I
In our talk, Gentlemen, about Children's Reading we left off upon
a list, drawn up by Mr Holmes in his book 'What Is, and What
Might Be,' of the things that, apart from physical nourishment
and exercise, a child instinctively desires.
He desires
(1) to talk and to listen;
(2) to act (in the dramatic sense of the word);
(3) to draw, paint and model;
(4) to dance and sing;
(5) to know the why of things;
(6) to construct things.
Let us scan through this catalogue briefly, in its order.
No. (1). _To talk and to listen_--Mr Holmes calls this _the
communicative instinct._ Every child wants to talk with those
about him, or at any rate with his chosen ones--his parents,
brothers, sisters, nurse, governess, gardener, boot-boy (if he
possess these last)--with other children, even if his dear papa
is poor: to tell them what he has been doing, seeing, feeling:
and to listen to what they have to tell him.
Nos. (2), (3), (4). _To act_--our author calls this the
'dramatic instinct': _to draw, paint and model_--this the
'artistic instinct'--_to dance and sing_--this the 'musical
instinct.' But obviously all these are what Aristotle would call
'mimetic' instincts: 'imitative' (in a sense I shall presently
explain); even as No. (2)--acting--like No. (1)--talking and
listening--comes of craving for sympathy. In fact, as we go on,
you will see that these instincts overlap and are not strictly
separable, though we separate them just now for convenience.
No. (5). _To know the why of things_--the 'inquisitive instinct.'
This, being the one which gives most trouble to parents, parsons,
governesses, conventional schoolmasters--to all grown-up persons
who pretend to know what they don't and are ashamed to tell what
they do--is of course the most ruthlessly repressed.
'The time is come,' the Infant said,
'To talk of many things:
Of babies, storks and cabbages
And--
--having studied the Evangelists' Window facing the family pew--