I hardly need say. From the time she began to roll freely, she had
collided with table legs and the like; and from then until she could
walk, bumps and scratches and pinches were almost daily experiences.
Her early creeping was so awkward that she would lose her footing, so
to speak, and come down hard on her face, and her later and quicker
creeping brought collisions; in standing by chairs she would lose hold
and topple over; and in investigating rockers, window blinds, lids, and
all manner of things, she did not fail to get her fingers hurt now and
then, in spite of all vigilance.
In the main, she was surprisingly indifferent to these mishaps; even
when the blow had reddened the skin, she would look sober only a
minute, then, at a laugh and encouraging word, would smile and go on
with her play. This was doubtless partly temperament: babies cry with
nervous fright more than with the actual pain of a bump, and she was a
baby of tranquil nerves. But her skin sensitiveness was probably still
low.
With experience of pain, either her sensitiveness or her timidity
grew, and she made more fuss than she did at first; and over some
especially severe hurts she screamed with lusty good-will. Still, it
was noticeable on the whole how little she was troubled in learning to
balance and move about by the pains that strewed the way; and this, I
think, must be the normal condition with healthy children.
I have spoken just now of the pride and joy that were shown over
kneeling and standing. The joy, of course, was an old story: we have
seen that every stage of advancing power had been accompanied by
lively pleasure. But this feeling of pride, this exultation in herself
as actor, was a new emotion, and quite characteristic of the higher
type of self-consciousness the baby had entered on at about seven
months old, as I have already related. In going through her little
hand movements, too, she showed much consciousness and pride, looking
prettily into our faces for approval, as she patted or waved her hands.
As the baby now approached nine months old, there was an indescribable
dawning appearance of comprehension about her--an air of understanding
her surroundings and getting into touch with our minds. She watched our
movements not merely with curiosity, but with an apparent attempt to
interpret them, sometimes with a curious, puzzled drawing of the mouth
that looked like mental effort. Many things she did interpret perfectly
well: for instance, if I picked a rose and held it up, smiling, she
knew that it was for her, and broke into jubilation accordingly. She
volunteered to play peekaboo from early in the month, holding up a
cloth, basket lid, or whatever she had at hand, before her face, and
peeping out with smiles. She made intelligent little adaptations in her
own actions, such as pulling at the tablecloth to bring to her a paper
that lay on it.
She seemed, by the latter part of the month, to understand vaguely a
good deal that was said to her, when it was accompanied with a gesture.
If I said, “Kiss aunty,” and offered my cheek, she would press her lips
against it. She would look around to see if her mother shook her head
with “No, no!” when she crept up to pull at the books on a low shelf.
Her little list of accomplishments, waving and patting her hands, and
so on, she would go through at the mere word, without any gesture.
One important development in the latter part of the month was a
little imitative cry, something like mewing, associated with the
cats--important because of its bearing on the beginnings of language.
It has long been a dispute whether language began with imitation of
the sounds of nature, or with spontaneous ejaculations--“the bow-wow
theory and the pooh-pooh theory,” as they were scoffingly nicknamed
early in the course of the discussion. Our baby may seem to have given
the weight of her authority to the bow-wow theory, for this mewing cry
did in fact slowly develop months later into a name for “cat,” and
might be called the first remote foreshadowing of a spoken word. But on
the whole, with her and with other babies, the early stages of speech
confirm the best recent opinion--namely, that language is a complex
product, into which both imitation and ejaculation enter, with perhaps
still other elements.
About a week before the baby was nine months old, some one looked up
from dinner and saw her standing by a lounge, steadied only by one
hand pressed against it, while she waved the other in exultant joy. Her
father sprang and caught her as she toppled, then set her on her feet
within the circuit of his arms, but without support, for a few seconds.
Her legs shook, but she stood without fear, in high delight.
