DEAR: Within the past week I have been reading Professor Preyer's book, The Mind of the Child, and, perhaps because my thought has also been dwelling much on the All-Gone Song I have been forcibly struck by the many observations proving that the first general concept attained by his boy was that of change in its two forms of ceasing to be and coming to be. It has also interested me to notice that the recognition of ceasing or vanishing preceded by nine months that of beginning or appearing. While still unable to articulate any words other than the primitive syllables ma-ma, pa-pa, at-ta, little Axel formed the habit of saying atta when carried from the house for his daily outing. In his eleventh month he uttered the same word when the light of a lamp was dimmed. Later he whispered atta when a face was hidden, a fan closed, and a glass emptied of its contents. From these examples of its use it is evident that the word meant to him "gone, all gone," while from the fact that it was generally whispered it seems fair to infer that some sense of mystery, and some feeling of awe, attended this recognition of disappearance. Finally, the feeling of awe was heightened into visible terror during a railway journey, and the

2

child repeated atta again and again as he gazed from the car window upon the ever-vanishing landscape.*

Doubtless every thoughtful mother can recall experiences verifying the observations of Professor Preyer. Doubtless, too, every mother tries to put into words and action something of what she feels

* "The only word that is unquestionably used to denote a class of perceptions is still atta, ha-atta, which during the following month also is uttered softly, for the most part on going out, and which signifies away or gone. Beyond this no syllable can be named that marked the dawn of mental independence, none that testified to the voluntary use of articulate sounds for the purpose of announcing perceptions." -Development of the Intellect, p. 122. Record of fifteenth

month.

66

'No second concept is proved with certainty to be associated with a definite sound until the twentieth month, when da or nda was frequently uttered in a lively manner and with a peculiarly demonstrative accent on the sudden appearance of a new object in the field of vision."-Development of the Intellect, p. 138.

The little girl I studied used as her first word All-gone in a highly generalized sense. She said it when an object was put out of sight; when one was denied her; when she saw an object that had been denied her; when she swallowed a mouthful of food; when she slipped back, failing to climb a step; when she had tried to attract some one's attention and failed; when a person left the room; when a door blew to; when a wagon drove away; when a person passed by, or a wagon approached; when she wished to go out herself (First Two Years of the Child).-MILLICENT W. SHINN.

"All gone,

to be struggling in her child's mind. she exclaims, smiling and throwing out her arms in explanatory gesture as baby gazes perplexed into his empty cup. “All-gone, light,” she repeats, when the candle is borne out of sight. "Bye-bye, papa," she calls, throwing a kiss as the father disappears from the nursery, and "bye-bye, pussie, bye-bye, birdie, bye-bye, ball," she says, and teaches her baby to say as one of these wellknown objects runs, flies, or rolls out of the field of his vision.

It must, however, be confessed that in this case the deed of the mother is hardly an adequate response to the hint thrown out by the child. Confronted by vanishing objects he shows perplexity, wonder, and fear. Evidently his mind is grappling with a problem. Something has gone! Where has it gone? Why has it gone? Will it come back? Such are the questions stirring darkly within him, and we only need to put them into words to realize that the infant soul is having its first wrestle with an enigma which has allured and tortured the mind of man upon every plane of historic development.

Were it not that familiarity with change dead

ens our sense of its mystery, we should meet the child's wonder with a more comprehending sympathy. Think of fleeting days, of changing seasons, of passing years! Behold in the heavens the setting sun, the waning moon, the vanishing stars! Let your imagination wander over the face of the earth until you feel the meaning of rushing rivers and ebbing tides, of fading flowers and falling leaves, of withering plants and dying animals. Consider how the mother vanishes from her child, the child from its mother, husband from wife, and friend from friend. When your heart has dwelt upon these things until you begin to realize what it means to be the denizen of a world which is forever fleeing from itself, and whose air is full of "farewells to the dying and mournings for the dead," stretch your thought, and from these commonplaces of change pass to its wider workings. Remind yourself that the earth was once a ball of vapor and afterward a fiery sun, while now she hastens toward the time when, like the moon, she will be cold and dead. Recall her geologic changes, her sunken continents, her vanished oceans, her extinct fauna and flora, the primitive men who roved through her ancient forests and died leaving no