Chapter VI: Instinct and Instincts (1)

“The older writings on Instinct are ineffectual wastes of words,” writes Professor James, “because their authors never came down to this simple and definite idea (that the nervous system is to a great extent a pre-organized bundle of reactions), but smothered everything in vague wonder at the clairvoyant and prophetic power of animals--so superior to anything in Man.”[24]

Froebel was certainly not in a position to know much of the nervous system, but what he wrote about instinct cannot be classed with these older writings. For even without modern knowledge, he waxes indignant over the opinions of those who created James’ “ineffectual wastes of words.” Far from allowing that instinct in the lower animals is superior to anything in man, Froebel maintains that the very weakness, indefiniteness of man’s instincts or impulses (Triebe) is a sign of his superiority.

“Notwithstanding the early manifestation in the human infant
of the impulse to employment (Beschäftigungstriebe), much
has been said from an entirely wrong point of view about
man’s helplessness at birth, and his slow development to
independence, which necessitates for so long a period the
care and help of the mother. It has even been said, that,
in this respect, man’s position is behind and below that of
other animals. But that very point, which has been cited as
evidence of man’s imperfection, is a proof of his worth. For we
recognize through this helplessness, that man is called to ever
higher self-consciousness.”--_P., p. 24._

At the same time it should be pointed out that Froebel does not make the opposite mistake of supposing that man has no instincts. Since he approached psychology from the biological side, so far as it could be known to him, Froebel was bound to have faith in instinct, in race-habit, in tendencies which, because they have been of use to the race, are bedded in the nature of each individual. It is to Froebel’s later writings and especially to the little paper, on “The First Action of a Child,” that we must turn to see how wonderfully correct are his views on the whole question of instinct.

It may be better to give first the position of modern writers on the subject by quoting from the last chapter of Professor Lloyd Morgan’s “Habit and Instinct,” a clear and concise passage showing that the contrary schools of thought represented on the one hand by the Darwin and Romanes and on the other by Professors James and Wundt, can after all be resolved into a matter of definition.

“If, then, the question be asked, whether man has a large or a small endowment of instinct, the answer will depend upon the precise definition of ‘instinct.’ If we take congenital definiteness as characteristic of instinct, we shall agree with Darwin, that ‘the fewness and the comparative simplicity of the instincts of the higher animals are remarkable as compared with those of lower animals;’ and with Romanes that ‘instinct plays a larger part in the psychology of many animals than it does in the psychology of man.’ If, on the other hand, a broader definition of instinct be accepted, so as to include what is innate, in the sense before defined, we shall agree with Professor Wundt that human life is ‘permeated through and through with instinctive action, determined in part, however, by intelligence and volition;’ and shall not profoundly disagree with Professor Wm. James, who says that man possesses all the impulses that they (the lower animals) have and a great many more besides.”

In Mr. McDougall’s important contribution to the discussion of human instinct, he says that the view which is rapidly gaining ground is that the gradual evolution of intelligence “did not supplant and lead to the atrophy of the instincts, but controlled and modified their operation.” As Mr. McDougall goes on to state his belief “that the recognition of the full scope and function of the human instincts will appear to those that come after us as the most important advance made by psychology in our time,” it is important to the purpose of this book, to make clear to what extent Froebel’s views on the subject approach those of modern writers.

Mr. McDougall makes a very clear distinction between specific tendencies to which he limits the word instinct, and non-specific or general tendencies. Naturally Froebel did not reach this standpoint, but he does seem to have thought out his terminology. He felt strongly as to the use of words of foreign origin, and generally uses “_Trieb_,” “_Lebenstrieb_,” “_Drang_” or “_Lebensdrang_,” where we might use instinct. But he does occasionally use “instinct,” notably in a passage quoted below “whose impulses, powers and abilities, whose instincts as they are called” (dessen Lebenstriebe Kräfte und Anlagen, dessen Instincte wie man es nennt), where he seems to be feeling about for the right expression. Other words in constant use are “_Neigung_,” “_Streben_” and “_Richtung_,” probably best translated by “tendency.” It can be argued, however, that to the word Trieb Froebel does seem to have attached a more definite meaning, and his use of this word is certainly limited.

Professor James’ account of instinct begins with the statement that “Every instinct is an impulse,” a driving to action, but the use of the words “_Trieb_” and “_Drang_” makes such a pronouncement unnecessary to a German writer, and if this root idea is not implied by the noun, it generally, in Froebel’s writings, makes its appearance in the verb. Thus we frequently read of “a longing which drives the child to,” etc. (die Sehnsucht die das Kind treibt).

The merest glance through Froebel’s writings is enough to show his belief in the existence of instinct in the human being. His references to it are constant. It is an impulse (Trieb) “which the child did not give himself, which came without his will, in later life even against his will,” but which “urges to action” (drängt ihn dazu). It is a force so strong, that it “holds captive mind and body.” The child is described as “driven by impulse” (des von Lebensdrang getriebenen Kindes). The boy again is “held captive by harmless, even praiseworthy, impulses” (sogar lobenswerten Triebe), or “gives himself up entirely to the impulses of his inner life” (dem Treibenden innern Leben).

