No individual enters the world with a large enough stock of instincts to
start him doing all the things necessary for his welfare. Instinct
prompts him to eat when he is hungry, but does not tell him to use a
knife and fork and spoon; it prompts him to use vocal speech, but does
not say whether he shall use English, French, or German; it prompts him
to be social in his nature, but does not specify that he shall say
please and thank you, and take off his hat to ladies. The race did not
find the specific _modes_ in which these and many other things are to be
done of sufficient importance to crystallize them in instincts, hence
the individual must learn them as he needs them. The simplest way of
accomplishing this is for each generation to copy the ways of doing
things which are followed by the older generation among whom they are
born. This is done largely through _imitation_.

NATURE OF IMITATION.--_Imitation is the instinct to respond to a
suggestion from another by repeating his act._ The instinct of
imitation is active in the year-old child, it requires another year or
two to reach its height, then it gradually grows less marked, but
continues in some degree throughout life. The young child is practically
helpless in the matter of imitation. Instinct demands that he shall
imitate, and he has no choice but to obey. His environment furnishes the
models which he must imitate, whether they are good or bad. Before he is
old enough for intelligent choice, he has imitated a multitude of acts
about him; and habit has seized upon these acts and is weaving them into
conduct and character. Older grown we may choose what we will imitate,
but in our earlier years we are at the mercy of the models which are
placed before us.

If our mother tongue is the first we hear spoken, that will be our
language; but if we first hear Chinese, we will learn that with almost
equal facility. If whatever speech we hear is well spoken, correct, and
beautiful, so will our language be; if it is vulgar, or incorrect, or
slangy, our speech will be of this kind. If the first manners which
serve us as models are coarse and boorish, ours will resemble them; if
they are cultivated and refined, ours will be like them. If our models
of conduct and morals are questionable, our conduct and morals will be
of like type. Our manner of walking, of dressing, of thinking, of saying
our prayers, even, originates in imitation. By imitation we adopt
ready-made our soc