After this, her standing at chairs grew rapidly freer and bolder, and
the support she needed was daily less. At nine months old, she was
absorbed in the desire to stand. She would hold on with one hand and
lean down to pick up things with confidence and freedom. In the first
week of the tenth month, she even liked to pull herself up to her feet,
then deliberately let go, come down sitting with a thud, and look up
laughing and triumphant. She evidently thought the coming down quite as
fine an exploit as the getting up.
By this time she crept freely and rapidly, laughing with pleasure as
she did so. If she was laid on a blanket on the lawn, she no longer
tumbled about contentedly within its area, but struck off across the
grass, stopping to investigate carefully any plant or fallen leaf she
came across. The medley of positions and movements had disappeared, and
creeping and standing, as the fittest, had survived.
Within a week after she was nine months old, the baby began to get up
to her feet by low objects, and then, instead of stooping over them,
to abandon all support, straighten up, and stand alone for several
seconds, greatly pleased with herself. Next she could stand a minute at
a time, with such slight support as a fold of a gown in her hand, or
in a corner, steadied only by her shoulders against the wall. She no
longer plumped down to the floor, but lowered herself cleverly--once
(in the second week of the month) without any support at all, having
absent-mindedly let go of the chair. In a few days more, it was not
uncommon for her to forget to hold on, and to stand a few seconds alone
by a chair; and if she was at some one’s knee, where she felt more
confidence, she would let go on purpose, and try deliberately to stand
alone.
Now began a period of diligent self-training in standing. As I sat on
the grass and the baby played beside me, she would put her hands on
my knee, lift herself to her feet, and balance on them as long as she
could--seven seconds at the most, in the second week of the month, a
quarter of a minute in the third, if her attention was called away from
her own balance by some interesting sight. She would totter, stretch
out her arms to recover her balance, circle with them just as we do
(the movement must be highly instinctive), come down with a jolt and
a peal of baby laughter, scramble to my knees, and up again. People
are foolish to go to the matinée for amusement if they have a chance,
instead, to sit flat on a lawn on a summer day, and assist at a baby’s
standing lessons.
In these days there was evident again an intangible but great increase
in the little one’s mental alertness, her eager curiosity in following
our movements, her look of effort to understand, her growing clearness
in grouping associations and interpreting what she saw.
Her handling of things had long developed into elaborate investigation,
turning an object over and examining every side, poking her fingers
into crevices, opening and shutting lids, turning over the leaves of
books; and now she was no longer satisfied with investigating such
objects as she came across by chance--she began to have a passion
(which increased for weeks and months, and long made up a great part
of her life) to go and find what there was to see. She crept to the
window and stood at the low sill, to look out, beating the pane with
her soft little hands and laughing in an ecstasy of delight if the dog
wandered by. She crept into the hall and explored it, sitting down in
each corner to take a survey, and to look up the walls above her. Her
toys were neglected; she was impatient of being held in arms, and eager
only to get to the floor and use her new powers. She crept happily
about for hours from chair to chair, from person to person, getting to
her feet at each, and setting herself cleverly down again; smiling and
crowing at each success, and coming to us for applause and caresses.
She did not want to leave the floor for her meals, and was reconciled
to them only if she might stand at her mother’s side and take her milk
or porridge in small doses, interspersed with play. She ran away from
us on hands and knees, laughing, if she thought we were about to pick
her up.
Outdoors her happiness was even greater than in the month before,
and her cries of rapture as she looked up, down, and around, and
realized her own activity in the midst of all the waving and shining
and blooming things, were remarkable--uttered, as it were, from the
very deeps of her little soul, with that impassioned straining of the
central muscles by which a baby throws such abandon of longing or
ecstasy into his voice. We seem to have lost the vivid expressiveness
of primitive cries in getting the precision and convenience of
articulate words.
The sights and sounds of outdoors now contributed greatly to the little
girl’s joy there. She had for some weeks noticed sounds more than ever
before--the tapping of a woodpecker, for instance, or the stamping of
a horse in the stable--and now she was quick to look and listen at the
note of a bird. She watched the birds, too, for the first time, as they
flew from tree to tree; and the profuse California flowers were objects
of incessant desire and pleasure.
