If something characterized Charles Darwin, it is that he was an extraordinarily methodical person. He systematically noted any observation and rigorously tested all his hypotheses . So methodical were the observations he made in the hitherto unexplored Galapagos Islands, so rigorous was the testing of his hypotheses using selective breeding. And thanks to this, he ended up developing, together with Alfred Russell Wallace, the theory of evolution by natural selection , presented at the Linnaean Society of London in 1858. The following year, and not without difficulties, he published his best-seller, The Origin of Species , work by which we all know the English naturalist.
But his eagerness to make methodical notes of everything he observed did not stop at the development of the theory that today, much more complete and expanded, is part of the very basis of biology. He wrote down practically everything .
In 1877 , the newly founded British magazine Mind published an article by Hippolyte Taine on child development; the first who knows science. Charles Darwin was quick to respond to that publication, with another, in the same magazine, entitled A Biographical Sketch of a Baby , written from a huge number of manuscripts that Darwin himself had completed two decades earlier , spanning from 1839 until 1856.
Charles Darwin’s notes begin with his first child, William , during his first six years of life, and continue, overlapping, with his next daughter, Anne , who was her father’s right eye. Throughout the process, Darwin showed a great ability to dissociate himself from his own emotions; he had a great affection for his children, but when he wrote his notes, he did so with the tone of sobriety that a scientist has for a study specimen . Darwin continued, albeit less intensely, noting expressions and reactions of the children, until, at one point around 1844, he abandoned the diary.
On his eighth day of life he frowned a lot, and I think he did before. Now his eyebrows are very little prominent and with a slight vestige of hair. So if frowning has anything to do with vision, it must now be quite instinctive: furthermore, vision at this age is extremely imperfect. On the ninth day, however, he seemed to follow a candle with his eyes.
Charles Darwin, Observation Manuscript on His Children. 1839.
It was Emma, his wife, who took up the manuscript from 1852; although she tends to write down more of the social interactions that her children – who are many more at that time – have with other people, many of them in the form of anecdotes. Emma’s contribution represented a two-year hiatus that enriched the text with a new prism, shifting the emphasis towards the association of ideas, the development of logical thinking and language.
Lenny kept pestering me asking me over and over “where was his picture”, and in the end I scolded him and told him to shut up, when he immediately asked me “but where do you think it is”. And when I said “Lenny, why did you ask me again” – he replied in a very hurt tone “no, I haven’t, because I only asked where you thought I was.
Emma Darwin, observational manuscript on her children. 1855.
Charles took up the notebook in 1854, with a few more notes from Emma, until 1856, when the observations diary is closed. The manuscript concludes with several pages, written by both Darwin and Emma, with conclusions about the logic of children, the development of their self-perception and their self-awareness .
In A Biographical Sketch of a Baby , Charles Darwin reflects that the acquisition of language is a key event for the mental development of the child, and extrapolates it to the importance of having developed the capacity for language in humanity . He was committed to breaking down the artificial language barrier between non-human animals and us, and he argued this by indicating that many animals had the ability to understand and comprehend certain words or commands if they were taught. The difference, said Charles, lay in an “ infinitely greater power ” of the human being in associating concepts with sounds, as a result of the co-evolution of language and the brain .
This scientific article was one of the first studies of child psychology , a field largely ignored until then, with the consequent impact on the science of Victorian Great Britain, and also represented a methodological innovation, since no one had previously kept such a detailed record and for so long .
REFERENCES
Darwin, C. and Darwin, E. (1839-1856) Darwin’s observations on their children, Darwin Correspondence Project. Available at: https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/people/about-darwin/family-life/darwin-s-observations-his-children (Accessed: 2 February 2022).
Darwin, C. (1877) ‘A biographical sketch of an infant’, Mind, os-2(7), pp. 285–294. doi:10.1093/mind/os-2.7.285.
Hellal, P. and Lorch, M. (2010) ‘Darwin’s Contribution to the Study of Child Development and Language Acquisition’, Language & History, 53(1), pp. 1–14. doi:10.1179/175975310X12640878626147.
