CALIFORNIA

CHAPTER XXV.

CHILD STUDY IN THE UNITED STATES.1

Child study has a special advantage from the standpoint of utility as well as from that of science; it not only requires rigid investigation, but whatever defect or abnormality may be found in a child is much more easily eliminated or modified than in the case of the adult.

It is often difficult to trace the origin of any movement. Although the initiatory impulse to child study was from the Continent of Europe, yet more perhaps has been done in America in the study of children. than in all the rest of the world. It is therefore true that child study owes its development to our own country. Many movements are inaugurated which afterwards languish, either on account of prematureness or from want of insight into their relation to the environment at the time; those who develop and make them useful to civilization receive from society the credit.

There were few scientific observations of child life in America previous to 18-0. At about this time Dr. G. Stanley Hall began investigations on this line, and continued his inquiries up to the present time. It is due to him that child study in this country has developed and become of general interest.

In the case of teachers, Dr. Hall's purpose has been gradually to concentrate all psychology, philosophy, and ethics about child study. This is in accordance with the tendencies of evolution in all fields of investigation, and its purpose is to aid in placing educational methods on a more scientific basis. In the words of Dr. Hall himself, the childstudy movement is slowly doing a work "for studies of the mind not. unlike that which Darwin did for the methods of nature study, or that embryology has done for anatomy, viz, cross sectioning the old methods of analysis and classification of the powers and activities of the adult consciousness by bringing in a genetic method, based not upon abstraction, like Spencer's, but on a copious collection of carefully made and critically sifted objective data."

No endeavor is here made to mention the large number of those who, under the inspiration of Dr. Hall, have contributed to this movement. We have endeavored to give some of the results of the investigations in brief, others as illustrations of work and method and others in detail, and often in the words of the report. We have selected rather By Arthur MacDonald, specialist in the Bureau. ED 98-81

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those reports which gave data or tables of facts upon which the conclusions were based. It would be premature to judge or make conclusions as to the value of many investigations in the domain of child study, for the subject is in its initiatory stages. It would be a wise person who could tell in advance, in new lines of work, what may be valuable and what may not.

In giving the results of the reports we have followed the chronological order.

CONTENTS OF CHILDREN'S MINDS ON ENTERING SCHOOL.

Under the direction of Dr. G. Stanley Hall, four experienced kindergarten teachers questioned three children at a time in the dressing room of the school. No constraint was used, and, as several hours were needed to finish each set, changes and rests were often required. About sixty teachers besides the four kindergarten teachers made returns from three or more children each.

The tables which follow show the general results for a number of those questions admitting of categorical answers, only negative results being recorded. Subsequently, J. M. Greenwood, school superintendent of Kansas City, Mo., tested 678 children of the lowest primary class, 47 of whom were colored children. The percentages are printed in the last two columns of the tables.

The first (Boston) table is based upon about equal numbers of boys and girls. Children of Irish and American parents greatly predominate. Fourteen per cent of all examined did not know their ages; 6 per cent were four years old, 37 per cent were five, 23 per cent were six, 12 per cent were seven, and 2 per cent were eight years old.

In the second table only columns 2 and 3 are based upon larger numbers. In 34 representative questions out of 49 the boys surpass the girls. The girls excel in answering questions relating to the parts of the body, to home and family life, thunder, rainbow; in knowledge of the square, circle, and triangle, but not in that of the cube, sphere, and pyramid.

Boys seem to be more ignorant than girls of common things right about them, where knowledge is wont to be assumed.

Column 6 shows the advantage of kindergarten children over all others in respect to this kind of knowledge.

From the tables it may be inferred

I. That there is very little of pedagogic value the knowledge of which it is safe to assume at the beginning of school life.

II. The best preparation parents can give their children for good school training is to make them acquainted with natural objects, especially with sights and sounds, of the country, and send them to hygienic rather than to fashionable kindergartens. III. Any teacher on starting with a new class in a new place should explore the children's minds carefully, to make sure that his efforts are not wholly lost. IV. The most common concepts are the earliest to be acquired. The natural order in teaching would be, for example, apples first and wheat last. (See first table.) For 86 per cent of the questions the average intelligence of 36 country children ranks higher than that of the city children. As methods of teaching grow natural, city life seems unnatural. The city child knows a little of many more things, and so is liable to superficiality and has a wider field of error, yet the city child knows more of human nature.

About three-fourths of all the children questioned thought the world a plane, and many described it as round like a dollar.

Wrong things were specified much more readily and by more children than right things, and also in much greater variety. Boys say it is wrong to steal, fight, kick, break windows, get drunk, etc., while girls are more liable to say it is wrong not to comb the hair, to get butter on the dress, climb trees, unfold the hands, etc.

1Ped. Seminary, v. 1, 1891, p. 139.

a The Boston children were mainly from 4 to 8 years of age; in Kansas City they were of the lowest primary class.

CHILDREN'S DRAWINGS.

Professor Barnes, of Leland Stanford Junior University, believes that through a child's drawings we can learn something of the way the child thinks and feels. In order that the drawings should have some common element for comparison, a little poem was selected from Der Struwel-Peter, and was called "Hans Guck-indie-Luft." The following is the English translation:

STORY OF JOHNNY LOOK-IN-THE-AIR.

As he trudged along to school,
It was always Johnny's rule
To be looking at the sky

And the clouds that floated by;

But what just before him lay,

In his way,

Johnny never thought about;
So that everyone cried out,
"Look at little Johnny there,
Little Johnny Look-in-the-Air."

Running just in Johnny's way,
Came a little dog one day;
Johnny's eyes were still astray
Up on high, in the sky,

And he never heard them cry,

"Johnny, mind, the dog is nigh!"

What happens now!

Bump!

Dump!

Down they fell, with such a thump

Dog and Johnny in a lump!

They almost broke their bones,

So hard they tumbled on the stones.

Ped. Seminary, December, 1893.