The Mind of the Child Part 12

It would be interesting to collect observations concerning this reasoning power in the very earliest period, because at that time language does not interfere to help or to hinder. But it is just such observations that we especially lack. When a child in the twelfth month, on hearing a watch for the first time, cries out, "Tick-tick," looking meantime at the clock on the wall, he has not, in doing this, "formed,"

as G. Lindner supposes, "his first concept, although a vague and empty one as yet," but he had the concept before, and has now merely given a name to it for the first time.

The first observation made in regard to his child by Darwin, which seemed to him to prove "a sort of practical reflection," occurred on the one hundred and forty-fourth day. The child grasped his father's finger and drew it to his mouth, but his own hand prevented him from sucking the finger. The child then, strangely enough, instead of entirely withdrawing his hand, slipped it along the finger so that he could get the end of the finger into his mouth. This proceeding was several times repeated, and was evidently not accidental but intentional. At the age of five months, a.s.sociations of ideas arose independently of all instruction. Thus, e. g., the child, being dressed in hat and cloak, was very angry if he was not at once taken out of doors.

How strong the _reasoning power without_ words may be at a later period, the following additional observations show:

From the time when my child, like Sigismund's (both in the fifteenth month), had burned his finger in the flame of the candle, he could not be induced to put his finger near the flame again, but he would sometimes put it in fun toward the flame without touching it, and he even (eighteen months old) carried a stick of wood of his own accord to the stove-door and pushed it in through the open slide, with a proud look at his parents. There is surely something more than an imitation here.

Further, my child at first never used to let his mouth and chin be wiped without crying; from the fifteenth month on he kept perfectly quiet during the disagreeable operation. He must have noticed that this was finished sooner when he was quiet.

The same thing can be observed in every little child, provided he is not too much talked to, punished, yielded to, or spoiled. In the nineteenth month it happened with my child that he resisted the command to lie down in the evening. I let him cry, and raise himself on his bed, but did not take him up, did not speak to him, did not use any force, but remained motionless and watchful near by. At last he became tired, lay down, and fell asleep directly. Here he acquired an understanding of the uselessness of crying in order to avoid obedience to commands.

The _knowledge_ of right (what is allowed and commanded) and of wrong (what is forbidden) had been long since acquired. In the seventeenth month, e. g., a sense of cleanliness was strongly developed, and later (in the thirty-third month) the child could not, without lively protest, behold his nurse acting contrary to the directions that had been given to himself--e. g., putting the knife into her mouth or dipping bread into the milk. Emotions of this kind are less a proof of the existence of a sense of duty than of the _understanding_ that violations of well-known precepts have unpleasant consequences--i. e., that certain actions bring in their train pleasant feelings, while other acts bring unpleasant feelings. How long before the knowledge of words these emotions began to exist I have, unfortunately, not succeeded in determining.

But in many of the above cases--and they might without difficulty be multiplied by diligent observation--there is not the least indication of any influence of spoken words. Whether no attempt at speaking has preceded, or whether a small collection of words may have been made, the cases of child-intelligence adduced in this chapter, observed by myself, prove that without knowledge of verbal language, and independently of it, the logical activity of the child attains a high degree of development, and no reason exists for explaining the intelligent actions of children who do not yet speak at all--i. e., do not yet clothe their ideas in words, but do already combine them with one another--as being different specifically from the intelligent (not instinctive) actions of sagacious orangs and chimpanzees. The difference consists far more in this, that the latter can not form so many, so clear, and so abstract conceptions, or so many and complicated combinations of ideas, as can the gifted human child in the society of human beings--_even before he has learned to speak_. When he has learned to speak, then the gap widens to such an extent that what before was in some respects almost the equal of humanity seems now a repulsive caricature of it.

In order, then, to understand the real difference between brute and man, it is necessary to ascertain how a child and a brute animal may have ideas without words, and may combine them for an end: whether it is done, e. g., with memory-images, as in dreaming. And it is necessary also to investigate the _essential character of the process of learning to speak_.

Concerning the first problem, which is of uncommon psychogenetic interest and practical importance, a solution seems to be promised in the investigation of the formation of concepts in the case of those born deaf, the so-called deaf and dumb children. On this point I offer first the words of a man of practical experience.

