GLOSSARY 223
INDEX 227
THE SCIENCE OF HUMAN NATURE
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
=Science.= Before attempting to define psychology, it will be helpful to
make some inquiry into the nature of science in general. Science is
knowledge; it is what we know. But mere knowledge is not science. For a
bit of knowledge to become a part of science, its relation to other bits
of knowledge must be found. In botany, for example, bits of knowledge
about plants do not make a science of botany. To have a science of
botany, we must not only know about leaves, roots, flowers, seeds, etc.,
but we must know the relations of these parts and of all the parts of a
plant to one another. In other words, in science, we must not only
_know_, we must not only have _knowledge_, but we must know the
significance of the knowledge, must know its _meaning_. This is only
another way of saying that we must have knowledge and know its relation
to other knowledge.
A scientist is one who has learned to organize his knowledge. The main
difference between a scientist and one who is not a scientist is that
the scientist sees the significance of facts, while the non-scientific
man sees facts as more or less unrelated things. As one comes to hunt
for causes and inquire into the significance of things, one becomes a
scientist. A thing or an event always points beyond itself to something
else. This something else is what goes before it or comes after it,--is
its cause or its effect. This causal relationship that exists between
events enables a scientist to prophesy. By carefully determining what
always precedes a certain event, a certain type of happening, a
scientist is able to predict the event. All that is necessary to be able
to predict an event is to have a clear knowledge of its true causes.
Whenever, beyond any doubt, these causes are found to be present, the
scientist knows the event will follow. Of course, all that he really
_knows_ is that such results have always followed similar causes in the
past. But he has come to have faith in the uniformity and regularity of
nature. The chemist does not find sulphur, or oxygen, or any other
element acting one way one day under a certain set of conditions, and
acting another way the next day under exactly the same conditions. Nor
does the physicist find the laws of mechanics holding good one day and
not the next.
The scientist, therefore, in his thinking brings order out of chaos in
the world. If we do not know the causes and relations of things and
events, the world seems a very mixed-up, chaotic place, where anything
and everything is happening. But as we come to know causes and
relations, the world turns out to be a very orderly and systematic
place. It is a lawful world; it is not a world of chance. Everything is
related to everything else.
Now, the non-scientific mind sees things as more or less unrelated. The
far-reaching causal relations are only imperfectly seen by it, while
the scientific mind not only sees things, but inquires into their causes
and effects or consequences. The non-scientific man, walking over the
top of a mountain and noticing a stone there, is likely to see in it
only a stone and think nothing of how it came to be there; but the
scientific man sees quite an interesting bit of history in the stone. He
reads in the stone that millions of years ago the place where the rock
now lies was under the sea. Many marine animals left their remains in
the mud underneath the sea. The mud was afterward converted into rock.
Later, the shrinking and warping earth-crust lifted the rock far above
the level of the sea, and it may now be found at the top of the
mountain. The one bit of rock tells its story to one who inquires into
its causes. The scientific man, then, sees more significance, more
meaning, in things and events than does the non-scientific man.
Each science has its own particular field. Zoölogy undertakes to answer
every reasonable question about animals; botany, about plants; physics,
about motion and forces; chemistry, about the composition of matter;
astronomy, about the heavenly bodies, etc. The world has many aspects.
Each science undertakes to describe and explain some particular aspect.
To understand all the aspects of the world, we must study all the
sciences.
=A Scientific Law.= By _law_ a scientist has reference to uniformities
which he notices in things and events. He does not mean that necessities
are imposed upon things as civil law is imposed upon man. He means only
that in certain well-defined situations certain events always take
place, according to all previous observations. The Law of Falling Bodies
may be cited as an example. By this law, the physicist means that in
observing falling bodies in the past, he has noticed that they fall
about sixteen feet in the first second and acquire in this time a
velocity of thirty-two feet. He has noted that, taking into account the
specific gravity of the object and the resistance of the air, this way
of falling holds true of all objects at about the level of the sea.
The more we carefully study the events of the world, the more strongly
we come to feel that definite causes, under the same circumstances,
always produce precisely the same result. The scientist has faith that
events will continue to happen during all the future in the same order
of cause and effect in which they have been happening during all the
past.
The astronomer, knowing the relations of the members of the solar
system--the sun and planets--can successfully predict the occurrence of
lunar and solar eclipses. In other fields, too, the scientist can
predict with as much certainty as does the astronomer, provided his
knowledge of the factors concerned is as complete as is the knowledge
which the astronomer has of the solar system. Even in the case of human
beings, uncertain as their actions seem to be, we can predict their
actions when our knowledge of the factors is sufficiently complete. In a
great many instances we do make such predictions. For example, if we
call a person by name, we expect him to turn, or make some other
movement in response. Our usual inability to make such predictions in
the case of human beings is not because human beings are not subject to
the law of cause and effect, it is not that their acts are due to
chance, but that the factors involved are usually many, and it is
difficult for us to find out all of them.
=The Science of Psychology.= Now, let us ask, what is the science of
psychology? What kind of problems does it try to solve? What aspect of
the world has it taken for its field of investigation?
We have said that each science undertakes to describe some particular
aspect of the world. Human psychology is the science of human nature.
But human nature has many aspects. To some extent, our bodies are the
subject matter for physiology, anatomy, zoölogy, physics, and chemistry.
Our bodies may be studied in the same way that a rock or a table might
be studied. But a human being presents certain problems that a rock or
table does not present. If we consider the differences between a human
being and a table, we shall see at once the special field of psychology.
If we stick a pin into a leg of the table, we get no response. If we
stick a pin into a leg of a man, we get a characteristic response. The
man moves, he cries out. This shows two very great differences between a
man and a table. The man is _sensitive_ and has the power of action, the
power of _moving himself_. The table is not sensitive, nor can it move
itself. If the pin is thrust into one's own leg, one has _pain_. Human
beings, then, are sensitive, conscious, acting beings. And the study of
sensitivity, action, and consciousness is the field of psychology. These
three characteristics are not peculiar to man. Many, perhaps all,
animals possess them. There is, therefore, an animal psychology as well
as human psychology.
A study of the human body shows us that the body-surface and many parts
within the body are filled with sensitive nerve-ends. These sensitive
nerve-ends are the sense organs, and on them the substances and forces
of the world are constantly acting. In the sense organs, the nerve-ends
are so modified or changed as to be affected by some particular kind of
force or substance. Vibrations of ether affect the eye. Vibrations of
air affect the ear. Liquids and solutions affect the sense of taste.
Certain substances affect the sense of smell. Certain organs in the skin
are affected by low temperatures; others, by high temperatures; others,
by mechanical pressure. Similarly, each sense organ in the body is
affected by a definite kind of force or substance.
This affecting of a sense organ is known technically as _stimulation_,
and that which affects the organ is known as the _stimulus_.
Two important consequences ordinarily follow the stimulation of a sense
organ. One of these is movement. The purpose of stimulation is to bring
about movement. To be alive is to respond to stimulation. When one
ceases to respond to stimulation, he is dead. If we are to continue
alive, we must constantly adjust ourselves to the forces of the world in
which we live. Generally speaking, we may say that every nerve has one
end in a sense organ and the other in a muscle. This arrangement of the
nerves and muscles shows that man is essentially a sensitive-action
machine. The problems connected with sensitivity and action and the
relation of each to the other constitute a large part of the field of
psychology.
We said just now, that a nerve begins in a sense organ and ends in a
muscle. This statement represents the general scheme well enough, but
leaves out an important detail. The nerve does not extend directly to a
muscle, but ordinarily goes by way of the brain. The brain is merely a
great group of nerve cells and fibers which have developed as a central
organ where a stimulation may pass from almost any sense organ to
almost any muscle.
But another importance attaches to the brain. When a sense organ is
stimulated and this stimulation passes on to the brain and agitates a
cell or group of cells there, _we are conscious_. Consciousness shifts
and changes with every shift and change of the stimulation.
The brain has still another important characteristic. After it has been
stimulated through sense organ and nerve, a similar brain activity can
be revived later, and this revival is the basis of _memory_. When the
brain is agitated through the medium of a sense organ, we have
_sensation_; when this agitation is revived later, we have a _memory
idea_. A study of consciousness, or mind, the conditions under which it
arises, and all the other problems involved, give us the other part of
the field of psychology.
We are not merely acting beings; we are _conscious_ acting beings.
Psychology must study human nature from both points of view. We must
study man not only from the outside; that is, objectively, in the same
way that we study a stone or a tree or a frog, but we must study him
from the inside or subjectively. It is of importance to know not only
how a man _acts_, but also how he _thinks and feels_.
It must be clear now, that human action, human behavior, is the main
field of psychology. For, even though our main interests in people were
in their minds, we could learn of the minds only through the actions.
But our interests in other human beings are not in their minds but in
_what they do_. It is true that our interest in ourselves is in our
minds, and we can know these minds directly; but we cannot know
directly the mind of another person, we can only guess what it is from
the person's actions.
=The Problems of Psychology.= Let us now see, in some detail, what the
various problems of psychology are. If we are to understand human
nature, we must know something of man's past; we must therefore treat of
the origin and development of the human race. The relation of one
generation to that preceding and to the one following makes necessary a
study of heredity. We must find out how our thoughts, feelings,
sensations, and ideas are dependent upon a physical body and its organs.
A study of human actions shows that some actions are unlearned while
others are learned or acquired. The unlearned acts are known as
_instincts_ and the acquired acts are known as _habits_. Our psychology
must, therefore, treat of instincts and habits.
