Where shall I wander?
he was observed (end of tenth month) to correct the rhyme by first pronouncing the a in “wander” less broadly than is our wont, just as in “gander,” and then substituting the conventional pronunciation.
The moral side of the child’s nature appears during this year to have undergone noticeable changes. The most striking fact which comes out in the picture of the boy as painted in the present chapter is the sudden emergence of self-will. He began now to show himself a veritable rebel against parental authority. Thus we read (about the end of the sixth week) that when corrected for slapping Jingo, or other fault, he would remain silent and half laugh in a cold contemptuous way, which must have been shocking to his worthy parents. A month later we hear of an alarming increase of self-will. He would now strike each of these august persons, and follow up the sacrilege with a profane laugh. As might be expected from his general use of subterfuge about this time, he showed a lamentable want of moral sensibility in trying to shirk responsibility. Thus (middle of seventh month) he was noticed by his mother putting a spill of paper over the fire-guard into the fire so as to light it. His mother at once said: “Ningi mustn’t do that”. Whereupon he impudently retorted: “Ningi not doing that, paper doing it”.[[322]]
All this is dreadful enough, yet it is probable that many children go through a longer or shorter stage of rebellion, who afterwards turn out to be well-behaved, respectable persons. And, as his father is not slow to point out, C., even in these rebellious outbursts, showed the rudiments of moral feeling in the shape of a deep sensitiveness to injury and more definitely to unjust treatment. Thus we are told (middle of seventh month) that when his sister eats the leavings of his pudding or other dainty he shows a well-marked moral indignation. He gets very excited at such moments, his eyes dilating, his voice rising in pitch, and his arms executing a good deal of violent gesticulation. When scolded by his mother for doing a thing which he has only appeared to do, he will turn and exclaim, with all the signs of righteous wrath, “Mamma naughty say dat!” One day (end of seventh month) when, after being very naughty, his mother had to carry him upstairs, he broke out into a more than usually violent fit of crying. His mother asked him what he meant by making such a noise when being carried upstairs; whereupon he replied, “’Cause you carry me up like a pig” (as represented in one of his picture-books).
There is nothing particularly meritorious in all this, yet it is significant as showing how, in this third year, the consciousness of self was developing not only on its intellectual but on its moral side, as a sense of personal dignity and rightful claim, which, after all, is a very essential element in a normal and robust moral sentiment.
Fourth Year.
The reports of progress during the fourth year are still scantier than their predecessors: perhaps the observer was getting tired of his half-playful work. Nevertheless, there are some interesting observations in this chapter also.
C.’s observation seems to have been decidedly good, to judge by an incident that occurred at the end of the third week of the year. He had been to the Zoological Gardens. His father asked him about the seals, and more particularly as to whether they had legs. He answered at once, “No, papa, they had foot-wings”. The chronicler is evidently proud of this feat, and thinks it would have satisfied Professor Huxley himself. But allowance must here as elsewhere be made for parental pride.
The child’s colour-sense, we are told about the same time, was developing quite satisfactorily. He could now (end of fifth week) discriminate and name intermediate shades of colour. Thus he called a colour between yellow and green quite correctly ‘yellowish green,’ and this way of naming colours was, so far as the father could ascertain, quite spontaneous. Later (three and a half months), on being questioned as to violet, which he first said was blue, he replied correcting his first answer, “and purple”. Later on (beginning of last quarter), he could distinguish a ‘purplish blue’ from a “purplish pink”.
Along with a finer observation we find a more active and inventive imagination. It was during this year that he began to create fictitious persons and animals, and to surround himself with a world, unseen by others, but terribly real to himself.