The excellent superintendent of the Educational Inst.i.tute for the Deaf and Dumb in Weimar, C. Oehlwein (1867), well says:

"The deaf-mute in his first years of life looks at, turns over, feels of objects that attract him, on all sides, and approaches those that are at a distance. By this he receives, like the young child who has all his senses, sensations and sensuous ideas;[C] and from the objects themselves he apprehends a number of qualities, which he compares with one another or with the qualities of other objects, but always refers to the object which at the time attracts him. Herein he has a more correct or less correct sense-intuition of this object, according as he has observed, compared, and comprehended more or less attentively. As this object has affected him through sight and feeling, so he represents it to other persons also by characteristic signs for sight and indirectly for feeling also. He shapes or draws a copy of the object seen and felt with life and movement. For this he avails himself of the means that Nature has placed directly within human power--the control over the movement of the facial muscles, over the use of the hands, and, if necessary, of the feet also. These signs, _not obtained from any one's suggestion_, self-formed, which the deaf-mute employs directly in his representation, are, as it were, the given outline of the image which he has found, and they stand therefore in the closest relation to the inner const.i.tution of the individual that makes the representation.

"But we find not only that the individual senses of the deaf-mute, his own observation and apprehension, are formative factors in the occurrences of sensation and perception, as is of course the case, but that the qualities of the objects observed by him, and a.s.sociated, according to his individual tendencies, are also raised by him, through comparison, separation, grouping--through his own act, therefore--to general ideas, concepts, although as yet imperfect ones, and they are named and recognized again by peculiar signs intelligible to himself.

"But in this very raising of an idea to a general idea, to a concept--a process connected with the forming of a sign--is manifested the influence of the lack of hearing and of speech upon the psychical development of the deaf-mute. It appears at first to be an advantage that the sign by which the deaf-mute represents an idea is derived from the impression, the image, the idea, which the user of the sign himself has or has had; he expresses by the sign nothing foreign to him, but only what has become his own. But this advantage disappears when compared with the hindrance caused by this very circ.u.mstance in the raising of the individual idea to a general idea, for the fact that the latter is designated by the image, or the elements of the image in which the former consists, is no small obstacle to it in attaining complete generality. The same bond that unites the concept with the conceiver binds it likewise to one of the individual ideas conceived--e. g., when, by pointing to his own flesh, his own skin, he designates the concept flesh, skin (in general also the flesh or the skin of animals); whereas, by means of the word, which the child who has all his senses is obliged to learn, a constraint is indeed exercised as something foreign, but a constraint that simply enforces upon his idea the claim of generality.

"One example more. The deaf-mute designates the concept, or general idea, 'red' by lightly touching his lips. With this sign he indicates the red of the sky, of paintings, of dress-stuffs, of flowers, etc.

Thus, in however manifold connection with other concepts his concept 'red' may be repeated, it is to him as a concept always _one_ and the same only. It is _common_ to _all_ the connections in which it repeatedly occurs."

But before the thinking deaf-mute arrived at the concept "red," he formed for himself the ideas "lip, dress, sky, flower," etc.

For a knowledge of intellectual development in the child possessed of all the senses, and of the great extent to which he is independent of verbal language in the formation of concepts, it is indispensable to make a collection of such concepts as uneducated deaf-mutes not acquainted either with the finger-alphabet or with articulation express by means of their own gestures in a manner intelligible to others. Their language, however, comprises "not only the various expressive changes of countenance (play of feature), but also the varied movements of the hands (gesticulations), the positions, att.i.tudes, bearing, and movements of the other parts of the entire body, through which the deaf-mute naturally, i. e., _untouched by educational influences_, expresses his ideas and conceptions." But I refrain from making such a catalogue here, as we are concerned with the fact that _many concepts are, without any learning of words whatever, plainly expressed and logically combined with one another_, and their correctness is proved by the conduct of any and every untaught child born deaf. Besides, such a catalogue, in order to possess the psychogenetic value desired by me, needs a critical examination extremely difficult to carry through as to whether the "educational influences" supposed to be excluded are actually wholly excluded in all cases as they really are in some cases, e. g., in regard to food.