In his earlier work, “The Education of Man,” Froebel is first concerned with urging that the young human being, “a product of Nature,” has instincts quite as trustworthy as those of any other young animal, and the following eloquent passage is very well known:

“The undisturbed working of the Divine Unity is necessarily
good, and this implies that the young human being, still as it
were in the process of creation, would seek as a product of
Nature, though still unconsciously, yet decidedly and surely
that which is in itself best: and, moreover, in a form wholly
adapted to his condition, disposition, powers and means. Thus
the duckling hastens to the pond, while the young chicken
scratches the ground, and the young swallow catches his food
upon the wing and scarcely ever touches the ground. We grant
space and time to young plants and animals because we know that
in accordance with the laws that live in them they will develop
properly and grow well. Arbitrary interference with their
growth is avoided because it is known that this would disturb
their development; but the young human being is looked upon as
a piece of wax, a lump of clay, which man can mould into what
he pleases.… Thus, O parents, could your children, on whom you
force in tender years forms and aims against their nature,
thus could your children too unfold in beauty and develop in
harmony.”--_E., p. 7._

It is true that to Froebel evolution is “the working of Divine Unity.” But there seems to be no special reason why this should invalidate what Froebel has to say, any more than Sir Oliver Lodge should be disqualified as a scientist, because he has produced a book in which he writes: “Development means unfolding latent possibilities … growth and development are in accordance with the law of the universe … the law of the universe and the will of God are here regarded as in some sort synonymous terms.”

This is exactly Froebel’s position; he writes that

“Nature and man have their origin in one and the same eternal
Being, and their development takes place in accordance with the
same laws, only at different stages.”--_E., p. 161._

That Froebel not only recognized the presence of instinct in human beings, but that he also saw, as Professor Wundt puts it, that this is “determined in parts by intelligence and volition,” he states very plainly:

“Natural instinct and good example will do much, but here,
as in all human concerns, one must proceed by extension of
knowledge, and by careful scrutiny, or both the one and the
other may mislead or be misdirected. Experience cries aloud
to us, to warn us of this danger. _Assuredly man ought not to
neglect his natural instincts, still less abandon them, but he
must ennoble them through his intelligence, purify them through
his reason._”--_L., p. 222._

“In the progress of development three stages differentiate
themselves and fall apart; and these stages are seen both in
individual men, and in the race as a whole. They are:

(1) _Unconsciousness, the merely instinctive stage_;

(2) _Vague Feeling, the tendency upwards towards
consciousness_; and

(3) _Relatively clear Conscious Intelligence_.

Everything that is acquired by a great unity, say by a family,
a community, a nation, must in its beginnings be acquired by
the single members of that unity; and further it will take
them in one of the three grades of development, either that of
mere unconsciousness, or of vague feeling, or in the third and
highest grade, that of conscious intelligence, so far as it has
been maintained by mankind up to the present time.”--(Letter to
Madame D. Lutkens, dated March, 1851.)

It is in “The First Action of a Child” that we find Froebel contrasting the instincts of the lower animals with those of man. Here curiously enough, Froebel, according to Professor Stout, is almost more correct than Professor Lloyd Morgan himself, whose statement “that animals do not perceive relations” Professor Stout regards as misleading. His correction is, “unless an artificial restriction is put on the meaning of the term _relation_, this statement would imply that animals cannot perceive the position of objects in space or their motion.… Hence we should say, not that the perception of relation is deficient in animals, but only that definite perception of relations is deficient which depends on comparison.”

Now it is this very point of comparison which Froebel takes as the essential intellectual difference between the animal independent from birth thanks to fully developed instinct, and the child helpless and apparently inferior at first, yet destined for progress “self-active and free.” He writes:

“The animal whose life impulses, powers and abilities, whose
instincts as they are called (dessen Lebenstriebe, Kräfte
und Anlagen, dessen Instincte wie man es nennt) are at once
so definite and strong, that in natural conditions it never
fails, indeed cannot fail to overcome every hindrance within
its life’s reach, the animal just on this account can never
arrive at a knowledge of its powers, its qualities, its nature
… _for it lacks all points of comparison. It lacks all points
of comparison, which, in the case of man proceed from the fact
that the weakest output of strength meets with obstacles_ which
increase as the strength increases, and which will only with
difficulty be conquered or overcome and annihilated.

“It is quite different in the life of man, in the beginning
of which practically nothing can be accomplished without help
from without. Nothing especially can be accomplished through
a preponderance of inner power such, for example, as the
newly hatched duckling shows on the water. Thus everything
external must, by Man, with his preponderance of helplessness,
be overcome as an obstacle solely through inner advancing,
and outer strengthening and increasing of power through free
activity of the will.”--_P., p. 25._

With this passage from “The First Action of a Child” we can compare the following from Stout’s “Analytic Psychology”:

“The peculiar feature in the life of animals which prevents progressive development is the existence of instincts which do for them what the human being must do for himself. Their inherited organization is such, that they perform the movements adapted to supply their needs on the mere occurrence of an appropriate external stimulus.… In man, a blind craving has to grope its way from darkness into light in order to become effective; in the animal the means of satisfaction are provided ready made by Nature at the outset.”

After having stated that “Every instinct is an impulse,” Professor James goes on to say that instinct depends upon the biological fact that the nervous system is “a pre-organized bundle of re-actions,” and that when impulses block one another, an animal with many impulses, and whose mind is elevated enough to discriminate, “loses the instinctive demeanour and appears to live a life of hesitation and choice, an intellectual life.”