How man gets experience, and retains and organizes this experience must
be our problem in the chapters on sensations, ideas, memory, and
thinking. Individual differences in human capacity make necessary a
treatment of the different types and grades of intelligence, and the
compilation of tests for determining these differences. We must also
treat of the application of psychology to those fields where a knowledge
of human nature is necessary.
=Applied Psychology.= At the beginning of a subject it is legitimate to
inquire concerning the possibility of applying the principles studied to
practical uses, and it is very proper to make this inquiry concerning
psychology. Psychology, being the science of human nature, ought to be
of use in all fields where one needs to know the causes of human action.
And psychology is applicable in these fields to the extent that the
psychologist is able to work out the laws and principles of human
action.
In education, for example, we wish to influence children, and we must go
to psychology to learn about the nature of children and to find out how
we can influence them. Psychology is therefore the basis of the science
of education.
Since different kinds of work demand, in some cases, different kinds of
ability, the psychology of individual differences can be of service in
selecting people for special kinds of work. That is to say, we must have
sometime, if we do not now, a psychology of professions and vocations.
Psychological investigations of the reliability of human evidence make
the science of service in the court room. The study of the laws of
attention and interest give us the psychology of advertising. The study
of suggestion and abnormal states make psychology of use in medicine. It
may be said, therefore, that psychology, once abstract and unrelated to
any practical interests, will become the most useful of all sciences, as
it works out its problems and finds the laws of human behavior.
At present, the greatest service of psychology is to education. So true
is this that a department has grown up called "educational psychology,"
which constitutes at the present time the most important subdivision of
psychology. While in this book we treat briefly of the various
applications of psychology, we shall have in mind chiefly its
application to education.
=The Science of Education.= Owing to the importance which psychology has
in the science of education, it will be well for us to make some inquiry
into the nature of education. If the growth, development, and learning
of children are all controlled and determined by definite causal
factors, then a systematic statement of all these factors would
constitute the science of education. In order to see clearly whether
there is such a science, or whether there can be, let us inquire more
definitely as to the kind of problems a science of education would be
expected to solve.
There are four main questions which the science of education must solve:
(1) What is the aim of education? (2) What is the nature of education?
(3) What is the nature of the child? (4) What are the most economical
methods of changing the child from what it is into what it ought to be?
The first question is a sociological question, and it is not difficult
to find the answer. We have but to inquire what the people wish their
children to become. There is a pretty general agreement, at least in the
same community, that children should be trained in a way that will make
them socially efficient. Parents generally wish their children to become
honest, truthful, sympathetic, and industrious. It should be the aim of
education to accomplish this social ideal. It should be the aim of the
home and the school to subject children to such influences as will
enable them to make a living when grown and to do their proper share of
work for the community and state, working always for better things, and
having a sympathetic attitude toward neighbors. Education should also do
what it can to make people able to enjoy the world and life to the
fullest and highest extent. Some such aim of education as this is held
by all our people.
The second question is also answered. Psychological analysis reveals the
fact that education is a process of becoming adjusted to the world. It
is the process of acquiring the habits, knowledge, and ideals suited to
the life we are to live. The child in being educated learns what the
world is and how to act in it--how to act in all the various situations
of life.
The third question--concerning the nature of the child--cannot be so
briefly answered. In fact, it cannot be fully answered at the present
time. We must know what the child's original nature is. This means that
we must know the instincts and all the other inherited capacities and
tendencies. We must know the laws of building up habits and of acquiring
knowledge, the laws of retention and the laws of attention. These
problems constitute the subject matter of educational psychology, and at
present can be only partially solved. We have, however, a very
respectable body of knowledge in this field, though it is by no means
complete.
The answer to the fourth question is in part dependent upon the progress
in answering the third. Economical methods of training children must be
dependent upon the nature of children. But in actual practice, we are
trying to find out the best procedure of doing each single thing in
school work; we are trying to find out by experimentation. The proper
way to teach children to read, to spell, to write, etc., must be
determined in each case by independent investigation, until our
knowledge of the child becomes sufficient for us to infer from general
laws of procedure what the procedure in a particular case should be. We
venture to infer what ought to be done in some cases, but generally we
feel insecure till we have proved our inference correct by trying out
different methods and measuring the results.
Education will not be fully scientific till we have definite knowledge
to guide us at every step. What should we teach? When should we teach
it? How should we teach it? How poorly we answer these questions at the
present time! How inefficient and uneconomical our schools, because we
cannot fully answer them! But they are answerable. We can answer them in
part now, and we know how to find out the answer in full. It is just a
matter of patient and extensive investigation. We must say, then, that
we have only the beginnings of a science of education. The problems
which a science of education must solve are almost wholly psychological
problems. They could not be solved till we had a science of psychology.
Experimental psychology is but a half-century old; educational
psychology, less than a quarter-century old. In the field of education,
the science of psychology may expect to make its most important
practical contribution. Let us, then, consider very briefly the problems
of educational psychology.
=Educational Psychology.= Educational psychology is that division of
psychology which undertakes to discover those aspects of human nature
most closely related to education. These are (1) the original nature of
the child--what it is and how it can be modified; (2) the problem of
acquiring and organizing experience--habit-formation, memory, thinking,
and the various factors related to these processes. There are many
subordinate problems, such as the problem of individual differences and
their bearing on the education of subnormal and supernormal children.
Educational psychology is not, then, merely the application of
psychology to education. It is a distinct science in itself, and its aim
is the solving of those educational problems which for their solution
depend upon a knowledge of the nature of the child.
=The Method of Psychology.= We have enumerated the various problems of
psychology, now how are they solved? The method of psychology is the
same as that of all other sciences; namely, the method of observation
and experiment. We learn human nature by observing how human beings act
in all the various circumstances of life. We learn about the human mind
by observing our own mind. We learn that we _see_ under certain
objective conditions, _hear_ under certain objective conditions,
_taste_, _smell_, _feel cold_ and _warm_ under certain objective
conditions. In the case of ourselves, we can know both our _actions_ and
our _mind_. In the case of others, we can know only their _actions_, and
must infer their mental states from our own in similar circumstances.
With certain restrictions and precautions this inference is legitimate.
We said the method of psychology is that of observation and experiment.
The experiment is observation still, but observation subjected to exact
methodical procedure. In a psychological experiment we set out to
provide the necessary conditions, eliminating some and supplying others
according to our object. The experiment has certain advantages. It
enables us to isolate the phenomena to be studied, it enables us to vary
the circumstances and conditions to suit our purposes, it enables us to
repeat the observation as often as we like, and it enables us to measure
exactly the factors of the phenomena studied.
=A Psychological Experiment.= Let us illustrate psychological method by a
typical experiment. Suppose we wish to measure the individual
differences among the members of a class with respect to a certain
ability; namely, the muscular speed of the right hand. Psychological
laboratories have delicate apparatus for making such a study. But let
us see how we can do it, roughly at least, without any apparatus. Let
each member of the class take a sheet of paper and a pencil, and make as
many strokes as possible in a half-minute, as shown in Figure I. The
instructor can keep the time with a stop watch, or less accurately with
the second hand of an ordinary watch. Before beginning the experiment,
the instructor should have each student taking the test try it for a
second or two. This is to make sure that all understand what they are to
do. When the instructor is sure that all understand, he should have the
students hold their pencils in readiness above the paper, and at the
signal, "Begin," all should start at the same time and make as many
marks as possible in the half-minute. The strokes can then be counted
and the individual scores recorded. The experiment should be repeated
several times, say six or eight, and the average score for each
individual recorded.
[Illustration: FIGURE I.--STROKES MADE IN THIRTY SECONDS
A test of muscular speed]
Whether the result in such a performance as this varies from day to day,
and is accidental, or whether it is constant and fundamental, can be
determined by repeating the experiment from day to day. This repetition
will also show whether improvement comes from practice.
If it is decided to repeat the experiment in order to study these
factors, constancy and the effects of practice, some method of studying
and interpreting the results must be found. Elaborate methods of doing
this are known to psychologists, but the beginner must use a simpler
method. When the experiment is performed for the first time, the
students can be ranked with reference to their abilities, the fastest
one being called "first," the second highest, "second," and so on down
to the slowest performer. Then after the experiment has been performed
the second time, the students can be again ranked.
A rough comparison can then be made as follows: Determine how many who
were in the best half in the first experiment are among the best half in
the second experiment. If most who were among the best half the first
time are among the best half in the second experiment, constancy in this
performance is indicated. Or we might determine how many change their
ranks and how much they change. Suppose there are thirty in the class
and only four improve their ranks and these to the extent of only two
places each. This would indicate a high degree of constancy. Two
different performances can be compared as above described. The abilities
on successive days can be determined by taking the average rank of the
first day and comparing it with the average rank of the second day.
If the effects of practice are to be studied, the experiments must be
kept up for many days, and each student's work on the first day compared
with his work on succeeding days. Then a graph can be plotted to show
the improvement from day to day. The average daily speed of the class
can be taken and a graph made to show the improvement of the class as a
whole. This might be plotted in black ink, then each individual student
could put on his improvement in red ink, for comparison. A group of
thirty may be considered as furnishing a fair average or norm in this
kind of performance.
In connection with this simple performance, making marks as fast as
possible, it is evident that many problems arise. It would take several
months to solve anything like all of them. It might be interesting, for
example, to determine whether one's speed in writing is related to this
simple speed in marking. Each member of the class might submit a plan
for making such a study.
The foregoing simple study illustrates the procedure of psychology in
all experimentation. A psychological experiment is an attempt to find
out the truth in regard to some aspect of human nature. In finding out
this truth, we must throw about the experiment all possible safeguards.
