Education: Egotists

Just as if millions of distracted mothers did not already know, a young woman at Columbia University set out two years ago to discover What Children Talk About. Dr. Mary Shattuck Fisher selected 72 youngsters between the ages of 2 and 6. For three days, from arrival at nursery school until afternoon nap, stenographers tagged after the children taking down everything they said. In the case of. one garrulous 4-year-old, that meant 1,728 remarks. The most bashful 2-year-old contented himself with 200. Last week, having pored long over the stenographic transcripts, Dr. Fisher finally knew what children talk about: Themselves.

The youngsters began babbling about themselves as soon as they could talk, kept it up in a great four-year crescendo. At the age of 2 their chief interest outside themselves was in objects. By the time they were 6, that external interest had shifted largely to persons. “The pre-school child,” Dr. Fisher reported, “is a confirmed egotist and extremely sociable. He satisfies both needs by talking incessantly to other people, telling them whatever he happens to be doing at the moment.”

Children learn the word “no” early, use it more & more frequently as they grow older. Just as rapid is the rise in the number of questions they ask. The number of commands issued, on the other hand, reaches a peak at the age of 4, declines slowly thereafter. Girls show a faster general rate of development than boys. They ask more questions, issue more commands, say more “noes,” do more gossiping. Boys surpass them only in fondness for meaningless words, babblings, gurglings, imitations of animals.