The development of the child

Chapter I Page

Introductory i

CHAPTER n Facts in the Comparative Development of the Child i i

CHAPTER HI

Facts in the Comparative Development of the Child

{continued) 37

CHAPTER IV

Comparative Importance of Heredity and Environment 66

CHAPTER V

The Place of the Primary School in the Development of the Child 93

CHAPTER VI

The Place of Religion in the Development of the

Child 122

vii

Vlll CONTENTS

CHAPTER VII

PAGS

The Value of the Child as a Witness in Suits at

Law 148

CHAPTER VHI The Development of the Child-Criminal . . • I7S

CHAPTER IX

The Child's Development as a Factor in producing

the Genius or the Defective 207

CHAPTER X Institutional Life in the Development of the Child 241

CHAPTER XI The Profession of Maternity 266

MENANDER

CHAPTER I

One of the noteworthy characteristics of the time is the so-called moral revival which has shown itself in almost every part of the civilized world. It has made its imprint upon England, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and Russia. In our own country it has wrought some striking changes. These changes have been very plainly seen all through the common life of the time, and one of the most interesting features of this revival is the diversity of form which it has assumed. From one end of the social fabric to the other the same note is heard ; whether in regard to the subject of dress, or of charity, whether business methods or housekeeping, the spirit of the hour calls for a strenuous effort, a desire to improve upon the past, a noble dissatisfaction that can be quieted only by an active exhibition of individual endeavor. In fact, the keynote of the whole movement seems to be an appeal to the individual to assert whatever energy he has to the end of insuring his best development. The individual is recognized as the ultimate element of the mass, and therefore plans that are meant to improve the mass must begin with each single person. Even in politics, the new-forming touch is felt, and political methods are beginning to take another and newer shape. It is for reasons such as these that M. Charles Secretan has wisely said : " Political salvation in a democracy depends solely on private efforts, on an inward mission."

One may rightly go further, saying that the salvation which depends upon private efforts, upon an inward mission, is not confined to political life. In fact, in the whole range of human affairs, this sentiment of devotion to the cause of a personal idea, to the cause of an individual belief, is the strongest force that can actuate men. It has the inspiring force that makes martyrs ; it begins a crusade, works miracles, incites to heroism. The great captains of all time are the men who have most keenly felt it. The light which radiates from it is so strong that whoever comes into contact with it becomes thereby illumined. It acts as a sort of spiritual infection, whose range of influence extends over the whole race. In times past, when the spirit of the people was more clearly that of a mass, it acted generally from some individual source, from which it spread by waves to surrounding people. Rightly enough, therefore, ancient history was really one-man history, individual history. National and world events meant impulses which originated in one man, or a small group of persons controlled by one man; and whatever force he had was the real motive energy which agitated his time.

Nowadays things do not happen in quite the same way. Naturally, the influence of a strong man is, and always must be, felt. But outside of this there is a great tendency not to follow a leader quite as blindly as in the past. Men require something of a reason ; they want an excuse for unquestioning obedience. They feel the need of answering for their acts to a conscience. In other words, there is a growing tendency, although it may at the beginning be small, to think independently, to act independently. And where this individuality of action is touched by the glow of a spiritual idea, one begins to feel something of this doctrine of private effort, of an inward mission. And when the tendency to mass-action, to ready-made beliefs, is still further impeded, the belief in the selfsufficiency of each man, each social unit, must be still more emphatic.

However, this trait may be obtained, not by a spontaneous evolution, not by a blind adherence to the ability of each person to develop in the highest way, but by such intelligent means and methods as will put him as nearly as possible on the highest plane that the majority of his fellow-creatures hold. This ideal equality

— far different from anything which society now possesses — will act for the interests of the race in the broadest extent. The dictum that all men are born free and equal is plainly true only in an academic interpretation. It certainly is not true as far as the actual facts of their careers can show. As far as one can see, there is as little actual freedom in the world as one can possibly imagine. Almost every adult, on reaching maturity, has a certain range of limitations, working much more rigorously than statutes enacted by law, which determine in what ways he must advance, stand still, or go backward ; at the same time his freedom of choice, even of desire, is similarly defined. And, after all, one is most apt to think of his freedom as permission to exercise himself within the demarcations set up by his environment ; or one might compare it to the freedom which a prisoner, bound hand and foot, has to contract his muscles. In spite of such freedom, he still is bound. And actually, a member of a civilized community is bound physically, mentally, spiritually. He can no more be said to have a real liberty of choice than a bird in a cage.

