Knoxville journal. [volume] (Knoxville, Iowa) 1874-1986, 1875-06-17

Learning W OPcaAs
The first thing which the child has to
EARN, before speech is possible, is to OBJ
|erve and distinguish; to recognize the
j Dersons and things about him in their
toncrete individuality, and to notice as
]: belonging to them some of their charac.
& 8eristic qualities and acts. This is very
4 brief description of very intricate psy-
i theological process-which, however, it
does not belong TO the student of lam
xuage to draw out in greater detail
There is involved in it, we may further
remark in passing, nothing which some
of the lower animals may not achieve.
At the same time, the child is exercising
his organs of utterance and gaining con-
scious command of them, partly by a
mere native impulse to the exertion of
al his native powers, partly by imitation
Of the sound-making persons about him /;
the child brought up in solitude would
be comparatively silent. This physical
process is quite analogous with the train
ing of the hands; for some SIX months
the child losses them about, he knows
not how or why; then he begins to notice
them and work them under command,
till at length he can do by conscious
volition whatever is within their power.
Control and management OF the organs
of utterance come much more slowly,
hut the time arrives when the child can
;rnifnfe at least some of the audible as
veil as the visible acts of others; can
f<0roduce a given sound as given
NSefure But before this he has learned
associate with some of the objects
familiar to him the names by which they
are called; result of much putting of
the two together on the part of his in
structors.
There is obviously mental training and
shaping, Us web as mental equipment, in
the process of learning to speak. The
mental action of the individual is
schooled into certain habits consonant
with those of his community; he acquires
the current classiications and abstrac-
lions and ways of looking at things.
To take an example: the quality OF color
il SO conspicuous, and our apprehension
Of 1t SO urged by the inhnity of its
manifested differences which are ever
before our eyes, that the conception OF
color is only quickened and rendered
more distinct by acquisition of the words
which denote it. But in the classified
tion of the shades of hue the phraseolo-
gy of the language acquired bears de-
der and about the leading names, as aolttte
black, red, blue, green; and each hue is
tested in the mind by aid of these, and
referred to the one or the other class.
And different languages make different
classitcations; some of them so unlike
ours, so much less elaborate and COM
plete, that their acquisition gives the eye
and mind very inferior training in dis
tinguishing colors. This is still more
strikingly the case as regards number.
There are dialects which are in state
of infantile bewilderment before the
problem OF Enumeration; they have
words for" one, ""two," and three" but
all beyond is an undivided many" None
of us it is certain would have gone farther
than that by his own absolutely unassist-
ed efforts; but by words-and only by
words; for such is the abstractness of
the relations Of number that they, more
than any others, are dependent for their
realization and manageableness on eX-
pression--more and more intricate nu-
merical relations have been mastered by
as, until finally we are provided with a
system which Is extensible to everything
short of infinity-the decimal system,
namely, or that which proceeds by con-
slant additions of ten individuals of any
given denomination TO form the next
higher. And what is the foundation of
this system? Why, as everyone knows,
the simple fact that we have ten fingers
Il digits'D on our two hands, and that
fingers are the handiest substitute for
figures, the most ready and natural of
aids to an unready reckoner. A fact as
external and physical as this, and SEEM
ingly so trivial, has shaped the whole
science Of mathematics and, altogether
without his being aware of it, gives form
to all the numerical conceptions of each
new learner. 1t is suggestion of gen.
seral human experience in the past, trans
mitted through language into a law for
the government of thought in the future.
Life md Gros0th Of Language, By VIM.
d. Whitney.