The Mind and Its Education

G >> George Herbert Betts >> The Mind and Its Education

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3. THE INSTINCT OF IMITATION

No individual enters the world with a large enough stock of instincts to
start him doing all the things necessary for his welfare. Instinct
prompts him to eat when he is hungry, 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 _modes_ in which these and many other things are to be
done of sufficient importance to crystallize them in instincts, hence
the individual must learn them as he needs them. The simplest way of
accomplishing this is for each generation to copy the ways of doing
things which are followed by the older generation among whom they are
born. This is done largely through _imitation_.

NATURE OF IMITATION.--_Imitation is the instinct to respond to a
suggestion from another by repeating 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 marked, but
continues in some degree throughout 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
models which he must imitate, whether they are good or bad. Before he is
old enough for intelligent choice, he has imitated a multitude of acts
about him; and habit has seized upon these acts and is weaving them into
conduct and character. Older grown we may choose what we will imitate,
but in our earlier years we are at the mercy of the models which are
placed before us.

If our mother tongue is the first we hear spoken, that will be our
language; but if we first hear Chinese, we will 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 morals will be
of like type. Our manner of walking, of dressing, of thinking, of saying
our prayers, even, originates in imitation. By imitation we adopt
ready-made our social standards, our political faith, and our religious
creeds. Our views of life and the values we set on its attainments are
largely a matter of imitation.

INDIVIDUALITY IN IMITATION.--Yet, given 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 means to the invention of better types than the original
models. The person who is an imitator only, lacks individuality and
initiative; the nation which is an imitator only is stagnant and
unprogressive. While imitation must be blind in both cases at first, it
should be increasingly 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 the
mind_. Think of yawning or clearing the throat, and the tendency is
strong to do these things. We naturally respond to smile with smile and
to frown with frown. And even the impressions coming 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 companion; or it may be unconscious, as
when the boy unknowingly falls into the habit of stammering from hearing
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 become slovenly and cross-tempered from living in an
ill-kept home where constant bickering is the rule.

Often we deliberately imitate what seems to us desirable in other
people, but probably far the greater proportion of the suggestions to
which we respond are received and acted upon unconsciously. In
conscious imitation we can select what models we shall imitate, and
therefore protect ourselves in so far as our judgment of good and bad
models is valid. In unconscious imitation, however, we are constantly
responding to a stream of suggestions pouring 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 lawns,
well-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 coming Wise Man who one day is to rule over the
Valley. The story sinks deep into the boy's heart, and he thinks and
dreams of the great and good man; and as he thinks and dreams, he spends
his boyhood days gazing across the valley at a distant mountain side
whose rocks and cliffs nature had formed into the outlines of a human
face remarkable for the nobleness and benignity of its expression. He
comes to love this Face and looks upon it as the prototype of the coming
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 himself becomes the long-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 power
which grips hold of us, electrifies us, inspires us, and compels us to
new endeavor, or else degrades 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 becomes a part of us. Not only do we find these
great personalities living in the flesh, but we find them also in books,
from whose pages they speak to us, and to whose influence we respond.

And not in the _great_ personalities alone does the power to influence
reside. From _every life_ which touches ours, a stream of influence
great or small is entering our life and helping to mold it. Nor are we
to forget 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 animal does not play because he is young, but he is young because he
must play." Play is a constant factor in all grades of animal life. The
swarming insects, the playful kitten, the frisking lambs, the racing
colt, the darting swallows, the maddening aggregation 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.

THE NECESSITY FOR PLAY.--But why is play so necessary? Why is this
impulse so deep-rooted in our natures? Why not compel our young to
expend their boundless energy on productive labor? Why all this waste?
Why have our child labor laws? Why not shut recesses from our schools,
and so save time for work? Is it true that all work and no play makes
Jack a dull boy? Too true. For proof we need but gaze at the dull and
lifeless faces of the prematurely old children as they pour out of the
factories where child labor is employed. We need but follow the
children, who have had a playless childhood, into a narrow and barren
manhood. We need but to trace back the history of the dull and brutish
men of today, and find that they were the playless children of
yesterday. Play is as necessary to the child as food, as vital as
sunshine, as indispensable as air.