And so far as the question of what he is entitled to, what he has a right to, goes, there is very little more to be said. It is hard to find any natural right that really belongs to him, excepting, possibly, in some few cases, the right to die. Otherwise, every one of his so-called rights is the result of social and legal enactment, things to which he becomes entitled by virtue of his manner of subscribing to the ruhngs of the society in which he lives. The fact of being born in this society puts upon him the necessity of living in it, and as soon as he arrives upon the stage where the decision of affairs rests largely upon his immediate volition, he directly comes to see that his power of choice is very limited, that his faculty of private effort is generally very small, that only under the greatest difficulties may he have an inward mission. Whatever these forces may be, they occur not necessarily as spontaneous emotions, but rather as the result of friction, association, generally called environment.

By a related process of thought, one can easily realize that the whole sum of life belongs in its general classification to environment. The human being, in the first part of his existence, is much more unformed than is generally thought. The determining factors are not as parents usually consider them. A strong belief in heredity has become so general that direct effects of descent are looked for with all the confidence and sureness of settled and incontrovertible facts. The good father is supposed to have a good son, the virtuous mother is supposed to bear an equally virtuous daughter; by a seeming parity of reasoning, people know that homing pigeons will produce homing pigeons, fox terriers will bring forth their kind. Very rarely is the utter lack of similitude between the two sets of examples seen and insisted upon. The qualities of goodness and virtue are purely functional, the result of friction, social interaction, environment. The question of underlying physical structure, of the disposition of bony, muscular, and nervous tissue, is one of purely somatic, organic composition. And between the two there is the difference of natural inheritance and artificial acquirements.

When this distinction becomes a clearly understood fact, people will see that a new set of " rights " should be counted upon ; not a right of objective demands, but rather that of subjective insistence. Parents may elect to gratify their affections, pride, and interest, by modifying the fluid potentialities of their offspring in the way that will bring most force, comfort, and welfare to all concerned. The doctrine of heredity, as commonly held, not only is falsely applied to human descents, but also renders the wisest and best efforts of training unnecessary and useless. For if at birth the child's bodily and mental organization is complete, if the acquired characteristics of parents are handed down to offspring, then there the matter ends. Every remarkable parent would have equally remarkable children, every deficient person would curse his descendants by a like deficiency ; work, training, striving after noble ideals, would be useless and silly. There would be an end of private efforts, of an inward mission.

But matters are not so hopeless, as one, by following closely the growth and development of the child, as he grows into youth and then into manhood, can see. His early stages are merely transitional ; the time of preparation in which he changes from the microscopic mass of protoplasm, which is his form after conception, to the fully developed adult who constitutes the highest product of terrestrial evolution, is merely a phase of development. In these stages the young organism is played upon by an infinite number of influences that mould his body and mind according to their nature and kind. If the child is to be developed in the finest way, every possible influence that acts upon him should be controlled to serve the ends of development. The energies that belong to building up this range of potentialities should be of the finest quality, should have the greatest liberty of action, should be awarded the highest place in the community. The training which the child is to get should be what is essentially designed for him in his unripe condition, for it cannot be similar to that of an adult. So long as one recognizes that the child is absolutely different from the adult, not only in size, but also in every element which goes to make up the final state of maturity, one is more apt to get a true method of development, which must gradually bear the results of a higher evolution.

There is no doubt that many of the ideas and methods governing the treatment of children, what one is bound to provide for them, as well as what one may expect from them, are sadly deficient. The blame for this is to be laid not so much upon carelessness and indifference in parents and guardians (although these peculiarities exist), as upon a wrong conception of the problem. There is not enough of conviction in the minds of parents and guardians that the responsibility of their children's acts, either good or bad, rests upon their older shoulders, that the final outcome of these children's lives depends almost entirely upon the influences, the nutrition, the environment which the authority of the parents and guardians provide. The elements that are to be affected, being in an almost fluid state so far as susceptibility to change is concerned, require an unceasing care and attention. To break in upon the rule for a single week or day or hour defaces the beauty of the finished product, and leaves an opening for divergences from the best growth, that can later on be remedied, if at all, with difficulty. The bringing up of a child thus means a series of lessons in self-restraint, in watchfulness, in adherence to an ideal, for the parent even more than for the child. The child will fashion himself after the patterns that he sees; he does not grow according to some hard and fast rule that has been implanted in him before he is born.