Degerando (1827) has enumerated a long list of concepts, which deaf-mutes before they are instructed represent by pantomimic gesture. Many of these forms of expression in French deaf-mutes are identical with those of German. It is most earnestly to be wished that this international language of feature and gesture used by children entirely uninstructed, born deaf, may be made accessible to psycho-physiological and linguistic study by means of pictorial representations--photographic best of all. This should be founded on the experiences of German, French, English, Russian, Italian, and other teachers of deaf-mutes.

For there is hardly a better proof that thinking is not dependent on the language of words than the conduct of deaf-mutes, who express, indeed, many more concepts of unlike content in the same manner than any verbal language does--just as children with all their senses do before they possess a satisfactory stock of words--but who, by gesticulation and pantomime before receiving any instruction, demonstrate that concepts are formed without words.

With reference to the manner in which uneducated deaf-mutes speak, the following examples are characteristic performances in gesture-language:

One deaf-mute asks another, "Stay, go you?" (look of inquiry). Answer: "Go, I" (i. e., "Do you stay or go?" "I go"). "Hunter hare shoots."

"Arm, man, be strong," means, "The man's arm is strong."

"N., spectacles, see," means, "N. sees with the spectacles."

"Run I finished, go to sleep," means, "When I had finished running, I went to sleep." "Money, you?" means, "Have you money?"

One of the most interesting sights I know of, in a psychological and physiological point of view, is a conversation in gesture and pantomime between two or three children born totally deaf, who do not know that they are observed. I am indebted to Director Oehlwein, of Weimar, for the opportunity of such observations, as also for the above questions and answers. Especially those children (of about seven years) not yet instructed in articulation employ an astonishing number of looks and gestures, following one upon another with great rapidity, in order to effect an understanding with one another. They understand one another very easily, but, because their gestures, and particularly their excessively subtilized play of feature, do not appear in ordinary life, these children are just as hard to understand for the uninitiated as are men who speak a wholly foreign language without any gestures. Even the eye of the deaf-mute has a different expression from that of the person who talks. The look seems more "interested," and manifestly far fewer unnecessary movements of the eyes and contractions of the facial muscles are made by the deaf-mute than by the child of the same age who has his hearing.

Further, deaf-mutes, even those of small ability, imitate all sorts of movements that are plainly visible much better, in general, than do persons with all their senses. I made, in presence of the children, several not very easy crossings of the fingers, put my hands in different positions, and the like--movements that they could not ever have seen--and I was surprised that some of the children at once made them deftly, whereas ordinary children, first consider a long time, and then imitate clumsily. It is doubtless this exaltation of the imitative functions in deaf-mute children which makes it appear as if they themselves invented their gestures (see above, p. 23). Certainly they do not get their first signs through "any one's suggestion," they form them for themselves, but, so far as I see, only through imitation and the hereditary expressive movements. The signs are in great part themselves unabridged imitations. The agreement, or "convention," which many teachers of deaf-mutes a.s.sume, and which would introduce an entirely causeless, not to say mysterious, principle, consists in this, that all deaf-mutes in the beginning imitate the same thing in the same way.

Thus, through this perfectly natural accord of all, it comes to pa.s.s that they understand one another. When they have gained ideas, then they combine the separate signs in manifold ways, as one who speaks combines words, in order to express new ideas; they become thereby more and more difficult to be understood, and often are only with difficulty understood even among themselves; and they are able only in very limited degree to form concepts of a higher order. "Nothing, being dead, s.p.a.ce"--these are concepts of a very high order for them.

For this reason it is easy to comprehend that a deaf-mute child, although he has learned but few words through instruction in articulation, weaves these continually into his pantomimic conversation in place of his former elaborate gestures. I observed that individual children, born totally deaf, preferred, even in conversation with one another, and when ignorant of the fact that I was observing them, the articulate words just learned, although these were scarcely intelligible, to their own signs.

Thus mighty is the charm of the spoken word, even when the child does not himself hear it, but merely feels it with his tongue.

But the schooling the deaf-mute must go through in order to become acquainted with the sensations of sight, touch, and movement that go with the sound, is unspeakably toilsome.

