sents
itself to be attained invites this force to act in one direction rather
than another, but it is the action, and not the end, in which the charm
resides.

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