When this is appreciated, one will immediately see that the world has a wrong idea of its children. It looks upon them as adults, but slightly different, in the details of small size, deficient strength, little experience, from grown men and women. It believes that, were these details filled out and completed, the child would be the same as after the lapse of years he comes to be. And therefore, in consequence of this opinion, it provides surroundings for him that would be most fitted for a person of matured powers, who lacked strength and knowledge. The rules of conduct which result must, in the face of the child's real condition, be fundamentally false. Since he is in no way really like an adult, since his condition is one of continuous change, it follows that he needs a special treatment and environment, which must be modelled upon a correct conception of what he really is. This would necessitate a remoulding of his relations and surroundings, an overhauling of ideas about comparative influences. So long as this is not done, we are apt to bear the penalty of thoughtlessness in unnecessarily deficient men and women, in the abuses which come from one-sided and twisted bodies and minds, in a stoppage of the evolution which goes hand in hand with the best evolution of the race. But first of all, we must see the truth, we must know exactly what children are, what their development is, and for what they are fitted. Later on it will be time enough to build up a system of positive treatment. Before construction, one must clear the ground, one must get rid of old material which is useless, which lO THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CHILD

blocks the way. In the prospect of making a better future, is inspiration enough for the most prosaic mind. We must recast our conceptions of the function and the scope of our children ; we must look with unprejudiced eyes upon the part which they reasonably may be expected to play in the work of the world. We must conclude to give more and ask for less. It has been said that people in the world may be divided into three classes : Those who give little and ask for little, those who give little and ask for much, those who give much and ask for little. Into which classes the wise man should put himself may be left to the general conscience. The choice rightly made is in itself a discipline, a realization of the necessity for private efforts, for an inward mission.

CHAPTER II Facts in the Comparative Development of the Child

Children, according to common views, are looked upon as adults in small. Most parents never stop to think of the possibility or likelihood of their own mature condition being any different from the condition of their little ones. This is somewhat remarkable, because the two are not, except in general ways, alike. Moreover, the whole world of animals seems to be similarly disposed so that the young require different conditions, different surroundings, different care, from the ordinary adult standard. Where the changes are very striking, as for instance, in the caterpillar, they are regarded as exceptions which bear no analogy in other creatures. There the transition from the creeping, rather plain-colored insect to the dormant, halfdead chrysalis, and then to the brilliant, fluttering butterfly, is so wonderful that even the dullest imagination is touched ; for the wonder inheres not only in changed appearance, but also in changed methods of locomotion, food, general manner of life,

II

Caterpillars, however, are not the only creatures which show remarkable changes. The same idea holds good through all animal life, especially in the higher families. In fact, it is only in the very lowest forms that infancy and youth are alike. As a rule, animals, in proportion to the complexity of their organization and functions, mature late in life ; the higher the animal, the longer, proportionally to the whole term of life, does it take to reach the full exercise of all his powers. A corollary of this is, that increasing complexity of organization and functions involves correspondingly great changes in actual physical states. This idea, although heretofore our attention has not been much called to it, is beautifully illustrated in human development. We have been in the habit of looking upon a child as a man in small, of looking upon a man as a child somewhat strengthened, with greater experience and knowledge. Outside of these factors of experience, knowledge, and strength, the child and man seem practically the same. So true is this observation that society founds its judgments accordingly, it prescribes its methods of education, of social and domestic care accordingly, it sees almost no differences outside of these adventitious ones between them.

As a matter of fact, it would be hard to find many salient factors, beyond the most fundamental laws, in which the infant and adult exactly resemble each other.

Multiply the proportions of the infant to those of the adult, and you will have a being whose large head and dwarfed lower face, whose apex-like thorax, whose short arms and legs give a grotesque appearance. The two do not breathe alike, their pulse rates are not alike, the composition of their bodies is not alike. The most ordinary analysis shows this. Fehling gives the percentage of water in a very young foetus as ninety-seven and five-tenths per cent. This proportion, instead of being a permanent feature, is merely a transitory one. It diminishes steadily until, after birth, it is seventyfour and seven-tenths per cent. The decrease continues regularly, but more slowly, until in the adult it is only fifty-eight and five-tenths per cent. Even the common differences that are characteristic of various ages, and with which every one is familiar, have their foundations in actual differences of conformation. For instance, one may say that children are more supple than adults, but not merely because they are younger ; it is rather because they have relatively a greater proportion of muscle tissue, and a smaller proportion of tendon. Thus there is actually less of the elements which make the body rigid. This change produces just as real an alteration in the physical being of the person as the loss of the prehensible power of the great toe, the clinging faculty, and the sucking reflex, which fade away with the passage of infancy. Again, the common necessity of eating has different objects in the two ages : in the adult the repair of body waste is the only end sought ; in the child, besides this, there are additional reasons, such as the supplying of greater energy than at any previous time, and also the forming of entirely new tissue, such as would be commensurate with added growth. Likewise the deprivation from food, starvation, is fatal for each in a different way ; in the adult death occurs because the amount of food is too small to atone for the processes of disintegration ; in the child the same result is reached for the same reason, plus the equally or more important one that the nervous system, on account of its unstable and unripe condition, more easily and quickly becomes exhausted.