Every source of error must be discovered and eliminated. In the above
experiment, for example, the work must be done at the same time of day,
or else we must prove that doing it at different times of day makes no
difference. Nothing must be taken for granted, and nothing must be
assumed. Psychology, then, is like all the other sciences, in that its
method of getting its facts is by observation and experiment.
SUMMARY. Science is systematic, related knowledge. Each science has
a particular field which it attempts to explore and describe. The
field of psychology is the study of sensitivity, action, and
consciousness, or briefly, human behavior. Its main problems are
development, heredity, instincts, habits, sensation, memory,
thinking, and individual differences. Its method is observation and
experiment, the same as in all other sciences.
CLASS EXERCISES
1. Make out a list of things about human nature which you would like to
know. Paste your list in the front of this book, and as you find your
questions answered in this book, or in other books which you may read,
check them off. At the end of the course, note how many remain
unanswered. Find out whether those not answered can be answered at the
present time.
2. Does everything you do have a cause? What kind of cause?
3. Human nature is shown in human action. Human action consists in
muscular contraction. What makes a muscle contract?
4. Plan an experiment the object of which shall be to learn something
about yourself.
5. Enumerate the professions and occupations in which a knowledge of
some aspect of human nature would be valuable. State in what way it
would be valuable.
6. Make a list of facts concerning a child, which a teacher ought to
know.
7. Make a complete outline of Chapter I.
REFERENCES FOR CLASS READING
MÜNSTERBERG: _Psychology, General and Applied_, Chapters I, II, and V.
PILLSBURY: _Essentials of Psychology_, Chapter I.
PYLE: _The Outlines of Educational Psychology_, Chapter I.
TITCHENER: _A Beginner's Psychology_, Chapter I.
CHAPTER II
DEVELOPMENT OF THE RACE AND OF THE INDIVIDUAL
=Racial Development.= The purpose of this chapter is to make some inquiry
concerning the origin of the race and of the individual. In doing this,
it is necessary for us first of all to fix in our minds the idea of
causality. According to the view of all modern science, everything has a
cause. Nothing is uncaused. One event is the result of other previous
events, and is in turn the cause of other events that follow. Yesterday
flowed into to-day, and to-day flows into to-morrow. The world as it
exists to-day is the result of the world as it existed yesterday. This
is true not only of the inorganic world--the world of physics and
chemistry--but it is true of living things as well. The animals and
plants that exist to-day are the descendants of others that lived
before. There is probably an unbroken line of descent from the first
life that existed on the earth to the living forms of to-day.
Not only does the law of causality hold true in the case of our bodies,
but of our minds as well. Our minds have doubtless developed from
simpler minds just as our bodies have developed from simpler bodies.
That different grades and types of minds are to be found among the
various classes of animals now upon the earth, no one can doubt, for the
different forms certainly show different degrees of mentality.
According to the evidence of those scientists who have studied the
remains of animals found in the earth's crust, there is a gradual
development of animal forms shown in successive epochs. In the very
oldest parts of the earth's crust, the remains of animal life found are
very simple. In later formations, the remains show an animal life more
complex. The highest forms of animals, the mammals, are found only in
the more recent formations. The remains of man are found only in the
latest formations.
Putting these two facts together--(1) that the higher types of mind are
found to-day only in the higher types of animals, and (2) that a gradual
development of animal forms is shown by the remains in the earth's
crust--the conclusion is forced upon us that mind has passed through
many stages of development from the appearance of life upon the earth to
the present time. Among the lower forms of animals to-day one sees
evidence of very simple minds. In amoebas, worms, insects, and fishes,
mind is very simple. In birds, it is higher. In mammals, it is higher
still. Among the highest mammals below man, we see manifestations of
mind somewhat like our own. These grades of mentality shown in the
animals of to-day represent the steps in the development of mind in the
animals of the past.
We cannot here go into the proof of the doctrine of development. For
this proof, the reader must be referred to zoölogy. One further point,
however, may be noted. If it is difficult for the reader to conceive of
the development of mind on the earth similar to the development of
animals in the past, let him think of the development of mind in the
individual. There can certainly be no doubt of the development of mind
in an individual human being. The infant, when born, shows little
manifestation of mentality; but as its body grows, its mind develops,
becoming more and more complex as the individual grows to maturity.
=The World as Dynamic.= The view of the world outlined above, and held by
all scientific men of the present time, may be termed the _dynamic_
view. Man formerly looked upon the world as static, a world where
everything was fixed and final. Each thing existed in itself and for
itself, and in large measure independent of all other things. We now
look upon things and events as related and dependent. Each thing is
dependent upon others, related to others.
Man not only _lives in_ such a world, but is _part of_ such a world. In
this world of constant and ceaseless change, man is most sensitive and
responsive. Everything may affect him. To all of the constant changes
about him he must adjust himself. He has been produced by this world,
and to live in it he must meet its every condition and change. We must,
then, look upon human nature as something coming out of the past and as
being influenced every moment by the things and forces of the present.
Man is not an independent being, unaffected by everything that happens;
on the contrary, he is affected by all influences that act upon him.
Among these influences may be mentioned weather, climate, food, and
social forces.
The condition of the various organs of a child's body determine, to some
extent, the effect which these various forces have upon it. If a child's
eyes are in any way defective, making vision poor, this tremendously
influences his life. Not only is such a child unable to see the world as
it really is, but the eyestrain resulting from poor vision has serious
effects on the child, producing all sorts of disorders. If a child
cannot hear well or is entirely deaf, many serious consequences follow.
In fact, every condition or characteristic of a child that is in any way
abnormal may lead on to other conditions and characteristics, often of a
serious nature. The growth of adenoids, for example, may lead to a
serious impairment of the mind. Poor vision may affect the whole life
and character of the individual. The influence of a parent, teacher, or
friend may determine the interest of a child and affect his whole life.
The correct view of child life is that the child is affected, in greater
or less degree, by every influence which acts upon him.
=Significance of Development and Causality.= What are the consequences of
the view just set forth? What is the significance of the facts that have
been enumerated? It is of great consequence to our thinking when we come
to recognize fully the idea of causality. We then fully accept the fact
that man's body and mind are part of a causal and orderly world.
Let us consider, for example, the movement of a muscle. Every such
movement must be caused. The physiologist has discovered what this cause
is. Ordinarily and normally, a muscle contracts only when stimulated by
a nerve current. Tiny nerve fibrils penetrate every muscle, ending in
the muscle fibers. The nerve-impulse passing into the fibers of the
muscles causes them to contract. The nerve stimulus itself has a cause;
it ordinarily arises directly or indirectly from the stimulation of a
sense organ. And the sense organs are stimulated by outside influences,
as was explained previously.
Not only are our movements caused, but our sensations, our ideas, and
our feelings follow upon or are dependent upon some definite bodily
state or condition. The moment that we recognize this we see that our
sensations, ideas, and feelings are subject to control. It is only
because our minds are in a world of causality, and subject to its laws,
that education is possible. We can bring causes to bear upon a child and
change the child. It is possible to build up ideas, ideals, and habits.
And ideas, ideals, and habits constitute the man. Training is possible
only because a child is a being that can be influenced. What any child
will be when grown depends upon what kind of child it was at the
beginning and upon the influences that affect it during its early life
while it is growing into maturity. We need have no doubt about the
outcome of any particular child if we know, with some degree of
completeness, the two sets of factors that determine his life--his
inheritance and the forces that affect this inheritance. We can predict
the future of a child to the extent that we know and understand the
forces that will be effective in his life.
The notion of causality puts new meaning into our view of the _training_
of a child. The doctrine of development puts new meaning into our notion
of the _nature_ of a child. We can understand man only when we view him
genetically, that is, in the light of his origin. We can understand a
child only in the light of what his ancestors have been.
As these lines are being written, the greatest, the bloodiest war of
history is in progress. Men are killing men by thousands and hundreds of
thousands. How can we explain such actions? Observation of children
shows that they are selfish, envious, and quarrelsome. They will fight
and steal until they are taught not to do such things. How can we
understand this? There is no way of understanding such actions until we
come to see that the children and men of to-day are such as they are
because of their ancestors. It has been only a few generations,
relatively speaking, since our ancestors were naked savages, killing
their enemies and eating their enemies' bodies. The civilized life of
our ancestors covers a period of only a few hundred years. The
pre-civilized life of our ancestors goes back probably thousands and
thousands of years. In the relatively short period of civilization, our
real, original nature has been little changed, perhaps none at all. The
modern man is, at heart, the same old man of the woods.
The improvements of civilization form what is called a social heritage,
which must be impressed upon the original nature of each individual in
order to have any effect. Every child has to learn to speak, to write,
to dress, to eat with knife and fork; he must learn the various social
customs, and to act morally as older people dictate. The child is by
nature bad, in the sense that the nature which he inherits from the past
fits him better for the original kind of life which man used to live
than it does for the kind of life which we are trying to live now. This
view makes us see that training a child is, in a very true sense,
_making him over again_. The child must be trained to subdue and control
his original impulses. Habits and ideals that will be suitable for life
in civilized society _must be built up_. The doctrine of the Bible in
regard to the original nature of man being sinful, and the necessity of
regeneration, is fundamentally correct. But this regeneration is not so
much a sudden process as it is the result of long and patient
building-up of habits and ideals.
One should not despair of this view of child-life. Neither should one
use it as an excuse for being bad, or for neglecting the training of
children. On the contrary, taking the genetic view of childhood should
give us certain advantages. It makes us see more clearly the _necessity_
of training. Every child must be trained, or he will remain very much a
savage. In the absence of training, all children are much alike, and all
alike bad from our present point of view. The chief differences in
children in politeness and manners generally, in morals, in industry,
etc., are due, in the main, to differences in training. It is a great
help merely to know how difficult the task of training is, and that
training there must be if we are to have a civilized child. We must take
thought and plan for the education and training of our children. The
task of education is in part one of changing human nature. This is no
light task. It is one that requires, in the case of each child, some
twenty years of hard, patient, persistent work.
