154 SAVAGE SURVIVALS 



years, when the hungry months and fleet limbs of 

 the wolves are on its track. And it is very im- 

 portant for it to be very diligent in its studies, 

 and learn well the lessons of fleetness and far- 

 leaping. 



But the domesticated goat is a lowlander. It 

 will probably never see a mountain nor a wolf. 

 But the children of these lowlanders continue to 

 practice in their play for the wild mountain life 

 gone by, just as the children of higher men con- 

 tinue to prepare themselves in their plays for the 

 vanished life of the savage. 



These savage forms of play are beneficial indi- 

 rectly in building up the body and in developing 

 ingenuity and shrewdness. But the reason why 

 we use in our plays the forms of running and 

 fighting instead of computing and co-operating — 

 the reason why our plays are arranged to give us 

 practice in doivning people instead of helping them 

 up — is because the play instinct has never been 

 modernized. 



The play instinct in boys takes a different form 

 from what it does in girls, for the same reason 

 that the play-forms of goats and wolves are dif- 

 ferent. They practice for different ends. A boy 

 likes to ride a stick-horse and play ball and fight ; 

 a girl likes her dolls and her play-houses. 



2. The Imitative Instinct. 



This is the instinct which causes us to be in- 

 clined to do as others do — the urge to copy others 