Notwithstanding the very obvious fact that Froebel could know but little of the nervous system and its re-actions, it is still quite evident that his observation had led him to a clear recognition of the earlier stage, when “hesitation and choice” are impossible. The child, he says, “acts in obedience to an instinct which holds captive mind and body,” he is “incredibly short-sighted in his obedience to instinct.” That he also recognized the beginning of hesitation and choice is shown in his defence of the child who “in spite of abandonment to momentary impulse,” may have “an intense inner desire for goodness,” which, “if it could be appreciated in time,” would make of him a good man (_E., p. 125_); and also in his plea for the early awakening and training “of judgment and of that reflection which avoids so many blunders and which, _in a natural way_ (i.e. without training), does not come to man sufficiently early.”--_E., p. 79._

“Another source of boyish faults is in the precipitation,
want of caution, indiscretion, in a word the thoughtlessness,
the acting according to an impulse quite blameless, even
praiseworthy, which holds captive all activity of mind and
body, but whose consequences have not as yet entered into his
experience, indeed it has not yet entered into his mind to
define the consequences.”--_E., p. 122._

Froebel gives from real life a few well-chosen examples of what the boy so “incredibly short-sighted in his obedience to impulse” may do; telling how one deliberately aims a stone at a window “with earnest effort to hit it, yet without even saying to himself that if it does so, the window must be broken,” and how he “stands rooted to the spot” when this happens. Another, a “very good-hearted boy, who dearly loved and took care of pigeons, aimed at his neighbour’s pigeon on the roof, without considering that if the bullet hit it the dove must fall.” No wonder that he urges the early awakening of that reflection (Nachdenken) which would avoid so much, and in this connection it must be remembered too that Froebel emphasized the indefiniteness of human instinct which makes comparison possible. It is also worth remarking that Froebel knew that it is only by noting consequences of actual deeds that reflection comes, and this he shows in one of his quaint parallels between “the history of creation and the development of all things.”

“Similarly in each child there is repeated the deed which marks
the beginning of moral and human emancipation, of the dawn
of reason--essentially the same deed that marked the dawn of
reason in the race as a whole.”--_E., p. 41._

It must have been a somewhat unorthodox view in 1826, but some pages further on Froebel speaks even more boldly of “the fall or--since the result is the same--the ascent of the mind of man from simple emotional development into the development of externally analytic and critical reason.”--_E., p. 193._

Professor James goes on to state two other principles which make for non-uniformity of instinct. The first of these is that instincts are inhibited by habits, and the second that instincts are transitory.

The physiological fact of “plasticity” in which these principles are grounded, was of course quite out of Froebel’s ken. Nevertheless, the principles themselves do not escape his shrewd observation. Mr. McDougall points out that even acquired habits of thought and action, so important as springs of action in the developed human mind, are in a sense derived from and secondary to instincts. He goes on to say that “in the absence of instincts no habits could be formed,” so it is interesting to find Froebel arguing that the phenomena of habit is a proof of the existence of what in the infant he calls the impulse to activity or to self-employment.

“The helplessness of the new-born human being in regard to
all outer things is the opposite of his future ability--since
life is a whole--to help himself through the enhancing of
his will-power.… Helplessness and personal will, therefore,
become the two points between which the child’s life turns, and
the fulcrum is free activity. Herein lies for the educator a
key to phenomena of child-life which seem to contradict each
other. For out of the impulse to activity (Thätigkeitstriebe)
and to free self-employment, or rather out of the united
three--helplessness, personal will, and self-employment--soon
proceed custom and habit, often indolence and too facile
yielding.

“Consideration of custom, and of the spontaneous acquiring
of habit in the child, especially in regard to what causes
it, and to its effect upon the child, is just as important
for the educator, as is the consideration and guidance of his
instinct of activity. This very phenomenon that the child so
early accustoms and inures himself to something, this early
phenomenon of child life, the growing together and becoming
one, as it were, with his surroundings, is a proof of the
existence and inner working, even thus early, of the impulse
for activity or employment, even where the child appears
outwardly inactive and passive: in that the child accommodates
himself to outer surroundings, relations and requirements in
order to provide more scope for his inner activity.”--_P., p.
27._

This proof may not be quite so clear to others as it was to Froebel, but at least the passage shows the close connection in his mind between instinct--the impulse towards activity and employment--and habit, and that he had noted the interaction between the two.

There are many references to the transitory nature of at least childish impulses.

“What delight a child takes in noticing what is smooth, woolly,
hairy, sparkling, round, etc.… But if you do not cherish this
and do not set it going in the right way, it becomes a lost
thing; it grows rusty, and loses its power as a magnet loses
its power when it is not sufficiently used. Power that is not
at once used, effort that does not at once meet the right
object--perishes.”--_M., p. 181._

“Now, at last, we would fain give another direction to the
energies, desires and instincts (Kräfte, Neigungen und Triebe)
of the child growing into boyhood; but it is too late. For the
deep meaning of child-life passing into boyhood we not only
failed to appreciate, but we misjudged it; we not only failed
to nurse it, but we misdirected and crushed it.”--_E., p. 75._

“See parents, the first impulse to activity, the first
constructive impulse (Bildungstrieb) comes from man according
to the nature of the working of his mind, unconsciously,
unrecognized, without his will, as man can indeed perceive
in himself in later life. If, however, this inner summons to
activity (diese innere Aufforderung zur Thätigkeit) meets
with outer hindrance, especially such a one as the will of
the parents, which cannot be set aside, the power is at
once weakened in itself, and with many repetitions of this
weakening, falls into inaction.”--_E., p. 100._

“The neglect of inner power causes the inner power itself to
vanish.”--_E., p. 133._

“It is true there are few such children; but there would be
more, were we not ignorantly blunting so many tendencies in our
children, or starving them into inanition.”--_E., p. 220._

Writing of the origin of boyish faults Froebel says:

“When we look for the sources of these shortcomings … we find
a double reason, first, complete neglect of the development
of certain sides of human life, secondly early misdirection,
early unnatural stages in development, and distortion, through
arbitrary interference with human powers, qualities and
tendencies good in their source.… Therefore at the bottom of
every shortcoming in man, lies a crushed, frustrated quality or
tendency, suppressed, misunderstood or misguided.”--_E., pp.
119-121._

When we come to the enumeration of the various human instincts we find that Froebel can hardly be said to have omitted any that are important from an educational point of view, except perhaps the instinct of fear, and to this he would be loth to appeal.[25] Moreover, it can be shown that his explanation of certain tendencies suggests a better basis of classification than is supplied by certain recent writers, who might be expected to surpass him with ease.