=Individual Development.= Heredity is a corollary of evolution. Individual
development is intimately related to racial development. Indeed, racial
development would be impossible without heredity in the individual. The
individual must carry on and transmit what the race hands down to him.
This will be evident when we explain what heredity means.
By heredity we mean the likeness between parent and offspring. This
likeness is a matter of form and structure as well as likeness of action
or response. Animals and plants are like the parents in form and
structure, and to a certain extent their responses are alike when the
individuals are placed in the same situation. A robin is like the parent
robins in size, shape, and color. It also hops like the parent birds,
sings as they do, feeds as they do, builds a similar nest, etc. But the
likeness in action is dependent upon likeness in structure. The young
robin acts as does the old robin, because the nervous mechanism is the
same, and therefore a similar stimulus brings about a similar response.
Most of the scientific work in heredity has been done in the study of
the transmission of physical characteristics. The main facts of heredity
are evident to everybody, but not many people realize how far-reaching
is the principle of resemblance between parent and offspring. From
horses we raise horses. From cows we raise cows. The children of human
beings are human. Not only is this true, but the offspring of horses are
of the same stock as the parents. Not only are the colts of the same
stock as the parents, but they resemble the parents in small details.
This is also true of human beings. We expect a child to be not only of
the same race as the parents, but to have family resemblances to the
parents--the same color of hair, the same shape of head, the same kind
of nose, the same color of eyes, and to have such resemblances as moles
in the same places on the skin, etc. A very little investigation reveals
likenesses between parent and offspring which we may not have expected
before.
However, if we start out to hunt for facts of heredity, we shall perhaps
be as much impressed by differences between parent and child as we shall
by the resemblances. In the first place, every child has two parents,
and it is often impossible to resemble both. One cannot, for example, be
both short and tall; one cannot be both fair and dark; one cannot be
both slender and heavy; one cannot have both brown eyes and blue. In
some cases, the child resembles one parent and not the other. In other
cases, the child looks somewhat like both parents but not exactly like
either. If one parent is white and the other black, the child is
neither as white as the one parent nor as black as the other.
The parents of a child are themselves different, but there are four
grandparents, and each of them different from the others. There are
eight great grandparents, and all of them different. If we go back only
seven generations, covering a period of perhaps only a hundred and fifty
years, we have one hundred and twenty-eight ancestors. If we go back ten
generations, we have over a thousand ancestors in our line of descent.
Each of these people was, in some measure, different from the others.
Our inheritance comes from all of them and from each of them.
How do all of these diverse characteristics work out in the child? In
the first place, it seems evident that we do not inherit our bodies as
wholes, but in parts or units. We may think of the human race as a whole
being made up of a great number of unit characters. No one person
possesses all of them. Every person is lacking in some of them. His
neighbor may be lacking in quite different ones. Now one parent
transmits to the child a certain combination of unit characters; the
other parent, a different combination. These characteristics may not all
appear in the child, but all are transmitted through it to the next
generation, and they are transmitted purely. By being transmitted
purely, we mean that the characteristic does not seem to lose its
identity and disappear in fusions or mixtures. The essential point in
this doctrine of heredity is known as Mendelism; it is the principle of
inheritance through the pure transmission of unit characters.
An illustration will probably make the Mendelian principle clear. Let us
select our illustration from the plant world. It is found that if white
and yellow corn are crossed, all the corn the first year, resulting from
this crossing, will be yellow. Now, if this hybrid yellow corn is
planted the second year, and freely cross-fertilized, it turns out that
one fourth of it will be white and three fourths yellow. But this yellow
consists of three parts: one part being pure yellow which will breed
true, producing nothing but yellow; the other two parts transmit white
and yellow in equal ratio. That is to say, these two parts are hybrids,
the result of crossing white with yellow. It is not meant that one can
actually distinguish these two kinds of yellow, the pure yellow and the
hybrid yellow, but the results from planting it show that one third of
the yellow is pure and that the other two thirds transmit white and
yellow in equal ratio.
The main point to notice in all this is that when two individuals having
diverse characteristics are crossed, the characteristics do not fuse and
disappear ultimately, but that the two characteristics are transmitted
in equal ratio, and each will appear in succeeding generations, and will
appear pure, just as if it had not been crossed with something
different. The first offspring resulting from the cross--known as
hybrids--may show either one or the other of the diverse
characteristics, or, when such a thing is possible, even a blending of
the two characteristics. But whatever the actual appearance of the first
generation of offspring resulting from crossing parents having diverse
characteristics, their germ-cells transmit the diverse characteristics
in equal proportion, as explained above.
When one of the diverse characteristics appears in the first generation
of offspring and the other does not appear, or is not apparent, the one
that appears is said to be _dominant_, while the one not appearing is
said to be _recessive_. In our example of the yellow and white corn,
yellow is dominant and white recessive. And it must be remembered that
the white corn that appears in the second generation will breed true
just as if it had never been crossed with the yellow corn. One third of
the yellow of the second generation would also breed true if it could be
separated from the other two thirds.
It is not here claimed that Mendelism is a universal principle, that all
characteristics are transmitted in this way. However, the results of the
numerous experiments in heredity lead one to expect this to be the case.
Most of the experiments have been with lower animals and with plants,
but recent experiments and statistical studies show that Mendelism is an
important factor in human heredity, in such characteristics as color of
hair and eyes and skin, partial color blindness, defects of eye, ear,
and other important organs.
The studies that have been made of human heredity have been, for the
most part, studies of the transmission of physical characteristics. Very
little has been done that bears directly upon the transmission of mental
characteristics. But our knowledge of the dependence of mind upon body
should prepare us to infer mental heredity from physical heredity. Such
studies as throw light on the question bear us out in making such an
inference.
The studies that have been more directly concerned with mental heredity
are those dealing with the resemblances of twins, studies of heredity in
royalty, studies of the inheritance of genius, and studies of the
transmission of mental defects and defects of sense organs. The results
of all these studies indicate the inheritance of mental characteristics
in the same way that physical characteristics are transmitted. Not only
are human mental characteristics transmitted from parent to offspring,
but they seem to be transmitted in Mendelian fashion.
Feeble-mindedness, for example, seems to be a Mendelian character and
recessive. From the studies that have been made, it seems that two
congenitally feeble-minded parents will have only feeble-minded
children. Feeble-mindedness acts in heredity as does the white corn in
the example given above. If one parent only is feeble-minded, the other
being normal, all of the children will be normal, just as all of the
corn, in the first generation after the crossing, was yellow. But these
children whose parents are the one normal and the other feeble-minded,
while themselves normal, transmit feeble-mindedness in equal ratio with
normality. It works out as follows: If a feeble-minded person marry a
person of sound mind and sound stock, the children will all be of sound,
normal mind. If these children take as husbands and wives men and women
who had for parents one normal and one feeble-minded person, their
children will be one fourth feeble-minded and three fourths of them
normal.
To summarize the various conditions: If a feeble-minded person marry a
feeble-minded person, all the children will be feeble-minded. If a
feeble-minded person marry a sound, normal person (pure stock), all the
children will be normal. If the children, in the last case, marry others
like themselves as to origin, one fourth of their offspring will be
feeble-minded. If such hybrid children marry feeble-minded persons, one
half of the offspring will be feeble-minded. It is rash to prophesy, but
future studies of heredity may show that Mendelism, or some
modification of the principle, always holds true of mind as well as of
body.
Little can be said about the transmission of particular definite mental
traits, such as the various aspects of memory, association, attention,
temperament, etc. Before we can speak with any certainty here, we must
make very careful experimental studies of these mental traits in parents
and offspring. No such work has been done. All we have at the present
time is the result of general observation.
=Improvement of the Race.= Eugenics is the science of improvement of the
human race by breeding. While we can train children and thereby make
them much better than they would be without such training, this training
does not improve the stock. The improvement of the stock can be
accomplished only through breeding from the best and preventing the poor
stock from leaving offspring. This is a well-known principle in the
breeding of domestic animals.
It is doubtless just as true in the case of human beings. The hygienic
and scientific rearing of children is good for the children and makes
their lives better, but probably does not affect their offspring. We
should not forget that all the social and educational influences die
with the generation that receives them. They must be impressed by
training on the next generation or that generation will receive no
influence from them. The characters which we acquire in our lifetime
seem not to be transmitted to our children, except through what is known
as social heredity, which is merely the taking on of characteristics
through imitation. Our children must go through all the labor of
learning to read, write, spell, add, multiply, subtract, and divide,
which we went through. Moral traits, manners and customs, and other
habits and ideals of social importance must be acquired by each
successive generation.
=Heredity _versus_ Environment.= The question is often asked whether
heredity or the influence of environment has the most to do with the
final outcome of one's life. It is a rather useless question to ask, for
what a human being or anything else in the world does depends upon what
it is itself and what the things and forces are that act upon it.
Heredity sets a limitation for us, fixes the possibilities. The
circumstances of life determine what we will do with our inherited
abilities and characteristics. Hereditary influences incline us to be
tall or short, fat or lean, light or dark. The characteristics of our
memory, association, imagination, our learning capacity, etc., are
determined by heredity. Of course, how far these various aspects develop
is to some extent dependent upon the favorable or unfavorable influences
of the environment. What is possible for us to do is settled by
heredity; what we may actually do, what we may have the opportunity to
do, is largely a matter of the circumstances of life.
