INSTIN'CTS AND HABITS 245 



Habits acquired in youth are the most lasting, and it is for this 

 reason that ''you cannot teach an old dog new tricks." 



203. Aspects of habit. It is of great practical importance to 

 us that new nerve connections can be formed, that associations 

 can be established, that instinctive conduct can be modified. 

 We are thus enabled to control the lower animals and to control 

 and enlarge our own lives. This fact is the foundation of all 

 learning, skill, and character. The education of human beings, 

 like the training of a dog, consists in the formation of habits- 

 habits of doing, habits of thinking, habits of feeling. 



I. Action. Conduct or behavior is the outward and visible 

 manifestation of what is important about a person: we notice 

 first of all his habits of doing. How does he walk or handle his 

 food, how does he work, how does he swim or skate? We 

 usually note the answers to such questions when we make up 

 our minds about anybody. These habits of doing seem of pri- 

 mary importance because they determine both how well we do 

 things and how muck we accomplish. A person who could walk 

 only by thinking of each step would not get very far in the 

 course of a day, and he would not have much time left to 

 accomplish anything else after he got there. 



2. Thinking. When we learn to say (or, rather, to think) 

 "eighty-four" on seeing ''12 x 7," or when ''1492" makes us 

 think "Columbus," we are acquiring habits of thinking. Think- 

 ing habits show themselves when you solve problems, when you 

 draw out of your stock of remembered ideas and experiences 

 arguments or examples to use in a discussion, or when you plan 

 to get certain tasks done early enough to let you go to a show. 

 Each one of us learns through practice to do these various 

 kinds of thinking; some of us become more skillful at one kind, 

 some more skillful at other kinds. 



3. Feeling. One may feel envy on seeing another person have 

 something new, or he may feel glad that the other person has 

 something nice, or he may enjoy the beautiful things without 

 any relation whatever to ownership. We may have the habit of 

 feeling contempt toward people who are difi'erent from our- 



