As soon as I knew that I had at my disposal a class of little children, it was my wish to make of this school a field for scientific experimental pedagogy and child psychology. I started with a view in which Wundt concurs; namely, that child psychology does not exist. Indeed, experimental researches in regard to childhood, as, for example, those of Preyer and Baldwin, have been made upon not more than two or three subjects, children of the investigators. Moreover, the instruments of psychometry must be greatly modified and simplified before they can be used with children, who do not lend themselves passively as subjects for experimentation. Child psychology can be established only through the method of external observation. We must renounce all idea of making any record of internal states, which can be revealed only by the introspection of the subject himself. The instruments of psychometric research, as applied to pedagogy, have up to the present time been limited to the esthesiometric phase of the study.
My intention was to keep in touch with the researches of others, but to make myself independent of them, proceeding to my work without preconceptions of any kind. I retained as the only essential, the affirmation, or, rather, the definition of Wundt, that "all methods of experimental psychology may be reduced to one; namely, carefully recorded observation of the subject."
Treating of children, another factor must necessarily intervene: the study of the development. Here too, I retained the same general criterion, but without clinging to any dogma about the activity of the child according to age.
ANTHROPOLOGICAL CONSIDERATION
In regard to physical development, my first thought was given to the regulating of anthropometric observations, and to the selection of the most important observations to be made.
I designed an anthropometer provided with the metric scale, varying between .50 metre and 1.50 metres. A small stool, 30 centimetres high, could be placed upon the floor of the anthropometer for measurements taken in a sitting position. I now advise making the anthropometer with a platform on either side of the pole bearing the scale, so that on one side the total stature can be measured, and on the other the height of the body when seated. In the second case, the zero is indicated at 30 centimetres; that is, it corresponds to the seat of the stool, which is fixed. The indicators on the vertical post are independent one of the other and this makes it possible to measure two children at the same time. In this way the inconvenience and waste of time caused by having to move the seat about, is obviated, and also the trouble of having to calculate the difference in the metric scale.
Having thus facilitated the technique of the researches, I decided to take the measurements of the children's stature, seated and standing, every month, and in order to have these regulated as exactly as possible in their relation to development, and also to give greater regularity to the research work of the teacher, I made a rule that the measurements should be taken on the day on which the child completed each month of his age. For this purpose I designed a register arranged on the following plan:—
The spaces opposite each number are used to register the name of the child born on that day of the month. Thus the teacher knows which scholars she must measure on the days which are marked on the calendar, and she fills in his measurements to correspond with the month in which he was born. In this way a most exact registration can be arrived at without having the teacher feel that she is overburdened, or fatigued.
With regard to the weight of the child, I have arranged that it shall be taken every week on a pair of scales which I have placed in the dressing-room where the children are given their bath. According to the day on which the child is born, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, etc., we have him weighed when he is ready to take a bath. Thus the children's baths (no small matter when we consider a class of fifty) are sub-divided into seven days, and from three to five children go to the bath every day. Certainly, theoretically, a daily bath would be desirable, but in order to manage this a large bath or a number of small ones would be necessary, so that a good many children could be bathed at once. Even a weekly bath entails many difficulties, and sometimes has to be given up. In any case, I have distributed the taking of the weight in the order stated with the intention of thus arranging for and making sure of periodical baths.[7]