winking now invariably appears promptly, even when SIGHT. 27 the approacli is repeated sev^eral times in close succes- sion. It was the same in the fifteenth and sixteenth weeks. Other children, however (according to Sigis- mund), do not yet close their eyes in the fourteenth and even the sixteenth week, M'hen you thrust at them with the finger as if you meant to hit them. The difference is probably ownng to the fact that the finger occupies too small an area in the field of vision compared with the palm of the hand and with the face. O. Soltmann found that the seventh and eighth weeks marked the first appearance of the lid movement in tlie experiment of the "attacking hand," and my observations accord with this. Kot till after the first three months did I observe that the eyes were closed when, in the bath, water touched the cornea or even the lashes ; in the first days the wet- ting of the eyes, even when it was repeated, having oc- casioned no closing of the lid at all. Probably it is ex- periences of this kind — of disagreeable sensation when the exposed parts of the eye are touched — that caused in the ninth week, for the first time, the closing of the lid when a large object suddenly approached the eye with- out touching it ; for the rapid ap23roach is in itself not pleasing. For the rest, the winking on occasion of a strong, unexpected impression remained, after it had once appeared, as an acquired reflex movement, which returned on every provocation of that sort. Thus, it followed with uncommon quickness upon a pufi of wind in the face (e. g., in the twenty-fifth week). The child stared with an inquiring gaze in the direction whence the current of air came, after he had responded to it with the eyelids. 28 THE MIXD OF THE CHILD. It is not allowable to assume, in explanation of this reflex movement, that the idea of danger must iirst be formed in order to produce the closure of the eyes, as many suppose. In that case there would be no purely reflex action, but a habit. But the time is too short for the production of an idea along with the volitional im- pulse to lower the lid, and a child of nine weeks has not yet the idea of danger. He does not know that, with the sudden change in the distribution of light and shade in the field of vision, at the approach of the hand, there may be joined a danger to himself ; and he winks just the same at a sudden noise, even on the twenty-fifth day of his life. Had he the idea of danger, he would start back with, the head or the upper part of his body at the quick ap- proach of my hand or my head, as he does later. We should be forced to adopt the auxiliary hypothesis that an experience made by the child's ancestors in a more mature period of life led to a habit which then mani- fested itself in the descendants early in life as an heredi- tary habit. This Darwinian view is superfluous, because the disagreeable feeling that is connected with every unexpected, sudden, and strong sense-impression, is of itself suiflcient to induce the closing of the lid. For so long as the child can not rightly separate his sense-im- pressions, especially those of sight, so long as he does not plainly discern the rapid changes in a moderately bright field of vision, he can not be disagreeably affected by these changes. But if he is sufficiently developed to observe sudden and important changes, then he will ex- perience a disagreeable feeling, will be frightened, and the immediate consequence of this will be the warding SIGHT. 29 off of tliat which offends him — lie will shut the eyelids. Thus, the shutting of the eyes at the sudden impression of light is seen to be akin to the keeping of them tightly shut when exposed to bright light during the ürst days of life ; and it remains only to explain the difference, that at the beginning the eye remains closed longer, for the newly-born do not wink. This difference, merely quantitative, is probably due to the less rapid propaga- tion of the nerve-excitement, to the greater extent of time involved in the reflex, and especially to the greater intensity and duration of the stimulus. Dazzhng light causes to adults likewise a more disagreeable feeling than does the rapid approach of a strange hand. Light- ning produces a momentary closing of the lids ; a sur- face of snow, brightly illuminated by the sun, occasions shutting of the eyes and blinking, and even the tight compression of the eyelids. The lessening of the space between the lids, and the complete closing of the eyes, in shutting them tightly, is effected, upon the whole, by the contraction of the mus- cle that closes the eye (musculus orbicularis), whereas the dropping of the upper lid in winking is produced by the contraction of the lid-muscles (musculi paipe- brales) alone ; and blinking, proper, at the sight of a dazzlingly bright object, by the contraction of the ex- ternal parts of the orbicular muscle (particularly the orbital and cheek muscle). All these orbicular tilaments are su]Tplied by the facial nerve (nervus facialis) as their only motor nerve. As the reflex from the optic nerve is perfect from the flrst day of existence, since bright light causes tight closing of the eyes, it follows that the reflex arc from the optic nerve to this branch of the 30 THE MIND OF THE CHILD. facialis, as well as that to the iris branch of the oculo- motorius, must be inborn. The quick shutting and opening of the eye in case of surprise also becomes more intelligible if we dismiss the hypothesis of the idea of danger — an idea that is as yet foreign to the child — and consider rather that every surprise, even a joyous one, is at the first instant akin to fright, on account of the unexpectedness it brings with it — the sudden impression on the senses. Sudden dan- ger is only a special case. Even in adults an unexpected loud sound occasions invariably the winking movement of the lids. On the twenty-fifth day my child fixed his eyes for the first time upon the face of his nurse, then upon mine and his mother's, and when I nodded he opened his eyes wider, and shut and opened the lids several times. The same movements appeared when I for the first time spoke to him in a deep voice, as I did on the day men- tioned. It was a reflex movement of surprise. At the end of the seventh month, a green fan being rapidly opened and clapped together at a distance of half a metre from his face, my child shut and opened his eyes quickly every time with an expression of the greatest astonishment, until I had repeated the experi- ment a good many times in succession ; and even then there remained a boundless surprise at the disappearance and reappearance of the large, round surface. This was discernible in his immovability, following upon previous agitation, and in the intensity of his gaze. The play of the lid is also observed in case of other new move- ments, especially rhythmical ones, as in hearing new noises; and then the mouth often remains open, and SIGHT. 31 the eyes are wide open, yet there is no lifting of the eyebrows (in the eighth month). But not only surprise, strong^ desire is likewise as- sociated with the keeping of the lids open to the maxi- mum extent. When, in the thirty-fourth week, I took away from the babe his milk, he gazed at it rigidly, and opened his eyes wide, and they took on an ex- pression of indescribable longing. Moreover, sounds of desire were often expressed imperfectly, with closed hps, and this continued as a habit with him in the second year. The eyes were, besides, noticeably more lustrous than usual, when the child was mastered by strong de- sire, surprise, or joy, which is to be explained as the consequence of an excitement of the secretory nerve of the lachrymal gland (ramus lacrymalis trigemini) ac- companying the psychical excitement, rather than as the result of compression of the gland through increased supply of blood. More important in regard to psyehogenesis is the fact, established by me concerning all infants, that from birth they manifest a high degree of pleasurable feeling by wide-open eyes ; unpleasant feeling by shutting the eyes and holding them firmly together. In reference to the first, it surprised me that when the child was placed at his mother's breast, and even just before be- ing placed there, the eyes were regularly stretched open, and almost always remained wide open when he began to suck. This was observed in increasing meas- ure on the third, sixteenth, and twenty-first days. But also, in a warm bath of 35° C, the eyes were wide open in the first three weeks, and, although the child did not laugh, his countenance took on a pleasant expression 32 THE MIXD OF THE CHILD. from the widening of tlie opening between the lids. Audible and visible laughing, which appeared lirst on the twenty-third day, is simply an advanced stage of this expression of pleasure, in which " the eyes laugh." Certain mild impressions of light also produce a wide opening of the eyes ; this was often observed from the lirst day on, as has been already stated. In the case of another child, which cried out immediately after its head emerged from the womb, I put my ünger, three minutes later, into the child's mouth and pressed on the tongue. At once all crying ceased, a brisk sucking be- gan, and the expression of the countenance, which had been hitherto discontented, became suddenly altered. The child, not yet fully born, seemed to ex]3erience something agreeable, and therewith — during the suck- ing of tlie linger — the eyes were viddely opened. All these observations decidedly support the opinion that pleasure is expressed by wide-open eyes, so far as these will bear the light of day — in twilight and moderate artificial light, even from the moment of birth. Equal- ly certain is it that discomfort is manifested by shutting the eyes. The eyes are generally shut together at the first cry of the child, and later the rule is that all outcry on ac- count of painful or unpleasant feelings, e. g., hunger, brings with it a gripping of the eyes together, or, at any rate, a considerable lessening of the opening between the lids. And the screwing up of the eyes without crying and without any vocal utterance, but often with turning away of the head — e. g., in the second half of the first year, when the teeth are coming or when the gums are examined — is an indubitable sign of discomfort. siGriT. 33 Afterward follows the closing of tLc lids at all sudden strong sense-impressions, because these bring in their train unpleasant feelings ; and with feelings of pleasure the eyes are opened. If that inborn expressive move- ment is frequently repeated, then it takes place with greater and greater rapidity, and becomes at last pure reflex movement, occurring at all sufliciently strong, new, sudden impressions, before feelings of pleasure or of discomfort can be developed. The already mentioned hereditary reflex from the trigeminus to the orbicular branch of the facialis — the existence of which is manifested on the iirst day by the closing of the lid when the hairs of the eyelash are touched, or when the conjunctiva or the cornea is touched — this, too, might be, at hrst, a defense agamst the disagreeable, an expressive movement of displeas- ure ; since every touch, even the lightest, of the ex- posed parts of the eye, so abundantly supplied with nerves, is unexpected and disagreeable. The corre- sponding reflex path is traveled with less swiftness at first, because at this time the feeling of displeasure probably inserts itself between the centripetal and the centrifugal processes — not to mention the less rapid propagation of the nerve-excitation. Later, the reflex closing of the lid will come mechanically, after contact, without previous feeling of discomfort, and even with the appearance of the most deliberate purpose of de- fense. It is as if one said, " I shut my eye because it might be hm't " — in reality, however, there is no delib- eration. The difference between this hereditary trigeminns- f acialis - reflex and the hereditary opticus - iris - reflex 34 THE MIND OF THE CHILD. shows plainly the difference between reflexes of ancient inheritance (palaeophvletic) and reflexes inherited more recently (neophyletic). For the adaptation of the pupil to bright light, which appears at once and invariably in the newly-born, and in animals without eyelids, must have been inherited at an earlier epoch than was the closing of the lid upon the eye's being touched, be- cause the latter does not occur so promptly m the new- ly-born. But the new-born holds the eyes shut when dazzlingly bright light is thrown upon them, and in general when it feels discomfort, as does the maltreated frog. Out of this act of holding the eyes tightly shut has probably been differentiated the sudden, brief clos- ing of the lid (opticus-facialis-reflex) that follows all sudden sense-impressions, and that still in the present generation, as an acquired reflex, even one that may be inhibited by the will, stands in contrast with the two other hereditary reflexive movements of defense. 4. Movements of the Eyes. The eye-movements of the newly-born and of infants are of great interest in their bearing upon the history of the origin of the perceptions of space. The contending parties, the Nativists and the Empiricists,* in support of their views, make their appeal expressly to the child that has had no experience. The J^ativists maintain that a pre-established mechanism produces from the be- ginning co-ordinated, associated eye-movements in the newly-born. The Empiricists hold that this is not the case, but that the eye-movements of the newly-born are * See " Elements of Physiological Psychology," by George T. Ladd (1887), for explanation of these terms. SIGHT. 35 asymmetric and non-coordinated ; tliat tlie intentional use of the muscles of the eye is learned only through ex- perience, and that binocular vision, such as adults have, becomes afterward possible through the association of the movements of both eyes in " fixating " an object. My observations show that, with regard to the sim- ple matter of fact, both parties are right. Some new- born children actually make associated, co-ordinated movements of the eyes several times on the first day ; others do not. In some cases I saw both these facts in the same child, but I never found in any child co-ordi- nated movements exclusively. I saw my child before the close of the first day of his life turn both eyes at the same time to the right, then to the left, frequently, hither and thither, his head being still ; then, again, he would do it moving the head in accord. During the whole time his face was turned toward the window, in the twilight. Nay, only five minutes after his birth, when I held him in the dusk toward the window, an associated movement of the eyes took place. And when I began to observe new-born children, it happened that I saw a child thirty -five min- utes after birth (January 4, 1869) move his eyes only as an adult is accustomed to do, in accord. Donders and Hering, also, have perceived such movements of the eyes in the newly-born. The ob- servation requires only patience, because the newly- born spend the first twenty-four hours mostly in sleep, and when awake they cry a good deal, and their eyes do not remain open. If we were to rest satisfied with noticing such facts as these, we should come to quite erroneous results. 36 THE MIND OF THE CHILD. More accurate and often repeated observation of the eye-movements of the child, especially dm-ing tlie first six days, taught me that the simultaneous turning of both eyes to tlie right or to the left is not co-ordinated with complete symmetry, as it is in adults. In the cases of a child ten hours old, and of one of six days, their eyes being wide open, I saw eye-movements that were associated, and only such, but which sliowed them- selves, on more accurate observation, to be not perfectly in accord. On the whole, I have found that, in the newly-born, one eye very often moves independently of the other, and the turnings of the head take place in a direction opi30site to tliat in which the eyes move. The unintentional character of both movements is plainly recognizable, and the combination of the two is, at the beginning of life, accidental. The turning of both eyes to left and right, also, which is established on the first day, takes on the appearance of accident, coming in as one among all possible movements. As the other muscles of the body and of the face are contracted, without intention, by the very young infant, so also are the muscles of the eye. For this reason we may observe all sorts of non-coor- dinated movements of the eyes accompanying grimaces, wrinkling of the brows, and movements of the lips, in cases where there is no possibility of sight or of sensi- bility to light, the lids being closed — e. g., on the tenth day — -while the child is not crying, but is lying still. Sometimes it falls asleep with eyes half open, as may be known by its regular breathing and by the repose of its limbs, and then also are seen various unintentional movements of the eyes. Among those which attract SIGHT. 37 notice wlien tlie child is awalce are movements of de- cided convergence. Tlie child looks like a squinting child. But at the beginning of the third week of life the maximum degree of convergence and the strabis- mus are by no means so frequent as in the first ; the irregularity of the movements of the eyes, which others also have observed in many new-born children, is still clearly pronounced. Scheeler saw in the first days, un- til the fourth, only non-coordinated movements, and un- til the tenth day no perfectly correct fixation. Here his observation ceased. On the thirty-first day, in my child, strabismus was noticed as rare ; on the forty-sixth, as very rare ; on the forty-eighth and fiftieth, the same ; and irregular movements in general, as very rare from the fifty-fifth day on ; but they did appear until the tenth week, while the child was awake. During sleep, however, he moved his eyes asymmetrically as late as the sixtieth day in a lively manner, often the lids, too, on both sides, the eyes being haK open and his snoring uninterrupted. When he had attained the age of three months, non-coordinated movements of the eyes were no more to be observed. After this I watched the sleep- ing child, however, only now and then, and in the ninth month I noticed an occasional slight irregularity. This consolidation of the mechanism of the muscles of the eye does not, however, by any means involve the cessation of useless co-ordinated movements of the eyes, as is shown by several experiences. Thus, the gaze of one child in the twenty-third week was almost regularly directed toward his forehead. This child, troubled with an itching eczema on the head, would, at that time, let his head swing hither and thither when his hands were 5 144649 38 TUE MIXD OF THE CHILD. held, In ease anything whatever, were it onlj a j)illow, touched his head. The eyes of my child easily converged in the ninth month without any assignable cause, and upon objects held before his nose at a distance of one or two inches. In the tenth month the convergence of the hues of vision seemed disturbed ; a very insignificant squinting inward appeared, but this anomaly vanished completely a few weeks later, after I had directed that he should spend more time out-of-doors, in order to favor his see- ing at a distance. From that time the movements of the eyes continued to be normal. The readiness with which convergence of the eyes, upon my finger, held at the end of my boy's nose, occurred (as late as the twen- tieth month), is remarkable, as well as the fact that at the beginning such high degrees of convergence occur along with pupils relatively very wide open, which is not the case with adults. All these observations are absolutely favorable to the opinion that conscious vision has decisive influence upon the regulation of the eye-movements ; that only after discrimination of the light-impressions by the optic nerve-center do harmonious centro-motor impulses pro- ceed from the nerves of the muscles of the eye (the motor ocuh, abducens, trochlearis of both eyes), and that at the beginning, before the faculty of sight mani- fests itself — i. e., so long as only the function of sensi- bility to light is active — the eye-movements are not asso- ciated and not co-ordinated. Even when they are found symmetrical we can not, in face of a majority or of a very great number of irregular eye-movements, infer a pre-established, complete nerve-mechanism, having bi- SIGHT. 