Some Contributions to Child Psychology

Front matter

Ward Edwards Library

Warrensburg, Missouri

SOME CONTRIBUTIONS TO CHILD PSYCHOLOGY

Preface

Some thirty years ago Professor James entered a protest against the extravagant claims then being made on behalf of a “ new psychology ” to provide the basis for a new and exact practice of education. The new psychology of that day, sometimes called experimental psychology because of its use of laboratories and instruments and refined methods of measurement, is now old. It has made and is still making its contributions to the science, but it has not revolutionized education, though no doubt the knowledge gained by its laborious analytical methods has to some extent filtered out through the minds of educational theorists, and so to a slight but possibly increasing degree modified educational practice.

To-day we hear once more of a new psychology. This time it emanates from the consulting-room of the physician, not from the laboratory of the scientist. Its work is the outcome of a practical need, the need to give help to those world wayfarers whose burden has proved too heavy, who have failed to adjust themselves to life, who can no longer “carry on.” To minister to a mind diseased has long been recognized as the hardest part of a physician’s task, and it is this that the new psychology with striking success has been endeavouring to do.

In the course of this work great stress has come to be laid. on infantile experience. The failures of adjustment of maturity have their roots in childish experiences which have been forgotten. Modern medical research confirms vi PREFACE in the most emphatic way the foundational importance of the very early years.

The psychology of babyhood is still very obscure. In this book I have attempted to add a little to what I have already said on the subject in a previous book, T'he Dawn of Mind. In this attempt I owe much to the writings of Freud, Jung, Adler, Lay, Ernest Jones, Ferenczi, and others, but I have accepted no opinion which does not seem to accord with my own observation and experience.

There is probably no sphere of psychology, unless we except that just referred to, where the new ideas will have a more far-reaching influence than in that of the imagination. The Kindergarten method of education, as developed in America and in this country, undoubtedly did much to encourage certain fanciful modes of thinking characteristic of childhood. Ribot in his important work on Creative Imagination certainly encouraged the tendency to over-estimate the value of the child’s imaginative constructions. He declares that the child who weaves romances about the persons and things he meets with is the gifted child, that such conduct foretells a superior mental development. All who know anything of little children know that they often mingle fact and fancy without any intention to deceive ; their behaviour in this respect is readily understood by those who know something of the psychology of memory. Sometimes this habit accompanies a superior mental endowment, but very often it does not. One could certainly not nowadays accept this declaration of Ribot’s.

In seeking by his method of free association to reach the nucleus of the disabilities from which his neurotic patients were suffering, Freud came with unfailing regularity on childhood experiences which he could not but regard as the chief causal factor in the illness. These experiences, brought up in the memory of the patient by a special technique, were at first taken to be real; later Freud realized that in many cases they were not real, but were

PREFACE vii phantasy formations or imaginative constructions. They have “ psychic reality,” and that has been sufficient.

In view of the facts thus briefly sketched it seems to me important that psychologists and educationists should reconsider the whole question of the nature of imagination in childhood and the best means of training it. Individual differences are no doubt very great, and we must not be in too great haste to formulate any general dogma, but in my opinion there is little doubt that in some of our schools the imaginative tendencies of children are being overstimulated and wrongly directed.

In this book I have therefore devoted considerable space to a discussion of this question.

There is in psychology at the present time a third congested district where much activity is going on, and where results are being obtained which are startling enough, though no one, so far as I know, has maintained that here we have a new psychology. I refer to the region of intelligence testing. Here our attention is concentrated less on the emotions, and more on the development of memory and the reasoning power. The establishment of mental scales, of standardized tests for observation, memory, motor control, vocabulary, etc., is bound to shed light on the development of these powers, and to be full of suggestion with regard to educational practice. In The Dawn of Mind and in Five Years Old or Thereabouts I have dealt with the beginnings of memory and reasoning and with other topics concerning the more intellectual aspect of the child mind. Partly on that account and partly because I think the time is not yet ripe for coordinating the work done by mental testers and estimating its value as a contribution to child psychology, I have not included these themes in the scope of this book.

Contents

APPETITE TENDENCIES EmotTiIonaL INSTINCT TENDENCIES GENERAL INSTINCT TENDENCIES GAMES

ImaGinaTion—I

ImMAGINATION—II

Favutts anD How fo Finp THEM CONCLUSION

Index

128 140 149

Chapter I Cradle Education

EpvcaTion begins in the cradle. This is a statement that is widely accepted in theory and widely disregarded in practice. One reason for this is that the untrained mother, on whom the task of early education falls, has only a very general idea of the nature and amount of development which is proper to the early years of life. Moreover she is apt to associate the word “ education ” with “ school ” and “teacher,” to think that education begins when the child enters school; she does not realize that her own work in the early years is pre-eminently educative, and may indeed make all the difference to the child’s future.

