SINGER, G. ASTOR-A Word for the Priest and the Dynamics of Religion 108 SMITH, J. BARKER-Gillespie's Natural History of Digestion (review) PSYCHOLOGICAL EXPERIMENTS. On the 15th of November, 1879, there died, surrounded by his children, at the Chateau Monbijou, George Washington Singer, a man of great wealth and wisdom. By a will drawn up with extraordinary skill and thoughtfulness he bequeathed the sum of seven hundred and twenty-five thousand pounds sterling and real estate situate in the North of England and South California to his three sons in trust for the purpose of "carrying on psychological and educational experiments on a sufficiently large scale to promise reliable results." For the administration and employment of the large capital the testator, in a very elaborate document, gave the trustees the most minute instructions, which leave no doubt about his praiseworthy intentions and of his deep insight into human nature. He was a man of great learning, acquainted with the methods of education in the civilised countries of Europe and America, and fully convinced that the experiment alone could lead to satisfactory results, if psychological questions were to be decided. Experimental psychology was in its infancy in 1879, as it is even now, and extraordinary difficulties had to be overcome, but the capital dedicated to the noble enterprise reduced this difficulty considerably, and after twenty years' observation and study those to whom the task was entrusted by the generous donor are in a position to draw certain conclusions from the material collected during this time. The testator's instructions, which I will give in extenso in the work describing the experiments, are clear about the selection of the material. There were only perfectly healthy children to be accepted in the institution, and none over the age of twelve months. The will prescribes that during the time of twenty years the material gathered and the results obtained should be carefully collected and sifted, but not published under any circumstances. This precaution seemed to the testator of paramount and vital importance. He was anxious to exclude any disturbing influence from outsiders, and also to prevent the growing-up children from A knowing of the intentions of their benefactor before the expiration of the period of twenty years. It was also Mr. Singer's wish that the nurses and teachers of the children should likewise be ignorant of the real purpose for which the institution had been created, and that therefore it should be managed as an orphan school. The first condition that nothing should be published, and that nothing should be known to the outside world, of this great experiment was very important and necessary, especially to prevent the interference of the parents of the children; but the second one, that all the teachers should blindly act under the direction of the trustees, unaware of their intentions, was impracticable, at least so far as the head-masters and teachers were concerned. It seems, however, that the testator himself had some doubts about the possibility of carrying this plan out, and, in a codicil, he had modified his instructions, allowing the teaching staff to be informed of his intentions. After the death of Mr. R. T. Singer, one of George Washington Singer's sons, in 1880, I was elected a trustee in his stead, and with true enthusiasm, convinced of the importance of the work, I devoted for many years my time to the interesting study of the child. The work grew under our hands, and the difficulties were accumulating almost daily to such an extent that in the first year we despaired of ever succeeding in the attempt to carry out the intentions of the testator. The selection of the infants and their nurses, and in later years of governesses and teachers, and the experiences with the latter, were trying in the extreme, but the smiling faces of these happy children, and the absorbing interest in the study of their character, the fascination which lies in the little republic of children, gave us courage to persevere. The elimination of unsuitable elements. from the teaching staff, of all difficulties was the greatest; but in later years, with greater experience, we were more fortunate, and, as the reception of infants was continued until a few years ago, we could repeat many experiments under more favourable circumstances than those with which we had to contend in the beginning. The selection of the infants, who were, in accordance with the testator's wish, accepted without reference to the status of their parents, was entrusted to two medical men of great capability, Dr. Alexander Whyte and Dr. G. Borman. Mr. G. Astor Singer, the eldest son of the testator, and myself assisted in this important work, and, as is clearly proved by the slight mortality of the infants (in twenty years only two died out of 150), we succeeded fairly well in accepting only healthy children. The religion and nationality of the infant, as well as the question' of legitimacy, had no influence on our selection, but we tried to ascertain all the necessary data about the social and mental condition of their parents and grandparents. In ascertaining the state of health we have made careful inquiries into the health of father, mother, brothers, and sisters of the tiny candidate, but in many cases this information was not complete. From the beginning there appeared to be no difficulty in finding the raw material for the experiments. Many mothers ready, and some even anxious, to renounce all their parental rights for the sake of obtaining a comfortable home for their offspring, came forward in answer to advertisements in newspapers. But at the parting hour many a pathetic scene was witnessed, often heartrending in the extreme, but always proving that the desire to provide for the future of the child triumphed over the selfishness of the mother, which manifests itself in her natural anxiety to retain possession of her beloved infant. By the testator's will the future of every child, once accepted into the institution, was secured, and the trustees are bound to provide for the male and female members of this great family, just as a father would provide for his sons and daughters. The majority of the children admitted were illegitimate, but about twenty-five per cent. were orphans who had lost their father or mother. The offers of children born out of wedlock always greatly exceeded the capacity of the institution, and so we could select out of a great number of infants the most healthy, and those who, from the view of hereditary character, gave hope to be normal in body and mind. We rejected all infants born of parents suspected of phtisis or phtisical taint. In the case of illegitimate children we had nearly always the greatest difficulty to ascertain the state of health of the father, but, as a rule, the illegitimate children offered to us were healthier than those born in wedlock. The reason for this, however, will be found in the circumstance that only very poor parents of the married decide to part with their children soon after birth. After the most careful medical examination the infants were admitted and assigned to the nurse girls who were under the matron. Mrs. Alexander Singer, the wife of one of the trustees during the first five years of the existence of this institution, acted as superintendent of the female staff, and we owe to her much of the success which we attained after the superation of the first difficulties. The observations were entirely in the hands of the resident physicians, Drs. Whyte and Borman, and I had the great pleasure of assisting in this work, which soon proved to be of such extraordinary interest and so attractive that nothing can be compared with the satisfaction which we have obtained from the study of child-life in all its phases. The greatest obstacle to the carrying out of our plans and the intentions of the testator, during the first year, lay in the behaviour of the female staff, consisting of nurse girls of the age between 20 and 25. Obstinacy and the stubborn adhesion to preconceived ideas as to the bringing up of infants, coupled with hysterical perversity and frequent quarrels amongst themselves increased the difficulty of our task almost daily, and contributed not a little to mar our observations. These girls looked with a certain amount of contempt on the poor orphan-infants, and the superintendent had to use all her energy and persuasive power to induce them to give the sucklings at least part of the care which their mothers would have bestowed upon them. Even the severest censure and punishment did not lead to the desired result until the trustees decided to employ mothers as nurses, and to substitute the unruly girls by women whose maternal instinct had been more developed. This process of elimination and substitution took up nearly a whole year, but it proved to be the right and only course. The moral tone in the establishment was changed in a most marvellous way. We had selected as nurses exclusively mothers who had lost their own babies, and we soon found that they were throughout more ready to transfer their stored-up affection to our children than the unmarried young ladies who had attended to their needs until then. Affection, love, and tenderness was everything in an institution where the real mothers of the infants, for obvious reasons, could not be employed. Every woman had five or six infants |