The child; a study in the evolution of man

Front matter

Class LB H l£.

Boolc.^___„,

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Preface

This volume, which is neither a treatise on embryology, nor an essay in anatomy or physiological psychology, is intended as a study of the child in the light of the literature of evolution, an attempt to record and, if possible, interpret some of the most interesting and important phenomena of human beginnings in the individual and in the race.

In his examination and consideration of the numerous authorities consulted and theories investigated, the author has constantly endeavoured to be fair-minded and just, and has often preferred to retain the ipsissmia ve7^ba of those who have said certain things well rather than to weaken or condense the argument.

Wherever it has been possible, exactitude in reference has been practised, and the Bibliography will, it is hoped, serve as a guide to the evolutionary literature of the child in

Vlll PREFACE

respect of matters discussed In these pages. To his colleagues in the University, especially to President G. Stanley Hall and Dr W. H. Burnham, the author expresses his gratitude for many kindnesses in the way of advice and suggestion, the loan of books and articles, and such other courtesies as smooth the path of the scientist. His thanks are also due to Mr Havelock Ellis, the Editor of the Conte^nporary Science Series, for many valuable suggestions, and to Mr Louis N. Wilson, the Librarian of the University, for the liberality v^ith which he has placed at his disposal books otherwise unobtainable.

To the authorities of the Bureau of American Ethnology, the U.S. National Museum in Washington, D.C., and the Provincial Archaeological Museum of Ontario, the author returns his thanks for the readiness with which they have granted permission to reproduce certain illustrations from

their reports.

A. F. C.

January \ 900.

Table Of Contents

CHAP.

I. The Meaning of the Helplessness of Infancy,

II. The Meaning of Youth and Play,

Chapter I The Meaning Of The Helplessness Of Infancy

Man at Birth. — How far man is from perfection when he begins Hfe has been described by the old Latin philosopher, Lucretius, who wrote so many strangely modern things about the childhood of the race and the childhood of the individual : ' A child at its birth, like a mariner cast ashore by the angry waves, lies prostrate on the earth, naked, speechless, destitute of all the aids to existence, from the moment when it reaches the shores of light, torn from its mother's bosom by the efforts of nature ; and it fills the place it has entered with dismal waihngs.' ^

Major J. W. Powell, in his sketch of man's progress. From Barbarism to Civilisatio7i (505, p. 97), puts the same thought into somewhat different words : ' Every child is born destitute of things possessed in manhood, which distinguish him from the lower animals. Of all industries he is artless ; of all institutions he is lawless ; of all languages he is speechless ; of all philosophies he is opinionless \ of all reasoning he is thoughtless ; but arts, institutions, languages, opinions and mentations he acquires as the years go by from childhood to manhood. In all these respects the new-born babe is hardly the peer of the new-born beast ; but, as the years pass, ever and ever he exhibits his superiority in all of the great classes of activities, until the distance by which he is separated from the brute is so great that his realm of existence is in another kingdom of nature.'

The meaning of the helplessness of the human babe has only become apparent within our own century ; it has taken the philosophers long to appreciate the full significance of the prolongation of human infancy. With the ancient writers, as with many primitive peoples, the weakness and hapless condition of 1 De Rerum Naficrd, Bk. V.

A the very young child so impressed themselves upon them that their real meaning was undiscovered. Indeed, the play of the active boy and girl was earlier and more correctly interpreted than the enforced inactivity of the infant. Mythology, and, later, false theology, complicated the subject, and when science grew to be strong it almost forgot the little child in the multitude of its other interesting and absorbing subjects of research.

Prolongation of Human Infajtcy. — Nevertheless, as Professor Butler has recently pointed out, the doctrine of the prolongation of human infancy, which Professor John Fiske has so ably shown to be part of the theory of evolution, was anticipated by Anaximander of Miletus, who flourished about 565 B.C. Professor Butler's discovery, however, was itself anticipated by Burnet in his Ea?'ly Greek Philosophy (95, p. 74) by a couple of years. Burnet, after quoting the Theophrastean account of the speculations of Anaximander concerning the origin of man, — ' Further, he says that in the beginning man was born from animals of a different species' [was like a fish in the beginning]. ' His reason is, that, while other animals quickly find food for themselves, man alone requires a prolonged period of suckling. Hence, had he been originally such as he is now, he could never have survived,' — observes 'the reference to the long period of nursing required by the offspring of the human race really contains a very acute piece of scientific reasoning.'

