t development which
will result in action which is socially desirable is still present. The
problem which the teacher faces will be more or less difficult in
proportion as the child's endowment by original nature is large or
small, and as previous education has been successful or unsuccessful.
The skillful teacher is the one who will constantly seek to utilize to
the full those instincts or capacities which seem most potent. This
utilization, as has already been pointed out, does not mean a blind
following of the instinctive tendencies, but often the substitution of a
higher form of action for a lower, which may seem to be related to the
instinct in question. It is probably wise to encourage collections of
stamps, of pictures, of different kinds of wood, and the like, upon the
part of children in the elementary school, provided always that the
teacher has in mind the possibility of leading these children, through
their interest in objects, to desire to collect ideas. Indeed, a teacher
might measure her success in utilizing the collecting instinct in
proportion as children become relatively less interested in things
collected, and more interested in the ideas suggested by them, or in the
mastery of fields of knowledge or investigation in which objects have
very little significance. The desire for physical activity upon the part
of children is originally satisfied by very crude performances.
Development is measured not simply in an increase in manual dexterity,
but also in terms of the higher satisfaction which may come from
producing articles which have artistic merit, or engaging in games of
skill which make for the highest physical efficiency.

During the whole period of childhood and adolescence we may never assume
that the results of previous education, whether they be favorable or
unsatisfactory, are permanent. Whether we succeed or not in achieving
the ends which we desire, the fact of modifiability, of docility, and of
plasticity remains. The teacher who seeks to understand the individuals
with whom he works, both in terms of their original nature and in terms
of their previous education, and who at the same time seeks to
substitute for a lower phase of an instinctive tendency a higher one, or
who tries to have his pupils respond to a situation by inhibiting a
particular tendency by forming the habit of meeting the situation in
another way, need not despair of results which are socially desirable.

QUESTIONS