Democratic Sentinel, Volume 19, Number 29, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 July 1895 — Children’s Fear of Animais. [ARTICLE]

Children’s Fear of Animais.

So far as I can ascertain, facts are strongly opposed to the theory of inherited fear of animals. Just as in the first months a child will manifest something like recoil from a pretty and perfectly innocent pigeon, so later on children manifest fear in the most unlikely directions. In “The Invisible Playmate” we were told of a girl who got into her first fright on seeing a sparrow drop on the grass near her, thongh she was not the least afraid of big things, and on first hearing the dog bark in his kennel said, with a little laugh of surprise, “Oh! coughing.” A parallel case is sent me by a lady friend. One day when her daughter was about four years old she found her standing. the eyes wide open and filled with tears, the arms outstretched for help, evidently transfixed with terror, while a small wood louse made its slow way toward her. The next day the child was tuken for the first time to the “Zoo,” and the mother, anticipating trouble, held her hand. But there was no need. A “fearless spirit” in general, she released her hand at the first sight of the elephant, and galloped after the monster. If inheritance plays a principal part in the child’s fear of animals, one would have expected the facts to be reversed. The elephant should have excited dread, not the harmless insect.