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Show I .New Born Infant I More Than Animal H Senses pnly Slightly Developed Says Scientist, But fl Mother Says No, and Experienced Doctor. H Admit She Is Right H By MABEL SIMIS ULRICH. xft. D. 1'HfcJ lnfj.HL Is no moro than a little animal, decides the materialistic man of science, after years of BBS scrutiny and labor. And to prove BBh his conclusion lie points to a bewlldcr- BBW lnc table of facts and statistics. BBB The baby Is born blind and deaf; all BBS of his senses are In fact but slightly BBV developed. He shows us tho mcagre- BBl ness of the brain and the nerves; he BBV proves conclusively that the baby can- BBl not think or will; that the smile which BBl transcends tho mother soul is, for BBV weeks at least, but a physical contor- BBl lion a literal ghost of a smile; that BBV gluttony is the only passion of the BBl baby soul; that not even pain, far Ices BBh pleasure, as we know theso sensations, BBB can exist for him. BBH But when did science alone convinco BBB a mother? Your man of science may BBB know best .as regards the mere physical BBH welfare of her child. The care of hlx BBH digestion she will cheerfully surrender BBH to him; but his soul she claims herself. BBH To all tho scientist's arguments she BBH will agree if need be. BBH But -what of It? sho demands. What BBH If her son be born blind and deaf? The BBH rudiments of sight and hearing arc BBH there. 'The brain may bo small and BBB undeveloped, but It is nevertheless a BBB thinking apparatus which may some BBB day astonish the world. It Is all thro BBB In bud, sho will declare, and even from BBH the rry first day he may ponslbly BBH manifest striking differences from all BBH other tjablos. if pne's eyes but bo fine BBh enough to nee. BBH And aho is right That which her BH love has Intuitively taught her. BBB psychologists, after patient years of BBBj study, have agreed upon. Tho new- BBB born child Is a physical organism, BH they assort, but it carries with It the BBB cqrrn of a human consciousness which - begins to expand from the very beginning. be-ginning. That fact In Itself, you see, removes the child far from the puiely animal world. A physician who has had any experience ex-perience with mothers and babies will admit this, perhaps a Httlo grudlngly. Ho knows that, on the whole, the child Is bettor off under tho "animal" Idea if he Is to be trusted to a thoughtless, sentimental guardian. But tho thoughtful thought-ful mother will soon see that tho broader conception morely adds deeper signlilcance to an all-wise care of the little body. For all those elements of Individuality we call the soul, if not wholly dependent upon this wriggling bunch of redness, aro yet-so closely associated with It that nothing can occur to tho ono which does not immediately im-mediately affect the other. It is a fact that intellectual dullness and moral obliquity are usually due to some physical imperfection of early life. Tho tragedy of this truth lies too often in tho fact that theso imperfections imperfec-tions are so slight as to be wholly unobserved. un-observed. If you will onco think of it, It 13 through tho senses that tho child Is aw'akened into conscious , life. His whole progress depends upon tho sensitiveness, sen-sitiveness, tho perfection, of theso benscs. More than that, when he reaches the age of expression. It la only througji tho Imagery provided by these same senses that tho plrt. tho soul can express Itself. Surely it Is plain, therefore, that too great attention cannot can-not be given theso fivo gateways into life. Nature herself is an Infinitely cautious cau-tious mother. It is by a process ot gradual transitions that she teaches tier child to adapt himself to tho world In which he finds himself. Tho old. poetic Idea, first expressed by Lucretius, Lucre-tius, was that the poor Httlo mite was cast, like a shipwrecked sailor, naked upon a world of pain. Fortunately, this view is moro poetic than true. It arises fiom the common mistake of Judging tho infant's sensations by our own standurds. For him there Is no such thing as pain as we know it. The nerou8 system is not sulllclcntly developed to permit of pain. The most that the senses are capable of aro disagreeable dis-agreeable Impressions. Take, for Instance, the matter of sight. It is not at one blow that this wonderful power Is allowed to burst upon tho dazed newcomer. Weeks and months ,iif required to develop the eye's delicate mechanism. Blind at Llrth, ho shows a distinct distaste for light. But In three weeks a candle has become a real attraction for him. At first ho sees only In a straight line; the muscles of the eyeball have not yet learned to move from side to side. But giadually. stop by step, the norvps are trained by the developing brain behind them, until, where at llrst all wms confusion, u vagueness, jn tw'O months objects and persons detach themselves from the general blur. And now ho sees and knows his mother. Yet it is two years or more before he Is able to follow the swift flight of a swallow. In similar fashion tho other senses adjust themselves to their environment. environ-ment. And all Is accomplished by the development of the brain and the nerves which connect It with the body surface. This brain at birth Is homogeneous hom-ogeneous and almost lluld. But dally It becomes more solid; more differentiated. differen-tiated. Areas of control, so-called "centres." are evolved: centres of motion, mo-tion, centres of sensatlpn, centres of speech. These must In turn bo themselves them-selves connected, and thus wo have 'association tracts." Without these connecting paths wo should have no memory, no power of attention. Generally Gen-erally speaking, at about seven wotks .we get the first evidences of their beginnings. be-ginnings. But it takes months, con years, for them to attain their full properties. |
