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+The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Mind and Its Education, by George Herbert
+Betts
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
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+
+
+
+
+Title: The Mind and Its Education
+
+
+Author: George Herbert Betts
+
+
+
+Release Date: December 29, 2006  [eBook #20220]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MIND AND ITS EDUCATION***
+
+
+E-text prepared by Roger Frank and the Project Gutenberg Online
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+
+
+THE MIND AND ITS EDUCATION
+
+by
+
+GEORGE HERBERT BETTS, Ph.D.
+
+Professor of Psychology in Cornell College
+
+Revised and Enlarged Edition
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+New York
+D. Appleton And Company
+Copyright, 1906, 1916, by
+D. Appleton and Company
+Printed in the United States of America
+
+
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE TO THE REVISED EDITION
+
+
+Authors, no doubt, are always gratified when their works find favorable
+acceptance. The writer of this text has been doubly gratified, however,
+at the cordial reception and widespread use accorded to the present
+volume. This feeling does not arise from any narrow personal pride or
+selfish interest, but rather from the fact that the warm approval of the
+educational public has proved an important point; namely, that the
+fundamental truths of psychology, when put simply and concretely, can be
+made of interest and value to students of all ages from high school
+juniors up, and to the general public as well. More encouraging still,
+it has been demonstrated that the teachings of psychology can become
+immediately helpful, not only in study or teaching, but also in business
+or profession, in the control and guidance of the personal life, and in
+the problems met in the routine of the day's work or its play.
+
+In effecting the present revision, the salient features of the original
+edition have been kept. The truths presented are the most fundamental
+and important in the field of psychology. Disputed theories and
+unsettled opinions are excluded. The subject matter is made concrete and
+practical by the use of many illustrations and through application to
+real problems. The style has been kept easy and familiar to facilitate
+the reading. In short, there has been, while seeking to improve the
+volume, a conscious purpose to omit none of the characteristics which
+secured acceptance for the former edition.
+
+On the other hand, certain changes and additions have been made which,
+it is believed, will add to the strength of the work. First of all, the
+later psychological studies and investigations have been drawn upon to
+insure that the matter shall at all points be abreast of the times in
+scientific accuracy. Because of the wide use of the text in the training
+of teachers, a more specific educational application to schoolroom
+problems has been made in various chapters. Exercises for the guidance
+of observation work and personal introspection are freely used. The
+chapter on Sensation and Perception has been separated into two
+chapters, and each subject given more extensive treatment. A new chapter
+has been added on Association. The various chapters have been subdivided
+into numbered sections, and cut-in paragraph topics have been used to
+facilitate the study and teaching of the text. Minor changes and
+additions occur throughout the volume, thus adding some forty pages to
+the number in the original edition.
+
+Many of the modifications made in the revision are due to valuable
+suggestions and kindly criticisms received from many teachers of the
+text in various types of schools. To all who have thus helped so
+generously by freely giving the author the fruits of their judgment and
+experience he gladly renders grateful thanks.
+
+CORNELL COLLEGE,
+
+IOWA.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+THE MIND, OR CONSCIOUSNESS                                            PAGE
+
+1. How the mind is to be known: Personal character of
+consciousness--Introspection the only means of discovering nature of
+consciousness--How we introspect--Studying mental states of others
+through expression--Learning to interpret expression. 2. The nature of
+consciousness: Inner nature of the mind not revealed by introspection
+--Consciousness as a process or stream--Consciousness likened to a
+field--The "piling up" of consciousness is attention. 3. Content of
+the mental stream: Why we need minds--Content of consciousness
+determined by function--Three fundamental phases of consciousness.
+4. Where consciousness resides: Consciousness works through the nervous
+system. 5. Problems in observation and introspection . . . . . . . . . . 1
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+ATTENTION
+
+1. Nature of attention: The nature of attention--Normal consciousness
+always in a state of attention. 2. The effects of attention: Attention
+makes its object clear and definite--Attention measures mental
+efficiency. 3. How we attend: Attention a relating activity--The rhythms
+of attention. 4. Points of failure in attention: Lack of
+concentration--Mental wandering. 5. Types of attention: The three types
+of attention--Interest and nonvoluntary attention--The will and
+voluntary attention--Not really different kinds of attention--Making
+different kinds of attention reenforce each other--The habit of
+attention . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+THE BRAIN AND NERVOUS SYSTEM
+
+1. The relations of mind and brain: Interaction of mind and brain--The
+brain as the mind's machine. 2. The mind's dependence on the external
+world: The mind at birth--The work of the senses. 3. Structural elements
+of the nervous system: The neurone--Neurone
+fibers--Neuroglia--Complexity of the brain--"Gray" and "white" matter.
