The extent to which, in America, as well as in Europe, to-day, young children are entrusted with the care of infants of their family, has attracted not a little attention, and the "beyond their years" look of some of these little nurses and care-takers is often quite noticeable. The advent of the baby-carriage has rather facilitated than hindered this old-time employment of the child in the last century or so. In a recent number (vol. xvii. p. 792) of Public Opinion we find the statement that from June 17, 1890, to September 15, 1894, the "Little Mothers' Aid Association," of New York, has been the means of giving a holiday, one day at least of pleasure in the year, to more than eight thousand little girls, who are "little mothers, in the sense of having the care of younger children while the parents are at work." In thrifty New England, children perform not a little of the housework, even the cooking; and "little mothers" and "little housekeepers" were sometimes left to themselves for days, while their elders in days gone by visited or went to the nearest town or village for supplies.

Child-Marriages.

"Marriages are made in heaven," says the old proverb, and among some primitive peoples we meet with numerous instances of their having been agreed upon and arranged by prospective parents long before the birth of their offspring. Indeed, the betrothal of unborn children by their parents occurs sporadically to-day in civilized lands. Ploss has called attention to child-marriages in their sociological and physiological bearings (125.1. 386-402), and Post has considered the subject in his historical study of family law. In these authorities the details of the subject may be read. In Old Calabar, men who already possess several wives take to their bosom and kiss, as their new wife, babes two or three weeks old. In China, Gujurat, Ceylon, and parts of Brazil, wives of from four to six years of age are occasionally met with. In many parts of the world wives of seven to nine years of age are common, and wives of from ten to twelve very common. In China it is sometimes the case that parents buy for their infant son an infant wife, nursed at the same breast with him (234. xlii.). Wiedemann, in an article on child-marriages in Egypt (381), mentions the fact that a certain king of the twenty-first dynasty (about 1100 B.C.) seems to have had as one of his wives a child only a few days old. From Dio Cassius we learn that in Rome, at the beginning of the Empire, marriages of children under ten years occasionally took place.

In some parts of the world the child-wife does not belong to her child-husband. "Among the Reddies, of India," Letourneau informs us, "a girl from sixteen to twenty years of age is married to a boy of five or six. The wife then becomes the real wife of the boy's uncle, or cousin, or of the father of the reputed husband. But the latter is considered to be the legal father of the children of his pretended wife." So it is only when the boy has grown up that he receives his wife, and he, in turn, acts as his relative before him (100. 354). Temple cites the following curious custom in his tales of the Panjab (542. I. xviii.):— "When Raja Vasali has won a bride from Raja Sirkap, he is given a new-born infant and a mango-tree, which is to flower in twelve years, and when it flowers, the girl is to be his wife." The age prescribed by ancient Hindu custom (for the Brahman, Tshetria, and Vysia classes) is six to eight years for the girl, and the belief prevailed that if a girl were to attain her puberty before being married, her parents and brothers go to hell, as it was their duty to have got her married before that period (317. 56). Father Sangermano, writing of Burma a hundred years ago, notices the "habit of the Burmese to engage their daughters while young, in real or fictitious marriages, in order to save them from the hands of the king's ministers, custom having established a rule, which is rarely if ever violated, that no married woman can be seized, even for the king himself" (234. xlii.). The child-marriages of India have been a fruitful theme for discussion, as well as the enforced widowhood consequent upon the death of the husband. Among the most interesting literature on the subject are the "Papers relating to Infant Marriage and Enforced Widowhood in India" (317), Schlagintweit (142), etc. The evils connected with the child-marriages of India are forcibly brought out by Mrs. Steel in several of the short stories in her From the Five Rivers (1893), and by Richard Garbe in his beautiful little novel The Redemption of the Brahman(1894).

But India and other Eastern lands are not the only countries where "child-marriages" have flourished. Dr. F. J. Furnivall (234), the distinguished English antiquary and philologist, poring over at Chester the "Depositions in Trials in the Bishop's Court from November, 1561 to March, 1565-6," was astonished to find on the ninth page the record: "that Elizabeth Hulse said she was married to George Hulse in the Chapel of Knutsford, when she was but three or four years old, while the boy himself deposed that he was about seven," and still more surprised when he discovered that the volume contained "no fewer than twenty-seven cases of the actual marriage in church of the little boys and girls of middle-class folk." The result of Dr. Furnivall's researches is contained in the one-hundred-and-eighth volume (original series) of the Early English Text Society's Publications, dealing with child-marriages, divorces, ratifications, etc., and containing a wealth of quaint and curious sociological lore. Perhaps the youngest couple described are John Somerford, aged about three years, and Jane Brerton, aged about two years, who were married in the parish church of Brerton about 1553. Both were carried in arms to the church, and had the words of the marriage service said for them by those who carried them. It appears that they lived together at Brerton for ten years, but without sustaining any further marital relations, and when the husband was about fifteen years, we find him suing for a divorce on account of his wife's "unkindness, and other weighty causes." Neither party seemed affectionately disposed towards the other (234.26). Other very interesting marriages are those of Bridget Dutton (aged under five years) and George Spurstowe (aged six) (234. 38); Margaret Stanley (aged five) and Roland Dutton (aged nine), brother of Bridget Dutton (234. 41); Janet Parker (aged five) and Lawrence Parker (aged nine to ten). The rest of the twenty-seven couples were considerably older, the most of the girls ranging between eight and twelve, the boys between ten and fourteen (234. 28). It would Seem that for the most part these young married couples were not allowed to live together, but at times some of the nuptial rites were travestied or attempted to be complied with. In two only of the twenty-seven cases is there mention of "bedding" the newly-married children. John Budge, who at the age of eleven to twelve years, was married to Elizabeth Ramsbotham, aged thirteen to fourteen years, is said to have wept to go home with his father and only by "compulsion of the priest of the Chapel" was he persuaded to lie with his wife, but never had any marital relations with her whatever, and subsequently a petition for divorce was filed by the husband (234. 6). In the case of Ellen Dampart, who at the age of about eight years, was married to John Andrew aged ten, it appears that they slept in the same bed with two of the child-wife's sisters between them. No marital relations were entered upon, and the wife afterwards sues for a divorce (234. 15, 16).

The practice seems to have been for each of the children married to go to live with some relative, and if the marriage were not ratified by them after reaching years of consent, to petition for a divorce. In some nine cases the boy is younger than the girl, and Humfrey Winstanley was under twelve when he was married to Alice Worsley aged over seventeen; in this case no marital relations were entered upon, though the wife was quite willing; and the husband afterwards petitions for a divorce (234.2-4). Thomas Dampart, who at the age of ten years, was married to Elizabeth Page, appears to have lived with his wife about eight years and to have kept up marital relations with her until she left him of her own motion. Dr. Furnivall (234. 49-52) cites four cases of ratification of child-marriages by the parties after they have attained years of discretion, in one of which the boy and the girl were each but ten years old when married. The most naive account in the whole book is that of the divorce-petition of James Ballard, who, when about eleven years of age, was married in the parish church of Colne at ten o'clock at night by Sir Roger Blakey, the curate, to a girl named Anne; the morning after the ceremony he is said "to have declared unto his uncle that the said Anne had enticed him with two Apples, to go with her to Colne, and marry her." No marital relations were entered upon, and the curate was punished for his hasty and injudicious action (234. 45).

Dr. Furnivall (234. xxxv.) quotes at some length the legal opinion—the law on infant marriages—of Judge Swinburne (died, 1624), from which we learn that "infants" (i.e. children under seven years of age) could not contract spousals or matrimony, and such contracts made by the infants or by their parents were void, unless subsequently ratified by the contracting parties by word or deed,—at twelve the girls ceased to be children, and at fourteen the boys, and were then fully marriageable, as they are to-day in many parts of the world. Of childhood, Judge Swinburne says, "During this age, children cannot contract Matrimony de praesenti., but only de futuro"; but their spousals could readily be turned into actual marriages after the girls were twelve and the boys fourteen, as Dr. Furnivall points out.

The fifth limitation to his general statement, which the learned judge made, is thus strangely and quaintly expressed: "The fifth Limitation is, when the Infants which do contract Spousals are of that Wit and Discretion, that albeit they have not as yet accomplished the full Age of Seven Years, yet doth their supra-ordinary understanding fully supply that small defect of Age which thing is not rare in these days, wherein Children become sooner ripe, and do conceive more quickly than in former Ages" (234. xxxvi.).