W. Gude says in his treatise, remarkable alike for acuteness and clearness, "Principles and Outlines of the Exposition of a Scheme of Instruction for an Inst.i.tution for Deaf-Mutes" ("Grundsatze und Grundzuge zur Aufstellung eines Lehrplans fur eine Taubstummen-Anstalt,"

1881): "The utterances of tones and of articulate sounds called forth by involuntary stimulus during the first years, in deaf-mutes, are such unimportant motor phenomena that they are not immediately followed by a motor sensation. But when the deaf-mute child is more awake mentally, he perceives that his relatives make movements of the mouth in their intercourse, and repeated attempts of those about him to make themselves intelligible by p.r.o.nouncing certain words to him are not entirely without effect upon the deaf-mute that is intellectually active. When such deaf-mutes now direct their attention to the matter, they succeed in regard to only a part of the sounds--those that are conspicuous to the eye in their utterance--in getting a tolerable imitation. Individual deaf-mutes go so far, in fact, as to understand various words correctly without repeating them; others succeed gradually in repeating such words as 'papa, mamma,' so that one can understand what is meant. Those who are deaf-mutes from birth do not, however, of themselves, succeed in imitating accurately other vocal sounds in general."

A deaf-mute, who had not been instructed, explained to Romanes, at a later period when he had learned the sign-language, that he had before thought in "images," which means nothing else than that he, in place of the words heard (in our case) and the digital signs seen (in his case), had made use of memory-images gained from visual impressions, for distinguishing his concepts. Laura Bridgman, too, a person in general the subject of very incorrect inferences, who was not blind and deaf from birth, could form a small number of concepts that were above the lowest grade. These originated from the materials furnished by the sense of touch, the muscular sense and general sensibility, before she had learned a sort of finger-language. But she had learned to speak somewhat before she became dumb and blind. Children with sight, born deaf, seem not to be able to perform the simplest arithmetical operations, e. g., 214-96 and 908 X 70 (according to Asch, 1865), until after several years of continuous instruction in articulate speaking. They do succeed, however, and that without sound-images of words, and perhaps, too, without sight-images of words; in mental arithmetic without knowledge of written figures, by help of the touch-images of words which the tongue furnishes.

In any case uneducated persons born deaf can count by means of the fingers without the knowledge of figures; and, when they go beyond 10, the notched stick comes to their aid (Sicard and Degerando).

The language of gesture and feature in very young children, born dumb and not treated differently from other children, shows also, in most abundant measure, that concepts are formed without words. The child born deaf uses the primitive language of gesture to the same extent as does the child that has his hearing; the former makes himself intelligible by actions and sounds as the latter does, so that his deficiency is not suspected. This natural language is also _understood_ by the child born deaf, so far as it is recognizable by his eye. In the look and the features of his mother he reads her mood. But he very early becomes quiet and develops for himself, "out of unconscious gesticulation, the gesture language, which at first is not conventional, nay, is not in the strict sense quite a sign-language, but a mimetic-plastic representation of the influences experienced from the external world," since the deaf-mute imitates movements perceived, and the att.i.tude of persons and the position of objects. Upon this pantomime alone rests the possibility of coming to an understanding, within a certain range, with deaf-mutes that have had no instruction at all. It can not, therefore, in its elementary form be conventional, as Hill, to whom I owe these data, rightly maintains. He writes concerning the child born deaf: "His voice seems just like that of other children. He screams, weeps, according as he feels uncomfortable; he starts when frightened by any noise. Even friendly address, toying, fun, serious threats, are understood by him as early as by any child." But he does not hear his own voice; it is not sound that frightens him, but the concussion; it is not the pleasant word that delights him, but the pleasant countenance of his mother. "It even happens, not seldom, that through encouragement to use the voice, these children acquire a series of articulate sounds, and a number of combinations of sounds, which they employ as the expression of their wishes." They not only _point out_ the object desired, not only _imitate_ movements that are to procure what they want, but they also outline the forms of objects wished for. They are able to conduct themselves so intelligently in this, that the deaf-mute condition is not discovered till the second year, or even later, and then chiefly by their use of the eye, because in case of distant objects only those seen excite their attention.

