darkness." During the 13th and
14th centuries "child" was used, in a sense almost amounting to a title
of dignity, of a young man of noble birth, probably preparing for
knighthood. In the _York Mysteries_ of about 1440 (quoted in the _New
English Dictionary_) occurs "be he churl or child," obviously referring
to gentle birth, cf. William Bellenden's translation (1553) of Livy (ii.
124) "than was in Rome ane nobill childe ... namit Caius Mucius." The
spelling "childe" is frequent in modern usage to indicate its archaic
meaning. Familiar instances are in the line of an old ballad quoted in
_King Lear_, "childe Roland to the dark tower came," and in Byron's
_Childe Harold_. With this use may be compared the Spanish and
Portuguese _Infante_ and _Infanta_, and the early French use of _Valet_
(q.v.).

_Child-study._--The physical, psychological and educational development
of children, from birth till adulthood, has provided material in recent
years for what has come to be regarded as almost a distinct part of
comparative anthropological or sociological science, and the literature
of adolescence (q.v.) and of "child-study" in its various aspects has
attained considerable proportions. In England the British Child Study
Association was founded in 1894, its official organ being the
_Paidologist_, while similar work is done by the Childhood Society, and,
to a certain extent, by the Parents' National Educational Union (which
issues the _Parents' Review_). In America, where specially valuable work
has been done, several universities have encouraged the study (notably
Chicago, while under the auspices of Professor John Dewey); and
Professor G. Stanley Hall's initiative has led to elaborate inquiries,
the principal periodical for the movement being the _Pedagogical
Seminary_. The impetus to this study of the child's mind and capacities
was given by the classic work of educationists like J.A. Comenius, J.H.
Pestalozzi, and F.W.A. Froebel, but more recent writers have carried it
much further, notably W.T. Preyer (_The Mind of the Child_, 1881), whose
psychological studies stamp him as one of the chief pioneers in new
methods of investigation. Other authorities of first-rate importance
(their chief works only being given here) are J. Sully (_Studies of
Childhood_, 1896), Earl Barnes (_Studies in Education_, 1896, 1902),
J.M. Baldwin (_Mental Development in the Child and the Race_, 1895),
Sigismund (_Kind und Welt_, 1897), A.F. Chamberlai