late is human intelligence and emotion. Just what
relationship exists between the action of the nervous system and
consciousness or intellect or emotion is still an open question and need
not be discussed here. One thing seems fairly certain, that the original
of any individual is bound up in some way with the kind of nervous
system he has inherited. What we have in common, as a human race, of
imagination, or reason, or tact, or skill is correlated in some fashion
to the inheritance of a human nervous system. What we have as individual
abilities, which distinguish us from our fellows, depends primarily upon
our family inheritance. Certain traits such as interest in people, and
accuracy in perception of details, seem to be dependent upon the sex
inheritance. All traits, whether racial, or family, or sex, are
inherited in terms of a plastic nervous system.

The racial inheritance, the capital which all normal children bring into
the world, is usually discussed under several heads: reflexes,
physiological actions, impulsive actions, instincts, capacities, etc.,
the particular heads chosen varying with the author. They all depend for
their existence upon the fact that certain bonds of connection are
performed in the nervous system. Just what this connection is which is
found between the nerve cells is still open to question. It may be
chemical or it may be electrical. We know it is not a growing together
of the neurones,[1] but further than that nothing is definitely known.
That there are very definite pathways of discharge developed by the laws
of inner growth and independent of individual learning, there can be no
doubt. This of course means that in the early days of a child's life,
and later in so far as he is governed by these inborn tendencies, his
conduct is machine-like and blind--with no purpose and no consciousness
controlling or initiating the responses. Only after experience and
learning have had an opportunity to influence these responses can the
child be held responsible for his conduct, for only then does his
conduct become conscious instead of merely physiological.

There are many facts concerning the psychology of these inborn
tendencies that are interesting and important from a purely theoretical
point of view, but only those which are of primary importance in
teaching will be considered here. A fact that is often overlooked by
teachers is that these inborn tendencies to connections of various kinds
exist