Our first duty to the new-born babe is to minimize the shock of birth, and to help him in his endeavour after independent life. Till this moment his blood-stream has _ been one with his mother’s, his nourishment one with her nourishment. Now from the warm dark silence of the narrow womb he issues, bent upon his great adventure.

Baby makes prompt use of his newly won freedom. A vigorous infant will kick and move his arms almost continuously for fifteen to thirty minutes after delivery : when at rest he tends to assume the habitual pre-natal position. Another movement which starts with birth is breathing, which is inaugurated by a cry or sometimes a sneeze. 1 B

In spite of these very intelligent adaptations to the change of environment the undeveloped state of baby’s brain indicates that his consciousness is of a very simple order. For its further development his brain requires the stimuli which press in upon it along the nerves of sense from eyes and ears and skin.

As I have already indicated, our first duty as educators is to make the birth transition as easy as possible. Here nature helps us. For some hours, or more often for some days, she seals the baby’s ears; for about twenty-two hours out of the twenty-four, she causes sleep to close his eyelids. Hence, within limits, there is no need for us to make special efforts to secure quiet or darkness, but warmth we must provide.

In all early education the great force that we have available to help us is the force of habit. The child’s nature is such that ‘“‘ again” seems to be his cry from the very beginning ; the very doing of a thing brings about an inclination to do it again. A succession of activities is easily linked into a sequence, so that the performance of the first causes all the others to follow.

A regular life promotes nervous stability, and one of the first duties we owe the child is to make it possible for him to lead a regular life. The clock, and not his cries, should regulate his meals. He should be bathed and dressed at the same time every day, and his functions should be regularly attended to.

According to The Mothercraft Manual, training for cleanliness may begin at the end of the first week.1 ‘‘ Hold a small (warmed) cuspidor firmly in the lap. Hold the baby above this, the legs extended in the hands, back resting against the mother’s chest. Do this at regular time for stool, early morning or late afternoon. The use of a suppository for a few days will assist ; use a little roll of soft. clean paper dipped in liquid vaseline. Note on daily

1 The Mothercraft Manual, by Mary L. Read (Harrap).

record the interval between feeding or drinking, and urinating (twenty to thirty minutes). Hold the baby for urinating at these regular times when awake and before beginning the bath. In a few months he will learn to control the bladder as well as the bowels for these times, when awake.” ;

The way in which this early training is accomplished is important for future psychic life. Perfect control, even in sleep, can be established by the eighteenth month, possibly sooner. Many mothers delay matters by overanxiety. They produce inhibitions in the child. If baby is disposed to struggle away, we should not enter on a contest with him : a little soothing playfulness or suggestive talk will relieve the tension. A good mother readily learns from her baby in what way and how far she must humour Intellectual Education. For the first three months, save for the establishment of regularity and cleanliness, we need not think much about baby’s education ; yet it is important that we should realize that during this period he is doing hard intellectual work. He is engaged in making an intelligible world out of his confused and contradictory sense experience. One or two examples may help us to sympathize with his difficulties. The shape and the size of objects differ to our eye according to our position with respect to them; an egg may appear round instead of oval; a table top may look like a diamond instead of a square ; a face may take up the whole of our field of vision, or it may be a mere spot. Baby has to learn to interpret these constant shiftings of size and shape as mere indications of qualities of position and distance of certain permanently existing objects. At this stage an eager - child may suffer from actual mental over-pressure ; and crying fits may arise from pure intellectual fatigue.! '1¥or fuller treatment of this subject see The Dawn of Mind, Chapter II.

The world from which the child is seeking to emerge is in many respects like the world of the fairy tale. It is peopled by giants who wear shoes of swiftness, who can don caps of invisibility, who sit at sumptuous meals, own the purse of Fortunatus, and are possessed of unlimited power. Out of this unintelligible world the child struggles to emerge. Even in his cradle he sets himself to the task of transmuting the chaos of his experience into a coherent universe, which satisfies the demands of his reason for law and order. His is the patience of the scientist, the clearsightedness of the genius. It is our business to help him, to clear the path before his feet. But we do not recognize our duty. Too often we take pleasure in hindering and deceiving him, and when we succeed we call the modes of thinking which our treatment causes him to develop characteristic of his being.

