Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 04.djvu/716

CHILD PSYCHOLOGY. 622 CHILD PSYCHOLOGY. solution. The mental capacity of school-children is determined by psychological methods. The hygiene of the attention and of memory, the fatigue-eifects of various disciplines, the times and seasons of mental aptitude and dullness, the child's power of association, and the most eflec- tive incentives to an awakening of interest, are all psychological questions, which necessarily influence mctliods of teaching and the arrange- ment of school curricula. Still, it is evident that psycholog;*' is directly concerned with a small nuniber only of the problems of child-study and pedagogy; i.e. with the problems which relate immediately to the mind of the child. Adult psychology forms the logical basis for child psychology; for in passing from the mind of the adult to that of the child, psychology pro- ceeds from the known to the less known. One's own mental processes may be known at first hand; and although no one can know a fellow- mind except through the various avenues of ex- pression, language is so flexible, and at the same time so stable, that adults who are trained in introspection can comnmnicatc their feelings, ideas, and emotions with little danger of mis- understanding. But it is difTcrent with the child. Even though he has acquired a language, he is so unskilled in its use that be would not be able to report many of his nientiil processes were he able to observe them. It follows, then, that the psychologist must approach the child's mind only after analyzing and classifying the contents of the normal a<lult mind. Although he is obliged to supplement his methods by others more in- direct, his study has given him an outline map of every human mind, and, more than this, he has learned to estimate and to criticise his material. Introsjiection may, then, be rejilaced very largely by individual observation, reinforced (where pos- sible) by exjierinicnt. and by statistical in(iuiries. We have seen that we can know the conscious- ness of the child only by investigating it at dif- ferent levels, i.e. at difTcrent ages. The mind of the infant is radically dilVcrent from the mind of the child of eight," and this again from the mind of adolescent youth. There is some dif- ference of opinion as to where lines of division shall be drawn. Almost every student of child psychology separates childhood into periods, ac- cording to his own system. Since the transition from one period to another is gradual, it is im- possible to make shar]) distinctions. Those divi- sions are best which mark the decisive and con- stant periods in mental development. Perhaps the most simjile and the most practical is some such division as the following: (1) from the beginning of consciousness to the acquire- ment of speech; (2) from the acquirement of speech to school-entrance; (3) from school- entrance to puberty; and (4) the period of adolescence. Kach period has its peculiar fea- tures and its special problems. In the first, as in fact in all the epochs, a good deal of aid is derived from physiolog;*'. At liirth and for some time afterwards the nervous system is incomplete, 'unripe.' as Flechsig has put it. The higher cerebral centres, in particular, are not yet in a condition to functionate, so that con- sciousness must be extremely meagre. More- over, some of the sense-organs mature after birth. The ear does not fvmctionate for some days; there is no coJirdination in movements of the eves; and even the macuUi lutea does not develop until intra-uterine life has ended. The sue eessive beginning of nervous functions furnishes the best key to the nature of the infant's con- sciousness. To this is added the list of move- ments, gradually increasing in numlicr and com- plexity, from which more may be learned of the developing consciousness. The dillicuUy in in- teri>reting these movements is partly rcnu)Ved l3y reference to the structure of the adult mind, and by a free use of the law of parsimony, which allows only the simplest adciiuate explanation. WTien the individual is able to make verbal reports of his experience, the method is some- what changed. He may be asked, e.g. to discrim- inate or name colors, to judge a spatial or tem- ])oral interval, or to undergo a test of memory or fatigue or attention. His introspections are by no means comparable with the laboratory in- trospections of the trained psychologist. The child lacks the necessary patience, concentration, interest, and knowledge. Still, if the conditions are carefully arranged, and the investigator knows his sources of error, trustworthy results may lie secured. Besides the observations which the psychologist is able to make for himself, there are the notes of parents, esjiecially through the first and second periods, and of the teacher dur- ing the third and fourth. Vc have the classical studies of Preycr and Darwin, and of great teach- ers like Pestalozzi and Frocbel, and also hun- dreds of more or less reliable and systematic observations by parents, teachers, and ])liysicians, autobiographical sketches of childhood, records of early memories, statistical inquiries by the questionary method — results obtained by sending out lists of questions to a large number of ob- servers — accounts of unusual minds, as of the blind, of deaf-mutes, and of such individuals as l.aura Bridgman, 'psychological vivisections.' as they have been called. There is, further, over and above the analysis of conscious eouiplexcs in which all children agree, an individual psychology of childhood to be worked out. Kvcn within the same environment, children develop noteworthy difTerences. One, we say, has 'musical endowment,' another has 'a tem- per,' another evinces an aptitude for drawing, an- other is imaginative, anotheriswillful,etc. Every one of these mental peculiarities is a highly com- plex affair, although we ordinarily describe it in a word or phrase; and it is important to know in just what •endowment' consists, and Imw much is due to nurture and training. Whether the poet or the criminal or the painter 'is born, not made,' we shall know only wlien psychology has made a more thorough study of mental varia- tions and their conditions among children. Here, again, the methods of individual and of type jisychology, which have developed within the gen- eral field" furnish a starting-point for the in- vestigation of children. It is clear that so much material, gathered from so many sources, needs careful working over Viy psychology from a single, definite jioint of view. Each niethod must be scrutinized criti- cally, and employed only where it is serviceable. The questionary, e.g. is essentially a gross and statistical method, which will succeed where a great body of objective facts is required; as re- gard.s, e.g. the child's means of expressing anger or fear, or his notions of his own right.s. But, like loose autobiography and the casual observa