When five months old, associated ideas arising independently of any instruction became fixed in his mind; thus as soon as his hat and cloak were put on, he was very cross if he was not immediately taken out of doors. When exactly seven months old, he made the great step of associating his nurse with her name, so that if I called it out he would look round for her. Another infant used to amuse himself by shaking his head laterally; we praised and imitated him, saying, “Shake your head;” and when he was seven months old, he would sometimes do so on being told without any other guide. During the next four months the former infant associated many things and actions with words; thus when asked for a kiss he would protrude his lips and keep still—would shake his head and say in a scolding voice, “Ah,” to the coal-box or a little spilt water, etc., which he had been taught to consider as dirty. I may add that when a few days under nine months old, he associated his own name with his image in the looking-glass, and when called by name would turn towards the glass, even when at some distance from it. When a few days over nine months, he learned spontaneously that a hand or other object causing a shadow to fall on the wall in front of him was to be looked for behind. Whilst under a year old, it was sufficient to repeat two or three times at intervals any short sentence to fix firmly in his mind some associated idea. In the infant described by M. Taine, the age at which ideas readily became associated seems to have been considerably later, unless, indeed, the earlier cases were overlooked. The facility with which associated ideas due to instruction and others spontaneously arising were acquired, seemed to me by far the most strongly marked of all the distinctions between the mind of an infant and that of the cleverest full-grown dog that I have ever known. What a contrast does the mind of an infant present to that of the pike, described by Professor Mobius,[I] who, during three whole months dashed and stunned himself against a glass partition which separated him from some minnows; and when, after at last learning that he could not attack them with impunity, he was placed in the aquarium with these same minnows, then in a persistent and senseless manner he would not attack them!
[I] ‘Die Bewegungen der Thiere,’ etc., 1878, p. 11.
Curiosity, as M. Taine remarks, is displayed at an early age by infants, and is highly important in the development of their minds; but I made no special observation on this head. Imitation likewise comes into play. When our infant was only four months old, I thought that he tried to imitate sounds; but I may have deceived myself, for I was not thoroughly convinced that he did so until he was ten months old. At the age of eleven and a half months, he could readily imitate all sorts of actions, such as shaking his head and saying “Ah” to any dirty object, or by carefully and slowly putting his forefinger in the middle of the palm of his other hand, to the childish rhyme of “Pat it and pat it and mark it with T.” It was amusing to behold his pleased expression after successfully performing any such accomplishment.
I do not know whether it is worth mentioning, as showing something about the strength of memory in a young child, that this one, when three years and twenty-three days old, on being shown an engraving of his grandfather, whom he had not seen for exactly six months, instantly recognized him and mentioned a whole string of events which had occurred whilst visiting him, and which certainly had never been mentioned in the interval.
Moral Sense.—The first sign of moral sense was noticed at the age of nearly thirteen months; I said, “Doddy (his nickname) won’t give poor papa a kiss,—naughty Doddy.” These words, without doubt, made him feel slightly uncomfortable; and at last, when I had returned to my chair, he protruded his lips as a sign that he was ready to kiss me; and he then shook his hand in an angry manner until I came and received his kiss. Nearly the same little scene recurred in a few days, and the reconciliation seemed to give him so much satisfaction that several times afterwards he pretended to be angry and slapped me, and then insisted on giving me a kiss. So that here we have a touch of the dramatic art, which is so strongly pronounced in most young children. About this time it became easy to work on his feelings and make him do whatever was wanted. When two years and three months old, he gave his last bit of gingerbread to his little sister, and then cried out with high self-approbation, “Oh, kind Doddy, kind Doddy.” Two months later he became extremely sensitive to ridicule, and was so suspicious that he often thought people who were laughing and talking together were laughing at him. A little later (two years and seven and a half months old) I met him coming out of the dining-room with his eyes unnaturally bright, and an odd, unnatural or affected manner, so that I went into the room to see who was there, and found that he had been taking pounded sugar, which he had been told not to do. As he had never been in any way punished, his odd manner certainly was not due to fear, and I suppose it was pleasurable excitement struggling with conscience. A fortnight afterwards I met him coming out of the same room, and he was eyeing his pinafore, which he had carefully rolled up; and again his manner was so odd that I determined to see what was within his pinafore, notwithstanding that he said there was nothing, and repeatedly commanded me to “go away,” and I found it stained with pickle-juice; so that here was carefully planned deceit. As this child was educated solely by working on his good feelings, he soon became as truthful, open and tender as any one could desire.
