Infant mind

“ It is some time before the infant sees distinctly, or forms any idea of size, proportion, or distance; long before it hears accurately, and understands a word of speech; longer still before it discriminates between musical notes; it is long before delicious odours are relished, and long before there is much distinction of flavour in food, for instinct directs the infant to its mother's breast, and for many a year sweet viands are chiefly acceptable. Habit, exercise, practice, then improve the power and acuteness of the senses, but simple feeling is blunted by habit and exercise. ”

“ The Habit of Attention to be Cultivated in the Infant.--The help, then, is not the will of the child but in the habit of attention, a habit to be cultivated even in the infant. A baby, notwithstanding his wonderful powers of observation, has no power of attention ”

“ It is very easy for any one to theorise, and form schemes for the education of children, and to introduce changes which may appear beneficial. Fancy is very prolific, and a number of books may easily be read, and yet the right knowledge not be gained. The chief book to be studied is the infant mind itself, considered as a great and wonderful work of the Creator, with a sincere desire to know all its faculties and powers, and the various simple laws by which its operations are governed. ”

“ Such things as these, their young minds may apprehend, feel, and apply, and thus be strengthened and benefitted, but scholastic subtelties, and controverted dogmas, such as the grey-headed are perpetually disputing about, surely should never be taught to infants by any one who has carefully considered the subject, and properly studied the nature of the infant mind. ”

“ Now if we may take an illustration from the workings of an infant's mind, it is pretty clearly made out that as baby sits propped among his pillows and turns his eyes hither and thither in following his mother's movements to and fro in the room, she seems in coming toward him to enlarge and in going away to diminish in size, like Alice in Wonderland. ”

“ Those who would truly understand the infant system, must think for themselves, and observe the workings of the young mind, mark the intellectual principles which first develope themselves, strive to understand the simple laws of mental action ”

“ The first operations of the infant are to educate its senses, in order to become acquainted, through these organs, with surrounding objects. This, in the human species, is a process of very slow attain [Pg 2] ment; and our information concerning this subject, must be derived from attentively watching the progress of the infant itself; as of these early perceptions, for a reason which will be afterwards assigned, we retain no distinct recollection. ”

“ If its mother scolds the servant, if its father gets into a passion with the elder children, if there is disturbance of mind because a meal is delayed,—if voices grow loud and angry in argument, or there is gloom in the face or manner of any grown person who has a headache, how is the infant to learn to wait and be cheerful under its little troubles?—these little troubles being to it misfortunes as great as it is at all able to bear. ”

“ When we examine the matter a little farther in regard to infants, we perceive, that all the little arts used by the mother or the nurse, to "amuse the child," as it is called, are nothing more than means employed to excite this reiteration of ideas by the mind. A toy, for example, is presented to the infant, and his attention is fixed upon it. ”

“ The remarkable thing about all these adaptations is that they occur before the infant can in any sense be said to have a Will; for, as has been said, the fibres of the brain necessary to voluntary action—in the cortex of the hemispheres—are not yet formed.
The realization of this extraordinary adaptiveness of the very young child should save parents many an anxious day and sleepless night. There is practically nothing more easy than to impress upon the child whatever habits of daily—and nightly!—routine one wishes to give him, if he be taken early enough. ”

“ We have said it is long before an infant is in the full use of its bodily senses: now with regard to feeling the infant is acutely sensitive; but who ever saw a child of a few months old examine the qualities of objects by the touch? it cannot even manipulate; it cannot use its hands; it has to learn the art of touch, and to improve by practice and the exercise of the mind. For example, some persons will pass a piece of silk or cloth between their fingers, and tell you its quality ”

“ He spreads forth the tentacles of his feeble mind for knowledge, and his mind “grows by what it feeds upon,” and it is for those intrusted with the infant’s training to respond intelligently to the [Pg 13] child’s desire, to place within its reach the mental food adapted to its digestion, to nourish and develop it so that its mental hunger shall be at once gratified and excited anew. ”

“ With this inadequate review of the advantages of infant psychology, it is well also to point out the dangers of the abuse of it. Such dangers are real. The very simplicity which seems to characterize the life of the child is often extremely misleading, and this because the simplicity in question is sometimes ambiguous. Two actions of the child may appear equally simple; but one may be an adaptive action, learned with great pains and really very complex, while the other may be inadaptive and really simple. ”

“ The junction of the sensations of sight, touch, smell, and taste at the same point excites surprise, induces reflection, and arouses the insatiable propensity of the mind to inquire into the causes of its affections. The infant examines the object it is holding, feels of it, and rubs it every way, moves it back and forth, takes it to pieces, and tries to put it together again. With these exercises the will becomes more fully developed. As soon as it is possible to learn the nature of external objects which have affected the senses by examining them, the act of grasping becomes voluntary. ”

“ From the first great center of will comes the independent self-assertion which locates the mother as something outside, something objective. And as a result of this twofold notion, a twofold increase in the child. First, the dynamic establishment of the individual consciousness in the infant: and then the first shadow of a mental conception of the mother, in the infant brain. The development of the original mind in every child and every man always and only follows from the dual fulfillment in the dynamic consciousness. ”

“ These would form a great aid in nursery instruction, and also for an infant school. Let the great truth be ever borne in mind, that what is seen by the eye is more quickly understood and more certainly remembered, than what is merely described or made known in words. ”

