the same time both
educated and in possession of tendencies and capacities which make
possible further development.

Not infrequently the education which children have when they come to
school may in some measure handicap the teacher. It is unfortunate, but
true, that in some homes instinctive tendencies which should have been
overcome have been magnified. The control of children is sometimes
secured through the utilization of the instinct of fear. The fighting
instinct may often have been overdeveloped in a home in which
disagreement and nagging, even to the extent of physical violence, have
taken the place of reason. Pride and jealousy may have taken deep root
on account of the encouragement and approval which have been given by
thoughtless adults.

The teacher does not attack the problem of education with a clean slate,
but rather it is his to discover what results have already been achieved
in the education of the child, whether they be good or bad, for it is in
the light of original nature or original tendencies to behave, and in
the light of the education already secured, that the teacher must work.

When one realizes the great variety or differences in ability or
capacity, as determined by heredity, and when there is added to this
difference in original nature the fact of variety in training which
children have experienced prior to their school life, he cannot fail to
emphasize the necessity for individualizing children. While it is true
that we may assume that all children will take delight in achievement,
it may be necessary with one child to stir as much as possible the
spirit of rivalry, to give as far as one can the delight which comes
from success, while for another child in the same class one may need to
minimize success on account of a spirit of arrogance which has been
developed before school life began. It is possible to conceive of a
situation in which some children need to be encouraged to fight, even to
the extent of engaging in physical combat, in order to develop a kind of
courage which will accept physical discomfort rather than give up a
principle or ideal. In the same group there may be children for whom the
teacher must work primarily in terms of developing, in so far as he can,
the willingness to reason or discuss the issue which may have aroused
the fighting instinct.

For all children in elementary and in high schools the possibility of
utilizing their original nature for the sake of tha