Abstract
Problem: Although we have many statistical investigations of the problem of socalled environmental influence, we may say that most of them are phenomenological descriptions of the human conducts that are assumed to be variable under the environmental inuences.
I intended, therefore, to study what functional significance the phenomena, such as human conducts which are assumed to vary parallel to various kinds of environment, have in the mind of each conductor, especially among school-children.
This problem aims to step beyond the assumption by common sense concerning the so-called environmental influence on the mental development of the child.
Experiment: Two sorts of subjects (800 boys and girls in all, from 9 to 12 of age) were selected according to their social standings from the economical point of view.
Group A. Children from the upper classes whose parents are rich and well educated.
Group B. Children from the lower classes whose parents are poor labourers.
They were told to write freely of their desires and prospects after they would have been grown up.
Interpretation of the results: Most children seem to express the social and practical ideas and the childish and playful interests together so that the contradiction between both of them gives a curious aspect to their descriptions.
(a) Preliminary statistics
The descriptions of our children are, in this place, regarded as their own opinions and preferences of occupation.
Results:(1) Group A desire general accomplishments or intellectual professions.
Group B prefer practical labours as occupation and means of livelihood.
(2) What sort of value children attach to them, in the preference of these occupations or accomplishments,-
Group A. Fame, culture, social morality, their own tastes, etc. Group B. Money and livelihood.
(b) Psychological interpretation
The description of our children are here regarded as only symptom or index to show us their trend of minds, that is to say, every word written by them are interpreted in the term of their own meanings, and it must be researched what they are truly interested in. From this point of view, the thoughts described by them are not always their own ideas. The results of the preliminary statistics must be criticized by the following results.
Results:(1) Some of young children prefer the objects (occupation, accomplishment; etc.) among their surroundings from wholly childish and playful purposes.
(2) The children who writes of the social or practical opinions have neither comprehension nor interest in what they say. They describe blindly, at least with vague understanding, the results of the suggestions by the adult in their daily lives. We can assert that what they are truly interested in are the childish and playful desires which they describe in spite of the contradiction with the adult-like speaking.
We find that some conducts or thoughts of children who live in different social environments apparently differ, but these must be investigated, furthermore, in their functional significance in the mind of children in order to be taken as facts concerning the environmental inflfluence.
The fact that the adult suggestions work in such manner on the children (result 2 in b.), is interesting with regard to the problem of the effect of education.
After what experiences the children become able to understand such adult thoughts is an important question concerning the effect of the social environment upon the mental development.
