Parent and Child Vol. III. | Page 6

of some red object on the
part of the mother.

LESSON III
DISCUSSION
1. How does embryonic life begin?
2. What is characteristic of the cell?
3. What secret does it hold?
4. What is the principal need of the embryo?
5. State fully how the blood supply may be vitiated and what terrible
consequences may follow.
6. How should the mother be cared for during this critical period?

7. How may mother drudgery in the home be reduced to a minimum?
8. What directions does Mrs. West give for the care of the mother? (See
bulletin, "Parental Care," by Mrs. West, which may be had free for the
asking. Address Children's Bureau, Department of Labor, Washington,
D.C.)
9. _References_: The following books will be found helpful: "The
Training of the Human Plant," by Burbank; "The Right of the Child to
be well born," by Dawson; "Being Well Born," by Guyer.
If these are available, they may be circulated through the parents'
library.

THE PLASTIC AGE OF CHILDHOOD
Prolonged Infancy and the Long Period of Plasticity in the Infant Make
Training and Education Possible The child is born the weakest and
most helpless of creatures. Unlike the young of most animals, which
within a few hours after birth move about and perform most of the
movements necessary to their existence, the infant is so helpless that all
its needs must be supplied by parents, otherwise it would perish.
Immediately after birth a colt or calf can walk or run almost as fast as
its mother; the chick just out of its shell can run about and peck at its
food. The child at one year of age can barely totter around and all of its
needs must be looked after by others. Moreover, the infant at birth is
practically blind and deaf and the senses of taste and smell and touch
just sufficiently developed to enable it to take nourishment.
This slowness of development, or prolonged infancy as it is called, is of
vast significance to the child. It marks at once the chief distinction
between the human infant and the young of all other animals. It makes
possible a long period of adjustment and training which otherwise
would be impossible. Most animals are born with a nervous system
highly developed and with most of the adjustment to the environment
ready made, so that after a short time all the activities of life are
perfected and thereafter automatic action and instinct rule their lives.
Because of this lack of infancy and absence of plasticity of the nervous
system, animals are little more than machines that perform their task
with unvarying regularity in response to outside stimulations. Animals,
therefore, are unable to adjust themselves to a change in environment,

and as a result their lives are in constant danger. In fact, countless
millions of the lower forms of life are perishing every hour because of
the lack of possibility of adjustment.
The child, on the other hand, has an extremely long period of infancy,
and as a result, the nervous system is so plastic that it may be moulded,
fashioned and developed in almost any manner or direction, according
to the will of parents and the nature of the environment. The child,
consequently, may be educated. By education we mean the training and
developing of desirable instincts and capacities and the inhibiting of
undesirable ones so that the child may be able constantly to adjust
himself to an ever-changing environment.
Fiske, in "The Meaning of Infancy,"
Chapter 1
, says: "The bird known as the fly-catcher no sooner breaks the egg
than it will snap at and catch a fly. This action is not very simple, but
because it is something the bird is always doing, being indeed one of
the very few things that this bird ever does, the nervous connections
needful for doing it are all established before birth, and nothing but the
presence of the fly is required to set the operation going. With such
creatures as the codfish, the turtle, or the fly-catcher, there is nothing
that can properly be called infancy. With them, the sphere of education
is extremely limited. They get their education before they are born. In
other words, heredity does everything for them, education nothing.
"All mammals and most birds have a period of babyhood that is not
very long, but it is on the whole longer with the most intelligent
creatures. The period of helpfulness is a period of plasticity. The
creature's career is no longer exclusively determined by heredity. There
is a period after birth when its character can be slightly modified by
what happens to it after birth, that is, by its experience as an individual.
It is no longer necessary for each generation to be exactly like that
which