First among the causes of these child-marriages Dr. Furnivall is inclined to rank "the desire to evade the feudal law of the Sovereign's guardianship of all infants," for "when a father died, the Crown had the right to hold the person and estate of the propertied orphan until it came of age, and it could be sold in marriage for the benefit of the Crown or its grantee." Moreover, "if the orphan refused such a marriage with a person of its own rank, it had to pay its guardian a heavy fine for refusing his choice, and selecting a spouse of its own" (234. xxxix.). Property-arrangement also figures as a cause of these alliances, especially where the bride is older than the groom: Elizabeth Hulse (aged four) was married to George Hulse (aged seven) "because her friends thought she should have a living by him" (234. 4). When Elizabeth Ramsbotham (aged 13-14) married John Bridge (aged 11-12), "money was paid by the father of the said Elizaboth, to buy a piece of land" (234. 6); according to the father of Joan Leyland (aged 11-12), who married Ralph Whittall (aged 11-12), "they were married because she should have had by him a pretty bargain, if they could have loved, one the other" (234.12); Thomas Bentham (aged twelve) and Ellen Boltoii (aged ten) were married because Richard Bentham, grandfather of Ellen, "was a very wealthy man, and it was supposed that he would have been good unto them, and bestowed some good farm upon them" (234. 32); the marriage of Thomas Fletcher (aged 10-11) and Anne Whitfield (aged about nine) took place because "John Fletcher, father of the said Thomas, was in debt; and, to get some money of William Whitfield, to the discharge of his debts, married and bargained his sonne to the said Whitfield's daughter." The "compulsion of their friends" seems also to have been a cause of the marriages of children; Peter Hope (about thirteen) married Alice Ellis (aged nine), "because it was his mother's mind, he durst not displease her" (234. 20, 23).

So far the evidence has related to unsatisfactory and unfortunate marriages, but, as Dr. Furnivall remarks, "no doubt scores of others ended happily; the child-husband and—wife just lived on together, and—when they had reached their years of discretion (girls twelve, boys fourteen) or attained puberty—ratified their marriage by sleeping in one bed and having children" (234. xix., 203).

Some additional cases of child-marriages in the diocese of Chester are noticed by Mr. J. P. Earwaker (234. xiv.), a pioneer in this branch of antiquarian research, whose studies date back to 1885. The case of John Marden, who, at the age of three years, was married to a girl of five is thus described: "He was carried in the arms of a clergyman, who coaxed him to repeat the words of matrimony. Before he had got through his lesson, the child declared he would learn no more that day. The priest answered: 'You must speak a little more, and then go play you.'" Robert Parr, who, in 1538-9, at the age of three, was married to Elizabeth Rogerson, "was hired for an apple by his uncle to go to church, and was borne thither in the arms of Edward Bunburie his uncle ... which held him in arms the time that he was married to the said Elizabeth, at which time the said Robert could scarce speak." Mr. Earwaker says that in the Inquisitiones post mortem, "it is by no means unfrequent to read that so and so was heir to his father, and then aged, say, ten years, and was already married" (234. xxi.-xxxiii.).

A celebrated child-marriage was that at Eynsham, Oxfordshire, in 1541, the contracting parties being William, Lord Eure, aged 10-11 years, and Mary Darcye, daughter of Lord Darcye, aged four. The parties were divorced November 3, 1544, and in 1548, the boy took to himself another wife. Dr. Furnivall cites from John Smith's Lives of the Berkeleys, the statements that Maurice, third Lord Berkeley, was married in 1289, when eight years old, to Eve, daughter of Lord Zouch, and, before he or his wife was fourteen years of age, had a son by her; that Maurice, the fourth Lord Berkeley, when eight years of age, was married in 1338-9, to Elizabeth, daughter of Hugh Lord Spenser, about eight years old; that Thomas, the fourth Lord Berkeley, when about fourteen and one-half years of age, was married, in 1366, to Margaret, daughter of Lord de Lisle, aged about seven. Smith, in quaint fashion, refers to King Josiah (2 Kings, xxiii., xxvi.), King Ahaz (2 Kings, xvi. 2, xviii. 2), and King Solomon (1 Kings, xi. 42, xiv. 21) as having been fathers at a very early age, and remarks: "And the Fathers of the Church do tell us that the blessed Virgin Mary brought forth our Saviour at fifteen years old, or under" (234. xxvii).

Even during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries child-marriages are numerously attested. Following are noteworthy cases (234. xxiii.): In 1626 Anne Clopton, aged nearly fourteen, was married to Sir Simonds D'Ewes, aged nearly twenty-four; in 1673, John Power, grandson of Lord Anglesey, was married at Lambeth, by the Archbishop of Canterbury to Mrs. Catherine Fitzgerald, his cousin-german, she being about thirteen, and he eight years old; at Dunton Basset, Leicestershire, in 1669, Mary Hewitt (who is stated to have lived to the good old age of seventy- seven) was married when but three years old; in 1672, the only daughter (aged five) of Lord Arlington was married to the Duke of Grafton, and the ceremony was witnessed by John Evelyn, who, in 1679, "was present at the re-marriage of the child couple"; in 1719, Lady Sarah Cadogan, aged thirteen, was married to Charles, Duke of Eichmond, aged eighteen; in 1721, Charles Powel, of Carmarthen, aged about eleven, was married to a daughter of Sir Thomas Powel, of Broadway, aged about fourteen; in 1729, "a girl of nine years and three months was taken from a boarding school by one of her guardians, and married to his son"; Bridget Clarke, in 1883, is reputed to have been twenty-five years old, to have had seven children, and to have been married when only thirteen; at Deeping, Lincolnshire, a young man of twenty-one married a girl of fourteen, and "it was somewhat of a novelty to observe the interesting bride the following day exhibiting her skill on the skipping-rope on the pavement in the street." Mr. Longstaff, who has studied the annual reports of the registrar-general for 1851-81, finds that during these thirtyone years, "out of 11,058,376 persons married, 154 boys married before 17, and 862 girls before 16. Of these, 11 boys of 15 married girls of 15 (four cases), 16, 18 (two cases), 20, and 21. Three girls of 14 married men of 18, 21, and 25. Five girls of 15 married boys of 16; in 29 marriages both girl and boy were sixteen" (234. xxxiii).

Further comments upon infant marriages may be found in an article in the Gentleman's Magazine, for September, 1894, the writer of which remarks: "Within recent years, however, the discovery has been made, that, so far from being confined, as had been supposed, to royal or aristocratic houses, infant marriages were, in the sixteenth century, common in some parts of England among all classes" (367. 322).

It was said "marriages are made in heaven," and that some times children are married before they are born; it might also be said "marriages are made for heaven," since some children are married after they are dead. In some parts of China (and Marco Polo reported the same practice as prevalent in his time among the Tartars) "the spirits of all males who die in infancy or in boyhood are, in due time, married to the spirits of females who have been cut off at a like early age" (166. 140).

As Westermarck observes, "Dr. Ploss has justly pointed out that the ruder a people is, and the more exclusively a woman is valued as an object of desire, or as a slave, the earlier in life is she chosen; whereas, if marriage becomes a union of souls as well as of bodies, the man claims a higher degree of mental maturity from the woman he wishes to be his wife."

In so civilized a nation even as the United States, the "age of consent" laws evidence the tenacity of barbarism. The black list of states, compiled by Mr. Powell (180. 201), in a recent article in the Arena, reveals the astonishing fact that in three states—Alabama, North Carolina, South Carolina-the "age of consent" is ten years; in four states, twelve years; in three states, thirteen years; in no fewer than twenty states, fourteen years; in two states, fifteen years; in twelve states, sixteen years; and in one state (Florida), seventeen years. In Kansas and Wyoming alone is the "age of consent" eighteen years, and it is worthy of note that Wyoming is the only state in the Union in which women have for any considerable length of time enjoyed the right to vote on exactly the same terms as men. In England, the agitation set going by Mr. Stead, in 1885, resulted in, the passage of a law raising the "age of consent" from thirteen to sixteen years. It is almost beyond belief, that, in the State of Delaware, only a few years ago, the "age of consent" was actually as low as seven years (180.194)! Even in Puritan New England, we find the "age of consent" fixed at thirteen in New Hampshire, and at fourteen in Connecticut, Vermont, and Maine (180. 195). It is a sad comment upon our boasted culture and progress that, as of old, the law protects, and even religion fears to disturb too rudely, this awful sacrifice to lust which we have inherited from our savage ancestors. There is no darker chapter in the history of our country than that which tells of the weak pandering to the modern representatives of the priests of Bacchus, Astarte, and the shameless Venus. The religious aspect of the horrible immolation may have passed away, but wealth and social attractions have taken its place, and the evil works out its destroying way as ever. To save the children from this worse than death, women must fight, and they will win; for once the barbarity, the enormity, the inhumanity of this child-sacrifice is brought home to men they cannot for their own children's sake permit the thing to go on. Here, above all places else, apply the words of Jesus: "Whoso shall cause one of these little ones which believe on me to stumble, it is profitable that a great millstone should be hanged about his neck, and he should be sunk in the depths of the sea." The marriage-laws of some of the states savour almost as much of prehistoric times and primitive peoples. With the consent of her parents, a girl of twelve years may lawfully contract marriage in no fewer than twenty-two states and territories; and in no fewer than twenty, a boy of fourteen may do likewise. Among the twenty-two states and territories are included: Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont; and among the twenty, Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont. In some of the Southern States the age seems to be somewhat higher than in a number of the Northern. The existence of slavery may have tended to bring about this result; while the same fact in the West is to be accounted for by the vigour and newness of the civilization in that part of the country.

