Since, however,
these are important human tendencies, and since they deal specifically
with the child's attitude in adapting himself to his environment, they
rank from an educational standpoint among the most important of human
instincts. These include such tendencies as curiosity, imitation, play,
constructiveness and acquisitiveness.

=Human Instincts Modified by Experience.=--Although instinctive acts are
performed without forethought or conscious purpose, yet in man they may
be modified by experience. This is true to a degree even in the case of
the instincts of the lower animals. Young spiders, for instance,
construct their webs in a manner inferior to that of their elders. In
the case of birds, also, the first nest is usually inferior in structure
to those of later date. In certain cases, indeed, if accounts are to be
accepted, animals are able to vary considerably their instinctive
movements according to the particular conditions. It is reported that a
swallow had selected a place for her nest between two walls, the
surfaces of which were so smooth that she could find no foundation for
her nest. Thereupon she fixed a bit of clay to each wall, laid a piece
of light wood upon the clay supports, and with the stick as a foundation
proceeded to construct her nest. On the whole, however, there seems
little variation in animal instincts. The fish will come a second time
to take food off the hook, the moth will fly again into the flame, and
the spider will again and again build his web over the opening, only to
have it again and again torn away. But whatever may be the amount of
variation within the instincts of the lower animals, in the case of man
instinctive action is so modified by experience that his instincts soon
develop into personal habits. The reason for this is quite evident. As
previously pointed out, an instinctive act, though not originally
purposeful, is in man accompanied with a consciousness of both the
bodily discomfort and the resulting movements. Although, therefore, the
child instinctively sucks, grasps at objects, or is convulsed with fear,
these acts cannot take place without his gradually understanding their
significance as states of experience. In this way he soon learns that
the indiscriminate performance of an instinctive act may give quite
different results, some being much more valuable to the individual than
others. The young child, for instance, may instinctively bite whatever
enters his mo