opriate
stimuli. Our instinctive movements, such as sucking, hiding, grasping,
etc., being inherited tendencies to react under given conditions in a
more or less effective manner for our own good, constitute one type of
reactive movement. At birth, therefore, the child is endowed with
powers, or tendencies, which enable him to adapt himself more or less
effectively to his surroundings. Because, however, the child's early
needs are largely physical, many of his instincts, such as those of
feeding, fighting, etc., lead only to self-preservative acts, and are,
therefore, individual rather than social in character. Even these
individual tendencies, however, enable the child to adjust himself to
his surroundings, and thus assist that physical growth without which, as
will be learned later, there could be no adequate intellectual and moral
development. But besides these, the child inherits many social and
adaptive tendencies--love of approbation, sympathy, imitation,
curiosity, etc., which enable him of himself to participate in some
measure in the social life about him.

=Instinct and Education.=--Our instincts being inherited tendencies, it
follows that they must cause us to react in a somewhat fixed manner upon
particular external stimulation. For this reason, it might be assumed
that these tendencies would build up our character independently of
outside interference or direction. If such were the case, instinctive
reactions would not only lie beyond the province of formal education,
but might even seriously interfere with its operation, since our
instinctive acts differ widely in value from the standpoint of the
efficient life. It is found, however, that human instincts may not only
be modified but even suppressed through education. For example, as we
shall learn in the following paragraphs, instinctive action in man may
be gradually supplanted by more effective habitual modes of reaction.
Although, therefore, the child's instinctive tendencies undoubtedly play
a large part in the early informal development of his character outside
the school, it is equally true that they can be brought under the
direction of the educator in the work of formal education. For that
reason a more thorough study of instinctive forms of reaction, and of
their relation to formal education, will be made in Chapter XXI.

HABITUAL REACTION

A second form of reaction is known as habit. On account of the plastic
character of the matter constitu