+4. Gross structure of the nervous system: Divisions of the nervous
+system--The central system--The cerebellum--The cerebrum--The
+cortex--The spinal cord. 5. Localization of function in the nervous
+system: Division of labor--Division of labor in the cortex. 6. Forms of
+sensory stimuli: The end-organs and their response to
+stimuli--Dependence of the mind on the senses . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+MENTAL DEVELOPMENT AND MOTOR TRAINING
+
+1. Factors determining the efficiency of the nervous system: Development
+and nutrition--Undeveloped cells--Development of nerve fibers. 2.
+Development of nervous system through use: Importance of stimulus and
+response--Effect of sensory stimuli--Necessity for motor
+activity--Development of the association centers--The factors involved
+in a simple action. 3. Education and the training of the nervous
+system: Education to supply opportunities for stimulus and
+response--Order of development in the nervous system. 4. Importance of
+health and vigor of the nervous system: The influence of fatigue--The
+effects of worry--The factors in good nutrition. 5. Problems for
+introspection and observation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+HABIT
+
+1. The nature of habit: The physical basis of habit--All living tissue
+plastic--Habit a modification of brain tissue--We must form habits. 2.
+The place of habit in the economy of our lives: Habit increases skill
+and efficiency--Habit saves effort and fatigue--Habit economizes moral
+effort--The habit of attention--Habit enables us to meet the
+disagreeable--Habit the foundation of personality--Habit saves worry and
+rebellion. 3. The tyranny of habit: Even good habits need to be
+modified--The tendency of "ruts." 4. Habit-forming a part of education:
+Youth the time for habit-forming--The habit of achievement. 5. Rules for
+habit-forming: James's three maxims for habit-forming--The preponderance
+of good habits over bad . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+SENSATION
+
+1. How we come to know the external world: Knowledge through the
+senses--The unity of sensory experience--The sensory processes to be
+explained--The qualities of objects exist in the mind--The three sets of
+factors. 2. The nature of sensation: Sensation gives us our world of
+qualities--The attributes of sensation. 3. Sensory qualities and their
+end-organs: Sight--Hearing--Taste--Smell--Various sensations from the
+skin--The kinaesthetic senses--The organic senses. 4. Problems in
+observation and retrospection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+PERCEPTION
+
+1. The function of perception: Need of knowing the material world--The
+problem which confronts the child. 2. The nature of perception: How a
+percept is formed--The percept involves all relations of the object--The
+content of the percept--The accuracy of percepts depends on
+experience--Not definitions, but first-hand contact. 3. The perception
+of space: The perceiving of distance--The perceiving of direction. 4.
+The perception of time: Nature of the time sense--No perception of empty
+time. 5. The training of perception: Perception needs to be
+trained--School training in perception. 6. Problems in observation and
+introspection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+MENTAL IMAGES AND IDEAS
+
+1. The part played by past experience: Present thinking depends on past
+experience--The present interpreted by the past--The future also depends
+on the past--Rank determined by ability to utilize past experience. 2.
+How past experience is conserved: Past experience conserved in both
+mental and physical terms--The image and the idea--All our past
+experience potentially at our command. 3. Individual differences in
+imagery: Images to be viewed by introspection--The varied imagery
+suggested by one's dining table--Power of imagery varies in different
+people--Imagery types. 4. The function of images: Images supply material
+for imagination and memory--Imagery in the thought processes--The use of
+imagery in literature--Points where images are of greatest service. 5.
+The cultivation of imagery: Images depend on sensory stimuli--The
+influence of frequent recall--The reconstruction of our images. 6.
+Problems in introspection and observation  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+IMAGINATION
+
+1. The place of imagination in mental economy: Practical nature of
+imagination--Imagination in the interpretation of history, literature,
+and art--Imagination and science--Everyday uses of imagination--The
+building of ideals and plans--Imagination and conduct--Imagination and
+thinking. 2. The material used by imagination: Images the stuff of
+imagination--The two factors in imagination--Imagination limited by
+stock of images--Limited also by our constructive ability--The need of a
+purpose. 3. Types of imagination: Reproductive imagination--Creative
+imagination. 4. Training the imagination: Gathering of material for
+imagination--We must not fail to build--We should carry our ideals into
+action. 5. Problems for observation and introspection  . . . . . . . . 127
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+ASSOCIATION
+
+1. The nature of association: The neural basis of
+association--Association the basis of memory--Factors determining
+direction of recall--Association in thinking--Association and action.
