The Mind of the Child, Part II: The Development of the Intellect, International Education; Series Edited By William T. Harris, Volume IX.Preyer, William T.
Science
The Mind of the Child, Part II: The Development of the Intellect, International Education; Series Edited By William T. Harris, Volume IX.
Preyer, William T.
Child development; Child psychology
The statements contradictory to those of Kollmann are probably to be
explained by the brevity of the observations.
Virchow ("Correspondenzblatt," S. 135), in his remarks upon this case,
says: "I am convinced that every one who observes the microcephalic
child will find that psychologically it has nothing whatever of the ape.
All the positive faculties and qualities of the ape are wanting here;
there is nothing of the psychology of the ape, but only the psychology
of an imperfectly developed and deficient little child. Every
characteristic is human; every single trait. I had the girl in my room a
few months since, for hours together, and occupied myself with her; I
never observed anything in her that reminds me even remotely of the
psychological conditions of apes. She is a human being, in a low stage
of development, but in no way deviating from the nature of humanity."
From these reports it is plain to be seen that for all mental
development an hereditary physical growth of the cerebrum is
indispensable. If the sensuous impressions experienced anew in each case
by each human being, and the original movements, were sufficient without
the development of the cerebral convolutions and of the gray cortex,
then these microcephalous beings, upon whom the same impressions
operated as upon other new-born children, must have had better brains
and must have learned more. But the brain, notwithstanding the
peripheral impressions received in seeing, hearing, and feeling, could
not grow, and so the rudimentary human child could not learn anything,
and could not even form the ideas requisite for articulate voluntary
movement, or combine these ideas. Only the motor centers of lower rank
could be developed.
In peculiar contrast with these cases of genuine microcephaly stands the
exceedingly remarkable case, observed by Dr. Rudolf Krause (Hamburg), of
a boy whose brain is not at all morbidly affected or abnormally small,
but exhibits decidedly the type of the brain of the ape. The discoverer
reported upon it to the Anthropological Society ("Correspondenzblatt
a.a. O., S. 132-135) the following facts among others:
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