But the credit of the scientific interpretation of the prolongation of human infancy is still due to Professor John Fiske, who, in his Outlines of Cosmic Philosophy, which was published in 1874, was the first to indicate its true significance in the evolution of humanity. Darwin, with overwhelming evidence, had shown how man's physical organism had evolved from the creatures beneath him, the anthropoid apes being his nearest congeners; Wallace had shown how the next fact to exhibit the operation of natural selection in the development of man was his intelligence, whose variations now began to be of more importance and utility than mere variations of bodily structure. Instead of brute force, mental acuteness enabled man to survive, and his intelligence spent itself in the invention of devices (clothing, implements and weapons, food preparation, etc.), which became his salvation to a greater extent than had been hairy covering, strong limb, or fleetness of foot ; he was learning how to live by his wits. Naturally enough, as his intelligence continued to augment, the skilful hand and the new-born

MEANING OF THE HELPLESSNESS OF INFANCY 3 mind interacting, the size and complexity of the brain of man increased also, and the more perfect organisation of the thinking part in adult age had, as a necessity, to be preceded by a very much less definite organisation at birth. Hence, argued Mr Fiske, the phenomenon of human infancy, so strikingly different from that of the rest of the animal world.

Infant Man and Infant Aniinals. — A comparatively witless infancy must augur the high intellectual achievements of the men and women of the race. What a vast change from the amoeba, at the beginning of the animal scale, to the human infant at the top. There parent and offspring are practically one, with no immaturity and no need of education. And between the two lie all varieties of animal kind, with ever-increasing complexity of structure and intelligence in the adult, and ever-lengthening infancy and childhood in the offspring. To use the apt words of Principal Russell (291, p. xix.) : 'It is written that he is " born like the wild ass's colt " ; but this overstates the fact in his favour, for the wild ass's colt is greatly his superior at birth. The human infant is, in truth, much more on a par with the lowly marsupials, the kangaroo and opossum, and requires for a longer period even than they the maternal contact, the warmth and shelter of the mother's arms. And not only does man thus begin life at the very bottom of the ladder, but he " crawls to maturity " at a slower pace by far than any of the animal species. Long before he reaches manhood most of the brute contemporaries and playmates of his infant years will have had their day, and declined into decrepitude or died of old age.'

How man has lingered in being born may be seen from a glance at the following table, which contains the incubation periods or gestation periods for man and other animals : —

Period.

Animal.

Period

Animal.

Period.

Coluber

12 days

Guinea-pig

7 weeks

Sheep

21 weeks

Hen

21 ,,

Cat

8 ,,

Goat

22 ,,

Duck

21 ,,

Marten

8 ,,

Bear

39 ,,

Goose

29 „

Dog

9 „

Small Apes

39 „

Stork

42 ,,

Fox

9 »

Deer

Cassowary

65 „

Foumart

9 ,,

Mouse

24 ,,

Badger

10 ,,

Horse

II months

Rabbit

32 ,,

Wolf

10 ,,

Camel

II ,,

Hare

32 ,,

Lion

14 ,,

Rhinoceros

18 „

Rat

5 weeks

Pig

17 ,,

Elephant

24 „

It will be noticed that the small apes and some deer approach man very closely in the period of gestation, while the horse, camel, and especially the elephant and the rhinoceros, exceed man considerably. The prolongation of gestation must stand in some relation to the particular species of animal in question, and be connected with its evolution. Man's social environment is trusted to protect the helpless infancy into which he is born, not his physical strength or his lower instincts as in the case of many animals.

