Ambidextral Infants.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XLVI, Issue 98, 29 April 1904, Page 4

Ambidextral Infants.

ARE CHILDREN. "LOPSmED" I'.Y XATURE?

Do pjgß lie down on one especial side.' rtjjfT <1» monkeys eal nuts with one hapMnore than with another •? A tomf,"entertaining discussion on these 'doubtful points between Or. Noble Smith, who had just visited the monkey house at the Zoo with a bag of nuts, and Mr John Jackson.' the apostle of ambidexterity, preceded Miss Margaret McMillan's lecture on "Ambidexterity in the Infant School" last month, says the Daily Mail. Mr Jackson vehemently asserted that monkeys could do everything equally well not only with cither hand, but with their tails ; that perched equally readily or either foot ; and that numerous tenners, who had imported thousands of hides from La I'latn, had assured him that they showed no evidence of nne-sirtcdncss.

Passing from pigs to babies, Miss McMillan asserted—anil the audience gave no sign of dissent—that a

young clrild was a very near approach to perpetual motion. It moved aimlessly, but endlessly. A scientific person who had attempted to repeat all the movements of a ten-months-oM ba|by had soon! become exhausted. The audience murmured sympathetically. But strong as it is, Miss McMillan continued, the human infant arrives in the world in a very lop-sided condition. Its right lung, for instance, is much heavier than its left : the latter, in a girl infant, weighs DM grammes, ' and the former Z2 grammes, and the lungs never achieve perfect equality. Differences, however, ought to be, and can be modified by training.

The arm is the first member of the tiodjpto fall under the control of the will; then the head and trunk follow suit, and the legs are mastered last of all. Evidently, then. the arm must be educated first. A scientific believer in natural onchandedness put his five months old daughter in a chair, and put a col>oured ball in front of her to see what she would do. Confusion ! the ''iwbp"- went for the ball with both hands. Then the ball was removed to a distance, which made

this impossible, and out of seventynine trials—a resolute experimenter this—the young lady reached for that ball seventy-five limes with her right hand ami four times with her left. Let us hope the gratified parent was not too generous with chocolate in his relief. Children were not naturally ambidextral, was Miss McMillan's conclusion ; and it was impossible tc make a perfectly bi-lateral creature S(ut nourishment ami exercise of hot) sides could do wonders.