9. Theory of Gradual' Development

[THORNDIKE, E. L., Educational Psychology: (1) "The Original Nature of Man," pp. 260-263; and (2) "Individual Differences and Fatigue," pp. 279-80. New York, Teachers College, Bureau of Publications, 1914.]

Two general questions concerning the time-relationships of original tendencies may be discussed here because of their intrinsic importance and their service in predisposing the student to a critical attitude in connection with the general literature of mental development in childhood. These questions concern the suddenness of the waxing of delayed tendencies and the frequency of transitory tendencies.

It is a favorite dictum of superficial psychology and pedagogy that instincts lie entirely dormant and then spring into full strength within a few weeks. At a certain stage, we are told, such and such a tendency has its 'nascent period' or ripening time. Three is the age for fear, six is the age of climbing, fifteen is the age for coöperativeness, and the like. The same doctrine is applied to the supposed 'faculties' or very general capacities of the mind. Within a year or two around eight the child is said to change from a mere bundle of sensory capacities, to a child possessed of imagination; somewhere around thirteen another brief score of months brings his reasoning up from near zero to nearly full energy; a year or two somewhere in the 'teens creates altruism!

These statements are almost certainly misleading. The one instinct whose appearance seems most like a dramatic rushing upon life's stage-the sex instinct-is found upon careful study to be gradually maturing for years. The capacity for reasoning shows no signs by any tests as yet given of developing twice as much in any one year from five to twenty-five as in any other. In the cases where the differences between children of different ages may be taken roughly to measure the rate of inner growth of capacities, what data we have show nothing to justify the doctrine of sudden ripening in a serial order. . . . The few interests whose strength, period by period, have been more or less well measured, give no evidence of any sudden accession to power. Thus collecting seems to increase in vigor gradually from before six to ten. The capacities of sensory discrimination, memory, observation and the like which have been measured in children at different ages, are of course in the conditions that they are at any age because of training as well as inner growth, and the facts concerning their rates of gain cannot be used at

their face value in our argument. But so far as they do go, they give no support to the theory of the sudden rise of inner tendencies. Indeed every tendency that has been subjected to anything like rigid scrutiny seems to fit the word gradual rather than the word sudden in the rate of its maturing (1).

I conclude, therefore, that the development of mental traits with age has not been and cannot be adequately measured by such studies as those quoted (Gilbert). To measure it we must repeat measurements upon the same individuals and for all purposes of inference preserve intact each of the individual changes. In connection with each of them account must be taken of the training which the individual in question has undergone.

What measurements we do have may serve, however, to correct two errors of common opinion. The notion that the increases in ability due to a given amount of progress toward maturity are closely alike for all children, save the so-called "abnormally precocious" or "retarded" is false. The same fraction of the total inner development, from zero to adult ability, will produce very unequal results in different children. Inner growth acts differently according to the original nature that is growing.

The notion that maturity is the main factor in the differences found amongst school children, so that grading and methods of teaching should be fitted closely to "stage of growth," is also false. It is by no means very hard to find seven-year-olds who can do intellectual work at which one in twenty seventeen-yearolds would fail (2).

10. Human Growth Not Disjointed and Dissectible [PECHSTEIN, L. A., and MCGREGOR, A. L., Psychology of the Junior High School Child, pp. 43-44. Boston, Houghton Mifflin Co., 1924.]

The data (now available from different sources) regarding anatomical, physiological, and mental growth, can but impress one with the continuity aspect of development, and that, in dividing growth into stages, the justification is likely to be more methodological than fundamental and essential. Specifically, even in the face of citations made regarding anatomical, physiological, and psychological spurtings at the dawn of puberty, let it be emphasized, . . . that the powers and capacities were present all the time, slowly gathering strength for final expression and maturity; that differences between adolescence and childhood are more in degree than in kind, and that they are underlaid by common fundamentals; that the reader will finally know

little of adolescence except as he knows much of pre-adolescence on the one hand and the world of adult life on the other, for which adolescence proves, not a separate step, but a stage in the continuous life of growth.

11. The Preschool Child

[BALDWIN, Bird T., and STETCHER, Lorle I., The Psychology of the Preschool Child, pp. 35-37, 39, 243-244, 253. New York, D. Appleton & Co., 1924.]

Consecutive daily studies of preschool children over a period of from one to three years for each child have been made at the Iowa Child Welfare Research Station of the State University of Iowa. The studies are of great significance to parents, teachers, welfare-workers and physicians. One conclusion that stands out most clearly is that the policy of letting children from birth to six "just grow” must give way to a definite program of awakening in the child of this age wholesome interests and attitudes, insuring normal mental growth. The Iowa studies show that much can be done.