A Tegular lif life not only conduces to nervous stability, but it promotes intellectual development: it helps the child to realize the great law of cause and effect. A properly trained child demands law and resigns himself to it willingly. If he is allowed to discover law in his material environment then he is ready to expect it in his social environment. In my study is a low glass bookcase which Patricia, a wordless toddler, is not allowed to hammer ; there is also a portfolio of papers which she is not allowed to pull from its place, though both of these activities are highly pleasing to her. One day she touched the forbidden portfolio. I said, “‘ If Baby does that, she goes out.” She answered back in an angry tone, “ A-A-A-A-A.” TI replied gently, “‘ Well, you know, I can’t help it; if Baby does that, she goes out.” She looked at me for a second; her expression cleared, and with a friendly, “ Tata,” she walked outside the door. This acceptance of law is a phenomenon well known to every wise mother.

A baby will spend a long time making those scientific inductions which are essential for the guidance of our conduct in this particular universe wherein we find ourselves. As early as the fourth month Patricia studied intently an envelope which I moved towards and away from her eyes ; no doubt she was forming her own ideas as to what was the meaning of the remarkable alteration of size. In her sixth month she became quite excited when I showed her some pictures in Punch. Her little hands kept fluttering about them almost as if she was saying, “ How is it I do not have proper touch experience ?”’ In her eighth month she watched the spinning of a top for about twenty minutes with such eager attention that she let the saliva drop from her mouth.

I provided Patricia with balls and cubes as representative of simple solids, and it was interesting to see the careful attention with which she compared them. One evening I built the cubes into a little tower and let her stretch out her hand to knock it down. Again and again we went through the process with the utmost seriousness, until all of a sudden she greeted the fall with a regular ha ha laugh. As I continued the occupation her triumphant laughter became so loud that her mother came from the next room to see what all the noise was about. Baby recognized that she had gained power ; she could foretell what was going to happen.

When outside in her pram Patricia might sometimes be seen deliberately dropping toy after toy over the side. Her little face was a study as she leaned over to watch them ; she had no words wherein to express the conclusions she drew, but no one who saw her could doubt the profundity of her thought.

I remember being once greatly impressed when Margaret was threading beads at my knee by the careful way in which she conducted each bead down the string by finger and thumb. Evidently she had not yet realized that it was bound to slide down the string and so join its fellows.

Patricia, at eight months, on the disappearance of two tiny dolls which were sitting on the edge of her bath, looked first to one door, then to another. She thus likened the dolls to people, and indicated her discovery that when mysterious disappearances took place doors were somehow involved.

Even at fifteen months she did not apply the falling induction universally. One day I caused her little celluloid cow to stand on the horizontal bar of a table. She took hold of it and applied it to the table leg. Her mother told me she often tried to persuade her toys to stand on vertical surfaces. In her twenty-second month she discovered she could balance picture post cards on a narrow ledge ; for a day or two after this discovery she persistently held the pictures against me in the endeavour to make them stand, so that she could step back and admire her handiwork.

I sometimes wonder if the intense interest that little children often show in flies is connected with this early experimentation. The scientific caution exhibited by the baby in this matter is in strange contrast with the ready generalizations of later years.

During the first few years of life touch is the primary sense. Only very gradually does the primacy pass to the eye. A most valuable instrument for eye training is found in Dr. Montessori’s block of cylinders. This in its simplest form consists of a long block of wood in which are ten cylindrical holes, which diminish gradually in thickness. Into these holes fit ten cylinders, each of which has a little knob at the top. This toy I presented to Patricia when she was about six months old. She knew at once what to do with it, but her little fingers were not strong enough to pull out the cylinders; she was, however, somewhat interested in the holes. By the time she was nine months old she could pull them out herself. During the intervening period, when she saw I was about to give the block to her, she would kick her legs with joy as for a bottle.

She would spend about twenty minutes at a time on it, and at ten months showed signs of comparing the cylinders, thus realizing “thick” and “thin.” She would also experiment in holding them, trying, for example, to take two in one hand. Then the toy lost interest for a little, and I put it away.

When the child was about sixteen months she could put the cylinders into the holes ; but even at eighteen months she occasionally tried a hole much too small. Her eye was thus not fully trained. But at the Free Kindergartens I have often seen little ones of three or even four showing in their work with the cylinders much less comprehension than Baby has acquired.

A large cylindrical waste-paper basket was a favourite toy with both Margaret and Patricia, and they both learned much from it. They gained skill by manipulating it, and its contents were an endless source of interest. A top proved another attractive toy. To be sure it requires a grown-up person to do the winding, but a baby soon shows his understanding by insisting that he be allowed to put top and winder together.

