The Science of Human Nature Part 6

Play and imitation are the great avenues of activity in early life. Even in later life, we seldom accomplish anything great or worth while until the thing becomes play to us, until we throw our whole being into it as we do in play, until it is an expression of ourselves as play is in our childhood. The proper use of play gives us the solution of many of the problems of early education.

Play has two functions in the school: (1) Motor play is necessary to growth, development, and health. The constant activity of the child is what brings about healthy growth.

In the country it is not difficult for children to get plenty of the proper kind of exercise, but in the larger cities it is difficult.

Nevertheless, opportunity for play should be provided for every child, no matter what the trouble or expense, for without play children cannot become normal human beings. Everywhere parents and teachers should plan for the play life of the children.

(2) In the primary grades play can have a large place in the actual work of the school. The early work of education is to a large extent getting the tools of knowledge and thought and work--reading, spelling, writing, correct speech, correct writing, the elementary processes of arithmetic, etc. In many ways play can be used in acquiring these tools.

One aspect of play particularly should have a large place in education; namely, the manipulative tendencies of children. This is essentially play. Children wish to handle and manipulate everything that attracts their attention. They wish to tear it to pieces and to put it together.

This is nature's way of teaching, and by it children learn the properties and structures of things. They thereby learn what things do and what can be done with them. Teachers and parents should foster these manipulative tendencies and use them for the child's good. These tendencies are an aspect of curiosity. We want to know. We are unhappy as long as a thing is before us which we do not understand, which has some mystery about it. Nature has developed these tendencies in us, for without a knowledge of our surroundings we could not live. The child therefore has in his nature the basis of his education. We have but to know this nature and wisely use and manipulate it to achieve the child's education.

SUMMARY. Instincts are inherited tendencies to specific actions.

They fall under the heads: individualistic, socialistic, environmental, adaptive, s.e.xual or mating instincts. These inherited tendencies are to a large extent the foundation on which we build education. The educational problem is to control and guide them, suppressing some, fostering others. In everything we undertake for a child we must take into account these instincts.

CLa.s.s EXERCISES

1. Make a study of the instincts of several animals, such as dogs, cats, chickens. Make a list showing the stimuli and the inherited responses.

2. Make a study of the instincts of a baby. See how many inherited responses you can observe. The simpler inherited responses are known as _reflexes_. The closing of the eyelids mentioned in the text is an example. How many such reflexes can you find in a child?

3. Make a special study of the fears of very young children. How many definite situations can you find which excite fear responses in all children? Each member of the cla.s.s can make a list of his own fears. It may then be seen whether any fears are common to all members of the cla.s.s and whether there are any s.e.x differences.

4. Similarly, make a study of anger and fighting. What situations invariably arouse the fighting response? In what definite, inherited ways is anger shown? Do your studies and observations convince you that the fighting instinct and other inherited responses concerned with individual survival are among the strongest of inherited tendencies? Can the fighting instinct be eliminated from the human race? Is it desirable to eliminate it?

5. Make a study of children's collections. Take one of the grades and find what collections the children have made. What different objects are collected?

6. Outline a plan for using the collecting instinct in various school studies.

7. With the help of the princ.i.p.al of the school make a study of some specific cases of truancy. What does your finding show?

8. Make a study of play by watching children of various ages play. Make a list of the games that are universal for infancy, those for childhood, and those for youth. (Consult Johnson's _Plays and Games_.)

9. What are the two main functions of play in education? Why should we play after we are mature?

10. Study imitation in very young children. Do this by watching the spontaneous play of children under six. What evidences of imitation do you find?

11. Outline the things we learn by imitation. What is your opinion of the place which imitation has in our education?

12. Make a study of imitation as a factor in the lives of grown people.

Consider styles, fas.h.i.+ons, manners, customs, beliefs, prejudices, religious ideas, etc.

13. On the whole, is imitation a good thing or a bad thing?

14. Make a plan of the various ways in which dramatization can be profitably used in the schools.

15. Make a study of your own ideals. What ideals do you have? Where did you get them? What ideals did you get from your parents? What from books? What from teachers? What from friends?

16. Show that throughout life inherited tendencies are the fundamental bases from which our actions proceed, on which our lives are erected.

17. Make a complete outline of the chapter.

REFERENCES FOR CLa.s.s READING

COLVIN and BAGLEY: _Human Behavior_, Chapters III, VIII, IX, and X.

KIRKPATRICK: _Fundamentals of Child Study_, Chapters IV-XIII.