+2. The types of association: Fundamental law of association--Association
+by contiguity--At the mercy of our associations--Association by
+similarity and contrast--Partial, or selective, association--The remedy.
+3. Training in association: The pleasure-pain motive in
+association--Interest as a basis for association--Association and
+methods of learning. 4. Problems in observation and introspection  . . 144
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+MEMORY
+
+1. The nature of memory: What is retained--The physical basis of
+memory--How we remember--Dependence of memory on brain quality. 2. The
+four factors involved in memory:
+Registration--Retention--Recall--Recognition. 3. The stuff of memory:
+Images as the material of memory--Images vary as to type--Other memory
+material. 4. Laws underlying memory: The law of association--The law of
+repetition--The law of recency--The law of vividness. 5. Rules for using
+the memory: Wholes versus parts--Rate of forgetting--Divided
+practice--Forcing the memory to act--Not a memory, but memories. 6. What
+constitutes a good memory: A good memory selects its material--A good
+memory requires good thinking--Memory must be specialized. 7. Memory
+devices: The effects of cramming--Remembering isolated facts--Mnemonic
+devices. 8. Problems in observation and introspection  . . . . . . . . 160
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+THINKING
+
+1. Different types of thinking: Chance, or idle thinking--Uncritical
+belief--Assimilative thinking--Deliberative thinking. 2. The function
+of thinking: Meaning depends on relations--The function of thinking is
+to discover relations--Near and remote relations--Child and adult
+thinking. 3. The mechanism of thinking: Sensations and percepts as
+elements in thinking. 4. The concept: The concepts serve to group and
+classify--Growth of a concept--Definition of concept--Language and the
+concept--The necessity for growing concepts. 5. Judgment: Nature of
+judgment--Judgment used in percepts and concepts--Judgment leads to
+general truths--The validity of judgments. 6. Reasoning: Nature of
+reasoning--How judgments function in reasoning--Deduction and the
+syllogism--Induction--The necessity for broad induction--The
+interrelation of induction and deduction. 7. Problems in observation and
+introspection  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+INSTINCT
+
+1. The nature of instinct: The babe's dependence on instinct--Definition
+of instinct--Unmodified instinct is blind. 2. Law of the appearance and
+disappearance of instincts: Instincts appear in succession as
+required--Many instincts are transitory--Seemingly useless
+instincts--Instincts to be utilized when they appear--Instincts as
+starting points--The more important human instincts. 3. The instinct of
+imitation: Nature of imitation--Individuality in imitation--Conscious
+and unconscious imitation--Influence of environment--The influence of
+personality. 4. The instinct of play: The necessity for play--Play in
+development and education--Work and play are complements. 5. Other
+useful instincts: Curiosity--Manipulation--The collecting instinct--The
+dramatic instinct--The impulse to form gangs and clubs. 6. Fear: Fear
+heredity--Fear of the dark--Fear of being left alone. 7. Other
+undesirable instincts: Selfishness--Pugnacity, or the fighting impulse.
+8. Problems in observation and introspection . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+FEELING AND ITS FUNCTIONS
+
+1. The nature of feeling: The different feeling qualities--Feeling
+always present in mental content--The seeming neutral feeling zone. 2.
+Mood and disposition: How mood is produced--Mood colors all our
+thinking--Mood influences our judgments and decisions--Mood influences
+effort--Disposition a resultant of moods--Temperament. 3. Permanent
+feeling attitudes, or sentiments: How sentiments develop--The effect of
+experience--The influence of sentiment--Sentiments as motives. 4.
+Problems in observation and introspection  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 226
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+THE EMOTIONS
+
+1. The producing and expressing of emotion: Physiological explanation of
+emotion--Origin of characteristic emotional reactions--The duration of
+an emotion--Emotions accompanying crises in experience. 2. The control
+of emotions: Dependence on expression--Relief through expression--Relief
+does not follow if image is held before the mind--Growing tendency
+toward emotional control--The emotions and enjoyment--How emotions
+develop--The emotional factor in our environment--Literature and the
+cultivation of the emotions--Harm in emotional overexcitement. 4.
+Emotions as motives: How our emotions compel us--Emotional habits. 5.