The power of communication was considerably increased in this month
by the acquisition of one exceedingly useful sign. The way in which
it was developed is an interesting example of the evolution of such
signs. First the baby began to use her forefinger tip for specially
close investigations; at the same time she had a habit of stretching
out her hand towards any object that interested her--by association,
no doubt, with touching and seizing movements. Combining these two
habits, she began to hold her forefinger separate from the others when
she thus threw out her hand towards an interesting object; then, in
the second week of the month, she directed this finger alone towards
what interested her; and by the third week, the gesture of pointing was
fairly in use. She pointed to the woodshed door, with her mewing cry,
when she wished to see the kittens; to the garden door, with pleading
sounds, when she wished to be taken thither; to the special bush from
which she wished a rose. She pointed in answer, instead of merely
looking, when we asked, “Where is grandpa?” “Where is Muzhik?”
These questions can hardly have been understood, as questions; but it
was more than ever clear that she got some idea from a good deal that
we said, and now by the words alone, without the help of gestures.
Doubtless she knew several simple words--words of coming and going, of
food, of the kittens and the dog and the horse.
All this time she had shown no great improvement in walking movements
when held from above, and she had no particular ambition to walk. But
in the last week of the month she began to edge along by the side of a
chair, holding to it--a great advance.
The first attempts at climbing, too, appeared before she was quite
ten months old. In the third week of the tenth month the baby had
let herself down by her hands quite cleverly from a large chair in
which she had been scrambling about--a feat that must have been quite
instinctive, since she did it well and easily at the first try. The
last day of the month, as she hovered at the foot of the stairs (a
region about which she had much unsatisfied curiosity), some one
helped her to put her knee on the lower step. Thereupon she laid hold
on the next one, and pulled herself up, and with the same help, mounted
two steps more. At this point her aunty’s stereotyped appeal, “Don’t
help her! let her alone, and let me see what she will do!” prevailed.
A candle was set on a higher step as a lure, and, sure enough, the
little thing, unaided, set her knee on the higher level, laid hold with
her hands, and drew herself up. It is significant that true climbing
movements should be so early and so easily caught at a single partial
lesson; and I shall have occasion to say more about it before the story
of the baby’s first year closes.
In the very last days of the tenth month came a wonderful spring
upward in the little one’s intelligence about her surroundings, and
in her power of communicating with us. It involved the real beginning
of spoken words--for the cat cry of the month before remained by
itself, leading to nothing more, and though it was the first sound that
expressed an idea, it was not from it, but from this later root, that
spoken language sprang and grew.
But the mental and language progress of these few days, just as
the baby came to ten months old, was the beginning of a stage of
development that belonged to the later months--a beginning too
important to be crowded in at the close of a chapter that is mainly
concerned with movement development. So I keep the account of it for
the story of the eleventh month.
XII
RUDIMENTS OF SPEECH; CLIMBING AND PROGRESS TOWARD WALKING
Talk before you go,
Your tongue will be your overthrow,
says the old saw. But perhaps our baby did not earn the ill omen,
it was such a faint foreshadowing of speech that she was guilty of.
Probably she would not have been detected in it at all, had not ten
months’ practice made us pretty good detectives. Indeed, but for
the notebook, by which I could compare from day to day the wavering
approach to some meaning in her use of this or that syllable, I should
not have dared to be sure there really was a meaning. It is in these
formless beginnings of a beginning that we get our best clues (as
in all evolutionary studies) to the real secrets of the origin of
language.
The little girl, as she came to ten months old, was a greater chatterer
than ever, pouring out strings of meaningless syllables in joy or
sorrow, with marvelous inflections and changes--such intelligent
remarks as “Nĕ-nĕ-oom-bo,” and “Ga-boo-ng,” and “A-did-did-doo,” and
certain favored syllables over and over, such as “Dă-dă-dă.”
