Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 17.djvu/650

632 rapidly adapting the eye to the perception of objects at different distances, is then in the process of development, and the unsymmetrical movements of the eyes gradually cease.

The power to distinguish colors follows. One child prefers yellow, another red; all dislike black and dark colors as well as dazzling bright ones. It is hard to decide when the finer degrees of color and their grades of brightness begin to be recognized, for the time differs with the individuals. I do not know of any child that could point out red, green, yellow, blue, correctly on demand before the beginning of the third year.

The recognition of forms proceeds very slowly. Experiments on blind persons, who have had their sight restored by operations, after they had learned to see, show that they could not distinguish curved figures from angular ones by sight alone, nor at all until they had felt of them. The same is doubtless the case with every little child. Numerous observations show how defective is the estimation of distances in early years. The well-known reaching out for the moon is a case in point. Even long use does not give accuracy in the exercise of this power. The same is the case with the perception of magnitudes. A child in its third year will try to put its larger playthings into the boxes designed for little ones, to put pieces of bread into its mouth that are too large for it, and to take hold of large things with its tiny hands. The first sensations of changes in the field of vision, such as are given when a bright object is taken from it, as by the extinction of a lamp, and when a new object is substituted for it, as when the lamp is lighted again, always make a deep impression on the young child. In the first month no notice is taken of the swiftest approach of the hand to the face, and the act of blinking when a threatening movement is made toward the eye is not acquired till the third month. This fact enables us to distinguish between inherited and acquired incidents of sight. The contraction of the pupil in the light and its expansion in the gloom are inherited, and common to all new-born children; the blinking is acquired: it is a precaution against danger, of which the child in its first months knows nothing. By frequent repetitions it becomes habitual, and at last reflexive, like other defensive contractions of the muscles. By the frequent repetition of observations and experiments of the kind described above, it is possible to follow the gradual development of the senses in individuals. But much material must yet be collected before we can clearly set forth the sensual basis of the spiritual growth of the child. The sensations are the material out of which every man makes his world. The emotions of the child, his inclinations and disinclinations, the development of his sense of obligation, the beginning of the formation of his character, the opening of his talents, all depend primarily on the unfolding of his senses. We have so far, on this subject, nothing but an array of facts, with little connection between them.