In certain parts of New England, the number of men who become famous in
art, science, or literature is very great compared to the number in some
other parts of our country. As far as we have any evidence, the native
stocks are the same in the two cases, but in New England the influences
turn men into the direction of science, art, and literature. Everything
there is favorable. In other parts of the country, the influences turn
men into other spheres of activity. They become large landowners, men of
business and affairs.
The question may be asked whether genius makes its way to the front in
spite of unfavorable circumstances. Sometimes it doubtless does. But
pugnacity and perseverance are not necessarily connected with
intellectual genius. Genius may be as likely to be timid as belligerent.
Therefore unfavorable circumstances may crush many a genius.
The public schools ought to be on the watch for genius in any and all
kinds of work. When a genius is found, proper training ought to be
provided to develop this genius for the good of society as well as for
the good of the individual himself. A few children show ability in
drawing and painting, others in music, others in mechanical invention,
some in literary construction. When it is found that this ability is
undoubtedly a native gift and not a passing whim, special opportunity
should be provided for its development and training. It will be better
for the general welfare, as well as for individual happiness, if each
does in life that for which he is by nature best fitted. For most of us,
however, there is not much difference in our abilities. We can do one
thing as well as we can many other things. But in a few there are
undoubted special native gifts.
SUMMARY. This is an orderly world, in which everything has a cause.
All events are connected in a chain of causes and effects. Human
beings live in this world of natural law and are subject to it.
Human life is completely within this world of law and order and is a
part of it. Education is possible only because we can change human
beings by having influences act upon them.
Individuals receive their original traits from their ancestors,
probably as parts or units. Mendelism is the doctrine of the pure
transmission of unit characters. Eugenics is the science of
improving the human race by selective breeding. An individual's life
is the result of the interaction of his hereditary characteristics
and his environment.
CLASS EXERCISES
1. Try to find rock containing the remains of animals. You can get
information on such matters from a textbook on geology.
2. Read in a geology about the different geological epochs in the
history of the earth.
3. Make a comparison of the length of infancy in the lower animals and
in man. What is the significance of what you find? What advantage does
it give man?
4. What is natural selection? How does it lead to change in animals?
Does natural selection still operate among human beings? (See a modern
textbook on zoölogy.)
5. By observation and from consulting a zoölogy, learn about the
different classes of animal forms, from low forms to high forms.
6. By studying domestic animals, see what you can learn about heredity.
Enumerate all the points that you find bearing upon heredity.
7. In a similar way, make a study of heredity in your family. Consider
such characteristics as height, weight, shape of head, shape of nose,
hair and eye color. Can you find any evidence of the inheritance of
mental traits?
8. Make a complete outline of Chapter II.
REFERENCES FOR CLASS READING
DAVENPORT: _Heredity in Relation to Eugenics_.
KELLICOTT: _The Social Direction of Human Evolution_.
CHAPTER III
MIND AND BODY
=Gross Dependence.= The relation of mind to body has always been an
interesting one to man. This is partly because of the connection of the
question with that of life after death. An old idea of this relation,
almost universally held till recently, was that the mind or spirit lived
in the body but was more or less independent of the body. The body has
been looked upon as a hindrance to the mind or spirit. Science knows
nothing about the existence of spirits apart from bodies. The belief
that after death the mind lives on is a matter of faith and not of
science. Whether one believes in an existence of the mind after death of
the body, depends on one's religious faith. There is no scientific
evidence one way or the other. The only mind that science knows anything
about is bound up very closely with body. This is not saying that there
is no existence of spirit apart from body, but that at present such
existence is beyond the realm of science.
The dependence of mind upon body in a general way is evident to every
one, upon the most general observation and thought. We know the effect
on the mind of disease, of good health, of hunger, of fatigue, of
overwork, of severe bodily injury, of blindness or deafness. We have,
perhaps, seen some one struck upon the head by a club, or run over by an
automobile, and have noted the tremendous consequences to the person's
mind. In such cases it sometimes happens that, as far as we can see,
there is no longer any mind in connection with that body. The most
casual observation, then, shows that mind and body are in some way most
intimately related.
=Finer Dependence.= Let us note this relation more in detail, and, in
particular, see just which part of the body it is that is connected with
the mind. First of all, we note the dependence of mind upon sense
organs. We see only with our eyes. If we close the eyelids, we cannot
see. If we are born blind, or if injury or disease destroys the retinas
of the eyes or makes the eyes opaque so that light cannot pass through
to the retinas, then we cannot see.
Similarly, we hear only by means of the ears. If we are born deaf, or if
injury destroys some important part of the hearing mechanism, then we
cannot hear. In like manner, we taste only by means of the taste organs
in the mouth, and smell only with the organs of smell in the nose. In a
word, our primary knowledge of the world comes only through the sense
organs. We shall see presently just how this sensing or perceiving is
accomplished.
=Dependence of Mind on Nerves and Brain.= We have seen how in a general
way the mind is dependent on the body. We have seen how in a more
intimate way it is dependent on the special sense organs. But the part
of the body to which the mind is most directly and intimately related is
the nervous system. The sense organs themselves are merely modifications
of the nerve ends together with certain mechanisms for enabling stimuli
to act on the nerve ends. The eye is merely the optic nerve spread out
to form the retina and modified in certain ways to make it sensitive to
ether vibrations. In addition to this, there is, of course, the focusing
mechanism of the eye. So for all the sense organs; they are, each of
them, some sort of modification of nerve-endings which makes them
sensitive to some particular force or substance.
Let us make the matter clear by an illustration. Suppose I see a picture
on the wall. My eyes are directed toward the picture. Light from the
picture is refracted within the eyes, forming an image on each retina.
The retina is sensitive to the light. The light produces chemical
changes on the retina. These changes set up an excitation in the optic
nerves, which is conducted to a certain place in the brain, causing an
excitation in the brain. Now the important point is that when this
excitation is going on in the brain, _we are conscious, we see the
picture_.
As far as science can determine, we do not see, nor hear, nor taste, nor
smell, nor have any other sensation unless a sense organ is excited and
produces the excitation in the brain. There can be no doubt about our
primary, sensory experience. By primary, sensory experience is meant our
immediate, direct knowledge of any aspect of the world. In this field of
our conscious life, we are entirely dependent upon sense organs and
nerves and brain. Injuries to the eyes destroying their power to perform
their ordinary work, or injuries to the optic nerve or to the visual
center in the brain, make it impossible for us to see.
These facts are so self-evident that it seems useless to state them. One
has but to hold his hands before his eyes to convince himself that the
mind sees by means of eyes, which are physical sense organs. One has but
to hold his hands tight over his ears to find out that he hears by
means of ears--again, physical sense organs.
But simple and self-evident as the facts are, their acceptance must have
tremendous consequences to our thinking, and to our view of human
nature. If the mind is dependent in every feature on the body with its
sense organs, this must give to this body and its sense organs an
importance in our thought and scheme of things that they did not have
before. This close dependence of mind upon body must give to the body a
place in our scheme of education that it would not have under any other
view of the mind. We wish to emphasize here that this statement of the
close relation of the mind and body is not a theory which one may accept
or not. It is a simple statement of fact. It is a presupposition of
psychology. By "presupposition" is meant a fundamental principle which
the psychologist always has in mind. It is axiomatic, and has the same
place in psychology that axioms have in mathematics. All explanations of
the working of the mind must be stated in terms of nerve and brain
action, and stimulation of sense organs.
Since the sense organs are the primary and fundamental organs through
which we get experience, and since the sensations are the elementary
experiences out of which all mental life is built, it is necessary for
us to have a clear idea of the sense organs, their structure and
functions, and of the nature of sensations.
=Vision.= _The Visual Sense Organs._ The details of the anatomy of the eye
can be looked up in a physiological textbook. The essential principles
are very simple. The eye is made on the principle of a photographer's
camera. The retina corresponds to the sensitive plate of the camera. The
light coming from objects toward which the eyes are directed is focused
on the retina, forming there an image of the object. The light thus
focused on the retina sets up a chemical change in the delicate nerve
tissue; this excitation is transmitted through the optic nerve to the
occipital (back) part of the brain, and sets up brain action there. Then
we have visual sensation; we see the object.
The different colors that we see are dependent upon the vibration
frequency of the ether. The higher frequencies give us the colors blue
and green, and the lower frequencies give us the colors yellow and red.
The intermediate frequencies give us the intermediate colors blue-green
and orange. By vibration frequencies is meant the rate at which the
ether vibrates, the number of vibrations a second. If the reader wishes
to know something about these frequencies, such information can be found
in a textbook on physics.
It will be found that the vibration rates of the ether are very great.
It is only within a certain range of vibration frequency that sunlight
affects the retina. Slower rates of vibration than that producing red do
not affect the eye, and faster than that producing violet do not affect
the eye. The lightness and darkness of a color are dependent upon the
intensity of the vibration. Red, for example, is produced by a certain
vibration frequency. The more intense the vibration, the brighter the
red; the less intense, the darker the red.
When all the vibration frequencies affect the eyes at the same time, we
see no color at all but only brightness. This is due to the fact that
certain vibration frequencies neutralize each other in their effect on
the retina, so far as producing color is concerned. Red neutralizes
green, blue neutralizes yellow, violet neutralizes yellowish green,
orange neutralizes bluish green.
All variations in vision as far as color and brightness are concerned
are due to variations in the stimulus. Changes in vibration frequency
give the different colors. Changes in intensity give the different
brightnesses: black, gray, and white. All explanations of the many
interesting phenomena of vision are to be sought in the physiological
action of the eye.