39 lateral symmetry and capable of functioning at birth, such as exists in the case of sucking. For, if man brought such a mechanism with hiin into the world (as the chicken and other animals do), how could he come to make so many irregular, purposeless movements of the eyes before making permanent use of this mechan- ism? The general rule is, that out of concurring non-co- ordinated movements of the muscles there grow gradu- ally co-ordinated ones ; so, here, with the muscles of the eyes. And, after the co-ordinated movements have be- come confirmed in the act of sight, there takes place, little by little, an elimination of the superfluous ones, a preference of those that are useful for distinct vision with both eyes. Just so the unregulated movements of the legs at the time of learning to walk become more and more rare, and of the co-ordinated ones, the most useful alone are retained, those which do the most serv- ice with the least effort. It is surprising that representatives of the nativistic theory should, notwithstanding, urge in their own sup- port the results of the investigations in regard to the newly-born — e. g., Eaehlman and Witkowski, as fol- lows : " As for the character of the eye-movements in the newly-born, they are in some respects similar to those made in sleep, but in many respects not similar. They are so far similar that they are often entirely non- coordinated; sometimes, though more seldom, of one side only; not similar, in that they generally follow much more rapidly, and in a very great majority of cases appear to be of both sides and often co-ordinated. Even at the lirst spontaneous opening of the space be- 40 THE MIND OF THE CHILD. tween tlie lids, following directly upon birth, we saw apparently co-ordinated lateral movements, which, how- ever, in extent and intensity, were of irregular character. The eyes moved for some minutes incessantly hither and thither with a vast range, such as they do not take later in the regulated act of vision. Among these we saw, to be sm^e, non-coordinated movements enter sud- denly, movements in which the principle of association had absolutely no part." With this my observations are in full accord. And what the observers report of the eye-movements of sleep- ing children (whose lids were lifted up without their waking) also agrees in many particulars therewith and with the statements of Schcßler: "As to the form of such movements we find, first, lateral turnings that are associated — i. e., they take place bilaterally and with ßüeming co-ordination. These are rare in sleep, yet they seem to occur ; at any rate, it may be said decidedly that non-coordinated movements of the eyes are the most frequent ones. We see, e. g., both eyes move slowly to the right ; the apparently associated side-movement is, however, not equal on the two sides, but is of varying force, now in one eye now in the other, so that conver- gences and divergences are introduced alternately. Moreover, there are frequently quite abnormal, dia- metrically opposed movements of the two eyes ; one eye moves slowly to the right, the other to the left ; or the right eye upward to the right, while the left moves up- ward to the left. Finally, there occur vertical variations of both eyes of such sort that, e. g., w^hile the right eye turns to the left and somewhat downward, the left eye turns to the left and at the same time somewhat up- SIGBT. 41 ward. The most remarkable obsei-vation, however, is that absolutely one-sided movements occur. AVhile, e. g., the right eye seems to fix the observer, the left eye is seen to move sidewise." Although all these observations relate to the eyes of children (and adults) in sleep, they are all, accord- ing to my experience, perfectly applicable to waking infants in their first days. 5. Direction of the Look. The ability to " fixate " a bright object is utterly lacking in the new-born child, because he is not yet in condition to move the muscles of the eye at his pleasure, and every fixation is an act of will. On the other hand, the ability to turn the head toward a bright object so that this can produce an image on the retina is often present on the first day of life. And the gaze of a new- born child as he lies quiet, with open eyes, is seen di- rected to the candle that is held before him in passing. But, in fact, the very young babe stares^ motionless, with a stupid expression of countenance, into empty space, and merely seems to " fixate " the object that is brought into his line of vision. For the staring mth nnchanged position of the eyes does not cease when the object is removed. The look does not yet follow the removed object, neither does the head. Yet the eyes move on the seventh day independently of the turnings of the head, and converge strongly. It has indeed been observed by Kussmaul that indi- viduals among children prematurely born (two months too soon) lying with head turned away from the window in the dusk of evening on the second day of life, repeat- 42 THE MIND OF THE CHILD. eclly tnrned the head to the window and the light when a change was made in their position ; and I have observed the same thing in the fullj-matured infant regularly on the sixth day ; but this is merely a case of desire in a primitive form, not a case of the gaze following an ob- ject. The object that is apparently sought is motionless, and is not a recognized cause of sensation. The nature of the experience is rather this : such and such a position of the body or of the head is associated with an agree- able sensation — in this instance an agreeable sensation of light — and is therefore preferred ; another position, a disagreeable one, in which the face is shaded, is avoid- ed. Just so the head is turned to the warm, smooth breast of the mother, and the turning away from it is felt as disagreeable, even in the dai'k. Accordingly, the turning of the head toward a motion- less, moderately bright light, that has been noticed in some children even in the lirst days, can not be regarded as a voluntary direction of the gaze. At the beginning there is nothing but staring when the eyes are opened, and even on the ninth day the turning away from daz- zling light is no sign of knowledge of direction. Here again I agree entirely with Raehlman and Witkowski, when they report that they have never seen movements of real fixation up to the tenth day. " It may occasionally happen that upon a certain change of the position of the lighted candle, or through some move- ments of the child's eyes, the eye is accidentally put in position for the light ; i. e., an image arises on the yel- low spot, but this apparently intentional relation of posi- tion between the eye and the object is a purely accidental one, and assuredly is not based upon a conscious fixation." SIGHT. 43 "When Darwin says that on the nintli day the eyes were directed to the lighted candle, the meaning is simply that the flame was placed in the line of the fixed gaze ; but when he adds that up to the forty-fifth day nothing has seemed thus to fasten the eyes, it must be that the critical period of the beginning of fixation passed unnoticed. The second stage is made known by the turning of the head from one motionless, extended, bright surface in the field of vision to another. On the eleventh day my child held his gaze from one to two minutes steadily upon my face, and tuiiied his head toward the light, which appeared close by in the field of vision. In like manner behaved a female child, who on the fourteenth day directed her gaze, which had been fastened upon her father's face, to some one who came up, and at the eight of this person's head-covering the child's gaze be- came rooted as if with surprise.* At this time and later it is noticed also that the in- fant gazes preferal)ly upward toward the white ceiling of the room. But tlie upward look that grows out of this, through which the human infant is said to be es- sentially distinguished from the animal, depends with- out doubt upon his horizontal position in the arms of his mother or nurse. If the babe were never carried in this manner, it would hardly look upward often. The tidrd stage is attained with the following of a bright object in motion, and is characterized by the associated movement of the eyes while the head is mo- tionless. It was on the twenty-third day of his Kfe that my * Frau Prof, von Strümpell. 44 THE MIND OF THE CHILD. child, who was gazhig at the candle burning steadily at the distance of one metre before him, turned both his eyes to the left when I moved the cand^.e to the left, and to the right when the candle was moved to the right. As soon as I held the burning candle up, both his eyes were directed upward toward the light, without any movement of the head. At the same time his face suddenly assumed a surprisingly intelligent expression, not before observed. When the light was moved side- wise the head was moved, often ; but generally the eyes alone moved. It would also happen that the movements of the eyes were accompanied by a shght sympathetic movement of the head. The motion of the candle had to be very slow always, otherwise it was not followed. Twenty times that day, certainly, I repeated the ex- periment, the result of which greatly surprised me, as other children do not follow a moving light with their eyes till after many months. I had, to be sure, made the trial almost every day since the birth of my child, and thereby the mechanism of convergence may have got an earlier start. Two days later, and seven days later, the same trial was made with the slowly-moved cajadle or with my hand only. Whenever the movement was slow enough, the child foUoAved it with his look, moving sometimes the eyes only, sometimes head and eyes in accord. Every time that both eyes moved with the light, the counte- nance assumed again the contented, intelligent expression which it had never worn until the twenty-third day. With that day began also active looking (as distinguished from staring). The outstretched hand, the flame of the candle, faces when they came into the field of vision, SIGHT. 45 were looked at, one can not yet say "fixated," because with this word is associated the notion of vohmtary, distinct vision. But from this time forth the gaze of the child was actively directed, daily, without any con- trived occasion, to bright surfaces in the field of vision such as have been mentioned. It is to be noted that no part is played in this prog- ress by the cerebral cortex. For Longet removed care- fully the cerebral hemispheres of a pigeon, sparing the corpora quadrigemina and the rest of the brain, kept the bird alive for eighteen days, and saw that in the dark not only did the sudden approach of a light produce contraction of the iris and blinking, but also as soon as he moved the burning candle in a circle the creature made a corresponding movement of the head. To this act, then, the cerebrum is not indispensable. But after the destniction of the corpora quadrigemina the trial yields no results. While by means of such observations the transition from staring to looking could be marked with tolerable accuracy, the passage from looking to observing and "fixating" objects was not so sharply defined. In the fifth week the Christmas-tree, with its many lights, was looked at with pleasure ; in the seventh the child fol- lowed M'ith both eyes a lamp carried by some one, a glittering gold chain, or the movements of his mother's head, much more quickly and exactly than before. When looking persistently at a face quite near, his mouth is pursed in a remarkable manner, as is often seen to be the case in adults when there is a great strain of the attention. A week earlier even, on the thirty-ninth day, the 46 THE MIND OF THE CHILD. swinging movement of tassels close in front of the child's face would elicit a pleased expression and a cry of delight. It happened also that the child, when he had been moving actively in his bed, and so had unin- tentionally shaken it, suddenly became still, and laughed when the blue tassels over his face were set swinging in consequence of the shaking. In the following weeks, gilded picture-frames, that shone brightly as they reflected the light of the lamp, were looked at for minutes at a time, and the gaze was lifted accordingly. Such strong impressions of light produced gayety, just as swinging objects did. On the sixty-second day, for example, the child looked for almost half an hour at a swinging lamp hanging from the ceiling, with continuous utterances of pleasure. The eyes did not, however, in this case, follow closely the separate oscillations. Both eyes, indeed, often moved simultaneously to the left or to the right, but not in time with the lamp. His pleasure manifested itself by movements of the arms, and by sounds such as are made by a child only when he is pleasurably excited ; his in- terest was shown by an unwavering gaze. The day before, the child had looked upon the friendly face of his mother for some minutes and then given a cry of joy. It was as if for the first time he had discovered his mother. The face of his father, too, which always exerted a quieting influence on the child when " worrpng," became at this time — before the tenth week — an occasion of gayety. In the case of a little girl, the same thing took place in her sixth week.* * Frau von Strümpell. SIGHT. 47 All these facts indicate that motionless images on the retina are distinguished from moving ones, although distinct sight is not yet attained ; accommodation, in- deed, is still wanting. With this the fourth stage is reached, marked by the ability, which is retained from this time forth, to direct the eyes toward an object. Right and left, above and below, are distinguished, and very soon the most extended use is made of this ability. For now the child seelis with his eyes untiringly for new objects, when he is awake and well. This seeking, i. e., prima- rily the endeavor to give a definite direction to the loolc and to hold it there, dates back to the first three mouths. In the tenth week, a girl-child looked for the face of the person calling her, although it was with difficulty that she held her head erect. On the other hand, a boy of the same age,* who was lying on his back, could not follow with his eyes a cane that 1 moved hither and thither before him, but simply stared at it. A third child began, after the end of the sixteenth week, to look at its hands, and in the twenty-third week carried to its mouth the finger of another person that had been put into its hand.f When, on the eighty-first day, at a distance of about one metre from my child, I rubbed with my wet finger a tall drinking-glass, and produced high tones new to the infant, he immediately turned his head, but did not hit the direction with his gaze ; sought for it, and, when it was found, held it fast. From this time forth he fol- lowed with a more animated look, much more accurate- * Frau von Strümpell. f E. Schulte. 48 THE MIND OF THE CHILD. ly, even without movements of the head, an outstretched hand not in rapid motion. When the hand was moved very quickly, however, the eye did not follow at all (thirteenth week). What the child seemed to like best of all to follow with his eyes, was a person walking back and forth in the room ; he would turn the head more than ninety degrees, and look attentively after the moving figure (fourteenth week). On the one hundred hrst day a pendulum, which was making just forty complete oscillations to the min- ute, was for the first time followed surely and with ma- chine-like regularity. This proves that less than three eighths of a second is needed for the lateral movement of the eye. But for the present such quick movements are not preferred. When, in the sixteenth week, the infant went with us on a journey by rail, he directed his gaze, not at the images that were swiftly passing by the windows, but persistently and attentively at the sides and ceiling of the carriage, and (after our arrival) at the new, motionless objects in the room into which he was brought. The persistent gazing at the ceiling with head leaning back, peculiar to many infants, was espe- cially frequent at this time and in the nineteenth week (p. 43). Yet it is becoming easier for him all the time to follow objects moved quickly. When I have been oc- cupied with the child, if I suddenly get up to leave the room, the child always turns his head round exactly to- ward me very quickly, and looks after me with great eyes, one might almost say with thoughtful, inquiring eyes (fifth month). But it was not till the twenty-ninth week that I saw the child look distinctly, beyond all doubt, after a sparrow flying by. SIGHT. 49 But a Tniieh longer time passed before objects tll^o^\^l on the floor, playthings which had served to amuse for a time, were followed with the eyes. Inasmuch as the point concerned here is of a discovery made afresh by every individual human being, viz., that bodies are heavy, and fall if they are not supported, I directed my attention particularly to this, and I give liere some observations concerning it in the case of my chüd : 30th week. — The child very often lets fall to the floor objects held a short time in tlie hand, but up to this time he has not once looked after them. 31st week. — If the child sees or hears anything fall, lie sometimes turns his gaze in the direction where the fall took place. 33d week. — The falling and letting fall of an object make no impression, although objects moved slowly downward are followed with especially close gaze of both eyes. olfih week. — The child but rarely looks after an ob- ject that falls out of his hand. 36th loeek. — Objects thrown to the ground are not yet followed by the child regularly, or with any expres- sion of attention, wbereas he fixes his gaze with the greatest interest on any slowly-moving objects that he can hold in view, e. g., tobacco-smoke. Ji3d week. — The child looks after objects thrown on the floor, oftentimes as if in wonder. 1^7 th week. — The child throws down objects of all sorts that are put into his hands, after busying himself %vith them some moments, and frequently looks after them. Once he threw a book on the floor eight times 50 THE MIND OF THE CHILD. in succession, witli eager attention, wliicli was manifest- ed by the protruding of the hps. 63d-65th weeks. — Very often the child throws down objects that displease him, or with which he has played awhile, and generally looks after them. 78th week. — The throwing away of playthings is rare (giving up of the habit). 1^2^th week. — Throwing the ball, of all plays, yields by far the greatest pleasure, and the gaze follows the ball with special precision. The knowledge that bodies are heavy would begin, according to this, in my child, with the forty-third week, when for the first time the fall of an object previously held in his own hand causes astonishment. It would be interesting to know how it is with other children in this respect. Darwin observed that a child, even in the eighth month, could not properly follow with his gaze an object swinging only moderately fast ; on the other hand, at the age of thirty-two days, this child perceived his mother's breast three or four inches away ; for with- out touching it he protruded his lips, and his eyes were "fixed" (cf. p. 32), just as happened on the forty-ninth day at sight of a brightly-colored tassel, which made him stop moving his arms when it appeared in the field of vision. 6. Seeing Near and Distant Objects. The approach of the flame of a candle or of a shining metallic surface to the face of an infant that has not yet moved its eyes, produces, in the first two to six weeks, convergence of the lines of vision and strabismus. This convergence seems to be associated with a strain of the muscle of accommodation, as Genzmer ascertained SIGHT. 51 by observation of the lens-images. lie examined one eye while the other was alternately brightly lighted and shaded, and he concludes that a previously-formed con- nection exists between the posititjn of convergence and the strain of accommodation. This conjecture is, in fact, very probable. For the ante-natal existence of the reflex arc from the optic nerve to the motor oculi is proved by the contraction of the pupil exposed to light immediately after birth. Now, the motor oculi, through the excitement of which tlie pupil is contracted, is also the nerve of accommodation, which strains the ciliary muscle when near objects are seen, and is at the same time the nerve which supplies the internal rectus muscle of the eye and so the muscle of convergence. When a bright object apjjroaches the eye, accord- ingly, tlirough the mere excitement of the motor oculi from the retina outward, the whole machinery of adap- tation, accommodation, and convergence is at once set in action. Contraction of the pupil, thickening of the lens, and looking inward, occur together when a light is brought near the child, without justifying the suppo- sition of the least choice or intention in the case, solely through the reflex excitement of the motor oculi from the optic nerve outward. At any rate, vision is intro- duced through the concurrence of these three processes with the sensation of brightness. Indistinct as the mus- cular sensation of the ciliary and convergence muscle may be, it will associate itseK with the sensation of light the more perceptibly the offener a bright object approaches the eye. The cont' action of the pupil, more- over, does not invariably take place^along with conver- gence in the newly -born (p. 38). 