Father. Where do you feel that you are glad, or sorry?
A——. In my stomach.
Ho——. In my eyes.
Father. What are your senses for?
Ho——. To know things.
Without any previous conversation, Ho—— (five years and a half old) said to her mother, "I think you will be glad my right foot is sore, because you told me I did not lean enough upon my left foot." This child seemed, on many occasions, to have formed an accurate idea of the use of punishment, considering it always as pain given to cure us of some fault, or to prevent us from suffering more pain in future.
April, 1792. H——, a boy nine years and three quarters old, as he was hammering at a work-bench, paused for a short time, and then said to his sister, who was in the room with him, "Sister, I observe that when I don't look at my right hand when I hammer, and only think where it ought to hit, I can hammer much better than when I look at it. I don't know what the reason of that is; unless it is because I think in my head."
M——. I am not sure, but I believe that we do think in our heads.
H——. Then, perhaps, my head is divided into two parts, and that one thinks for one arm, and one for the other; so that when I want to strike with my right arm, I think where I want to hit the wood, and then, without looking at it, I can move my arm in the right direction; as when my father is going to write, he sometimes sketches it.
M——. What do you mean, my dear, by sketching it?