+Problems in observation and introspection  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 239
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+INTEREST
+
+1. The nature of interest: Interest a selective agent--Interest supplies
+a subjective scale of values--Interest dynamic--Habit antagonistic to
+interest. 2. Direct and indirect interest: Interest in the end versus
+interest in the activity--Indirect interest as a motive--Indirect
+interest alone insufficient. 3. Transitoriness of certain interests:
+Interests must be utilized when they appear--The value of a strong
+interest. 4. Selection among our interests: The mistake of following too
+many interests--Interests may be too narrow--Specialization should not
+come too early--A proper balance to be sought. 5. Interest fundamental
+in education: Interest not antagonistic to effort--Interest and
+character. 6. Order of development of our interests: The interests of
+early childhood--The interests of later childhood--The interests of
+adolescence. 7. Problems in observation and introspection  . . . . . . 254
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+THE WILL
+
+1. The nature of the will: The content of the will--The function of the
+will--How the will exerts its compulsion. 2. The extent of voluntary
+control over our acts: Simple reflex acts--Instinctive acts--Automatic,
+or spontaneous acts--The cycle from volitional to automatic--Volitional
+action--Volition acts in the making of decisions--Types of decision--The
+reasonable type--Accidental type: External motives--Accidental type:
+Subjective motives--Decision under effort. 3. Strong and weak wills: Not
+a will, but wills--Objective tests a false measure of will power. 4.
+Volitional types: The impulsive type--The obstructed will--The normal
+will. 5. Training the will: Will to be trained in common round of
+duties--School work and will-training. 6. Freedom of the will, or the
+extent of its control: Limitations of the will--These limitations and
+conditions of freedom. 7. Problems in observation and introspection. . 271
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+SELF-EXPRESSION AND DEVELOPMENT
+
+1. Interrelation of impression and expression: The many sources of
+impressions--All impressions lead toward expression--Limitations of
+expression. 2. The place of expression in development: Intellectual value
+of expression--Moral value of expression--Religious value of
+expression--Social value of expression. 3. Educational use of
+expression: Easier to provide for the impression side of education--The
+school to take up the handicrafts--Expression and character--Two lines
+of development. 4. Problems in introspection and observation . . . . . 294
+
+INDEX  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 307
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE MIND AND ITS EDUCATION
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+THE MIND, OR CONSCIOUSNESS
+
+
+We are to study the mind and its education; but how? It is easy to
+understand how we may investigate the great world of material things
+about us; for we can see it, touch it, weigh it, or measure it. But how
+are we to discover the nature of the mind, or come to know the processes
+by which consciousness works? For mind is intangible; we cannot see it,
+feel it, taste it, or handle it. Mind belongs not to the realm of matter
+which is known to the senses, but to the realm of _spirit_, which the
+senses can never grasp. And yet the mind can be known and studied as
+truly and as scientifically as can the world of matter. Let us first of
+all see how this can be done.
+
+
+1. HOW MIND IS TO BE KNOWN
+
+THE PERSONAL CHARACTER OF CONSCIOUSNESS.--Mind can be observed and
+known. But each one can know directly only his own mind, and not
+another's. You and I may look into each other's face and there guess the
+meaning that lies back of the smile or frown or flash of the eye, and
+so read something of the mind's activity. But neither directly meets the
+other's mind. I may learn to recognize your features, know your voice,
+respond to the clasp of your hand; but the mind, the consciousness,
+which does your thinking and feels your joys and sorrows, I can never
+know completely. Indeed I can never know your mind at all except through
+your bodily acts and expressions. Nor is there any way in which you can
+reveal your mind, your spiritual self, to me except through these means.
+
+It follows therefore that only _you_ can ever know _you_ and only _I_
+can ever know _I_ in any first-hand and immediate way. Between your
+consciousness and mine there exists a wide gap that cannot be bridged.
+Each of us lives apart. We are like ships that pass and hail each other
+in passing but do not touch. We may work together, live together, come
+to love or hate each other, and yet our inmost selves forever stand
+alone. They must live their own lives, think their own thoughts, and
+arrive at their own destiny.
+
+INTROSPECTION THE ONLY MEANS OF DISCOVERING NATURE OF
+CONSCIOUSNESS.--What, then, is mind? What is the thing that we call
+consciousness? No mere definition can ever make it clearer than it is at
+this moment to each of us. The only way to know what mind is, is to look
+in upon our own consciousness and observe what is transpiring there. In
+the language of the psychologist, we must _introspect_. For one can
+never come to understand the nature of mind and its laws of working by
+listening to lectures or reading text books alone. There is no
+_psychology_ in the text, but only in your living, flowing stream of
+thought and mine. True, the lecture and the book may tell us what to
+look for when we introspect, and how to understand what we find. But the
+statements and descriptions about our minds must be verified by our own
+observation and experience before they become vital truth to us.
