CORRESPONDENCE.
INFANT PSYCHOLOGY.
[To THE EDITOR Or THE " SPECTATOR."] SIR,— Miss Margaret Drummond in her book, The Dawn Mind, which you reviewed about a year ago, remarks that th,s study of child psychology has been much hampered by a lack of " reported cases."
Just as the research worker in meteorology mint have numbers of independent and, if possible, trained observers in different parts of the country whose reports he can collate and compare, so the student of child psychology needs innumerable reports upon normal individuals before he has any chance of making one of those discoveries as to the cau,es which shape character, or the mysterious relations and reactions of mind and body, upon the edge of which we seem to be.
These intricate problems are probably best studied in the least complex normal subjects we can find—in children and primitive peoples—the study of abnormal individuals often proving misleading. For instance, critics of some aspects of Mme. Montessori's methods of education trace the faults of stress and of sequence which they say exist in her theories of pedagogics, to the fact that her method with normal children of between, say, three and six is based, not upon a preliminary study of normal infants and children under three years, but upon work done with different grades of mentally deficient children.
When in the normal child does laughter first appear ? What is the first manifestation of a knowledge of time difference between subjective and objective ? When do babies begin to play and when to pretend ? When does the child first know fear, and will it be of the dark or of some tangible object ? All these and the hundred other questions which they suggest have been answered glibly enough in the past—even by men of science like Darwin—after observing a single child. But the research worker has now awakened to the fact that this is not a very scientific mode of procedure.
Though unfortunately not a trained observer, I kept careful notes of my daughter's mental progress week by week till she was six months old. After that I was unfortunately for some time too busy to keep up the practice. I have now tried to make a "survey" of her upon the lines laid down 'by Miss Drummond—extracts front the results may serve to amuse your readers. To the scientific the triviality of the record will need no apology.—I ant, Sir, &e., MARY EEID.
BARBARA ANNE.
Aye 1 year 2 months, height 2 ft. 71 in., weight 25 lb., teeth 7. An account of Barbara's activities between 8 and 9.15 this morning shall serve as a preface to this " General Survey."
At eight o'clock sbe was brought to my room. I was just finishing dressing. She had been very cross since 7.15, when she woke, her Nanny said. But she has only just finished cutting her seventh tooth, and she has already started on another, so her right to an occasional fit of the spleen and the vapours is unquestionable. However, the "ducks "—all birds are ducks—on my wallpaper were soothing, and so were my scarlet bedroom slippers. Her hands were cold, so she was taken to the kitchen to warm them. There. I understand, Fibe made herself very agreeable to the assembly. At five minutes past eight she came to the dining-room. Ilex high chair is in London, so she has a highish armchair with a fat cushion in it. In this chair she was set, her bib put on, and I decapitated her egg for her. Nanny went to have her breakfast. None of the rest of the family was here to-day, so Barbara and I were alone. She (lid not eat very much egg, but preferred toast and butter. My happiness was only a little clouded by her refusal to be fed with it. She would hold the strips of toast herself, and contrived to smear her clothes and mine liberally with the butter. She drinks very tidily now, not spilling a drop.
ller breakfast over, and her paws wiped more or less clean,
the next ten minutes were spent in alternately scrambling down off her chair or my knee and demandifig with an angelic smile and the word "tip! " to be taken up again—the occasions for these journeys being generally (a) that she saw a crumb or an envelope or some other object of interest on the floor, and (b) that she wanted to investigate the " buckans " (buttons) on my coat or to have a better view of something on the table.
I was going to take her out into the garden when I remem bered that I'd left my watch upstairs. Leaving Barbara in a safish place on the floor, I ran up for it. I heard little protesting remarks and the sound of rapid crawling. When I got down again she was coming through the door after me. (I fancy she is not so much afraid of being alone as bored by ito She looked up when she saw me, but scented preoccupied. I came to the foot of the stairs and stood by her. She looked back at the dining-room and then up to the staircase, and began to crawl upstairs at a great rate.
Near the top the stairs turn, and she got into difficulties by taking the inner curve. I moved her unostentatiously to the broader part. She was very intent and made good headway after that, and soon reached the landing, whence she was much amused to look down at me. She sat on the floor and pulled my hair through the banisters. She then called my attention to the "ducks ' on the wallpaper. She poked her feet through the banisters, and we played at my trying to bite them. She hasn't much i;lea, of pulling them away quickly as yet.
After about five minutes she decided to go on, and crawled along the passage till a choice between turning along to the nursery or to my room presented itself. She considered a little and then went to my room. I gave her several Brasil boxes and a brightly patterned silk handkerchief which she had not seen for some time. She was very much pleased with it, waved it about, and I think tried to put it on. At least she went through a series of rather ineffectual movements, which seemed aimed at tucking it under her chiu or putting it round her neck.
I had begun to cut out some curtains. Presently the two housemaids (great friends of Barbara's) came in. She watched them and talked (inarticulately) to them for about five minutes, when they went away. Then she crawled under my kneehole dressing-table. I told her to be careful of her head. She looked at me wisely, and was—with occasional lapses into absent-mindedness—very careful, finally emerging with the utmost precaution. I went on with my cutting out, and she took no notice of me. She then sat on the floor, making incomprehensible remarks to herself, pointing to the ceiling and the tops of the windows. She noticed the wallpaper again, and said " Duck I " several times. Then she half turned and caught sight of the small dressing-table drawers, of which she is very fond. She exclaimed " Aboo 1" (Open!), crawled to them, opened the bottom one after a short struggle, and, sitting an the floor, pulled out all the gloves which it contained. She did not play with them, but seemed very intent upon getting the drawer emptied as quickly as possible. She used both hands. When the drawer was empty she shut and opened it once or twice, leaving it half shut. She then pulled herself up and opened the next drawer. Here there were three or four pairs of new gloves still wrapped in paper. These were most amusing, and after flinging a pair out she would sit down—very carefully, without any bump—and, taking them up again, undo the paper and flourish it about, enjoying the crackle. This business took some time, as she had to -keep sitting down and getting up again, and frequently shut the drawer by mistake in pulling herself up. Twice she shut her fingers in and flushed very red, but did not cry, but struggled to get them free. I had to assist, however. When she -was sitting on the floor she noticed the lower drawer again, .opened it, and began to put some of the gloves into it. This proved not to be very amusing, and she soon left off. Then she noticed that as I moved my cretonne about, cutting it, pieces often hung in reach over the edge of the table. She loft the gloves and crawled quickly over to me, pulled at a dangling piece, and brought a delightful avalanche of stuff down on the top of herself. In the ruins of my curtain she wallowed for a minute or two with great enjoyment. .But she was tired of playing alone, and soon pulled herself up by my skirts, saying " Up Up! " We looked at some photographs that hang on the wall, which she correctly designated as " Baba," and at 9.15 I took her back to the nursery.
Previous page