Children's Rights.

Where, as in ancient Rome, for example, the patria potestas flourished in primitive vigour,—Mommsen says, "all in the household were destitute of legal rights,—the wife and the child no less than the bullock or the slave" (166. 229), children could in nowise act as members of society. Westermarck (166. 213-239) shows to what extent and to what age the mundiwm, or guardianship of the father over his children, was exercised in Rome, Greece, among the Teutonic tribes, in France. In the latter country even now "a child cannot quit the paternal residence without the permission of the father before the age of twenty-one, except for enrolment in the army. For grave misconduct by his children the father has strong means of correction. A son under twenty-five and a daughter under-twenty-one cannot marry without the consent of their parents; and even when a man has attained his twenty-fifth year, and the woman her twenty-first, both are still bound to ask for it, by a formal notification." Westermarck's observations on the general subject are as follows:—"There is thus a certain resemblance between the family institution of savage tribes and that of the most advanced races. Among both, the grown-up son, and frequently the grown-up daughter, enjoys a liberty unknown among peoples at an intermediate stage of civilization. There are, however, these vital differences: that children in civilized countries are in no respect the property of their parents; that they are born with certain rights guaranteed to them by society; that the birth of children gives parents no rights over them other than those which conduce to the children's happiness. These ideas, essential as they are to true civilization, are not many centuries old. It is a purely modern conception the French Encyclopaedist expresses when he says, 'Le pouvoir paternel est plutot un devoir qu'un pouvoir'" (166. 239).

The Child at School.

It was in this spirit also that Count Czaky (when Minister of Education in Hungary), replying to the sarcastic suggestion of one of the Deputies, during the debate on the revision of the curriculum of classical studies, that "the lazy children should be asked whether they liked to study Greek or not," said that "when it became necessary, he would willingly listen to the children themselves." That children have some rights in the matter is a view that is slowly but surely fixing itself in the minds of the people,—that the school should be something more than an intellectual prison-house, a mental and moral tread-mill, a place to put children in out of the way of the family, a dark cave into which happy, freedom-loving, joyous childhood must perforce retire from that communion with nature which makes the health of its body and the salvation of its soul. This false theory of education is vanishing, however tardily, before the teachings of the new psychology and the new anthropology, which demand a knowledge of what the child is, feels, thinks, before they will be party to any attempt to make him be, feel, think, something different. The school is but a modified form of society, of its fundamental institution, the family. Dr. Eiccardi, in the introduction to his Antropologia e Pedagogia,-in which he discusses a mass of psychological, sociological, and anthropological observations and statistics,—well says (336. 12):—

"The school is a little society, whose citizens are the scholars. The teacher has not merely to instruct the pupil, but ought also to teach him to live in the little school-society and thus fitly prepare him to live in the great society of humanity. And just as men are classified in human society, so ought to be classified the scholars in the little school-society; and just as the teacher looks upon the great human world in movement upon the earth, so ought he also to look upon that little world called the school, observing its elements with a positive eye, without preconceptions and without prejudices. The teacher, therefore, in regard to the school-organism, is as a legislator in regard to society. And the true and wise legislator does not give laws to the governed, does not offer security and liberty to the citizens, until after he has made a profound study of his country and of society. Let the teacher try for some time to take these criteria into his school; let him try to apply in the school many of those facts and usages which are commonly employed in human society, and he will see how, little by little, almost unnoticeably, the primitive idea of the school will be modified in his mind, and he will see how the school itself will assume the true character which it ought to have, that is, the character of a microscopic social organism. This legislator for our children, by making the children and youths clearly see of themselves that the school is nothing else but a little society, where they are taught to live, and by making them see the points of resemblance and of contact with the great human society, will engender in the minds of the pupils the conscience of duty and of right; will create in them the primitive feeling of justice and of equity. And the pupils, feeling that there is a real association, feeling that they do form part of a little world, and are not something merely gathered together by chance for a few hours, will form a compact homogeneous scholastic association, in which all will try to be something, and of which all will be proud. In this way will the assemblage of disparate, diverse, heterogeneous elements, with which the school begins the year, be able to become homogeneous and create a true school organism. And if the teacher will persevere, whether in the direction of the school, in the classification of the pupils, or in the different contingencies that arise, in applying those criteria, those ideas, those forms, which are commonly employed in society, he will be favouring the homogeneity of the little organism which he has to instruct and to educate. He will thus have always before his mind all the organic, psychic, and moral characteristics of human society and will see the differences from, and the resemblances to, those of the school-organism. In so far will he have an example, a law, a criterion, a form to follow in the direction of the little human society entrusted to him, with its beautiful and its ugly side, its good and its bad, its vices and its virtues. This idea of the school as an organism, however much it seems destined to overturn ideas of the past, will be the crucible from which will be turned out in the near future all the reforms and many new ideas."

This view of the school as an organism, a social microcosm, a little society within the great human society, having its resemblances to, and its differences from, the family and the nation, is one that the new development of "child-study" seems bound to promote and advance. Rank paternalism has made its exit from the great human society, but it has yet a strong hold upon the school. It is only in comparatively recent times that motherhood, which, as Zmigrodzki says, has been the basis of our civilization, has been allowed to exercise its best influence upon the scholastic microcosm. Paternalism and celibacy must be made to yield up the strong grasp which they have upon the educational institutions of the land, and the early years of the life of man must be confided to the care of the mother-spirit, which the individual man and the race alike have deified in their golden age. The mother who laid so well the foundations of the great human society, the originator of its earliest arts, the warder of its faiths and its beliefs, the mother, who built up the family, must be trusted with some large share in the building of the school.

Child-Sociology.

In The Story of a Sand-Pile (255), President G. Stanley Hall has chronicled for us the life-course of a primitive social community-nine summers of work and play by a number of boys with a sand-pile in the yard of one of their parents. Here we are introduced to the originality and imitation of children in agriculture, architecture, industrial arts, trade and commerce, money and exchange, government, law and justice, charity, etc. The results of this spontaneous and varied exercise, which, the parents say, "has been of about as much yearly educational value to the boys as the eight months of school," and in contrast with which "the concentrative methodic unities of Ziller seem artificial, and, as Bacon said of scholastic methods, very inadequate to subtlety of nature," Dr. Hall sums up as follows (255. 696):—

"Very many problems that puzzle older brains have been met in simpler terms and solved wisely and well. The spirit and habit of active and even prying observation has been greatly quickened. Industrial processes, institutions, and methods of administration and organization have been appropriated and put into practice. The boys have grown more companionable and rational, learning many a lesson of self-control, and developed a spirit of self-help. The parents have been enabled to control indirectly the associations of their boys, and, in a very mixed boy-community, to have them in a measure under observation without in the least restricting their freedom. The habit of loafing, and the evils that attend it, have been avoided, a strong practical and even industrial bent has been given to their development, and much social morality has been taught in the often complicated modus vivendi with others that has been evolved. Finally, this may perhaps be called one illustration of the education according to nature we so often hear and speak of."

This study of child-sociology is a rara avis in terra; it is to be hoped, however, that if any other parents have "refrained from suggestions, and left the hand and fancy of the boys to educate each other under the tuition of the mysterious play-instinct," they may be as fortunate in securing for the deeds of their young off-spring, as observant and as sympathetic a historian as he who has told the story of the sand-pile in that little New England town.

Bagehot, in the course of his chapter on "Nation-Making," observes (395. 91):—

"After such great matters as religion and politics, it may seem trifling to illustrate the subject from little boys. But it is not trifling. The bane of philosophy is pomposity: people will not see that small things are the miniatures of greater, and it seems a loss of abstract dignity to freshen their minds by object lessons from what they know. But every boarding-school changes as a nation changes. Most of us may remember thinking,' How odd it is that this half should be so unlike last half; now we never go out of bounds, last half we were always going; now we play rounders, then we played prisoner's base,' and so through all the easy life of that time. In fact, some ruling spirits, some one or two ascendant boys, had left, one or two others had come, and so all was changed. The models were changed, and the copies changed; a different thing was praised, and a different thing bullied." It was in the spirit of this extract (part of which he quotes), that the editor of the "Johns Hopkins University Studies in Historical and Political Science" happily admitted into that series of monographs, Mr. J. H. Johnson's Rudimentary Society among Boys(272), a sociological study of peculiar interest and importance—"a microcosm, not only of the agrarian, but of the political and economic history of society." Mr. Johnson has graphically described the development of society among some fifty boys on the farm belonging to the McDonogh School, not far from the city of Baltimore, Maryland; land-tenure, boy-legislation, judicial procedure, boy-economy, are all treated of in detail and many analogies with the life and habits of primitive peoples brought out, and the author has gone a long way towards realizing the thesis that "To show a decided resemblance between barbarian political institutions and those of communities of civilized children, would be a long step towards founding a science of Social Embryology" (272. 61).

"Gangs."

