close together and eyes closed without swaying much, could not walk
backward, sit still half a minute, dress alone, tie two ends of a
string together, interlace slats, wind thread, spin a top, stand on
toes or heels, hop on each foot, drive a nail, roll a hoop, skate, hit
fingers together rapidly in succession beginning at the little finger
and then reversing, etc., are the very ones in whom automatisms are
most marked or else they are those constitutionally inert, dull, or
uneducable.

In children these motor residua may persist as characteristic features
of inflection, accent, or manners; automatisms may become morbid in
stammering or stuttering, or they may be seen in gait, handwriting,
tics or tweaks, etc. Instead of disappearing with age, as they should,
they are seen in the blind as facial grimaces uncorrected by the
mirror or facial consciousness, in the deaf as inarticulate noises;
and they may tend to grow monstrous with age as if they were
disintegrated fragments of our personality, split off and aborted, or
motor parasites leaving our psycho-physic ego poorer in energy and
plasticity of adaptation, till the distraction and anarchy of the
individual nature becomes conspicuous and pathetic.

At puberty, however, when muscle habits are so plastic, when there is
a new relation between quantity or volume of motor energy and
qualitative differentiation, and between volitional control and reflex
activities, these kinetic remnants strongly tend to shoot together
into wrong aggregates if right ones are not formed. Good manners and
correct motor form generally, as well as skill, are the most economic
ways of doing things; but this is the age of wasteful ways,
awkwardness mannerisms, tensions that are a constant leakage of vital
energy, perhaps semi-imperative acts, contortions, quaint movements,