It  was  considerations  like  these  that  led  one  of  us  (G.  S.  H.),
after  a  careful  preliminary  survey  based  on  informal  examina-
tions of  many  children  of  different  ages,  in  which  he  was
greatly  aided  by  Miss  Sara  E.  Wiltse,  to  print  and  circulate

1  Reprinted  in  abridged  form  from  Pedagogical  Semittary,  Vol.  IV,  pp.  1 29-
175,  December,  1896.
157


158  CHILD  LIFE  AND  EDUCATION

among  about  eight  hundred  teachers  and  parents  a  question-
naire which  brought  the  following  returns :  Miss  Lillie
Williams,  State  Normal  School,  New  Jersey,  203  papers ;
St.  George's  High  School,  Edinburgh,  Scotland,  6^  \  Miss
Jennie  B.  Merrill,  New  York  City,  53  ;  N.  Y.,  105  ;  Miss  S.
E.  Wiltse,  26;  Miss  Mary  White,  18;  and  176  from  mis-
cellaneous sources,  making  in  all  648.  These  returns  were
of  very  varied  degrees  of  merit.  Some  were  long  letters  of
reminiscence  by  adults,  some  were  observations  by  mothers,
and  others  were  of  the  doll  history  of  individual  children.
There  were  also  school  compositions  by  pupils  of  high  and
normal  schools  ;  94  boys  were  reported  on,  the  rest  were
girls ;  96  were  reminiscences,  and  the  majority  were  written
by  females  between  fourteen  and  twenty-four.  Altogether
this  constituted  a  stack  of  thousands  of  pages  of  manuscript.
