APPENDIX.

The Department of Education has issued the following Circular and Register:

CIRCULAR.

We have been made familiar with the habits of plants and animals from the careful investigations which have from time to time been published,-the intelligence of animals, even, coming in for a due share of attention. One author alone contributes a book of one thousand pages upon "Mind in the Lower Animals." Recently some educators in this country have been quietly thinking that to study the natural development of a single child is worth more than a Noah's Ark full of animals. Little has been done in this study, at least little has been recorded. It is certain that a great many mothers might contribute observations of their own child's life and development, that might be at some future time invaluable to the psychologist. In this belief the Education Department of the AMERICAN SOCIAL SCIENCE ASSOCIATION has issued the accompanying Register, and asks the parents of very young children to interest themselves in the subject,—

1. By recognizing the importance of the study of the youngest infants.

2. By observing the simplest manifestations of their life and

movements.

3. By answering fully and carefully the questions asked in the Register.

4. By a careful record of the signs of development during the coming year, each observation to be verified, if possible, by other members of the family..

5. By interesting their friends in the subject and forwarding the results to the Secretary.

6. Above all, by perseverance and exactness in recording these observations.

From the records of many thousand observers in the next few years it is believed that important facts will be gathered of great value to the educator and to the psychologist.

Is baby strong and healthy, or otherwise?..

At what age did the baby exhibit consciousness, and in what

manner?

AT WHAT AGE DID THB BABY

smile?..

recognize its mother?.

notice its hand?.

follow a light with its eyes?

hold up its head?.

sit alone on the floor?

creep?

stand by a chair?.

stand alone?

walk alone?.

hold a plaything when put in its hand?.

reach out and take a plaything?.

appear to be right or left handed?..

notice pain, as the prick of a pin?..

show a like or dislike in taste?.

appear sensible to sound?.

notice the light of a window or turn towards it?.

fear the heat from stove or grate?

speak, and what did it say?..

at 1 year?..

HOW MANY WORDS COULD IT SAY

at 18 months?.. ........... at 2 years?..

Will the mother have the kindness to carefully answer as many as possible of these questions and return this circular, before July 15th, 1881, to

MRS. EMILY TALBOT,

Secretary of the Education Department of the American Social Science Association,

BOSTON, March 1, 1881.

66 MARLBOROUGH STREET, Boston, Mass.

In connection with the inquiry indicated above, the following letter from Dr. Preyer, of Prussia, addressed to Mrs. Talbot, will be found of interest.

DR. PREYER TO MRS. TALBOT.

JENA, 22d November, 1880.

DEAR MADAM :

.6

It has given me much pleasure to read your letter and the extract of a paper of mine on psychogenesis," or "the growth of volition, intellect, etc., in infants," and I readily comply with your wish to have this paper sent off without delay. You will find it reprinted in the book accompanying this letter, p. 199-237. I am about to publish an extensive work on the same subject, which is to contain all my observations and a careful analysis of the phenomena which the development of the faculty of speech presents. This book is to be printed next year. I am sorry to say that a reliable investigator of the whole subject is not known to me. Your newspaper seems to be right in calling the field "as yet almost unbroken." Professor Kussmaul's "Seelenleben des neugeborenen Menschen" (Leipzig and Heidleberg, 1859), and Mr. C. Darwin's biographical sketch of an infant, contain some good observations, but both are very short. Many excellent remarks on infants and very young children I find in Mr. C. Darwin's book, “On the Expression of the Emotions." The German books on the subject, although numerous, are nearly worthless; many are sentimental, giving no facts, or, what is worse, false statements. Sigismund's Kind und Welt" (1851) is an exception.

66

B.

The case you mention, of a child of eleven months expressing its wishes and inducing the nurse to comply with them, cannot be definitely looked at as a case of self-consciousness, but only of consciousness. This is one of the most intricate questions to decide, - when the child distinguishes its own body, head, hands, etc.,

from other objects, as belonging to himself. The first time a child says "I" and "me," in the correct sense, it may be considered to have passed the limit. The formation of ideas by associating impressions, as well as the formation of general ideas (Begriffe) by uniting similar qualities of different objects, is intellectual work done by the child long before it knows anything of its own individuality. It seems to me that self-consciousness does not arise suddenly, but by degrees, after many experiments have shown the difference between touching his own body and external objects with his little hand.

I have been occupied with psychogenetical problems since nearly four years, continually collecting facts. Should you be able to awaken some interest for these most important investigations (I mean the physiology and psychology of infants), I think the trouble taken would soon be repaid by the results.

I am, sincerely,

DR. WM. PREYER, Professor.

P. S. Perhaps the observations and experiments on the senses, (sight, hearing, smell, taste) of new-born animals and infants which I published in "Kosmos," (Zeitschrift herausgegeben von E. Krause,) Vol. III., p. 22-37, 128-132, (1878 Leipzig) may have some little interest. In England Romanes has written very able papers on the development of instinct and intelligence. His address is 18 Cornwall Terrace, Regent's Park, London.