[Sidenote: Function of Instincts]
By instincts are meant those natural impulses _to do_ which are “born in
a person,” and which are so strong in animal or man, that each goes on
to perform the act toward which he is impelled even though he has had no
previous instruction in performing that act, or even though he may not
be clearly conscious of what he is doing. The nesting and migrating
instincts in birds, the building of beaver dams, the hibernating of
certain animals, the swarming of bees, are examples of well marked
instincts among animals. Play, curiosity, and the dramatic tendencies,
are equally well marked examples of instincts in children.
[Sidenote: Their Classification]
Professor Kirkpatrick divides the instincts into several groups
according to the function they perform in the development of the
individual. Chief among these groups of instincts, and becoming
prominent in the child’s life in about the order named are (1) the
self-preservative and individualistic instincts, (2) the adaptive
instincts, (3) the gregarious or social instincts, (4) the parental
instincts, (5) the expressive and (6) the regulative instincts.
It will surprise the teacher whose attention has not already been called
to the matter to note how many of the disorders of the schoolroom grow
out of instincts which are entirely natural to the child and indeed
highly useful to the individual for the most part, their undesirability
in the schoolroom being due only to the lack of proper control, that is,
to a power which the child has not yet acquired, and which it is the
function of the school to teach.
Consider, for example, the lowest of these groups, the self-preservative
and individualistic, as opposed to the altruistic impulses. At first
thought such instincts as anger, fear, fighting, selfishness, and
acquisitiveness seem ignoble and unworthy of expression. Yet every one
of these impulses, undoubtedly, has a useful function to perform in the
child’s life, impelling to experiences and habits which lay the
foundation, at least, for the development of the higher instincts which
are to dominate later.
This is not the place to go into a detailed discussion of the various
instincts. The thing to remember is, first, that most of the impulses of
children have an instinctive basis hence are not, in themselves, wrong
but become wrong only as they fail to be brought under gradual control,
and, secondly, the impulses are not to be supressed, but rather the
energy found to be expended in harmful ways must be divided into
channels of legitimate action. We shall now consider some of the most
undesirable forms of the self-preservative and individualistic impulses.