BOYS.
Age. Objects Noises Number Visual Acoustic Touch Feeling Sounds
Concepts Concepts Concepts Concepts
13-14-1/2 92.56 71.89 80.67 73.00 74.78 75.33 75.44 40.56 12-13 76.45 57.38 72.33 69.67 64.89 73.67 58.67 37.87 11-12 89.78 57.19 70.22 59.67 63.00 73.33 55.33 19.99 10-11 87.12 55.33 49.33 55.11 48.44 57.11 38.33 12.44 9-10 64.00 53.33 49.09 46.58 43.78 43.67 27.22 7.22
Normal 82.2 59.02 64.8 60.6 59.4 64.2 31.2 24.0 value.
GIRLS.
13-14-1/2 99.56 82.67 87.22 96.67 71.44 82.00 70.22 41.33 12-13 92.89 75.56 74.89 77.22 63.11 74.67 67.33 34.89 11-12 94.00 56.00 73.56 72.78 72.11 70.89 73.33 28.22 10-11 75.78 46.22 62.44 56.22 54.78 58.78 43.22 10.44 9-10 89.33 46.22 50.44 54.22 38.22 51.11 32.89 6.89
Normal 91.4 62.2 71.8 71.0 60.2 67.2 59.4 23.8 value.
The table for boys shows in the fourteenth year a marked increase of memory for objects, noises, and feelings, especially as compared with the marked relative decline the preceding year, when there was a decided increase in visual concepts and senseless sounds. The twelfth year shows the greatest increase in number memory, acoustic impressions, touch, and feeling. The tenth and eleventh years show marked increase of memory for objects and their names. Thus the increase in the strength of memory is by no means the same year by year, but progress focuses on some forms and others are neglected. Hence each type of memory shows an almost regular increase and decrease in relative strength.
The table for girls shown marked increase of all memory forms about the twelfth year. This relative increase is exceeded only in the fourteenth year for visual concepts. The thirteenth year shows the greatest increase for sounds and a remarkable regression for objects in passing from the lowest to the next grade above.
In the accuracy of reproducing the order of impressions, girls much exceeded boys at all ages. For seen object, their accuracy was twice that of boys, the boys excelling in order only in number. In general, ability to reproduce a series of impressions increases and decreases with the power to reproduce in any order, but by no means in direct proportion to it. The effect of the last member in a series by a purely mechanical reproduction is best in boys. The range and energy of reproduction is far higher than ordered sequence. In general girls slightly exceed boys in recalling numbers, touch concepts, and sounds, and largely exceed in recalling feeling concepts, real things and visual concept.
Colegrove[29] tabulated returns from the early memories of 1,658 correspondents with 6,069 memories, from which he reached the conclusions, represented in the following curves, for the earliest three memories of white males and females.
In the cuts on the following page, the heavy line represents the first memory, the broken the second, and the dotted the third. Age at the time of reporting is represented in distance to the right, and the age of the person at the time of the occurrence remembered is represented by the distance upward. "There is a rise in all the curves at adolescence. This shows that, from the age of twelve to fifteen, boys do not recall so early memories as they do both before and after this period." This Colegrove ascribes to the fact that the present seems so large and rich. At any rate, "the earliest memories of boys at the age of fourteen average almost four years." His curves for girls show that the age of all the first three memories which they are able to recall is higher at fourteen than at any period before or after; that at seven and eight the average age of the first things recalled is nearly a year earlier than it is at fourteen. This means that at puberty there is a marked and characteristic obliteration of infantile memories which lapse to oblivion with augmented absorption in the present.
[Illustration: Untitled Graph.]
It was found that males have the greatest number of memories for protracted or repeated occurrences, for people, and clothing, topographical and logical matters; that females have better memories for novel occurrences or single impressions. Already at ten and eleven motor memories begin to decrease for females and increase for males. At fourteen and fifteen, motor memories nearly culminate for males, but still further decline for females. The former show a marked decrease in memory for relatives and playmates and an increase for other persons. Sickness and accidents to self are remembered less by males and better by females, as are memories of fears. At eighteen and nineteen there is a marked and continued increase in the visual memories of each sex and the auditory memory of females. Memory for the activity of others increases for both, but far more strongly for males. Colegrove concludes from his data that "the period of adolescence is one of great psychical awaking. A wide range of memories is found at this time. From the fourteenth year with girls and the fifteenth with boys the auditory memories are strongly developed. At the dawn of adolescence the motor memory of voice nearly culminates, and they have fewer memories of sickness and accidents to self. During this time the memory of other persons and the activity of others is emphasized in case of both boys and girls. In general, at this period the special sensory memories are numerous, and it is the golden age for motor memories. Now, too, the memories of high ideals, self-sacrifice, and self-forgetfulness are cherished. Wider interests than self and immediate friends become the objects of reflection and recollection."
