hat the desirable ones have an
environment which keeps them active, and that their activity shall
control the direction the others take and thereby induce the disuse of
the latter because they lead to nothing. Many tendencies that trouble
parents when they appear are likely to be transitory, and sometimes too
much direct attention to them only fixes a child's attention upon them.
At all events, adults too easily assume their own habits and wishes as
standards, and regard all deviations of children's impulses as evils
to be eliminated. That artificiality against which the conception of
following nature is so largely a protest, is the outcome of attempts to
force children directly into the mold of grown-up standards.

In conclusion, we note that the early history of the idea of following
nature combined two factors which had no inherent connection with one
another. Before the time of Rousseau educational reformers had been
inclined to urge the importance of education by ascribing practically
unlimited power to it. All the differences between peoples and between
classes and persons among the same people were said to be due to
differences of training, of exercise, and practice. Originally, mind,
reason, understanding is, for all practical purposes, the same in all.
This essential identity of mind means the essential equality of all and
the possibility of bringing them all to the same level. As a protest
against this view, the doctrine of accord with nature meant a much less
formal and abstract view of mind and its powers. It substituted specific
instincts and impulses and physiological capacities, differing from
individual to individual (just as they differ, as Rousseau pointed out,
even in dogs of the same litter), for abstract faculties of discernment,
memory, and generalization. Upon this side, the doctrine of educative
accord with nature has been reinforced by the development of modern
biology, physiology, and psychology. It means, in effect, that great
as is the significance of nurture, of modification, and transformation
through direct educational effort, nature, or unlearned capacities,
affords the foundation and ultimate resources for such nurture. On the
other hand, the doctrine of following nature was a political dogma. It
meant a rebellion against existing social institutions, customs, and
ideals (See ante, p. 91). Rousseau's statement that everything is good
as it comes from the hands of the Creator has its signi