Part 15 (2/2)
The instinct of self-preservation is e and experience, so that the defense of the er would be very different from that of the child; yet the instinct to protect oneself in _some_ way remains On the other hand, the instinct to romp and play is less pered or old people care to race about as do children Their activities are occupied in other lines, and they require less physical exertion
Contrast with these two exa, which arethan the play instinct, even
With dentition co is nois a better , so the instinct to creep soon dies Speech is found a better way than crying to attract attention to distress, so this instinct drops out
Many of our instincts not only would fail to be serviceable in our later lives, but would be positively in the way Each serves its day, and then passes over into so nized, or else drops out of sight altogether
SEEMINGLY USELESS INSTINCTS--Indeed it is difficult to see that sonacity and greediness of childhood, its foolish fears, the bashfulness of youth--these seem to be either useless or detrimental to develops of instinct, however, we must remember that it looks in two directions; into the future for its application, and into the past for its explanation We should not be surprised if the experiences of a long past have left behind some tendencies which are not very useful under the vastly different conditions of today
Nor should we be too sure that an activity whose precise function in relation to development we cannot discover has no use at all Each instinct ht of what it means to its possessor today, but of what it means to all his future develop see is concerned, yet if the polliwog's tail is cut off a perfect frog never develops
INSTINCTS TO BE UTILIZED WHEN THEY APPEAR--Ahis mill wheels today or wait for twenty years--the power is there ready for him when he wants it Instincts must be utilized when they present themselves, else they disappear--never, intime never learn to fly well
The huntercan never be depended upon Ducks kept away frorown have almost as little inclination for it as chickens
The child whom the pressure of circu with playa upon him, will in later life find himself a hopeless recluse to whom social duties are a bore The boy who does not hunt and fish and race and clis, will find his taste for them fade away, and he will become wedded to a sedentary life The youth and maiden must be permitted to ”dress up” when the impulse comes to them, or they are likely ever after to be careless in their attire
INSTINCTS AS STARTING POINTS--Most of our habits have their rise in instincts, and all desirable instincts should be seized upon and transformed into habits before they fade away Says Jay the great thing is to strike while the iron is hot, and to seize the wave of the pupils'
interest in each successive subject before its ebb has coot and a habit of skill acquired--a headway of interest, in short, secured, on which afterwards the individual , forboys collectors in natural history, and presently dissectors and botanists; then for initiating them into the harmonies of mechanics and the wonders of physical and chey and the ious mysteries take their turn; and, last of all, the drama of human affairs and worldly wisdom in the widest sense of the term In each of us a saturation point is soon reached in all these things; the impetus of our purely intellectual zeal expires, and unless the topic is associated with soent personal need that keeps our wits constantly whetted about it, we settle into an equilibrium, and live on e learned when our interest was fresh and instinctive, without adding to the store”
There is a tide in the affairs of men Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune; Oe of their life Is bound in shallows and in miseries
THE MORE IMPORTANT HUMAN INSTINCTS--It will be iue of the human instincts, much less to discuss each in detail Wethea few of the objects with the fingers_, _carrying to the _, _loconacity_, _resent_, _fear_, _acquisitiveness_, _play_, _curiosity_, _sociability_, _modesty_, _secretiveness_, _shame_, _love_, _and jealousy_ may be said to head the list of our instincts It will be impossible in our brief space to discuss all of this list Only a few of the more important will be noticed
3 THE INSTINCT OF IMITATION
No individual enters the world with a large enough stock of instincts to start his necessary for his welfare Instinct prory, but does not tell him to use a knife and fork and spoon; it prompts him to use vocal speech, but does not say whether he shall use English, French, or German; it prompts him to be social in his nature, but does not specify that he shall say please and thank you, and take off his hat to ladies The race did not find the specific _s are to be done of sufficient importance to crystallize them in instincts, hence the individual must learn the this is for each generation to copy the ways of doing things which are followed by the older generation ah _imitation_