Much interesting information concerning the physical and psychical development of young animals is contained in Professor Wesley Mills's study of the Nat^^re and Development of Animal Intelligejice, where some of the relativities and some of the genialities of animal life are well discussed. Of the dog we are told ' as soon as a puppy is born it is capable of cries, crawling and sucking, and, if we except those concerned with the vital or vegetative function, these about cover all its possible movements. Up to the period when the eyes open there are no new movements,' and, again, ' indeed, after the fiftieth day, these resemblances ' [to the mature dog] ' are so numerous, or, in other words, the puppy is so matured, so fully equipped physically, that much less interest, or, at all events, importance, attaches to the study of his physical life ' (427, p. 268, p. 164). The cat develops more rapidly than the dog, and has more of the wild animal about it, ' the nature of the dog being much nearer to that of man than is the cat's ' ; the dog also is 'essentially a social and a gregarious animal, the cat an independent and solitary creature, traits which are early shown.' The dog also is 'docile in the highest degree; the cat to a slight degree as compared with her intelligence' (427, p. 232). The dog, evidently, approximates to the child in his slower development, his sociality and his docility \ and these are the factors which have given man his superiority.

Effect of Prolo?igation of Infa?tcy. — The effect of the prolongation of infancy in the individual was to ensure the sociahty of the race. In Mr Fiske's words : ' The prolonged helplessness of the offspring must keep the parents together for longer and longer periods in successive epochs ; and when at last the association is so long kept up that the older children are growing mature, while the younger ones still need protection, the family relations begin to become permanent. The parents have lived so long in company that to seek new companionships involves

MEANING OF THE HELPLESSNESS OF INFANCY 5

some disturbance of ingrained habits ; and, meanwhile, the older sons are more likely to continue their original association than to establish associations with strangers since they have common objects to achieve, and common enmities, bequeathed and acquired, with neighbouring families. As the parent dies, the headship of the family thus established devolves upon the oldest, or bravest, or most sagacious male remaining. Thus the little group gradually becomes a clan, the members of which are united by ties considerably stronger than those which ally them to members of adjacent clans, with whom they may indeed combine to resist the aggressions of yet further outlying clans or of formidable beasts, but towards whom their feelings are usually those of hostile rivalry.' Thus, out of the helplessness of the child has arisen the helpfulness of men ; from a gregarious, man has become a social being.

Mr Alexander Sutherland, enlarging upon Darwin, has lately sought to show, in his elaborate discussion of The Origin and Growth of the Moral Instinct^ how all morality proceeds directly or indirectly from parental sympathy, which has arisen by slow degrees out of pre-human parental care, which is closely correlated with the duration of growth in the offspring, which last is bound up with progression in the complexity of the organism. Out of parental, conjugal and social sympathy thus initiated has developed the whole complex of our morality. The share of the child and of woman in the development of ' milder manners, purer laws ' was recognised by Lucretius, who thus writes of the results of human marriage and love after the discovery of fire and house-building.^

The influence of the child is recognised in many of the myths and legends of primitive peoples, as the present writer and Mr W. W. Newell {Journ. Avier. Folk-Lore^ IX. p. 237) have pointed out. As Mr Newell well says, in such of our familiar nursery tales as are genuine, ' the nursery feature is an accident,' and they 'appealed originally to the interest of the entire community.' In the Hero-Child myth, so common among the American aborigines, we see the folk-recognition of 'heaven-born mastership,' 'innate capacity,' 'divine birth,' in a word, an acknowledgment of the genius of childhood. These myths and legends are the psychical accompaniment of the physical fact of the prolongation of human infancy and of its sociological role among men.

1 De Rerum Naturd, Bk. V.

Rousseau, as Groos notes (253, p. 151), had not a little appreciation of the real significance of childhood and youth, for in his Entile (Bk. I.) he observes that ' if man came into the world grown up, he would be a perfect imbecile, an automaton, an immovable and almost insensible statue,' and, again, ' we pity the state of infancy ; we do not perceive that the human race would have perished if man had not begun by being a child.' It has survived through his knowing by childeducation how to become a man. Out of the development of his own faculties, which has arisen through his weakness, has come at last his strength, the limit of his genius, the depth of his wisdom.

The lengthening of the period of intra-uterine life and the prolongation of human infancy, the period of plasticity and educability, have been in reality the making of man. Professor Butler does not exaggerate when he says (100, p. 10) : ' The factor in history that has changed the human being from a gregarious animal to a man living in a monogamous family, is, if anthropology and psychology teach us anything, unquestionably the child.' In a sense man has not lived for the child, but the child has lived for man. By reason of his childhood man is enabled to advance beyond the condition of his fathers. The existence of human childhood has made possible human civilisation.

