William Thierry Preyer

“ A child in its third year will try to put its larger playthings into the boxes designed for little ones, to put pieces of bread into its mouth that are too large for it, and to take hold of large things with its tiny hands. The first sensations of changes in the field of vision, such as are given when a bright object is taken from it, as by the extinction of a lamp, and when a new object is substituted for it, as when the lamp is lighted again, always make a deep impression on the young child. ”

“ The remembrance of the satisfaction which the success of an effort to grasp something has given awakens, at the sight of a new object, the idea of getting hold of it, and with it the impulse to exert the necessary movement. This impulse is called the will. It is still weak in the child, for he lacks self-control, but the obstinacy of early youth shows often enough the force that lies in the unrestrained will. ”

“ It may often be months before the effort to walk is successful, but, if the child is allowed to creep without being interfered with, it will in time begin to walk without instruction. The efforts of walking, standing, and sitting can not be ascribed to any knowledge of the advantage of those actions. They rather arise from the growing power of the will in connection with the muscles and motor nerves, bringing those organs into the modes of action which will prove in later life to be of most advantage to the body, just as has regularly happened to our ancestors. ”

“ The first motions of the limbs of the child give to the unprejudiced observer an impression of aimlessness. The changes in the expression of the face seem to result from what are more like voluntary muscular movements; but when we remember how helpless are the motions of the infant in other respects—that it will be months before it can hold up its head or take hold of any thing, or do any other simple act which seems natural to grown persons—this supposition seems no longer probable. ”

“ Great progress is made in the imitation of sounds after the third half-year. Numerous objects are correctly pointed out in answer to questions, and many words are spoken with a broken articulation, but in a correct sense. The child's advancement in the power of forming notions becomes wonderfully rapid, and it learns to connect its ideas, to compare and reflect before it has acquired the use of any considerable number of words, and while it still expresses its thoughts by gestures more than by words. ”

“ And when a person is prevented from speaking by some defect of his organs of speech, he proves that the faculty still exists within him by the readiness with which he will take up a substitute for speech—writing, or the sign language. The psychologist can hardly experience a greater intellectual enjoyment than that which is given by observing the development of speech from the first reflexive cry through the thousand and one days of the beginning of human life ”

“ It is extremely hard to exclude the influence of imitation from the child; and, when it is not excluded, to separate what is acquired by it from what is inherited. No one will believe that a child was ever born able to speak, or that he could learn to speak without exercising the power of imitation. ”

“ The same is the case with the young of animals, which readily distinguish tastes and seem astonished at new ones; and the newly hatched chicken will at once select the food, where it is given a choice, which is most agreeable to it. Taste is, then, the first sense which affords clear perceptions, and is the first which gives occasion for the exercise of the faculties of memory and judgment.
The sensations of smell can hardly be separated from those of taste. ”

“ The earliest sensations of temperature are, however, of less immediate psychogenetic significance than those of touch. The hands of the child are the feelers of his soul. Through the excitation of the tactual corpuscles, at the points of the fingers and in the lips, the infant receives the first knowledge of things without him; and through the difference in the sensations arising from the touch of his own skin and that of foreign objects is the foundation laid for self-consciousness on one side and for making experiments on the other. ”

“ If we compare the defects of childish speech with the lapses of grown persons after their faculties have been disturbed by sickness, we shall discover parallels of uncommon interest and astonishing completeness. All the faults of speech caused by sickness have their miniature counterpart in the child. From illness, the matured man is no longer in a condition; in childhood, the unmatured man is not yet in a condition, to speak correctly. ”

“ On about the ninth day most infants begin to stare, into the void, or if a bright object, as a candle, is brought before them, as if they were looking at it; but it is easily found out by trial that there is no real seeing, for it is only when the light is brought directly within its line of vision that the eye is directed toward it. ”

“ The powers of articulation become well developed at the beginning of the fourth half-year, although the child may still not be able to pronounce all the sounds of his language; but an intelligent child is able to understand many more words than he can repeat, and will also repeat, in a parrot-like way, many words that he does not understand, if they please him or he finds that his speaking them pleases others. ”

“ He cries, laughs, babbles, smacks, crows, squeals, and understands what is said to him long before he speaks; and after he has touched, looked, listened, and tasted innumerable times, after he has amused himself and got tired with a thousand efforts to imitate, after he has been at first unable to repeat, and often would not repeat words, then he speaks spontaneously. ”

“ The study must begin with the observation of the sensations and movements of the child. There can be no mental activity without sensation to excite it by giving impressions, and affording a basis for remembrances and comparisons. The sensations are preceded by the movements which begin even before the child is born. The reciprocal action of sensation and movement leads us a step further, to the beginning of the development of the will. As soon as the will becomes effective, the intellect reveals itself, and at last the point is reached when inclination becomes a controlling influence ”

“ The first manifestation of the will in the child appears when it begins to hold up its head. A chicken can not hold its head up during the first hour after it is hatched; but it can do that, and even pick up a grain of corn, before it can walk or stand firmly. It then begins to run, and learns to do in a day what it takes the human infant a year to accomplish. My attempts to hold a child up straight were not successful for fourteen weeks. Evident voluntary effort began at that time, and after four months the child was able to keep its head well balanced. ”

