Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 14.djvu/612

594 contained milk. When given pure water, he tasted it, left it, took hold again, and then abandoned it, frowning and making a mouth. A child a month old would look fixedly, for three or four minutes, at the reflection in a mirror of the light on a table. In forty-five days he would follow with his eyes a doll dressed in bright blue, that a little girl danced before him a yard off. Thirteen days after his birth the son of Tiedemann gave attention to the gestures of those who spoke to him. The attention of children is very short-lived, but it is often profitable.

—Hereditary memory is manifested in the first reflex actions of the infant. These awaken the consciousness, and the child's own memory often unites itself with them. In a few months a child has already many personal recollections. A little girl three months and a half old could indicate where her feet were; she also distinguished her dress, which she seemed to take for a part of her person. She had a passion for color; the word picture made her smile. A little boy seven months old had a particular tenderness for his grandmother, who had fed him with a bottle. A brush was put before him. He put his hands upon it, and soon lifted them with a grave air. The experiment was repeated several times; at the eighth he threw himself backward, without touching the brush; at the ninth he reflected, hesitated, again drew back, and embraced his grandmother. Memory is also manifested by a sort of intermittent possession of recollections. A little girl eight months old moves her arms as if she were shaking a bell. She is possessed by the idea of this bell, and often amuses herself with it. When she is distracted for a time, she will recommence her movements, and repeat this manœuvre more than twenty times in half an hour. A little child of fifteen months would incessantly repeat the word a-teau (bateau), meaning the boat, which he liked very-much; later, two hens along with the boat engrossed his attention. Some months afterward he made a journey, and for the two words he had so often repeated he substituted those of min-fer (chemin de fer, railroad).

—When the young Tiedemann, two days old, was placed on his side, in the position for sucking, or when he felt a soft hand on his face, he was hushed, and sought the breast. At five months he had remarked that when his nurse took her mantle it was a signal for going out. So he always rejoiced when that happened. A little child four months and a half old, hearing her nurse call her from behind a door through the keyhole, raised her head, looked right and left, and, at a fresh call, put out her arms, gave starts of joy, of desire, of spite, and finally began to make grimaces. The nurse of a little girl three months and a half old, when going out with the child, bought a bouquet of violets, which she concealed in her bosom. An uncle of the child one day took her in his lap; he had a pretty rose in his button-hole; the child put out her arms, pressed the vest of her uncle with both hands, applied her lips to his shirt front, and made sucking movements. A child of six months