We are all provided by nature with some instincts which, while they may serve a
good purpose in our development, need to be suppressed or at least modified
when they have done their work.
Selfishness.—All children, and perhaps all adults, are selfish. The little child
will appropriate all the candy, and give none to his playmate. He will grow angry
and fight rather than allow brother or sister to use a favorite plaything. He will
demand the mother's attention and care even when told that she is tired or ill, and
not able to minister to him. But all of this is true to nature and, though it needs to
be changed to generosity and unselfishness, is, after all, a vital factor in our
natures. For it is better in the long run that each one should look out for himself,
rather than to be so careless of his own interests and needs as to require help
from others. The problem in education is so to balance selfishness and greed
with unselfishness and generosity that each serves as a check and a balance to
the other. Not elimination but equilibrium is to be our watchword.
Pugnacity, or the Fighting Impulse.—Almost every normal child is a natural
fighter, just as every adult should possess the spirit of conquest. The long history
of conflict through which our race has come has left its mark in our love of
combat. The pugnacity of children, especially of boys, is not so much to be
deprecated and suppressed as guided into right lines and rendered subject to right
ideals. The boy who picks a quarrel has been done a kindness when given a
drubbing that will check this tendency. On the other hand, one who risks battle
in defense of a weaker comrade does no ignoble thing. Children need very early
to be taught the baseness of fighting for the sake of conflict, and the glory of
going down to defeat fighting in a righteous cause. The world could well stand
more of this spirit among adults!
Let us then hear the conclusion of the whole matter. The undesirable instincts do
not need encouragement. It is better to let them fade away from disuse, or in
some cases even by attaching punishment to their expression. They are echoes
from a distant past, and not serviceable in this better present. The desirable
instincts we are to seize upon and utilize as starting points for the development
of useful interests, good habits, and the higher emotional life. We should take
them as they come, for their appearance is a sure sign that the organism is ready
for and needs the activity they foreshadow; and, furthermore, if they are not
used when they present themselves, they disappear, never to return.