52 THE MIND OF THE CHILD. But thus far the conditions are not fulfilled for securing a sharply-defined image on the retina, nor if such an in)age were to arise could the object be distinctly seen as a bounded surface. For, as to the first point, it is evident that only seldom does the flame of the candle (or any bright ob- ject whatever) come directly within the distance at which the child's eye sees plainly. The infant seems to recognize distinctly, earliest of all, the face of his mother or nurse, since this is light, pictures itself often- est on his retina, and is at the same time so near that it comes most frequently within the range of distinct vis- ion. In this way the diiference between a faint retinal image (of objects distant or too near) and sharply-defined images is impressed upon the child. The difiusion circles must assert themselves less when the moder- ately bright object is at a certain small remove from the eye ; at all other distances they make their ap- pearance. As to the second point, it is certain that in the first days or weeks, even if the difi^usion images should be "Utterly wanting, still the form of the object can not be plainly seen ; the only distinct sensation is that of bright- ness. All experiences with ]ieople born blind, but after some years operated on successfully, point in this direc- tion. And although learning to see is with such persons a difierent thing from what it is with normal infants, because the long repose of the central organs of the sense of sight causes a partly quicker, partly slower, functional development of these, yet no radical essen- tial difference between the two developments of the process of sight can be established if the operation is SIGHT. 53 performed during childhood. Even the experiences of space gained through seizing and toneliirg can not be directly made available at the first attempt at accommo- dation by one born blind and gaining sight late in life. By him, as by the infant, among the countless retinal im- ages must be preferred above all others, those which are of moderate brightness and those in which the diffusion circles amount to a minimum. For very great bright- ness is disagreeable, like every over-strong nerve excite- ment, and the dark involves a weaker nerve excitement than the moderately bright, and thus seems less adapted to arouse the attention of the eye. Of the images of medium intensity of light, that which is sharply defined is observed before all others, for the reason that this one. apart from the pleasurable feeling it causes, is distin- guished from all others — precisely through its sharp outlines — the relative position is better ascertained, and the object is more easily recognized when seen again. Thus when the retinal images all appear together the brighter and sharper ones are preferred ; these impress themselves first and most enduringly upon children, the others being consequently neglected. In this way the function of accommodation is set in operation. Then the eye can fixate, one after another, objects that are at un- equal distances from it. Still the step, from the reflex accommodation at the approach of an object to the eye in repose to the volun- tary accommodation at the sight of two unequally dis- tant objects, remains obscure. Probably it is first taken upon the ground of a logical process, after the child has moved himself, or at least his head and his arms, toward the object. Then first will the knowledge dawn upon 6 54: THE MIND OF THE CHILD. him, " I do not need to be nearer the object in order to see it plainly." Tliis experience can not, however, be turned to ac- count before the development of the power of choice. For " fixation " is the voluntary bringing of an illumi- nated point on the place of clearest vision, the yellow spot, to a distinct image. The child that for the first time gazes at the flame of the candle has no power of choice ; for him, therefore, fixation is not possible. He simply stares spell-bound by the new sensation. Binocular fixation must, however, be inexact long after the first voluntary act of accommodation, because iiTcgular movements of the eyes are still frequent. Fix- ation, properly speaking, does not in any case take place before the day on which for the first time a moving ob- ject is voluntarily followed with the gaze — not before the close of the third month (according to my observa- tions and those of Cuignet). But for a long time after this critical point, the per- ception of objects unequally distant from the eye, as also the estimate of distances, remains imperfect. How slowly the third dimension of space gets established in perception, in spite of daily practice, appears from the following observations, separated by great intervals of time, made in regard to my boy, whose sight A^'as after- ward very keen. In the ninth week the apparatus of accommodation was already in action. At least I inferred so, from the fact that, while head and eyes were motionless and the amount of light remained unvarying in good daylight, the pupils expanded and contracted alternately several times, although this was done also even when my face SIGHT. 55 remained at the same distance from that of the child. He was evidently experimenting here, letting his eyes converge more and less strongly, allowing my face to become distinct and less distinct before them, 17th week. — Objects accidentally seized are moved toward the eyes. The child often grasps at objects which are twice the length of his arm away from him ; indeed, at the same object several times in succession. 18th week. — Reaching too short for the distance is very frequent. j^-i-th week. — !New objects are no longer, as was the case earlier, carried to the eyes (and to the mouth), or, at any rate, only rarely ; on the other hand, they are at- tentively regarded and felt with the hands, the mouth being pursed. When the child regards a stranger near him (in the seventh month) his countenance takes on an expression of the greatest astonishment, mouth and eyes being wide open, all the muscles becoming sud- denly rigid in the exact position they were last in. The new retinal image must therefore be quite clear, to be so easily distinguished from other retinal images of hu- man faces — i. e., the accommodation is perfect. 4^7th week. — Playing with a single hair (a woman's), on which the eyes were long fixed, proves the same thing. 51st tveek. — Some men sawing wood, at a distance of more than one hundred feet, attract the attention of the child and give him pleasure. His sight, therefore, is keen at a distance, as it is for near objects. But that things plainly seen are at unequal distances he has not yet comprehended ; for, in the — oSth week. — The child grasped again and again, with 66 THE MIND OF THE CHILD. great perseverance, at a lamp in tlie ceiling of a railway- carriage in which he was passing some hours, and was unusually merry over it. 68th week. — He continues to come short, very often, in his attempts to seize objects ; he also reaches too far to the left or to the right, and too high and too low. 96th week. — I stood at the window in the second story and threw a piece of paper to the child, who was in the garden below. He picked it np, looked at it, and held it toward me a long time, with uplifted arm, ex- pressing his desire that I should take it — a convincing proof how little he appreciates distance. 108th week. — Looking at small photographic Kke- nesses of persons known to him, the child at once knows whom they represent; he must, therefore, have good power of accommodation, since only in well-defined retinal images can be perceived the diiferences, often slight, by which human faces are recognized. 113th week. — Articles of household furniture known to the child are also recognized at once when represented in the picture-book, and at a distance of three inches, and of three feet. It follows from these observations that the accom- modation is perfect long before the perception of dis- tance begins — i. e., the child is able to see plainly ob- jects at very miequal distances from the eye without knowing how unlike their distance is, nay, even without any knowledge of their being at unequal distances. He becomes acquainted with distance only at a later j)eriod, probably through the movement of his body towai'd the object seen, and through the failure of his attempts to seize wdiat lies at a distance. SIGHT. 57 Yet, for all children, probably the correct estimate of distance is first established by this very act of seizing, because in this there is abundant experience, the num- ber of the attempts being great. On the contrary, by the act of offeiing things to others a correct estimate of distance is not formed till much later, because there is a lack of experience at the beginning. Giving makes its appearance much later than tciMng. In any case the child is much longer in getting his bearings in space, even after he has the power of visual accommodation, than are many animals, e. g., the chicken, which, after a few hours, correctly perceives the dis- tance of a grain of corn at which it pecks (p. 67). The luiman being must infer, by a roundabout way, from many individual experiences, the third dimension of space, whereas those animals inherit a nervous mechan- ism which makes this appear by no means a thing to be learned. In man, right and left, over and under, are given by means of the arms and legs, as these are sepa- rated from one another ; but extent from before to be- hind is not thus given, because the child does not see or feel itself behind. For the knowledge of extent from front to rear, i. e., of the dimension of depth, there is need of movements, especially of seizing ; hence, this is not acquired until later. The old, much-mooted question, whether the child supposes the objects it first sees distinctly (but not yet as at unequal distances from the eye) to be in the eye or outside of it, is answered by John Stuart Mill (1859), according to the Berkeleyan theory of space-perception, for he says that a person born blind and suddenly en- abled to see would at first have no conception of in or 58 THE MIND OF THE CHILD. out., and would be conscious of colors only, not of ob- jects. When, by bis sense of toucb, be became ac- quainted with objects, and bad time to associate men- tally the objects he touched with the colors he saw, then, and not till then, would he begin to see objects. The correctness of this view is shown by all the earlier and later reports of oculists in regard to blind children who learn to see after being operated upon. The same thing is true of newly-born children that have their sight ; for, whenever two impressions belonging to different departments of the senses occur together in our experience, then from the presence of the one we infer the other. The knowledge of outness is hence much earlier awakened and established than that of the unequal distances of objects from the eye. " At the age at which a child first learns that a diminution in brightness and in apparent magnitude implies increase of distance, the child's ideas of tangible extension and magnitude are not faint and faded, but fresh and vigor- ous." In the beginning, however, the perception of distance, as well as perception by touch, does not exist at all, and the former is still utterly lacking when the latter has reached a comparatively advanced stage. For the experiences wdth persons born blind that have after- ward learned to see, show that some of these patients supposed the objects seen to be touching their eyes, as objects felt touch the skin. Here Stuart Mill is quite correct in saying, '• That the objects touched their eyes was a mere supposition which the patients made, be- cause it was with their eyes that they perceived them." From their experiences of touch, perception of an object and contact with it were indissolubly associated in their SIGHT. 59 minds. The patient would certainly not say, however, that all objects seemed to touch his eyes, if some of them appeared farther off than others. Cases of this sort, therefore, fully prove that children are at iirst incapable of seeing things at unequal distances. But because the patients show great* zeal in learning to judge of impres- sions of sight by means of the sense of touch, they must also learn to judge of distances. One question more belongs here : Are newly-born children of tener myopic (near-sighted) or hypermetropic (far-sighted) ? We have the observations of Von Jäger (18 Gl) and of Ely concerning the eyes of the newly-born and of infants, but these observations are in part contradictory. The first observer is of opinion that the configuration of the eye in the earliest days is myopic, there being an inborn prolongation of the axis of the eye, which lasts, however, but a few weeks. Evidence of this he found also in measurements made in post-mortem examinations. He maintains, on the evidence of his ophthalmoscopic and anatomical investigations, that at the beginning the adjustment for shorter distances prevails, but in the more matured child the adjustment for greater distances (in the early years). Ely, on the contrary, who (1880) tested newly-born children and infants of a few weeks (living children only) with the ophthalmoscope, making use of belladonna (whereby a higher per cent can be obtained for inborn hypermetropia, as he himself remarks), found that emmetropia, myopia, and hypermetropia are all in- nate, with a preponderance of the last condition. König- stein, who examined nearly three hundred children, states that the eye of the child is probably hypermetropic ex- 60 THE MIND OF THE GUILD. clusively (1881). Renewed observations, without the use of belladonna, are desirable, though they are, of course, attended with great difficulties. I saw the eyes of my child, on the twelfth day of his life, shine very brightly (both pupils dark-red) when the flame of a candle was behind my head at one side. This glow of the eye indicates hypermetropia at that time. Later, this child's eyes became emmetropic. It can not be without influence on the whole mental development of the child whether he distinctly sees near objects only, or distant ones also, in the first years of his life, but there is as yet a lack of data for estimating this influence. One thing only I would lay down as settled, viz., that the protracted occupation of little children with tine work, such as the pricking of paper, the placing and drawing through of threads, etc. — notwithstanding the fact that these exercises are warmly recommended in the so-called Kindergartens of Germany, and are prac- ticed daily for a long time — must be injurious to the eyes. The prolonged strain of looking at near objects is for children from three to six years old, even ia the best light, unqualifiedly harmful. All strain of atten- tion to near objects in the evening, when lamp-light must be used, should especially be forbidden, otherwise the apparatus of accommodation will get a one-sided use too early, and near-sightedness will be invited. 7. Tlie Interpretation of what is Seen. Many suppose that the infant, if he distinguishes at all any individual visible thing, sees " all objects as if painted upon a flat surface " — that he has as yet no SIGHT. 61 conception of anytliing external, existing outside of his eye ; at any rate, no snspicion that anything inoves to- ward him ; that his seeing seems to he at this time merely a dim sense of light and of darkness ; the finger appears to him only as a dark patch in a bright field of vision, and does not project in rehef from the surface of the picture.* In opposition to this I must contend — while I agree with the view in relation to the newly-born and the first days of life — that in the second quarter of the first year, when this is also said to hold good, there must be al- ready something more than a mere "dim sense of light and dark." For, in the first place, the convergence of the lines of vision exists much earlier ; so that the at- tention is directed to individual points in the field of vision. Secondly, the glance of both eyes follows mov- ing objects much earlier, though not voluntarily. Third- ly, it is early announced, by exclamations of pleasure and displeasure over single .objects held before the face, that the discovery has been made of the demarcation in space of the changing fields, colored, or dark and light, in the visual plane. Withal a considerable time elapses before the child is capable of interpreting the colored, light and dark, large and small, disappearing and reappearing mosaics — before he can understand and appreciate, before he ceases to wonder at transparency and luster, reflection and shadow. In this the normal babe is inferior, in learning to see, to the person born blind but gaining * Sigismund's work on " The Child and the World " (" Kind und Welt"), 1856. 62 THE MIND OF THE CHILD. sight thron gli a surgical operation ; the latter learas much more rapidly to interpret the field of vision, by reason of his more abundant experiences of touch. Some of my observations concerning the interpreta- tion of the more common retinal impressions of the child, made at various times, may be brought together here for illustration. Gth month. — When I nod with a pleasant look to my child, he laughs with unmistakable signs of pleasure, moving his arms up and down. (When strangers accost him, however, he does not do this.) Once he observed my image in the mirror, became very attentive, and suddenly turned around toward me as if he were about to compare the image in the glass with the original, or wished to convince himself of the doubhng of the face. 7ih month. — The infant stares at a strange face near him fully a minute, and longer, with eyes fixed and with an expression of the greatest astonishment : he therefore interprets it at once as something strange. 8th month. — The greatest' interest is aroused by bot- tles — nursing-bottles, wine-bottles, and bottles for water. They are " fixated " with a protracted gaze ; the child %vants them, and they are recognized even at a distance of two or three metres. The interest is to be explained by the circumstance that the child now gets his nourish- ment from the bottle, which he takes hold of several times a day and sees near by. For this reason he recog- nizes objects like it in the field of vision more easily than other objects (except human faces). 9th 7nonth. — Just as it is with bottles that resemble nursing-bottles, so it is now with boxes that resemble an SIGHT. 63 infant's powder-box ; these are gazed at fixedly, and are desired, with outstretched arms and wide-open eyes. More and more, however, the child shows his interest in other things and occurrences in his neighborhood ; in particular, he tm*ns his head quickly toward the door when it is opened or shut, and observes attentively new objects that he holds, or that are moving, for a longer time than formerly. 10th month. — V^isual impressions that are connected with food are, however, most quickly and surely inter- preted correctly. The child follows the preparation of his food with lips protruded and with wide-open, glis- tening, eager eyes. 11th month. — When the child is awake he hardly remains quiet a moment ; is always moving the eyes hither and thither, and in like manner the head, while he tries to fixate with his gaze every one who comes in or goes by. If these facts in regard to isolated sight-impressions show an early faculty of perception by the eye, since faces, bright and large moving objects, are soon distin- guished from other parts of the field of vision and are easily recognized again, yet the following facts, although they come from a still later period, prove how far from correctly new impressions are interpreted. 15th month. — The child grasped repeatedly at the lighted candle, but not far enough to reach it, and when he was near enough put his hand into the Üame ; but never again afterward. 16th month. — In the bath the child grasps at the jets of water that flow from his head when the sponge is squeezed upon it, as if these were strings. He tries 64 THE MIND OF THE CHILD. to catch them in his fingers in a pretty m'slj, and seems surprised at his faihire. 17th month. — The child grasped, at various times, generally with a laugh, at some tohacco-snioke a few feet away from him, bent his lingers and exerted him- self to seize the smoke, which floated between him and a lamp. Only imperfect conceptions are formed, then, ev^en yet, of the distance and the substantiahty of ob- jects. 