After twenty there is marked change in the memory content. The male acquires more and the female less visual and auditory memories. The memories of the female are more logical, and topographical features increase. Memories of sickness and accidents to self decrease with the males and increase with the females, while in the case of both there is relative decline in the memories of sickness and accident to others. From all this it would appear that different memories culminate at different periods, and bear immediate relation to the whole mental life of the period. While perhaps some of the finer analyses of Colegrove may invite further confirmation, his main results given above are not only suggestive, but rendered very plausible by his evidence.
Statistics based upon replies to the question as to whether pleasant or unpleasant experiences were best remembered, show that the former increase at eleven, rise rapidly at fourteen, and culminate at eighteen for males, and that the curve of painful memories follows the same course, although for both there is a drop at fifteen. For females, the pleasant memories increase rapidly from eleven to thirteen, decline a little at fourteen, rise again at sixteen, and culminate at seventeen, and the painful memories follow nearly the same course, only with a slight drop at fifteen. Thus, up to twenty-two for males, there is a marked preponderance of pleasant over painful memories, although the two rise and fall together. After thirty, unpleasant memories are but little recalled. For the Indians and negroes in this census, unpleasant memories play a far more and often preponderating rôle suggesting persecution and sad experiences. Different elements of the total content of memory come to prominence at different ages. He also found that the best remembered years of life are sixteen to seventeen for males and fifteen for females, and that in general the adolescent period has more to do than any other in forming and furnishing the memory plexus, while the seventh and eighth year are most poorly remembered.
It is also known that many false memories insert themselves into the texture of remembered experiences. One dreams a friend is dead and thinks she is till she is met one day in the street; or dreams of a fire and inquires about it in the morning; dreams of a present and searches the house for it next day; delays breakfast for a friend, who arrived the night before in a dream, to come down to breakfast; a child hunts for a bushel of pennies dreamed of, etc. These phantoms falsify our memory most often, according to Dr. Colegrove, between sixteen and nineteen.
Mnemonic devices prompt children to change rings to keep appointments, tie knots in the handkerchief, put shoes on the dressing-table, hide garments, associate faces with hoods, names with acts, things, or qualities they suggest; visualize, connect figures, letters with colors, etc. From a scrutiny of the original material, which I was kindly allowed to make, this appears to rise rapidly at puberty.
[Footnote 1: See my Ideal School as Based on Child Study. Proceedings of the National Educational Association, 1901, pp. 470-490.]
[Footnote 2: Charles P.G. Scott: The Number of Words in the English and Other Languages. Princeton University Bulletin, May, 1902, vol. 13, pp. 106-111.]
[Footnote 3: The Teaching of English. Pedagogical Seminary, June, 1902, vol. 9, pp. 161-168.]
[Footnote 4: See my Some Aspects of the Early Sense of Self. American
Journal of Psychology, April, 1898, vol. 9, pp. 351-395.]
[Footnote 5: Sprachgeschichte und Sprachpsychologie, mit Rucksicht auf
B. Delbrück's "Grundfragen der Sprachforschung." Leipzig, W.
Engelmann, 1901]
[Footnote 6: Latin in the High School. By Edward Conradi. Pedagogical
Seminary, March, 1905, vol. 12, pp. 1-26.]
[Footnote 7: The Psychological and Pedagogical Aspect of Language.
Pedagogical Seminary, December, 1903, vol. 10, pp. 438-458.]
[Footnote 8: Children's Interest in Words. Pedagogical Seminary,
September, 1902, vol. 9, pp. 274-295.]
[Footnote 9: Children's Interests in Words, Slang, Stories, etc.
Pedagogical Seminary, October, 1903, vol. 10, pp. 359-404.]