The period during which the human child is suckled by its mother varies considerably among the races of men. According to Ploss (498, II. p. 379), a German woman 'rarely suckles her child a full year, although in the country and among the proletariat of the towns suckling may last two years sometimes, or even more,' the natural deterioration and decrease of the milk acting as a determining factor, together with the presence and substitution of other foods. With some primitive and some civilised peoples the period of suckling is much longer.

The data upon the subject are, however, still far from being altogether satisfactory, and there are evidently great individual differences in the same tribe, or even community. It would seem that the majority of peoples on the globe suckle their children during one to four years, and the largest number of these from two to three years. Among the causes which have led, in various parts of the world, to longer periods of suckling Ploss enumerates motherly tenderness and weakness towards the child, the pleasurable feeling excited in the mother by the xMEANING OF THE HELPLESSNESS OF INFANCY 7

sucking of her child, and also the widespread belief that so long as she suckles her child a woman may remain without fear of becoming pregnant, an idea known in civihsed Germany and in some islands of the South Pacific, but utterly unknown in many other parts of the globe. The length of the suckling period does not appear to stand in any ^direct relation with intelligence among primitive peoples, y^essels tells of a young Eskimo of King William's Land, who, although fourteen or fifteen years of age, after returning from the hunt, ran up to take, suck of his mother, and Organisjanz saw among the Armenians of the Kuban district in the Caucasus a boy of six or seven years, who, although not yet weaned, went to school.X The prolongation of the suckling period among primitive^ races would seem, therefore, to be often accidental or incidental (498, IL p. 381).

The Prolongation of the Growing Period in Man. — The whole period of growth in man, adolescence (if we interpret the term literally), seems to form a considerably larger portion of his life than the corresponding epoch in the existence of other mammals. The fact that ' the ratio of length of adolescence to length of life in the shortest - lived mammals is proportionately very much less than it is in longer-Hved mammals,' is noted by Dr W. Ainslie Hollis^ and Mr E. D. Bell. Dr HoUis fixes the completed growth of man ' by the union of the sternal epiphysis of the clavicle to its shaft at 25,' although there are 'great individual differences in the osseous union of the epiphyses,' and 'all the epiphyses were observed by Otto to be separate in the skeleton of a man aged 27 years, who, had he lived, might truthfully have posed as a youth when he was on the verge of 40.' It is apparent, therefore, that 25 years as the time for the 'completed growth' of man, and 75 years for his 'length of life,' are only approximate figures, since the former is perhaps too low, and the latter leaves out of consideration 'exceptionally long lives.' Mr Bell, who accepts the time of union of the epiphyses with the skeleton as the ' best measure of the period of maturity,' considers that the period of maturity is ' about from one and a half times to twice the period of puberty : one and two-thirds and twice seem common proportions. Man, for example, arrives at puberty at about 15, and is mature at 25; the lion and tiger arrive at puberty at 3 years, and are mature at 6.' ^ Nature, LIX, p. 224, p. 487.

The following table, compiled from those of Dr Hollis and Mr Bell, shows the progressing lengthening of adolescence with mammalian longevity : —

COMPARATIVE ADOLESCENCE AND LONGEVITY.

Animal.

Dormouse ....

Guinea-pig ....

Cat

Goat

Fox

English Cattle . .

Large Dogs . . .

English thoroughbred

Horses ....

Hog

Hippopotamus

Lion

English Horse (Hunter)

Arab Horse

Camel

Man

Man (Englishman) .

Elephant ....

Elephant ....

Authority,

HolHs

Flourens ; Hollis

R. O. Edwards

Mivart

Jennings

Pegler

Mivart

Hollis

Dalziel

Hollis

Long ; Hollis Chambers's Encyclopaedia Mivart

Blaine ; HoUis

Holhs

Flourens

Buffon

Hollis

Darwin

Holder, etc.

Length of Adoltscence.

3 months

8 „

1 year

I y'ar and 3 m'nths

4 y'ars and 6 m'nths

5 ,,

6 „

6 y'ars and 3 m'nths

8 „

25 „

25 „

30 „

35 „

Length of Life.