MuNSTERBERG: _Psychology, General and Applied_, pp. 184-187.

PILLSBURY: _Essentials of Psychology_, Chapter X.

PYLE: _The Outlines of Educational Psychology_, Chapters IV-IX.

t.i.tCHENER: _A Beginner's Psychology_, Chapter VIII.

CHAPTER V

FEELING AND ATTENTION

=The Feelings.= Related to the instincts on one side and to habits on the other are the feelings. In Chapter III we discussed sensation, and in the preceding chapter, the instincts, but when we have described an act in terms of instinct and sensation, we have not told all the facts.

For example, when a child sees a pretty red ball of yarn, he reaches out to get it, then puts it into his mouth, or unwinds it, and plays with it in various ways. It is all a matter of sensation and instinctive responses. The perception of the ball--seeing the ball--brings about the instinctive reaching out, grasping the ball, and bringing it to the mouth. But to complete our account, we must say that the child is _pleased_. We note a change in his facial expression. His eyes gleam with pleasure. His face is all smiles, showing pleasant contentment.

Therefore we must say that the child not only sees, not only acts, but the seeing and acting are _pleasant_. The child continues to look, he continues to act, because the looking and acting bring joy.

This is typical of situations that bring pleasure. We want them continued; we act in a way to make them continue. _We go out after the pleasure-giving thing._

But let us consider a different kind of situation. A child sees on the hearth a glowing coal. It instinctively reaches out and grasps it, starts to draw the coal toward it, but instinctively drops it. This is not, however, the whole story. Instead of the situation being pleasant, it is decidedly unpleasant. The child fairly howls with pain. His face, instead of being wreathed in smiles, is covered with tears. He did not hold on to the coal. He did not try to continue the situation. On the contrary, he dropped the coal, and withdrew the hand. The body contracted and shrank away from the situation.

These two cases ill.u.s.trate the two simple feelings, pleasantness and unpleasantness. Most situations in life are either pleasant or unpleasant. Situations may sometimes be neutral; that is, may arouse neither the feeling of pleasantness or unpleasantness. But usually a conscious state is either pleasant or unpleasant. A situation brings us life, joy, happiness. We want it continued and act in a way to bring about its continuance. Or the situation tends to take away our life, brings pain, sorrow, grief, and we want it discontinued, and act in a way to discontinue it.

These two simple forms of feeling perhaps arose in the beginning in connection with the act of taking food. It is known that if a drop of acid touches an amoeba, the animal shrinks, contracts, and tries to withdraw from the death-bringing acid. On the other hand, if a particle of a substance that is suitable for food touches the animal, it takes the particle within itself. The particle is life-giving and brings pleasure.

=The Emotions.= Pleasure and displeasure are the simple feelings. Most situations in life bring about very complex feeling states known as _emotions_. The emotions are made up of pleasure or displeasure mixed or compounded with the sensations from the bodily reactions.

The circulatory system, the respiratory system, and nearly all the involuntary organs of the body form a great sounding board which instantly responds in various ways to the situations of life. When the youth sees the pretty maiden and when he touches her hand, his heart pumps away at a great rate, his cheeks become flushed, his breathing is paralyzed, his voice trembles. He experiences the emotion of love. The state is complex indeed. There is pleasantness, of course, but there is in addition the feeling of all the bodily reactions.

When the mother sees her dead child lying in its casket, her head falls over on her breast, her eyes fill with tears, her shoulders droop, her chest contracts, she sobs, her breathing is spasmodic. Nearly every organ of the body is affected in one way or another. The state is _unpleasant_, but there is also the feeling of the manifold bodily reactions.

So it is always. The biologically important situations in life bring about, through hereditary connections in the nervous system, certain typical reactions. These reactions are largely the same for the same type of situation, and they give the particular coloring to each emotion. It is evident that the emotions are closely related to the instincts. The reflexes that take place in emotions are of the same nature as the instincts. Each instinctive act has its characteristic emotion. There are fear instincts and fear emotions. Fear is unpleasant.

In addition to its unpleasantness there is a mult.i.tude of sensations that come from the body. The hair stands on end, the heart throbs, the circulation is hastened, breathing is interrupted, the muscles are tense. This peculiar ma.s.s of sensations, blended with the unpleasantness, gives the characteristic emotion of fear. But we need not go into an a.n.a.lysis of the various emotions of love, hate, envy, grief, jealousy, etc. The reader can do this for himself.[3]

[3] See James' _Psychology, Briefer Course_, Chapter XXIV.