A far more difficult co-ordination is required for talking. It is only when we analyze how nicely adjusted must be every movement, in order to pronounce consonants and vowels properly and to combine them in various ways, that we realize how complex is the mechanism of talking. A difference of a hundredth of an inch in the movement of the tongue, or less than that in the movements of various muscles of the larynx, makes all the differences between clear articulation and a defect of speech. In the course of the years up to seven, the child learns this wonderful co-ordination apparently without difficulty, but really at the cost of constant well-directed effort. There is no time in human existence when the child really learns so much as during the first four years of its existence, even if it learns nothing else except to walk and to talk. The foolishness of obtruding other things, information and study of various kinds, on the child's attention at this time should be manifest.
Unconscious Regulation of Muscles.—What is thus prefigured in early life invades every activity in later years. The boy who learns to ride a bicycle must at first devote all his attention to it, but after a while rides it quite unconsciously, his muscles having learned by habit to accommodate themselves automatically to all the varying positions of his machine. Anything well learned by habit is never forgotten. How hard it is to learn to swim, yet, after years away from the practice of it, the art comes back at once. The same is true of skating, and of the nice adjustments of muscles required in various games. Such is the influence of habit in forming a second nature. It is no wonder that Reid, the Scotch philosopher, should have written:
As without instinct the infant could not live to become a man, so without habit man would remain an infant through life, and would be as helpless, as unhandy, as speechless, and as much a child in understanding at threescore as at three.
Commenting on this Prof. J. P. Gordy, in his "New Psychology," [Footnote 26] says:
[Footnote 26: "New Psychology," by J. P. Gordy, New York, 1898.]
Strong as this statement seems, it is probably an understatement of the truth. Without habit, we should rather say, a man would be as helpless, as speechless, as unhandy at three-score as at birth. Habit is the architect that builds the feeble rudimentary powers of the child into the strong, developed powers of the full-grown man. If a child's vague, purposeless movements give place to definite movements performed for definite purposes, if his sensations become more definite, if his perceptions become clearer, if his memory becomes more accurate, if he reasons more and more correctly and logically, it is because of habit.
Law of Habit.—The law of habit is that every time we perform any action, mental or physical, or allow ourselves to be affected in any way, we have more proneness to, and greater facility in the performance of that action or in [{231}] experiencing that affection under similar circumstances, than we had before. In the [chapter on Tics], I call attention to the fact that all the curious gestures by which we are individualized, are due to the law of habit. It is infinitely amusing to watch a group of people and note the endlessly different habits of which they have become the victims. There are tricks of speech and tricks of gesture eminently characteristic and often quite laughably individualistic. We imitate, especially those of whom we think much. Sometimes it is only when a father's attention is called to them in his sons that he realizes the ludicrousness, or at least laughableness, of some of the things he does, and he proceeds to correct both generations of their faults.
PHYSICAL HABITS
Habit and Food.—Most of our likes and dislikes for food are neither physical nor physiological, but simply habitual. We have become accustomed to certain things, and so we like them. We are unaccustomed to them, and do not care for them. It is amusing when people put forward these lacks of habituation as if they were physiological idiosyncracies. Many thin people do not like butter and milk. The real reason for this is not any peculiarity of digestion, or any gastric incompatibility, at least in 99 cases out of every 100, but the mere fact that they are not habituated to their use. That is one of the reasons why they are thin. Our tastes for curious foreign foods are nearly all deliberately acquired. Not one in ten ordinary Americans likes olives or caviar when first tasted. Nearly every curious article of food is "caviar to the general" at first trial. Later it becomes impossible to understand how we could have had any objection to them. At times, even an actual craving for them asserts itself as a consequence of the habitual use, and then deprivation means positive discomfort.
Slow Eating.—One of the most valuable habits that a man can cultivate, but one of the most difficult to acquire in our time, is that of eating slowly. Most Americans bolt their food to a degree that would be quite appalling to them if they realized what they were doing. Pieces of potatoe as large as the end of the thumb are swallowed. Bread and milk may be eaten so hurriedly as to be as potent a source of digestive disturbance as fried onions. There seems no doubt from what we know of Fletcher's experience and Chittendan and Follin's studies that a man derives more nutrition from food that is masticated properly, that he can get along and do his work on less material and that, above all, there is not the same tendency for him to put on weight that is so common among people after reaching middle age.