Once, in an examination of the value of the testimony of children, I
found it to be excellent in certain directions because not so much
influenced by passion and special interest as that of adults, and
because we may assume that children have classified too little rather
than too much; that they frequently do not understand an event but
perceive instinctively that it means disorder, and hence, become
interested in it. Later the child gets a broader horizon and understands
what he has not formerly understood, although, possibly, not altogether
with correctness.
I have further found that the boy just growing out of childhood, in so
far as he has been well brought up, is especially the best observer and
witness there is. He observes everything that occurs with interest,
synthesizes events without prejudice, and reproduces them accurately,
while the girl of the same age is often an unreliable, even dangerous
witness. This is almost always the case when the girl is in some degree
talented, impulsive, dreamy, romantic, and adventurous,--she expresses a
sort of weltschmerz connected with ennui. This comes early, and if a
girl of that age is herself drawn into the circle of the events in
question, we are never safe from extreme exaggeration. The merest
larceny becomes a small robbery; a bare insult, a remarkable attack; a
foolish quip, an interesting seduction; and a stupid, boyish
conversation, an important conspiracy. Such causes of mistakes are
well-known to all judges; at the same time they are again and again
permitted to recur.
The sole means of safety from them is the clearest comprehension
possible of the mental horizon of the child in question. We have very
little general knowledge about it, and hence, are much indebted to the
contemporary attempts of public-school teachers to supply the
information. We all know that we must make distinctions between city and
country children, and must not be surprised at the country child who has
not seen a gas-lamp, a railroad, or something similar. Stanley Hall
tried to discover from six year old children whether they really knew
the things, the names of which they used freely. It seemed, as a result,
that 14% of them had never seen a star; 45% had never been in the
country; 20% did not know that milk came from a cow; 50% that fire-wood
comes from trees; 13% to 15% the difference between green, blue and
yellow; and 4% had never made the acquaintance of a pig.
Karl Lange made experiments (reported in “Über Apperzeption,” Plauen,
1889) on 500 pupils in 33 schools in small towns. The experiment showed
that 82% had never seen sun-rise; 77% a sunset; 36% a corn field; 49% a
river; 82% a pond; 80% a lock; 37% had never been in the woods, 62%
never on the mountains, and 73% did not know how bread was made from
grain. Involuntarily the question arises, what must be the position of
the unfortunate children of large cities, and moreover, what may we
expect to hear from children who do not know things like that, and at
the same time speak of them easily? Adults are not free from this
difficulty either. We have never yet seen a living whale, or a sandstorm
in the Sahara, or an ancient Teuton, yet we speak of them confidently
and profoundly, and never secure ourselves against the fact that we have
never seen them. Now, as we of the ancient Teuton, so children of the
woods; neither have seen them, but one description has as much or as
little value as the other.
Concerning the integration of senses, Binet and Henri[283] have examined
7200 children, whom they had imitate the length of a model line, or pick
out from a collection of lines those of similar length. The latter
experiment was extraordinarily successful.
The senses of children are especially keen and properly developed. It is
anatomically true that very young children do not hear well; but that is
so at an age which can not be of interest to us. Their sense of smell
is, according to Heusinger, very dull, and develops at the time of
puberty, but later observers, in particular those who, like Hack,
Cloquet and others, have studied the sense of smell, say nothing about
this.
Concerning the accuracy of representation in children authorities are
contradictory. Montaigne says that all children lie and are obstinate.
Bourdin corroborates him. Maudsley says that children often have
illusions which seem to them indubitably real images, and Mittermaier
says that they are superficial and have youthful fancies. Experience in
practice does not confirm this judgment. The much experienced Herder
repeatedly prizes children as born physiognomists, and Soden values the
disinterestedness of children very highly. According to Löbisch,
children tell untruths without lying. They say only what they have in
mind, but they do not know and care very little whether their mental
content is objective and exists outside of them, or whether only half
real and the rest fanciful. This is confirmed by legal experience which
shows us, also, that the subjective half of a child’s story may be
easily identified. It is characteristically different from the real
event and a confusion of the two is impossible.
We must also not forget that there are lacunae in the child’s
comprehension of what it perceives. When it observes an event, it may,
e.g., completely understand the first part, find the second part
altogether new and unintelligible, the third part again comprehensible,
etc. If the child is only half-interested, it will try to fill out these
lacunae by reflection and synthesis, and may conceivably make serious
blunders. The blunders and inaccuracies increase the further back the
event goes into the child’s youth. The real capacity for memory goes far
back. Preyer[284] tells of cases in which children told of events that
they had experienced at thirty-two, twenty-four, and even eighteen
months, and told them correctly. Of course, adults do not recall
experiences of such an early age, for they have long since forgotten
them. But very small children can recall such experiences, though in
most cases their recollection is worthless, their circle of ideas being
so small that the commonest experiences are excluded from adequate
description. But they are worth while considering when a mere fact is in
question, or is to be doubted (Were you beaten? Was anybody there? Where
did the man stand?).
Children’s determinations of time are unreliable. Yesterday and to-day
are easily confused by small children, and a considerably advanced
intelligence is necessary to distinguish between yesterday and a week
ago, or even a week and a month. That we need, in such cases, correct
individualization of the witness is self-evident. The conditions of the
child’s bringing-up, the things he learned to know, are what we must
first of all learn. If the question in hand can fit into the notion the
child possesses, he will answer better and more if quite unendowed, than
if a very clever child who is foreign to the notions of the defined
situation. I should take intelligence only to be of next importance in
such cases, and advise giving up separating clever from stupid children
in favor of separating practical and unpractical children. The latter
makes an essential difference. Both the children of talent and stupid
children may be practical or unpractical. If a child is talented and
practical he will become a useful member of society who will be at home
everywhere and will be able to help himself under any circumstances. If
a child is talented and unpractical, it may grow up into a professor, as
is customarily expected of it. If a child is untalented and practical,
it will properly fill a definite place, and if it has luck and “pull”
may even attain high station in life. If it is untalented and
unpractical it becomes one of those poor creatures who never get
anywhere. For the rôle of witness the child’s practicality is the
important thing. The practical child will see, observe, properly
understand, and reproduce a group of things that the unpractical child
has not even observed. Of course, it is well, also, to have the child
talented, but I repeat: the least clever practical child is worth more
as witness than the most clever unpractical child.
What the term “practical” stands for is difficult to say, but everybody
knows it, and everybody has seen, who has cared about children at all,
that there are practical children.