THE HISTORICAL CHILD
Paidology
The Science of the Child
THE
HISTORICAL CHILD
BY
OSCAR CHRISMAN, A.M., Ph.D.
Professor of Paidology and Psychology in the Ohio University
BOSTON
RICHARD G. BADGER
THE GORHAM PRESS[Pg 4]
Copyright, 1920, by Richard G. Badger
All Rights Reserved
Made in the United States of America
The Gorham Press, Boston, U. S. A.
[Pg 5]
TO MY WIFE
PREFACE
In the Pedagogical Seminary for December, 1893, in an articleon "The Hearing of Children," the last paragraph, page438, occurred for the first time in print the word paidology.1In The Forum for February, 1894, page 728, the first articleexplanatory of paidology appeared. A more complete outliningof the subject was as a doctor's dissertation at theUniversity of Jena, Germany, 1896. In the first edition ofthe Standard Dictionary was included the word paidology,wherein it was defined as "The scientific study of the child."Paidology originated in my mind at a very unexpected momentone day in April, 1893.
This book is the first of a series that it is my purpose towrite upon child life. The others will follow from time totime upon the different phases of child being. This bookand the others it is hoped may appear are the outcome ofseveral years of study and of teaching the subject to youngmen and women, which has proved to me that people areeager to know about children in the past as well as in thepresent. He who wishes to acquaint himself with childrenand child nature must have a knowledge of child life as itexisted among the various nations of the world. The childas found in Ancient Mexico and Ancient Peru is given placehere because the life and doings of these peoples have alwaysbeen attractive reading to me, and also it is well to considerchild life in these nations who reached such a high stage ofexistence among the lower forms of human society and sofar removed from the civilizations of Asia and Europe. It ishoped there is value in this work to the student of childnature and that young people may find it interesting andprofitable.
It will be noted that there are topics of a general naturegiven in this work, which purports to be a study of childlife. When it is considered that the affairs of a nation affectevery class and age of the persons constituting it and espe[Pg 8]ciallyreact upon women, the mothers, then it may be understoodhow vital these matters become in a study of child lifeamong a people and how necessary they are for a bettercomprehension of what is directly connected with children.Too the term "child" is used here in a general sense, to includeall ages up to full manhood.
It seems to me that everything done and studied in mywhole life touches this science of the child and that everyone with whom I have come in contact has aide