The keynote of play is _freedom_, freedom of physical activity, and
mental initiative. In play the child makes his own plans, his
imagination has free rein, originality is in demand, and constructive
ability is placed under tribute. Here are developed a thousand
tendencies which would never find expression in the narrow treadmill of
labor alone. The child needs to learn to work; but along with his work
must be the opportunity for free and unrestricted activity, which can
come only through play. The boy needs a chance to be a barbarian, a
hero, an Indian. He needs to ride his broomstick on a dangerous raid,
and to charge with lath sword the redoubts of a stubborn enemy. He needs
to be a leader as well as a follower. In short, without in the least
being aware of it, he needs to develop himself through his own
activity--he needs freedom to play. If the child be a girl, there is no
difference except in the character of the activities employed.

PLAY IN DEVELOPMENT AND EDUCATION.--And it is precisely out of these
play activities that the later and more serious activities of life
emerge. Play is the gateway by which we best enter the various fields of
the world's work, whether our particular sphere be that of pupil or
teacher in the schoolroom, of man in the busy marts of trade or in the
professions, or of farmer or mechanic. Play brings the _whole self_ into
the activity; it trains to habits of independence and individual
initiative, to strenuous and sustained effort, to endurance of hardship
and fatigue, to social participation and the acceptance of victory and
defeat. And these are the qualities needed by the man of success in his
vocation.

These facts make the play instinct one of the most important in
education. Froebel was the first to recognize the importance of play,
and the kindergarten was an attempt to utilize its activities in the
school. The introduction of this new factor into education has been
attended, as might be expected, by many mistakes. Some have thought to
recast the entire process of education into the form of games and plays,
and thus to lead the child to possess the "Promised Land" through
aimlessly chasing butterflies in the pleasant fields of knowledge. It is
needless to say that they have not succeeded. Others have mistaken the
shadow for the substance, and introduced games and plays into the
schoolroom which lack the very first element of play; namely, _freedom
of initiative and action_ on the part of the child. Educational
theorists and teachers have invented games and occupations and taught
them to the children, who go through with them much as they would with
any other task, enjoying the activity but missing the development which
would come through a larger measure of self-direction.

WORK AND PLAY ARE COMPLEMENTS.--Work cannot take the place of play,
neither can play be substituted for work. Nor are the two antagonistic,
but each is the complement of the other; for the activities of work grow
immediately out of those of play, and each lends zest to the other.
Those who have never learned to work and those who have never learned to
play are equally lacking in their development. Further, it is not the
name or character of an activity which determines whether it is play for
the participant, but _his attitude toward the activity_. If the activity
is performed for its own sake and not for some ulterior end, if it grows
out of the interest of the child and involves the free and independent
use of his powers of body and mind, if it is _his_, and not someone's
else--then the activity possesses the chief characteristics of play.
Lacking these, it cannot be play, whatever else it may be.

Play, like other instincts, besides serving the present, looks in two
directions, into the past and into the future. From the past come the
shadowy interests which, taking form from the touch of our environment,
determine the character of the play activities. From the future come the
premonitions of the activities that are to be. The boy adjusting himself
to the requirements of the game, seeking control over his companions or
giving in to them, is practicing in miniature the larger game which he
will play in business or profession a little later. The girl in her
playhouse, surrounded by a nondescript family of dolls and pets, is
unconsciously looking forward to a more perfect life when the
responsibilities shall be a little more real. So let us not grudge our
children the play day of youth.

5. OTHER USEFUL INSTINCTS

Many other instincts ripen during the stage of youth and play their part
in the development of the individual.

CURIOSITY.--It is inherent in every normal person to want to investigate
and _know_. The child looks out with wonder and fascination on a world
he does not understand, and at once begins to ask questions and try
experiments. Every new object is approached in a spirit of inquiry.
Interest is omnivorous, feeding upon every phase of environment. Nothing
is too simple or too complex to demand attention and exploration, so
that it vitally touches the child's activities and experience.

The momentum given the individual by curiosity toward learning and
mastering his world is incalculable. Imagine the impossible task of
teaching children what they had no desire or inclination to know! Think
of trying to lead them to investigate matters concerning which they felt
only a supreme indifference! Indeed one of the greatest problems of
education is to keep curiosity alive and fresh so that its compelling
influence may promote effort and action. One of the greatest secrets of
eternal youth is also found in retaining the spontaneous curiosity of
youth after the youthful years are past.

