=Backward Children.=--_Enfants arrieres_--as the French call them--constitute a class by no means seldom met with. They generally attain their bodily development slowly, and the development of their mind is equally tardy. They cut their teeth late, walk late, talk late, are slow in learning to wash and dress themselves, are generally dull in their perceptions, and do not lay aside the habits of infancy till far advanced in childhood. When the time comes for positive instruction, their slowness almost wears out everyone's patience; and among the poor indeed the attempt at teaching such children is at length given up in despair, and growing up in absolute ignorance, it is no wonder that they should be regarded as idiots. Still, dull as such children are, there is between them and the idiot an essential difference. The backward child, unlike the idiot, does not remain stationary; his development goes on, but more slowly than that of other children, he is behind them in the whole course of their progress, and his delay increasing every day, places at length an enormous distance between him and them--a distance which in fact becomes insurmountable. In some of its minor degrees even, this backwardness not infrequently excites the solicitude of parents. It is sometimes observed in children who had been ill-nourished in infancy or who had been weakened by some serious or protracted illness, even though unattended by any special affection of the brain; but it is also met with independent of any special cause. The distinction, however, between such a case and one of idiocy is this, that though at four years old the child may not seem to be intellectually superior to most children at two, yet in manners, habits, and intelligence it does agree with what might be expected from the child at two; less bright perhaps, less joyous, but still presenting nothing which if it were but younger would awaken apprehension. It is well in all cases of unusual backwardness to ascertain the condition of the sense of hearing, and of the power of speech, for I have known the existence of deafness long overlooked, and the child's dulness and inability to speak referred to intellectual deficiency; and have also observed mere difficulty of articulation, dependent partly on malformation of the mouth, lead to a similar misapprehension. In both instances I have seen this inability to keep up ready intercourse with other children cast a shadow over the mind, and the little ones in consequence be dull, suspicious, unchild-like. I have already referred to a similar result as sometimes following serious illnesses. The child will for months cease to walk, or forget to talk, if these had been but comparatively recent acquirements; or will continue dull and unequal to any mental effort for weeks or months together, and then the mind will begin to develop itself once more, though slowly, possibly so slowly as never altogether to make up for lost ground.