Mr. Stewart Culin (212) in his interesting account of the "Street Games of Boys in Brooklyn, N.Y." notices en passant the existence of "gangs" of boys—boys' societies of the ruder and rougher kind. As evidence of the extent to which these organizations have flourished, the following somewhat complete list of those known to have existed in the city of Philadelphia is given:—

Badgers, Bed Bugs, Bleeders, Blossoms, Bouncers, Buena Vistas, Buffaloes, Bull Dogs, Bullets, Bunker Hills, Canaries, Clippers, Corkies, Cow Towners, Cruisers, Darts, Didos, Dirty Dozen, Dumplingtown Hivers, Dung Hills, Muters, Forest Eose, Forties, Garroters, Gas House Tarriers, Glassgous, Golden Hours, Gut Gang, Haymakers, Hawk-Towners, Hivers, Killers, Lancers, Lions, Mountaineers, Murderers, Niggers, Pigs, Pluckers, Pots, Prairie Hens, Railroad Roughs, Rats, Ramblers, Ravens, Riverside, Eovers, Schuylkill Eangers, Skinners, Snappers, Spigots, Tigers, Tormentors, War Dogs, Wayne Towners.

Of these Mr. Culin remarks: "They had their laws and customs, their feuds and compacts. The former were more numerous than the latter, and they fought on every possible occasion. A kind of half-secret organization existed among them, and new members passed through a ceremony called 'initiation,' which was not confined to the lower classes, from which most of them were recruited. Almost every Philadelphia boy, as late as twenty years ago, went through some sort of ordeal when he first entered into active boyhood. Being triced up by legs and arms, and swung violently against a gate, was usually part of this ceremony, and it no doubt still exists, although I have no particular information, which indeed is rather difficult to obtain, as boys, while they remain boys, are reticent concerning all such matters" (212. 236).

These street-organizations exist in other cities also, and have their ramifications in the school-life of children, who either belong to, or are in some way subject to, these curious associations. Every ward, nay, every street of any importance, seems to have its "gang," and it is no small experience in a boy's life to pass the ordeal of initiation, battle with alien organizations, and retire, as childhood recedes, unharmed by the primitive entourage.

No doubt, from these street-gangs many pass into the junior criminal societies which are known to exist in many great cities, the training-schools for theft, prostitution, murder, the feeding-grounds for the "White Caps," "Molly Maguires," "Ku-Klux," "Mafia," "Camorra," and other secret political or criminal associations, who know but too well how to recruit their numbers from the young. The gentler side of the social instinct is seen in the formation of friendships among children, associations born of the nursery or the school-room which last often through life. The study of these early friendships offers a tempting field for sociological research and investigation.

Secret Societies of the Young.

There are among primitive peoples many secret societies to which children and youth are allowed to belong, or which are wholly composed of such.

Among the secret societies of the Kwakiutl Indians, of British Columbia, Dr. Boas mentions the "Keki'qalak—( = the crows)," formed from the children (403. 53). The same author speaks of the Tsimshians, another British Columbia tribe, in these terms (403. 57):—

"A man who is not a member of a secret society is a 'common man.' He becomes a middle-class man after the first initiation, and attains higher rank by repeated initiations. The novice disappears in the same way as among the Kwakiutl. It is supposed that he goes to heaven. During the dancing season a feast is given, and while the women are dancing the novice is suddenly said to have disappeared. If he is a child, he stays away four days; youths remain absent six days, and grown-up persons several months. Chiefs are supposed to stay in heaven during the fall and entire winter. When this period has elapsed, they suddenly reappear on the beach, carried by an artificially-made monster belonging to their crest. Then all the members of the secret society to which the novice is to belong gather and walk down in grand procession to the beach to fetch the child. At this time the child's parents bring presents, particularly elk skins, strung on a rope as long as the procession, to be given at a subsequent feast. The people surround the novice and lead him into every house in order to show that he has returned. Then he is taken to the house of his parents and a bunch of cedar-bark is fastened over the door, to show that the place is tabooed, and nobody is allowed to enter." The dance and other ceremonies which follow may be read of in Dr. Boas' report.

Dr. Daniels, in his study of Regeneration, has called attention to "seclusion" and "disappearance," followed by reappearance and adoption as members of society, as characteristic practices in vogue among many savage and semi-civilized tribes with respect to children and those approaching the age of puberty—a change of name sometimes accompanies the "entering upon the new life," as it is often called. Of the Australians we read: "The boy at eight or ten years of age must leave the hut of his father and live in common with the other young men of the tribe. He is called by another name than that which he has borne from birth and his diet is regulated to some extent." In New Guinea, in Africa, and among some of the tribes of American aborigines like habits prevail. The custom of certain Indians formerly inhabiting Virginia is thus described: "After a very severe beating the boys are sent into a secluded spot. There they must stay nine months and can associate with no human being. They are fed during this time with a kind of intoxicating preparation of roots to make them forget all about their past life. After their return home everything must seem strange to them. In this way it is thought that they 'begin to live anew.' They are thought of as having been dead for a short time and are 'numbered among the older citizens after forgetting that they once were boys'" (214. 11-13).

In the African district of Quoja existed a secret society called Belly-Paaro, "the members of which had to spend a long time in a holy thicket. Whoever broke the rules of this society was seized upon by the Jannanes, or spirits of the dead, who dwelt in the thicket and brought thither, whence he was unable to return" (127. I. 240). Of this practice Kulischer remarks: "'It is a death and a new birth, since they are wholly changed in the consecrated thicket, dying to the old life and existence, and receiving a new understanding.' When the youths return from the thicket, they act as if they had come into the world for the first time, and had never known where their parents lived or their names, what sort of people they were, how to wash themselves" (214. 12).

Of another part of Africa we read: "In the country of Ambamba each person must die once, and come to life again. Accordingly, when a fetich-priest shakes his calabash at a village, those men and youths whose hour is come fall into a state of death-like torpor, from which they recover usually in the course of three days. But if there is any one that the fetich loves, him he takes into the bush and buries in the fetich-house. Oftentimes he remains buried for a long series of years. When he comes to life again, he begins to eat and drink as before, but his reason is gone, and the fetich-man is obliged to train him and instruct him in the simplest bodily movements, like a little child. At first the stick is only the instrument of education, but gradually his senses come back to him, and he begins to speak. As soon as his education is finished, the priest restores him to his parents. They seldom recognize their son, but accept the express assurance of the feticero, who also reminds them of events in the past. In Ambamba a man who has not passed through the process of dying and coming to life again is held in contempt, nor is he permitted to join in the dance" (529. 56).

Some recollection, perhaps, of similar customs and ideas appears in the game of "Ruripsken," which, according to Schambach, is played by children in Gottingen: One of the children lies on the ground, pretending to be dead, the others running up and singing out "Ruripsken, are you alive yet?" Suddenly he springs up and seizes one of the other players, who has to take his place, and so the game goes on.

Among the Mandingos of the coast of Sierra Leone, the girls approaching puberty are taken by the women of the village to an out-of-the-way spot in the forest, where they remain for a month and a day in strictest seclusion, no one being permitted to see them except the old woman who has charge of their circumcision. Here they are instructed in religion and ceremonial, and at the expiration of the time set, are brought back to town at night, and indulge in a sort of Lady Godiva procession until daybreak. At the beginning of the dry-cool season among the Mundombe "boys of from eight to ten years of age are brought by the 'kilombola-masters' into a lonely uninhabited spot, where they remain for ninety days after their circumcision, during which time not even their own parents may visit them. After the wound heals, they are brought back to the village in triumph" (127. 1. 292).

With the Kaffirs the circumcision-rites last five months, "and during this whole time the youths go around with their bodies smeared with white clay. They form a secret society, and dwell apart from the village in a house built specially for them" (127. I. 292). Among the Susu there is a secret organization known as the Semo, the members of which use a peculiar secret language, and "the young people have to pass a whole year in the forest, and it is believed right for them to kill any one who comes near the wood, and who is not acquainted with this secret tongue" (127. I. 240). A very similar society exists among the tribes on the Rio Nunez. Here "the young people live for seven or eight years a life of seclusion in the forest." In Angoy there is the secret society of the Sindungo, membership in which passes from father to son; in Bomma, the secret orders of the fetich Undembo; among the Shekiani and the Bakulai, that of the great spirit Mwetyi, the chief object of which is to keep in subjection women and children, and into which boys are initiated when between fourteen and eighteen years old; the Mumbo Jumbo society of the Mandingos, into which no one under sixteen years of age is allowed to enter (127. I. 241-247).

Among the Mpongwe the women have a secret society called Njembe, the object of which is to protect them against harsh treatment by the men. The initiation lasts several weeks, and girls from ten to twelve years of age are admissible (127. I. 245).

Of the Indians of the western plains of the United States of America we are told: "At twelve or thirteen these yearnings can no longer be suppressed; and, banded together, the youths of from twelve to sixteen years roam over the country; and some of the most cold-blooded atrocities, daring attacks, and desperate combats have been made by these children in pursuit of fame" (432. 191).

Among the Mandingos of West Africa, during the two months immediately following their circumcision, the youths "form a society called Solimana. They make visits to the neighbouring villages, where they sing and dance and are feted by the inhabitants."

