Give a child a bow and arrow, and send him out into the yard to try it, and if he does not happen to see any thing to shoot at, he will shoot at random into the air.  But if there is any object which will serve as a mark in sight, it seems to have the effect of drawing his aim towards it.  He shoots at the vane on the barn, at an apple on a tree, a knot in a fence—­any thing which will serve the purpose of a mark.  This is not because he has any end to accomplish in hitting the vane, the apple, or the knot, but only because there is an impulse within him leading him to shoot, and if there happens to be any thing to shoot at, it gives that impulse a direction.

It is precisely the same with the incessant muscular activity of a child.  He comes into a room and sits down in the first seat that he sees.  Then he jumps up and runs to another, then to another, until he has tried all the seats in the room.  This is not because he particularly wishes to try the seats.  He wishes to move, and the seats happen to be at hand, and they simply give direction to the impulse.  If he were out of doors, the same office would be fulfilled by a fence which he might climb over, instead of going through an open gate close by; or a wall that he could walk upon with difficulty, instead of going, without difficulty, along a path at the foot of it; or a pole which he could try to climb, when there was no motive for climbing it but a desire to make muscular exertion; or a steep bank where he can scramble up, when there is nothing that he wishes for on the top of it.

In other words, the things that children do are not done for the sake of the things, but for the sake of the doing.

Parents very often do not understand this, and are accordingly continually asking such foolish questions as, “George, what do you wish to climb over that fence for, when there is a gate all open close by?” “James, what good do you expect to get by climbing up that tree, when you know there is nothing on it, not even a bird’s nest?” and, “Lucy, what makes you keep jumping up all the time and running about to different places?  Why can’t you, when you get a good seat, sit still in it?”

The children, if they understood the philosophy of the case, might answer, “We don’t climb over the fence at all because we wish to be on the other side of it; or scramble up the bank for the sake of any thing that is on the top of it; or run about to different places because we wish to be in the places particularly.  It is the internal force that is in us working itself off, and it works itself off in the ways that come most readily to hand.”

Various Modes in which the Reserved Force reappears.