expressing himself in the games of
the kindergarten, the child's social instinct will come under conscious
control. By directing his muscular movements in art and constructive
work, he gains the control which will in part enable him to check the
impulse to strike the angry blow. These points will, however, be
considered more fully in a study of the inherited tendencies in Chapter
XXI.

=B. Habits.=--Further, many of our consciously directed acts are of so
great value that they should be made more permanent through habituation.
Expression must, therefore, in many lessons be emphasized, not merely to
test and render clear present conscious knowledge, but also to lead to
habitual control of action, or to create skill. This would be especially
true in having a child practise the formation of figures and letters.
Although at the outset we must have him form the letter to see that he
really knows the outline, the ultimate aim is to enable him to form
these practically without conscious direction. In language work, also,
the child must acquire many idiomatic expressions as habitual modes of
speech.

TYPES OF EXPRESSION

Since the tendency to express our impressions in a motor way is a law of
our being, it follows that the school, which is constantly seeking to
give the pupil intelligent impressions, or valuable knowledge, should
also provide opportunity for adequate expression of the same. The forms
most frequently adopted in schools are speech and writing. Pupils are
required to answer questions orally or in writing in almost every school
subject, and in doing so they are given an opportunity for expression of
a very valuable kind. In fact, it would often be much more economical to
try to give pupils fewer impressions and to give them more opportunities
for expression in language. But written or spoken language is not the
only means of expression that the school can utilize. Pupils can
frequently be required to express themselves by means of manual
activity. In art, they represent objects and scenes by means of brush
and colour, or pencil, or crayon; in manual training, they construct
objects in cardboard and wood; in domestic science, they cook and sew.
The primary object of these so-called "new" subjects of the school
programme is not to make the pupils artists, carpenters, or
house-keepers, but partly to acquaint them with typical forms of human
activity and partly to give them means of expression having an educative