CHAPTER III. THE NATURE OF THE CHILD. SUGGESTED READINGS. Jones. *THE CHURCHMAN'S MANUAL. Butler. pp. 1-15. *TEACHER TRAINING. Roads. pp. 17-18. Chap. III. pp. 306-319. *THE MIND OF A CHILD. Richmond. Chaps. I. and II. THE TEACHER, THE CHILD, AND THE BOOK. Schauffter. p. 141, p. 153. The Discovery of the Child. P. 165. Dr. Alford A. Butler in his MANUAL OF METHODS IN THE SUNDAY SCHOOL says: "The nineteenth century was the age of research in all departments of knowledge. The greatest find in the educational field was the discovery of the child as a factor, the essential factor, in the educational problem. It was discovered that facts are not taught for their own sake, that the teacher's training is not for himself, that the purpose of his preparation is not to teach a lesson, nor to instruct a class. When we remember that the religious training of the child decides the strength or weakness of all his after life; that a child's early impressions are those which no later experience can ever wholly obliterate; and when we remember that it is the child's moral and spiritual training which decides his own character, his influence upon the characters of his companions, and that character here means destiny hereafter," we can see the importance of early religious instruction. The work of the educational reformers, Pestalozzi, Froebel, Herbart, and Horace Mann, opened a new vista in the educational domain. The Study of the Child. In the life of every plant, of every lower animal, and of man there are two things which go to make up his Character: (1) The individual himself, that is his hereditary constitution and tendencies; and (2) His environment or surroundings, of which Education is one, the others being the home, society, business, and all other influences in the world around him, such as climate, health, etc. Heredity versus Environment. If, ten years ago, two men had stood side by side, the one a physician, representing the scientific attitude, the other the social worker, representing education, and if you had asked them the same question: "Which do you consider of the more importance, Heredity or Environment?" you would have received opposite answers. The scientist would have claimed Heredity as of greater potency; the sociologist would have urged the influence of Environment. To-day they would probably stand side by side in mental as well as in physical proximity, agreeing that, of the two, Environment counts for more. Some people think that Heredity or Natural Character is more important than the Personal Training of the Child and his Environment. How is the Child affected by Environment? A stone is not affected unless it be frangible and so broken to pieces. But a Child is different from a stone. It is not only affected by its Environment, but it reacts upon and alters its action according to impressions received from its Environment. It is sensitive, receptive, responsive. If there is no reaction there is no Education. U. S. Commissioner Harris, in his PSYCHOLOGIC FOUNDATIONS OF EDUCATION, has pointed out this fundamental principle of Education, and calls it "self-activity"; of which we shall speak more fully further on. It used to be considered that the Child absorbed teaching. Locke spoke of the Child's mind as though it were a blank paper upon which we would write. Others pictured it as the "pouring in" of information and facts. It is rather the "drawing out" if we con trast it with the old "Information." Better still, it is taking hold of the Hereditary impulses and activities with which the intense Child is already fairly bubbling over, and turning, and training, and educating these activities in the right direction. The difference between the old education and the new consists largely in the fact that the old education attempted to interest the Child in those things that he would use thirty years hence; while the new education believes that his interests will be best met by exercising his mental and physical powers upon those things which meet his need to-day. " Elizabeth Harrison in her SOME SILENT TEACHERS writes: "But over and above the too exclusive study of heredity, which leads to fatalism, down below the exclusive study of environment, which leads to despondency, shines the light of the thought that self-activity is greater than any barriers placed by ancestry or by surroundings. Man is a limit-transcending being,' is the watchword of the new education. . It lies not in our start, but in ourselves, "whether we shall end life with diadems upon our heads or fagots in our hands. No one who has read Booker T. Washington's autobiography will ever say again that heredity or environment stand unconquerable before the self-activity of the human soul. There we see the man with the hoe slowly transforming himself into a prince among men by his constant determined choosing of kingdom and stars rather than of herbs and apples." Dr. McComb's recent article on Heredity and Will Power states: "The fact of heredity is one of the most firmly established conclusions of modern science. Says Huxley: 'We may say that the moral and intellectual essence of a man