13-14 18 ., 15-20,

30 ,

30 , 30-40,

35 , 40 , 40 , 90-100,

75 ^ , 100 , 120 ,

Human adolescence would appear to be from one-third to one-fourth of life according to Hollis and Buffon. The centenarian's term of life makes it but one-fourth, as compared with the one-fifth of the Arab horse, the two-fifteenths of the thoroughbred horse, the one-ninth of EngUsh cattle, the one-eighth of the lop rabbit, the one-twelfth of the guinea-pig, and the one-sixteenth of the mouse. If the expectation of life at 25 years of age be considered, some 40 years remain to man after such maturity, adolescence and length of life being in the proportion of i.2-|. In many respects this lengthening of the period of growth or adolescence in man is one of the most remarkable phenomena of his existence — intra-iiterine

MEANING OF THE HELPLESSNESS OF INFANCY 9

life, infancy, childhood, youth, seem all to have increased in duration, for the shaping of the human being, and the complicated environment accompanying modern civilisation tends to lengthen more and more the period of immaturity/ In a sense, then, the child is really the ' father of the man,' for the modern man is becoming more and more of a child, or rather the modern child is losing less of childhood in the process of becoming a man. Emphasis has been laid upon this prolongation of adolescence by Dr G. Stanley Hall as one of the most notable features of modern human society. Professor N. M. Butler (100, p. 10) points out that 'while the physiological period of adolescence is only 14 or 15 years, the educational period is nearly twice as long ; indeed the period in which social heredity finds him still plastic has come to be about 30 yearS;>^n fixing the age for Congressman at 25, and for Senator at 30, the framers of the Constitution of the United States unconsciously safeguarded popular education for the future at least. The ages to come must interpret the saying of Schleiermacher : ' Being a child must not hinder becoming a man ; becoming a man must not hinder being a child,'

Chapter II

Play Theory of Schiller. — Schiller, in his Letters on the ^Esthetic Education of Mankind, published in 1794, made the following statement (252, p. 2): 'Nature has indeed granted even to the creature devoid of reason more than the mere necessities of existence, and into the darkness of animal life has allowed a gleam of freedom to penetrate here and there. When hunger no longer torments the lion, and no beast of prey appears for him to fight, then his unemployed powers find another outlet. He fills the wilderness with his wild roars, and his exuberant strength spends itself in aimless activity. In the mere joy of existence insects swarm in the sunshine, and it is certainly not always the cry of want that we hear in the melodious rhythm of bird songs. There is evidently freedom in these manifestations, but not freedomx from all necessity, only from a definite external necessity. The animal w^orks when some want is the motive for his activity, and plays when a superabundance of energy forms this motive — when overflowing life urges him to action.' This anticipates, if, indeed, it is not the source of, the theory of Herbert Spencer, that superfluous energy is the cause of play (252, p. 4). Spencer, in his F?'inciples of Psychology,'^ informs us he had ' met with a quotation from a German author to the effect that the aesthetic sentiments originate from the play-impulse ' — a view which the great English philosopher made very popular. Commenting upon the fact that Schiller w^as the author in question, Dr Groos remarks (252, p. 3): 'The doctrine of the origination of the aesthetic feelings from play-impulses is the cardinal point of Schiller's theory of the beautiful as it is revealed to us in these letters on aesthetic education.' Wallaschek (674, p. 232) 1 Vol. II. p. 621. 10

THE MEANING OF YOUTH AND PLAY II

reminds us that, in Germany, the play-impulse {Spieltrieb) theory is looked upon as an English idea, while English writers trace it to Germany, and to Schiller in particular, the truth being, however, that the German poet and philosopher was himself indebted in his aesthetic thinking to Pope, Addison and Henry Home (Lord Kames) — the fifth chapter of Home's Elements of Criticisju containing 'approximations to the Spieltrieb theory.' It is no more than natural that a playtheory should ultimately hail from England, since the people of that country have preserved so much of the naivete^ spontaneity and exuberance of the activity in question. One of Home's observations (305(2, p. 189), 'Play is necessary for man in order to refresh himself after labour ; and, accordingly, man loves play, even so much as to relish a play of words,' must be read in relation to another statement made by him (305, IV. p. 3), ' Infants of the human species, little superior to brutes, are, hke brutes, governed by instinct ; they lay hold of the nipple without knowing that sucking will satisfy their hunger ; and they weep, when pained, without any view of relief.' Human thought, in its infancy, is, like human movements, instinctive.