In the last four days of the tenth month we began to suspect a faint
consistency in the use of several of the most common sounds. We began
to think that something like “Dă!” (varying loosely to “Gă!” or “Dng!”
or “Did-dă!” or “Doo-doo!” but always hovering round plain “Dă!”) was
suspiciously often ejaculated when the little one threw out her hand
in pointing, or exulted in getting to her feet; that “Nă-nă-nă!” was
separating itself out as a wail of unwillingness and protest, and
“Mă-mă-mă!” as a whimper of discontent, and loneliness, and desire of
attention; while--nearest of all to a true word--a favorite old murmur
of “M-gm” or “Ng-gng” recurred so often when something disappeared from
sight that we could not but wonder if we had not here an echo of our
frequent “All gone!”
All these sounds were used often enough at other times, and other
sounds were used in their special places; yet week by week the notebook
showed “Dă!” growing into the regular expression of discovering,
pointing out, admiring, exulting; “Nă-nă-nă!” into that of refusal and
protest; and “Mă-mă-mă,” which soon became “Mom-mom-mom,” into that
of a special sort of wanting, which slowly gathered itself about the
mother in particular. I do not think that these were echoes of our
words “There!” and “No!” and “Mamma;” it was only slowly, and after the
baby was a year old, that they came into unison with these words--and
in the case of “Mamma,” not without some teaching. It is more likely
that we have here a natural cry of pointing out, a natural negative, a
natural expression of baby need and dependence, which give us a hint of
the origin of our own words.
The fourth sound, however, which developed through many variations
(such as “M-gâ,” “Gâ,” or “Gng”) to a clear “Gông,” “A-gông,” and
even “Gone,” was plainly an echo. It was used as loosely as it was
pronounced: the baby murmured “Ng-gng!” pensively when some one left
the room; when she dropped something; when she looked for something she
could not find; when she had swallowed a mouthful of food; when she
heard a door close. She wounded her father’s feelings by commenting
“M-gâ!” as her little hands wandered about the unoccupied top of his
head. She remarked “Gông!” when she slipped back in trying to climb a
step; when she failed to loosen a cord she wished to play with; when
she saw a portière, such as she was used to hide behind; when she was
refused a bottle she had begged for. It meant disappearance, absence,
failure, denial, and any object associated with these.
In just this fashion, Preyer’s boy used his first word of human speech,
at about this age. “Atta!” the little fellow would murmur when some one
left the room, or when the light went out--using a favorite old babble
of his own, just as our baby did, to help him get hold of a grown-up
word, “Adieu” or “Ta-ta,” which carried the meaning he was after. The
idea of _disappearance_--of the thing now seen, now gone--seems to take
strong hold on babies very early; I have known several other cases.
In all this we seem to see quite clearly the first steps in language
making. The baby begins slowly to turn some of his commonest chattering
sounds to special uses--not to carry thought to other people, but as
mere exclamations to relieve his own mind. It was just twice within
her first year that our baby turned to me when some one left the room,
looked in my face, and said “Gông!” At all other times it was only
murmured to herself. And most of the exclamations express a mood rather
than a real idea; they are halfway between mere cries and words proper.
Even when there is plainly an idea, as in “All gone,” it is a big,
vague blur of an idea, slowly taking form in the little mind, as the
blurs of light and dark slowly outlined themselves into objects before
the little eyes months before.
At this point the modern baby catches the trick of helping himself to
our words ready made, and (though many glimpses of primitive speech
show through the whole process of learning to talk) he thus saves
himself in the main the long task of developing them, through which his
ancestors toiled.
