RESPONSIVE LIFE OF ORGAXISMS 



499 



Ethnic culture stages are rapidly passed through in the 

 experience of his earliest years. At the beginning he is a 

 freebooter, taking what he likes of what he sees, recognizing 

 no rights of property, and doing nothing to produce what he 

 consumes. Then he enters upon the domestication of ani- 

 mals and the cultivation of plants quite naturally and on 

 his own account. He cultivates the good will of his pets and 

 feeds them, and makes them work for him. He plants 

 flowers and vegetables and clearly recognizes ownership in 

 these things. Then he comes to be interested most keenly 

 in tools and in the things he can make with them. At this 

 age he is vastly more benefited by the gift of a jack knife or a 

 hammer than of more complicated toys. An indian's bow 

 and arrow is more to be desired than a repeating shot gun. 

 But soon 'he will aspire to have the complicated toys and 

 the engines and the hand organs. The inventor stage is 

 upon him even before he is entered in school. 



FIG. 279. Play is preparation for business 



