CHAPTER II
A Baby’s Earliest Impressions.
Bishop Berkeley on Blind Boys.
It is just this—the memory of a child—that makes it so important to begin the process of training at once. The waxen tablets of a baby’s mind are very soft. It is impossible to say how soon impressions are made upon them, or how deep those impressions may be. It is not impossible that with the very beginning of separate existence some vague markings are made upon these unsullied tablets. It is exceedingly interesting to try to imagine what the very earliest impressions are like. Are they first produced by the sense of sight or the sense of touch? It has been conclusively proved that the senses aid one another to a large extent in the early stages of their use. Bishop Berkeley in an appendix toone of his treatises gives the reports of two cases of boys born blind with what is called congenital cataract. Both cases were cured, one at the age of nine, the other at thirteen or fourteen. Neither of these boys when first able to see had the least idea what he was looking at. They both thought that all objects touched their eyes, and neither had any conception of the shape or distance of an object. They were perfectly familiar with differences in shape and material by the process of touch, but when they first obtained sight the appearance of things meant nothing to them until they had handled them.
But in these cases the sense of touch had existed for years and been greatly cultivated. It was, therefore, natural that the familiar sense should come to the aid of the unfamiliar.
Memory Markings.
In newborn babies the circumstancesare altogether different. All senses alike are novel, and it would be of great interest, if such a thing were possible, to determine whether the earlier memory markings are caused by the vision of light, the sound of voices, or the touch of the hands that first come in contact with the infant form.
Precocious Infants.
But it seems altogether out of our power to determine this question with any sort of certainty. None of us is able to remember the impressions of early infancy, and insufficient observation of the results of ocular, aural, or other contact with external things on the part of babies has resulted in an absence of data upon which to argue. Mothers, nurses, and maiden aunts are often ridiculed for declaring that “baby” has shown some astoundingly precocious power of observation or recognition, and no doubt these manifestations are in a large number of casesaccounted for by a desire on the part of the narrator to be able to claim a special share of the infantile affection, or a special power of imparting infantile accomplishments.
Case of Very Early Memory.
At the same time there is every probability that infants observe and think more accurately than would be generally allowed by their casual male acquaintances. The present writer can vouch for at least one case where a permanent impression was made upon the mind of a very young child, and memory markings were indented which certainly lasted for several years. The facts are these: A man who shall be called A. B. was invalided and ordered to spend a winter at the seaside. While there a young married couple with their first baby shared his lodgings. The child, a boy, was just six months old, and for some eighteen weeks he was the frequent companion of A. B., especiallywhen the weather prevented either from going out. During many an hour the baby boy lay on the cushions of a low basket chair kicking and crowing with delight while his man friend talked or sang to him, and so a firm friendship grew up between the two, though its verbal expression was entirely confined to the elder of them.
When the baby was ten months old the inevitable parting came, and for about two years they saw nothing of one another. At last, however, it became possible for the child’s mother to bring him to a house where his old friend was staying. During the journey she said to the little chap, “Do you know who you are going to see? You are going to see A. B.” Without a moment’s hesitation the boy said, “A. B. with beard?” showing that he remembered what was no doubt to him the most striking item in his friend’s appearance, though at thetime that the memory mark was made on his mind he was too young to pronounce the word describing the thing that made the impression. But further evidence of the child’s memory was forthcoming, for as soon as he was set down on arrival at the front door of the house he ran straight to A. B. with every mark of affectionate joy at seeing him again.
Here is an instance of infant memory that is absolutely true, and, as the boy was in no way precocious or unnatural, it is fair to assume that there must be plenty of cases where the impressions made upon an infant’s mind during the period when its age is marked by months and not by years are of a far more permanent nature than is generally assumed.
Memory at a Later Age.
But for most illustrations of children’s memory we are compelled to begin at a later age. Few people remember much that happened before they were three yearsold, but from about that time it is common to find a remarkably clear recollection of certain scattered events or experiences.
It is a usual thing to hear it said by those who have passed middle age, that their remembrance of their childhood grows clearer as time goes on. This is accounted for by the fact thatfewerimpressions were made upon their minds during their earliest years, whereas in later life the memory tablets get crowded with all sorts and kinds of markings which become confused and partially unintelligible in a very short time.
