Motherliness and kindliness have as their characteristic behavior tendencies to respond by instinctive comforting acts to signs of pain, grief, or misery shown by living things, especially, by children, and by the feeling of satisfaction and the sight of happiness in others. Of course very often these instinctive responses are interfered with by the presence of some other instinct, such as fighting, hunting, ownership, or scorn, but that such tendencies to respond in such situations are a part of the original equipment of man seems beyond dispute. They are possessed by both sexes and manifest themselves in very early childhood.
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.