In Angola the boys "live for a month under the care of a fetich-priest, passing their time in drum-beating, a wild sort of singing, and rat-hunting." Among the Beit Bidel "all the youths who are to be consecrated as men unite together. They deck themselves out with beads, hire a guitar-player, and retire to the woods, where they steal and kill goats from the herds of their tribe, and for a whole week amuse themselves with sport and song. The Wanika youths of like age betake themselves, wholly naked, to the woods, where they remain until they have slain a man." On the coast of Guinea, after their circumcision, "boys are allowed to exact presents from every one and to commit all sorts of excesses" (127. 1.291-4).

"Among the Fulas, boys who have been circumcised are a law unto themselves until the incision has healed. They can steal or take whatever suits them without its being counted an offence. In Bambuk, for fourteen days after the circumcision-fete, the young people are allowed to escape from the supervision of their parents. From sunrise to sunset they can leave the paternal roof and run about the fields near the village. They can demand meat and drink of whomsoever they please, but may not enter a house unless they have been invited to do so." In Darfur, "after their circumcision, the boys roamed around the adjacent villages and stole all the poultry" (127. I. 291).

Modern Aspects.

These secret societies and outbursts of primitive lawlessness recall at once to our attention the condition of affairs at some of our universities, colleges, and larger schools. The secret societies and student-organizations, with their initiations, feasts, and extravagant demonstrations, their harassing of the uninitiated, their despisal of municipal, collegiate, even parental authority, and their oftentime contempt and disregard of all social order, their not infrequent excesses and debauches, carry us back to their analogues in the institutions of barbarism and savagery, the accompaniments of the passage from childhood to manhood. Of late years, the same spirit has crept into our high schools, and is even making itself felt in the grammar grades, so imitative are the school-children of their brothers and sisters in the universities and colleges. Pennalism and fagging, so prevalent of old time in Germany and England, are not without their representatives in this country. The "freshman" in the high schools and colleges is often made to feel much as the savage does who is serving his time of preparation for admission into the mysteries of Mumbo- Jumbo.

In the revels of "May Day," "Midsummer," "Eogation Week," "Whitsuntide," "All Fools' Day," "New Year's Day," "Hallow E'en," "Christmas," "Easter," etc., children throughout England and in many parts of Europe during the Middle Ages took a prominent part and role in the customs and practices which survive even to-day, as may be seen in Brand, Grimm, and other books dealing with popular customs and festivals, social fetes and merry-makings.

In Tennyson's May Queen we read:—

"You must wake and call me early, call me early, mother dear; To-morrow'll be the happiest time of all the glad New Year; Of all the glad New Year, mother, the maddest, merriest day; For I'm to be Queen o' the May, mother, I'm to be Queen o' the May."

And a "mad, merry day" it certainly was in "merry England," when the fairest lass in the village was chosen "Queen of the May," and sang merry songs of Robin Hood and Maid Marian.

Polydore Virgil tells us that in ancient Home the "youths used to go into the fields and spend the Calends of May in dancing and singing in honour of Flora, goddess of fruits and flowers." Westermarck seems to think some of these popular customs have something to do with the increase of the sexual function in spring and early summer (166. 30).

In seizing upon this instinct for society-making among children and youth lies one of the greatest opportunities for the prevention of crime and immorality the world has ever known. To turn to good ends this spontaneity of action, to divert into channels of usefulness these currents of child-activity, will be to add immensely to the equipment of mankind in the struggle with vice. A certain bishop of the early Christian Church is credited with having declared that, if the authorities only took charge of the children soon enough, there would be no burning of heretics, no scandalous schisms in the body ecclesiastic; and there is a good deal of truth in this observation.

The Catholic Church, and many of the other Christian churches have seen the wisdom of appealing to, and availing themselves of, the child-power in social and socio-religious questions. Not a little of the great spread of the temperance movement in America and Europe of recent years is due to the formation of children's societies,—Bands of Hope, Blue Ribbon Clubs, Junior Temperance Societies and Prohibition Clubs, Young Templars' Associations, Junior Father Matthew Leagues, and the like,— where a legitimate sphere is open to the ardour and enthusiasm of the young of both sexes. The great Methodist Church has been especially quick to recognize the value of this kind of work, and the junior chapters of the "Epworth League"—whose object is "to promote intelligence and loyal piety in its young members and friends and to train them in experimental religion, practical benevolence, and church work"—now numbers some three thousand, with a membership of about one hundred and twenty thousand. This society was organized at Cleveland, Ohio, May 15, 1889. The "Young People's Society of Christian Endeavour," the first society of which was established at Portland, Maine, February 2,1881, with the object of "promoting an earnest Christian life among its members, increasing their mutual acquaintance, and making them more useful in the service of God," has now enrolled nearly thirty-four thousand "Companies," with a total membership (active and associate) all over the world of over two million; of these societies 28,696 are in the United States and 2243 in Canada. Another society of great influence, having a membership in America and the Old World of some thirty-five thousand, is the "Ministering Children's League," founded by the Countess of Meath in 1885, and having as objects "to promote kindness, unselfishness, and the habit of usefulness amongst children, and to create in their minds an earnest desire to help the needy and suffering; to give them some definite work to do for others, that this desire may be brought to good effect"; there are also the "Lend-a-Hand Clubs" of the Unitarian Church. The Episcopal Church has its "Girls' Friendly Societies," its "Junior Auxiliaries to the Board of Missions"; its "Brotherhood of St. Andrew," and "Brotherhood of Andrew and Philip," for young men. For those of not too youthful years, the "Young Men's Christian Association," the associations of the "White," "Red," and "Iron Cross" exist in the various churches, besides many other "Guilds," "Alliances," "Leagues," etc. For those outside the churches there are "Boys' Clubs," and "Girls' Societies" in the cities and larger towns. The "Bands of Mercy" and the branches of the "Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals" exert a widespread influence for good; while several of the secret benevolent associations, such as the "Foresters," for example, have instituted junior lodges, from which the youth are later on drafted into the society of their elders. There exist also many social clubs and societies, more or less under the supervision of the older members of the community, in which phases of human life other than the purely religious or benevolent find opportunity to display themselves; and between these and the somewhat sterner church-societies a connecting link is formed by the "Friday Night Clubs" of the Unitarian Church and the "Young People's Associations" of other liberal denominations. In the home itself, this society instinct is recognized, and the list of children's teas, dinners, parties, "receptions," "doll-parties," "doll-shows," etc., would be a long one. Among all peoples, barbarous as well as civilized, since man is by nature a social animal, the instinct for society develops early in the young, and the sociology of child-hood offers a most inviting field for research and investigation both in the Old World and in the New.



CHAPTER XV.

THE CHILD AS LINGUIST.

But what am I? An infant crying in the night: An infant crying for the light, And with no language but a cry.—Tennyson.

Yet she carried a doll as she toddled alone, And she talked to that doll in a tongue her own.—Joaquin Miller.

Among savages, children are, to a great extent, the originators of idiomatic diversities.—Charles Rau.

It was as impossible for the first child endowed with this faculty not to speak in the presence of a companion similarly endowed, as it would be for a nightingale or a thrush not to carol to its mate. The same faculty creates the same necessity in our days, and its exercise by young children, when accidentally isolated from the teachings and influence of grown companions, will readily account for the existence of all the diversities of speech on our globe.—Horatio Hale.

Some scientists have held that mankind began with the Homo Alalus, speechless, dumb man, an hypothesis now looked npon by the best authorities as untenable; and the folk have imagined that, were not certain procedures gone through with upon the new-born child, it would remain dumb through life, and, if it were allowed to do certain things, a like result would follow. Ploss informs us that the child, and the mother, while she is still suckling it, must not, in Bohemia, eat fish, else, since fish are mute, the child would be so also; in Servia, the child is not permitted to eat any fowl that has not already crowed, or it would remain dumb for a very long time; in Germany two little children, not yet able to speak, must not kiss each other, or both will be dumb.

The Frenum.

Our English phrase, "an unbridled tongue," has an interesting history and entourage of folk-lore. The subject has been quite recently discussed by Dr. Chervin, of the Institute for Stammerers at Paris (205). Citing the lines of Boileau:—

"Tout charme en un enfant dont la langue sans fard, A peine du filet encore debarrassee Sait d'un air innocent begayer sa pensee,"

he notes the wide extension of the belief that the cutting of the filet, or frein, the frenum, or "bridle" of the tongue of the newborn infant facilitates, or makes possible, articulate speech. According to M. Sebillot, the cutting of the sublet, as it is called, is quite general in parts of Brittany (Haute Bretagne), and M. Moisset states that in the Yonne it is the universal opinion that neglect to do so would cause the new-born child to remain dumb for life; M. Desaivre cites the belief in Poitou that, unless the lignoux were cut in the child at birth, it would prevent its sucking, and, later on, its speaking. The operation is usually performed by nurses and midwives, with the nail of the little finger, which is allowed to grow excessively long for the purpose (205. 6). Dr. Chervin discusses the scientific aspects of the subject, and concludes that the statistics of stammering and the custom of cutting the frenum of the tongue do not stand in any sort of correlation with each other, and that this ancient custom, noted by Celsus, has no real scientific raison d'etre (205. 9). We say that a child is "tongue-tied," and that one "makes too free with his tongue"; in French we find: Il a le filet bien coupe, "he is a great talker," and in the eighteenth century Il n'a pas de filet was in use; a curious German expression for "tongue-tied" is mundfaul, "mouth-lazy."

