"Among the children the mortality seems to be greater with the tribes which flatten the heads of their children than in those who do not. I have long noticed that there is a very marked intellectual difference between them."
The Hidery tribes of Northern British Columbia and Southern Alaska, who never flattened their heads, have long been famous for their works of art, such as elaborate carvings in wood and stone.
Suggestion as an Aid in the Training of Children.
Within a few years an old subject, that of hypnotism, formerly called mesmerism, has received new attention under the name of suggestion, or, in medical language, "suggestive therapeutics." It was used in a rude way by Mesmer in the cure of disease. Later it was employed much more effectively by Braid and others for the same purpose, and especially for the prevention of pain in surgical operations. Want of space forbids our going into any extended historical detail as to its application for these purposes, but a few points will be considered, which bear on the subject.
It was found that when a person had contracted a bad habit, as, for instance, smoking or drinking, it could often be broken up by placing him in the mesmeric sleep, and telling him he would no longer desire to continue the habit, but would even loathe them. The habit of sucking the thumb, a bad temper, lying, stealing, dullness and lack of ambition, etc., were amenable to this treatment. To illustrate: A boy fifteen years old, always at the foot of his class, was put into the hypnotic sleep, and told that he would be able to study harder and learn his lessons better, so as to go to the head. This was continued daily for several weeks, and, sure enough, he accepted the suggestion, and outstripped every scholar in his class, and kept at the head so long as these means were used; but, unfortunately, when they were discontinued he relapsed into his first state. The suggestions had not been sufficiently thorough to take deep root, and become a part of his nature, as might have been the case with a better knowledge as to how to use them. So long ago as in 1892 Dr. Bérillon, Editor of The Revue de l' Hypnotism, read a paper before the Second International Congress of Experimental Psychology, in which he stated that he had observed the beneficial effects of hypnotism in education in some 250 cases, including nervous insomnia, night terror, sleepwalking, kleptomania, stammering, idleness, filthy habits, cowardice and moral delinquency. He also stated that other observers had similar experience. My friend, Dr. B. Osgood Mason, of New York, working on the same lines, has had similar experiences. I will quote a few illustrative cases furnished by him. The first is of a school-girl fifteen years of age, a pupil in one of the grammar-schools of New York—intelligent in many ways; a good reader of such books as interested her—history, biography, and the better class of novels; but for the routine of school studies she had no aptitude, and she was constantly being left behind in her classes. She could not concentrate her mind upon details which did not specially interest her. If she succeeded in learning a lesson she could not remember it, or if she remembered it until she arrived at the classroom, when she arose to recite, it was instantly gone; her mind became a perfect blank; she had not a word to say, and was obliged to sit down in disgrace. She could write a good composition, but could never stand up and read it before the class. Teachers had been engaged to give her special lessons, so as to enable her to pass her preliminary examination, which would allow her to come up for entrance to the Normal College. After months of effort they reported to the mother that it was utterly useless to go on; it was impossible for her to pass her preliminary examination, and they did not think it right to take her money without any such expectation. She was then brought to me to inquire if anything could be done to help her. I proposed hypnotic suggestion. It was then March 30; the first examination was in May. I commenced treatment at once. The patient went into a quiet, subjective condition, with closed eyes, but did not lose consciousness. I suggested that she would be able to concentrate her mind upon her studies; that her memory would be improved; that she would lose her excessive self-consciousness and timidity, and in their place she would have full confidence in herself and be able to stand up before the class and recite. She was kept in the hypnotic condition one-half hour at each treatment, and the same or similar suggestions were quietly but very positively made and repeated at intervals during that time. She at once reported improvement in her ability both to study and recite. She had six treatments, and on May 25 she reported that, greatly to the surprise of her teachers, she had passed her preliminary examination with a percentage of 79, which entitled her to come up for the college examination. In June she passed her examination for entrance to the Normal College with a percentage of 88; entered the College and is at present doing well, though the suggestions have not been repeated since May.
Another case from the same author was that of a boy "so bad as to be perfectly unmanageable, and his temper so outrageous, that his mother begged me to come to the house and see if I could do anything with him.
"Having secured carte blanche for whatever course I chose to pursue, I went. He was in the back room, his grandmother urging him forward, he kicking and resisting. Without speaking, I went directly to him, seized him firmly by one wrist, and brought him topsy turvy through two intervening rooms, gave him a thorough shaking, and set him down violently in a chair. He smoothed down his bang, whimpered a little, and gruffly remarked that I had rumpled his hair. I told him I had not intended to disturb his hair, but that as he had never obeyed anybody I had come to the house for the express purpose of making him obey me, and I should most certainly do it. After a few moments I said, quietly, 'Now go and lie down on the bed in the next room.' He started, walking toward the bed, but when near it he set off on a full run past it and into the back room. I brought him back and again ordered him to lie down on the bed. He went toward it as if to obey, but suddenly sprang under it, and clung to the slats underneath with hands and feet, and hung there like a monkey. I dislodged him, pulled him out, gave him a spanking, and surprised him by tossing him vigorously upon the bed, with the command to lie there quietly until I gave him permission to move. He obeyed. Presently I ordered him to go into the front room and sit down again in the chair he had before occupied. Again he quietly obeyed, I said: 'All right; now you understand you will obey me. I don't want to hurt you. I want to be a good friend to you, only you must obey me.'
"I then in a pleasant way gave him a short lesson, picturing to him very plainly the course of a boy such as he was, and where it would be likely to end; and also showing what he might be if he would change his course. I told him I should be at the house again in a day or two, and I should expect him to meet me pleasantly, shake hands with me, and do whatever I directed him.
"Next day there came a telephone message begging me to come up; M. was outrageous again. I went. He was backward in greeting me, but at length came and shook hands. I afterward learned that there had not been the slightest improvement in his behavior; and the cause of his mother's sending for me was his outrageous conduct at the table, when, in a fit of anger, he had thrown a plate at his grandmother. I talked to him pleasantly a moment, and then said very quietly, 'Now go and lie down on the bed.' He did so at once. I sat down beside him, and taking his two thumbs firmly in my hands, I said: 'Now, M., I want you to look steadily at that little stud in my shirt-front; keep your eyes very steadily fixed upon it.' He did so, and I never secured better or more concentrated attention from any patient.
"In five or six minutes his eyelids quivered and soon dropped. I closed them, suggesting sleep; and directly he was in the sound hypnotic sleep. I then presented the two pictures again—the bad and the good course—and suggested that they would always be present, distinct in in his mind, that he would dislike the wrong course and desire to avoid it, and choose the good one. I suggested definitely that he would be kind and considerate to his mother, and obey her as well as me. I repeated these suggestions very positively, let him sleep ten minutes, and repeated them again, and then awoke him by counting.