+
+HOW WE INTROSPECT.--Introspection is something of an art; it has to be
+learned. Some master it easily, some with more difficulty, and some, it
+is to be feared, never become skilled in its use. In order to introspect
+one must catch himself unawares, so to speak, in the very act of
+thinking, remembering, deciding, loving, hating, and all the rest. These
+fleeting phases of consciousness are ever on the wing; they never pause
+in their restless flight and we must catch them as they go. This is not
+so easy as it appears; for the moment we turn to look in upon the mind,
+that moment consciousness changes. The thing we meant to examine is
+gone, and something else has taken its place. All that is left us then
+is to view the mental object while it is still fresh in the memory, or
+to catch it again when it returns.
+
+STUDYING MENTAL STATES OF OTHERS THROUGH EXPRESSION.--Although I can
+meet only my own mind face to face, I am, nevertheless, under the
+necessity of judging your mental states and knowing what is taking place
+in your consciousness. For in order to work successfully with you, in
+order to teach you, understand you, control you or obey you, be your
+friend or enemy, or associate with you in any other way, I must _know_
+you. But the real you that I must know is hidden behind the physical
+mask that we call the body. I must, therefore, be able to understand
+your states of consciousness as they are reflected in your bodily
+expressions. Your face, form, gesture, speech, the tone of voice,
+laughter and tears, the poise of attention, the droop of grief, the
+tenseness of anger and start of fear,--all these tell the story of the
+mental state that lies behind the senses. These various expressions are
+the pictures on the screen by which your mind reveals itself to others;
+they are the language by which the inner self speaks to the world
+without.
+
+LEARNING TO INTERPRET EXPRESSION.--If I would understand the workings of
+your mind I must therefore learn to read the language of physical
+expression. I must study human nature and learn to observe others. I
+must apply the information found in the texts to an interpretation of
+those about me. This study of others may be _uncritical_, as in the mere
+intelligent observation of those I meet; or it may be _scientific_, as
+when I conduct carefully planned psychological experiments. But in
+either case it consists in judging the inner states of consciousness by
+their physical manifestations.
+
+The three methods by which mind may be studied are, then: (1) text-book
+_description and explanation_; (2) _introspection_ of my own conscious
+processes; and (3) _observation_ of others, either uncritical or
+scientific.
+
+
+2. THE NATURE OF CONSCIOUSNESS
+
+INNER NATURE OF THE MIND NOT REVEALED BY INTROSPECTION.--We are not to
+be too greatly discouraged if, even by introspection, we cannot discover
+exactly _what_ the mind is. No one knows what electricity is, though
+nearly everyone uses it in one form or another. We study the dynamo, the
+motor, and the conductors through which electricity manifests itself. We
+observe its effects in light, heat, and mechanical power, and so learn
+the laws which govern its operations. But we are almost as far from
+understanding its true nature as were the ancients who knew nothing of
+its uses. The dynamo does not create the electricity, but only furnishes
+the conditions which make it possible for electricity to manifest
+itself in doing the world's work. Likewise the brain or nervous system
+does not create the mind, but it furnishes the machine through which the
+mind works. We may study the nervous system and learn something of the
+conditions and limitations under which the mind operates, but this is
+not studying the mind itself. As in the case of electricity, what we
+know about the mind we must learn through the activities in which it
+manifests itself--these we can know, for they are in the experience of
+all. It is, then, only by studying these processes of consciousness that
+we come to know the laws which govern the mind and its development.
+_What_ it is that thinks and feels and wills in us is too hard a problem
+for us here--indeed, has been too hard a problem for the philosophers
+through the ages. But the thinking and feeling and willing we can watch
+as they occur, and hence come to know.
+
+CONSCIOUSNESS AS A PROCESS OR STREAM.--In looking in upon the mind we
+must expect to discover, then, not a _thing_, but a _process_. The
+_thing_ forever eludes us, but the process is always present.