“ In the first place, the facts of the infant consciousness are very simple; that is, they are the child's sensations or memories simply, not his own observations of them. In the adult mind the disturbing influence of self-observation is a matter of notorious moment. It is impossible for me to report exactly what I feel, for the observation of it by my attention alters its character. My volition also is a complex thing, involving my personal pride and self-consciousness. ”

“ As the intelligence of the child awakens, it no longer perceives in the lazy, dreamy way in which the infant is conscious of a light; it apperceives, takes into itself the object, the word, the thought, and grows thereby. ”

“ May we now, on the other side, similarly presume, until the contrary is shown, that the more tardy progress of the infant is not because its mental constitution has to be built up from the foundation out of the primitive elements of consciousness, which the chicken's has not, but rather because the child comes into the world in a state of greater physical, and therefore mental immaturity? ”

“ We, for whose sake all nature stands "and stars their courses move," may need more frequent motherly attentions than the infant knows of. They will not be lacking, even if not sufficiently evident to the infant to be cried for. ”

“ The soul of the new-born infant is, in its manifestations, in no way different from that of the young animal. These are the functions of the infantine nervous system, with this they grow and are developed together with speech. ”

“ We see daily some new development of wonderful powers and faculties in every new-born infant. An infant has a natural and instinctive desire to exercise its limbs, its voice, and indeed all its bodily functions. How soon it begins to laugh and coo like a little dove, to show you that it is social in its disposition, asking for your sympathy in return. ”

“ There are no standards of behavior or conduct for young infants. Our experimental work, which even at the end of two years is just beginning, has taught us that the study of infant activity from birth onward will enable us to tell with some accuracy what a normal child at three months of age can and should do and what additional complexities in behavior should appear as the months go by. ”

“ The mistaken idea that instinct is a sufficient guide in so delicate and sacred and vital a matter, the comfortable superstition that babies bring their own directions with them,—these fictions have existed long enough. If a girl asks me why, since the function of parenthood is so uncertain, she should make the sacrifices necessary to such training, sacrifices entailed by this highest education of body, mind, and spirit, I can only say that it is better to be ready, even if one is not called for, than to be called for and found wanting. ”

“ On the psychological side our knowledge of infant life is almost nil.... A prominent professor of education once said to us, “You will find when you have taught as many children as I have that you can do nothing with a child until it is over five years of age.” Our own view after studying 246many hundreds of infants is that one can make or break the child so far as its personality is concerned long before the age of five is reached. ”

“ In the early periods of infancy we can plainly distinguish between certain actions which depend upon instinct, and which are performed by the infant perfectly and at once, without experience, and without teaching;—and others of which the infant at first appears to be incapable, but which it gradually acquires by experience, or more correctly, which it learns by an application of the knowledge which it is daily realizing. ”

“ For when the infant first wakes to consciousness, and commences its converse with the world, the first ray of knowledge, and the earliest of its discriminations, beam from a mother’s eye; and the emotions of its little heart receive their modulation from the melody of a mother’s voice. ”

“ The infant at birth instinctively obeys the law of its being, and it continues to do so in every department of its being which does not come under the rule of its conscious, voluntary action. When it feels the demand for food to nourish and develop its infantile body, it indicates that demand by its restlessness and complainings ”

“ And here it ought to be particularly observed that nothing is admissible, except what is appropriate to the state of infancy, calculated to exercise the physical energies, and likely, by their invigoration, to lay the basis of a sound and powerful intellect. ”

“ The infant suffers and enjoys as keenly, and wills as energetically, at first as ever in its life, but apparently begins and lives for some time, unconscious of a world without as a not me. It is purely subjective, i.e., feeling its material environment to be a part of itself. ”

“ All these being given to it, the soft bones will grow hard, the weak muscles will grow firm; the eye will become strong to see, and the ear to hear, and the different portions of the brain to feel, and apprehend, and think; and to form purposes, and to cause action, till the helpless infant becomes a self-acting child, [Pg 61] and is on the way to become a rational man. What the parents have to do is to take care that the babe has the best of food, air, warmth, and light, sleep and exercise. ”

“ May difference of sentiment and opinion be laid aside and forgotten; and may all join hand and heart in endeavouring to rescue the infant race from danger; and so these tender plants may be nurtured with the dew of thy divine blessing, and be thus made fit subjects for thy heavenly kingdom, where the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest. May thy divine influence descend abundantly upon all those who have hitherto turned their attention to infant children; may they feel great pleasure in doing good ”

“ Behold the new-born infant—the most helpless and imbecile of all nature’s productions—what labor, watchfulness, and care, before he comes to the maturity of manhood! how slowly do the powers of intellect expand! ”

“ Just as it passes through a process of self-education by experience, its mind receives constant correction as to the nature of surrounding objects. Baby's principal opinion at one time is, that inanimate things possess like feelings and properties with itself. ”

“ Psychic forces may influence mightily the subconscious life of an infant and promote healthy character, but have they any effect on physical well-being? The reply would seem to be that, if at any time in the span of a lifetime they work beneficently in this direction, it is probable that they do so from the outset. ”

“ I believe that we must greatly modify our ideas regarding infant psychology, as soon as trained psychologists begin to observe the spontaneous manifestations of children, to the end of encouraging their tendencies. ”