“ The movements of grasping afford interesting objects of observation. Their development has to be watched with care, for it sometimes takes place at a bound from a lower to a higher degree; at others, proceeds very slowly. A pencil put in the little hand was clasped by the fingers during the first quarter-year; the thumb participated in the action, but not independently—rather as if it were one of the fingers—and the infant did not seem to be aware that it had anything in its hand, holding the object mechanically, as it were. ”

“ The emotions of the child, his inclinations and disinclinations, the development of his sense of obligation, the beginning of the formation of his character, the opening of his talents, all depend primarily on the unfolding of his senses. ”

“ No other organ of sense contributes so much to the early spiritual development of the child as that of hearing after it has become fully developed. The superiority of the ear over the eye in regard to this point is shown by the intellectual backwardness of persons who are born deaf as compared with those who are born blind. At the beginning of life, as a rule, the voices of the mother and the nearest relatives afford the first impressions of sound. ”

“ The opinion that infants will take alike whatever is offered them holds good if at all, only of substances whose taste is weak. If the child seems displeased at the taste of a strong solution of sugar, as sometimes happens, that is only the effect of the surprise which all new intense sensations occasion. ”

“ The child's own language is, however, crude and elementary, consisting in the main of inarticulate sounds, looks, gestures, parts of words that are mangled beyond all recognition, and onomatopoetic expressions. The way he learns to speak is incomprehensible to the keenest observer. ”

“ The organs of articulation have a wonderful flexibility, putting it into the power of the child to learn to pronounce the sounds of any language which may be taught him with an ease and accuracy which can never be gained later in life. ”

“ If, at this time, one puts his finger into the child's hand, it will seem to grasp it and hold it, the more so as it keeps a tight hold when the finger is moved back and forth. The action is, however, wholly reflex; there is no intended grasping. The first real effort to take hold of an object was observed in the seventeenth week, when the infant reached after a little India-rubber ball which was near it. ”

“ Brightness and darkness, if they are marked, can be distinguished, but with this the office of the eyes in the earliest days is exhausted. The motions of the eyes are wholly unregulated. One will look to the right, the other to the left; one may be open, the other shut; one will be still while the other moves. ”

“ The child walks when the inclination to change place is so strong that creeping does not satisfy it, or when it wills to walk, as it sits up or stands when its will to do so is strong enough to command the requisite muscular action. ”

“ It can not be said to be born with the child any more than the teeth and beard are born with him, but the foundation of it, the predisposition to it, is born with the child, the same as are the foundations of those organs. ”

“ All infants are deaf at birth, because the outer ear is as yet closed, and there is no air in the middle ear. A response to a strong sound is observed, at the earliest, in six hours, often not for a day, sometimes not for two or three days. The awakening of the sense may be recognized by means of the drawing up of the arms and the whole body, and the rapid blinking which a loud noise provokes ”

“ Certain sounds, as those of the consonants sh, st, and of the male voice, are effective at a very early period in quieting the crying of a child, while other strong and strange ones, like the whistle of an engine, will cause it to cry. ”

“ The contraction of the pupil in the light and its expansion in the gloom are inherited, and common to all new-born children; the blinking is acquired: it is a precaution against danger, of which the child in its first months knows nothing. ”

“ The first cry of the new-born child has been regarded by some as an expression of the will, and even as an appeal for relief from pain. This can not be, for a being born without understanding, in the first moment of consciousness, can not be capable of entertaining such purposes as this expression would imply. ”

“ It would be well for individuals to keep a day-book of the acts of their children from their birth upward. I can say from my own experience that hardly a day passes in the first two years in which something does not occur worthy of notice in its bearing upon mental development. ”

“ As the brain is developed, and the intellect manifests itself, the excessive movements are limited, and in persons who have received the most perfect training they are hardly observed at all. They cease when the man has learned to exert the full power of his will over them. ”

“ One child prefers yellow, another red; all dislike black and dark colors as well as dazzling bright ones. It is hard to decide when the finer degrees of color and their grades of brightness begin to be recognized, for the time differs with the individuals. ”

“ By the frequent repetition of observations and experiments of the kind described above, it is possible to follow the gradual development of the senses in individuals. But much material must yet be collected before we can clearly set forth the sensual basis of the spiritual growth of the child. The sensations are the material out of which every man makes his world. ”

“ Experiments on blind persons, who have had their sight restored by operations, after they had learned to see, show that they could not distinguish curved figures from angular ones by sight alone, nor at all until they had felt of them. The same is doubtless the case with every little child. Numerous observations show how defective is the estimation of distances in early years. The well-known reaching out for the moon is a case in point. Even long use does not give accuracy in the exercise of this power. ”

“ We may cause it to cry in the first hour by striking it or by touching it too roughly, but its cries are only reflex actions, not expressions of pain; on the other hand, we may stick needles into its nose, lips, or hands, without its giving any sign of discomfort, even if so deep a wound is made as to draw blood. I have never tried any experiments of this kind, but I have found that the eyes of new-born children close, when they are touched, more slowly than at a later period and are only imperfectly shut at that, and that they do not close when they are wet in the bath. ”