does pass over from one fleshly tabernacle to another. In the new-born infant the character of the stock lies latent; and the ego is a bundle of potentialities.' Now, we must distinguish between the fact and the theory of heredity. No one doubts the fact, but scientists have not reached any agreement as to theory. The fact may be expressed thus: There is a biological law found operating throughout the whole organic world whereby beings tend to repeat themselves in their descendants, or whereby an individual receives from his parents his chief vital forces and tendencies, his physical and spiritual capital. "About this fact a vast amount of popular misunderstanding has gathered. Men and women settle down in fatalistic fashion under moral and physical weaknesses on the plea that these things are inherited from some ancestor who was a hard drinker and perhaps amused himself by beating his wife! In reality, a little exercise of the will, a strong appeal to dormant energies, would suffice to shake off these disabilities and restore normal health. Or again, people argue, 'Like father, like son'; if the father has tuberculosis his child will fall a victim to the same disease. It should be clearly understood that the most recent researches disprove this notion. What the father transmits to his child is not a disease; it is a condition of nervous instability which may predispose to, but does not necessitate, this or that disease. For example, I know a young woman whose father died from consumption, yet she herself is free from the slightest tubercular taint. On the other hand, she is prone to hypochondriacal depression and afflicts herself with all sorts of imaginary ills. What we inherit may be described as instability of the nerve-tissue, whereby we have less of power of resistance against the various stresses and troubles of life. "Now, it is generally admitted that one of the main factors in producing nervous troubles is the predisposition with which people are born. One individual comes into the world with a nervous system less under control than is the case with others. He is not responsible for this fact; it is an original element in his particular constitution. For example, the younger Coleridge was not responsible for inheriting from his father an unstable nervous system. S. T. Coleridge was an opium-eater, and in all the relations of life his will was hopelessly undermined. The son, Hartley, had no inclination to opium, but he became a slave to alcohol. "Yet this is only half the truth. We must distinguish between a predisposing and an exciting cause. If we could examine the brains of our fellows, we would be astonished to discover how many potential madmen are abroad. Insanity may lurk in the blood, but it needs a favorable environment ere the sleeping evil is aroused. Predisposition may be there, but before disorder can declare itself, other causes must be at work. What are some of these? Worry holds the first place in the hierarchy of mis chief. Not work, but worry kills,' is a true proverb. The man who works with his brain moderately has the best safeguard against nervous trouble. On the other hand, worry is sheer and unmitigated evil." Heredity. Professor Henry Jones says that Heredity can be explained, only on the theory of the germ-plasm; and the theory of the germ-plasm implies, in the last resort, not only that life is continuous, but that from the first it contains, in some way, the tendency towards the variations which reveal themselves in the successive stages of animal life. Outward environment only elicits or restrains, stimulates or represses, what is already present; but it can add nothing that is new. Biologists do not hesitate to draw this conclusion. "In the lowest known organism, in which not even a nucleus can be seen, is found potentially all that makes the world varied and beautiful." That is to say, one's education is the opening of his powers of converting that which originally was external to him into constituent elements of himself. When he has reached the stage at which his development ceases, one can say with much truth that all his environment is within him. And social reformers, as their experience grows, tend more and more to despair of doing anything real for the man, and to turn their forces of improvement more and more upon the child. It follows in the next place that what a child inherits are not actual tendencies, but potential faculties. Biologists sometimes speak as if it were possible for parents to transmit tendencies or propensities towards good or evil to their offspring. The process of evolution is said to be one by which evil is being perpetually eliminated or subjugated, and evil cannot, therefore, be regarded as a primary principle. "But, if it be true that acquired characters are not transmitted, then even tendencies to good or evil cannot come by inheritance. No child is born vicious or virtuous. It is only by his own action that he can become the one or the other. He is not even predisposed to virtue or vice, unless, indeed, we identify the former with the innate impulse towards self-realization, char |