On more minute examination, one finds greater and greater differences, until one comes to believe that we have been trying to see our children in a totally false light. It is more than a figure of speech to say that the child is father of the man; it is rather a great bound of the imagination. The child is simply a stage in a development which is unstable, which changes in as due proportion as the embryo changes into the infant. From the moment of conception till full adult life, there is one continuous change that is steady, but decreasing in rapidity in proportion to the length of time during which it has been in progress. The change is universal, the different parts of the body participating in it in varying degrees. The enumeration of some of these is so convincing as to justify examining Vierordt's table, which shows the percentage weights in the new born and the adult.^

Some of these variations seem small when expressed in terms of percentage weight of the whole body ; but when they are stated in terms of percentage of their own weight, the result seems much different, and much greater. In this latter method one could state the increase in the heart to be from twelve to thirteen times the original size, in the liver about eleven times, in the lungs about twenty times, in the brain about four times, and so on.

Take another particular instance : To say that the

New Born Adult

Spinal Cord 0.20 0.067

Salivary Glands 0.24 0.12

Thyroid Gland 0.24 0.05

Thymus Gland 0.54 0.0086

Stomach and Intestines 2.53 2.34

Pancreas 0.12 0.15

Suprarenal Capsules 0.31 0.014

Testicles 0.037 0.08 child is a man in small is just as wrong as to say that the bony skeleton is the foundation and the framework upon which are laid the softer parts which it ultimately supports. As a fact, the bones in their immaturity are moulded, are pulled into this line and that by the very muscles and tendons which they exceed so greatly in rigidity. A little thought will show this to be sufficiently natural, for the bones, as every other part of the body, are continually changing, and show material differences between their infantile and adult conditions. Their final condition, as well as their function, is so different from their changing phases of growth, that the resemblance between them is merely a general one. This is interesting enough to demand an analysis of a characteristic bone, say the tibia,i which in itself has a deep enough meaning to serve as the basis of a theory of development and education. It is not so much a question of small variations in body composition, as of the principle underlying these variations.

Looked at in this light, it does not require much effort to show why the infant's bones are softer and

9 Mos.

3 Yrs.

19 Yrs.

25 Yrs.

1 Phosphate of Calcium . .

57-54

48.55

59.74

54-84

57.18

Carbonate of Calcium

6.02

5-79

6.00

10.82

8.95

Phosphate of Magnesium

1.03

1. 00

1.34

1.26

1.70

Chloride of Sodium . .

0-73

1.24

0.63

0.76

0.60

Cartilaginous Substance .

33-861

41.50

31-34

31-37

Fatty Matter ....

0.82

1.92

0.95

0.92

1.84

Organic Matter . . .

34.68

43-42

32.29

32.29

31-36

Inorganic Matter . . .

65.32

56.36

67.71

67.71

68.42 more vascular than the adult's, nor the ultimate impv)it of the change. One's attention is immediately turned to the idea of a consistent course of development. The difference, however, is not greater than what one sees in the marrow. This in the young is, in the first place, quite different in color from the adult form, being a fairly bright red ; this is caused by the great number of dilated blood-vessels. Also it is softer and holds a larger percentage of water. It is only by slow degrees that this marrow is changed into the yellow, fatty substance which it afterwards comes to be. If one saw in an adult the condition that is regularly seen in a child, one would certainly pronounce it pathological. If we take the item of cartilage, as another particular instance, one finds that the variations still continue.^ Again, the infantile muscles are noticeably different from the adult, in that they contain a greater percentage of water, and a smaller percentage of myosin, as well as extractives, fat, and inorganic ingredients. Also, in the fcetal blood the specific gravity is somewhat lower than in the adult, and the specific gravity of the serum is markedly lower. On the other hand, in a few weeks there is so much change here that the specific gravity of the infant's blood is commonly higher than an adult's. The red corpuscles are in the infant poorer in haemoglobin, as seventy-six and