Besides the facts of color and light and shade, already mentioned, some
further interesting visual phenomena may be mentioned here.
_Visual Contrast._ Every color makes objects near it take on the
antagonistic or complementary color. Red makes objects near appear
green, green makes them appear red. Blue makes near objects appear
yellow, while yellow makes them appear blue. Orange induces greenish
blue, and greenish blue induces orange. Violet induces yellowish green,
and yellowish green induces violet. These color-pairs are known as
antagonistic or complementary colors. Each one of a pair enhances the
effect of its complementary when the two colors are brought close
together. In a similar way, light and dark tints act as complementaries.
Light objects make dark objects near appear darker, and dark objects
make light objects near seem lighter.
These universal principles of contrast are of much practical
significance. They must be taken account of in all arrangements of
colors and tints, for example, in dress, in the arrangement of flowers
and shrubs, in painting.
_Color-Mixture._ If, on a rotating motor, disks of different colors--say
red and yellow--are placed and rotated, one sees on looking at them not
red or yellow but orange. This phenomenon is known as _color-mixture_.
The result is due to the simultaneous stimulation of the retina by two
kinds of ether vibration. If the colors used are a certain red and a
certain green, they neutralize each other and produce only gray. All the
pairs of complementary colors mentioned above act in the same way,
producing, if mixed in the right proportion, no color, but gray. If
colored disks not complementary are mixed by rotation on a motor, they
produce an intermediate color. Red and yellow give orange. Blue and
green give bluish green. Yellow and green give yellowish green. Red and
blue give violet or purple, depending on the proportion. Mixing pigments
gives, in general, the same results as mixing by means of rotating the
disks. The ordinary blue and yellow pigments give green when mixed,
because each of the two pigments contains green. The blue and yellow
neutralize each other, leaving green.
_Visual After-Images._ The stimulation of the retina has interesting
after effects. We shall mention here only the one known as _negative
after-images_. If one will place on the table a sheet of white paper,
and on this white paper lay a small piece of colored paper, and if he
will then gaze steadily at the colored paper for a half-minute, it will
be found that if the colored paper is removed one sees its complementary
color. If the head is not moved, this complementary color has the same
size and shape as the original colored piece of paper. The negative
after-image can be projected on a background at different distances, its
size depending on the distance of the background. The after-image will
be found to mix with an objective color in accordance with the
principles of color-mixture mentioned above.
After-image phenomena have some practical consequences. If one has been
looking at a certain color for some time, a half-minute or more, then
looks at some other color, the after-image of the first color mixes with
the second color.
_Adaptation._ The fact last mentioned leads us to the subject of
adaptation. If the eyes are stimulated by the same kind of light for
some time, the eyes become adapted to that light. If the light is
yellow, at first objects seem yellow, but after a time they look as if
they were illuminated with white light, losing the yellow aspect. But if
one then goes out into white light, everything looks bluish. The
negative after-image of the yellow being cast upon everything makes the
surroundings look blue, for the after-image of yellow is blue. All the
other colors act in a similar way, as do also black and white. If one
has been for some time in a dark room and then goes out to a lighter
place, it seems unusually light. And if one goes from the light to a
dark room, it seems unusually dark.
=Hearing or Audition.= Just as the eye is an organ sensitive to certain
frequencies of ether vibration, so the ear is an organ sensitive to
certain air vibrations. The reader should familiarize himself with the
physiology of the ear by reference to physiologies. The drum-skin, the
three little bones of the middle ear, and the cochlea of the inner ear
are all merely mechanical means of making possible the stimulation of
the specialized endings of the auditory nerve by vibrations of air.
As the different colors are due to different vibration frequencies of
the ether, so different pitches of sound are due to differences in the
rates of the air vibrations. The low bass notes are produced by the low
vibration frequencies. The high notes are produced by the high
vibration frequencies. The lowest notes that we can hear are produced by
about twenty vibrations a second, and the highest by about forty
thousand vibrations a second.
=Other Sense Organs.= We need not give a detailed statement of the facts
concerning the other senses. In each case the sense organ is some
special adaptation of the nerve-endings with appropriate apparatus in
connection to enable it to be affected by some special thing or force in
the environment.
In the case of taste, we find in the mouth, chiefly on the back and
edges of the tongue, organs sensitive to sweet, sour, salt, and bitter.
In the nose we have an organ that is sensitive to the tiny particles of
substances that float in the air which we breathe in through the nose.
In the skin we find several kinds of sense organs that give us the
sensations of cold and warmth, of pressure and pain. These are all
special and definite sensations produced by different kinds of organs.
The sense of warmth is produced by different organs from those which
produce the sense of cold. These organs can be detected and localized on
the skin. So, also, pain and touch or pressure have each its particular
organ.
Within the body itself we have sense organs also, particularly in the
joints and tendons and in the muscles. These give us the sensations
which are the basis of our perception of motion, and of the position of
the body and its members. In the semicircular canals of the inner ear
are organs that give us the sense of dizziness, and enable us to
maintain our equilibrium and to know up from down.
The general nature of the sense organs and of sensation should now be
apparent. The nervous system reaches out its myriad fingers to every
portion of the surface of the body, and within the body as well. These
nerve-endings are specially adapted to receive each its particular form
of stimulation. This stimulation of our sense organs is the basis or
cause of our sensations. And our sensations are the elementary stuff of
all our experience. Whatever thoughts we have, whatever ideas or images
we have, they come originally from our sensations. They are built up out
of our sensations or from these sensations as they exist in memory.
=Defects of Sense Organs.= The organs of sight and hearing are now by far
the most important of our sense organs. They enable us to sense things
that are at a distance. We shall therefore discuss defects of these two
organs only. Since sensations are the primary stuff out of which mind is
made, and since sight and hearing are the most important sense organs,
it is evident that our lives are very much dependent on these organs. If
they cannot do their work well, then we are handicapped. And this is
often the case.
The making of the human eye is one of the most remarkable achievements
of nature. But the making of a perfect eye is too big a task for nature.
She never makes a perfect eye. There is always some defect, large or
small. To take plastic material and make lenses and shutters and
curtains is a great task. The curvature of the front of the eye and of
the front and back of the crystalline lens is never quite perfect, but
in the majority of cases it is nearly enough perfect to give us good
vision. However, in about one third of school children the defect is
great enough to need to be corrected by glasses.
The principle of the correction of sight by means of glasses is merely
this:[1] When the focusing apparatus of the eye is not perfect, it can
be made so by putting in front of the eye the proper kind of lens. There
is nothing strange or mysterious about it. In some cases, the eye
focuses the light before it reaches the retina. Such cases are known as
nearsightedness and are corrected by having placed in front of the eyes
concave lenses of the proper strength. These lenses diverge the rays and
make them focus on the retina. In other cases, the eye is not able to
focus the rays by the time they reach the retina. In these cases, the
eyes need the help of convex lenses of the proper strength to make the
focus fall exactly on the retina.
[1] The teacher should explain these principles and illustrate by
drawings. Consult a good text in physiology. Noyes' University of
Missouri Extension Bulletin on eye and ear defects will be found most
useful.
Another defect of the eye, known as astigmatism, is due to the fact that
the eye does not always have a perfectly spherical front (cornea). The
curvature in one direction is different from that in others. For
example, the vertical curvature may be more convex than the horizontal.
Such a condition produces a serious defect of vision. It can be
corrected by means of cylindrical lenses of the proper strength so
placed before the eye as to correct the defect in curvature.
Still another defect of vision is known as presbyopia or farsightedness
due to old age. It has the following explanation: In early life, when we
look at near objects, the crystalline lens automatically becomes
thicker, more convex. This adjustment brings the rays to a focus on the
retina, which is required for good vision. As we get old, the
crystalline lens loses its power to change its adjustment for near
objects, although the eye may see at a distance as well as ever. The
old person, therefore, must wear convex glasses when looking at near
objects, as in reading and sewing.
Another visual defect of a different nature is known as partial color
blindness. The defects described above are due to misshapen eyes.
Partial color blindness is due to a defect of the retina which makes it
unable to be affected by light waves producing red and green. A person
with this defect confuses red and green. While only a small percentage
of the population has this defect, it is nevertheless very important
that those having it be detected. People having the defect should not be
allowed to enter occupations in which the seeing of red and green is
important. It was recently brought to the author's attention that a
partially color-blind man was selling stamps in a post office. Since two
denominations of stamps are distinguished by red and green colors, this
man made frequent mistakes. He was doing one of the things for which he
was specially unfitted. It is easy to detect color blindness by simple
tests.
So great is the importance of good vision in school work and the later
work of life, that every teacher should know how to make simple tests to
determine visual defects. Children showing any symptoms of eyestrain
should be required to have their visual defects corrected by a competent
oculist, and should be warned not to have the correction made by a
quack. There is great popular ignorance and even prejudice concerning
visual defects, and it is very important that teachers have a clear
understanding of the facts.
=Defects of Hearing.= Hearing defects are only about half as frequent as
those of sight. They are nearly all due to catarrhal infection of the
middle ear through the Eustachian tube. The careful and frequent
medical examination of school children cannot, therefore, be too
strongly emphasized. The deafness or partial deafness that comes from
this catarrhal infection can seldom be cured; it must be prevented by
the early treatment of the troubles which cause it.
SUMMARY. The mind is closely related to the body. Especially is it
dependent upon the brain, nerves, and sense organs. The sense organs
are special adaptations of the nerve-ends for receiving impressions.
Each sense organ receives only its particular type of impression.
