The Worcester spy. [volume] (Worcester, Mass.) 1898-1904, 1899-02-26
Or. HALLS LECTURE.
He Speaks on the Genesis of the Mind at
Boston.

He Speaks on the Genesis of the Mind at
Boston.
President G.. Stanley Hall of Clark
| University delivered the last Of two
lectures on ADOLESCENCE in the sec
ond course of the Twentieth Century
CUBS series in Lorimer Fall, Boston,
| yesterday.>/Dr Hall dwelt on the evo-
luton of the race as shown III the gem
| esls of mind in childhood and youth.
He said that recent studies in instinct
mad shed much light upon psycho-gen-
| esis. The old professor of philosophy
! had found that he could not follow out
the old methods of instruction that he
had become used to, IL ne was to make
! philosophy the live study that it should
be. The root of the PHILOSOPHERS of the
great teachers, like Plato and the other
ancients, was in the application Of their
ideas to life and this application was
| possible because those ideas sprang out
| of life and its experience and were
| rooted in them. Hence an entirely new
| conception Of the relations between in
| tellect, will and the feeling instincts,
especially the latter, and Of their pre-
potency in psychic development, had
arisen; and with this change had come
changes also in the standpoint and
methods of psychological investigation
and of their bearing upon the evolution
of the human soul. Child study espe-
cially had taken a significant place in
marking the transition of evolution
from the body to the mind; and in this
study biology had furnished many eX-
amples illustrative of the somatic evo-
luton and of it's fundamental prihcf-
pies, both normative and suggestive,
for tracing the development OF mind.
A great variety of sources were
drawn upon to illustrate the paleo-psy
chic stages of evolution. In the struc-
ture, to begin with, the fact that there
are altogether about 1870 organs or
parts Of the human body Of which the
uses no longer exist indicate in the
strongest and most convincing way the
stages of development from a previous
form of life. The gill Sits, for in
stance, under the skin Of the neck,
which are now carried into the orifices
of the ears and the nose and other or
gans; point to a period of primeval
aquatic life. The instincts of children
water shown by children. their person.
if1cation of its various forms the at
traction that it exerts not only over
them, but over adults and persons of
unsound mind, in whom the primitive
| impulses have greater sway, the first
natural swimming movements Of in
fants when laid on their stomachs, all
lier form of, living. Dr. Hall cites
| one instance of a man who could never
cross q bridge without leaping into the
water, clothes and all, so tremendous
was its drawing power upon him.
There are also indications to be found
in infants of a long stage of arboreal
life. The way in which infants cling
with their hands. of which some re-
markable tests have been made, show
this. In the tests mentioned, they
chung so strongly after time that they
could be lifted swinging from a stick
across the entire width of soft mat
tress and after a time one infant, it
was found, could cling by one hand
! longer than trained athlete When
| this power was not trained, it decreased
as time went on and finally fell below
the limit of most prehensile animals.
| 1t has also been suggested that pos
| sibly the author of Rock a-bye, baby,
on tree-top' wrote his nursery song
with some dim sub-conscious remem-
brance of arboreal life, possibly revived
| by some account of the way IN which
the young of monkeys fall asleep among
the branches. The fear of the eyes and
teeth and of fur in children is probably
a survival of the old instincts handed
down from the days when man was
| lighting for his existence against the
higher forms of animal life. To speak
/
throw some children into commissions
| of terror.
| A number of curious instances of the
survival of fetichism among children
We're told. One, in especial, was of a
Boston girl who fell under the SWAY
OF an overwhelming love or attraction
or worship for a wool blanket, 1t was
washed and shrank and became worn
and frayed and full of holes and at last
nothing better than the veriest rag,
but she could not make up her mind
to part with it, and finally, when. as
young woman of eighteen, she sailed
Tor Europe for a years travel, the rag,
OF a blanket was carefully packed in
| her trunk. Another instance was that
OF boy baby who happened to he AT
tracted by the swaying of the lash of
pendent whip over the pages of an
open book; he became so fascinated nv
IT, that he could not be induced or
dr1Ven to give up the desire to renew
the intense pleasure that he seemed to
derive from this curious accident of
observation. The result was that now
at the age of fifteen, he studied with
the lash of pendant whip swaying
over the pages of a book before him
and often took his relaxation From
study by stopping to watch this queer
Fetch. 9Neei