Following up the inquiry of Dr. Chervin in France, M. Hofler of Tolz has begun a similar investigation for Germany (263). He approves of the suggestion of Dr. Chervin, that the practice of cutting the frenum of the tongue has been induced by the inept name frenulwm, frein, Bandchen, given by anatomists to the object in question. According to H. Carstens the frenulum is called in Low German keekel-reem or kikkel-reem, which seems to be derived from kakeln, "to cry, shriek," and reem, "band, cord," so that the word really signifies "speech-band." If it is cut in children who have difficulty in speaking before the first year of life, or soon after, they will be cured of stuttering and made to speak well. To a man or woman who does a good deal of talking, who has "the gift of the gab," the expression Em (ehr) is de keekelreem gut snaden = "His (her) frenum has been well cut," is applied. In some parts of Low Germany the operation is performed for quite a different reason, viz., when the child's tongue cannot take hold of the mother's breast, but always slips off. Hofler mentions the old custom of placing beneath the child's tongue a piece of ash-bark (called Schwindholz), so that the organ of speech may not vanish (schwinden); this is done in the case of children who are hard of speech (263.191, 281).

Ploss states that in Konigsberg (Prussia) tickling the soles of the feet of a little child is thought to occasion stuttering; in Italy the child will learn to stutter, unless, after it has been weaned, it is given to drink for the first time out of a hand-bell (326. II. 286).

Among the numerous practices in vogue to hasten the child's acquisition of speech, or to make him ready and easy of tongue, are the following: some one returned from the communion breathes into the child's mouth (Austrian Silesia); the mother, when, after supper on Good Friday, she suckles the child for the last time, breathes into its mouth (Bohemia); the, child is given to drink water out of a cow-bell (Servia); when the child, on the arm of its mother, pays the first visit to neighbours or friends, it is presented with three eggs, which are pressed three times to his mouth, with the words, "as the hens cackle, the child learns to prattle" (Thuringia, the Erzgebirge, Bavaria, Franconia, and the Harz); when a child is brought to be baptized, one of the relatives must make a christening-letter (Pathenbrief), and, with the poem or the money contained in it, draw three crosses through the mouth of the child (Konigsberg) (326. II. 205).

Speech-Exercises.

Ploss has a few words to say about "Volksgebrauchliche Sprach- Exercitien," or "Zungen-Exercitien," the folk-efforts to teach the child to overcome the difficulties of speech (326. II. 285, 286), and more recently Treichel (373) has treated in detail of the various methods employed in Prussia. In these exercises examples and difficult words are given in several languages, alliteration, sibilation, and all quips and turns of consonantal and vocalic expression, word-position, etc., are in use to test the power of speech alike of child and adult. Treichel observes that in the schools even, use is made of foreign geographical names, names of mountains in Asia, New Zealand, and Aztec names in Mexico; the plain of Apapurinkasiquinilschiquasaqua, from Immermann's Munchhausen, is also cited as having been put to the like use. The title of doctors' dissertations in chemistry are also recommended (373. 124).

Following are examples of these test sentences and phrases from German:—

(1) Acht und achtzig achteckige Hechtskopfe; (2) Bierbrauer Brauer braut braun Bier; (3) De donue Diewel drog den dicke Diewel dorch den dicke Dreek; (4) Esel essen Nosseln gern; (5) In Ulm imd um Ulm und urn Ulm herum; (6) Wenige wissen, wie viel sie wissen mussen, um zu wissen, wie wenig sie wissen; (7) Es sassen zwei zischende Schlangen zwischen zwei spitzigen Steinen und zischten dazwischen; (8) Nage mal de Boll Boll Boll Boll Boll Boll Boll Boll Boll; (9) Fritz, Fritz, friss frische Fische, Fritz; (10) Kein klein Kind kann keinen kleinen Kessel Kohl kochen.

There are alliterative sentences for all the letters of the alphabet, and many others more or less alliterative, while the humorous papers contain many exaggerated examples of this sort of thing. Of the last, the following on "Hottentottentaten" will serve as an instance:—

"In dem wilden Land der Kaftern, Wo die Hottentotten trachten Holie Hottentottentitel Zu erwerben in den Schlachten, Wo die Hottentottentaktik Lasst ertonen fern und nah Auf dem Hottentottentamtam Hottentottentattratah; Wo die Hottentottentrotteln, Eh' sie stampfen stark und kuhn. Hottentottentatowirung An sioh selber erst vollzieh'n, Wo die Hottentotten tuten Auf dem Horn voll Eleganz Und nachher mit Grazie tanzen Hottentottentotentanz,— Dorten bin ich mal gewesen Und iclh habe schwer gelitten, Weil ich Hottentotten trotzte, Unter Hottentottentritten; So 'ne Hottentottentachtel, Die ist namlich furchterlich Und ich leid' noch heute An dem Hottentottentatterich" (373. 222).

In our older English, and American readers and spelling-books we meet with much of a like nature, and the use of these test-phrases and sentences has not yet entirely departed from the schools. Familiar are: "Up the high hill he heaved a huge round stone; around the rugged riven rock the ragged rascal rapid ran; Peter Piper picked a peck of prickly pears from the prickly-pear trees on the pleasant prairies," and many others still in use traditionally among the school-children of to-day, together with linguistic exercises of nonsense-syllables and the like, pronouncing words backwards, etc.

In French we have: (1) L'origine ne se desoriginalisera jamais de son originalite; (2) A la sante de celle, qui tient la sentinelle devant la citadelle de votre coeur! (3) Car Didon dina, dit-on, Du dos d'un dodu dindon.

In Polish: (1) Bydlo bylo, bydlo bedzie (It was cattle, it remains cattle); (2) Podawala baba babie przez piec malowane grabie (A woman handed the woman over the stove a painted rake); (3) Chrzaszcz brzmi w trzinie (The beetle buzzes in the pipe). Latin and Greek are also made use of for similar purpose. Treichel cites, among other passages, the following: (1) Quamuis sint sub aqua, sub aqua maledicere tentant (Ovid, Metam. VI. 376); (2) At tuba terribili sonitu taratantara dixit (Virgil, Aen. IX. 503); (3) Quadrupedante putrem sonitu quatit ungula campum (Virgil, Aen. VIII. 596); (4) [Greek: Aytis epeita pedonde kylindeto laas anchidaes] (Homer, Odyss. II. 598); (5) [Greek: Trichtha te kai tetrachtha dieschesen is anemoio] (Homer, Odyss. IX. 71, II. III. 363); (6) [Greek: 'O makar 'Adreidae moiraegenes olbiodaimon] (Homer, Il. III. 182). These customs are not confined, however, to the civilized nations of Europe. Dr. Pechuel-Loesche tells us that, among the negroes of the Loango coast of Africa, the mother teaches the child little verses, just as illogical as the test-sentences often are which are employed in other parts of the world, and containing intentionally difficult arrangements of words. The child whose skilful tongue can repeat these without stumbling, is shown to visitors and is the cause of much admiration and merriment. And this exhibition of the child's linguistic and mnemonic powers finds vogue among other races than those of the dark continent (373. 125).

Alphabet-Rhymes.

A very curious development of child-linguistics is seen in the so-called ABC Rhymes. H. A. Carstensen reports from Risummoor in Low Germany the following arrangement and interpretation of the letters of the alphabet (199. 55):—

A—Aewel B—baeget C(K)—Kaege A—Abel B—bakes C(K)—cakes.

D—Detlef E—et F—fale. D—Detlef E—eats F—much.

G—Grutte H—Hans J—jaeget K—Kraege. G—Great H—Jack J—hunts K—crows.

L—Lotte M—maeget N—noerne. L—Lutje M—makes N—names.

O—Okke P—plokket Q—Kuerde. O—Okke P—makes Q—wool-cards.

R—Rikkert S—sait T—tuffle. R—Richard S—sews T—slippers

U—Uethet V—Volkert W—waeder? U—Fetches V—Volkert W—water?

From the North Frisian islands of Silt and Fohr the following ABC rhymes have been recorded, consisting mostly of personal names (199. 192):—

1. From Silt: Anna Boyken, Christian Dojken, Erkel Fredden, Gondel Hansen, Jens Kuk, Lorenz Mommen, Niels Otten, Peter Quotten, Rink Swennen, Theide Uwen, Volkert, Wilhelm, exerzere.

2. From Fohr: Arest Buhn, Cike Duhn, Ehlen Frodden, Girre Hayen, Ingke Kayen, Lurenz Munje, Nahmen Ott, Peter Quott, Rekkert skar, Trintje um, qui weg, x, y, z.