+Consciousness is like a stream, which, so far as we are concerned with
+it in a psychological discussion, has its rise at the cradle and its end
+at the grave. It begins with the babe's first faint gropings after light
+in his new world as he enters it, and ends with the man's last blind
+gropings after light in his old world as he leaves it. The stream is
+very narrow at first, only as wide as the few sensations which come to
+the babe when it sees the light or hears the sound; it grows wider as
+the mind develops, and is at last measured by the grand sum total of
+life's experience.
+
+This mental stream is irresistible. No power outside of us can stop it
+while life lasts. We cannot stop it ourselves. When we try to stop
+thinking, the stream but changes its direction and flows on. While we
+wake and while we sleep, while we are unconscious under an anaesthetic,
+even, some sort of mental process continues. Sometimes the stream flows
+slowly, and our thoughts lag--we "feel slow"; again the stream flows
+faster, and we are lively and our thoughts come with a rush; or a fever
+seizes us and delirium comes on; then the stream runs wildly onward,
+defying our control, and a mad jargon of thoughts takes the place of our
+usual orderly array. In different persons, also, the mental stream moves
+at different rates, some minds being naturally slow-moving and some
+naturally quick in their operations.
+
+Consciousness resembles a stream also in other particulars. A stream is
+an unbroken whole from its source to its mouth, and an observer
+stationed at one point cannot see all of it at once. He sees but the one
+little section which happens to be passing his station point at the
+time. The current may look much the same from moment to moment, but the
+component particles which constitute the stream are constantly changing.
+So it is with our thought. Its stream is continuous from birth till
+death, but we cannot see any considerable portion of it at one time.
+When we turn about quickly and look in upon our minds, we see but the
+little present moment. That of a few seconds ago is gone and will never
+return. The thought which occupied us a moment since can no more be
+recalled, just as it was, than can the particles composing a stream be
+re-collected and made to pass a given point in its course in precisely
+the same order and relation to one another as before. This means, then,
+that we can never have precisely the same mental state twice; that the
+thought of the moment cannot have the same associates that it had the
+first time; that the thought of this moment will never be ours again;
+that all we can know of our minds at any one time is the part of the
+process present in consciousness at that moment.
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 1]
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 2]
+
+THE WAVE IN THE STREAM OF CONSCIOUSNESS.--The surface of our mental
+stream is not level, but is broken by a wave which stands above the
+rest; which is but another way of saying that some one thing is always
+more prominent in our thought than the rest. Only when we are in a
+sleepy reverie, or not thinking about much of anything, does the stream
+approximate a level. At all other times some one object occupies the
+highest point in our thought, to the more or less complete exclusion of
+other things which we might think about. A thousand and one objects are
+possible to our thought at any moment, but all except one thing occupy a
+secondary place, or are not present to our consciousness at all. They
+exist on the margin, or else are clear off the edge of consciousness,
+while the one thing occupies the center. We may be reading a fascinating
+book late at night in a cold room. The charm of the writer, the beauty
+of the heroine, or the bravery of the hero so occupies the mind that the
+weary eyes and chattering teeth are unnoticed. Consciousness has piled
+up in a high wave on the points of interest in the book, and the bodily
+sensations are for the moment on a much lower level. But let the book
+grow dull for a moment, and the make-up of the stream changes in a
+flash. Hero, heroine, or literary style no longer occupies the wave.
+They forfeit their place, the wave is taken by the bodily sensations,
+and we are conscious of the smarting eyes and shivering body, while
+these in turn give way to the next object which occupies the wave. Figs.
+1-3 illustrate these changes.
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 3]
+
+CONSCIOUSNESS LIKENED TO A FIELD.--The consciousness of any moment has
+been less happily likened to a field, in the center of which there is an
+elevation higher than the surrounding level. This center is where
+consciousness is piled up on the object which is for the moment foremost
+in our thought. The other objects of our consciousness are on the margin
+of the field for the time being, but any of them may the next moment
+claim the center and drive the former object to the margin, or it may
+drop entirely out of consciousness. This moment a noble resolve may
+occupy the center of the field, while a troublesome tooth begets
+sensations of discomfort which linger dimly on the outskirts of our
+consciousness; but a shooting pain from the tooth or a random thought
+crossing the mind, and lo! the tooth holds sway, and the resolve dimly
+fades to the margin of our consciousness and is gone.
+
+THE "PILING UP" OF CONSCIOUSNESS IS ATTENTION.--This figure is not so
+true as the one which likens our mind to a stream with its ever onward
+current answering to the flow of our thought; but whichever figure we
+employ, the truth remains the same. Our mental energy is always piled up
+higher at one point than at others. Either because our interest leads
+us, or because the will dictates, the mind is withdrawn from the
+thousand and one things we might think about, and directed to this one
+thing, which for the time occupies chief place. In other words, we
+_attend_; for this piling up of consciousness is nothing, after all, but
+attention.