Gutsmuths. — Many of the ideas in Home are better expressed, though independently arrived at, in the remarkable volume on Flay, published by Gutsmuths, ' the father of play in Germany,' towards the end of the eighteenth century. Gutsmuths recognised the universality of play among all ages and all peoples, the infinite number of games and the skill exhibited by the race in their invention and manipulation, the health-giving quality of play and its ultimate origin (though fatigue and ennui served it for occasion) in the natural impulse of activity. According to Gutsmuths (259, p. 2): 'In play strictly so understood, the player has no other object than the satisfaction of the free operation of his activity.' Here he draws some of his inspiration from Schiller, for he refers to Die Moren, a periodical to which the latter contributed. He also cites from Wieland, without giving exact reference, the following passage (259, p. 5): 'Play is the first and only occupation {Beschdftigu?tg) of our childhood, and remains the pleasantest our whole life long. To toil like a beast of burden is the sad lot of the lowest, the most unfortunate and the most numerous class of mortals, but this is contrary to the intent and wish of Nature. The finest arts of the Muses are plays, and (as Pindar sings) without the modest Graces even the gods begin neither festival nor dance. Take away from life what is the enforced service of iron necessity, and what is all that is left but play ? Artists play with Nature, poets with their imagination, philosophers with their ideas, the fair sex with our hearts, and kings, alas ! with our heads ! '

The role of ennui in the stimulation of play, according to his theory, is well illustrated by Gutsmuths's observation that when ennui entered the hut of primitive man, pleasure took him by the hand and, the dance begun, movement-play solaced the first men ; but when huts had changed to palaces and ennui again appeared, movement being forbidden, pleasure muzzled her mouth and cards were resorted to. /The general necessity for play is evidenced by the widespread character of plays all over the globe, and plays more than anything else reveal national and racial character, the touch of the people is upon them, and ' by their plays shalt thou know them ' — the childish negro, the Frenchman always paying court, the superstitious Spaniard, the warlike American Indian all reveal themselves in their plays. Gutsmuths cites Wieland again on this point (259, p. 13): 'And where is man less upon his guard than when he plays? Wherein is the character of a nation more genuinely reflected than in its ruling amusements ? What Plato says of the music of any people holds also of its plays : ' There is no alteration in them that is not the herald or the result of a change in its moral or political condition.' Play is a revealer of character, and is never seen to better advantage than in childhood, when, as Home says (305a, p. 215), there is little or no disguise, 'for a child, in all things obedient to the impulse of nature, hides none of its emotions ; the savage and the clown [/.^., rustic] who have no guide but pure nature, expose their hearts to view by giving way to all the natural signs.' In the playing child we ' recognise the anxious care of nature to discover men to each other.'

Gutsmuths came very near the heart of the question when he said (259, p. 22) : 'Work, serious occupations, and converse with adults are artificial roles of youth, in which they gradually make their debut on the grand stage of life; plays, however, are natural roles in their own youthful Paradise.' Nowhere else are the young so little limited in their actions and conduct by adults — nowhere are they freer, more natural, more human than here. In play all the vices and virtues reveal themselves, and ' the youth is smoothed down like the pebble in the brook — a thing which happens always the sooner the better, provided only the stream is not too tainted and muddy.' Moreover, play gives a picture of human life in the small, and is of great educational value, for through it alone can youth in many respects be moulded to the later and manifold activities of life. Gutsmuths recognises the fact that dislike for work does not originate in play, but finds its cause in mistakes of education, and denounces the custom of trying to get work out of children by promising them play afterwards. For him plays are exercises of body and of mind, and in his comments upon the various sorts and species of plays he anticipates much that is to be found in the writings of Johnson, Gulick and others who have discussed ' education by plays and games,' especially the role of the particular plays in the exercise and development of the several senses.