3. From Fohr: Antje brawt; Cisele drug; Ehlen fald; Gontje holp; Ingke knad; Lena mad; Nahmen Okken; Peter Quast;

Rord Rutjer; Sab Sutjer; Sonk Stein; Thur Ordert; Wogen wuhlet; Yng Zuhlet.

From Ditmarschen we have the following (199. 290):—

1. From Suderstapel in Stapelholm: A-Beeter, C-Deeter, E-Efter, G-Hater, I-Kater, L-Emder, N-Oter, Peter Ruster sien Swester harr Buxsen von Manchester, harr'n Kleed vun Kattun, weer Kofft bi Jud'n (Peter Ruster his sister has breeches from Manchester, has a dress of cotton, who buys of Jews).

2. From Tonningstedt and Feddringen: A-Beeter, C-Deeter, E-Efter, G-Hater, J-Kater, L-Emder, N-Oter, P-Kuter, L-Ester, T-Uter, V-Weeter, X-Zeeter.

In Polish we have a rather curious rhyme (199. 260): Adam Babkie Cukier Dal, Ewa Figi Gryzla; Hanko, Jeko, Karol Lerch Nosi Orla Papa Ruskigo (Adam to the old woman sugar gave, Eve figs nibbled; Hanko, Jeko, Karol, and Lerch carry the eagle of the Ruthenian priest). Another variant runs: Adam Babi Cucker daje Ewa figi grizi Hala, idzie Kupic' lala mama nie pozwala (199. 150).

At Elberfeld, according to O. Schell, the following rhyme was in use about the middle of this century (199. 42): Abraham Bockmann; Cepter Dickmann; Engel Fuawenkel; Gretchen Hahn; Isaak Kreier; Lottchen Meyer; Nikolas Olk; Pitter Quack; Rudolf Simon; Tante Uhler; Vater Wettschreck; Xerxes York.

From Leipzig, L. Frankel reports the following as given off in a singing tone with falling rhythm:—

B a ba, b e be, b i bi—babebi; b o bo, b u bu—bobu; ba, be, bi, bo, bu—babebibobu. C a ca (pron. za, not ka), c e ce, c i ci —caceci; c o co, c u cu—cocu; ca, ce, ci, co, cu-cacecicocu, etc.

From various parts of Ditmarschen come these rhymes: A-B ab, A-B ab, Mus sitt in't Schapp, Mouse sits in the cupboard, Kater darfar, Cat in frount, Mak apen de Dar. Open the door.

These child-rhymes and formulae from North Germany find their cognates in our own nursery-rhymes and explanatory letter-lists, which take us back to the very beginnings of alphabetic writing. An example is the familiar:—

"A was an Archer that shot at a frog, B was a Butcher that had a big dog," etc., etc.

Letter-Formula.

Here belong also the curious formula known all over the United States and English-speaking Canada, to which attention has recently been called by Professor Frederick Starr. When the word Preface is seen, children repeat the words, "Peter Rice Eats Fish and Catches Eels," or backwards, "Eels Catch Alligators; Father Eats Raw Potatoes." Professor Starr says that the second formula is not quite so common as the first; the writer's experience in Canada leads him to express just the opposite opinion. Professor Starr gives also formula for Contents and Finis as follows: "Five Irish Niggers In Spain," backwards "Six Irish Niggers In France"; "Children Ought Not To Eat Nuts Till Sunday" (355. 55). Formula like these appear to be widespread among school-children, who extract a good deal of satisfaction from the magic meaning of these quaint expressions.

Another series of formula, not referred to by Professor Starr, is that concerned with the interpretation of the numerous abbreviations and initials found in the spelling-book and dictionary. In the manufacture of these much childish wit and ingenuity are often expended. In the writer's schoolboy days there was quite a series of such expansions of the letters which stood for the various secret and benevolent societies of the country. I. O. G. T. (Independent Order of Good Templars), for example, was made into "I Often Get Tight (i.e. drunk)," which was considered quite a triumph of juvenile interpretative skill. Another effort was in the way of explaining the college degrees: B.A. = "Big Ape," M.A. = "Matured Ape," B.D. = "Bull-Dog," LL.D. = "Long-Legged Devil," etc. Still another class is represented by the interpretations of the German u. A. w. g. (our R. S. V. P.), i.e. "um Antwort wird gebeten" (an answer is requested), for which A. Treichel records the following renderings: um Ausdauer wird gebeten (perseverance requested); und Abends wird getanzt (and in the evening there is dancing); und Abends wird gegeigt (and in the evening there is fiddling); und Abends wird gegessen (and in the evening there is eating); und Andere werden gelastert (and others are abused) (392. V. 114). This side of the linguistic inventiveness of childhood, with its double-entendre, its puns, its folk-etymologies, its keen discernment of hidden resemblances and analogies, deserves more study than it has apparently received.

The formulae and expressions belonging to such games as marbles are worthy of consideration, for here the child is given an opportunity to invent new words and phrases or to modify and disfigure old ones.

Formulae of Defiance, etc.

The formulae of defiance, insult, teasing, etc., rhymed and in prose, offer much of interest. Peculiarities of physical constitution, mental traits, social relationships, and the like, give play to childish fancy and invention. It would be a long list which should include all the material corresponding to such as the following, well known among English-speaking school-children:—

1. Georgie Porgie, Puddin' Pie, Kissed a girl and made her cry! 2. Blue-eyed beauty, Do your mother's duty! 3. Black eye, pick a pie, Turn around and tell a lie! 4. Nigger, nigger, never-die, Black face and shiny eye!

Interesting is the following scale of challenging, which Professor J. P. Fruit reports from Kentucky (430. 229):—

"I dare you; I dog dare you; I double dog dare you. I dare you; I black dog dare you; I double black dog dare you."

The language of the school-yard and street, in respect to challenges, fights, and contests of all sorts, has an atmosphere of its own, through which sometimes the most clear-sighted older heads find it difficult to penetrate.

The American Dialect Society is doing good work in hunting out and interpreting many of these contributions of childhood to the great mosaic of human speech, and it is to be hoped that in this effort they will have the co-operation of all the teachers of the country, for this branch of childish activity will bear careful and thorough investigation.

Plant-Names.

In the names of some of the plants with which they early come into contact we meet with examples of the ingenuity of children. In Mrs. Bergen's (400) list of popular American plant-names are included some which come from this source, for example: "frog-plant (Sedum Telephium)," from the children's custom of "blowing up a leaf so as to make the epidermis puff up like a frog"; "drunkards (Gaulteria procumbens)," because "believed by children to intoxicate"; "bread-and-butter (Smilax rotundifolia)," because "the young leaves are eaten by children"; "velvets (Viola pedata)," a corruption of the "velvet violets" of their elders; "splinter-weed (Antennaria plantaginifolia)," from "the appearance of the heads"; "ducks (Cypripedium)," because "when the flower is partly filled with sand and set afloat on water, it looks like a duck"; "pearl-grass (Glyceria Canadensis)," a name given at Waverley, Massachusetts, "by a few children, some years ago." This list might easily be extended, but sufficient examples have been given to indicate the extent to which the child's mind has been at work in this field. Moreover, many of the names now used by the older members of the community, may have been coined originally by children and then adopted by the others, and the same origin must probably be sought out for not a few of the folk-etymologies and word-distortions which have so puzzled the philologists.

"Physonyms."

In an interesting paper on "physonyms,"—i.e. "words to which their signification is imparted by certain physiological processes, common to the race everywhere, and leading to the creation of the same signs with the same meaning in totally sundered linguistic stocks"—occurs the following passage (193. cxxxiii.):—

"One of the best known and simplest examples is that of the widespread designation of 'mother' by such words as mama, nana, ana; and of 'father' by such as papa, baba, tata. Its true explanation has been found to be that, in the infant's first attempt to utter articulate sounds, the consonants m, p, and t decidedly preponderate; and the natural vowel a, associated with these, yields the child's first syllables. It repeats such sounds as ma-ma-ma or pa-pa-pa, without attaching any meaning to them; the parents apply these sounds to themselves, and thus impart to them their signification."

Other physonyms are words of direction and indication of which the radical is k or g; the personal pronouns radical in n, m (first person), k, t, d (second person); and demonstratives and locatives whose radical is s. The frequency of these sounds in the language of children is pointed out also by Tracy in his monograph on the psychology of childhood. In the formation and fixation of the onomatopes with which many languages abound some share must be allotted to the child. A recent praiseworthy study of onomatopes in the Japanese language has been made by Mr. Aston, who defines an onomatope as "the artistic representation of an inarticulate sound or noise by means of an articulate sound" (394. 333). The author is of opinion that from the analogy of the lower animals the inference is to be drawn that "mankind occupied themselves for a long time with their own natural cries before taking the trouble to imitate for purposes of expression sounds not of their own making" (394. 334). The latter process was gradual and extended over centuries. For the child or the "child-man" to imitate the cry of the cock so successfully was an inspiration; Mr. Aston tells us that "the formation of a word like cock-a-doodle-do, is as much a work of individual genius as Hamlet or the Laocoon" (394. 335). Of certain modern aspects of onomatopoia the author observes: "There is a kindred art, viz. that of the exact imitation of animal cries and other sounds, successfully practised by some of our undergraduates and other young people, as well as by tame ravens and parrots. It probably played some part in the development of language, but I can only mention it here" (394. 333).