MANIPULATION.--This is the rather unsatisfactory name for the universal
tendency to _handle_, _do_ or _make_ something. The young child builds
with its blocks, constructs fences and pens and caves and houses, and a
score of other objects. The older child, supplied with implements and
tools, enters upon more ambitious projects and revels in the joy of
creation as he makes boats and boxes, soldiers and swords, kites,
play-houses and what-not. Even as adults we are moved by a desire to
express ourselves through making or creating that which will represent
our ingenuity and skill. The tendency of children to destroy is not from
wantonness, but rather from a desire to manipulate.

Education has but recently begun to make serious use of this important
impulse. The success of all laboratory methods of teaching, and of such
subjects as manual training and domestic science, is abundant proof of
the adage that we learn by doing. We would rather construct or
manipulate an object than merely learn its verbal description. Our
deepest impulses lead to creation rather than simple mental
appropriation of facts and descriptions.

THE COLLECTING INSTINCT.--The words _my_ and _mine_ enter the child's
vocabulary at a very early age. The sense of property ownership and the
impulse to make collections of various kinds go hand in hand. Probably
there are few of us who have not at one time or another made collections
of autographs, postage stamps, coins, bugs, or some other thing of as
little intrinsic value. And most of us, if we have left youth behind,
are busy even now in seeking to collect fortunes, works of art, rare
volumes or other objects on which we have set our hearts.

The collecting instinct and the impulse to ownership can be made
important agents in the school. The child who, in nature study,
geography or agriculture, is making a collection of the leaves, plants,
soils, fruits, or insects used in the lessons has an incentive to
observation and investigation impossible from book instruction alone.
One who, in manual training or domestic science, is allowed to own the
article made will give more effort and skill to its construction than if
the work be done as a mere school task.

THE DRAMATIC INSTINCT.--Every person is, at one stage of his
development, something of an actor. All children like to "dress up" and
impersonate someone else--in proof of which, witness the many play
scenes in which the character of nurse, doctor, pirate, teacher,
merchant or explorer is taken by children who, under the stimulus of
their spontaneous imagery and as yet untrammeled by self-consciousness,
freely enter into the character they portray. The dramatic impulse never
wholly dies out. When we no longer aspire to do the acting ourselves we
have others do it for us in the theaters or the movies.

Education finds in the dramatic instinct a valuable aid. Progressive
teachers are using it freely, especially in the teaching of literature
and history. Its application to these fields may be greatly increased,
and also extended more generally to include religion, morals, and art.

THE IMPULSE TO FORM GANGS AND CLUBS.--Few boys and girls grow up without
belonging at some time to a secret gang, club or society. Usually this
impulse grows out of two different instincts, the _social_ and the
_adventurous_. It is fundamental in our natures to wish to be with our
kind--not only our human kind, but those of the same age, interests and
ambitions. The love of secrecy and adventure is also deep seated in us.
So we are clannish; and we love to do the unusual, to break away from
the commonplace and routine of our lives. There is often a thrill of
satisfaction--even if it be later followed by remorse--in doing the
forbidden or the unconventional.

The problem here as in the case of many other instincts is one of
guidance rather than of repression. Out of the gang impulse we may
develop our athletic teams, our debating and dramatic clubs, our
tramping clubs, and a score of other recreational, benevolent, or
social organizations. Not repression, but proper expression should be
our ideal.

6. FEAR

Probably in no instinct more than in that of fear can we find the
reflections of all the past ages of life in the world with its manifold
changes, its dangers, its tragedies, its sufferings, and its deaths.

FEAR HEREDITY.--The fears of childhood "are remembered at every step,"
and so are the fears through which the race has passed. Says
Chamberlain: "Every ugly thing told to the child, every shock, every
fright given him, will remain like splinters in the flesh, to torture
him all his life long. The bravest old soldier, the most daring young
reprobate, is incapable of forgetting them all--the masks, the bogies,
ogres, hobgoblins, witches, and wizards, the things that bite and
scratch, that nip and tear, that pinch and crunch, the thousand and one
imaginary monsters of the mother, the nurse, or the servant, have had
their effect; and hundreds of generations have worked to denaturalize
the brains of children. Perhaps no animal, not even those most
susceptible to fright, has behind it the fear heredity of the child."

