Document conservé au AEN dans le fonds James Guillaume, sous la cote 10.7.

Il s’agit d’un bilan phrénologique, rédigé en anglais et donc antérieur à son départ de Londres en 1848 alors qu’il était âgé de 3 ans comme l’a rappelé Marc Vuilleumier dans l’introduction biographique de L’Internationale. Documents et souvenirs.

Voici la transcription de ce document qui décrit la personnalité du petit James Guillaume :

“This little boy is fond of children. He is affectionate and very kind hearted. He has strong pulsions which may be mastered by firmness and praise. He is domesticated and will never make a good traveller. Fortunately he has cautiousness or he would get mite difficulties. He is firm and often obstinate. He is rather cheerful and generally looks on the best side of things. His religious feelings are defective. He will never make a parson. He is rather partial (sic) to music but he will not make a musician. He is fond of matters of faith. He wants mere order at present. He remembers objects and persons and has a tolerable [sic] memory for his lessons and for learning languages. This is a fortunate circumstance as there would be otherwise a great probability that he would be precocious. He has talents for arithmetic and very respectable abilities for mathematics. He will be able to [illisible] plans and he should by all means be taught drawing. Not imaginative. He is [illisible] and is fond of knowing the why and wherefore and there is every reason to infer that his reflective faculties will greatly enlarge. He is ingenious or mechanical. He observes and thinks a great deal more than his friends imagine. He is adapted for an engineer of for an [illisible]. Very honorable. A well balanced heart but the intellectual, at present, does not equal the animal or moral.”