College Yells.

The "college yells" of the United States and Canada offer an inviting field for study in linguistic atavism and barbaric vocal expression. The New York World Almanac for 1895 contains a list of the "yells" of some three hundred colleges and universities in the United States. Out of this great number, in which there is a plenitude of "Rah! rah! rah!" the following are especially noteworthy:—

Benzonia: Kala, kala, kala! Sst, Boom, Gah! Benzo, Benzon-iah! Whooo!

Buchtel: Ye-ho! Ye-hesa! Hisa! Wow wow! Buchtel!

Dartmouth: Wah, who, wah! wah who wah! da-da-da, Dartmouth! wah who wah! T-i-g-e-r!

Heidelberg: Killi-killick! Rah, rah, Zik, zik! Ha! Ha! Yi! Hoo! Baru! Zoo! Heidelberg!

The "yell" of Ohio Wesleyan University, "O-wee-wi-wow! Ala-ka-zu-ki-zow! Ra-zi-zi-zow! Viva! Viva! O. W. U.!" is enough to make the good man for whom the institution is named turn uneasily in his grave. The palm must, however, be awarded to the University of North Dakota, whose remarkable "yell" is this: "Odz-dzo-dzi! Ri-ri-ri! Hy-ah! Hy-ah! North Dakota! and Sioux War-Cry." Hardly have the ancestors of Sitting Bull and his people suspected the immortality that awaited their ancient slogan. It is curious that the only "yell" set to proper music is that of the girls of Wellesley College, who sing their cheer, "Tra la la la, Tra la la la, Tra la la la la la la, W-E-L-L-E-S-L-E-Y, Welles-ley."

As is the case with other practices in collegiate life, these "yells" seem to be making their way down into the high and grammar schools, as well as into the private secondary schools, the popularity and excitement of field-sports and games, baseball, foot-ball, etc., giving occasion enough for their frequent employment.

Here fall also the spontaneous shouts and cries of children at work and at play, the Ki-yah! and others of a like nature whose number is almost infinite.

Mr. Charles Ledyard Norton, in his Political Americanisms (New York, 1890), informs us that "the peculiar staccato cheer, 'rah, rah, rah!'" was probably invented at Harvard in 1864. In the Blaine campaign of 1884 it was introduced into political meetings and processions together with "the custom, also borrowed from the colleges, of spelling some temporarily significant catch-word in unison, as, for instance, 'S-o-a-p!' the separate letters being pronounced in perfect time by several hundred voices at once." The same authority thinks that the idea of calling out "Blaine—Blaine—James G. Blaine!" in cadenced measure after the manner of the drill-sergeants, "Left—left—left—right—left!" an idea which had many imitations and elaborations among the members of both the great political parties, can be traced back to the Columbia College students (p. 120).

The Child as an Innovator in Language.

But the role of the child in the development of language is concerned with other things than physonyms and onomatopes. In his work on Brazilian ethnography and philology, Dr. von Martius writes (522. 43): "A language is often confined to a few individuals connected by relationship, forming thus, as it were, a family institute, which isolates those who use it from all neighbouring or distant tribes so completely that an understanding becomes impossible." This intimate connection of language with the family, this preservation and growth of language, as a family institution, has, as Dr. von Martius points out, an interesting result (522. 44):—

"The Brazilians frequently live in small detachments, being kept apart by the chase; sometimes only a few families wander together; often it is one family alone. Within the family the language suffers a constant remodelling. One of the children will fail to catch precisely the radical sound of a word; and the weak parents, instead of accustoming it to pronounce the word correctly, will yield, perhaps, themselves, and adopt the language of the child. We often were accompanied by persons of the same band; yet we noticed in each of them slight differences in accentuation and change of sound. His comrades, however, understood him, and they were understood by him. As a consequence, their language never can become stationary, but will constantly break off into new dialects." Upon these words of von Martius (reported by Dr. Oscar Peschel), Dr. Charles Rau comments as follows (522. 44): "Thus it would seem that, among savages, children are to a great extent the originators of idiomatic diversities. Dr. Peschel places particular stress on this circumstance, and alludes to the habit of over-indulgent parents among refined nations of conforming to the humours of their children by conversing with them in a kind of infantine language, until they are several years old. Afterward, of course, the rules of civilized life compel these children to adopt the proper language; but no such necessity exists among a hunter family in the primeval forests of South America; here the deviating form of speech remains, and the foundation of a new dialect is laid."

Children's Languages.

But little attention has been paid to the study of the language of children among primitive people. In connection with a brief investigation of child-words in the aboriginal tongues of America, Mr. Horatio Hale communicated to the present writer the following observation of M. l'Abbe Cuoq, of Montreal, the distinguished missionary and linguist: "As far as the Iroquois in particular are concerned, it is certain that this language [langage enfantin] is current in every family, and that the child's relatives, especially the mothers, teach it to their children, and that the latter consequently merely repeat the words of which it is composed" (201. 322). That these "child-words" were invented by children, the Abbe does not seem to hint.

The prominence of the mother-influence in the child's linguistic development is also accentuated by Professor Mason, who devotes a chapter of his recent work on woman's part in the origin and growth of civilization to woman as a linguist. The author points out how "women have helped to the selection and preservation of language through onomatopoeia," their vocal apparatus being "singularly adapted to the imitation of many natural sounds," and their ears "quick to catch the sounds within the compass of the voice" (113. 188-204). To the female child, then, we owe a good deal of that which is now embodied in our modern speech, and the debt of primitive races is still greater. Many a traveller has found, indeed, a child the best available source of linguistic information, when the idling warriors in their pride, and the hard-working women in their shyness, or taboo-caused fear, failed to respond at all to his requests for talk or song.

Canon Farrar, in his Chapters on Language, makes the statement: "It is a well-known fact that the neglected children, in some of the Canadian and Indian villages, who are left alone for days, can and do invent for themselves a sort of lingua franca, partially or wholly unintelligible to all except themselves" (200. 237). Mr. W. W. Newell speaks of the linguistic inventiveness of children in these terms (313. 24):—

"As infancy begins to speak by the free though unconscious combination of linguistic elements, so childhood retains in language a measure of freedom. A little attention to the jargons invented by children might have been serviceable to certain philologists. Their love of originality finds the tongue of their elders too commonplace; besides, their fondness for mystery requires secret ways of communication. They, therefore, often create (so to speak) new languages, which are formed by changes in the mother-speech, but sometimes have quite complicated laws of structure and a considerable arbitrary element." The author cites examples of the "Hog Latin" of New England schoolchildren, in the elaboration of which much youthful ingenuity is expended. Most interesting is the brief account of the "cat" language:—

"A group of children near Boston invented the cat language, so called because its object was to admit of free intercourse with cats, to whom it was mostly talked, and by whom it was presumed to be comprehended. In this tongue the cat was naturally the chief subject of nomenclature; all feline positions were observed and named, and the language was rich in such epithets, as Arabic contains a vast number of expressions for lion. Euphonic changes were very arbitrary and various, differing for the same termination; but the adverbial ending -ly was always -osh; terribly, terriblosh. A certain percentage of words were absolutely independent, or at least of obscure origin. The grammar tended to Chinese or infantine simplicity; ta represented any case of any personal pronoun. A proper name might vary in sound according to the euphonic requirements of the different Christian names by which it was preceded. There were two dialects, one, however, stigmatized as provincial. This invention of language must be very common, since other cases have fallen under our notice in which children have composed dictionaries of such" (313. 25).

This characterization of child-speech offers not a few points of contact with primitive languages, and might indeed almost have been written of one of them.

More recently Colonel Higginson (262) has given some details of "a language formed for their own amusement by two girls of thirteen or thereabouts, both the children of eminent scientific men, and both unusually active-minded and observant." This dialect "is in the most vivid sense a living language," and the inventors, who keep pruning and improving it, possess a manuscript dictionary of some two hundred words, which, it is to be hoped, will some day be published. An example or two from those given by Colonel Higginson will serve to indicate the general character of the vocabulary:—

bojiwassis, "the feeling you have just before you jump, don't you know—when you mean to jump and want to do it, and are just a little bit afraid to do it."

spygri, "the way you feel when you have just jumped and are awfully proud of it."

pippadolify, "stiff and starched like the young officers at Washington."

Other information respecting this "home-made dialect," with its revising academy of children and its standard dictionary, must be sought in the entertaining pages of Colonel Higginson, who justly says of this triumph of child-invention: "It coins thought into syllables, and one can see that, if a group of children like these were taken and isolated until they grew up, they would forget in time which words were their own and which were in Worcester's Dictionary; and stowish and krono and bojiwassis would gradually become permanent forms of speech" (262. 108).