THE CHILD—ITS MEMORY
[Sidenote: A Baby’s Earliest Impressions.]
[Sidenote: Bishop Berkeley on Blind Boys.]
It is just this—the memory of a child—that makes it so important to
begin the process of training at once. The waxen tablets of a baby’s
mind are very soft. It is impossible to say how soon impressions
are made upon them, or how deep those impressions may be. It is
not impossible that with the very beginning of separate existence
some vague markings are made upon these unsullied tablets. It is
exceedingly interesting to try to imagine what the very earliest
impressions are like. Are they first produced by the sense of sight
or the sense of touch? It has been conclusively proved that the
senses aid one another to a large extent in the early stages of their
use. Bishop Berkeley in an appendix to one of his treatises gives
the reports of two cases of boys born blind with what is called
congenital cataract. Both cases were cured, one at the age of nine,
the other at thirteen or fourteen. Neither of these boys when first
able to see had the least idea what he was looking at. They both
thought that all objects touched their eyes, and neither had any
conception of the shape or distance of an object. They were perfectly
familiar with differences in shape and material by the process of
touch, but when they first obtained sight the appearance of things
meant nothing to them until they had handled them.
But in these cases the sense of touch had existed for years and been
greatly cultivated. It was, therefore, natural that the familiar
sense should come to the aid of the unfamiliar.
[Sidenote: Memory Markings.]
In newborn babies the circumstances are altogether different. All
senses alike are novel, and it would be of great interest, if such a
thing were possible, to determine whether the earlier memory markings
are caused by the vision of light, the sound of voices, or the touch
of the hands that first come in contact with the infant form.
[Sidenote: Precocious Infants.]
But it seems altogether out of our power to determine this question
with any sort of certainty. None of us is able to remember the
impressions of early infancy, and insufficient observation of the
results of ocular, aural, or other contact with external things on
the part of babies has resulted in an absence of data upon which to
argue. Mothers, nurses, and maiden aunts are often ridiculed for
declaring that “baby” has shown some astoundingly precocious power
of observation or recognition, and no doubt these manifestations are
in a large number of cases accounted for by a desire on the part of
the narrator to be able to claim a special share of the infantile
affection, or a special power of imparting infantile accomplishments.
[Sidenote: Case of Very Early Memory.]
At the same time there is every probability that infants observe and
think more accurately than would be generally allowed by their casual
male acquaintances. The present writer can vouch for at least one
case where a permanent impression was made upon the mind of a very
young child, and memory markings were indented which certainly lasted
for several years. The facts are these: A man who shall be called
A. B. was invalided and ordered to spend a winter at the seaside.
While there a young married couple with their first baby shared his
lodgings. The child, a boy, was just six months old, and for some
eighteen weeks he was the frequent companion of A. B., especially
when the weather prevented either from going out. During many an
hour the baby boy lay on the cushions of a low basket chair kicking
and crowing with delight while his man friend talked or sang to him,
and so a firm friendship grew up between the two, though its verbal
expression was entirely confined to the elder of them.
When the baby was ten months old the inevitable parting came, and for
about two years they saw nothing of one another. At last, however, it
became possible for the child’s mother to bring him to a house where
his old friend was staying. During the journey she said to the little
chap, “Do you know who you are going to see? You are going to see A.
B.” Without a moment’s hesitation the boy said, “A. B. with beard?”
showing that he remembered what was no doubt to him the most striking
item in his friend’s appearance, though at the time that the memory
mark was made on his mind he was too young to pronounce the word
describing the thing that made the impression. But further evidence
of the child’s memory was forthcoming, for as soon as he was set down
on arrival at the front door of the house he ran straight to A. B.
with every mark of affectionate joy at seeing him again.
Here is an instance of infant memory that is absolutely true, and, as
the boy was in no way precocious or unnatural, it is fair to assume
that there must be plenty of cases where the impressions made upon
an infant’s mind during the period when its age is marked by months
and not by years are of a far more permanent nature than is generally
assumed.
[Sidenote: Memory at a Later Age.]
But for most illustrations of children’s memory we are compelled to
begin at a later age. Few people remember much that happened before
they were three years old, but from about that time it is common to
find a remarkably clear recollection of certain scattered events or
experiences.
It is a usual thing to hear it said by those who have passed middle
age, that their remembrance of their childhood grows clearer as time
goes on. This is accounted for by the fact that _fewer_ impressions
were made upon their minds during their earliest years, whereas in
later life the memory tablets get crowded with all sorts and kinds of
markings which become confused and partially unintelligible in a very
short time.