President Hall calls attention to the fact that night is now the safest
time of the twenty-four hours; serpents are no longer our most deadly
enemies; strangers are not to be feared; neither are big eyes or teeth;
there is no adequate reason why the wind, or thunder, or lightning
should make children frantic as they do. But "the past of man forever
seems to linger in his present"; and the child, in being afraid of these
things, is only summing up the fear experiences of the race and
suffering all too many of them in his short childhood.

FEAR OF THE DARK.--Most children are afraid in the dark. Who does not
remember the terror of a dark room through which he had to pass, or,
worse still, in which he had to go to bed alone, and there lie in cold
perspiration induced by a mortal agony of fright! The unused doors which
would not lock, and through which he expected to see the goblin come
forth to get him! The dark shadows back under the bed where he was
afraid to look for the hidden monster which he was sure was hiding there
and yet dare not face! The lonely lane through which the cows were to be
driven late at night, while every fence corner bristled with shapeless
monsters lying in wait for boys!

And that hated dark closet where he was shut up "until he could learn to
be good!" And the useless trapdoor in the ceiling. How often have we
lain in the dim light at night and seen the lid lift just a peep for
ogre eyes to peer out, and, when the terror was growing beyond
endurance, close down, only to lift once and again, until from sheer
weariness and exhaustion we fell into a troubled sleep and dreamed of
the hideous monster which inhabited the unused garret! Tell me that the
old trapdoor never bent its hinges in response to either man or monster
for twenty years? I know it is true, and yet I am not convinced. My
childish fears have left a stronger impression than proof of mere facts
can ever overrule.

FEAR OF BEING LEFT ALONE.--And the fear of being left alone. How big and
dreadful the house seemed with the folks all gone! How we suddenly made
close friends with the dog or the cat, even, in order that this bit of
life might be near us! Or, failing in this, we have gone out to the barn
among the chickens and the pigs and the cows, and deserted the empty
house with its torture of loneliness. What was there so terrible in
being alone? I do not know. I know only that to many children it is a
torture more exquisite than the adult organism is fitted to experience.

But why multiply the recollections? They bring a tremor to the strongest
of us today. Who of us would choose to live through those childish fears
again? Dream fears, fears of animals, fears of furry things, fears of
ghosts and of death, dread of fatal diseases, fears of fire and of
water, of strange persons, of storms, fears of things unknown and even
unimagined, but all the more fearful! Would you all like to relive your
childhood for its pleasures if you had to take along with them its
sufferings? Would the race choose to live its evolution over again? I do
not know. But, for my own part, I should very much hesitate to turn the
hands of time backward in either case. Would that the adults at life's
noonday, in remembering the childish fears of life's morning, might feel
a sympathy for the children of today, who are not yet escaped from the
bonds of the fear instinct. Would that all might seek to quiet every
foolish childish fear, instead of laughing at it or enhancing it!

7. OTHER UNDESIRABLE INSTINCTS

We are all provided by nature with some instincts which, while they may
serve a good purpose in our development, need to be suppressed or at
least modified when they have done their work.

SELFISHNESS.--All children, and perhaps all adults, are selfish. The
little child will appropriate all the candy, and give none to his
playmate. He will grow angry and fight rather than allow brother or
sister to use a favorite plaything. He will demand the mother's
attention and care even when told that she is tired or ill, and not
able to minister to him. But all of this is true to nature and, though
it needs to be changed to generosity and unselfishness, is, after all, a
vital factor in our natures. For it is better in the long run that each
one _should_ look out for himself, rather than to be so careless of his
own interests and needs as to require help from others. The problem in
education is so to balance selfishness and greed with unselfishness and
generosity that each serves as a check and a balance to the other. Not
elimination but equilibrium is to be our watchword.

PUGNACITY, OR THE FIGHTING IMPULSE.--Almost every normal child is a
natural fighter, just as every adult should possess the spirit of
conquest. The long history of conflict through which our race has come
has left its mark in our love of combat. The pugnacity of children,
especially of boys, is not so much to be deprecated and suppressed as
guided into right lines and rendered subject to right ideals. The boy
who picks a quarrel has been done a kindness when given a drubbing that
will check this tendency. On the other hand, one who risks battle in
defense of a weaker comrade does no ignoble thing. Children need very
early to be taught the baseness of fighting for the sake of conflict,
and the glory of going down to defeat fighting in a righteous cause. The
world could well stand more of this spirit among adults!

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