Before the publication of Mr. McDougall’s “Social Psychology,” there were but few attempts at any classification of instincts within at least the reach of English readers. In July, 1900, there appeared an article in “The Pedagogical Seminary” in which Mr. Eby proposed to reconstruct the Kindergarten on the basis of natural instinct. The writer had apparently no dawning idea that this was the original basis[26] of the institution he proposes to reform, but Froebel’s account of Instinct shows in certain ways a clearer understanding of the subject than does his own.

Mr. Eby’s tabulation was:

I. Language--with gesture and expression.

II. Curiosity, or Instinct for Knowledge.

III. Play Instinct.

(_a_) Motor Plays.
(_b_) Hunting and Wandering.
(_c_) Imitative.
(_d_) Constructive.
(_e_) Agricultural.
(_f_) Improvised.

IV. Artistic and Aesthetic Instincts.

V. Social Instinct.

VI. Instinct of Acquisition and Ownership.

VII. Number Instinct.

VIII. Interest in Stories.

Another classification, well known at least to teachers, is that given by Mr. Kirkpatrick in his “Fundamentals of Child Study.”[27]

His list comprises:

I. Individual or Self-preserving Instincts.
(Feeding, Fear and Fighting.)

II. Parental Instincts.

III. Social or Group Instincts.
(Gregariousness, Sympathy, Love of Approbation, Altruism.)

IV. Adaptive Instincts.
(Imitation, Play, Curiosity.)

V. Regulative.
(Moral, Religious.)

VI. Resultant and Miscellaneous.
(Including such tendencies as those of
collecting and constructing, and the
tendency to adornment, with the
æsthetic pleasure of contemplating
beautiful objects.)

Interesting, helpful and suggestive as these lists are, they both serve as examples of the difficulty, if not impossibility, of any hard-and-fast lines of classification. For example, regulative instincts, which Mr. Kirkpatrick divides into moral and religious, must be derived from social instincts; gregarious instincts cannot be satisfactorily separated from instincts of self-preservation, and surely all instincts must be adaptive.

Froebel’s account of the instincts of a child in some ways resembles that of Mr. McDougall, and it is certainly in some points more enlightening than either of the others.

Under the heading of Investigation, Froebel brings both the Number Instinct, and the Interest in Stories, to which Mr. Eby gives a position as fundamental as that of the Social Instinct. The constructive instinct which Mr. Kirkpatrick brings under “Resultant and Miscellaneous,” has a very special place in Froebel’s account, as being one way of imitating, that is another mode of investigating the surroundings, and also what is equally important, a way by which the child gains a knowledge of his own power, reaches Self-Consciousness.

It is because of the emphasis Froebel continually lays upon the developing self-consciousness that his views somewhat tend to resemble those of Mr. McDougall, though it would be absurd to attempt to draw any parallel. For Froebel, though he in no way minimizes the importance of Imitation, and although it is as the apostle of Play that he is most widely known, yet, like Mr. McDougall, he never speaks either of an Instinct of Play nor of Imitation, that is, he never uses for these his special word Trieb; nor has he any Instinct for Religion. Curiously enough, too, Froebel, with his constant insistence on the threefold aspect of mind, partly forestalls Mr. McDougall’s view that “instinctive action is the outcome of a distinctly mental process, one which is incapable of being described in purely mechanical terms, … and one which, like every other mental process, has and can only be fully described in terms of the three aspects of all mental process, the cognitive, the affective, and the conative aspects.”

It is in connection with the very earliest activity that Froebel writes:

“The first phenomenon of awakening child-life is activity.
It is an inner activity, showing itself by consideration of
and working with what is outer, by overcoming hindrances and
subduing the outer. The nature of man as growing towards, and
destined to reach self-consciousness, is shown in the quite
peculiar character of childish activity even as early as when
the infant awakes from its so-called three months’ slumber. It
is shown in the child’s impulse to busy himself (in dem Triebe
sich zu beschäftigen) in the instinct, _one with feeling and
perception_, to be active for the progressive development of
his own life.

“We are repeatedly impressed with the conviction that
everything that is to be done for the specifically human
development of the child must be connected with the fostering
of this instinct to employ himself. For _this instinct
corresponds to man’s triune activity of doing, feeling and
thinking. It corresponds to the essential nature of humanity,
which is to have power and understanding, to become ever more
and more self-conscious and self-determining._”--_P., p. 24._

In the last sentence of this passage, which refers to the merest infant, and which immediately precedes Froebel’s comparison of human instincts with those of the lower animals, are indicated the lines on which we may say Froebel classified though he never did so formally. He deals only with the “purely” or “specifically” human, as he never tires of reiterating, so that fundamental animal instincts, self-preserving and race-preserving, such as feeding and the sexual impulse, are little noticed, and only in connection with the necessity for self-control.

