But, to get back to the baby book, or, as Mr. Alcott called it, "the psychological history," it was started with a high and unselfish motive; it was developed to an astonishing degree. Its purpose and scope are best expressed in this extract from Mr. Alcott's journal:
The history of a human mind during its progressive stages of earthly experience has never as yet, I believe, been attempted. Faithfully compiled, from verified data, it would be a treasure of wisdom to all mankind, replete with light to the metaphysical and ethical inquirer. Comparative philosophy deduced from an observation of man during all circumstances and stages of his existence is a thing yet unthought of among us. From such a work the unity of Humanity might be revealed.
When Anna was born, the father began keeping a record of her "physical and intellectual progress." When she was seven weeks old, her mother wrote: "It seems as if she were conscious of his observations and desirous of furnishing him daily with an item for this record."
The following excerpt from the father's diary shows how well Anna succeeded in her baby attempt:
I am much interested in the progress of my little girl, now five months old, which I have recorded from the day of her birth. This record has swollen to a hundred pages. I have attempted to discover, as far as this could be done by external indication, the successive steps of her physical, mental and moral advancement.
Moral advancement of a baby five months old!
Birth of Louisa
On November 29, 1832, his thirty-third birthday and also the natal day of his friend, Ellery Channing, the poet, Mr. Alcott chronicles an "interesting event," how interesting the father little dreamed, nor how important, not alone to the house of Alcott, but to the world. Under the heading of Circumstances, the father thus records the birth of Louisa May Alcott:
A daughter born, on the 29th. ulto., my birthday, being 33 years of age. This is a most interesting event. Unless those ties which connect it with others are formed, the wants of the soul become morbid and all its fresh and primal affections become dim and perverted.... Few can be happy shut out of the nursery of the soul.
While the New England philosopher was studying the development of his little daughters and deducing therefrom facts for his psychological history, these same little daughters were developing him, for, as the child nature unfolded, the father's understanding of childhood expanded.