ABSTRACT
THERE IS an impression that in investigations into babyhood, the problem of emotions is excluded because of the exactness of the observations. That need not be so; this whole investigation is centred around the emotional life of the child. The two most important turning-points in the emotional life of the child during the first year of life are the third month and the eighth month. In the third month the emotional maturation of the infant is the pioneer, the trail-breaker, for every other development in that infant's life. The infant recognizes a person—his mother or her substitute—because of his emotional tie to her, but not the rest of the world because such ties have not yet been developed; the emotions linking him with the rest of the world are not strong enough. It is an axiom that emotional understanding precedes other understanding by at least two months, throughout the first year of life. The infant recognizes his mother at 3 months and the bottle or its food only at 5 or 6 months. The infant distinguishes the mother from a stranger usually between the sixth and eighth months, but it distinguishes its favourite toy only towards 10 months. Its disappointment when somebody who has been playing with it goes away, is already visible at 4 months; but if you take away a toy, disappointment will only become visible after 6 months.