[Footnote 10: American Journal of Psychology, April, 1900, vol. 11, p. 345 et seq.]
[Footnote 11: American Journal of Psychology, January, 1895, vol. 6, pp. 585-592. See also vol. 10, p. 517 et seq.]
[Footnote 12: North American Review, November, 1885, vol. 141, pp. 431-435.]
[Footnote 13: Introduction to the Biglow Papers, series ii.]
[Footnote 14: Some Observations on Children's Reading. Proceedings of the National Educational Association, 1897, pp. 1015-102l.]
[Footnote 15: Report on Child Reading. New York Report of State
Superintendent, 1897, vol. 2, p. 979.]
[Footnote 16: Children's reading. North-Western Monthly, December, 1898, vol. 9, pp. 188-191, and January, 1899, vol. 9, pp. 229-233.]
[Footnote 17: A study of Children's Reading Tastes. Pedagogical
Seminary, December, 1899, vol. 6, pp. 523-535.]
[Footnote 18: Perhaps the best and most notable school reader is Das Deutsche Lesebuch, begun nearly fifty years ago by Hopf and Paulsiek, and lately supplemented by a corps of writers headed by Döbeln, all in ten volumes of over 3,500 pages and containing nearly six times as much matter as the largest American series. Many men for years went over the history of German literature, from the Eddas and Nibelungenlied down, including a few living writers, carefully selecting saga, legends, Märchen, fables, proverbs, hymns, a few prayers, Bible tales, conundrums, jests, and humorous tales, with many digests, epitomes and condensation of great standards, quotations, epic, lyric, dramatic poetry, adventure, exploration, biography, with sketches of the life of each writer quoted, with a large final volume on the history of German literature. All this, it is explained, is "stataric" or required to be read between Octava[A] and Obersecunda. It is no aimless anthology or chrestomathy like Chambers's Encyclopedia, but it is perhaps the best product of prolonged concerted study to select from a vast field the best to feed each nascent stage of later childhood and early youth, and to secure the maximum of pleasure and profit. The ethical end is dominant throughout this pedagogic canon.]
[Footnote A: The Prussian gymnasium, whose course is classical and fits for the University, has nine classes in three divisions of three classes each. The lower classes are Octava, Septa, Sexta, Quinta, and Quarta; the middle classes, Untertertia, Obertertia, and Untersecunda; the higher classes, Obersecunda, Unterprima, and Oberprima. Pupils must be at least nine years of age and have done three years preparatory work before entrance.]
[Footnote 19: The Historic Sense among Children. In her Studies in
Historical Method. D. C. Heath and Co., Boston, 1896, p. 57.]
[Footnote 20: Special Study on Children's Sense of Historical Time.
Mrs. Barnes's Studies in Historical Method, D.C. Heath and Co.,
Boston, 1896, p. 94.]
[Footnote 21: L'Etude expérimentale de l'intelligence. Schleicher
Frères, Paris, 1903.]
[Footnote 22: The Growth of Memory in School Children. American
Journal of Psychology, April, 1892, vol. 9, pp. 362-380.]
[Footnote 23: Contribution to the Psychology and Pedagogy of
Feeble-minded Children. By G.E. Johnson. Pedagogical Seminary,
October, 1895, vol. 3, p. 270.]
[Footnote 24: A Test of Memory in School Children. Pedagogical
Seminary, October, 1898, vol. 4, pp. 61-78.]
[Footnote 25: Zeitschrift für pädagogische Psychologie, Pathologie und
Hygiene. February, 1900. Jahrgang II, Heft 1, pp. 21-30.]
[Footnote 26: See Scripture: Scientific Child Study. Transactions of the Illinois Society for Child Study, May, 1895, vol. 1, No. 2, pp. 32-37.]
[Footnote 27: Experimentelle Untersuchungen über die
Gedächtnissentwickelung bei Schulkindern. Zeits. f. Psychologie, u.
Physiologie der Sinnes-organe, November, 1900. Bd. 24. Heft 5, pp.
321-351.]
[Footnote 28: See Note 4, p. 270.]
[Footnote 29: Memory: An Inductive Study. By F.W. Colegrove. Henry
Holt and Co., New York, 1900, p. 229. See also Individual Memories.
American Journal of Psychology, January, 1899, vol. 10, pp 228-255.]
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