Unconsciousness, Shyness.—No one can have attended to very young children without being struck at the unabashed manner in which they fixedly stare without blinking their eyes at a new face; an old person can look in this manner only at an animal or inanimate object. This, I believe, is the result of young children not thinking in the least about themselves, and therefore not being in the least shy, though they are sometimes afraid of strangers. I saw the first symptom of shyness in my child when nearly two years and three months old; this was shown towards myself, after an absence of ten days from home, chiefly by his eyes being kept slightly averted from mine; but he soon came and sat on my knee and kissed me, and all trace of shyness disappeared.
Means of Communication.—The noise of crying or rather of squalling, as no tears are shed for a long time, is of course uttered in an instinctive manner, but serves to show that there is suffering. After a time the sound differs according to the cause, such as hunger or pain. This was noticed when this infant was eleven weeks old, and I believe at an earlier age in another infant. Moreover, he appeared soon to learn to begin crying voluntarily, or to wrinkle his face in the manner proper to the occasion, so as to show that he wanted something. When 46 days old, he first made little noises without any meaning to please himself, and these soon became varied. An incipient laugh was observed on the 113th day, but much earlier in another infant. At this date I thought, as already remarked, that he began to try to imitate sounds, as he certainly did at a considerably later period. When five and a half months old, he uttered an articulate sound “da,” but without any meaning attached to it. When a little over a year old, he used gestures to explain his wishes; to give a simple instance, he picked up a bit of paper, and, giving it to me, pointed to the fire, as he had often seen and liked to see paper burnt. At exactly the age of a year, he made the great step of inventing a word for food, namely, mum, but what led him to it I did not discover. And now, instead of beginning to cry when he was hungry, he used this word in a demonstrative manner or as a verb, implying “Give me food.” This word, therefore, corresponds with ham, as used by M. Taine’s infant at the later age of fourteen months. But he also used mum as a substantive of wide signification; thus he called sugar shu-mum, and a little later after he had learned the word ‘black,’ he called liquorice black-shu-mum—black-sugar-food.
I was particularly struck with the fact that when asking for food by the word mum he gave to it (I will copy the words written down at the time), “a most strongly marked interrogatory sound at the end.” He also gave to “Ah,” which he chiefly used at first when recognizing any person or his own image in a mirror, an exclamatory sound, such as we employ when surprised. I remark in my notes that the use of these intonations seemed to have arisen instinctively, and I regret that more observations were not made on this subject. I record, however, in my notes that at a rather later period, when between eighteen and twenty-one months old, he modulated his voice in refusing peremptorily to do anything by a defiant whine, so as to express, “That I won’t;” and again his humph of assent expressed, “Yes, to be sure.” M. Taine also insists strongly on the highly expressive tones of the sounds made by his infant before she had learned to speak. The interrogatory sound which my child gave to the word mum when asking for food is especially curious; for, if any one will use a single word or a short sentence in this manner, he will find that the musical pitch of his voice rises considerably at the close. I did not then see that this fact bears on the view which I have elsewhere maintained that before man used articulate language, he uttered notes in a true musical scale, as does the anthropoid ape Hylobates.
Finally, the wants of an infant are at first made intelligible by instinctive cries, which after a time are modified in part unconsciously, and in part, as I believe, voluntarily as a means of communication,—by the unconscious expression of the features—by gestures and in a marked manner by different intonations,—lastly by words of general nature invented by himself, then of a more precise nature imitated from those which he hears; and these are acquired at a wonderfully quick rate. An infant understands to a certain extent, and as I believe, at a very early period, the meaning or feeling of those who tend him, by the expression of their features. There can hardly be a doubt about this with respect to smiling; and it seemed to me that the infant whose biography I have here given understood a compassionate expression at a little over five months old. When six months and eleven days old, he certainly showed sympathy with his nurse on her pretending to cry. When pleased after performing some new accomplishment, being then almost a year old, he evidently studied the expression of those around him. It was probably due to differences of expression and not merely of the form of the features that certain faces clearly pleased him much more than others, even at so early an age as a little over six months. Before he was a year old, he understood intonations and gestures, as well as several words and short sentences. He understood one word, namely, his nurse’s name, exactly five months before he invented his first word, mum; and this is what might have been expected, as we know that the lower animals easily learn to understand spoken words.