702 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1914. 
and then construction with tools in paper, wood, stone, and iron, and 
in plastic materials, textiles, foods, etc. When the child expresses 
esthetic feelings and ideas in these activities the manual arts appear. 
This manipulating impulse, combined with the social, gives a large 
number of plays and games. Each of these tendencies is represented 
in the complex occupations, crafts, arts, modes of expression, and 
recreations of the adult. They give the spontaneous beginnings of 
activities which, when developed, include a large part of applied 
science. 
Under leadership the values of these activities in the development 
of nervous powers for manual skill, in the ability to think in mechan- 
ical terms, and to design and execute, in the expression of esthetic 
ideas and the development of esthetic feelings, and in the discipline 
of elemental traits of character, are well recognized. As Dewey 
showed, they may be organized to unite the individual’s social feel- 
ings and thoughts with the industrial problems of the race. For the 
masses they underlie economic adjustment and industrial adapta- 
bility. They are important for the nervous, moral, and esthetic sta- 
bility of the nonindustrial classes. 
Leadership in these activities is needed from infancy to maturity, 
first for cultural education, then for vocational and recreative results. 
In this leadership, the ages between 7 and 10—the critical, yet most 
neglected years—when impulse and skill are furthest apart, need 
special attention. 
(c) ENVIRONMENTAL AND NATURE ACTIVITIES. 
Environmental and nature activities fall into two related classes: 
(1) Excursions and (2) nature experimentations. The instincts that 
have led to the world’s exploration and to the development of the 
natural and physical sciences are here expressed. 
(1) The excursions arise from the exploring, foraging, and migra- 
tory instincts, and arouse great enthusiasm. They begin with the 
creeping of the infant and continue all through environmental activi- 
ties of later years. These excursions give some of the organic and 
nervous values of big-muscle activities; they develop the self-pre- 
serving instincts and powers; they give the opportunities for obser- 
vation, the collection of information, and the satisfaction of curiosity 
concerning nature and civics. Leadership easily perfects the educa- 
tional values in the spontaneous tendencies to these activities, as 
indicated in the following suggestions, which grade naturally by age 
periods. 
For the little children, short trips give opportunities for broader 
“free play”’ activities in the environment, for a larger sense experi- 
ence, for collections, for learning the names of natural objects, for 
simple observational games, and for instruction concerning things 
which catch the attention. 
