Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 47.djvu/12

4 be developed at a comparatively late date. This idea is supported by other observations. "From about two years four months (writes a mother) to the present time (two years and eleven months) he has shown signs of fear of music. At two years five months he liked some singing of rounds, but when a fresh person with a stronger voice than the rest joined, he begged the singer to stop. Presently he tolerated the singing as long as he might stand at the farthest corner of the room." This child was also about the same time afraid of the piano, and of the organ, when played by his mother in a church.

It is sometimes supposed that this startling effect of loud sounds is wholly an affair of nervous disturbance. But the late development of the repugnance in certain cases seems to show that this is not the only cause at work. Of course, a child's nervous organization may, through ill health, become more sensitive to this disturbing effect. But I suspect that vague alarm at the unexpected and unknown takes part here. There is something uncanny to the child in the very production of sound from a usually silent thing. A banjo lying now inert, harmless, and then suddenly firing out a whole gamut of sound may well shock a small child's preconceptions of things. The second time that fear was observed in our child at the age of ten months it was excited by a new toy which squeaked on being pressed. This seems to be another example of the disconcerting effect of the unexpected. In other cases the alarming effect of the mystery is increased by the absence of all visible cause. One little boy of two years used to get sadly frightened at the sound of the water rushing into the cistern which was near his nursery. The child was afraid at the same time of thunder, calling it "water coming."

I am far from saying that all children manifest this fear of sounds-Miss Shinn points out that her niece was from the first pleased with the piano, and this is no doubt true of many children. Children behave very differently toward thunder, some being greatly disturbed by it, others being rather delighted. Thus Preyer's boy, who was so ignominiously upset by the tone of the drinking-glass, laughed at the thunderstorm; and we know that the little Walter Scott was once found during a thunderstorm lying on his back in the open air clapping his hands and shouting "Bonnie, bonnie!" at the flashes of lightning. It is possible that in such cases the exhilarating effect of the brightness counteracts the uncanny effect of the thunder. More observations are needed on this point.