442 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



taint. Thirdly, the teacher must know what sort of individual will 

 best succeed as a member of society. This is an innovation; it is but 

 a few years since teachers began to plan the adult the child is to be. 

 But in order to plan an individual who shall be in harmony with his 

 environment when he becomes an adult, the teacher must have an inti- 

 mate knowledge and insight into the cumulative nature of the environ- 

 ment and the dynamic changes which society in all of its functionings 

 and attitudes continually undergoes. 



The first two of these essential qualifications of the teacher were first 

 pointed out in a vital way by Rousseau, but he had no conception of 

 the gravity of the third. Eousseau believed that the various tendencies 

 and instincts as they appeared in the child were cues to what the normal 

 individual should be, and should be seized upon in the educational 

 process and made by habituation a permanent characteristic of the 

 adult. Eousseau's ideas of ' returning to nature ' were exemplified in 

 his theory of teaching, and the result of such teaching was portrayed 

 in Emile. This character is in the true sense savage. Not having 

 fallen heir to his spiritual inheritance, he is a babe in his comprehension 

 of the world. With never a passion curbed, he has no power of self- 

 denial, and is blown about by every whim and caprice. Eousseau 

 would observe the child in order that he may not overlook any of these 

 tendencies as they appear. We have an entirely different motive in 

 child observation. These instincts and tendencies are not to us indices 

 of what the adult should be, but we study them and note their order 

 of appearance in order that we may be enabled to exercise greater 

 economy and efficiency in the teaching process. Our ideal is to exer- 

 cise no faculty nor attempt its development until it naturally begins 

 to function in the child's development. If such instinct or tendency 

 is not a desirable characteristic of the adult the educator plans, then 

 he needs to be most careful to inhibit its exercise. Most instincts are 

 transient, and if given no chance to be exercised, and, consequently, to 

 be developed into habits, they will die out, and it is as if they never 

 existed. Instincts afford a wide range of possibilities for the educator 

 to select from in developing the individual whose foundations for man- 

 hood he is laying. 



When an instinct was allowed to die by not being given provocation 

 to function, that which it would have secured for the individual is to 

 a considerable extent beyond the possibility of acquisition later. For 

 example, when the play instinct appears and the child is not allowed 

 to play, or the play propensities are not called into activity, which is 

 sometimes the case whe"re there is but one child in a family, and where 

 the parents are old and the child is tied, so to speak, to the mother's 

 apron strings, that child, no matter what may be his social advantages 

 later, will never be able to acquire that social poise which the other 



