There are original tendencies to respond both in getting and in giving approval and scorn.  By original nature, smiles, pats, admiration, and companionship from one to whom submission is given arouses intense satisfaction; and the withdrawal of such responses, and the expression of scorn or disapproval, excites great discomfort.  Even the expression of approval or scorn from any one—­a stranger or a servant—­brings with it the responses of satisfaction or discomfort.  Just as strongly marked are original tendencies which cause responses of approval and cause as a result of “relief from hunger, rescue from fear, gorgeous display, instinctive acts of strength, daring and victory,” and responses of scorn “to the observation of empty-handedness, deformity, physical meanness, pusillanimity, and defect.”  The desire for approval is never outgrown—­it is one of the governing forces in society.  If it is to be shown or desired on any but this crude level of instinctive response, it can only come by education.

Children come to school with both an original nature determined by their human inheritance and by their more immediate family relationship, and with an education more significant, perhaps, than any which the school can provide.  From earliest infancy up to the time of entering a kindergarten or a first grade, the original equipment in terms of instincts, capacities, and abilities has been utilized by the child and directed by his parents and associates in learning to walk and to talk, to conform to certain social standards or requirements, to accept certain rules or precepts, or to act in accordance with certain beliefs or superstitions.  The problem which the teacher faces is that of directing and guiding an individual, who is at 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.