The Science of Human Nature: A Psychology for Beginners

by William Henry Pyle

Truancies and runaways are the result of original tendencies and desires expressing themselves in spite of training, perhaps sometimes because of the lack of training. In childhood and youth these original tendencies should, to some extent, be satisfied in legitimate ways. Excursions and picnics can be planned both for work and for play. If the child’s desires and needs can be satisfied in legitimate ways, then he will not have to satisfy them illegitimately. The teaching itself can be done better by following, to some extent, the lead of the child’s nature. Much early education consists in learning the world. Now, most of the world is out of doors and the child must go out to find it. The teacher should make use of the natural desires of the children to wander and explore, as a means of educating them. The school work should be of such a nature that much outdoor work will need to be done.

Collecting. It is in the nature of children to seize and, if possible, carry away whatever attracts attention. This tendency is the basis of what is called the collecting instinct. If one will take a walk with a child, one can observe the operation of the collecting tendency, particularly if the walk is in the fields and woods. The child will be observed to take leaves, flowers, fruits, seeds, nuts, pebbles, and in fact everything that is loose or can be gotten loose. They are taken at first aimlessly, merely because they attract attention. The original, natural response of the child toward that which attracts attention is usually to get it, get possession of it and take it along. It is easy to see why such tendencies were developed in man. In his savage state it was highly useful for him to do this. He must always have been on the lookout for things which could be used as food or as weapons. He had to do this to live. But one need not take a child to the woods to observe this tendency. One can go to the stores. Till a child is trained not to do it, he seizes and takes whatever attracts attention.

Just as the wandering tendencies can be used for the benefit of the child, so can the collecting tendencies. Not only should the children make expeditions to learn of the world, but specimens should be collected so that they can be used to form a museum at the school which will represent the surrounding locality. Geological, geographical, botanical, and zoölogical specimens should be collected. The children will learn much while making the collections, and much from the collections after they are made.

“Education could profit greatly by making large demands upon the collecting instinct. It seems clear that in their childhood is the time when children should be sent forth to the fields and woods, to study what they find there and to gather specimens. The children can form naturalists’ clubs for the purpose of studying the natural environment. Such study should embrace rocks, soils, plants, leaves, flowers, fruits, and specimens of the wood of the various trees. Birds and insects can be studied and collected. The work of such a club would have a twofold value. (1) The study and collecting acquaint the child with his natural environment, and in doing it, afford a sphere for the activity of many aspects of his nature. They take him out of doors and give an opportunity for exploring every nook and corner of the natural environment. The collecting can often be done in such a way as to appeal to the group instincts. For example, the club could hold meetings for exhibiting and studying the specimens, and sometimes the actual collecting could be done in groups. (2) The specimens collected should be put into the school museum, and the aim of this museum should be to represent completely the local environment, the natural and physical environment, and also the industrial, civil, and social environment. The museum should be completely illustrative of the child’s natural, physical, and social surroundings. The museum would therefore be educative in its making, and when it is made, it would have immense value to the community, not only to the children but to all the people. In this museum, of course, should be found the minerals, rocks, soils, insects,—particularly those of economic importance,—birds, and also specimens of the wild animals of the locality. If proper appeal is made to the natural desire of the children, this instinct would soon be made of service in producing a very valuable collection. The school museum in which these specimens are placed should also include other classes of specimens. There should be specimens showing industrial evolution, the stages of manufacture of raw material, specimens of local historical interest, pictures, documents, books. The museum should be made of such a nature that parents would go there nearly as often as the children. The school should be for the instruction of all the people of the community. It should be the experiment station, the library, the debating club, the art gallery for the whole community.”[2]

[2] Pyle’s Outlines of Educational Psychology, pp. 84–86.

Imitation. One of the fundamental original traits of human nature is the tendency to imitate. Imitation is not instinctive in the strict meaning of the word. Seeing a certain act performed does not, apart from training and experience, serve as a stimulus to make a child perform a similar act. Hearing a certain sound does not serve as a stimulus for the production of the same sound. Nevertheless, there is in the human child a tendency or desire to do what it sees others doing.

A few hours spent in observing children ought to convince any one of the universality and of the strength of this tendency. As our experience becomes organized, the idea of an act usually serves as the stimulus to call it forth. However, this is not because the idea of an act, of necessity, always produces the act. It is merely a matter of the stimulus and the response becoming connected in that way as the result of experience. Our meaning is that an act can be touched off or prompted by any stimulus. Our nervous organization makes this possible. The particular stimulus that calls forth a particular response depends upon how we have been trained, how we have learned. In most cases our acts are coupled up with the ideas of the acts. We learn them that way.

In early life particularly, the connection between stimulus and response is very close. When a child gets the idea of an act, he immediately performs the act, if he knows how. Now, seeing another perform an act brings the act clearly into the child’s consciousness, and he proceeds to perform it. But the act must be one which the child already knows how to perform, otherwise his performance of it will be faulty and incomplete. If he has never performed the particular act, seeing another perform the act sets him to trying to do it and he may soon learn it. If he successfully performs an act when he sees it done by another, the act must be one which he already knows how to perform, and for whose performance the idea has already served as a stimulus. Now if imitation were instinctive in the strict sense, one could perform the act for the first time merely from seeing another do it, without any previous experience or learning. It is doubtful whether there are any such inherited connections. It is, however, true that human beings are of such a nature that, particularly in early life, they like to do and want to do what they see others doing. This is one of the most important aspects of human nature, as we shall see.

Function and Importance of Imitation in Life. Natural selection has developed few aspects of human nature so important for survival as the tendency to imitate, for this tendency quickly leads to a successful adjustment of the child to the world in which he lives. Adult men and women are successfully adjusted to their environment. Their adjustment might be better, but it is good enough to keep them alive for a time. Now, if children do as they see their parents doing, they will reach a satisfactory adjustment. We may, therefore, say that the tendency to imitate serves to adjust the child to his environment. It is for this reason that imitation has been called an adaptive instinct. It would perhaps be better to say merely that the tendency to imitate is part of the original equipment of man.

Imitation is distinctively a human trait. While it occurs in lower animals it is probably not an important factor in adjusting them to their environment. But in the human race it is one of the chief factors in adjustment to environment. Imitation is one of the main factors in education. Usually the quickest way to teach a child to do a thing is to show him how.