W——. "Yes."
Mr. ——. "Do you think that the chaise is alive?"
W——. "Yes." Then, after looking in Mr. ——'s face, he changed his opinion, and said no.
W—— did not seem to know what was meant by the word alive.
Mr. —— called H. (5 years old) and asked her whether she thought that the watch was alive. She at first said Yes; but, as soon as she had time to recollect herself, she said that the watch was not alive.
This question was asked, to try whether Reid was right in his conjecture as to the answers a child would give to such a question. (V. Reid's Essays on the Intellectual Powers of Man.)
We frequently say, that flowers, &c. are dead: we should explain to children that there are two kinds of life; or rather, that the word life is used to express two ideas; vegetable life, and animal life.
(July, 1797.) Miss Louisa —— told us, that when a rose bud begins to wither, if you burn the end of the stalk, and plunge it red hot into water, the rose will be found revived the next day; and by a repetition of this burning, the lives of flowers may be fortunately prolonged many days. Miss Louisa —— had seen many surprising recoveries performed by this operation, and several of her friends had adopted the practice with uniform success.
We determined to repeat the experiment. Children should never take any thing upon trust which they can verify. Two roses, gathered at the same time, from the same tree, were put into separate glasses of water. The stalk of one of these roses was burnt, according to prescription; they were left a night in water, and the next day the rose that had been burnt, appeared in much better health than that which had not been burnt. The experiment was afterwards several times repeated; and should be tried by others until the fact be fully ascertained.
(July, 1797.) Little W—— (three years old) was shown Miss B——'s beautiful copy of the Aurora surgens of Guido. The car of Apollo is encircled by the dancing hours, so that its shape is not seen; part of one wheel only is visible between the robes of the dancing figures. We asked little W—— why that man (pointing to the figure of Apollo in his invisible car) looked so much higher up in the air than the other people?