Emotions of Surprise, Pleasure, or Pain.
Besides being fewer in number it is also probable that in early childhood the memory markings that endure are those of such experiences as caused strong emotions of surprise, pleasure, or pain. One of the very earliest recollections of the writeris of attending a wedding when he was three years old. But none of the usual incidents impressed him at all. The dresses of the bridesmaids, the appearance of the bride, the bouquets, bells and other accompaniments of a wedding have been completely forgotten. No remembrance of any single person or circumstance remains excepting two things which struck him with astonishment. First of all, he, in common with others attending the service, was taken across a wide river in a boat, and, secondly, he was put to stand close against the back of a harmonium, the noise of which at such close quarters was to him extraordinary and rather disagreeable.
Joys Better Remembered than Griefs.
The complete obliteration of everything connected with this visit—for the ceremony took place a day’s journey from his home—seems to point clearly to the fact that the unusual is notby itself enough to permanently impress a child’s mind, but it must be coupled with sensations of peculiar surprise, or special pleasure or pain. With regard to the two latter it is a beneficent provision that the joys of early life are remembered long after its sadnesses have been forgotten.
Summer Days at a Country Rectory.
A man looks back on the summers he spent as a child in a country rectory. It appears to him that the days were ever sunny: he recalls the sharp hiss of the whetstone on the scythe, which told him as he lay in his little bed that the parson’s man was mowing the lawn before the dew was off the grass; he can remember the wild strawberries in the less conventional part of the garden; he can in fancy take his way to the cowhouse, mug in hand, to get a drink of new and frothy milk; he can climb about the lower branches of a favourite tree; hecan rake and water his little square of garden; he can come home atop of the last load of hay from the glebe fields; but it is always in the dancing sunlight that he moves; it would seem to him that there could never have been any single day in all his childhood when rain came down and skies were grey and cold.
The Old Nursery.
And so, too, of the life indoors. He remembers much of this in comparison with the later years. He remembers exactly where each piece of furniture stood in the old nursery. He can tell you with what colour the ottoman was covered in which his brothers’ and sisters’ outdoor things were kept, and he vividly remembers standing upon it to look out of the window and watch the gardener at work. He can recall exactly how much of the spout was broken belonging to the old grey teapot in which was brewed the senna tea, but he cannot tell you whatthe stuff tasted of—though he is sure that it was nasty. The nursery, the stairs, and the passages are in his memory so many playgrounds; he forgets the many childish tears that he shed, and the childish tragedies that befell him, while the games and the laughter and the pleasantness of his early surroundings are easily recalled.
But if he examines carefully into his early impressions he will find that the events which older persons might be expected to remember are forgotten, while the little matters that brought to his babyhood’s experience sensations of pain or pleasure—but especially the latter—are clear. That is to say, the memory markings made in early childhood do not include the greater number of things which came in contact with the various senses of the child, but are really few in number and connected invariably with special sensations.
It is a vast mistake to measure theimportance of a child’s interests by those of a grown-up person. It is easy for the latter to forget every detail of a house in which he has passed some months or even years of middle age, but he will remember a shallow step leading down from one of his nurseries to the other.
How small a thing! Yes, but it was productive of great sensations. It was the first step he had ever known—by it was revealed to him the entirely new idea that one room could be on a different level from another. Then he found that it was a splendid place to sit upon—just the right height for him—and a still better place upon which to set up bricks and toys in order to knock them down and hear the crash of their fall. But, best of all, it was the place where his first deed of daring was performed. There came a day when he ventured to jump down! It was the first time that he had really cared for spectators: it was the first timethat he had looked round for applause. For all these reasons—all connected with new sensations of pleasure—that little shallow wooden step made a deeper memory mark upon his mind than many subsequent places or events that have perhaps helped to turn the current of his life. But, after all is said, it is impossible not to feel that the unknown is so largely in excess of the known, in this as in many other subjects, that the only thing to be done is to try to induce those who have to do with little children to remember that much is possible and even probable—to act, that is, as if the youngest child may possibly remember for its good or ill any smallest fact or object with which its senses are brought into contact.