guished, shows that results reached by this method have very little value as far as the problem of the first perception of colours is concerned.
That the fourth element pointed out above is a real source of confusion is shown by the fact that children recognise many words which they can not readily pronounce. When this was real- THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 63 ized, a second phase in the development of the problem arose. A colour was named, and then the child was required to pick out that colour. This gave results different from those reached by the first method, blue and red leading the list in correct answers by the first method, while by this second method yellow led, and blue came near the end of the list.
The further objection that colours might be distinguished before the word names are learned, or that colour words might be interchanged or confused by the child, gave rise to what we may call the third stage in the statement of the prob- lem. The method of " recognition " took the place of the method of "naming." This con- sisted in showing to a child a coloured disk, with- out naming it, and then asking him to pick out the same colour from a number of coloured disks.
This reduces the question to the second of the four I have named above. It is the usual method of testing for colour blindness, in which, from defects of vision, certain colours can not be per- ceived at all. It answers very well for colour blindness; for what we really want to learn in the case of a sailor or a signal-man is whether he can recognise a given signal when it is repeated; that is, does he know green or red to be the same as his former experience of green or red? But it is evident that there is still a more fundamental question in the matter — the real question of col- our perception. It is quite possible that a child might not recognise an isolated colour when he could really very well distinguish the colours lying side by side. The last question, then, is this: When does the child get the different col- 6 64 THE STORY OF THE MIND.
our Sensations (not recognitions), and in what order?
To solve this question it would seem that ex- periments should be made upon younger children. The results described above were all secured after the children had made considerable prog- ress in learning to speak.
To meet this requirement another method may be used which can be applied to children less than a year old. The colours are shown, and the child led to grasp after them. This method is of such a character as to yield a series of ex- periments whose results are in terms of the most fundamental movements of the infant; it can be easily and pleasantly conducted; and it is of wide application. The child's hand movements are nearly ideal in this respect. The hand reflects the child's first feelings, and becomes the most mobile organ of his volition, except his organs of speech. We find spontaneous arm and hand movements, reflex movements, reaching-out move- ments, grasping movements, imitative movements, manipulating movements, and voluntary efforts — all these, in order, reflecting the development of the mind.
To illustrate this method, I may cite certain results reached by myself on the questions of col- our and distance perception, and right-handedness in the child.
Distance and Colour Perception. — I undertook at the beginning of my child H.'s ninth month to experiment with her with a view to arriving at the exact state of her colour perception, and also to investigate her sense of distance. The arrange- ments consisted in this instance in giving the in- fant a comfortable sitting posture, kept constant THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 65 by a band passing around her chest and fastened securely to the back of her chair. Her arms were left bare and quite free in their movements. Pieces of paper of different colours were exposed before her, at varying distances, front, right, and left. This was regulated by a framework, con- sisting of a horizontal rod graded in inches, pro- jecting from the back of the chair at a level with her shoulder and parallel with her arm when ex- tended straight forward, and carrying on it an- other rod, also graded in inches, at right angles to the first. This second rod was thus a horizon- tal line directly in front of the child, parallel with a line connecting her shoulders, and so equally distant for both hands. This second rod was made to slide upon the first, so as to be adjusted at any desired distance from the child. On this second rod the colours, etc., were placed in suc- cession, the object being to excite the child to reach for them. So far from being distasteful to the infant, I found that, with pleasant sugges- tions thrown about the experiments, the whole procedure gave her much gratification, and the affair became one of her pleasant daily occupa- tions. After each sitting she was given a reward of some kind. I give the results, both for colour and distance, of 217 experiments. Of these in were with five colours and 106 with ordinary news- paper (chosen as a relatively neutral object, which would have no colour value and no association, to the infant).
