SPONTANEOUS CONSTRUCTIONS AND PRIMITIVE
ACTIVITIES OF CHILDREN ANALOGOUS TO
THOSE OF PRIMITIVE MAN[1]
By R. A. Acher
Much has been said of late years about following the child's native interests and instincts in directing its education. But if we ask just what these interests and instincts are the answer is not so readily given. A different answer would very probably be given by different leaders in this field. Children grow up in an environment adjusted largely to adult life and adult ideals, and are still pretty firmly in the grip of the traditional school system. Therefore their spontaneous activities are still more or less obscured and neglected. But it is just here that most maybe learned about children's instincts and interests. These are nowhere more fully revealed than in their spontaneous activities, plays and constructions. It is here that they get away from the influence of adult life and complex society at least partially, and build up their simple crude world with all its primitive aspects and attributes. They thus give expression to their mental and physical capacities and needs. These activities of children have not received the attention which they merit, although considerable valuable work of this kind has already been done. The pity is that what we do know in this field as a result of previous study is not more fully applied. The student of child study who is familiar with the material that has been collected in the past two decades on this subject cannot but be impressed with the great difference which exists between the theory of education which this child study investigation suggests on the one hand and the theory which under-
- ↑ Acknowledgments for returns are due to Miss Lillie A. Williams, New Jersey State Normal School; Mr. W. S. Munroe, of the Westfield, Mass., Normal School; Miss Frances Judson, of the Chicago Kindergarten Institute, and Margaret Pritchard, of the Philadelphia Normal School for Girls.
The writer is indebted to Pres. G. Stanley Hall for the preparation of the questionnaire and the collection of the returns; for the use of his lectures on man's psychic evolution; and for his many suggestions and inspirations in the preparation of this paper. He is also indebted to various correspondents of Dr. Hall, whose names to our regret have been mislaid and cannot be given in full here, for ideas on the primitive steps in man's evolution touching his early use of the string, point, edge and the evolution of striking and throwing.