But, as with Mr. McDougall much is made to depend on self-feeling, so with Froebel still more does everything centre round that self-consciousness which to him is of the very nature of man, and which is made possible by the undefined or undeveloped character of human instinct.

The instincts and impulses noted by Froebel, all, be it clearly understood, in the service of the growing self-consciousness, and self-determination are: the instinct to independent activity (der Trieb zur Frei- und Selbst-thätigkeit), the instinct to investigation (Forschungstrieb), with which Froebel deals very thoroughly and by which he explains a great deal, the impulse of acquisition, the instinct of construction or formation (Bildungstrieb Gestaltungstrieb), the social instinct and the maternal instinct.

Froebel himself never tabulates, yet his apparently careful use of the word Trieb, taken along with his convincing explanations of various tendencies (Richtungen, Neigungen, Streben) seems to show that in relation to instinct there were in his mind two pairs of ideas, so closely related as to be inseparable, viz.:

(_a_) Investigation and Control of Surroundings, and (_b_) Consciousness of Self and Self-Determination.

It is impossible to become conscious of one’s self except by becoming conscious of a world of objects.[28] It is equally impossible to become self-determining without gaining control over these objects, over the surroundings. In order to control the surroundings, one must first investigate them, and this investigation brings with it self-consciousness, knowledge of one’s own powers and consequent self-determination. All this seems fully in accordance with what has been already stated as to the close connection between volitional and intellectual development.

The two main lines on which instinctive action must run, if it is to be, as it must be, adaptive, are given in Froebel’s words, “to have power and understanding.” To adapt ourselves to our surroundings we must first know them, and secondly, have power over them. Even this separation into firstly and secondly is more a matter of words than of reality. No one knew more clearly or emphasized more strongly than Froebel that action, by which alone we gain power, is also the child’s royal road to knowledge. This he states very plainly in the “Plan” which he drew up for the school at Helba, which unfortunately never came into existence.

“The institution will be fundamental inasmuch as in training
and instruction it will rest on the foundation from which
proceed all genuine knowledge and all genuine practical
attainments; it will rest on life itself and on creative
effort, on the union and interdependence of doing and thinking,
representation and knowledge, art and science. The institution
will base its work on the pupil’s personal efforts in work and
expression, making these, again, the foundation of all genuine
knowledge and culture. Joined with thoughtfulness these efforts
become a direct medium of culture; joined with reasoning, they
become a direct means of instruction and thus make of work a
true subject of instruction.”--_E., p. 38._

Knowledge of his surroundings is however not the only knowledge that the child gains through action; this is his only way of gaining knowledge of himself, of his power and of his weakness. It is through outward activity that, as Froebel says, he “comes to self-consciousness and learns to order, determine and master himself,” and it is in connection with the earliest Impulse to Activity that Froebel writes:

“The present effort of mankind is an effort after freer
self-development, freer self-formation, freer determining of
one’s own destiny.… Therefore the more or less clear aim of
the individual is Consciousness, the attaining of clearness
about himself and about life in its unity as well as in its
thousand ramifications, to attain to _comprehension and right
use_ of life.… That this highest aim may be accomplished,
the present time lays upon the educator the indispensable
obligation--to understand the earliest activity, the first
action of the child, the impulse (Trieb) to spontaneous
activity, which appears so early; to foster the impulse (Trieb)
for self-culture and self-instruction, through independent
doing, observing and experimenting.”--_P., p. 15._

“The first spontaneous employments of the child are noticing
his environment, and play, that is, independent outward action,
living outside himself.… The deepest foundation of all the
phenomena, of the earliest activity of the child is this; that
he must exercise the dim anticipation of conscious life, and
consequently must exercise power, test and thus compare power,
exercise independence, test and thus compare the degree of
independence.”--_P., pp. 29-31._

“All outer activity of the child has its distinctive and
ultimate ground in his inmost nature and life. The deepest
craving of this inner life, this inner activity, is to behold
itself mirrored in some external object. In and through
such reflection the child learns to know his own activity,
its essence, direction and aim, and learns also to order
and determine his activity in correspondence with the outer
phenomena. Such mirroring of the inner life, such making of the
inner life objective is essential, for through it the child
comes to self-consciousness, and learns to order, determine and
master himself. The child must perceive and grasp his own life
in an objective manifestation before he can perceive and grasp
it in himself.”--_P., p. 238._

It may seem very presumptuous to venture to discuss here the classification of instincts adopted by Mr. McDougall, yet there are in it a few points which would not have appealed to Froebel, and it is conceivable that Mr. McDougall might make alterations in a future edition and attach even more importance to positive self-feeling as Froebel would undoubtedly have done. It is impossible to imagine Froebel having any dealings with an Instinct of Self-Abasement, though the Instinct of Self-Assertion is in full accordance with his ideas. And while it is hard to see the biological utility of an Instinct of Self-Abasement, it does seem as if the frustration of the Instinct of Self-Assertion might be made to cover all that is brought under its opposite.

It is difficult, too, to imagine Froebel allowing an Instinct of Pugnacity, and Mr. McDougall allows that this presupposes the other instincts, and that it cannot strictly be brought under his own definition of instinct. He allows, too, that this instinct is “lacking in the constitution of the females of some species,” and it seems impossible not to notice the difference between little boys and girls in this respect. Surely it puts too much to the credit of mere pugnacity to say: “A man devoid of the pugnacious instinct would not only be incapable of anger, but would lack this great source of reserve energy, which is called into play in most of us by any difficulty in our path.”[29] The Instinct of Self-Assertion, if it is worth anything, ought to be sufficient not only to produce anger,[30] but also to call up reserve energy to deal with difficulties. Certainly Froebel would have said so. No doubt it is because of her weaker physique that the woman has not the pugnacity of the man, but Froebel too wrote mainly of the boy, and he puts boyish tussling and fighting down to the instinctive desire to measure and to increase power and this can easily be matched on the female side, though the power measured may not be that of muscle.