Colour. — The colours range themselves in the order of attractiveness — blue, red, white, green, and brown. Disregarding white, the difference between blue and red is very slight, compared with that between any other two. This confirms 66 THE STORY OF THE MIND.
the results of the second method described above. Brown, to my child — as tested in this way — seemed to be about as neutral as could well be. A simi- lar distaste for brown has been noticed by others. White, on the other hand, was more attractive than green. I am sorry that my list did not in- clude yellow. The newspaper was, at reaching distance (9 to 10 inches) and a little more (up to 14 inches), as attractive as the average of the colours, and even as much so as the red; but this is probably due to the fact that the newspa- per experiments came after a good deal of prac- tice in reaching after colours, and a more exact association between the stimulus and its distance. At 15 inches and over, the newspaper was refused in 93 per cent of the cases, while blue was re- fused at that distance in only 75 per cent, and red in 83 per cent.
Distance. — In regard to the question of dis- tance, the child persistently refused to reach for anything put 16 inches or more away from her. At 15 inches she refused 91 per cent of all the cases, 90 per cent of the colour cases, and, as I have said, 93 per cent of the newspaper cases. At nearer distances we find the remarkable uni- formity with which the safe-distance association works at this early age. At 14 inches only 14 per cent of all the cases were refused, and at 13 inches only about 7 per cent. There was a larger percentage of refusals at n and 12 inches than at 13 and 14 inches, a result due to the influence of the brown, which was refused consistently when more than 10 inches away. The fact that there were no refusals to reach for anything ex- posed within reaching distance (10 inches) — other attractive objects being kept away — shows two THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 67 things: (i) the very fine estimation visually of the distance represented by the arm-length; and (2) the great uniformity at this age of the phenomenon of Motor Suggestion upon which this method of child study is based, and which is referred to again below. In respect to the first point, it will be remembered that the child does not begin to reach for anything that it sees until about the fourth or sixth week; so it is evident at what a remarkably fast rate those obscure factors of size, perspective, light and shade, etc., which signify distance to the eye, become associated with arm movements of reaching. This method, applied with proper pre- cautions, obviates many of the difficulties of the others. There are certain requirements of proper procedure, however, which should never be neg- lected by any one who experiments with young children.
In the first place, the child is peculiarly susceptible to the appeals of change, novelty, chance, or happy suggestion; and often the fail- ure to respond to a stimulus is due to distraction or to discomfort rather than to lack of intrinsic interest. Again, fatigue is a matter of consider- able importance. In respect to fatigue, I should say that the first signs of restlessness, or arbi- trary loss of interest, in a series of stimulations, is sufficient warning, and all attempts at further experimenting should cease. Often the child is in a state of indisposition, of trifling nervous irri- tability, etc.; this should be detected beforehand, and then nothing should be undertaken. No se- ries longer than three trials should be attempted without changing the child's position, resting its attention with a song, or a game, etc., and thus 68 THE STORY OF THE MIND.
leading it fresh to its task again. Furthermore, no single stimulus, as a colour, should be twice repeated without a change to some other, since the child's eagerness or alertness is somewhat satisfied by the first effort, and a new thing is necessary to bring him out to full exercise again. After each effort or two the child should be given the object reached for to hold or play with for a moment; otherwise he grows to apprehend that the whole affair is a case of "Tantalus." In all these matters very much depends upon the knowledge and care of the experimenter, and his ability to keep the child in a normal condition of pleasurable muscular exercise throughout.
In performing colour experiments, several re- quirements would appear to be necessary for ex- act results. Should not the colours chosen be equal in purity, intensity, lustre, illumination, etc.? In reference to these differences, I think only that degree of care need be exercised which good comparative judgment provides. Colours of about equal objective intensity, of no gloss, of relatively evident spectral purity, under constant illumination — this is all that is required. The variations due to the grosser factors I have men- tioned— such as condition of attention, physical unrest, disturbing noises, sights, etc. — are of greater influence than any of these more recon- dite variations in the stimulus. Intensity and lustre, however, are certainly important. It is possible, by carefully choosing a room of pretty constant daylight illumination, and setting the experiments at the same hour each day, to se- cure a regular degree of brightness if the colours themselves are equally bright; and lustre may be ruled out by using coloured wools or blotting- THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 69 papers. The papers used in the experiments given above were coloured blotting-papers. The omission of yellow is due to the absence, in the neighbourhood, of a satisfactory yellow paper.