+
+
+3. CONTENT OF THE MENTAL STREAM
+
+We have seen that our mental life may be likened to a stream flowing now
+faster, now slower, ever shifting, never ceasing. We have yet to inquire
+what constitutes the material of the stream, or what is the stuff that
+makes up the current of our thought--what is the _content_ of
+consciousness? The question cannot be fully answered at this point, but
+a general notion can be gained which will be of service.
+
+WHY WE NEED MINDS.--Let us first of all ask what mind is for, why do
+animals, including men, have minds? The biologist would say, in order
+that they may _adapt_ themselves to their environment. Each individual
+from mollusc to man needs the amount and type of mind that serves to
+fit its possessor into its particular world of activity. Too little mind
+leaves the animal helpless in the struggle for existence. On the other
+hand a mind far above its possessor's station would prove useless if not
+a handicap; a mollusc could not use the mind of a man.
+
+CONTENT OF CONSCIOUSNESS DETERMINED BY FUNCTION.--How much mind does man
+need? What range and type of consciousness will best serve to adjust us
+to our world of opportunity and responsibility? First of all we must
+_know_ our world, hence, our mind must be capable of gathering
+knowledge. Second, we must be able to _feel_ its values and respond to
+the great motives for action arising from the emotions. Third, we must
+have the power to exert self-compulsion, which is to say that we possess
+a _will_ to control our acts. These three sets of processes, _knowing_,
+_feeling_, and _willing_, we shall, therefore, expect to find making up
+the content of our mental stream.
+
+Let us proceed at once to test our conclusion by introspection. If we
+are sitting at our study table puzzling over a difficult problem in
+geometry, _reasoning_ forms the wave in the stream of consciousness--the
+center of the field. It is the chief thing in our thinking. The fringe
+of our consciousness is made up of various sensations of the light from
+the lamp, the contact of our clothing, the sounds going on in the next
+room, some bit of memory seeking recognition, a "tramp" thought which
+comes along, and a dozen other experiences not strong enough to occupy
+the center of the field.
+
+But instead of the study table and the problem, give us a bright
+fireside, an easy-chair, and nothing to do. If we are aged,
+_memories_--images from out the past--will probably come thronging in
+and occupy the field to such extent that the fire burns low and the room
+grows cold, but still the forms from the past hold sway. If we are
+young, visions of the future may crowd everything else to the margin of
+the field, while the "castles in Spain" occupy the center.
+
+Our memories may also be accompanied by emotions--sorrow, love, anger,
+hate, envy, joy. And, indeed, these emotions may so completely occupy
+the field that the images themselves are for the time driven to the
+margin, and the mind is occupied with its sorrow, its love, or its joy.
+
+Once more, instead of the problem or the memories or the "castles in
+Spain," give us the necessity of making some decision, great or small,
+where contending motives are pulling us now in this direction, now in
+that, so that the question finally has to be settled by a supreme effort
+summed up in the words, _I will_. This is the struggle of the will which
+each one knows for himself; for who has not had a raging battle of
+motives occupy the center of the field while all else, even the sense of
+time, place and existence, gave way in the face of this conflict! This
+struggle continues until the decision is made, when suddenly all the
+stress and strain drop out and other objects may again have place in
+consciousness.
+
+THE THREE FUNDAMENTAL PHASES OF CONSCIOUSNESS.--Thus we see that if we
+could cut the stream of consciousness across as we might cut a stream of
+water from bank to bank with a huge knife, and then look at the cut-off
+section, we should find very different constituents in the stream at
+different times. We should at one time find the mind manifesting itself
+in _perceiving_, _remembering_, _imagining_, _discriminating_,
+_comparing_, _judging_, _reasoning_, or the acts by which we gain our
+knowledge; at another in _fearing_, _loving_, _hating_, _sorrowing_,
+_enjoying_, or the acts of feeling; at still another in _choosing_, or
+the act of the will. These processes would make up the stream, or, in
+other words, these are the acts which the mind performs in doing its
+work. We should never find a time when the stream consists of but one of
+the processes, or when all these modes of mental activity are not
+represented. They will be found in varying proportions, now more of
+knowing, now of feeling, and now of willing, but some of each is always
+present in our consciousness. The nature of these different elements in
+our mental stream, their relation to each other, and the manner in which
+they all work together in amazing perplexity yet in perfect harmony to
+produce the wonderful _mind_, will constitute the subject-matter we
+shall consider together in the pages which follow.