The main visual phenomena are those of color-mixture, after-images,
adaptation, and contrast. Since sensation is the basis of mental
life, defects of the sense organs are serious handicaps and should
be corrected if possible. Visual defects are usually due to a
misshapen eyeball and can be corrected by proper glasses, which
should be fitted by an oculist. Hearing defects usually arise from
catarrhal trouble in the middle ear.
CLASS EXERCISES
1. Make a study of the relation of the mind to the body. Enumerate the
different lines of evidence which you may find indicating their close
relationship.
2. Can you find any evidence tending to show that the mind is
independent of the body?
3. _Color-Mixture._ Colored disks can be procured from C. H. Stoelting
Company, Chicago. If a small motor is available, the disks can be
rotated on the motor and the colors mixed. Mix pairs of complementary
colors, also pairs of non-complementary colors, and note the result. A
simple device can be made for mixing colors, as follows: On a board
stand a pane of glass. On one side of the glass put a colored paper and
on the other side of the glass put a different color. By looking through
the glass you can see one color through transmitted light and the other
color through reflected light. By inclining the glass at different
angles you can get different proportions of the mixture, now more of one
color, now more of the other.
4. _Negative After-Images._ Cut out pieces of colored paper a half inch
square. Put one of these on a white background on the table. With elbows
on the table, hold the head in the hands and gaze at the colored paper
for about a half-minute, then blow the paper away and continue to gaze
at the white background. Note the color that appears. Use different
colors and tabulate the results. Try projecting the after-images at
different distances. Project the after-images on different colored
papers. Do the after-images mix with the colors of the papers?
5. An interesting experiment with positive after-images can be performed
as follows: Shut yourself in a dark closet for fifteen or twenty minutes
to remove all trace of stimulation of the retina. With the eyes covered
with several folds of thick black cloth go to a window, uncover the eyes
and take a momentary look at the landscape, immediately covering the
eyes again. The landscape will appear as a positive after-image, with
the positive colors and lights and shades. The experiment is best
performed on a bright day.
6. _Adaptation._ Put on colored glasses or hold before the eyes a large
piece of colored glass. Note that at first everything takes on the color
of the glass. What change comes over objects after the glasses have been
worn for fifteen or twenty minutes? Describe your experience after
removing the glasses. Plan and perform other experiments showing
adaptation. For illustration, go from a very bright room into a dark
room. Go from a very dark room to a light one. Describe your experience.
7. _Contrast._ Take a medium gray paper and lay it on white and various
shades of gray and black paper. Describe and explain what you find.
8. _Color Contrast._ Darken a room by covering all the windows except
one window pane. Cover it with cardboard. In the cardboard cut two
windows six inches long and one inch wide. Over one window put colored
glass or any other colored material through which some light will pass.
By holding up a pencil you can cast two shadows on a piece of paper.
What color are the shadows? One is a contrast color induced by the
other; which one? Explain the results.
9. Make a study of the way in which women dress. What do you learn about
color effects?
10. From the Stoelting Company you can obtain the Holmgren worsteds for
studying color blindness.
11. _Defective Vision._ Procure a Snellen's test chart and determine the
visual acuity of the members of the class. Seat the subject twenty feet
from the chart, which should be placed in a good light. While testing
one eye, cover the other with a piece of cardboard. Above each row of
letters on the chart is a number which indicates the distance at which
it can be read by a normal eye. If the subject can read only the
thirty-foot line, his vision is said to be 20/30; if only the forty-foot
line, the vision is 20/40. If the subject can read above the twenty-foot
line and complains of headache from reading, farsightedness is
indicated. If the subject cannot read up to the twenty-foot line,
nearsightedness or astigmatism is indicated.
12. _Hearing._ By consultation with the teacher of physics, plan an
experiment to show that the pitch of tones depends on vibration
frequency. Such an experiment can be very simply performed by rotating a
wheel having spokes. Hold a light stick against the spokes so that it
strikes each spoke. If the wheel is rotated so as to give twenty or
thirty strokes a second, a very low tone will be heard. By rotating the
wheel faster you get a higher tone. Other similar experiments can be
performed.
13. Acuity of hearing can be tested by finding the distance at which the
various members of the class can hear a watch-tick. The teacher can plan
an experiment using whispering instead of the watch-tick. (See the
author's _Examination of School Children_.)
14. By using the point of a nail, one can find the "cold spots" on the
skin. Warm the nail to about 40 degrees Centigrade and you can find the
"warm spots."
15. By touching the hairs on the back of the hand, you can stimulate the
"pressure spots."
16. By pricking the skin with the point of a needle, you can stimulate
the "pain spots."
17. The sense of taste is sensitive only to solutions that are sweet,
sour, salt, or bitter. Plan experiments to verify this point. What we
call the "taste" of many things is due chiefly to odor. Therefore in
experiments with taste, the nostrils should be stopped up with cotton.
It will be found, for example, that quinine and coffee are
indistinguishable if their odors be eliminated by stopping the nose. The
student should compare the taste of many substances put into the mouth
with the nostrils open with the taste of the same substances with the
nostrils closed.
REFERENCES FOR CLASS READING
COLVIN AND BAGLEY: _Human Behavior_, Chapters VII and XII.
MÜNSTERBERG: _Psychology, General and Applied_, Chapters III, IV, VI,
and VII.
PILLSBURY: _Essentials of Psychology_, Chapters II, III, and IV.
PYLE: _The Outlines of Educational Psychology_, Chapter II.
TITCHENER: _A Beginner's Psychology_, Chapter I, par. 3; also
Chapter II.
CHAPTER IV
INHERITED TENDENCIES
=Stimulus and Response.= We have learned something about the sense organs
and their functions. We have seen that it is through the sense organs
that the world affects us, stimulates us. And we have said that we are
stimulated in order that we may respond.
We must now inquire into the nature of our responses. We are moving,
active beings. But how do we move, how do we act when stimulated? Why do
we do one thing rather than another? Why do we do one thing at one time
and a different thing at another time?
Before we answer these questions it will be necessary for us to get a
more definite and complete idea of the nature of stimulus and response.
We have already used these terms, but we must now give a more definite
account of them. It was said in the preceding chapter that when a muscle
contracts, it must first receive a nerve-impulse. Now, anything which
starts this nerve-impulse is called the stimulus. The muscular movement
which follows is, of course, the response. The nervous system forms the
connection between the stimulus and response.
The stimulus which brings about a response may be very simple. Or, on
the other hand, it may be very complex. If one blows upon the eyelids of
a baby, the lids automatically close. The blowing is the stimulus and
the closing of the lids is the response. Both stimulus and response are
here very simple.
But sometimes the stimulus is more complex, not merely the simple
excitation of one sense organ, but a complicated stimulation of an
organ, or the simultaneous stimulation of several organs. In playing
ball, the stimulus for the batter is the on-coming ball. The response is
the stroke. This case is much more complex than the reflex closing of
the eyelids. The ball may be pitched in many different ways and the
response changes with these variations.
In piano playing, the stimulus is the notes written in their particular
places on the staff. Not only must the position of the notes on the
staff be taken into account, but also many other things, such as sharps
and flats, and various characters which give directions as to the manner
in which the music is to be played. The striking of the notes in the
proper order, in the proper time, and with the proper force, is the
response.
In typewriting, the stimulus is the copy, or the idea of what is to be
written, and the response is the striking of the keys in the proper
order. Speaking generally, we may say that the stimulus is the force or
forces which excite the sense organs, and thereby, through the nervous
system, bring about a muscular response.
This is the ordinary type of action, but we have already indicated a
different type. In speaking of typewriting we said the stimulus might be
either the copy or ideas. One can write from copy or dictation, in which
the stimulus is the written or spoken word, but one can also write as
one thinks of what one wishes to write. The latter is known as
_centrally initiated action_. That is to say, the stimulus comes from
within, in the brain, rather than from without.
Let us explain this kind of stimulation a little further. Suppose I am
sitting in my chair reading. I finish a chapter and look at my watch. I
notice that it is three o'clock, and recall that I was to meet a friend
at that time. The stimulus in this case is in the brain itself; it is
the nervous activity which corresponds to the idea of meeting my friend.
If we disregard the distinction between mind and body, we may say that
the stimulus for a response may be an idea as well as a perception, the
perception arising from the immediate stimulation of a sense organ, and
the idea arising from an excitation of the brain not caused by an
immediate stimulation of a sense organ.
=Instincts and Habits.= In human action it is evident that there is always
a stimulus to start the nerve-impulse which causes the action. If we
make inquiry concerning the connection between the stimulus and
response; if we ask how it has come about that a particular stimulus
causes a particular response rather than some other possible response,
we find two kinds of causes. In one case the causal connection is
established through heredity; in the other, the causal connection is
established during a person's lifetime through training.
A chicken, for example, hides under some cover the first time it hears
the cry of a hawk; it scratches the first time its feet touch sand or
gravel; it pecks the first time it sees an insect near by. An infant
closes its eyes the first time it feels cold wind blow upon them; it
cries the first time it feels pain; it clasps its fingers together the
first time a touch is felt inside them. The child's nervous system is so
organized that, in each of the cases named, the stimulus brings forth
the particular, definite response. These acts do not have to be
learned.
But it is quite different in typewriting and piano playing. One _must
learn_ what keys on the piano to strike in response to the various
situations of the notes as written in the music. One must also learn the
keys on the typewriter before he can operate a typewriter. And in the
case of other habits, we find, for example, that one does not respond by
saying "81" for 9 times 9; nor "13" for 6 plus 7; nor "8" for 15 minus
7; nor "8" for the square root of 64; nor "144" for the square of 12,
etc., until one has learned in each case.
Some connections between stimulus and response we have through
inheritance; all others are built up and established in one's lifetime,
particularly in the first thirty years of one's life.