[Sidenote: Emotions of Surprise, Pleasure, or Pain.]
Besides being fewer in number it is also probable that in early
childhood the memory markings that endure are those of such
experiences as caused strong emotions of surprise, pleasure, or pain.
One of the very earliest recollections of the writer is of attending
a wedding when he was three years old. But none of the usual
incidents impressed him at all. The dresses of the bridesmaids, the
appearance of the bride, the bouquets, bells and other accompaniments
of a wedding have been completely forgotten. No remembrance of any
single person or circumstance remains excepting two things which
struck him with astonishment. First of all, he, in common with others
attending the service, was taken across a wide river in a boat, and,
secondly, he was put to stand close against the back of a harmonium,
the noise of which at such close quarters was to him extraordinary
and rather disagreeable.
[Sidenote: Joys Better Remembered than Griefs.]
The complete obliteration of everything connected with this visit—for
the ceremony took place a day’s journey from his home—seems to point
clearly to the fact that the unusual is not by itself enough to
permanently impress a child’s mind, but it must be coupled with
sensations of peculiar surprise, or special pleasure or pain. With
regard to the two latter it is a beneficent provision that the joys
of early life are remembered long after its sadnesses have been
forgotten.
[Sidenote: Summer Days at a Country Rectory.]
A man looks back on the summers he spent as a child in a country
rectory. It appears to him that the days were ever sunny: he recalls
the sharp hiss of the whetstone on the scythe, which told him as
he lay in his little bed that the parson’s man was mowing the
lawn before the dew was off the grass; he can remember the wild
strawberries in the less conventional part of the garden; he can
in fancy take his way to the cowhouse, mug in hand, to get a drink
of new and frothy milk; he can climb about the lower branches of a
favourite tree; he can rake and water his little square of garden;
he can come home atop of the last load of hay from the glebe fields;
but it is always in the dancing sunlight that he moves; it would seem
to him that there could never have been any single day in all his
childhood when rain came down and skies were grey and cold.
[Sidenote: The Old Nursery.]
And so, too, of the life indoors. He remembers much of this in
comparison with the later years. He remembers exactly where each
piece of furniture stood in the old nursery. He can tell you with
what colour the ottoman was covered in which his brothers’ and
sisters’ outdoor things were kept, and he vividly remembers standing
upon it to look out of the window and watch the gardener at work. He
can recall exactly how much of the spout was broken belonging to the
old grey teapot in which was brewed the senna tea, but he cannot tell
you what the stuff tasted of—though he is sure that it was nasty.
The nursery, the stairs, and the passages are in his memory so many
playgrounds; he forgets the many childish tears that he shed, and the
childish tragedies that befell him, while the games and the laughter
and the pleasantness of his early surroundings are easily recalled.
But if he examines carefully into his early impressions he will find
that the events which older persons might be expected to remember are
forgotten, while the little matters that brought to his babyhood’s
experience sensations of pain or pleasure—but especially the
latter—are clear. That is to say, the memory markings made in early
childhood do not include the greater number of things which came in
contact with the various senses of the child, but are really few in
number and connected invariably with special sensations.
It is a vast mistake to measure the importance of a child’s
interests by those of a grown-up person. It is easy for the latter to
forget every detail of a house in which he has passed some months or
even years of middle age, but he will remember a shallow step leading
down from one of his nurseries to the other.
How small a thing! Yes, but it was productive of great sensations.
It was the first step he had ever known—by it was revealed to him
the entirely new idea that one room could be on a different level
from another. Then he found that it was a splendid place to sit
upon—just the right height for him—and a still better place upon
which to set up bricks and toys in order to knock them down and hear
the crash of their fall. But, best of all, it was the place where
his first deed of daring was performed. There came a day when he
ventured to jump down! It was the first time that he had really cared
for spectators: it was the first time that he had looked round for
applause. For all these reasons—all connected with new sensations of
pleasure—that little shallow wooden step made a deeper memory mark
upon his mind than many subsequent places or events that have perhaps
helped to turn the current of his life. But, after all is said, it is
impossible not to feel that the unknown is so largely in excess of
the known, in this as in many other subjects, that the only thing to
be done is to try to induce those who have to do with little children
to remember that much is possible and even probable—to act, that is,
as if the youngest child may possibly remember for its good or ill
any smallest fact or object with which its senses are brought into
contact.