46 THE CONDOR Vol. XXII 
ly comes a day when the child is afraid, it hides its face and screams or else 
it retires behind the mask of a child’s immobile stare. Often he is punished 
for being naughty, wilful, or silly while the chagrined and disappointed parent 
may make more of a fuss and disturbance over the matter than does the child 
itself. The visitor, according to his lights, feels sorry for the one or for the 
other. Nip and Tuek, brought up by hand, were on very intimate terms with 
their foster parent. ney performed most ‘Cleverly for visitors, coming to the 
finger to be fed, allowing themselves to be warmed in the enclostas hand, or to 
be transferred from cage to table freely. There was no consciousness of self 
or of the parent. But one morning the instinct of fear had come. Like a 
migratory warbler flying at night, all at once it was there, and Nip was afraid 
of me. He would not come to eall, he would not tolerate approach. He saw 
this great creature through different eyes, the eyes of self-consciousness, and 
he was afraid. He had never been mistreated but he never entirely lost again 
his attitude of reserve. You may be sure he was not punished for wilfulness 
or for silliness, the child’s common cloak for inward fear. 
But, like most fond parents, I lose perspective and prolong the story of my 
infant prodigies. The biologist has proven his point. Learning to feed prop- 
erly is but the development of an instinct as are the learning to bathe and to 
preen the feathers. Like learning to sing, to quarrel, to fear, even to fly, they 
are not learning processes at all. They are but stages of growth. That mag- 
nificent series of reflexes involved in flight is not the result of experience. 
The first time the birds attempted to fly they flew, not far, but well. They 
could not fly far because they lacked strength. They flew well because of an 
inborn coordination of sensory and motor nerves, a sort of racial knowledge 
conveyed by heredity to the fertile egg from which each had sprung. All 
these tricks and traits developed in orderly fashion as the time for each ar- 
rived. In this development Nip was always just ahead of Tuck, but the order 
of appearance was the same in both. Yes, the biologist had proven his point; 
but did he leave anything for the poor educator? 
The educator can learn much from the story of Nip and Tuck. One lesson 
is that much of our so-called education is but a superficial patting of the hu- 
man clay, a holding of child activity to certain orthodox lines pending arrival 
of the inward urge upon which we may work. Can we truly say that educa- 
tion ever creates the impulse? Rather does it liberate impulse. The twins 
did learn many things, some of which were temporary expedients to serve 
through the formative period. We need a few such in education. Finally, is 
it not the function of education to take the native worth and make it more 
worthy? Nip’s instinct of fear, tempered by education, became a proper re- 
serve toward clumsy humans, however well meaning. Birds’ inherited voices 
respond to later training after their adult structure has been attained, and 
they may come to execute a variety of songs. 
The aim of education, then, is not an uprooting of the natural attribute 
but is a sort of top wouhne effect for the improvement of that native root- 
stock. Education should be constructive, not destructive. 
Rodin enscribed one of his celebrated marbles with these words: ‘‘I feel 
two natures struggling within me.’’ The phrase well depicts the unstable atti- 
tude of mind of this particular foster parent in regard to his experiments on 
the heavenly twins. Did he fail in one attempt, there is consolation for the biol-— 
ogist in saying ‘‘T told you so.’’ Did he succeed in another, there was the 