The method now described may be further illustrated by the following experiments on the use of the hands by the young child.
The Origin of Right-handedness. — The question, "Why are we right- or left-handed?" has exer- cised the speculative ingenuity of many men. It has come to the front anew in recent years, in view of the advances made in the general physi- ology of the nervous system; and certainly we are now in a better position to set the problem intelligently and to hope for its solution. Hith- erto the actual conditions of the rise of " dex- trality " in young children — as the general fact of uneven-handedness may be called — have not been closely observed. It was to gain light, therefore, upon the facts themselves that the ex- periments described in the following pages were carried out.
My child H. was placed in a comfortable sit- ting posture, the arms left bare and free in their movement, and allowed to reach for objects placed before her in positions exactly determined and recorded by the simple arrangement of sliding rods already described. The experiments took place at the same hour daily, for a period extending from her fourth to her tenth month. These experiments were planned with very great care and with especial view to the testing of sev- eral hypotheses which, although superficial to those who have studied physiology, yet constant- ly recur in publications on this subject. Among these theories certain may be mentioned with re- 70 THE STORY OF THE MIND.
gard to which my experiments were conclusive. It has frequently been held that a child's right- handedness arises from the nurse's or mother's constant method of carrying it, the child's hand which is left free being more exercised, and so becoming stronger. This theory is ambiguous as regards both mother and child. The mother, if right-handed, would carry the child on the left arm, in order to work with the right arm. This I find an invariable tendency with myself and with nurses and mothers whom I have observed. But this would leave the child's left arm free, and so a right-handed mother would be found with a left-handed child! Again, if the mother or nurse be left-handed, the child would tend to be right- handed. Or if, as is the case in civilized coun- tries, nurses largely replace the mothers, it would be necessary that most of the nurses be left- handed in order to make most of the children right-handed. Now, none of these deductions are true. Further, the child, as a matter of fact, holds on with both hands, however it is itself held. Another theory maintains that the develop- ment of right-handedness is due to differences in weight of the two lateral halves of the body; this tends to bring more strain on one side than the other, and to give more exercise, and so more development, to that side. This evidently as- sumes that children are not right- or left-handed before they learn to stand. This my results given below show to be false. Again, we are told that infants get right-handed by being placed on one side too much for sleep; this can be shown to have little force also when the precaution is taken to place the child alternately on its right and left sides for its sleeping periods.
THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 71 In the case of the child H., certain precau- tions were carefully enforced. She was never carried about in arms at all, never walked with when crying or sleepless; she was frequently turned over in her sleep; she was not allowed to balance herself on her feet until a later period than that covered by the experiments. Thus the conditions of the rise of the right-handed era were made as simple and uniform as possible.
The experiments included, besides reaching for colours, a great many of reaching for other ob- jects, at longer and shorter distances, and in unsym- metrical directions. I give some details of the results of the experiments in which simple ob- jects were used, extending over a period of four months, from the fifth to the ninth in her life. The number of experiments at each sitting varied from ten to forty, the position of the child being reversed as to light from windows, position of observation, etc., after half of each series.
No trace of preference for either hand was discernible during this period; indeed, the neu- trality was as complete as if it had been arranged beforehand, or had followed the throwing of dice.
I then conceived the idea that possibly a se- verer distance test might affect the result and show a marked preferential response by one hand over the other. I accordingly continued to use a neutral stimulus, but placed it from twelve to fifteen inches away from the child. This resulted in very hard straining on her part, with all the signs of physical effort (explosive breathing sounds resulting from the setting of the larynx, rush of blood to the head, seen in the flushing of the face, etc.). The number of experiments in each 72 THE STORY OF THE MIND.
series was intentionally made very small, from one to twelve, in order to avoid fatigue.