18th m 072th. — At the unexpected sight of a tall man dressed in black, the child becomes suddenly still, stares at the man about a minute, flees to his father and gazes, motionless, at the tall figure. Immediately after the man had withdrawn, the child said atta, and was unre- strainedly merry and lond as before. Here an unexpected visual impression had evidently caused anxiety, without any assignable reason, for the man whose appearance the child did not know how to interpret was friendly toward him. It was not till the end of his second year that the child ceased to be so easily embarrassed by strangers in black dress. ^2d month. — New impressions seem to enchain his attention in increased degree ; the mysterious grows more and more attractive. ^]ith month. — The child observes very attentively animals that are moving, even the slowly - creeping snail and the beetle. These objects, easily followed with the eye, appear not to be at all understood, to judge from the inquiring expression of countenance. The child is surprisingly tender with them, almost timid. At this period the understanding of actions, and of SIGHT. 65 the use of all sorts of utensils, is further developed than the ability to interpret representations of them, al- though an inexhaustible fancy in play has been mani- fested a long time already in various ways. Sigisniund's child, at the end of the second year, understood a circle as representing a plate, a square as a honhon, and had in his twenty-first month recognized the shadow of his father, of which he was at first afraid, as a picture, for he pointed at it joyously, crying " Papa ! " Much later than this my boy called a square, window / a triangle, roof ; a circle, ring / four points, little hirds. Not till after the third year is the ability to repre- sent known objects, even by lines on paper or by cut- ting out, manifested. Before this the child wants to " write," yam-e (schreiben), i. e., to draw; and thinks that by all sorts of marks he is representing a locomo- tive, a horse, a spoon, a plate, a bottle ; but does not succeed without help. I have had information of one child only that, in its fourth year, without instruction, could cut animals out of paper with the scissors (giraffes, greyhounds, horses, lions, camels, fishes) in such a fash- ion, and draw them so on the slate with a pencil, that everybody knew at once what the lines inclosed (even in the case where he had sketched a man sitting). Such a talent is very rare, and indicates an inherited sense of form. An average child can not, before the end of the third year, draw an approximately circular line return- ing upon itself. This boy of three and a half years, however, bites animals out of bread, draws them with a stick in the sand, models them in clay, sees animal forms in the clouds, and devotes himself to his art with the greatest perseverance for months, without direction, ßQ THE MIND OF THE CHILD. without the least stimulus from parents or brothers and sisters.* The surprisingly persistent desire of my boy (in his thirtieth month), repeated daily (often several times in the day), to " write " locomotives, Zocopotiwe raiben (he meant " draw "), sprang from his seeing locomotives fre- quently. These objects interested him in a remarkable degree in his third and fourtli years, evidently because greater changes in the held of vision excite the special attention of the infant very early, on account of the great number of optical nerve-tibers excited by the change of light and dark. In the country the locomo- tive is one of the largest moving objects. It also moves swifter than horses. That this, the largest moving mass perceived, became the most interesting of all, as was the case with the steamer on the sea, seems therefore nat- ural. As to the rest I have not been able to determine in what way little children represent to themselves such movements. Many regarded ,the locomotive as tired when it stood still, as thirsty when its tank was filling wnth water, as a stove when it was heated ; or they were afraid of every steam-engine near them, so long as it was in operation. 8. Sight in Newly-born Animals. The perfection of sight in quite young fowls, with- out experience, is astonishing as compared with the in- complete development of this sense in new-bom human beings. Let their eyes be kept shut, without injuring * Frau Dr. Friedemann. SIGHT. 67 them, from one to three days, and, in many eases, within two minutes after the removal of the bandage, they will follow the movements of creeping insects with all the accuracy of old fowls. Within from two to fifteen min- utes they peck at any object, estimating the distance with almost infallible accuracy. If the object is out of reach, they will run to it and hit it eveiy time, so to speak, for they never miss by more than a hair's breadth, even when the kernel of grain at which they pecked is no larger than the smallest dot of the letter i / seizing at the moment of pecking is a more difficult operation. Although an insect is sometimes caught with the bill and swallowed at the first attempt, they generally peck five or six times, and pick up crmnbs ouce or twice, before they succeed in swallowing food for the first time. So Spalding reports. His statements hold good, also, according to my ob- servations, for fowls one day old, not bandaged but kept in the dark one day ; these, without mother or compan- ions, at once find their way of themselves wherever they are, in the incubator or on the table in the labora- tory. But I can not admit the supposed infallibility to within a hair's breadth. They miss in pecking by as much as two millimetres, though seldom. On the other hand, the attempts at swallowing frequently fail. Here it should be considered that even grown fowls are not sure in their pecking, seizing, or swallowing, as any one that observes closely may easily perceive. The accuracy is, however, marvelous at the very beginning. A duck- ling of a day old snapped at a fly that was just flying by, and caught it ; a turkey of only a day and a half directed its bill, after the manner of the elders of its race, atten- 68 THE MIXD OF THE CHILD. tively and deliberately, at flies and other small insects. (Spalding.) Many new-born mammals Lave likewise in the very first hours of life the ability to move not only the head but the whole body toward a visual impression — e. g., young pigs. Spalding bandaged the eyes of two pigs just born. One of these was brought immediately to the mother ; it soon found the teats and began to suck. Six hours afterward the other was placed at a short dis- tance from the mother. It found her in half a minute, after going about in a rather unsteady manner. After a half-minute more it found the teats. In both cases smell and taste must, therefore, have determined the direc- tion of the movement ; in the last case probably hearing also. But it is not expressly stated whether the mother made her voice heard. On the following day it ap- peared that the one of the young ones that had been left with the mother no longer had on the bandage. The other was wholly unable to see, but walked about, bumping against things. In the afternoon the bandage was taken ofi. Then the creature ran about as if it had already been able to see before it was bandaged. Ten minutes later it was hardly to be distinguished from another young one that had enjoyed the use of its eyes without interruption. " Placed on a chair, it saw that the height required considering," knelt down and jumped off. After ten minutes more this animal was placed, together with another, twenty feet from the sty. Both got to their mother in five minutes, at the ßame instant. If, in the last-mentioned experiment, smell and hear- ing not being excluded, imitation of the animal whose SIGHT. 69 sight has not been internipted is possible to the one that has been for only twenty minutes able to see, yet the very remarkable fact of the jumping down from the chair after the previous kneeling must be based on an act of sight. The operation of estimating distance, however imperfect it be in the brain of an animal not yet two days old, and not able to see till within ten minutes before jumping down, proves that even thus early the third dimension of space comes to conscious- ness through the eye, as the result of retinal impres- sions, otherwise the animal would not have knelt before jumping. Now, since it had hitherto had no sight-perceptions, and in those ten minutes none that gave occasion for jumping, the association of retinal ex- citement, estimate of distance, muscular movement for kneeling and for the jumping that followed, must be inherited. For no one would attribute to a pig so young, blind ten minutes before, such a gift of inven- tion, as to initiate, out of independent deliberation, a proceeding so rational and so well adapted to its pur- pose. The animal jumps because its ancestors have jumped countless times without waiting long or esti- mating carefully the distance. A human infant does not possess this association of retinal excitement and co- ordinated muscular movement. It moves without pur- pose and falls from the chair. The young Guinea-pig, on the other hand, does not jump and does not fall by accident, but lets itself drop, as I have often proved. Kids kneel and see on the first day of life, without any example for imitation and without guidance, yet quickly and efficiently. I have seen them suck in this manner before they were twenty-two hours old. They 70 THE MIXD OF THE CHILD. stride rather awkwardly up to the mother, sniiff at her teats, kneel down and suck, wagging their tails continu- ally and pushing with their heads. In the human being so many more associations of sight with co-ordinated muscular movements are pos- sible than in the brute at the moment of birth, that it takes a longer growth after birth for these all to be de- veloped. Kot before the sixth week, as O. Binswanger has dis- covered, are fully-formed ganglionic cells present in the human cerebrum, and at the same period are first de- veloped the cerebral convolutions, according to the in- vestigations of Sernoif. Therefore, not only does the human brain continue to grow after birth, but it differ- entiates itself after birth, not before ; since not until the second month does it receive its characteristic morpho- logical marks. Such complicated mechanisms of associations as those mentioned can not be developed before birth, because too many other established inherited mechanisms go along with them. They are all present potentially, but which of them finally become most easily operative depends on experience — i. e., on provocation from without, the more or less often repeated treading of the separate paths of association in the cerebro-spinal system. In other words, the child learns much more than the animal. The philosopher, Eduard von Hartmann, as early as 1872, used the following striking language with refer- ence to this difference : " The human child seems to bring nothing at all with him, but to learn everything ; in reality, however, he brings everything, or at any rate far more than does tlie lower animal that creeps all com- SIGHT. ^ll plete out of tlie egg ; but he brings everything in an immature condition, because there is in liim so much to be developed that in the nine months of embryonic life it can only be prefigured in the germ. So, then, in the progressive development of the infant brain the matur- ing of tendencies goes hand in hand with learning — i. e., with the moditication of these tendencies by exercise ; and the result is far richer and liner than can be attained in the brutes by mere inheritance." The superiority of the animal, which utilizes at once its retinal excitations for its own advantage in jumping, is thus merely an apparent one, for it lacks the aptitude to learn other ways of utilizing experiences. This utili- zation may be conceived of as an inherited logical pro- cess — i. e., as instinctive ,' since the animal is born more mature than the human being, it is, unconsciously, earlier capable of performance such as the human being learns later through individual experience and accomplishes only with consciousness. The same holds true of the association of seeing and touching, seeing and seizing, and other associations of which we have yet to speak. Still, it is not to be denied that in man also the at- tainment of complicated combinations of this sort — of movements of the muscles of the eye and the arm upon receiving certain sense-impressions — is essentially assist- ed by inherited endowment. The muscular movements fall into the required groove without imitation the more quickly, in proportion as these have been the habitual combinations in the life of the race. 72 THE MIND OF THE CHILD. CHAPTER IL HEAEING. The observations concerning the gradual develop- ment of the faculty of liearing in early childhood relate to the deafness of newly-born children — which is nor- mally of only short duration — and to the babe's first sensations and perceptions of sound. Then follow some statements concerning the hearing of new-born animals. 1. The Deafness of the Newly-born. All children immediately after birth are deaf. It was formerly conjectured merely that the reason why the new-born child can not hear is the filling of the cavity of the tympanum with mucus, and that this physiological deafness lasts until the cavity is emptied. It is now settled that the temporary deafness is occa- sioned, also, and chiefly, by the lack of air in the cavity before respiration. Several investigators have found in the middle ear of the foetus a yellowish liquid, others a peculiar ge- latinous substance. Gelle thinks that the latter comes from a strong oedematous infiltration of the mucous membrane of that part, and has its place supplied soon after birth with air, by means of the respiratory move- ments, after it has become liquid — as he proved that it does become, shortly before birth. He found in a cat, half an hour after birth, both tympanic cavities filled with air, and no remaining trace of the gelatinous magma. HEARING. 7-3 The animal liad cried out, and its lungs contained a good deal of air. The question how far this gelatinous tissue, hyper- semia and swelling of the mucous membrane of the tympanic cavity, a sub-epithelial layer of the membrane, till up the tympanic cavity before the first respiration, is not yet decisively answered. Neither has the point of time been ascertained, after how many respirations the Eustachian tube, in the human being, is permeable. Probably the advent of respiration is not alone suffi- cient to accomplish the emptying of the tympanic cavi- ties after birth and the filling of them with air ; rather are repeated swallowing and breathing essential to it, and a few respirations are not sufficient, as Lesser proved, to replace with air the liquid contents of the tympanic cavity of the foetus, or to change their character. Only after several hours' respiration can air be proved to exist in the middle ear along with the liquid ; but Lesser found that the rapidity with which the liquid gave place to air did not sustain a constant relation to the duration of the extra-uterine existence. As Lesser examined forty- two new-born human beings, of whom thirteen were still-born, sixteen had lived a few minutes after birth, and thirteen had lived several hours or days, greater value is to be attributed to his results than to the iso- lated experiences of others. His results are of practical importance, and are especially remarkable in that they show that the foetal condition of the middle ear in children prematurely born may persist more than twenty hours after birth. Such children, according to this, must be deaf somewhat longer than those born at the full time. Y4 THE MIND OF THE CHILD. As to tlie rest, the old view of Sclieel (1798), accord- ing to which the amniotic fluid comes directly into the middle ear before birth through the Eustachian tube, as the air does after birth, namely, through swallowing, is not improbable. And we can not help agreeing with him when he observes that because some of the amniotic fluid remains in the tympanic cavity during the first days after birth, a loud sound is less injurious to the organ of hearing than if the caväty were at once filled with air. The collection of fluid in the middle ear makes adults also hard of hearing. It was well said by Herholdt (1797) : " Experiments made on animals have convinced me that in the foetus the tympanic cavity is completely tilled with mucus and amniotic fluid, which enters and is renewed through the Eustachian tube. So the remainder of the amniotic fluid and that in the tympanic cavity are in equilibrium and the tympanum is pressed equally from all sides. By this the tympanic cavity is relieved during the growth of the foätus from the obstacles that might stand in the way of its proper development, and the tender tympanic membrane is pro- tected from harm. After birth the liquor flows out slowly through the same channel, and the atmospheric air takes its place. Then first can the organs of hear- ing perform their functions, though not perfectly until their development has become complete and the bones of the head are firm and in reciprocal connection. The older physicians, who did not know this, dreamed of an hereditary or inborn atmosphere." In accord with this are the investigations of Mol- denhauer and Von Tröltsch (1880). The latter is of opinion that the hyperplastic mucous membrane, which HEARING. 75 in the fcBtus almost fills up, like a cushion, the aperture of the tvinpauic cavity, often shrinks together before birth ; the mucous cushion may even disaj^pear within the uterus, in which case something else must occupy its place, and this can only be the amniotic fluid. Besides the lack of air in the tympanic cavity, there is also to be taken into account, as a cause of the deaf- ness of the human being at birth, the temporary closing of the external auditory canal, which is due, according to Urbautschitsch, not to epithelial agglutination, but to absolute contact of the coatings of the auditory canal. Many animals, also, but probably no birds, are for this reason deaf, or hard of hearing, directly after birth. So much the more surprising is the sensitiveness of others, e. g., of the Guinea-j)ig, of which something will be said by-and-by. If the tympanic cavity in the new-born child is al- ready filled with air, a deafness of half an hour, or of sev- eral hours, or even of several days, may be caused by the closing of the external auditory canal (the obstruction does not very quickly disappear), or by the narrowness of the canal. The difference in the results of observations ac- cording to which infants from one to three days some- times react distinctly upon the stimulus of sound, some- times ignore it completely, seems intelligible, however, if we only take into account the varying rapidity with which the Eustachian tube and the auditory canal are pervious to air, apart from all other obstacles, even pos- sible cerebral ones. On the other hand, I must posi- tively pronounce false the statements according to which children from three to four months old possess normally very slight capacity of hearing, and according to which 76 THE MIND OF THE CHILD. it is hard to give a decided opinion as to whetlier such children hear at all or not. My observations upon many infants and mj information from trustworthy mothers leave no doubt that, long before the third month, in tlie normal condition, the human voice is heard ; and in fact mature and sound children before the close of the frst week of life react, in unmistakable fashion, upon the stimulus of loud sound, as JJr. Ki'oner, of Breslau, also found. The longer continuance of difficulty of hearing is certainly of great advantage to the infant, as it stands in the way of the multiplication of reflex movements, and so of the tendency to convulsions. But if children born at the right time make no movement in the fourth week when a loud sound is made behind them, then there is reason to suspect that such children will remain deaf and dumb. 2. The First Sensations and Perceptions of Sound. How many hours, days, or weeks after birth the very earliest sensations of sound are experienced it is not easy to determine very accurately, for the reason that an unmistakable sign that a sensation of sound has been experienced is lacking. Movements of the eyelids, starting, throwing up the arms, and screaming, which appear in the child at the stimulus of sudden loud sound, appear readily at fright caused by any strong impression, while slight noises and soft tones remain unnoticed. The turning of the head toward the invisible source of sound does not take place till later. Frequently-repeated attempts to test the ability of the newly-born to hear, leave no doubt that it is in- HEARING. 