in which we live. The separation is responsible on one hand for
an exaggeration of the moral importance of the more direct or
personal modes of control of which we have been speaking; and on
the other hand for an exaggeration, in current psychology and
philosophy, of the intellectual possibilities of contact with a
purely physical environment. There is not, in fact, any such
thing as the direct influence of one human being on another apart
from use of the physical environment as an intermediary. A
smile, a frown, a rebuke, a word of warning or encouragement, all
involve some physical change. Otherwise, the attitude of one
would not get over to alter the attitude of another.
Comparatively speaking, such modes of influence may be regarded
as personal. The physical medium is reduced to a mere means of
personal contact. In contrast with such direct modes of mutual
influence, stand associations in common pursuits involving the
use of things as means and as measures of results. Even if the
mother never told her daughter to help her, or never rebuked her
for not helping, the child would be subjected to direction in her
activities by the mere fact that she was engaged, along with the
parent, in the household life. Imitation, emulation, the need of
working together, enforce control.

If the mother hands the child something needed, the latter must
reach the thing in order to get it. Where there is giving there
must be taking. The way the child handles the thing after it is
got, the use to which it is put, is surely influenced by the fact
that the child has watched the mother. When the child sees the
parent looking for something, it is as natural for it also to
look for the object and to give it over when it finds it, as it
was, under other circumstances, to receive it. Multiply such an