Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 14.djvu/615

Rh movements of mastication, and the resulting sensations. When he sees his nurse eat, he thinks that what she eats is good for her, and that what is good for her will be good for him. And, as he knows by experience that the nurse can divide with him if she pleases, he begins to cry, in order to make her do it. It is very difficult to distinguish that which is conscious from that which is unconscious in the total manifestations of apparently rationally ordered feelings, ideas, and organic impulses. A child whose father often went fishing was accustomed to eat fried fish. One day his father, coming home after the hour of supper, ate alone. "Me want fry, papa; me want fry," said he, seeking to get the attention of his father; he finished by getting under the table, and pulling his father's leg. "Me want fry, not kitty; me fry; me want fry." His idea was to imitate the cat in getting under the table, so as to get some fish. Conscious acts are mingled with reflex acts. Children often show a great aptitude in appropriating the experiences arising in new circumstances. A little child, in the neighborhood of two years old, would sometimes, at the table, steal something from his neighbor's plate. He would at once compare the stolen morsel with his own piece, then he would hurry and compress it, so that his larceny would be less apparent.

—Language is only a superior application of the faculty of expression possessed by all animals. It is based on the correspondence between certain external movements with experienced sensations. Children from the first month cry, prattle, sob, but without attaching any signification to these acts. Association and a sort of selection render these movements and these feelings conscious and voluntary. Hereditary influence ought to interpose in the early progress of language; for little children quickly learn to distinguish tones of pleasure from tones of anger, etc. At three months the child makes intentional gestures in asking for or refusing a thing. "A child of seven months, who had never seen me," says M. Perez, "smiled as to an old acquaintance on hearing me pronounce his name." At nine months he would give little cries of pleasure and of appeal, some of which were evident attempts to imitate a dog, a cat, a bird. At eleven months he understood some little phrases. A child twelve months old, precocious in language, used a certain number of words in their ordinary sense. A little girl of nineteen months pronounced intelligibly many words, and passed easily from inarticulate to articulate sounds that she sought by instinct, but was aided by imitation. She ended by reproducing the last tonic syllable, of which she could modify the articulation in conformity to the law of least effort. For a long time she said only bou for tambour (drum), fé for café (coffee), yé for Pierre (Peter). Since then she says a-bou for tambour, a-teau for gâteau (cake). The learning of language seems in general to obey the law of least effort; it is influenced by temperament and by surroundings. The words most easily learned by children are those