77 creased by exercise, and that an occasional temporary dullness occurs. But tlie experiments made thus far are too scanty and uncertain. Kussmaul could make the loudest discordant noises near the ears of new-born children during the first days, while they were awake, without any reaction on their part. Numerous experiments made by him in this di- rection had only a negative result. But he adds that another cautious observer, Feldbauseh, has seen sleeping children more than three days old start when he broke the silence by clapping his hands hard. Champney's child, on the contrary, did not react before the fourth week upon any noise, however loud, not even clapping of the hands, if there was no vibration of the room or of the bed. If a door was slammed-to, the child start- ed, just as it did directly after birth when the scales of the balance in which it lay suddenly sprang up. When fourteen days old, this child turned its eyes toward its mother when she spoke to it, but as it did not at that time stir at any noise, however loud, if there was no shaking, this turning may be attributed to the feeling of warmth at being breathed upon ; for the movement took place only when the mother's face was turned to- ward the babe, and it was presumably a movement of the head rather than of the eyes. Genzmer was the first to make experiments by measuring. He ascertained the greatest distances at which infants' eyelids quivered at the striking of a little bell, which was done in just the same way always, with a small iron rod. It appeared that almost all children of one day, or certainly of two days, react upon impres- sions of sound, but theii* sense of heai*ing is, without 78 THE MIXD OF THE CHILD. mucli reference to tlie degree of their maturity, at first unequal, and grows more acute within the first weeks. Tlie average distance at wliich the striking of the bell was heard was found to be eiglit to ten inches, but the figures varied from one to twenty. In one case, that of a very active child, the distance on the fii'st day was eight, on the sixth eighteen, on the twenty-fourth twenty-four inclies ; with a phlegmatic child, the audi- tory reflexes were on the first day irregular, on the eighth they occurred at five, on the twenty-fourth at eleven inches distance from the bell. It may be seen from these figures how unequal the progress is. But as the sound could hardly be of exactly the same force in all the experiments, and as the quivering of the eye- lids is not caused by the stimulus of sound exclusively, and as not every sound-stimulus is responded to by a quiver of the eyelids, this whole series of experiments, limited to about thirty observations, on fifteen children, is uncertain. The observations of Dr. Moldenhauer likewise leave much that is doubtful, although his mode of proceeding is better. He made use, as a test of the hearing, of the French toy, cri-ari, which gives a loud, brief, disagree- able sound, with discordant high overtones. This sound continues almost exactly identical after many experi- ments, and can be made quite close to the ear without involving other stimulus. The most important result of this experiment was that, with very few exceptions, children distinctly reacted at once upon the sound- stimulus at the first trial. Yet the degree of the reac- tion was extraordinarily unequal in different individu- als, and in the same individuals on different days. Fifty HEARING. Y9 eliilclren were tested. Of tliese only ten were less than twelve honrs old (these all reacted), and only seven from twelve to twenty-four hours old, all the rest older. The least degree of reaction was indicated by a distinct quiver of the eyelids, even without interruption of sleej) ; a stronger degree by wrinkling of the forehead. Then came head-movements, mostly single short twist- ings of the head ; finally, starting, accompanied by vio- lent quivering of the head, the arms, and the upper part of the body ; sleeping children awoke and screamed. The reflexes occurred more plainly and more quickly after the end of the second day than on the first two days. In experiments that followed one another in quick succession, there was very often manifested a dullness, going as far as entire absence of reaction. Children sleeping soundly, and babes nm*sing, re- acted less distinctly than those awake or half asleep. Most children, then, even those born three or four weeks too early, respond in the first days to strong im- pressions of sound by reflex movements in the region of the facialis. The action of those just born, in the first five hours, was not investigated. The four young- est were six hours old, as the author tells me. Deaf- ness was in some few cases (four out of fifty) well es- tablished, even after more than twenty-four hours ; thus my observation that no reaction follows upon sound-im- pressions immediately after birth is not modified by this discovery. In fact, I saw a strong child, of ten hours, that did not react in the least npon the cri-cri, and I saw one of six days react very slightly. Moldenhauer found further that, of four children who were tested for the first time after more than 80 THE MIND OF THE CHILD. twenty-four hours and did not react, tliree did distinct- ly react iu later repeated experiments in the same hour or on the following day. A child of three days did not react even at the second trial. When the bell that has been mentioned was struck by Genzmer softly, very near the ear of children that heard well (probably more than two days old), they sometimes turned the head to that side ; if occupied witli nursing, they broke off from their occupation. Yery violent striking of the bell made them restless. I have likewise observed that infants are greatly dis- turbed by strong sound-stimulus, just as new-born ani- mals are ; e. g., the shrill whistle of a locomotive near by easily produces persistent lively movements and violent screaming in a child previously perfectly quiet, ^ot every infant, indeed, shows so strong a reaction, nor does any in the first hour of life. But on the ninth day the turning of the head (in my judgment accident- al) toward the source of sound was observed by Mol- denhauer. Too great a range is, however, commonly allowed for individual differences. When some children are re- ported as starting at loud sounds, even on the first day, others after three days, others again not till after eight weeks, there is reason to attribute the last statements to inaccurate observation, unless they apply only to those hard of hearing or prematurely born ; or, unless too deep sounds and unsuitable noises were employed. If a small tuning-fork, in vibration, warmed and carefully placed on the head, produces no other reaction than that produced by a fork not in vibration, similarly placed, we may infer that the inner ear has some share HEARING. 81 in the deafness of the newlj-born. But such experi- ments must be made on many individuals. Molden- hauer got no deKnite result with tuning-forks on ac- count of the sensitiveness of tlie skin of the head. A very vigorous male child, born after his time, wns seen by Dr. Deneke, in the lying-in asylum at Jena, six hours after birth, to close his eyes tighter every time the doctor struck two metallic covers together close to his ear. In this case, however, the reflex may have been started by the current of air arising from the sudden motion. A very strong new-born child, weighing nearly four and a quarter kilogrammes, did not react upon any noise, when I tested it half an hour after birth. That is the way all ordinary children behave just after birth. By ever so loud a noise, clapping of hands close to the ear, whistling, very loud screaming, they are not within the first half hour, according to my experiments, brought to screaming from a state of quiet, nor quieted if they are screaming. But they cry out if you blow on them, if you press softly on their temples, or strike them upon the thigh, after they have begun to breathe. Only there is a noticeably longer interval between the contact and the outcry than at a later period. I saw my child, in the twenty-first hour of life, move both arms symmetrically, at a loud call, but this is perhaps to be attributed to being breathed on ; for clapping of hands, whistling, speaking, produced no result, and on the second and third days no reaction upon sound-stimulus could be induced. It was not until the first half of the fourth day that I was convinced that my child was no longer deaf. For hand-clapping, or whistling, close to him then produced sudden open- g2 THE MIND OF THE CHILD. ing of the half-sliut eyes, as the child lay warm and satisfied with food, and to all appearance comfortable. As this result followed every time on repeated trials the fourth day, but not once on the third day, there can be no doubt that in this case the sound was heard by means of the tympanum on the fourth day, but not before. It also happened for the first time on the fourth day, and indeed several times, that the child when crying stopped as soon as I began to whistle close to him. This observation was made also upon babes of two and three days old. On the eleventh and twelfth days I noticed that my child became quiet always at the sound of my voice, which seemed also to call forth a sort of intense expression of countenance that, how- ever, can not be described. On the twenty-fifth day pulsation of the lids often followed when I spoke to the child in a low voice, stand- ing before and near him. On the following day he started suddenly when a dish that he could not see was noisily covered near him. He is frightened, then, al- ready, at unexpected loud sounds, as adults are. On the thirtieth day this fright was still more strongly mani- fested. I was standing before the child as he lay quiet, and being called, I said aloud, without changing my position, "Ja!" (yes). Directly the child threw both arms high up quickly, and made a convulsive start with the upper part of his body, while at the same time his expression, which had been one of contentment, became very serious. The same scene was enacted at another time on the slamming of a door. In the fifth week the sensibility to sound has in- creased to such a degree that the cliild seldom sleeps in HEARING. 83 the daytime if any one walks about or speaks in the room ; whereas, so late as the seventh day, a loud call did not wake the sleeping child. The increased sensi- bihty is also proved by the quick turnings of the head when any one sits on the child's bed without being seen by him, and also by the starting at moderately loud noises. In the sixth week I noticed this starting at quite in- significant noises, even when the child was asleep and did not wake. About this time he could already be quieted at once, when he was screaming, by his mother's singing. The first time this happened the child opened his eyes wide, evidently a symptom of astonishment at the new sensations of sound. On the following day, when his mother again quieted him by singing, he gazed at her with wide-open eyes (cf . p. 46), so that I already suspected he had associated the tones he heard with the oval of the face he saw, as is unquestionably the case with older children (e. g., of four months) when they laugh and utter joyous cries as soon as the mother sings anything to tliem. In the seventh week the fright at a loud sound was still greater than before. Dishes fell to the floor several times while the child was asleep. Instantly both arms went up swiftly, and remained for more than tiüo tniimtes upright in that strange position with fingers outstretched and parallel, without the child's waking. The attitude reminded one of the spreading of the wings of a frightened bird. There appears to be already a greater sensibility to tones, possibly to melodies, for an expression of the greatest satisfaction is perceived on the child's face when his mother hushes him with cradle- 84 THE MIND OF THE CHILD. songs softly sung. It is worth noticing, also, that even when he is crying from hunger a low sing-song causes a pause in the crying and attracts attention. Speaking does not effect this invariably, by any means. In the eighth week the infant heard, for the first time, the music of an instrument — the piano. He made known his satisfaction at the new sensation by an un- usual straining of the eyes and by lively movements of arms and legs at every forte, as well as by smiles and laughter. The higher and softer tones made no such impression. This delight in music manifested itself in like manner in the following months, from which we may conclude that more than a year before the first im- perfect attempt at speech there is discrimination between (musical) sounds and noises. The child of two or of three months often utters sounds of satisfaction when it hears music. In the ninth week the sound of a repeating watch, which had earlier produced not the least impression on the child, now aroused his attention to the highest pitch. But his head was not turned with certainty toward the source of sound, whereas he would follow a moving hand accurately. At every sudden noise, scream, call, tones, clapping of hands, there is a quick shutting and opening of the eyes, and very often the arms are at the same time lifted quickly, no matter in what position the body is held. The same in the fourth month. In the seventh and eighth the closing of the lids predominates. The raising of the arms has already become rare. In the eleventh week I noticed for the first time, what some others have not perceived before the second quarter of the year, though some have done so earlier, HEARING. 85 that tlie child, beyond doubt, moved his head in the di- rection of the sound heard. I knocked on a mirror, be- ing behind him. Immediately he turned his head round toward the source of the sound. At this period it is in general surprising with what ease single tones, scales, and chords attract the attention of the babe, to such a degree that the greatest restlessness subsides at once when these are sounded, and he hearkens with an in- tense gaze. In the twelfth week the turning of the head toward the sounding body was sudden, even when the look did not take at once the right direction. When the direc- tion was found, the child would hearken evidently with close attention (cf. p. 87.) In the sixteenth week the turning round of the head toward a sound takes place with the certainty of a reflex movement. Before this time no notice at all was taken of more distant sound-stimulus — a hand-organ below in the garden, the voice of a person speaking aloud at the other end of the room ; now both these sounds cause lively motions of the head, and an altered, not dissatis- fied, expression of countenance. The first noise artificially produced by the child him- self, one that gave him apparent pleasure and was ac- cordingly frequently repeated, was the crumpling of paper (especially in the nineteenth week). In the twenty -first week, at the beating of a gong, sounded for the purpose of taking his photograph, he became motionless — his attention was so enchained by the new noise — and stared with fixed gaze at the metallic plate. In general, his hearing became so much more acute in the fifth month that, when taking his milk, he almost :gQ THE MIXD OF THE CHILD. invariably broke off from liis occupation and turned about whenever a noise, not altogetlier too sliglit, was made near liim. After a half-year the babe often kept his gaze steadi- ly directed for minutes at a time on my face, and with an expression of wonder, with eyes and mouth open, when I sang single notes to him. He utters a joyous cry at military music. In the eighth month there is a quick closing of the lids, a single wink of the eyes for the most part, not only at every loud, sudden sound-impression, but even at every new one — e. g., when the voices of animals are imitated. This is no longer the expression of fright merely, but of astonishment also. In fright there has come, in place of the raising of the arms, a starting of the whole body and a convulsive movement of arms and legs together, which was also observed as early as the second month. The rapid shutting and opening of the eyes continued unchanged. In the ninth month, when the child more than twelve times in succession shut down the cover of a large "caraffe," so that a loud slam was heard every time, this winking of the eyes and starting of the whole body took place every time, the countenance meanwhile ex- pressing great attention. The reÜex movements in this case were not, then, the expression of fright, for the child himself eagerly repeated the shutting down of the cover after I had raised it. The combined tactual and visual impression surpassed in interest the accompany- ing phenomenon of sound ; the intensity of the latter, however, was so great as to involve the reflex move- ments. At this period I often saw, dm'ing the sleep of HEARING. g7 the child, lively movements of the hands after sound- impressions that did not waken the sleeper, the remains of an earlier reflex raising of the arm. Not only does the child turn his head round when he hears my voice "without seeing me, but (as also in the tenth month) at every new loud noise — e. g., thunder. So, too, the turn- ing of the head in the first and second weeks, when a loud sound is heard, is not a directing of the head toward the soui'ce of sound (p. 80) ; this does not take place till later (p. 85). During teething, the sensibility to acoustic stimulus is, moreover, noticeably increased. A loud word then produces winking, fright, quicker breathing, screaming, and tears. In the eleventh and twelfth months, the screaming child generally allows itself to be quieted in a few mb- ments by a decided " Sh ! " just as it did in the first month. ]^o other spoken utterance has this effect, not even the sharp " ss " or " pst," but any siugiug, even false notes, will do it. At this time — the three hundred nineteenth day — occurred a remarkable acoustic experience, which gives evidence of gi-eat intellectual advance. The child struck several times with a spoon upon a plate. It happened accidentally, while he was doing this, that he touched the plate with the hand that was free; the sound was dulled, and the child noticed the dif- ference. He now took the spoon in the other hand, struck with it on the plate, dulled the sound again, and so on. In the evening this experiment was renewed, with a like result. Evidently the function of causahty had emerged in some strength, for it prompted the ex- 88 THE MIND OF THE CHILD. periment. The cause of the dulling of the sound by the hand — was it in the hand or in the plate? The other hand had the same dulling effect ; so the cause was not lodged with the one hand. Pretty nearly in this fashion the child must have interpreted his sound- impression, and this at a time when he did not know a single word of his later language. In the twelfth month the child was accustomed, al- most every morning, to observe the noisy putting of coals into the stove, A. On the thi'ee hundred sixty- third day it took place in the next room, in the stove, B. The child at once looked in the direction of the sound, but as he discovered nothing he turned his head around nearly one hundred and eighty degrees, and re- garded the stove, A, with an inquiring gaze : that stove had already been filled. This likewise shows logical activity applied to perceptions of sound, and this before the ability to speak. Such experiments were from time to time carried on after this, entirely of the child's own accord ; e. g., in the thirtieth month the child, while eating, held his hand by chance to his ear while a kettle of boiling water stood before him. At once he becomes attentive, no- tices the diminution in the force of the sound, takes his hand away, listens in silence, open-mouthed and with an expression of surprise, to the modification of thp. sound, holds his hand to his ear five or six times, and establishes the fact anew each time, like an experi- menter, until the connection between the alteration in the sound and the movement of the hand no longer seems wonderful, because he has perceived it several times. HEARING. g9 I note here that one of the earliest sound-perceptions in which causality operated without language, is the one mentioned (p. 87), occurring on the eighty-tirst day. I have not been able, notwithstanding the greatest attention and very much outlay of time, to record any more observations of this sort concerning the activity of reasoning without speech, in the domain of sound. After the end of the lirst year the child strikes with his hands on the keys of the piano, and looks around occasionally while doing it, as if to assure him- self that somebody is listening to him. He takes pleas- ure in a canary-bird, laughing when it moves and listen- ing in silence when it sings, and then laughing again. In general, laughing is frequent in the following months at new noises, like gurgling or clearing the throat (fif- teenth month). Even thunder made the child laugh. A favorite acoustic occupation consisted in holding a watch to his ear and listening to the ticking (sixteenth, seventeenth, and twenty-fourth months). But some- times the watch was held behind the auricle and some- times against his cheek. If I held it above, on his head, the ticking was heard (nineteenth month), as could be told by the look of attention. The conduction of sound by the bones must have been already established for some time past. The pleasure in music, that showed itself even in the first three months, increased manifestly in the six following months. But it was nearly the end of the second year before the child, who was roused to the liveliest movements by hearing the most varied kinds of music, performed these movements in time. He did indeed dance, but in his own fashion, not rhythmically 90 THE MIND OF THE CHILD. (twenty-first month). Somewhat later, he would him- self beat time with toleral)le correctness with the arms, or with one arm, trying meanwhile to sing over a song that had been sung to him (twenty-fourth month), but he did not succeed in this till later, and then imper- fectly. Playing with fife and drum at that period gave hardly more pleasure than striking some keys of the piano, and that with both hands at once. But I nnist add that it was absolutely impossible, notwithstanding nmch pains, to teach the child to name rightly even the three notes C D E (end of third year), though his hearing for noises and vocal sounds was in general acute. Another child, on the contrary, a girl, could, in her ninth month, sing correctly every note given her from the piano, and seemed to find discords unpleasant ; at least she always wept bitterly at that age whenever any one blew on a small tin trumpet. This child, and two others of the same family, could sing before they could talk, and sing correctly airs that had been sung to them. 