Full text: Proceedings of the International Congress of Education of the World's Columbian Exposition, Chicago, July 25-28, 1893

THE LANGUAGE OF CHILDREN. 13% 
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voluntary and the voluntary ; though I dare say ‘many people . . . 
would like to pretend otherwise.” I venture to think that this statement 
is too strong, for, as we have seen, though in invention volitional effort 
keeps the fictive process going and maintains a critical supervision of its 
results, it exercises no direct control over the particular arrangements of 
imagery which actually arise. 
(¢) My last conclusion is the most tentative of all. Cases like that 
of Dr. Paul Heyse and of Mr. Stevenson, together with the other cases 
referred to of power to fashion a dream by help of a process of critical 
reflection, point to the existence in a few imaginative men of a rudiment of 
a higher kind of dream faculty, a power of giving to the dream creation a 
more elaborate and coherent form and a finer poetic quality. This power 
‘ncludes a germ of volitional control, and so is an extension into the realm 
of sleep of the true artistic faculty. It is conceivable that in the course of 
ages this rudimentary power may be evolved into a useful faculty. A 
writer who, having all the luxuriant wealth of dream imagery, can learn to 
add the plastic purpose of art, would certainly have a considerable advan- 
tage in the struggle for literary existence ; and indeed Mr. Stevenson must 
be grateful to his nocturnal Brownies for such brilliant suggestions as that 
of the transformation scene in the ¢ Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. 
Hyde.” It may be, however, that the tendency to dream better than one’s 
competitors would -not prove so beneficial. If sleep ought to be brain rest, 
elaborate dreaming weve surely a thing to be shunned. A kind-hearted 
person, on reading Mr. Du Maurier’s clever and gracefully told dream 
story, is tempted to pray the author to bestow on poor Ibbetson just 
one good, honest sleep. Hence it may after all turn out that the great 
dreamers will, in the long run, be beaten by the little dreamers in the race 
tor literary fame. 
THE LANGUAGE OF CHILDREN. 
BY F. TRACY, OF CLARK UNIVERSITY, WORCESTER. MASS. 
HaviNe spent considerable time on the study of the language of chil- 
dren just learning to speak, I feel justified in laying before this congress 
one or two points which seem to me of the greatest interest and importance. 
Several studies have already been made upon child vocabularies, and 
results published, but, so far as I know, one essential point has always 
hitherto been overlooked—viz.: the phonetic arrangement of the words ; 
shat is to say, the consideration of the sounds rather than the letters. 
I'he child’s words have been classified according to the initial letter, on 
he basis of the traditional English alphabet. It is obvious that such an 
arrangement is entirely misleading as regards the real nature of the sounds 
uttered by the child. For example, in such a classification many words 
veginning with the sound of Z are classified under ¢, because they
	        
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