Devoted to the Child and to the Unity of Educational Theory and Practice from the Kindergarten Through the University.

Editorial Rooms, 59 West 96th Street, New York, N. Y. Business Office, 276-278-280 kiver Street, Manistee, Mich. EDITORIAL COMMITTEE.

MARI RUEF HOFER..............

K LYELL EARLE, Ph. D.. .Managing Editor JENNY B. MERRILL, Ph. D., Supervisor Kindergartens, Manhattan, The Bronx and Richmond ..............Teachers' College and New York Froebel Normal. BERTHA JOHNSTON,. Kindergarten Magazine MISS MARY MILLS, Principal Connecticut Froebel Normal. All communications pertaining to subscriptions and advertising or other business relating to the Magazine should be addressed to the Michigan office, J. H. Shults. Business Manager, Manistee, Michigan. All other communications to E. Lyell Earle, Managing Editor, 59 W. 96th St., New York City.

The Kindergarten-Primary Magazine is published on the first of each month, except July and August, from 278 River Street, Manistee, Mich.

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Notwithstanding that we have announced in every issue during the past year that all matters pertaining to subscriptions or advertising for the Kindergarten-Primary Magazine should be addressed to Manistee, many letters are still going to New York City. This occasions delay and extra work in the editorial rooms. Kindly note that editorial rooms only, not a business office, are maintained in New York, and send business letters to Manistee, Mich. J. H. SHULTS.

THEORY AND PRACTICE

I

E. LYELL EARLE

N the September number of the Kindergarten-Primary Magazine, our purpose was to consider the sources whence principals of theory and practice could be derived. Our next step was to take the child to be educated, with special emphasis upon physical and mental conditions peculiar to children from four to eight years of age. Our notes this month shall discuss the native tendencies or instincts of the child especially as manifested in his spontaneous activity in free play.

It is not necessary here to give the various theories of play, inasmuch as psychologists are not agreed on the matter themselves. In a later issue it will be sufficient to suggest the principal views on the nature and value of play. We shall now consider the native instincts of the child, and their value as foundations for educational pro

cesses.

James makes this suggestive statement: "Every, educational process is either the modification of an instinct, or the engrafting of a new reaction thereon.”

This truth makes it imperative that every teacher be familiar with the nature and kind of instinct, and the means by which the instinctive tendencies may be modified into should be our guide in this study. educational values. Genetic psychology

of the organism to respond to the proper Instinct, primarily, is a native tendency stimulus. Self-activity is the instinct in action and may be defined as the spontaneous response of the individual to the proper stimulus. I recall an instance which illustrates well the nature of instinct and self-activity, and the individual differences noticed among children in their manifestation.

One Sunday afternoon while walking. I

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ably fine children directly in front of me, a little girl of about six years on the inside of the mother, and a little boy of less than five on the outside. Just as we were crossing a street, a cat sneaked down along close

to the houses, and crouched, ready to make a spring and get across the street to the park opposite. The little girl noticed the cat and said to her mother, "Pretty pussy;" the little boy leaned over, and by the tension of his body, I saw that his tendency was to chase the cat. There wasn't much time left for doubt. The cat sneaked a little farther along the house, the little girl still calling "pretty pussy," when as it darted in front of the mother and her children, the little boy reached out and made a kick at it, and broke from his unsuspecting mother's hand in hot pursuit. The mother grabbed him and said, "Harry, mother is astonished and grieved; see how nice sister said, 'pretty pussy,' and the tears came to the chagrined mother's eyes. They continued on their walk a little more solemnly, and I could occasionally hear the words of the disappointed mother lamenting Harry's disgracing them on their Sunday afternoon walk.

I am sure father heard about the story in the evening, and the probability is, that the mother relieved her feelings by referring to the girl's conduct in saying, "pretty pussy," and and consoling herself with the traditional explanation that Harry never got such tendencies from her.

I felt like talking to the mother, if I had dared, because the lesson of the episode might have been a fruitful one for her. The ready tendencies of the little girl to admire form and beauty and grace, and to play appreciatively with objects possessing them is an unmistakable indication of activities of special educational value. The lust of the hunt, and the lure of the game, and the chase were pulsing in the boy's best cells, and it was practically impossible for him not to yield to the proper stimulus, in the presence of the hunted cat.

We have in this fact the nature of instinct illustrated as a native tendency to respond to the proper situation in the actual conduct of the girl and boy, a manifestation of self-activity, and spontaneous response to the proper stimulus. The lesson for the kindergartner is, that she should bring a knowledge of these activities as discovered in the conduct and play of the street, and the home, into the kindergarten room, and make them the basis of educational activities.

Genetic psychology. furthermore, furnishes us with a division of instinct, not

found in the usual descriptive psychology.

It tells us that an organism differs from an inorganic machine in being self-running, self-feeding, self-repairing, self-changing, self-regulating, and self-reproducing. No machine or inorganic substance is capable of doing any of these things to any considerable extent. These characteristics may all be expressed in a sentence by saying that an organism possesses and maintains unity. It is this organic unity makes it possible for the human organism to store up its helpful reactions in the form of useful instincts; while the same unity makes it possible to modify the whole individual by specific exercise of any organ of the whole.

From the standpoint of hereditary tendencies we have first the physical functions, such as breathing, sleeping, digesting, etc., which have to do with the normal growth of the organism in its spontaneous response in securing pleasure out of food, and light and other agencies of environment. These are physiological instincts and are suggestive to the kindergartner in arranging for physical conditions of room.

Secondly: The so-called reflex functions which are found in particular uses of the above named physological processes, such as sneezing, coughing, sobbing, etc., none of which rises really into the domain of psychology, properly so-called.

instincts

Third: The individualistic which have their end in the actor himself. This instinct is remarkably strong in children of the kindergarten age, when the securing of pleasure and activity is dominant. The individual instincts have, as the years go on, their proper development into the racial instinct, which tendencies are merely rudimentary in children of the kindergarten age. They furnish one of the strongest motives and material for free play about home and family, etc., and can be made, perhaps, the most vital of all of the instincts of that early period.

The next class are the social instincts which furnish the basis for social life in the home and the state in the kindergarten period; it manifests itself largely in all the social games and values of companionship as follows:

First: As securing stimuli for activity and pleasure from the presence and contact of others.

Secondly: By arousing sympathy in old