The citizen-Republican. (Scotland, Bon Homme County, S.D.) 1???-19??, 1912-06-06

(Rv M. e. Haggerty, Director Psychology
cal Laboratory, Indiana University
The beginning of mentality in the chlld
is very simple. A flash of light, a feeling
of warmth, a sensation from a moving
muscle, the feeling of contact of its lips,
the taste of food, the ~visceral sensations
including hunger, thirst and possibly pain,
the motions of the lips, tongue and cheeks
In feeding, the unco-ordinated movements
Of hands, feet and eyes, the falnt re-
sponse to auditory stimuli, a CLINT or door
and a transient taste-theSe passing IN
rapid flow and with little or no connec-
ton between succeeding stages OF the
stream make up all that can be called
mind in the first days and weeks of child
hood.
Very soon, however, begins the process
OF fusion of succeeding or contampoTan-
eous states with one another. The flash
Of light is welded with the feelings from
the activity of the eye muscles; the touch
Of the lips joins the taste of milk; the
movement of the arm and hand Is caught
up into relation with the touch of the
end Of the fingers and the palm of the
hand; the sight Of the mother or nurse
grows together with the anticipation of
food; the sound Of a familiar voice is con-
nected with pleasant experiences that
have followed that sound in the past; the
cry SO characteristic OF infancy gets to
pe the connecting INK between d Sldle
of discomfort and the relief of the annoy
ing state.
Infant Habits Quickly Formed.
How quickly these first associations be-
gin and attain strength any nurse or
mother well knows. Persons experienced
in the care of children know that it Is
important to establish the feeding and
sleeping habits of IN infant from the
very hour of it's birth. By the end of
a fortnight such habits hould be we'll
fixed in the normal infant and it will for
ever after be the gamer thereby. Prob
ably in this region of fundamental pro-
cesses the act of association is more rapid
than in the regions more distant from the
child's immediate necessities. In every
place, however, the tendency toward as
ISOLATION goes on with terrific rapidity.
1t is nothing short of astounding how
much really takes place in the mind of
a child during the first year and again
during the second and third year.
AT first the associations group them
selves about different centers. The eye
is one such center. The feelings from
the muscles Of the eyes when they are
moved are at first undoubtedly without
any connection with the sensation of light
which is derived from the retina. When
this feeling from the muscle occurs at the
same time as the flash of light there is
liIo CollultlOH lOT an ASSOCIATION. IL ClGSe
two experiences occur together for a
number of times they will become so re-
lated to each other that when one occurs
1t will tend to revive the other even
though that other may not at the time
be present.
Thus the child will come to expect the
flash of light when he feels the move
ment of the eye muscles. BY an elab-
Grafton of this association the two eyes
Will rnma 70 yvoyIY fponfha~ o,I I, n
further extension of this center of asso-
citation the things which a child sees will
come to be related to the things that he
reels with his hands. He will through
this process come to know that the rattle
that he feels with his hand is the same
rattle that he sees with his eyes, any by
a still further extension of the process he
will come to understand that this rattle
which he sees and feels is the same as
the one that makes the noise which he
hears. These extensions Of child expe-
renee are easily observed in the outward
oehaVior OF any growing child.
World Pours In On the Child.
AS the child grows from day to day the
world outside pours in upon him through
his sense organs its myriad motions, and
these he must relate to these association
groups, which he has begun thus early in
his life. This is not always an easy pro-
cess, and the imperative growth he makes
often comes with severe inner struggles.
New forms, new sights, new sounds, new
odors, new objects, new persons and new
ideas come to him in such profusion and
completely that the unity to his mind is
over and over disrupted. He sees a new
object and tries to relate it to the things
he already knows. 1t will not fit. What
experience he has accumulated in the past
he may have been able to reduce to a con-
sistent whole. Here is the new thing that
stands over against the old fund of ex-
perience as a stranger. Possibly it con-
tains some aspect like a former experience,
but the other parts Of the object differ
wholly from anything he has ever seen.
Possibly through the common element
he Is able to make the new object a part
of his mental stock, but in the process his
mind has enlarged because it must also
include the part that is like nothing he
has ever seen. Directly the unity is re-
established and he presents a wholly con-
sistent and satisfied mind. The moments
Of p~erplexity are, however, real riffs in
his mental life, attended by all the stress
and struggle that ever keeps company
with the unquenchable desire to know
when that desire confronts the unfamiliar
and the resistant forces of nature.
A Child Turned Loose In Sprino.
All this was borne in upon me with