Part 3 (1/2)
In another place below I a.n.a.lyze a child's game and draw some inferences from it. Here it may suffice to say that in their games the young animals acquire the flexibility of mind and muscle upon which much of the social co-operation, as well as the individual effectiveness, of their later life depends. With children, it is not the only agency, of course, though its importance is not less. We have to carry the children further by other means; but the other means should never interfere with this natural schooling. They should aim the rather by supplementing it wisely to direct its operation and to extend its sphere.
CHAPTER IV.
THE MIND OF THE CHILD--CHILD PSYCHOLOGY.
One of the most interesting chapters of modern psychology is that which deals with the child. This is also one of the topics of general concern, since our common humanity reacts with greater geniality upon the little ones, in whom we instinctively see innocence and simplicity. The popular interest in children has been, however--as uncharitable as it may seem to say it--of very little service to the scientific investigation of childhood. Even to-day, when a greater body of valuable results are being secured, the main danger to the proper study of the child's mind comes from the over-enthusiasm and uninstructed a.s.surance of some of its friends. Especially is this the case in America, where ”child study” has become a fad to be pursued by parents and teachers who know little about the principles of scientific method, and where influential educators have enlisted so-called ”observers” in taking indiscriminate notes on the doings of children with no definite problem in view, and with no criticism of their procedure. It is in place, therefore, to say clearly, at the outset, that this chapter does not mean to stimulate parents or unpsychological readers to report observations; and further to say also that in the mind of the writer the publications made lately of large numbers of replies to ”syllabi” are for the most part worthless, because they heap together observations obtained by persons of every degree of competence and incompetence.
On the other hand, the requisites here, as in every other sphere of exact observation, are clear enough. The student of the child's mind should have a thorough knowledge of the principles of general psychology, in order to know what is characteristic of the child when he sees it, and what is exceptional; and he should also have enough originality in his ideas and interpretations to catch the valuable in the child's doings, distinguis.h.i.+ng it from the commonplace, and to plan situations and even experiments which will give him some control upon those actions of the child which seem to be worth it. The need of these qualities is seen in the history of the problems of the child's growth which have been taken up even by the most competent psychologists. The results show a gradual attainment of control over the problem in hand, each observer criticising the method and results of his predecessor until certain rules of observation and experiment have been evolved which allow of the repet.i.tion and repeated observation of the events of the child's life.
As ill.u.s.trating the sort of problems in which there has been this careful and critical work, I may instance these: the child's reflex movements, the beginnings and growth of sensation, such as colour, the rise of discrimination and preference, the origin of right and left-handedness, the rise, mechanism, and meaning of imitation, the acquisition of speech and handwriting, the growth of the child's sense of personality and of his social consciousness, and the laws of physical growth, as bearing upon mental development. In all these cases, however, there is again a greater and a less exactness. The topics with the reports of results which I am going on to give may be taken, however, as typical, and as showing the direction of complete knowledge rather than as having in any one case approached it.
Before we take up particular questions, however, a word may be allowed upon the general bearings of the study of the child's mind. I do this the more willingly, since it is still true, in spite of the hopeful outlook for positive results, that it is mainly the willingness of psychology to recognise the problems and work at them that makes the topic important at present. To investigate the child by scientific methods is really to bring into psychology a procedure which has revolutionized the natural sciences; and it is destined to revolutionize the moral sciences by making them also in a great measure natural sciences. The new and important question about the mind which is thus recognised is this: _How did it grow?_ What light upon its activity and nature can we get from a positive knowledge of its early stages and processes of growth? This at once introduces other questions: How is the growth of the child related to that of the animals?--how, through heredity and social influences, to the growth of the race and of the family and society in which he is brought up?
All this can be comprehended only in the light of the doctrine of evolution, which has rejuvenated the sciences of life; and we are now beginning to see a rejuvenation of the sciences of mind from the same point of view. This is what is meant when we hear it said that psychology is becoming ”genetic.”
The advantages to be derived from the study of young children from this point of view may be briefly indicated.
1. 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. But the child's emotion is as spontaneous as a spring. The effects of it in the mental life come out in action, pure and uninfluenced by calculation and duplicity and adult reserve. There is around every one of us adults a web of convention and prejudice of our own making. Not only do we reflect the social formalities of our environment, and thus lose the distinguis.h.i.+ng spontaneities of childhood, but each of us builds up his own little world of seclusion and formality with himself. We are subject, as Bacon said, not only to ”idols of the forum,” but also to ”idols of the den.”
The child, on the contrary, has not learned his own importance, his pedigree, his beauty, his social place, his religion; he has not observed himself through all these and countless other lenses of time, place, and circ.u.mstance. He has not yet turned himself into an idol nor the world into a temple; and we can study him apart from the complex accretions which are the later deposits of his self-consciousness.
2. The study of children is often the only means of testing the truth of our a.n.a.lyses. If we decide that a certain mental state is due to a union of simpler elements, then we may appeal to the proper period of child life to see the union taking place. The range of growth is so enormous from the infant to the adult, and the beginnings of the child's mental life are so low in the scale, in the matter of mental endowment, that there is hardly a question of a.n.a.lysis now under debate in psychology which may not be tested by this method.
At this point it is that child psychology is more valuable than the study of the mind of animals. The latter never become men, while children do. The animals represent in some few respects a branch of the tree of growth in advance of man, while being in many other respects very far behind him. In studying animals we are always haunted by the fear that the a.n.a.logy from him to man may not hold; that some element essential to the development of the human mind may not be in the animal at all. Even in such a question as the localization of the functions of the brain described later on, where the a.n.a.logy is one of comparative anatomy and only secondarily of psychology, the monkey presents a.n.a.logies with man which dogs do not.
