Democratic Sentinel, Volume 18, Number 21, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 June 1894 — RIGHT-HANDEDNESS. [ARTICLE]

RIGHT-HANDEDNESS.

Odd Faota About a Peculiarity off the Human Raoa. Professor 3. Mark Baldwin, of Princeton University, has been performing a series of experiments upon one of his children with a view to finding the origin of right-handedness. There is no apparent scientific reasonwhy u man should use one hand anymore than another, or why the muscles of one arm should be stronger than those of the other; A number of theories have been advanced to account for the phenomenon. One of the most plausible, according to the St. Louis- PostDispatch, is that people become right-handed from the manner in which they are held and carried when< small children. The mother carries; the child in such a way as to leave its right hand free, and from this early experience the habit is acquired which runs through its whole life. Ik is also a curious fact that the observation of animals fails toehow an uneven development of the muscles- or limbs on one side of the body amcompared with these- on the other. Monkeys especially are known to swing freely by both arms equally well, although this is a point thab Professor Garner might well have studied in the jungles of Africa. The experiments made by Professor Baldwin, of Princeton, extended over a period of many months, beginning: while the child was an infant. This, however, was only In regard to objectoplaced at some distance from the body of the child, and where It had to reach out for them. When objects wereplaced near the child it used both hands equally. More than 1,000 experiments of this kind were tried by Professor Baldwin, and when the objects reached for were near its body it vsed both hands about an equal number of times. In stretching out, however, it almost invariably used Its right hand. Prom this ho argued that the tendency is inherited. Left-handed children are, it is said, generally descended from left-handed mothers or fathers. Those that are right-handed learn to shake hands more easily than left-handed children, who have to stretch their arms across, their body in an awkward fashion to perform the act. Profeasor Baldwin thinks that the righthanded function has some connection with the power of speech. They both belong in the same lobe of the brain, and before a child learns to apeak it has been observed that It endeavors to express emotions with its hands. There are some people who are neither left nor right handed, but who can use both hands equally well, even in writing, the muscles on either arm being the same size.