From this behavior of infants born deaf it manifestly follows that even without the possibility of natural imitation of sounds, and without the knowledge of a single word, qualities may be blended with qualities into concepts. Thus, _primitive thinking is not bound up with verbal language_. It demands, however, a certain development of the cerebrum, probably a certain very considerable number of ganglionic cells in the cerebral cortex, that stand in firm organic connection with one another.

The difference between an uninstructed young deaf-mute and a cretin is immense. The former can learn a great deal through instruction in speaking, the latter can not. This very ability to learn, in the child born deaf, is greater than in the normal child, in respect to pantomime and gesture. If a child with his hearing had to grow up among deaf-mutes, he would undoubtedly learn their language, and would in addition enjoy his own voice without being able to make use of it; but he would probably be discovered, further on, without testing his hearing, by the fact that he was not quite so complete a master of this gesture-language as the deaf-mutes, on account of the diversion of his attention by sound.

The total result of the foregoing observations concerning the capacity of accomplishment on the part of uneducated deaf-mutes in regard to the natural language of gesture and feature, demonstrates more plainly than any other fact whatever that, without words and without signs for words, thought-activity exists--that thinking takes place when both words and signs for words are wanting. Wherefore, then, should the logical combination of ideas in the human being born perfect begin only with the speaking of words or the learning to speak? Because the adult supposes that he no longer thinks without words, he easily draws the erroneous conclusion that no one, that not even he himself, could think before the knowledge of verbal language. In truth, however, it was _not language that generated the intellect; it is the intellect that formerly invented language: and even now the new-born human being brings with him into the world far more intellect than talent for language_.

FOOTNOTES:

[C] Empfindungsvorstellungen.

CHAPTER XVII.

LEARNING TO SPEAK.

No human being remembers how he learned his mother-tongue in early youth, and the whole human race has forgotten the origin of its articulate speech as well as of its gestures; but every individual pa.s.ses perceptibly through the stage of learning to speak, so that a patient observer recognizes much as conformable to law.

The acquisition of speech belongs to those physiological problems which can not be solved by the most important means possessed by physiology, vivisection. And the speechless condition in which every human being is born can not be regarded as a disease that may be healed by instruction, as is the case with certain forms of acquired aphasia. A set of other accomplishments, such as swimming, riding, fencing, piano-playing, the acquirement of which is physiological, are learned like articulate speech, and n.o.body calls the person that can not swim an anomaly on that account. The _inability to appropriate_ to one's self these and other co-ordinated muscular movements, this alone is abnormal. But we can not tell in advance in the case of any new-born child whether he will learn to speak or not, just as in the case of one who has suffered an obstruction of speech or has entirely lost speech, it is not certain whether he will ever recover it.

In this the normal child that does _not yet_ speak perfectly, resembles the diseased adult who, for any cause, _no longer_ has command of language. And to compare these two with each other is the more important, as at present no other empirical way is open to us for investigating the nature of the process of learning to speak; but this way conducts us, fortunately, through pathology, to solid, important physiological conclusions.

1. Disturbances of Speech in Adults.

The command of language comprises, on the one hand, the understanding of what is spoken; on the other hand, the utterance of what is thought. It is at the height of its performance in free, intelligible, connected speech. Everything that disturbs the _understanding of words heard_ must be designated disturbance of speech equally with everything that disturbs _the production of words_ and sentences.

By means of excellent investigations made by many persons, especially by Broca, Wernicke, Kussmaul, it has become possible to make a topical division of most of the observed disturbances of speech of both kinds.

In the first cla.s.s, which comprises the _impressive_ processes, we have to consider every functional disturbance of the peripheral ear, of the auditory nerve and of the central ends of the auditory nerve; in the second cla.s.s, viz., the _expressive_ processes, we consider every functional disturbance of the apparatus required for articulation, including the nerves belonging to this in their whole extent, in particular the hypoglossus, as motor nerve of the tongue, and certain parts of the cerebral hemispheres from which the nerves of speech are excited and to which the sense-impressions from without are so conducted by connecting fibers that they themselves or their memory-images can call forth expressive, i. e., motor processes. The diagram, Fig. 1, ill.u.s.trates the matter.