NATURE OF IMITATION--_Iestion fro his act_ The instinct of imitation is active in the year-old child, it requires another year or two to reach its height, then it gradually grows less hout life The young child is practically helpless in the matter of imitation Instinct demands that he shall imitate, and he has no choice but to obey His environment furnishes the ood or bad Before he is old enough for intelligent choice, he has imitated a multitude of acts about hi theroe may choose ill imitate, but in our earlier years we are at the mercy of the ue is the first we hear spoken, that will be our language; but if we first hear Chinese, ill learn that with almost equal facility If whatever speech we hear is well spoken, correct, and beautiful, so will our language be; if it is vulgar, or incorrect, or slangy, our speech will be of this kind If the first manners which serve us as models are coarse and boorish, ours will resemble them; if they are cultivated and refined, ours will be like them If our models of conduct and morals are questionable, our conduct and , of dressing, of thinking, of saying our prayers, even, originates in imitation By imitation we adopt ready-ious creeds Our views of life and the values we set on its attainely a iven the same model, no two of us will imitate precisely alike Your acts will be yours, and mine will be mine This is because no two of us have just the same heredity, and hence cannot have precisely similar instincts There reside in our different personalities different powers of invention and originality, and these determine by how much the product of imitation will vary from the model Some remain imitators all their lives, while others use imitation as a inal models The person who is an imitator only, lacks individuality and initiative; the nation which is an iressive While imitation ly intelligent as the individual or the nation progresses
CONSCIOUS AND UNCONSCIOUS IMITATION--The much-quoted dictum that ”all consciousness is motor” has a direct application to imitation It only means that _we have a tendency to act on whatever idea occupies thethe throat, and the tendency is strong to do these things We naturally respond to smile with s to us from our material environment have their influence on our acts Our response to these ideas may be a conscious one, as when a boy purposely stutters in order to mimic an unfortunate coly falls into the habit of sta this kind of speech The child may consciously seek to keep himself neat and clean so as to harmonize with a pleasant and well-kept home, or he may unconsciously beco in an ill-kept ho is the rule
Often we deliberately imitate what seereater proportion of the suggestions to which we respond are received and acted upon unconsciously In conscious imitation we can select what models we shall iood and bad models is valid In unconscious i to a strea in upon us hour after hour and day after day, with no protection but the leadings of our interests as they direct our attention now to this phase of our environment, and now to that
INFLUENCE OF ENVIRONMENT--No small part of the influences which mold our lives comes from our material environment Good clothes, artistic homes, beautiful pictures and decoration, attractive parks and laell-kept streets, well-bound books--all these have a direct moral and educative value; on the other hand, squalor, disorder, and ugliness are an incentive to ignorance and crime
Hawthorne tells in ”The Great Stone Face” of the boy Ernest, listening to the tradition of a co Wise Man who one day is to rule over the Valley The story sinks deep into the boy's heart, and he thinks and dreaood azing across the valley at a distant mountain side whose rocks and cliffs nature had formed into the outlines of a hunity of its expression He comes to love this Face and looks upon it as the prototype of the co Wise Man, until lo! as he dwells upon it and dreams about it, the beautiful character which its expression typifies grows into his own life, and he hi-looked-for Wise Man
THE INFLUENCE OF PERSONALITY--More powerful than the influence of material environment, however, is that of other personalities upon us--the touch of life upon life A living personality contains a pohich grips hold of us, electrifies us, inspires us, and corades and debases us None has failed to feel at some time this life-touch, and to bless or curse the day when its influence came upon him Either consciously or unconsciously such a personality becomes our ideal and model; we idolize it, idealize it, and imitate it, until it becoreat personalities living in the flesh, but we find thees they speak to us, and to whose influence we respond
And not in the _great_ personalities alone does the power to influence reside Froreat or s to et that this influence is reciprocal, and that we are reacting upon others up to the measure of the powers that are in us
4 THE INSTINCT OF PLAY
Small use to be a child unless one can play Says Karl Groos: ”Perhaps the very existence of youth is due in part to the necessity for play; the ani because he rades of ani insects, the playful kitten, the frisking laregation of blackbirds--these are but illustrations of the common impulse of all the animal world to play Wherever freedom and happiness reside, there play is found; wherever play is lacking, there the curse has fallen and sadness and oppression reign Play is the natural role in the paradise of youth; it is childhood's chief occupation To toil without play, places man on a level with the beasts of burden