Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 13.djvu/605

Rh index to find the date of the birth or death of the particular person in question, is a very different matter.

And no one should say that he is too humble in station to make care about such things necessary. Fortune's wheel has many surprising turns, and sometimes carries those round with it who least expect to be raised from their station underneath it. To those higher in rank also the due recording of such things is equally important, for many facts concerning their families can be jotted down which must be interesting and may be useful to those who come after them, and which their posterity can learn in no other manner. In fact, it seems to me that the higher the state of culture of society becomes, the more care will be demanded in matters which so closely concern the family and the race; the more society will ask what it is and whence it springs, and in an increased degree will it be true that "the glory of children are their fathers."—Gentleman's Magazine.



HE following notes were made in humble following of Mr. Darwin's and M. Taine's example, at first for my own amusement and without any distinct purpose of letting them go further. I found, however, that they grew under my hands, and that the editor of Mind thought further contributions on the subject of children's mental growth would be desirable. Here I have kept in the main to the one point of language, and, though I have probably omitted much, I think I have set down nothing as fact which has not been actually and distinctly observed. Exact dates I have not attempted to give, conceiving that they would be of no use unless for the comparison of a very large number of observations. Children differ so much in forwardness that the time of particular acquisitions seems of little importance as compared with their order. Though I have no pretensions to skill in phonetics, I thought it at least desirable to use some consistent notation for the sounds actually produced. For this purpose I have taken the Indian Government system, with a few additional signs which will speak for themselves. I may explain that in this notation, while á, í, are the long Continental a and i, unaccented a is not the short Continental a, but the obscure or neutral vowel (Urvocal) heard in English "at," "that," "but," when not emphatic; when strongly given, it becomes the full sound of u in emphasized "but." Thus the Punjaub, Lucknow, Kurrachee, of popular use, become in the official spelling Panjáb, Lakchnau, Karachi. "Governor and Company" would be written Gavarnar 