unconsciously looking forward to a more perfect life when the responsibilities
shall be a little more real. So let us not grudge our children the play day of
youth.
5. OTHER USEFUL INSTINCTS
Many other instincts ripen during the stage of youth and play their part in the
development of the individual.
Curiosity.—It is inherent in every normal person to want to investigate and
know. The child looks out with wonder and fascination on a world he does not
understand, and at once begins to ask questions and try experiments. Every new
object is approached in a spirit of inquiry. Interest is omnivorous, feeding upon
every phase of environment. Nothing is too simple or too complex to demand
attention and exploration, so that it vitally touches the child's activities and
experience.
The momentum given the individual by curiosity toward learning and mastering
his world is incalculable. Imagine the impossible task of teaching children what
they had no desire or inclination to know! Think of trying to lead them to
investigate matters concerning which they felt only a supreme indifference!
Indeed one of the greatest problems of education is to keep curiosity alive and
fresh so that its compelling influence may promote effort and action. One of the
greatest secrets of eternal youth is also found in retaining the spontaneous
curiosity of youth after the youthful years are past.
Manipulation.—This is the rather unsatisfactory name for the universal
tendency to handle, do or make something. The young child builds with its
blocks, constructs fences and pens and caves and houses, and a score of other
objects. The older child, supplied with implements and tools, enters upon more
ambitious projects and revels in the joy of creation as he makes boats and boxes,
soldiers and swords, kites, play-houses and what-not. Even as adults we are
moved by a desire to express ourselves through making or creating that which
will represent our ingenuity and skill. The tendency of children to destroy is not
from wantonness, but rather from a desire to manipulate.
Education has but recently begun to make serious use of this important impulse.
The success of all laboratory methods of teaching, and of such subjects as
manual training and domestic science, is abundant proof of the adage that we
learn by doing. We would rather construct or manipulate an object than merely