Physical Growth.-The results of the measurements in our preschool laboratory give a comprehensive picture of the growth of various parts of the body. The number of children is small, but there is a fairly large number of repeated measurements accurately made. . . . The boys exceed the girls at any particular age between three and six years in all measurements except width of hips, which is equal for the two. Boys grow in standing height from 37.6 inches at two years to 45.4 inches at six years. For span of arms the growth is from 36.6 to 44.4 inches, almost the same as in standing height. For weight the increase is from 32.0 pounds at two years to 44.1 pounds at six years. The head grows only 0.6 inch in circumference and considerably less in length and width. The increase in these measurements is similar for girls.

The increments of growth from year to year show that young children grow fairly uniformly in the majority of physical traits studied. The boys grow on an average 0.6 inch in height every three months and the girls 0.5 inch; in weight the average increase for the boys is 1 pound and for the girls 0.9 pound. The greatest percentage of growth from three to six years for these children is in weight, in which there is an increase of 37.8

per cent for boys and 33.1 per cent for girls. In standing height the boys gain 20.7 per cent and the girls 18.1 per cent, while in span of arms the boys gain 21.3 per cent, and the girls 19.3 per cent. In the other physical traits the gains are very similar. While the boys gain more in actual growth than the girls from three to six years, the girls have attained at three years in nearly all of the traits a greater percentage of their measurements at six years than the boys. Our work with children of all ages also shows that at six years the girls have reached a higher percentage of their ultimate stature and other measurements than the boys.

. . . In the last analysis problems of growth are largely individual problems.

The individual curves and profiles give the best picture of successive stages of growth. These may be compared with the general averages to determine the size of the individual compared with a group of similar children. While averages furnish a gross means of comparing groups of children or of an individual with the group, the significant problem, however, for parents, physicians, psychologists, and teachers is always that of individual development. . .

The most significant measures of individual development are the actual increments of growth for each child for each trait.

Some Fundamental Social Attitudes.-From the daily log for the first two groups a summary of some fundamental social attitudes of preschool children has been made under the direction of the writers by Ethel Verry. . . . At first the play of children two to four years old appears to present simply a mass of unrelated incidents, but it soon becomes evident that many of the social contacts are repeated from day to day in somewhat varied but similar forms. A careful analysis of these forms shows five clearly differentiated types of social attitudes for the data included in this study: (1) treating playmates as objects; (2) assuming an adult attitude; (3) seeking attention; (4) "doing as others do"; and (5) coöperating with the group. It is possible that a more detailed psychological analysis of these divisions would show common underlying causes. This five-fold classification distinguishes the immediate factors common to the experiences and dispositions of the children which determine certain more or less common modes of social behavior. The concrete expressions of these modes, such as the exact words used, or posture assumed, vary from child to child, and are, of course, explainable in the case of each individual child in terms of

its individual history. Such a classification points out certain roughly uniform causes which result in distinguishable types of behavior when young children first become members of play groups. The fact that the children adjust themselves so quickly to the requirements of group life disproves the common belief that the child is an individualist up to perhaps six years of age and that it is useless to expect much else before that time.

12. The Preschool and the Primary Periods [JUDD, C. H., Introduction to the Scientific Study of Education, pp. 187-188. Boston, Ginn & Co., 1918.]

The kindergarten does in an energetic and systematic way what the home does incidentally, for in any home, however meager its resources, the child learns in five years something of his mother tongue and something of the demands of group living. The pre-school period is an important epoch in education as well as in physical growth. We recognize the physical fact that the child must cultivate strength enough to run around independently and to use his hands in holding what he needs. So it is also in the sphere of his mental life; he must be able to take care of himself.

THE PRIMARY OR TRANSITORY PERIOD

The Primary Period One of Social Imitation.—At five or six years of age the pupil comes to the primary school. His experience is very limited; his senses are open to the impressions of color and sound and touch, and he eagerly or timidly mixes in the social group which is often to him bewilderingly large and strange. The key to the understanding of this period is to be found in the simple psychological principle that out of all the bewildering mass of childish experience it is persons who attract the child's most vivid attention. The experiences of childhood are to be thought of not as meager but as confusing in their abundance. The world is so full of a number of things that one hardly knows where to turn. In the mass of this experience one turns to some person and follows in a docile way the lead of that person. The first grade is a place where children do what others do. First-graders are a flock of sheep. The teacher can lead them into almost anything because they are eager to do whatever they see others do.

Sometimes this period is described as a period when children