1 In the child of six months the proportion of mineral salts in cartilage is 2.24 %. At three years it is 3 %, at nineteen it is 7.29 %. c eight-tenths is to one hundred while the stroma is richer. Again, the amount of fibrinogen is relatively small, as two is to seven. The amount of sodium in solution is larger and the potassium smaller. There is a lessened tendency to coagulation. In early foetal life the red corpuscles are nucleated, and do not attain their normal condition until after birth. Moreover, they are greater in number. Likewise is the infant's blood richer in white corpuscles than the adult's ; it is richer in the so-called young-form elements, while the "over-ripe" elements are only half as many. These white corpuscles remain relatively longer in the "unripe" condition than in adults, while the latter show a larger percentage of the "over-ripe." In short, the blood of the new-born child is so clearly different from its later form, that Gundobin calls it, according to the ordinary standard of morphology, pathological. The difference in degree is so marked as to amount almost to a difference in kind. Finally, the weight of the infant's blood is relatively smaller than that of the adult's.

During the whole course of growth there are the constant factors of variation, of irregularity. These point indubitably to the fact that infancy and childhood are solely times of preparation, that in themselves they have no fixed status. And experience shows that this condition of change is easily affected one way or another. As an example, one may take the methods of development which may clearly be seen in the long bones. These consist of a narrow body, with an enlargement at each end. In the bones of the forearm and upper arm the ends removed from the elbow show much more growth than those which go to form the joint, while in the lower extremity, the parts removed from the knee grow least. Where an untoward nutrition causes a variation from the natural development, consequent changes may occur directly or indirectly throughout the organism. The changes in relations in parts such as these joints are, in some cases, exceedingly interesting. An example may be seen in the capsule of the knee joint, which in early childhood extends for only a short distance along the bone; with increased age the capsule grows more than its proportionate degree, and so extends to a relatively higher position. This difference is so great that it influences the course of certain diseases, especially where fluids seek an outlet from the joint. There is no gradual and equable growth in all parts at the same time. Both rate and location of increase are unstable. What is more, in certain parts the adult condition and shape are only hinted at in early life, and for years maintain essential differences. In such cases the purely provisional character of young growth-forms is so evident, that all doubt about their unstable equilibrium is set at rest.

We may take the growth of the mastoid bone as an example. The external petro-squamous suture ^ does not become obliterated until the end of the first year. Then for the first time the mastoid process becomes distinct. There is, naturally, a constant formation of new bone from the periosteum surrounding it ; this is accomplished the more rapidly because this periosteum, as well as that of all the body, is less stable in infants, is looser, softer, and more vascular than in adults. Thus the walls of the cavity of this bone continuously become thicker. Even here the growth is not absolutely regular, and on the average, the walls will grow from one millimetre at birth to one centimetre at nine or ten years. This new bone is fine cancellous tissue, which at puberty begins to undergo a process of absorption in scattered spots. Absorption goes on gradually but surely until these areas are thus changed into a number of connecting air cells, eventually lined by a delicate mucous membrane.

The same feature of irregularity is seen in the union of the bones of the head : while the fontanelles or inter-membranous spaces at the angles of the parietal bones normally disappear before the age of four years, nevertheless the occipital and sphenoid bones are not united at their basilar parts until the twentieth. Thus one naturally looks for a greater or less persistence of foetal conditions, which are then seen to disappear

1 The line of junction between the petrous and squamous portions of the temporal bone (in the head).

only gradually with increasing age. The persistence of these conditions is exceedingly interesting, and proves the wide distinction existing between infant and adult forms. In the roof of the middle ear or tympanum in infancy, one finds a petro-squamous suture that permits a close connection between the blood-vessels of the brain and the middle ear. This connection gradually disappears with age, but before it comes about, inflammations are with comparative frequency transmitted from the lining membrane to the dura mater, the tougher of the membranes surrounding the brain. The existence of such special development forms has an important practical bearing, so that the physician, when treating children, has a different problem before him than when treating adults. Another instance of gradual development is in the foramen cacum, a notch in the frontal bone, which usually remains patent until or after puberty. A corresponding fact is the late appearance of the frontal and sphenoidal sinuses in the skull, which although they appear about the second and third years respectively, do not attain completion until after puberty.