The results were now very interesting. During the month ending June i5th the child showed no decided preference for either hand in reach- ing straight before her within the easy reaching distance of ten inches, but a slight balance in favour of the left hand; yet she was right-handed to a marked degree during the same period as regards movements which required effort or strain, such as grasping for objects twelve to fifteen inches distant. For the greater distances, the left hand was used in only five cases as against seventy-four cases of the use of tne right hand; and further, all these five cases were twelve-inch distances, the left hand being used absolutely not at all in the forty-five cases at longer distances.
In order to test this further, I varied the point of exposure of the stimulus to the right or left, aiming thus to attract the hand on one side or the other, and so to determine whether the growth or such a preference was limited to experiences of convenience in reaching to adjacent local ob- jects, etc.
The deviation to the left in front of the body only called out the right hand to greater exertion, while the left hand fell into still greater disuse. This seems to show that " dextrality " is not de- rived from the experience of the individual in using either hand predominantly for reaching, grasping, holding, etc., within the easiest range of that hand. The right hand intruded regularly upon the domain of the left.
Proceeding upon the clew thus obtained, a clew which seems to suggest that the hand prefer- ence is influenced by the stimulus to the eye, I THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 73 introduced hand observations into a series of ex- periments already mentioned above on the same child's perception of the different colours; think- ing that the colour stimulus which represented the strongest inducement to the child to reach might have the same effect in determining the use of the right hand as the increased distance in the experiments already described. This in- ference is proved to be correct by the results.
It should be added that in all cases in which both hands were used together, each hand was called out with evident independence of the other, both about the same time, and both carried energetically to the goal., In many other cases in which either right or left hand is given in the results, the other hand also moved, but in a sub- ordinate and aimless way. There was a very marked difference between the use of both hands in some cases, and of one hand followed by, or ac- companied by, the other in other cases. It was very rare that the second hand did not thus fol- low or accompany the first; and this was ex- tremely marked in the violent reaching for which the right hand was mainly used. This movement was almost invariably accompanied by an object- less and fruitless symmetrical movement of the other hand.
The results of the entire series of experi- ments on the use of the hands may be stated as follows, mainly in the words in which they were summarily reported some time ago: i. I found no continued preference for either hand as long as there were no violent muscular exertions made (based on 2,187 systematic experi- ments in cases of free movement of hands near the body — i. e., right hand, 577 cases; left hand, 74 THE STORY OF THE MIND.
568 cases — a difference of 9 cases; both hands, 1,042 cases; the difference of 9 cases being too slight to have any meaning); the period covered being from the child's sixth to her tenth month inclusive.
2. Under the same conditions, the tendency to use both hands together was about double the tendency to use either (seen from the number of cases of the use of both hands in the figures given above).
3. A distinct preference for the right hand in violent efforts in reaching became noticeable in the seventh and eighth months. Experiments during the eighth month on this cue gave, in 80 cases, right hand, 74 cases; left hand, 5 cases; both hands, i case. This was true in two very distinct classes of cases: first, reaching for ob- jects, neutral as regards colour (newspaper, etc.), at more than the reaching distance; and, second, reaching for bright colours at any distance. Under the stimulus of bright colours, from 86 cases, 84 were right-hand cases and 2 left-hand. Right-handedness had accordingly developed un- der pressure of muscular effort in the sixth and seventh months, and showed itself also under the influence of a strong colour stimulus to the eye.
4. Up to this time the child had not learned to stand or to creep; hence the development of one hand more than the other is not due to dif- ferences in weight between the two longitudinal halves of the body. As she had not learned to speak or to utter articulate sounds with much dis- tinctness, we may say also that right- or left- handedness may develop while the speech centres are not yet functioning. Further, the right hand is carried over after objects on the left side, THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 75 showing that habit in reaching does not deter- mine its use.
