the pigs and the cows, and deserted the empty
house with its torture of loneliness. What was there so terrible in
being alone? I do not know. I know only that to many children it is a
torture more exquisite than the adult organism is fitted to experience.

But why multiply the recollections? They bring a tremor to the strongest
of us today. Who of us would choose to live through those childish fears
again? Dream fears, fears of animals, fears of furry things, fears of
ghosts and of death, dread of fatal diseases, fears of fire and of
water, of strange persons, of storms, fears of things unknown and even
unimagined, but all the more fearful! Would you all like to relive your
childhood for its pleasures if you had to take along with them its
sufferings? Would the race choose to live its evolution over again? I do
not know. But, for my own part, I should very much hesitate to turn the
hands of time backward in either case. Would that the adults at life's
noonday, in remembering the childish fears of life's morning, might feel
a sympathy for the children of today, who are not yet escaped from the
bonds of the fear instinct. Would that all might seek to quiet every
foolish childish fear, instead of laughing at it or enhancing it!

7. OTHER UNDESIRABLE INSTINCTS

We are all provided by nature with some instincts which, while they may
serve a good purpose in our development, need to be suppressed or at
least modified when they have done their work.

SELFISHNESS.--All children, and perhaps all adults, are selfish. The
little child will appropriate all the candy, and give none to his
playmate. He will grow angry and fight rather than allow brother or
sister to use a favorite plaything. He will demand the mother's
attention and care even when told that she is tired or ill, and not
able to minister to him. But all of this is true to nature and, though
it needs to be changed to generosity and unselfishness, is, after all, a
vital factor in our natures. For it is better in the long run that each
one _should_ look out for himself, rather than to be so careless of his
own interests and needs as to require help from others. The problem in
education is so to balance selfishness and greed with unselfishness and
generosity that each serves as a check and a balance to the other. Not
elimination but equilibrium is to be our watchword.

PUGNACITY, OR THE FIGHTING IMPULSE.--Almost every normal child is a
natural fighter, just as every