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It is a fact recognized by all that the individual in his development relieves the history of the race; he had a period of mere animal existence; a period of acquiring a language; a period of hunting and of the fascination of fire; a period of loving to play with mud and clay and to make baskets; a period of wanting animal pets, which can be trained to do his bidding; a period of trying to till the soil and a period of building; a period of the use of tools; and a period of the development of abstract thought. Upon this fact is built one of the fundamental principles of pedagogy: that a child should be allowed to develop in sympathy with his race trend. It is also fundamental to the full understanding of psychiatry. Again and again do we see an individual, struggling against the awful onslaught of a psychosis, reverting to progressively lower and lower strata of the formation of his race.
The race sense, if so we may call it, is so integral a part of the psychiatrist himself, that often he sees without seeing, and understands without understanding, when his patients are those of his own race. When, however, he is dealing with those of another race, this conformity of experience is lacking, and must be consciously made a factor in the equation before its final solution will be satisfactory.