But in the study of children we may be always sure that a normal child has in him the promise of a normal man.
3. Again, in the study of the child's mind we have the added advantage of a corresponding simplicity on the bodily side; we are able to take account of the physiological processes at a time when they are relatively simple--that is, before the nervous system has grown to maturity. For example, psychology used to hold that we have a ”speech faculty,” an inborn mental endowment which is incapable of further a.n.a.lysis; but support for the position is wanting when we turn to the brain of the infant. Not only do we fail to find the series of centres now known to be the ”speech zone,” but even those of them which we do find have not yet taken up this function, either alone or together. In other words, the primary object of each of the various centres involved is not speech, but some other and simpler function; and speech arises by development from a union of these separate functions.
4. In observing young children, a more direct application of experiment is possible. By ”experiment” here I mean both experiment on the senses and also experiment directly on consciousness by suggestion, social influence, etc. In experimenting on adults, great difficulties arise through the fact that reactions--such as performing a voluntary movement when a signal is heard, etc.--are complicated by deliberation, habit, custom, choice, etc. The subject hears a sound, identifies it, and presses a b.u.t.ton--_if he choose_ and agree to do so. What goes on in this interval between the advent of the incoming nerve process and the discharge of the outgoing nerve process?
Something, at any rate, which represents a brain process of great complexity. Now, anything that fixes or simplifies the brain process, in so far gives greater certainty to the results. For this reason experiments on reflex actions are valuable and decisive where similar experiments on voluntary actions are uncertain and of doubtful value.
Now the child's mind is relatively simple, and so offers a field for more fruitful experiment; this is seen in the reactions of the infant to strong stimuli, such as bright colours, etc., as related further on.
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. Children differ under the law of heredity very remarkably, even in the simplest manifestations of their conscious lives. It is never safe to say without qualification: ”This child did, consequently all children must.” The most we can usually say in observing single children is: ”This child did, consequently another child may.”
Speaking more positively, the following remarks may be useful to those who have a mind to observe children:
1. In the first place, we can fix no absolute time in the history of the child at which a certain mental process takes its rise. The observations, now quite extensively recorded, and sometimes quoted as showing that the first year, or the second year, etc., brings such and such developments, tend, on the contrary, to show that such divisions do not hold in any strict sense. Like any other organic growth, the nervous system may develop faster under more favourable conditions, or more slowly under less favourable; and the growth of the mind is largely dependent upon the growth of the brain. Only in broad outline and within very wide limits can such periods be marked off at all.
2. The possibility of the occurrence of a mental state at a particular time must be distinguished from its necessity. The occurrence of a single clearly observed fact is decisive only against the theory according to which its occurrence under the given conditions may not occur. For example, the very early adaptive movements of the infant in receiving its food can not be due to intelligence and will; but the case is still open as to the question what is the reason of their presence--i.e., how much nervous development is present, how much experience is necessary, etc. It is well to emphasize the fact that one case may be decisive in overthrowing a theory, but the conditions are seldom simple enough to make one case decisive in establis.h.i.+ng a theory.
3. It follows, however, from the principle of growth itself that the order of development of the main mental functions is constant, and normally free from great variations; consequently, the most fruitful observations of children are those which show that such an act was present _before another_. The complexity becomes finally so remarkable that there seems to be no before or after at all in mental things; but if the child's growth shows a stage in which any process is clearly absent, we have at once light upon the laws of growth. For instance: if a single case is conclusively established of a child's drawing an inference before it begins to use words or significant vocal sounds, the one case is as good as a thousand to show that thought may develop in some degree independently of spoken language.
4. While the most direct results are acquired by systematic experiments with a given point in view, still general observations carefully recorded by competent persons, are important for the interpretation which a great many such records may afford in the end.
In the mult.i.tude of experiences here, as everywhere, there is strength. Such observations should cover everything about the child--his movements, cries, impulses, sleep, dreams, personal preferences, muscular efforts, attempts at expression, games, favourites, etc.--and should be recorded in a regular daybook at the time of occurrence. What is important and what is not, is, as I have said, something to be learned; and it is extremely desirable that any one contemplating such observations should acquaint himself beforehand with the principles of general psychology and physiology, and should seek also the practical advice of a trained observer.
As yet many of the observations which we have in this field were made by the average mother, who knows less about the human body than she does about the moon or the wild flowers, or by the average father, who sees his child for an hour a day, when the boy is dressed up, and who has never slept in the same room with him--let alone the same bed!--in his life; by people who have never heard the distinction between reflex and voluntary action, or that between nervous adaptation and conscious choice. The difference between the average mother and the good psychologist is this: she has no theories, he has; he has no interests, she has. She may bring up a family of a dozen and not be able to make a single trustworthy observation; he maybe able, from one sound of one yearling, to confirm theories of the neurologist and educator, which are momentous for the future training and welfare of the child.
As for experimenting with children, only the psychologist should undertake it. The connections between the body and the mind are so close in infancy, the mere animal can do so much to ape reason, and the child is so helpless under the leading of instinct, impulse, and external necessity, that the task is excessively difficult--to say nothing of the extreme delicacy and tenderness of the budding tendrils of the mind. But others do experiment! Every time we send a child out of the home to the school, we subject him to experiment of the most serious and alarming kind. He goes into the hands of a teacher who is often not only not wise unto the child's salvation, but who is, perchance, a machine for administering a single experiment to an infinite variety of children. It is perfectly certain that a great many of our children are irretrievably damaged or hindered in their mental and moral development in the school; but we can not be at all sure that they would fare any better if they were taught at home! The children are experimented with so much and so unwisely, in any case, that possibly a little intentional experiment, guided by real insight and psychological information, would do them good.