“At this age the healthy boy brought up simply and naturally
never evades an obstacle, a difficulty; nay he seeks it and
overcomes it. ‘Let it lie,’ the vigorous youngster exclaims to
his father, who is about to roll a piece of wood out of the
boy’s way--‘let it lie, I can get over it.’ With difficulty,
indeed, the boy gets over it the first time; but he has
accomplished the feat by his own strength. Strength and courage
have grown in him. He returns, gets over the obstacle a
second time, and soon he learns to clear it easily.… The most
difficult thing seems easy, the most daring thing seems without
danger to him, for his prompting comes from the innermost, from
his heart and will.”--_E., p. 102._

“Many of the plays and occupations of boys at this age are
predominantly mere practice and trials of strength, and many
aim simply at display of strength.… _The boy tries to see
himself in his companions, to feel himself in them, to weigh
and measure himself by them, to know and find himself with
their help._”--_E., pp. 112-114._

In passing, it may be suggested that it hardly seems worth while to postulate an Instinct of Repulsion with the impulses or actions of rejecting evil-tasting substances from the mouth and of shrinking from objects which are slimy or slippery. Surely the rejection of unsuitable food might be a compound reflex action tending to the preservation of health; while shrinking from slimy objects, and even from the touch of fur, might have had their uses in the case of children left in caves, and might be drawn under the instinct of fear.

There does not seem to be anything to which Mr. McDougall would take exception in what Froebel has to say about Play or about Imitation.

As to play, Froebel must be regarded as a pioneer in the attempt to explain a subject all important to educators, and by his explanation certain kinds, and notably imitative play find an appropriate place under his instinct of investigation (Forschungstrieb).

“The means of shadowing forth to the child his own nature and
that of the cosmos are his play and playthings.”--_P., p. 201._

As the word Investigation certainly implies activity, it may be permissible to wonder why Mr. McDougall has not made use of the terms “The Instinct of Investigation and the Emotion of Curiosity,” the more so that he himself has clearly a strong inclination to use the word curiosity to express emotion.[31]

Imitation, as we have seen,[32] is, according to Froebel, action which renders a child conscious of what is around him, conscious of his inner life of perceptions, ideas and feelings, conscious of his own power. Froebel also points out that imitation, as well as habit, is the outcome of a more fundamental impulse to activity.

“It is just as important to notice the habits of a child,
especially with regard to cause and effect, as it is to notice
and to foster its impulse to activity.… As now habit springs
from free and spontaneous activity, so too does imitation, and
it is no less important for the fostering of child-life to keep
in view this origin of imitation, than it is to keep in view
the phenomena of habit, custom and independent activity. For
we see the whole inner life of the child manifest itself as a
tri-unity in the threefold phenomenon of spontaneous activity,
habit and imitation. These three phenomena are closely united
in early childhood, and give us most important discoveries
concerning child-life, as to foundation and result and surest
guides for the early correct treatment of the child.”--_P., p.
27._

Mr. McDougall notes “at least three distinct classes” of imitative actions. The first class consists of expressive actions, secondary to the sympathetic induction of the emotions they express, as when a child responds to a smile with a smile, and here we remember how Froebel notes the child’s first smile to his mother as the earliest sign of what he calls “the feeling of community.” The third class is the deliberate and voluntary imitation of an admired person, which does not concern us here. The second class are “simple ideo-motor actions evoked by the visual presentation of a movement,” and as a parallel to this we have Froebel’s “working of the inner activity wakened by the sight of outer activity.”

“The smallest child moves joyfully, springs gaily, hops up and
down, or beats with his arms when he sees a moving object. This
is certainly not merely delight in the movement of the object
before him, but _it is the working of inner activity wakened in
him by the sight of outer activity_. Through such vision the
inner life has been freed.…”--_P., pp. 239-40._

A point to which exception may well be taken is that in the infant Froebel notes what he seems to regard as a fundamental tendency, the impulse or instinct of activity, or as he frequently puts it, the impulse to busy oneself, which, however, soon differentiates into two more specific tendencies, viz. the impulse to investigate and the constructive impulse.

“What formerly the child did only for the sake of activity,
the boy now does for the sake of the result or product of his
activity. The child’s impulse to activity (Thätigkeitstrieb)
has in the boy become a constructive, a formative impulse
(Bildungs-Gestaltungstriebe), in which the whole outer life of
the boy finds at this stage its outlet.”--_E., p. 99._

It may be worth mentioning that Groos would like to assume a “universal impulse to activity,” and though he “can only hold fast to the primal need for activity,” yet according to him Ribot approaches this assumption.--(“The Play of Man,” _p. 3_).

