ABSTRACT
Imitation is seen at a very early period in the infant’s life. The child sees Mother smile and smiles faintly in return, and this is perhaps one of the first intimations of its dawning intellect. The enquiring mind of the teacher will naturally want to know why the child smiles; to dub it the faculty of imitation is no explanation at all. Psychology, however, tells us that every idea is a “motor” idea, that is to say it tends to pass into action or expression in the absence of anything to prevent it doing so. Therefore, when Mother smiles she implants the picture or idea of smiling in the child-mind, it forthwith passes into action and the child duly smiles. This is the “why” of the process. In this case the idea is an external stimulus provided by Mother, and it is not until educational progress has gone a good deal farther that the child originates the stimulus within and generates the desire to smile from its own consciousness. Savages and the lower human types which are still in the stage of racial childhood display this same facility in imitation.
