Dear Sir:

The subject of the gradual unfolding of the mental faculties in infants, the first systematic observations of which were, I believe, made by yourself, possesses a singular interest for me, and I am not at all surprised to see that it is attracting the attention of scientific amateurs on this side of the water in a very extraordinary degree.¹ You will have been informed of the action taken by the Education department of the American Social Science Association, which has published a collection of Essays on Infant Development intellectual and physical, and has issued a circular recommending the observation and registration of the several phases of development as they progressively appear in the infant.²

This line of investigation, I am confident, will be pursued here with all the characteristic ardor and acuteness of the American intellect— indeed it is very probable that it will become a veritable craze. What I apprehend, however, is that, having become a craze, it will have the fate of all crazes: that it will be overdone, and ridiculed out of existence by the flippant witlings of the newspaper press.

Now as researches and observations of this kind are of the highest value, both for what they are in themselves, and more especially for the promise they hold out of affording us a solid scientific basis for educational theory and practice, it is not to be permitted that such studies should fail from misdirection. If the man who first put into our hands the clue to guide us through this labyrinth would, out of the abundance of his acquired knowledge, indicate the directions in which research promises to be fruitful, much would be gained. In a word, the multitude of willing but very unskilled workers need to have the task that is required of them defined with all possible clearness.

Permit me to say that this “movement”—for it has already almost attained the proportions of a movement—urgently calls for guidance from you; and that it will afford great satisfaction to many on this side of the Atlantic if you will consent to make the Review the organ for conveying your ideas upon this subject to the minds of our American students of science.³

I allow myself therefore to hope that you may be induced to give my proposal a favorable consideration, and that we may, at an early date, have the satisfaction of publishing such a contribution from your pen.

Believe me, dear Sir, | yours very truly, | A. Thorndike Rice | Editor.

Charles Darwin Esq D.C.L.

P.S. If you will pardon the mention of an honorarium, I will venture to say that we shall be happy to pay £80 sterling for a MS. of from 20 to 25 pages.—9000 to 12000 words.