'Not only the pitok, but the stress and the shade of tone are given by such musical children (in the eighth month), who listen to all music with the greatest strain 'of atten- tion. Such a child even sang itself to sleep (in the eighth month), and later (in the nineteenth month), ac- companied songs and pieces sung and played by others, clapping its hands in correct time. (Fran Dr. Friede- mann.) Another little girl takes pleasure in hearing music (in the eleventh month), likes to strike on the keys of the piano, and when any one begins to sing airs that have often been sung to her, she springs and accompa- HEARING. 91 nies the singing with the movement of her body, and tm*us her hands this way and that. (Fr. v. Strümpell.) Through the whole of the third year it was not easy to waken my child by sound-impressions alone. He often fell asleep even when there was a racket near him, and yet his hearing was acute enough wdien he was awake, as appears from the observations reported. Even the knowledge of the direction of sound, though imperfect, still appeared earlier than in other cases. Darwin reports — e. g., that one of his acutely- hearing children, when more than seventeen weeks old, did not easily recognize the direction from which a sound came, so as to turn its gaze thither ; with which should be compared the above statements (page 85) ; also that of Yierordt, that sometimes in the fourth month the child begins to turn his head in the direction of the sound ; and that of R. Demme, who found that of about one hundred children only two, at the age of three and three and a half months, distinguished the voices of their parents from those of other persons call- ing to them ; these children made animated movements and joyous utterances ; all the other children were much later in making this distinction. Individual differences, partly hereditary, partly ac- quired, are in this department very great. 3. The Hearing of New-born Animals. Guiiiea-pigs not yet twelve hours old show unmis- takably, by movements of the ears, as I found, that they hear all high tones of from one thousand to forty- one thousand double vibrations a second. For when, unseen by the animals, everything around being still, 92 THE MIND OF THE CHILD. I struck one of my forty small tuning-forks that ranged tlirough that interval (from the C of the third octave to the E of the eighth) the ears of the animals were always immediately moved in time, either lowered or folded ; and at loud tones the creatures invaiiably started. This reflex movement, nowhere mentioned hitherto, viz., the contraction of the auricles, took place with such ma- chine-like regularity that I can compare no other move- ment with it in regard to precision, with the exception of the contraction of the pupil to light. In gro^^^l Guinea-pigs the auditory reflex for all these tones of the tuning-forks is likewise easy to prove ; but it is some- times very slight, especially after frequent repetition of the experiment. In the first half-hour after birth it is utterly wanting. New-born animals are accoi'dingly deaf at the beginning. On the other hand, it was at once demonstrable that all healthy Guinea-pigs an hour after birth, even those born some days before their time, respond to the most varied noises, both loud and soft — e. g., clapping of hands, by a quiver of the whole body ; at first often by a spring and by movements that seem like attempts to flee. This behavior can have its origin only in he- redity. The reflex arc from the auditory nerve to the motor nerves has been so frequently used by their ancestors, when in moments of danger a noise made flight advisa- ble, that the representatives of the present generation, without as yet any knowledge of danger, quiver at the first noise that comes. Even in the human babe of a few days old the starting at a sudden sound is a relic of this fright, and the same is true of adult human beings HEARING. 93 and horses. The first movement of the eyelid npon sudden noiseless sight-impressions is, on the contrary, to be explained differently, as I showed above (page 28) ; because tlie movements of flight, the starting and tlie drawing back of the head, are wanting in the begin- ning. Kew-born Gninea-pigs are especially sensitive to sounds of slight intensity. They recognize their mother by hearing on the first day of their life, even when she grunts quite softly and interruptedly, whereas they do not recognize her by sight after four or five days, as I found (1S7S) by a series of laborious experiments. As, moreover, the voice of the mother and that of the other little ones of the same litter produces a direct movement toward the source of the sound, when the members of the family have been separated, the direc- tion from which the sound comes must be perceived on the first day. The same is true of new-born swine. For Spalding observed that, at the age of only a few minutes, if they are removed several feet from their motlier, they soon find their way back to her, guided apparently by the grunting she makes in answer to their squealing. Tlie mother, in one case that w^as observed, got up in less than an hour and a half after giving birth to the young, and went off to feed ; the young ones went around and tried in every way to get nourishment, followed the mother and sucked while she ate standing. One of the young ones was put in a bag the moment it was born and kept in the dark till it was seven hours old. Then it was placed outside the sty, a distance of ten feet from where the sow lay concealed inside the house. The pig soon ' recog- 94 THE MIND OF THE CHILD. nized ' the low gruntino; of its motlier, went along ont- side the st}', struggling to get under or over the lower bar. At the end of five minutes it succeeded in forcing itself through under the bar, at one of the few places where that was possible. No sooner in than it went without a pause into the pig-house to its mother, and w^as at once like the others in its behavior. There can be no doubt that in this search the sensation of sound caused by the grunting was (for the creature that had not until five minutes before been exposed to the light) decisive of the direction to be pursued. Still, smell does not seem to have been excluded. Among the animals that hear well at the very be- ginning must be counted the chicken just from the egg. For soon after leaving the shell, as soon as it can run, it follows the cluck of the hen ; and even beforehand, in the egg after the shell has begun to burst, it responds by peeping to sounds of that kind. If it remains for a day or tw^o in tlie dark after it has been hatched in the incubator, and is then exposed to the light at a distance of nine or ten feet from a box in w^hich a brooding-hen is concealed, it will, after chirping one or tw^o minutes, betake itself straight to the box, following the call of the hen, though it has never seen and never before heard her. This takes place, too, when it involves the over- coming of obstacles in the grass, the passage over un- even ground, when the little creatures are not in condi- tion to stand on their feet. Even chickens deprived of sight from tlie first follow blindly the call of the cluck- ing hen when they come within five or six feet of her. Mr. Spalding, who conducted both these experiments, also made chickens deaf before they left the shell by HEARING. 95 sealing their ears with several folds of ^mmed paper, iiucoverod- their ears again after two or three days, set them free within call of the hen which was separated from them by a board, and then saw that, after turn- ing around a few times, they ran straight to the spot whence came the first sound they had ever heard. Tg them, therefore, the first sound-sensation could not be empty or meaningless. It became at once perception, and inherited memory asserted itself in a psycho-motor way. So thinks Spalding. But I have been able to prove in the case of thirty chickens hatched in an incu- bator, from one to three days out of the shell, that when food had been placed before them several times and a knocking upon wood made at the same time, they gen- erally ran, every time I knocked in their neighborhood, to the spot whence the noise issued, although there was no food there. They had, therefore, recognized the direction of the sound already, and had learned some- thing, or at least they had associated that special sound with the food. For they did not leave their place for other noises — e. g., whistling or the clucking of the hen, which they had never before heai'd ; but they listened instantly to the clucking when I brought several cluck- ing-hens successively into the neighborhood unseen by them, and they started at a loud report without moving from the spot. Besides, it is questionable whether the chickens with ears sealed were actually deaf, and whether they had not heard the voice of the hen before the stop- ping of the ears. The chick peeps before the shell has a crack in it, as I often perceived ; has, therefore, heard its own voice, certainly, before emerging from the shell, and possibly the voices of others likewise. 96 THE MIXD OF THE CHILD. At all events, the hearing of chickens just out of the shell, and of many new-born mammals, is vastly superior to that of the just-born human babe, both in regard to the discrimination of pitch and loudness of sound, and in respect to the perception of kinds of sound, the direc- tion and perhaps the duration. It must be the case that the normal human being at birth hears nothing, then hears individual sounds indistinctly, then hears much indistinctly, and very gradually hears distinctly an in- dividual sound out of tlie number of those indistinctly heard, finally hears much distinctly, and distinguishes strong, high tones earlier than deep ones. Every mother loses many thousands of words that she speaks, whis- pers, or sings to her child, without the child's hearing a single one of them, and she says many thousand words to him before he understands one. But if she did not do it, the child would learn to speak much later and with much more difficulty. CHAPTER III. FEELING. The observations concerning feeling in the newly- born and the infant relate chiefly to sensibility to con- tact, to the first perceptions of touch, and to sensibility to temperature. 1. Sensibility of the Newly-born to Contact. The mature new-born cliild is known to be less sen- sitive to painful impressitjns than are adults. But it would be a mistake to infer from this a condition of FEELING. 97 anaesthesia or analgesia. For apart from anomalous cases, as of new-born cliildren apparently dead, scream- ing and movements can be elicited from children and animals just born, when they are for the first time quiet and motionless, by pinching the skin ; or, in the case of a child, by slapping the upper part of the thigh. I have convinced myself most fully of this in regard to chil- dren born at the right time, and prematurely born animals some minutes after birth, but at the same time I was convinced that the expressions of pain lack by a great deal the intensity and duration they have in older children. In this respect the newly-born resembles the foetus, differing from it, however, to this extent, that immediately after pulmonic respiration begins, every sort of irritation of the skin produces stronger reflexes. Often the reflex mechanism starts into activity at once, the first time air is breathed. The clock was already wound up, as it were, but the pendulum gets its regular swing only through respiration. Before this it oscillated temporarily and with breaks, urged only by weak im- pulsions. By the act of birth the central nervous sys tem is first literally awakened. And there is nothing against the assumption that the first contact, pressure in the act of birth, causes pain. I have twice heard a child scream whose head only was as yet bom, and the ex- pression of countenance in this half-born condition was one of extreme discomfort. The compression of the body, and the compression of the skull that had just preceded, probably awakened the child out of its intra- uterine sleep. That mide contact in the act of birth may cause pain, in the strict sense of the word, to the mature foetus, is 98 TUE MIND OF THE CHILD. probable, because tlie foetus may in the same circum- stances experience pleasure; for when I put into the mouth of the screaming child, whose head alone was as yet born, an ivory pencil or a finger, the child began to suck, opened its eyes, and seemed, to judge from its countenance, to be " most agreeably affected " (cf . p. 32). Since in adults the sensibihty of the skin and of the mucous membrane varies greatly according to the num- ber of nerve-extremities of the part of the skin that is tested, we are especially interested to know whether such differences in sensibility to contact are already manifest in the newly-born. Kussmaul, whose exj^eri- ments of the year 1859 were repeated and supplemented by Genzmer, 1873, was the first to investigate this ques- tion experimentally. He found several facts that indi- cate the hereditary character of certain differences. I will give the results of these observers on this point along with my own. Tongue. — Tickling the tip of the tongue on the up- per surface with a smooth glass rod occasions sucking movements ; meantime the edges of the tongue curve upward on both sides of the rod and the lips protrude like a snout. At the same time appears the pantomime that indicates the sensation " sweet." When the mid- dle of the tongue is touched on the upper surface, the eyes are shut tight, the nostrils and the corners of tlie mouth are raised ; there is no sucking. Tickle the root of the tongue and of the palate, and the results are choking, opening the mouth Made, sticking out the tongue, lifting of the larynx, increased secretion of saliva, pantomime for "bitter" corresponding to the expression of nausea in adults. FEELING. 99 These differences in the reflex movements and the sensations, according to the part of the tongue tickled bj the rod, whether the tip of the tongue, the middle, or the root, may be regarded as established in general, but can not be proved in every individual case. Thus movements do not invariably follow the touching of the middle of the tongue. I have often been unable to elicit any movements at all from new-born children by using the glass rod. Yet in most cases children act exactly Hke just-born rabbits and Guinea-pigs in this respect, sucking at the rod when it presses in front, and pushing it out when it presses in the back part of the cavity of the mouth. When an infant has eaten enough, it does not suck at all, and when tired it sucks irregularly and feebly. But the results obtained in regard to new-born children whose stomachs are empty leave no doubt that even before birth the two paths from the sensory nerves of the tongue to the beginning of the motor nerves of the tongue, the nervus hypoglossus, and from there to its ex- tremities in the tongue, are developed and passable, and that the sensibility of the upper surface of the tongue — from the tip to the root — to contact is, like that of the palate, inborn and already considerable, entirely apart from sensibility to taste. That along with the sucking at the rod there should be movements of swallowing is a further consequence of that practicability of the reflex path established before birth in the swallowing of the amniotic fluid. But none will assume the existence of the sensations "bitter" and '' sweet" at the mere touch- ing of the tongue, for they do not appear in such con- ditions even in adults. The mimetic movement for " sweet " is rather that of satisfaction associated with the 100 THE MIND OF THE GUILD. agreeable feeling that comes with sucking, and the mimetic movement for " bitter " is that of discomfort associated with the disagreeable feeling manifested by choking. Lij_)S. — The sensibility of the lips to contact is great immediately after birth, for even very faint touches of them with a feather produce (on the sixth day) starting or movements of sucking, provided the newly-born are awake and hungry. Especially stroking of the lips with the finger easily produces sucking. But I have not seen these sucking movements ap- pear invariably in mature children just born or in ani- mals. A machine-like certainty in their appearance is wanting, probably because those just born are not in every case hungry. Tlie situation of the human foetus makes it easy for the lips to be touched by the hands long before birth, and the swallowing of the amniotic fluid presupposes a streaming of it over the edges of the lips and so a frequent excitation of the nerve-ex- tremities. The reflex sensibility of the upper lip even outside the red border, which is surprising on the first day, I found also in the seventh week, when the touching of the lip produced an animated play of feature perceptibly greater than in adults. Mucous Mejnhrane of the JVose. — Irritation of the mucous membrane of the nose causes, in the matui-e newly-born, strong reflexes. The vapor of acetic acid and of ammonia occasions violent sneezing, or corruga- tion of the forehead, or at least blinking, sometimes rubl)ing of the face with the hands. Tickling the inner surface of the wing of the nose produces movements of FEELING. 