What, it may be asked, is the explanation of this? Is it that children differ in the mode of development of their colour-sensibility to this extent, or can it be that there is some fault in the method of investigation? It has been recently suggested that the mode of testing colour-discrimination by naming is open to the objection that a child may get hold of one verbal sound as "red" more easily than another as "green" and that this would facilitate the recognition of the former. If in this way the recognition of a colour is aided by the retention of its name, we must get rid of this disturbing element of sound. Accordingly new methods of experiment have been attempted in France and America. Thus Professor Baldwin investigates the matter by placing two colours opposite the child's two arms and noting which is reached out to by right or left arm, which is ignored. He has tabulated the results of a short series of these simple experiments for testing childish preference, and supports the conclusions of Binet, as against those of Preyer, that blue comes in for the first place in the child's discriminative recognition.[2] It is, however, easy to see that this method has its own characteristic defects. Thus, to begin with, it evidently does not directly test colour-discrimination at all, but the liking for or interest in colours, which though it undoubtedly implies a measure of discrimination must not be confused with this. And even as a test of preference it is very likely to be misapplied. Thus supposing that the two colours are not equally bright, then the child will grasp at one rather than at the other, because it is a brighter object and not because it is this particular colour. Again if one colour falls more into the first and fresh period of the exercise when the child is fresh and active, whereas another falls more into the second period when he is tired and inactive, the results would, it is evident, give too much value to the former. Similarly, if one colour were brought in after longer intervals of time than another it would have more attractive force through its greater novelty.
Enough has been said to show how very delicate a problem we have here to deal with. And if scientific men are still busy settling the point how the problem can be best dealt with, it seems hopeless for the amateur to dabble in the matter.