We have spoken of bonds between stimulus and response, but have not
explained just what can be meant by a _bond_. In what sense are stimulus
and response bound together? A bond is a matter of greater permeability,
of less resistance in one direction through the nervous system than in
other directions. Nerves are conductors for nerve-currents. When a
nerve-current is started in a sense organ, it passes on through the path
of least resistance.
Now, some nerves are so organized and connected through inheritance as
to offer small resistance. This forms a ready-made connection between
stimulus and response. Muscular responses that are connected with their
stimuli through inherited bonds, by inherited nerve structure, are
called instincts. Those that are connected by acquired bonds are called
habits. Sucking, crying, laughing, are instinctive acts. Adding,
typewriting, piano playing, are habits.
The term _instinct_ may be given to the act depending upon inherited
structure, an inherited bond, or it may be given to the inherited bond
itself. Similarly, the term _habit_ may be given to an act that we have
had to learn or to the bond which we ourselves establish between
response and stimulus. In this book we shall usually mean by instinct an
action depending upon inherited structure and by habit an act depending
upon a bond established during lifetime. A good part of our early lives
is spent in building up bonds between stimuli and responses. This
establishing of bonds or connections is called _learning_.
=Appearance of Inherited Tendencies.= Not all of our inherited tendencies
are manifested immediately after birth, nor indeed in the earliest years
of childhood, but appear at different stages of the child's growth. It
has already been said that a child, soon after birth, will close its
eyelids when they are blown upon. The lids do not close at this time if
one strikes at them, but they will do this later. The proper working of
an instinct or an inherited tendency, then, depends upon the child's
having reached a certain state of development.
The maturing of an instinct depends upon both age and use, that is to
say, upon the age of the animal and the amount of use or exercise that
the instinctive activity has had. The most important factor, however,
seems to be age. While our knowledge of the dependence of an instinct
upon the age of the animal is not quite so definite in the case of human
instincts, the matter has been worked out in the case of chickens.
The experiment was as follows: Chickens were taken at the time of
hatching, and some allowed to peck from the first, while others were
kept in a dark room and not allowed to peck. When the chickens were
taken out of the dark room at the end of one, two, three, and four days,
it was found that in a few hours they were pecking as well as those
that had been pecking from birth. It seems probable, if we may judge
from our limited knowledge, that in the human child, activities are for
the most part dependent upon the age of the child, and upon the state of
development of the nervous system and of the organs of the body.
=Significance of Inherited Tendencies.= Although human nature is very
complex, although human action nearly always has some element of habit
in it, nevertheless, inborn tendencies are throughout life powerful
factors in determining action. This will at once be apparent if we
consider how greatly we are influenced by anger, jealousy, love, fear,
and competition. Now we do not have to learn to be jealous, to hate, to
love, to be envious, to fight, or to fear. These are emotions common to
all members of the human race, and their expression is an inborn
tendency. Throughout life no other influences are so powerful in
determining our action as are these. So, although most of our detailed
actions in life are habits which we learn or acquire, the fundamental
influences which decide the course of our action are inherited
tendencies.
=Classification of Instincts.= For convenience in treatment the instincts
are grouped in classes. Those instincts most closely related to
individual survival are called _individualistic_ instincts. Those more
closely related to the survival of the group are called _socialistic_.
Those individualistic tendencies growing out of periodic changes of the
environment may be called _environmental_ instincts. Those closely
related to human infancy, adapting and adjusting the child to the world
in which he lives, may be called _adaptive_. There is still another
group of inherited tendencies connected with sex and reproduction, which
are not discussed in this book.
We shall give a brief discussion of the instincts falling under these
various classes. It must be remembered, however, that the psychology of
the instincts is indefinite and obscure. It is difficult to bring the
instincts into the laboratory for accurate study. For our knowledge of
the instincts we are dependent, for the most part, on general
observation. We have had a few careful studies of the very earliest
years of childhood. However, although from the theoretical point of view
our knowledge of the instincts is incomplete, it is sufficient to be of
considerable practical value.
=The Individualistic Instincts.= Man's civilized life has covered but a
short period of time, only a few hundred or a few thousand years. His
pre-civilized life doubtless covered a period of millions of years. The
inborn tendencies in us are such as were developed in the long period of
savage life. During all of man's life in the time before civilization,
he was always in danger. He had many enemies, and most of these enemies
had the advantage of him in strength and natural means of defense.
Unaided by weapons, he could hardly hold his own against any of the
beasts of prey. So there were developed in man by the process of natural
selection many inherited responses which we group under the head of
_fear_ responses.
Just what the various situations are that bring forth these responses
has never been carefully worked out. But any situation that suddenly
puts an individual in danger of losing his life brings about
characteristic reactions. The most characteristic of the responses are
shown in connection with circulation and respiration. Both of these
processes are much interfered with. Sometimes the action is accelerated,
at other times it is retarded, and in some cases the respiratory and
circulatory organs are almost paralyzed. Also the small muscles of the
skin are made to contract, producing the sensation of the hair standing
on end. Just what the original use of all these responses was it is
difficult now to work out, but doubtless each served some useful
purpose.
Whether any particular situations now call forth inherited fear
responses in us is not definitely established. But among lower animals
there are certain definite and particular situations which do call forth
fear responses. On the whole, the evidence rather favors the idea of
definite fear situations among children. It seems that certain
situations do invariably arouse fear responses. To be alone in the dark,
to be in a strange place, to hear loud and sudden noises, to see large,
strange animals coming in threatening manner, seem universally to call
forth fear responses in children.
However, the whole situation must always be considered. A situation in
which the father or mother is present is quite different from one in
which they are both absent. But it is certain that these and other fears
are closely related to the age and development of the child. In the
earlier years of infancy, certain fears are not present that are present
later. And it can be demonstrated that the fears that do arise as
infancy passes on are natural and inherited and not the result of
experience.
Few of the original causes of fear now exist. The original danger was
from wild animals chiefly. Seldom are we now in such danger. But of
course this has been the case for only a short time. Our bodies are the
same sort of bodies that our ancestors had, therefore we are full of
needless fears. During the early years of a child's life, wise treatment
causes most of the fear tendencies to disappear because of disuse. On
the other hand, unwise treatment may accentuate and perpetuate them,
causing much misery and unhappiness. Neither the home nor the school
should play upon these ancestral fears. We should not try to get a child
to be good by frightening him; nor should we often use fear of pain as
an incentive to get a child to do his work.
Man has always been afraid, but he has also always been a fighter. He
has always had to fight for his life against the lower animals, and he
has also fought his fellow man. The fighting response is connected with
the emotions of anger, envy, and jealousy. A man is angered by anything
that interferes with his life, with his purposes, with whatever he calls
his own. We become angry if some one strikes our bodies, or attacks our
beliefs, or the beliefs of our dear friends, particularly of our
families. The typical responses connected with anger are such as faster
heart-beat, irregular breathing, congestion of the blood in the face and
head, tightening of the voluntary muscles, particularly a setting of the
teeth and a clinching of the fists. These responses are preparatory to
actual combat.
Anger, envy, and jealousy, and the responses growing out of them, have
always played a large part in the life of man. A great part of history
is a record of the fights of nations, tribes, and individuals. If the
records of wars and strifes, and the acts growing out of envy and
jealousy and other similar emotions should be taken out of history,
there would not be much left. Much of literature and art depict those
actions of man which grew out of these individualistic aspects of his
nature. Competition, which is an aspect of fighting, even to the present
day, continues to be one of the main factors in business and in life
generally. Briefly, fighting responses growing out of man's selfishness
are as old as man himself, and the inherited tendencies connected with
them are among the strongest of our natures.
In the training of children, one of the most difficult tasks is to help
them to get control over the fighting instinct and other selfish
tendencies. These tendencies are so deeply rooted in our natures that it
is hard to get control of them. In fact, the control which we do get
over them is always relative. The best we can hope to do is to get
control over our fighting tendencies in ordinary circumstances.
It is doubtful whether it would be good for us if the fighting spirit
should disappear from the race. It puts vim and determination into the
life of man. But our fighting should not be directed against our fellow
man. The fighting spirit can be retained and directed against evil and
other obstacles. We can learn to attack our tasks in a fighting spirit.
But surely the time has come when we should cease fighting against our
neighbors.
=Social Tendencies.= Over against our fighting tendencies we may set the
socialistic tendencies. Coöperative and sympathetic actions grow out of
original nature, just as truly as do the selfish acts. But the
socialistic tendencies are not, in general, as strong as are the
individualistic ones. What society needs is the strengthening of the
socialistic tendencies by use, and a weakening of at least some of the
individualistic tendencies, by control and disuse.
Socialistic tendencies show themselves in gangs and clubs formed by
children and adults. It is, therefore, a common practice now to speak of
the "gang" instinct. Human beings are pleased and content when with
other human beings and not content, not satisfied, when alone. Of course
circumstances make a difference in the desires of men, but the general
original tendency is as stated.
The gang of the modern city has the following explanation: Boys like to
be with other boys. Moreover, they like to be active; they want to be
doing something. The city does not provide proper means for the desired
activities, such as hunting, fishing, tramping, and boating. It does not
provide experiences with animals, such as boys have on the farm. Much of
the boy's day is spent in school in a kind of work not at all like what
he would do by choice. There is not much home life. Usually there is not
the proper parental control. Seldom do the parents interest themselves
in planning for the activities of their children. The result is that the
boys come together on the streets and form a club or gang. Through this
organization the boy's nature expresses itself. Without proper guidance
from older people, this expression takes a direction not good for the
future character and usefulness of the boy.