Theoretical. — Some interesting points arise in connection with the interpretation of these facts. If it be true that the order of rise of mental and physiological functions is constant, then for this question the results obtained in the case of one child, if accurate, would hold for others apart from any absolute time determination. We should expect, therefore, that these results would be confirmed by experiments on other children, and this is the only way their correctness can be tested.
If, when tested, they should be found correct, they would be sufficient answer to several of the theories of right-handedness heretofore urged, as has been already remarked. The rise of the phenomenon must be sought, therefore, in more deep-going facts of physiology than such theories supply. Furthermore, if we go lower in the ani- mal scale than man, analogies for the kinds of experience which are urged as reasons for right- handedness are not present; animals do not carry their young, nor pat them to sleep, nor do animals shake hands!
A full discussion would lead us to the conclu- sion that dextrality is due to a difference in de- velopment in the two hemispheres of the brain, that these differences are hereditary, and that they show themselves toward the end of the first year.
It is a singular circumstance that right-handed- ness and speech are controlled by the same hemi- sphere of the brain and from contiguous areas. It would explain this — and at the same time it seems probable from other considerations — if we found that right-handedness was first used for ex- 76 THE STORY OF THE MIND.
pression before speech; and that speech has arisen from the setting aside, for further development, of the area in the brain first used for righthand- edness. Musical expression has its seat in or near the same lobe of the brain.
The Child's Mental Development in General. — The actual development of the child, as observa- tions from many sources indicate it, may be sketched very briefly in its main outlines. It is probable that the earliest consciousness is simply a mass of touch and muscular sensations experi- enced in part before birth. Shortly after birth the child begins to connect his impressions with one another and to show Memory. But both mem- ory and Association are very weak, and depend upon intense stimulations, such as bright lights, loud noises, etc. The things which most effect him at these early stages are those which bring him into conditions of sharp physical pain or give him acute pleasure. Yet it is a remarkable fact that at birth the pain reflex is wanting. His whole life up to about the fourth month turns upon his organic and vegetative needs. At three months the young child will forget his mother or nurse after a very few days. Attention begins to arise about the end of the first quarter year, appearing first in response to bright lights and loud sounds, and being for a considerable time purely reflex, drawn here and there by the successive impressions which the environment makes. With lights and sounds, however, movements also attract the infant's attention very early; and the passage from reflex attention to a sort of vague interest seems to arise first in connection with the movements of the persons about him. This interest goes on to THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 77 develop very rapidly in the second half year, in connection more particularly with the movements which are associated with the child's own comfort and discomfort. The association of muscular sensations with those of touch and sight serves to give him his first clear indications of the positions of his own members and of other objects. His discrimination of what belongs to his own body is probably aided by so-called " double touch " — the fact that when he touches his own body, as in touching his foot with the hand, he has two sensa- tions, one in the foot and the other in the hand. This is not the case when he touches other objects, and he soon learns the distinction, getting the outlines of his own body marked out in a vague way. The learning of the localities on his body which he can not see, however, lags far behind. The movements of his limbs in active exploration, accompanied by sight, enables him to build up his knowledge of the world about him. Learning this he soon falls to "experimenting" with the things of space. Thus he begins to find out how things fit together, and what their uses are.
On the side of his movements we find him go- ing through a series of remarkable adaptations to his environment. At the beginning his move- ments are largely random discharges, or reflexes of an instinctive character, such as sucking. Yet in the first month he shows the beginning of adaptation to the suggestions of his daily life, the first manifestations of acquired Habit. He learns when and how long he is expected to sleep, when and how much to eat; he very soon finds out the peculiar touch and vocal tones of this person or that, and acts upon these distinctions. He gets to know the meaning of his food bottle, to under- 78 THE STORY OF THE MIND.
stand the routine movements of persons about the room, and the results of violations of their order. His hat, wraps, carriage, become in the first half year signals to him of the outdoor excursion. He no longer bobs his head about when held erect, and begins to control his natural processes. 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 hemi- spheres— are not yet formed.