101 tlie eyelids, stronger and appearing sooner on the side tickled than on the other. If the irritation is increased, the child moves its head and puts its hands toward its face. Sometimes, too, there is a secretion of tears, which is the more remarkable as children generally shed no tears in the first days of life. The reliex excitement of the lachrymal nerves (ra- mus lacrymalis nervi trigemini) and the reflex secretion from the nerve-extremities in the mucous membrane of the nose outward, are accordingly possible at a surpris- ingly early period. Here we have, besides, a case of in- born reflex activity of a gland within the domain of one and the same nerve ; for the centripetal and the cen- trifugal (secretory) fibers, which go to the tear-gland, belong to the fifth cranial nerve (trigeminus). The great sensibility of the nasal mucous membrane to contact is, I must add, not present until the last weeks before birth, as children born at seven months make only doubtful responsive movements. Yet this sensibility has been found to be just as great in a child born at eight months as in those bom at the right time. It is a purely hereditary peculiarity. Since there is hardly any occasion within the womb for an excitement of the inner surface of the nostril, this reflex arc from the nasal branches of the fifth cranial nerve to the face- nerve (facialis) must be a very firmly established one. The same is true of the reflex paths that go from the extremities of the trigeminus in the nasal mucous membrane to the spinal motor nerves, inasmuch as a regular shaking has been observed by me to follow upon a gentle touch of the nasal mucous membrane. In the first three months of the second year, my 102 TEE MIND OF THE CHILD. boy one day accidentally touclied the septum of his nose witli a raveled string. He at once made a wry face (excitement of the facialis), did not cry ont, but shook, throwing his body violently this way and that, as if the certainly very disagreeable sensation of tickling in that spot were to be shaken off. Conjunctiva and Cornea of the Eye and the Eye- lid. — If the conjunctiva, the edge of the cornea, or an eyelash be touched in the newly-born, a closure of the lid follows. Which of these parts are the most sensi- tive is matter of dispute. Kussmaul thinks the lashes, but Genzraer could touch these three or four times in some children without causing closing of the Hd, where- as the closure never failed when the cornea was touched, and generally touching of the conjunctiva was followed by a bilateral closing of the lids. If we consider the fact that in adults the lashes can be touched without even an inclination to close the lid, but not so the con- junctiva or the edge of the cornea, we can not agree with Kussmaul in this case. I find also in new-born Guinea- pigs and in chickens just out of the shell the periphery of the cornea more sensitive to contact than the lashes or the hds and their edges. In all three cases, however, closing of the lid appears soon after birth, most quickly of all upon the touching of the cornea. Blowing in the face of new-born children through a tube also causes closing of the lid, but only when the cornea or the conjunctiva or the lashes are reached by the air, and the eye of the side that is blowm upon is shut tighter and more quickly than the other. From my experiments upon new-born, normal chickens and Guinea-pigs, it appears that the closing of FEELING. 103 the lid does not follow quite so promptly immediately after birth as it does later. Still, the interval during which the inactivity of the reflex can be recognized, without arrangements for measuring the time, is very short, since with chickens, e. g., only a few hours after leaving the shell, the nictitating membrane is pushed forward when I touch the comer of the eye. In a babe of eight days the eye shuts, when I touch the upper lid without touching the lashes ; but in one of eleven days the closing of the lid upon the touching of the conjunctiva is considerably slower than in adults (p. 26). On the fiftieth and fifty-fifth days the lightest touch of an eyelash produces an instant closing of the lid. In contrast with this sensitiveness stands the fact already mentioned (p. 27), that the child in the bath, during the first weeks of life, keeps its eyes open even when luke- warm water touches the cornea. In the seventeenth week the eyes were closed if even a drop of water touched the lashes. The persistent keeping of the eyes open in spite of wetting, at a considerably earlier period, which always surprised me afresh, considering the great sensitiveness of the cornea to the touch of the finger, suggests the surmise that even before birth the eyes have been accustomed to contact with liquid, through being sprinkled ^\dth the amniotic fluid, and so have sometimes been opened. The embryo chick occasion- ally opens its eyes many days before leaving the shell, as I perceived. On the whole, it appears that this reflex ai'c from the trigeminus to the facialis is capable of performing its function before birth, inasmuch as the reflex closing 104 THE MIND OF THE CHILD. of the eye upon being touclied takes place immediately at bii'tli even in animals born prematurely, and is thus an ancient inheritance ; but sprinkling with water, as in the case of the adult, is not equal, as a reflex stimulus, to a dry touch ; on the other hand, blowing induces a vigorous closing of the lid, and even sneezing, in the very young infant as well as in the one of six months. Nose. — When the tip of the nose is touched, the new-born child shuts both eyes tight ; if one wing of the nose is touched he closes, generally, only the eye on the side touched ; at a stronger irritation both eyes are shut, the head being meanwhile somewhat drawn back : these being inborn reflexes of the nature of defense. Palm of the Hand. — Put a finger into the hand of a new-bom babe, and his hand closes around it. A fillip of the finger against the hand produces a withdrawal of the latter, and very likely a movement of the other arm. But I find the sensibihty of the palm of the hand to be less than that of the skin of the face, for rude touches of the hand may often fail to call forth reflex move- ments. Sole of the Foot. — Touching the sole of the foot of a new-born child causes spreading of the toes ; slapping the sole causes a backward bending of the foot, a bend- ing of the knee and of the hip joint. If the stimulus be greater, the same movements are generally made in addition, in the same order, with the other leg. The prick of a needle most easily causes, in the newly-born, reflex movements of pain, from the sole of the foot out- ward, viz., restlessness and screaming, but the time that elapses between the first touch and the beginning FEELING. 105 of the movement — the reflex period — is longer than in adults, and extends to two seconds. The slvin of the forearm and of the leg, in the new- ly-born, has an inferior sensibility to contact ; that of the shoulders, the breast, the abdomen, the back, the upper part of the thigh, is less sensitive still. If the new-born child is not merely touched, but slapped with the hand, then general movements take place, often screaming and persistent restlessness, which indicate that the stronger sensation of touch has become painful. Yet, according to Genzmer, the prematurely born do not react at all upon moderate pricks of a needle, during the first days ; the mature newly-born, immediately after birth, do so indeed only faintly or not at all, but after one or two days they do so plainly. This shows the dependence of the force of the stimulus upon the number of the nerve-extremities that are affected. The slap reaches many, the prick few extremities of the cutaneous nerves. But the sensibility to pricks of the needle, which is greater from the beginning in those born too late, in- creases noticeably during the first week. I found in the case of my boy that the sensibility of the skin in different places was not so unequal in the first twenty-two hours as it was later, but it was surpris- ingly great ; for the child reacted by movements upon the slightest touches of his face. On the second and third days, for instance, he started with a movement of the arms at gentle touches. On the seventli day the child is not waked by loud sound-stimulus, but is waked by a touch on the face. On the forty-first day, when the child had gone to sleep in my arms, I laid him on a sheet and then drew the sheet slowly away. At the 106 THE MIND OF THE CHILD. first pull, both arms were moved quickly and simulta- neously toward the head and back again, without tlie child's waking. Here we have not a localized touch, but a general slight agitation, calling forth the same reflex movement as a touch or a sound would do. In the fourteenth week, too, a sudden touch of the sleeping child occasioned a quick throwing up of both arms. According to this, the reflex excitability for local tac- tile stimulus is undoubtedly greater in the first weeks than it is later. In the second year of life I found it a good deal dulled. I may mention here also two remarkably sensitive re- gions in the skin of the infant. In the second quarter of the first year it appeared that the greatest disquiet, the loudest crying, the most distressed expression of countenance, as the child was turning and tossing hither and thither, at once vanished when a person put his little finger into the auditory canal. The child's eye assumed a peculiar expression of strained attention. If this sudden alteration had not invariably taken place even when the child was screaming, one might think rather of an acoustic than of a tactile excitation. Or, could the diminution of the loudness of his cries through the stopping of the ear attract his attention? In that case we can not understand why the child that is not crying but is quivering in the bath becomes quiet. For the rest, the experiment failed almost invariably after the end of the first six months ; from that time on it always failed, and Kroner found that not all new- born children were quiet when the external auditory canal was tickled, but that some put their hands to the face and not to the ear. FEELING. 107 How sensitive the dry skin of tlie forehead is to wet, is often shown by the reflex movements of babes at church-l)aptism. I once saw an infant of thirty-eight days, which remained tolerably quiet through the whole baptismal ceremony, make a sudden movement of both arms at once toward the head, without screaming, as soon as the lukewarm water trickled on its forehead. At the second wetting, directly afterward, there was a similar convulsive movement almost as of repulsion; and at the third, the child sneezed. According to this, the reflex excitability of the surface of the face in re- gard to wet is greater in the sixth week than it is in adult age. The adult can not be stirred to so vigorous reflex action by such a wetting as this of the christen- ing with a few drops of water, although he may be by sprinkling. Yet it seems difficult to determine the exact time when the great reflex excitability to contact manifested by the above facts, has so far subsided that a degree of excitability corresponding to the normal condition of adults is reached. Apart from hereditary individual inequalities, and the frequent morbid development of the reflexes in early infancy into convulsions, the time when the re- flexes begin to be inhibited is of the greatest aecoimt, no less than is the wearing out of the nerve-paths by frequent repetition of the excitements, in regard to the ultimate decline of the sensibility to touch. In the very earliest period, and before birth, the nerve-patlis are not yet so easily passable as after repeated reflex ex- citation ; hence the longer time occupied in the reflex. It appears from numerous experiments of mine upon 108 THE MIND OF THE CHILD. unborn animals, and of Soltmann upon new-born and very young ones, that the sensibility of the nerves of the skin, estimated by the ease with which the reflexes take place upon slight stimulus, is continually on the increase, up to a certain point of time that may be designated as the beginning of inhibition of the reflex. But it is to be observed here that, while the central paths are traversed more and more easily through frequent use of them (and more rapidly, up to a certain limit), the peripheral extremities of the cutaneous nerves must be dulled through the inevitable stimulus of contact of wet and of cold, soon after the reflex activity has attained its maximum. For the permanent excitations of the skin of the infant must diminish the excitability of the nerves of the skin. What is gained, therefore, in cen- tral excitability (cranial and spinal activity and excita- bility) is lost in peripheral, and it is very probable that the reason of the slighter sensibility to pain in the newly- born is of a central character, because in the long repose before birth the extremities of the cutaneous nerves may have become very excitable while the brain was not yet active. 2. The First Perceptions of Touch. From sensibility to contact it is a great step to the perception of touch. To the original consciousness be- longing to sensation is added the experience of succes- sion, and with that the consciousness of time ; then the simiiltaneousness of the sensations of contact, and with this the consciousness of space ; finally, the conscious- ness of the causal connection of two or more contacts that have come to consciousness in time and space, and with this the idea of the body touched. FEELING. 109 If the new-born cliild is slapped, it has a sensation, for it cries out ; but it knows nothing of the place where it is struck, and nothing of the cause of the blow. If it is struck again after an interval, then there is the pos- sibility of a recollection, and so of a distinction of time. If the blow falls frequently upon different parts of the skin in like fashion, then distinctions of space will also come gradually into the child's consciousness besides the mere sensations of pain, since different extremities of the skin, different nerve-fibers, are each time excited by the blow. If the blow is renewed with intervals of freedom from pain, then the hand that strikes will gradually, only after considerable time, to be sure, be pushed away or avoided as the cause of the pain. If the sensation of contact is, on the contrary, pleasurable, then it will be desired. In both cases movements must be executed, and these lead again to new sensations of contact, which may be even more important in the gene- sis of mind. Thus, the sensation of touch in the tips of the fingers, upon the first successful attempts at seizing, must as- suredly be very interesting to the cliild, otherwise he would not, after grasping at and getting hold of an ob- ject, observe his own fingers persistently and attentively even when (in the twenty-third week) one hand acci- dentally gets hold of the other in moving the hands about. Here the discrimination between the mutual contact of two points of the skin of his own body and the contact of one point of the skin with a foreign ob- ject is undoubtedly a great step toward the cognition of the self (des Ich). The earliest association, in time, of one sensation of 110 THE MIXD OF THE CHILD. contact with aiiotbei*, is probably that which is given in the act of nursing. Wlien the nipple conies between the lips, there follows upon this sensation of touch the sensation of wet (the milk) in the mouth (to which the new sensation of sweetness also joins itself). Herein is given the hrst perception of touch. The newly-born makes one of his first experiences, namely, this, that upon a certain contact of the lips follows a different, an agree- able sensation in the mouth. Hence the contact with the lips is desired. Every similar soft touch of the lips is therefore agreeable. But how far from being firm the association of the space-element with the time-ele- ment is, appears in this, that the newly-born sometimes, as I observed, after "trying" at the breast, take the skin of the breast near the nipple into the mouth and suck at it a long time. And how late in being estab- lished is the causal connection between the lip-contact with the nipple and the sensation of liquid sweetness in the mouth when nursing, is manifest from the fact that the infant keeps up for many months the habit of suck- ing his own fingers and foreign objects. From this it appears, at the same time, how much more easily and more strongly the time-succession of two sensations impresses itself than does the connection in space or the causal connection. For the first act of suck- ing, after the first contact of the lips, brings countless other sucking movements in its train. Because it in- duced an agreeable sensation (of sweetness), it remains in the memory. The first causal connection of the lip- contact with the nipple, localized in space, with the sweet taste of milk, occurs not only later and so with more difficulty, but also is more easily forgotten. Else, FEELING. Ill after seeing that tlie desired sensation of sweetness and the flow of the milk occur only on sucking at the well- distinguished breast or the nursing-bottle, the child would not keep up so long the useless sucking at every object, capable of being sucked, that is brought to the mouth (even the fingers) when the feeling of hunger be- gins. However agreeable to the child the sucking at the fingers may be, his hunger is not lessened by it, and the sweet taste is not induced. Yet he sucks away ob- stinately, as if he thought the milk might be drawn from the fingers too. The fact that the milk in the breast is not visible may help to keep up the physiological error, and it would be worth while to investigate whether in- fants that take milk exclusively from the breast of the mother continue the useless sucking of all sorts of ob- jects longer than do those who draw their milk exclu- sively from transparent bottles. The habit of useless sucking seems the more strange, as the infant shows very early a sort of activity of un- derstanding in this field ; shows it by unambiguous movements, viz., by opening wide the eyes at sight of the mother's breast. 3. Sensibility to Temperature. Concerning sensibility to differences of temperature the observations are few. Whether the sudden cooling of the child immediately after birth, which may amount to several degrees, occa- sions a sensation of cold, is a question with regard to matm'e newly-born children, as well as the prematurely born, even in the cases where they shiver. For although an unpleasant feeling is certainly associated with the with- 112 THE MIND OF THE CHILD. drawal of warmth, yet in this particular case the possi- bility is lacking of comparing temperatures. AYithin the womb the constant, unfelt temperature of the foetus is somewhat his/her than that of the mother. From the first instant of complete birth there begins a general and probably a pretty uniform cooling, because the air that surrounds the just-born child has only one tempera- ture, and the child is wet all over the surface of its body, and so the evaporation must cool off the whole of the skin. Xow, the great difference in the temperature of the skin, befoi'e and after birth, will be perceptible, in part indirectly, through contraction of the vessels, and in part directly, through peripheral excitation of the nerves, but at tii'st only as an unpleasant feeling. As soon as the warm bath, into which the newly-born is usually dipped, brings back the skin nearly to the tem- perature that has been kept constant for months within the womb, the excitement (which had never before ex- isted) of the nerves susceptible to temperature subsides, the contraction of the capillaries of the skin ceases, the feeling of discomfort passes away, and the first agree- able sensation of comfortable warmth is given ; in gen- eral, the first agreeable sensation since birth, for most children. It is agreeable, through the contrast with the refrigeration, as the altered physiognomy of the newly- born in a bath of 36° C. shows, in comparison with that of the still wet, shivering, screaming, just-born babe, to whose head the vernix still adheres. Besides, I saw — at the second bath — that the dry fingers were spread out, a thing that could not be caused by the moisture. As early as the seventh day the expression of pleasure in the widely-opened eyes, immediately after the bath, FEELING. 113 was different. No sensuous impression of anj kind is capable of calling forth such an expression of satisfac- tion, at tliis period, in the infants observed by me. Still, in addition to the sensation of warmth, there is the freedom from swaddling-clothes which are often asso- ciated with a disagreeable uTitation of the skin. In any case, the feeling of warmth and the feeling of cold are plainly manifest after the first bath, neither of these having been distinguished as such before birth, or probably directly after birth. It is likely, also, that the powerful effect of a sud- den general refrigeration upon the nerves of the skin, through the dipping of the just-born babe into ice-cold water, which has been made use of with the greatest success in restoring to Hfe children apparently still-bora, is attended with discomfort, even where the danger of strangling has been obviated. If the breathing has be- gun, this very strong stimulus produces a remarkable eifect, the low whimpering being changed to a loud out- cry. This eiy is the same as that which follows upon a vigorous (painful) slap. From my experiences with newly-born animals, which cry out lustily on the appli- cation of electricity to the skin, and at other kinds of strong cutaneous stimulus, I can but regard this out- cry as an utterance of pain ; but it does not follow that the cooling of the child just born produces a sensation of cold. This can only come, as has been said, through contrast, where the possibility of com])arison exists ; therefore, after the first warm bath. The first coohng produces merely an unpleasant feeling. We have but few experiences also with regard to local warming and cooling. 