The long spells of attention which a mere infant can give are very remarkable. An eight months’ baby may be absorbed for twenty to thirty or more minutes. This concentration should be respected and encouraged. In homes where this is not the case, the power is often lost. The consequence is that one sees little ones of three or even five tossed to and fro at the mercy of their sensations. Johnnie begins to sweep the floor ; he catches sight of some bricks, and dustpan in hand goes off to build a tower ; then the children round the bird cage distract him ; he joins them—a leaf lifted by the wind, a straw engulfed by the whirlpool. j

Certain cases of defective mental development seem to, / depend mainly on the fact that there is inability to concentrate. For example Ian is eight, but he has made little or no progress in school work, and for some weeks now I have been giving him occasional lessons in counting. His answers are always ready, but often absurd. His look is “flyaway.” I show him some pictures and ask him to name them. His answers show how imperfectly he looks at them. A row of plates he calls “ clocks,” two pairs of children’s slippers lying in disorder near one another he misinterprets as ‘“‘a dog.” A cock, a goose, and a squirrel are each in turn called “a hen.” Soup steaming in a bowl is interpreted as “‘ Jack in the box.” In a picture of a girl carrying a pail in one hand and a three-legged stool in the other he named the pail correctly but called the stool a spade. This is an example of the automatism which is so common in feeble and childish mentality.1

Some methods of education tend to encourage this “flyaway ” attitude. Some little children are very quick to see superficial resemblances. A rough drawing made by themselves is quickly named a kite or a ship. By some teachers such reactions are regarded as evidence of the child’s wonderful imagination, and their passing away is mourned as a victory of prose over poetry, of the dull and drab over the beautiful and romantic.

One of the fundamental purposes of this book is to protest against this attitude as depending on an unsound and superficial psychology and as leading to educational practice which is harmful to the child.

Language. If a baby is talked to from the first it is surprising how soon he gives evidence of understanding. Patricia at eight months was crying in my arms. I said, “I will get out the top for you,” whereupon the crying ceased.

When a baby makes little attempt to speak we often greatly underrate his intelligence, and we are often unwise enough to indicate our meaning to him by action instead of by words.

* Cf. Dawn of Mind, p. 122.

Even when one is not sure that the child is able to understand one should explain what is going to happen. In her twentieth month Margaret had developed a habit of crying insistently for her mother at bedtime. One morning her mother told her she “‘ was going ta-ta that evening to Somerville.” When evening came she said, “‘ Now mother is going ta-ta.” Baby pointed out of the window to Somerville, which was just opposite, thus indicating her comprehension. Thatjevening she went peaceably to bed and made no outcry for her mother.

In her eighth month or sooner Patricia would usually obey her mother’s verbal commands. About this time she often sat in a chair wrapped in a rug or quilt. She developed a habit of biting such a covering. One day I imprudently pulled it out of her mouth two or three times. We went to another room, and she was again seated on a down quilt. She put it in her mouth. ‘“ Down, Baby,” said her mother. But instead of obeying as she had often done, baby kept biting it more emphatically, and looking pointedly at me as much as to say, “‘ It’s your business to come and pull it out.”

In her ninth month she was greatly enraged one day because a mirror she was playing with was taken from her preparatory to giving her a bottle. Her mother told me afterwards that she talked to her as if she was ten years old : she laid the bottle in full view, and said she would get it when she was good. With lightning rapidity Patricia summed up the situation and became good.

About the beginning of the second year words are certainly appreciated and are often definitely demanded. Thus Margaret was wont to indicate her wish that I should name the different parts of a picture for her; while Patricia would at times sit on the floor and taking thing after thing from her toy basket would hold each up in turn for her mother to name.

Mere babies not yet able to talk properly often understand quite complicated sentences. In Margaret’s sixteenth month I wanted her to give me a book to which she was clinging. I said, ‘“‘ Will Baby give Auntie the book if Auntie gives her a biscuit ?”’ She promptly handed over the book, though I had not shown her the biscuit. She must have leaped to my meaning. In her twenty-second month Patricia, as was her pleasant custom, came to see me when I was dressing. On this particular morning I gave her some picture post cards she had not had before. When she perceived I was nearly ready to go downstairs she went and pushed the door shut, as if to say, “‘ ’m not ready.” When I began to gather up the cards she wept ; | but when I explained that we would take them downstairs with us, she cheered up and assisted in collecting them.