Even in the infant, however, this instinct or impulse to activity is devoted to “penetrating what is outer,” and the Kindergarten, meant for children from three to six, is intended to foster the three instincts, activity, investigation and construction, as well as to cultivate the social instinct by placing a little child among his equals. Froebel describes it in his plan as:

“An Institution for fostering of family life and for shaping
the life of the nation and human life generally, through
cultivating the human instincts of activity, of investigation
(Forschungstrieb), and of construction in the child, as a
member of the family, of the nation, and of humanity.…”--_P.,
p. 6._

As regards the child, the word Trieb, which is exactly equal to impulse, seems to be applied only in one other direction, to what we would call the social instinct, and here again Froebel shows his recognition of the vagueness and indefiniteness of early consciousness. As he attributes to the infant the one impulse to activity which differentiates later into Investigation and Construction, so in the infant he recognizes a “feeling of community” (Gesammtgefühl), but says that it differentiates later into something more definite.[33]

“The development of man constitutes an unbroken whole, steadily
and continuously progressing, gradually ascending. The feeling
of community (Gemeingefühl) awakened in the infant, develops
in the child into impulse, inclination (entwickelt sich in dem
Kinde der Trieb, die Neigung).”--_E., p. 95._

Under the important Instinct of Investigation, or the Instinct for Self-Instruction, Froebel includes a great deal. Many different activities until recently somewhat carelessly talked of collectively as “play,” Froebel has separated and explained as the child’s way of investigating his surroundings. Even “the earliest activity and first action of the child,” Froebel says, shows “the instinct to self-teaching and self-instruction.”

Imitative action or imitative play is always referred to as action which helps towards understanding of the surroundings. In the “Mother Songs” we read:

“Your child will certainly understand all the better if you
make him take a part--though it be only by imitation--in
what grown-up people are doing in their anxiety to maintain
life.…”--_M., p. 141._

“I have already said that this little game arose because people
felt that a child’s love of activity, and his striving to get
the use of his limbs, ought to be carried on in such a way
as to lift him at once into the complexity of the life which
surrounds him.… Pray do not disturb them in their ingenious
charming play (saying grace over the dolls’ feast), but rather
avoid noticing it if you cannot identify yourself with its
charm.… For how is your child to cultivate in himself the
feeling of what is holy, if you will not grant that it takes
form for him in all its purity in his innocent games.”--_M., p.
148._

“What man tries to represent he begins to understand.”--_E., p.
76._

Representation, however, may be carried out in many ways, by the use of material, as well as by bodily action so that the constructive instinct also subserves that of investigation.

“To grasp a thing through life and action is much more
developing, cultivating and strengthening than merely to
receive it through the verbal communication of ideas.
Similarly, representation of a thing by material means, in life
and action, united with thought and speech, is more developing
than merely verbal representation of ideas.”--_E., p. 279._

“The child must perceive and grasp his own life in an objective
manifestation before he can perceive and grasp it in himself.
This law of development, prescribed by Nature and by the
essential character of the child, must always be respected and
obeyed by the true educator. Its recognition is the aim of my
gifts and games apprehended relatively to the educator.”--_P.,
p. 38._

Here Froebel has plainly stated the main object of his specially selected play-material. The ordinary parent not being “the man advanced in insight,” who “makes clear to himself the purpose of playthings,” Froebel often saw children supplied with expensive but unsuitable toys, toys which would not bring the child any nearer his destination, “to have power and understanding, to become ever more and more self-conscious and self-determining.”

“Here, then, we meet as a great imperfection in ordinary
playthings, a disturbing element which slumbers like a viper
under roses, viz. that it is too complex, too much finished.
The child can begin no new thing with it, cannot produce enough
variety by it; his power of creative imagination, his power of
giving outward form to his own idea is thus actually deadened.
When we provide children with too finished playthings, we
deprive them of the incentive to perceive the particular in
the general (_P., p. 122_).… What presents are most prized
by the child? Those which afford him a means of unfolding
his inner life most freely and of shaping it in various
directions.”--_P., p. 142._

“The man, advanced in insight, should be as clear as possible
in his own mind about all this before he introduces his
child into the outer world. Even when he gives the child a
plaything, he must make clear to himself its purpose, and the
purpose of playthings and occupation material in general. This
purpose is, to aid the child freely to express what is in
him and to bring the phenomena of the outer world nearer to
him.”--_P., p. 171._

“To realize his aims, man, and more particularly the child,
requires material, if it be only a bit of wood or a pebble with
which he makes something or which he makes into something. In
order to lead the child to the handling of material, we gave
him the soft ball, the wooden sphere and cube, etc., discussed
in the chapters on the Kindergarten Gifts. Each of these gifts
incites the child to free spontaneous activity, to independent
movement.”[34]--_P., p. 237._

As the child grows older his constructions advance, but still they connect themselves with investigating:

“Here he makes a little garden under the hedge; there he
represents the course of the river in his furrow and in his
ditch; there he studies the effects of the fall or pressure of
water upon his little water-wheel.”--_E., p. 105._

Investigating naturally leads to exploring, “external objects invite him who would bring them nearer to move toward them,” and so the child once he is able to stand begins to travel:

“When the child makes his first attempts at walking he
frequently tries to go to some particular object. This effort
may have its source in the child’s desire to hold himself
firm and upright by it, but we also observe that it gives him
pleasure to be near the object, to touch it, to feel it, and
perhaps also--a new phase of activity--to be able to move it.
Hence we see the child hops up and down before it and beats
on it with his little hands, in order to assure himself of
the reality of the object, and to notice its qualities.… Each
new phenomenon is a discovery in the child’s small and yet
rich world--e.g. one can go round the chair, one can stand
before, behind, beside it, but one cannot go behind the bench
or the wall. He likes to change his relationship to different
objects, and through these changes he seeks self-recognition
and self-comprehension, as well as recognition of the different
objects which surround him, and recognition of his environment
as a whole. Each little walk is a tour of discovery; each
object is an America--a new world, which he either goes around
to see if it be an island, or whose coast he follows to
discover if it be a continent.”--_P., p. 243._

The boy has lost none of this tendency to explore, but he goes further afield, and it is worth noting that because the boy has a distinct purpose in view his exploring is distinctly called work.