114 THE MIND OF THE CHILD. About twenty children were tested by Genzmer, who touched different parts of the surface of the skin with an ice-cold iron rod, and saw lively reflex move- ments invariably appear. But, as the stimulus of touch was not excluded in this case, his further experiments of wetting and then blowing on the skin in special places are of rather more account. This sort of stimulus, ap- plied to the sole of the foot, produced withdrawal of the foot; applied to the hollow of the hand, it produced closing, then withdrawal of the hand. When the cheek was cooled the head was turned to one side. Unfor- tunately, nothing is said of the age of the children. In such cases the age should be reckoned by hours, and when new experiments are instituted, the blowing, which of itself acts as a reflex stimulus, is to he avoided ; and, above all, the previous temperature of the skin ought to be determined. Little children very often have cold hands and feet without making any complaint. Possibly this in itself causes less reflex sensibility to the stimulus of cold and greater to the stimulus of warmth. It i? known that even quite young infants become restless and cry readily when they are wet anywhere with cold water. This dislike of the local withdrawal of warmth persists, during the first years of life, until at length the knowledge that a washing with cold water is refreshing overcomes the fear of cold (in the third year). Moreover, how sensitive individual children are, in perfectly sound health, in regard to the discrimina- tion of cold and warmth, was evident to me in the ex- periment of ordering the daily bath to be made colder gradually. The water could be cooled to 32^° C. with- FEELIXG. 115 out lessening the child's pleasure. But every time the water was reduced to the neighborhood of 31^° C. or less, the child screamed uninterruptedly until warmer water was added. The temperature of the skin, there- fore, was presumably very near 32° C, But when the child was two and a half years old, he laughed and ut- tered joyous sounds in water of the temperature of the room — in a cold bath, therefore, such as formerly made him cry ; and in his fourth year he objected to taking a warm bath 36° C. In the seventh month he became pale, always, at being put into water from 3-i° to 35° C, but regained his ordinary color within one or two min- utes. The case here is not one of direct contraction of the canillaries of the skin through sudden withdrawal of warmth, but is a case of vaso-motor reflex action, because it was precisely the skin of the face, which was not dipped in the water, that became most pale, and this happened as late as the age of more than two years. The sensibility of the mucous membrane of the mouth, of the tongue, of the lips, to cold and warmth is also surprisingly great in many infants during the first days. If the nursing-bottle is but a little more than blood- warm, it is refused, often witli violent scream- ing ; and if it is some degrees colder than the milk sucked from the breast of the mother, it is refused likewise. Therefore, in experiments designed to test the gusta- tory sensibility in new-bom children, the liquids em- ployed must have the exact temperature of 3Y° C. Yet infants learn easily to drink water and milk of the tem- perature of the room they live in, if their drink is given to them, when they are hungry, only at this tempera- ture. 116 THE MIND OF THE CHILD. The sensibility of the lips to differences of tempera- ture in liquids is in any case determined by the con- stant temperature of the amniotic fluid before birth, and of the mother's milk after birth. The difference in the neutral point of temperature between the mucous membrane of the mouth (tongue), and of the skin (e. g., the hand) which in the adult amounts to 5° or 6° C. (whereas before birth it is zero), can in general hardly establish itself in the first days of life. The tongue and the mucous membrane of the mouth maintain through life almost the same neutral point they had before birth ; whereas the external skin only gradually gets its varying neutral points through unequal refrigeration. CHAPTER IV. TASTE. The observations concerning the sense of taste re- late chiefly to the question w^hether the newly-born have a sensibility to taste such as makes possible at once the distinction between diiferent savors. ]^ext comes the comparison of gustatory impressions already recognized as different. Then follow some statements as to taste in newly-born animals. 1. Sensibility to Taste in the Newly-born. "We know, from mimetic reflex movements of the same sort as those of adults, that the newly-born, and even those born a month or two before their time, react upon substances that have a taste, when these are intro- TASTE. 117 duced into the mouth by means of a pencil. Kussmaul tested the sense of taste in this way in more than twen- ty newly- born children, making use of cane-sugar, qui- nine, common salt, and tartaric acid. Genzmer repeat- ed these experiments with twenty-live children, most of whom he observed immediately after birth and from three to six days after, some up to the sixth week. Kussmaul found that the salt, the quinine, and the acid occasioned grimaces as an expression of dislike, but with much variation in the manifestation in individual cases. The sugar, on the other hand, produced movements of suck- ing. The liquids to be tested were all warmed, so that the reaction npon them can not be ascribed to a feeling of cold in the mouth. As the acid, however, acted on the mucous mem- bi'ane, it might cause pain in addition to the sour taste ; yet the children did not cry out, and after the edges of the tongue were touched with a crystal of tartaric acid, the grimaces appeared instantaneously in two new-born children, while the crystal placed in the center of tlie upper surface of the tongue caused no change in the countenance for a considerable time, until the acid was sufficiently dissolved to reach the edges of the tongue that were sensitive to it. So that it is the sour taste, and not an incidental painful eifect of the acid, that elicits the "sour" look. The suspicion that the latter is generated only by excitation of the nerves of taste through the acid, is not pertinent ; accordingly, we have here a certain ability to distinguish sensations of taste, active directly after birth, before anything has been swallowed except the amniotic fluid swallowed before bii-th. 10 118 THE MIND OF THE CHILD. The psychogenetic importance of this fact demands a more detailed examination of the observations on which it rests. Kussmaul found that the newly-born sometimes re- spond to the taste of sugar with the mimetic expression for bitter. It might thus be thought that the sensations were not distinguished, but were responded to irregu- larly, now with one, now with another, reflex move- ment. But the circumstances under which the reflex takes place are not irregular. " Some made a wry face at the first introduction of the solution of sugar, while they took in the rest of it with satisfaction. It was not the sensation of taste in itself apparently that was in fault, but another psychical experience, the surprise caused by the sudden effect on the sensitive nerves. One of the children even started directly with fright, when it came so suddenly to taste the unfamiliar liquid (which was warmed). Children tliat had reacted strong- ly upon quinine, commonly made a grimace again, or several times in succession, when a solution of sugar was introduced, but Avith decreasing animation, until finally a comfortable sucking and swallowing were sub- stituted. This accords with the experiences that every adult has in his own case, viz., that a very bitter or nauseous taste does not allow itself to be at once sup- planted by a sweet one, but at every fresh stimulus of the gustatory sense by substances of different savors, it recurs with decreasing force." These deductions I must agree with, in every re- spect. I saw my child, the first day of his life, lick off the powdered cane-sugar that was put on the nipple, whereas he licked nothing else; so the sweet alone TASTE. 119 seemed desirable. On the second day, however, ho licked at the mother's milk just as he had done at the sugar, with a calm, satisfied expression of conntenance. When this child later received salted food and food of different kinds, the first thing that was remarkable at every new sensation of taste was the expression of sur- prise ; and, as late as the second quarter of his second year (nay, occasionally in his fourth year), he would shudder, shut his eyes and distort his face in the strang- est fashion, when he tasted a new food that was agree- able to him in spite of his grimaces ; for he often wanted it directly afterward, and took it then soon with the expression of satisfaction. On the other hand, it was often easy to persuade the child, after he had learned to s]3eak (as a hypnotized adult may be persuaded), that a sourish or generally unattractive food, which he at first refused, was very pleasant to the taste, so that he would then want more of it. It is necessary to distinguish sharply from the very first, on the one hand, the ex- pression for the disagreeable manifested at the sudden new sensation, and the expression, not appearing till after this, of the agreeable that is excited by the pleas- ant taste ; and on the other hand, the expression for the disagreeable at the bitter, the salt, or the sour taste, and that for the agreeable at the sweet taste. It is certain, from all observations, that the newly- born distinguish the sensations of taste that are decid- edly different from one another, the sweet, sour, and bitter. But then Genzmer found in his experiments that individuals newly-born responded to an attenuated solu- tion (one quarter to one per cent) of quinine, and one 120 . THE MIND OF THE CHILD. of vinegar, bj sucking movements, jiist as they did to a solution of sugar, in one case, indeed, a child on the first day, as also in the sixth week, sucked at a five-per- cent solution of quinine without any sign of dislike (Kuss- maul's solution was of four per cent). If the solution was more concentrated, the child made a wry face of com- plaint, as the others were wont to do at a weaker solu- tion (beyond one degree), then began to cry, and made it manifest that the disagreeable nature of the taste had become perceptible to him. Inasmuch as it has been established that there are great individual differences among the newly-born in their gustatory sensibility, and that, allowing for a consid- erable blunting of this through experimenting, there was only in the case of individuals in the first week a refine- ment of taste for differences in intensity, the hypothesis is forced upon us that, in the case of the attenuated solu- tions the gustatory sensations of many children were too weak to be found either agreeable or disagreeable ; that new-bom children especially are not yet in condition to press the substance to be tasted against the hard palate with the upper surface of the tongue, whereby the dis- tribution to the end-organs of the nerves (these, more- over, being probably less numerous in the little tongue) is favored and hastened. In the case of these attenu- ated solutions there remains, then, only the effect upon the sucking-mechanism, as in the case of touching the tongue with the finger. There is no need of the addi- tional hypothesis that a weak bitter or sour taste is agreeable to individuals among the newly-born, in order to understand that the reaction upon a weak bitter or sour is not accompanied with the same animated reflex TASTE. 121 movements as a strong stimulus induces, but is ac- companied witli sucldng. In general, the newlj-born make a wry face after the introduction of a three to five per cent quinine solution ; they shut the eyes tight, the throat is convulsively contracted, the mouth is opened wide, and the liquid is ejected along with the mucus of the mouth, which is generally secreted very scantily, but in this case abundantly. The " bit- ter " expression of countenance is thus quite a diif erent one from the " sweet," even on the first day of life. But it is ditf erent also from the " sour," as in the case of adults, since in the movements of choking the cor- ners of the mouth are drawn sharply up and sidewise; so they are, according to Genzmer, at the introduction of pretty strong acetic acid (which anv way is unsuited to such experiments on account of its smell). The strongest solutions caused, besides, in his experiments, agitation and screaming for the most part ; sugar, on the contrary, is tasted with satisfaction by all newly- born children, when it acts in sufficient quantity, after the first surpiise is over. About this there is no doubt. Since very sour and very bitter substances call forth in the newly-born difierent reflex movements under cir- cumstances otherwise similar, and very sweet substances call forth quite different movements still, therefore these various gustatory qualities are distinguished. The fact that weak solutions of bitter and of sour are by some taken in much the same way as weak solutions of sweet, with sucking movements, with no sign of dis- comfort, is explained by the slight sensibility of the tongue for degrees of intensity. The sensations of con- tact caused by the substances to be tasted, sensations 122 THE MIXD OF THE CHILD. ■vrhicli of tliemselves start sucking movements, over- power at tbat time the weak sensations of taste. But what to one child tastes strong, to another tastes weak. For many cliildren one per cent of acetic acid was too sour, while they would suck away at a two-per-cent so- lution of quinine ; with others it was the reverse. This fact, too, is in accord with the above statement. The association of certain mimetic contractions of muscles with certain sensations of taste is a surprising- ly strong one — it is inborn. Cliildren born about two months oi- more too early are no less sensitive to the gustatory stimuli spoken of than are those bora at the right time. Accordingly, the opinion, often expressed, that the new-born infant possesses only a general sensation of taste, and that the qualitative differences of taste be- come perceptible to him only through his becoming ac- customed to them — this opinion falls to the ground. Were it correct — did every moderate stimulus what- ever of the nerves of taste cause sucking movements as a simple reflex, and did any strong stimulus whatever, on the other hand, cause choking, likewise as a simple reflex — then the most intensely sweet taste must be re- garded as only a moderate stimulus, and the fact before recognized as established would be inexplicable, that under circumstances alike in other respects the mimetic expression for bitter is different from that for sweet and from that for sour, when the corresponding gustatory stimuli are strong enough. Kussmaul's inference from his experiments is there- fore correct, that the sense of taste in the newly-born is already capable of acting in its characteristic forms of TASTE. 123 sensation ; the sensation received by it is not one alto- gether undefined and vague. 2. Comparison of the Gustatory Impressions. The sense of taste seems to be the first of all the senses to yield clear perceptions, to which memory directly attaches itself, as Sigismund rightly pointed out. The gustatory impression of the milk to which the child is accustomed abides, so that a comparison may be made with strange milk. Of this ability to compare the child soon makes use, for, during the whole nursing period and even longer, the taste of sweet is preferred by far to all other tastes, and these others are experi- enced with signs of disgust when they ai'e strong, and this from the first day on. Burdach is wrong in affirming that not till the end of the first month does the babe begin to object to medicines, on the ground that then first is the child disagreeably affected by astringent, bitter, salt, sour tastes, whereas at the beginning he takes every liquid — e. g., camomile-tea and tincture of rhubarb, just as will- ingly as milk, and does not yet manifest choice. If the camomile-tea and the tincture of rhubarb are sweetened, and are not cold or hot, he takes them ; but liquids that are not sweet, or that have a strong taste, or that are cold or hot, he does not take so readily as he does milk. The cavity of the mouth is, even for the newly- born, something more than a mere "sucking-organ." Although the food is not so mixed with saliva, by mus- cular movement, and so brought into contact with the mucous membrane of the mouth as it is later, still it is tasted and especially its temperature is noticed. 124: THE MIND OF THE CHILD. In fact, I have found the gustatory sensitiveness to- ward different degrees of intensity considerably in- creased very early. Thus, my child on the second day took, without hesitation, cow's milk diluted with water, which on the fourth day he stoutly refused. He must have compared the less degree of sweetness with that of his mother's milk. But an extremely small quantity of cane-sugar sufficed to make the bottle acceptable. It only needed a few grains appUed to the mouth of the bottle. Now, as bad-tasting medicines generally have some correctiv^e, especially sugar, added to thetn, it is not sur- prising that infants often take them at once without discrimination. I have repeatedly convinced myself that this is the case, and at the same time tliat those medicines tasted sweet. If they are very sweet — e. g., one hundred parts sugar to one part calomel — they are taken willingly, even by the child of six months and more ; the younger child does not need so great an ad- dition, precisely because it does not discriminate so nicely, but it rejects strong-tasting substances that are offered to it without any corrective. Every new taste occasions in the babe of more than six months old a play of countenance which at first sug- gests surprise, then either a desire for more, or disgust. But very often the food that was at first desired is ejected after a second trial, with turning away of the head; and, as has been mentioned (p. 110), that which at first caused expressions of displeasure is directly aft- erward desired. Here are at least four different points to be noticed : 1, the stimulus of the new ; 2, the sensa- tion of taste ; 3, the sensation of touch and of tempera- TASTE. 125 ture in the moutli ; 4, the sense of smell. All four may- act in harmony, but they may also counteract one an- other so that the child does not know whether the new thing tastes good to him or not, etc. Where the taste alone varies in two impressions of like sort, as with sweet and salt, the child of six months can discriminate ac- curately at once. How far the comparison of the gustatory sensations discriminated may be carried after the weaning of a child has taken place, is shown, in the case of my child and some others, by the following observations : From the one lumdred fiftieth day on, the breast was to be given him only in the night. But after five nights the child refused to take the breast as hitherto, prob- ably because in the days preceding so much cane-sugar had been added to the boiled and diluted cow's milk, that it tasted somewhat sweeter than milk from the breast. At the end of the twenty -third week the child had a new nurse, whose milk it took eagerly. Then w^ere taken, apparently with equal willingness, this milk and diluted, sweetened cow's milk, as well as meat-broth with yolk of egg, and yolk of egg beaten up in cow's milk. From the one hundred and eighty-fifth day on, no more nurse's milk. Cow's milk boiled (one part water out of four parts), with a little egg, seems to relish. Water-gruel with yolk of egg was taken once, but not again ; leguminous food of that sort is refused after a single trial. From the eighth month on, the child was fed almost exclusively for months on Nestle's "prepared food" (Kindermehl), which was most agreeable to him. He 126 THE MIND OF THE CHILD. utters a crj of joy, as if to make known his pleasure at the good taste, and this more loudly and persistently than over any food thus far tried. It would hardly be possible for an adult, owing to the sameness of the taste, to take for so long a time uninterruptedly, several times a day, nothing but this prepared food. 9tli month. — With great surprise — at the new taste — the child took yolk of q^^ mixed with cane-sugar. He drinks water with liking, and sucks wdth pleasure at a piece of white bread. But in this the sucking doubt- less yields more pleasure than the taste. 11th month. — The child takes, without pleasure, meat-broth with out the faithfulness of Mr. Herndon's delineation. The marks of unflinching veracity are patent in every line." — Neru York Sun. "Among the books which ought most emphatically to have been written must be classed 'Herndon's Lincoln.'" — Chicago hiter-Ocean. "The author has his own notion of what a biography should be, and it is simple enough. The story should tell all, plainly and even bluntly. Mr. Herndon is naturally a very direct writer, and he has been industrious in gathering material. 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