Development of Reason. If a baby is treated from the very first as a reasonable being, it is astonishing how soon he responds. In her seventh month Margaret would cease crying for her bottle when she was shown and told that it was being prepared, thus demonstrating her grasp of causal connection. Long before baby can understand words he makes generalizations, and argues therefrom. As soon as he knows to look on the floor for a toy he has pushed off the table, we must greet him as having attained the same rational level as ourselves.

€or the sake of a quiet life many mothers seek to deceive

Atheir babies. This is a short-sighted policy, and is bad for “ both parties. For example, to induce baby to go to sleep mother lies down and pretends to go to sleep. By and by baby really goes to sleep, then mother slips away. Baby wakes, finds himself alone, and justly proclaims aloud that he has been unfairly treated. Next night he sleeps with one eye open, and again and again detects his mother’s surreptitious efforts to escape.

When Patricia was eighteen months old an aunt whom she did not know came to spend a day with her. Her mother wished to go out to post a letter. She threw the

CRADLE EDUCATION 1l child her bag, and slipped out. of the room while her attention was riveted on this. In a minute or two Patricia discovered her loss, went to the door and wept aloud. Her mother returned, addressed her letter, and then said, ““Mother’s going a ta-ta, Baby. Ta-ta.” Feeling herself treated with consideration this time, baby continued her play quite happily. / Children very easily become the slaves of habit.1 For Yexample, if they are accustomed to go to sleep with one particular doll there is no peace for any one if that particular doll is not forthcoming at bedtime. Mothers should be on their guard against allowing such customs to become too rigid. They should not be unduly obliging.

Emotional Training. The emotional training given in the first year is quite as important as the intellectual. Unconsciously, but all the more exactly on that account the child models himself on those about him. If the voices round him are always pleasant, gentle, and good-tempered, his little cooing sounds are soon a delight to listen to. If he hears loud and angry tones it is amazing to notice how soon he “ talks back ’’ in just such tones. Temperament, which is usually attributed to heredity, is probably much more the product of the environment of the first year or two.

Baby’s undeveloped soul is like the soul of an animal or of primitive man. He responds to influences which leave us cold, and is unmoved by many a thing which thrills us. It is our business to help him to use his powers on every plane of being im such a way that he may achieve the highest. This end some educators maintain is accomplished by play. That is not the case. It is accomplished by work ; which to the child is not a curse but a joy. The work, however, must not be imposed by another: it must be self-imposed.

The first rule for those who have the privilege of guiding \~

1§ee Chapter X, aad baby’s early progress is to give him all the freedom possible. This does not mean that we leave him at the mercy of his impulses ; it means that we help him to govern his own impulses in his own interest and in the interest of others.

The task of helper is not an easy one. From the nature of things a baby is ignorant, self-centred, often possessed of a determination which sticks at nothing and is immensely strengthened by opposition. I notice that when Patricia does anything undesirable, such as biting her sponge, pulling at the table-cloth, hammering polished furniture with a tin, her mother’s gentle assertion, “‘ Baby doesn’t do that,”” seems to bring about its own fulfilment, whereas, ‘““ Baby must not do that,’’ or physical interference, leads to emphatic repetition of the act.1 Sometimes a quick removal of a forbidden article with an immediate direction of the attention elsewhere is successful. It is important to provide in every room frequented by the child some pleasurable occupation. He will readily fall into the habit of asking for that and letting other things alone. By such foresight loss of temper will often be avoided.

During the first year we may do much to accustom baby to bear with equanimity the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, which in these early days are largely derived from loss of balance and result in blue bumps. On the other hand by unwise sympathy we can make him very sensitive to such mischances. Some children, I believe, spontaneously hit the chair or table which has hit them, but this should not be encouraged. A healthy baby will ignore minor hurts, and even major ones will be amended promptly by mother’s kiss. Then the incident should be closed at once and completely. A comforted baby will begin to cry all over again if his hurt is recalled to his mind.

_ Xo direct the attention and the emotional aims outward

1 These observations are interesting in connection with the question of how a compulsive repetition is established (cf. Chap. X).

not inward is the educational ideal. Many adults appear to be very sympathetic, because they identify themselves with any one in trouble; their eyes fill with tears at the recital of another’s woes ; but unless they feel the impulse to help, this is mere self-pity, and in children should never be encouraged. Baby’s love, at first for himself alone, should pass outward to his parents, his brothers and sisters, his friends and companions. It has been abundantly shown that fixation at any point may lead to subsequent disaster, as when a girl’s choice of a husband is determined by an unconscious, infantile fixation on her father.