“If activity brought joy to the child, work now gives delight
to the boy. Hence the daring and venturesome feats of boyhood;
the explorations of caves and ravines; the climbing of trees
and mountains; the searching of heights and depths; the roaming
through fields and forests.… To climb a new tree means to
the boy the discovery of a new world.… Not less significant
of development is the boy’s inclination (Neigung) to descend
into caves and ravines, to ramble in the shady grove and dark
forest.”--_E., pp. 102-5._

Even the baby shows trace of the collecting or acquiring instinct, but to Froebel this still falls under the head of investigation. The child who has just learned to walk is:

“attracted by the bright round smooth pebble, by the quaint
brilliant leaf, by the smooth piece of wood, and he tries to
get hold of these with the help of the newly acquired use of
his limbs. Look at the child that can scarcely keep himself
erect and that can walk only with the greatest care--he sees
a twig, a bit of straw; painfully he secures it.… See the
child laboriously stooping and slowly going forward under the
eaves. The force of the rain has washed out of the sand small,
smooth, bright pebbles, and the ever-observing child gathers
them.”--_E., p. 72._

The boy, still only from six to eight years old, keeps up the collecting habit with more method and with a wider range, and he demands assistance.

“Not less full of significance, nor less developing, is the
boy’s inclination to descend into caves and ravines, to ramble
in the shady grove and in the dark forest. It is _the effort_
(_Streben_) to seek and find the new, to see and discover the
hidden, the desire to bring to light and _to appropriate_ that
which lies concealed in darkness and shadow.

“From these rambles the boy returns with rich treasures of
unknown stones and plants, of animals--worms, beetles, spiders
and lizards, that dwell in darkness and concealment. ‘What
is this? What is its name?’ etc., are the questions to be
answered; and every new word enriches his world and throws
light upon his surroundings. Beware of greeting him with the
exclamation, ‘Fie, throw that down, that is horrid!’ or ‘Drop
that, it will bite you!’ If the child obeys, he drops and
throws away a considerable portion of his power.”--_E., p. 104._

This quotation brings us to another mode of investigation, that of asking questions, which Froebel was not likely to miss.

“The child, your child, ye fathers, follows you wherever you
go. Do not harshly repel him. Show no impatience about his
ever-recurring questions. Every harshly repelling word crushes
a bud of his tree of life.… Question upon question comes from
the lips of the boy thirsting for knowledge--How? Why? When?
What for? and every satisfactory answer opens to him a new
world.”--_E., p. 86._

Professor O’Shea has an interesting section on what he calls “The Sense of Location,” which he says is “at the bottom of one of the most interesting and important phenomena of adjustment--the questioning activity.” So it may be worth while to notice that Froebel, whom the Professor has dismissed with one slighting reference, has been beforehand with him here, and has dealt with this same early beginning in one of his earliest Mother Songs, viz. “It’s all Gone,” where he says to the mother:

“How can the child understand that anything is “all gone,” yet
he must see sense in it or he will not be satisfied. What he
saw just now is there no longer, what was above is below, what
was there has vanished.”--_M., p. 18._

Questioning implies language, but Froebel has no language instinct. He does, however, call speech immediate (unmittelbar), usually translated “innate,” and he does say that because others talk to him, the child’s capacity for speech will develop of necessity and will break forth spontaneously.

It is in connection with the child’s earliest investigations that Froebel brings in the learning to speak. In “The Education of Man,” he notes how the young child brings all his discoveries, “his treasures,” to the mother’s lap, and she is warned to give the right kind of help and at the right time.

“It is the longing for interpretation that urges the child to
appeal to us, it is the intense desire for this that urges him
to bring his treasures to us and to lay them in our laps. The
child loves all things that enter his small horizon and extend
his little world. To him the least thing is a new discovery;
but it must not come dead into the little world, nor lie dead
therein lest it obscure the small horizon and crush the little
world.”--_E., p. 73._

All the help the mother need give at first is to supply names, since as Froebel says, “the name, as it were, creates the thing for the child.” Later she must help him to compare and classify.

“How little is needed from those around the child to aid him
in this tendency (to seek for knowledge). It is only necessary
to name, to put into words what the child does, sees and
finds.”--_E., p. 75._

“It is as well while the child is making these first
experiments (at walking about the room) to name the
objects--e.g. There is the chair, the table, etc.… The object
of giving these names is not primarily the development of
the child’s power of speech, but to assist his comprehension
of the object, its parts and its properties by defining his
sense-impressions. By a rich store of such experiences
the capacity for speech develops of necessity, and speech
breaks forth of itself, as it were, through heightened mental
self-activity in accordance with the nature of mind.”--_P., p.
242._

Expression, of course, of which speech is but one form, is to Froebel all-important. “Speech,” he says, is “required and conditioned by the attainment to consciousness,” and as self-consciousness is the characteristic of humanity, so speech is “the first manifestation of mankind.” In his “Autobiography” Froebel writes:

“Mankind as a whole, as one great unity, had now become my
quickening thought. I kept this conception continually before
my mind. I sought after proofs of it in my little world within
and in the great world without me; I desired by many a struggle
to win it, and then to set it worthily forth. And thus I was
led back to the first appearance of man upon our earth, and to
the first manifestation of mankind, his speech.”--_A., p. 84._