In fact, the next word our baby took into use, a fortnight later, was
lifted bodily from our speech: a reproving “Kha!” by which we tried
to disgust her with the state of her fingers after they had been
plunged into apple sauce or like matters. She quite understood what it
referred to, though she did not share our objection to messy fingers,
and thereafter surveyed her own complacently in such plight, and
commented, “Kha!” And I may here run ahead so far as to say that this
was the full list of her spoken words within the first year, except
that in the next month she used an assenting “Ĕ!” which may have been
“Yes;” and in the last days of the year she began to exclaim first
“By!” then “My!” (corrupted from “By-by”) in saying farewell.
During this fortnight of swift language development the little one’s
progress in movements had been slight. But towards the middle of the
eleventh month she took a fresh start. One day she raised herself to
her feet without anything to hold to; stood on tiptoe to peer over the
seat of her high chair; forgot to hold to me, in her eagerness for a
fruit I was peeling, and stood alone for a minute and a half at least,
while I peeled it and fed it into her mouth; clambered into my lap
(as I sat beside her on the floor), setting one little foot up first,
laying hold of my shoulder, and tugging herself up with mighty efforts.
She chanced, too, on the art of shoving a chair before her for a step
or two; and the next day, in her eagerness to reach a glass of water
her father was bringing, she took one unconscious forward step, which
ended in prompt collapse on the lawn. But neither of these beginnings
was followed up by any real advance in learning to walk. During the
rest of the month she edged about more freely, and in the last week
pushed chairs before her a little again; and if we supported her and
urged her forward, she would walk clumsily, much as a puppy will if you
lead him by the fore paws; but she seemed to find the movement scarcely
more natural than the puppy does, and always wanted soon to drop down
to all-fours.
But climbing was a different matter. Here the baby seemed laid hold
of by strong desire and instinct. The day after she climbed into my
lap, she spent a long time zealously climbing up a doorstep and letting
herself down backward from it. The day after that, she tackled the
stairs and climbed two steps. Later in the day, I set her at the bottom
of the stairs and moved slowly up before her. The little thing followed
after (her mother’s arms close behind, of course; no one would be crazy
enough to start a baby upstairs without such precaution), tugging from
step to step, grunting with exertion now and then, and exclaiming with
satisfaction at each step conquered; slipping back once or twice, but
undiscouraged--fifteen steps to the landing, where she pulled to her
feet by the stair-post, hesitated, made a motion to creep down head
first, then crept, laughing, across the landing, and up five steps
more, and shouted with triumph to find herself on the upper floor. She
even looked with ambition at the garret stairs, and started towards
them; but an open door tempted her aside to explore a room, and she
forgot the stairs.
For the rest of the month the baby dropped to hands and knees and
scrabbled joyously for the stairs at every chance of open door; she
was not satisfied without going up several times daily; and having
people who believed in letting her do things, and insuring her safety
by vigilance while she did them, instead of by holding her back, she
soon became expert and secure in mounting. She made assaults, too, on
everything that towered up and looked in the least climbable--boxes,
chairs, and all sorts of things, quite beyond her present powers. She
seemed possessed by a sort of blind compulsion towards the upward
movement.
What are we to make of this strong climbing impulse, this untaught
skill in putting up the foot or knee and pulling the body up, while
walking is still unnatural? I sought out every record I could find, and
the indications are that our baby was not an exception; that as a rule
climbing does come before walking, if a baby is left free to develop
naturally. Of course in many cases walking is artificially hastened and
climbing prevented.
Can we help suspecting a period, somewhere in the remote ages, when
the baby’s ancestry dwelt amid the treetops, and learned to stand by
balancing on one branch while they held by a higher one? when they
edged along the branch, holding on above, but dropped to all-fours
and crept when they came to the ground now and then to get from tree
to tree? The whole history of the baby’s movements points to this:
the strong arms and clinging hands, from birth; the intense impulse
to _pull up_, even from the beginning of sitting; the way in which
standing always begins, by laying hold above and pulling up; the slow
and doubtful development of creeping, as if the ancestral creature had
been almost purely a tree-dweller, with no period of free running on
all-fours.