+
+
+4. WHERE CONSCIOUSNESS RESIDES
+
+I--the conscious self--dwell somewhere in this body, but where? When my
+finger tips touch the object I wish to examine, I seem to be in them.
+When the brain grows weary from overstudy, I seem to be in it. When the
+heart throbs, the breath comes quick, and the muscles grow tense from
+noble resolve or strong emotion, I seem to be in them all. When, filled
+with the buoyant life of vigorous youth, every fiber and nerve is
+a-tingle with health and enthusiasm, I live in every part of my
+marvelous body. Small wonder that the ancients located the soul at one
+time in the heart, at another in the pineal gland of the brain, and at
+another made it coextensive with the body!
+
+CONSCIOUSNESS WORKS THROUGH THE NERVOUS SYSTEM.--Later science has
+taught that the _mind resides in and works through the nervous system,
+which has its central office in the brain_. And the reason why _I_ seem
+to be in every part of my body is because the nervous system extends to
+every part, carrying messages of sight or sound or touch to the brain,
+and bearing in return orders for movements, which set the feet a-dancing
+or the fingers a-tingling. But more of this later.
+
+This partnership between mind and body is very close. Just how it
+happens that spirit may inhabit matter we may not know. But certain it
+is that they interact on each other. What will hinder the growth of one
+will handicap the other, and what favors the development of either will
+help both. The methods of their cooeperation and the laws that govern
+their relationship will develop as our study goes on.
+
+
+5. PROBLEMS IN OBSERVATION AND INTROSPECTION
+
+One should always keep in mind that psychology is essentially a
+laboratory science, and not a text-book subject. The laboratory material
+is to be found in ourselves and in those about us. While the text should
+be thoroughly mastered, its statements should always be verified by
+reference to one's own experience, and observation of others. Especially
+should prospective teachers constantly correlate the lessons of the book
+with the observation of children at work in the school. The problems
+suggested for observation and introspection will, if mastered, do much
+to render practical and helpful the truths of psychology.
+
+1. Think of your home as you last left it. Can you see vividly just how
+it looked, the color of the paint on the outside, with the familiar form
+of the roof and all; can you recall the perfume in some old drawer, the
+taste of a favorite dish, the sound of a familiar voice in farewell?
+
+2. What illustrations have you observed where the mental content of the
+moment seemed chiefly _thinking_ (knowledge process); chiefly _emotion_
+(feeling process); chiefly _choosing_, or self-compulsion (willing
+process)?
+
+3. When you say that you remember a circumstance that occurred
+yesterday, how do you remember it? That is, do you see in your mind
+things just as they were, and hear again sounds which occurred, or feel
+again movements which you performed? Do you experience once more the
+emotions you then felt?
+
+4. What forms of expression most commonly reveal _thought_; what reveal
+emotions? (i.e., can you tell what a child is _thinking about_ by the
+expression on his face? Can you tell whether he is _angry_,
+_frightened_, _sorry_, by his face? Is speech as necessary in expressing
+feeling as in expressing thought?)
+
+5. Try occasionally during the next twenty-four hours to turn quickly
+about mentally and see whether you can observe your thinking, feeling,
+or willing in the very act of taking place.
+
+6. What becomes of our mind or consciousness while we are asleep? How
+are we able to wake up at a certain hour previously determined? Can a
+person have absolutely _nothing_ in his mind?
+
+7. Have you noticed any children especially adept in expression? Have
+you noticed any very backward? If so, in what form of expression in each
+case?
+
+8. Have you observed any instances of expression which you were at a
+loss to interpret (remember that "expression" includes every form of
+physical action, voice, speech, face, form, hand, etc.)?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+ATTENTION
+
+
+How do you rank in mental ability, and how effective are your mind's
+grasp and power? The answer that must be given to these questions will
+depend not more on your native endowment than on your skill in using
+attention.
+
+
+1. NATURE OF ATTENTION
+
+It is by attention that we gather and mass our mental energy upon the
+critical and important points in our thinking. In the last chapter we
+saw that consciousness is not distributed evenly over the whole field,
+but "piled up," now on this object of thought, now on that, in obedience
+to interest or necessity. _The concentration of the mind's energy on one
+object of thought is attention._
+
+THE NATURE OF ATTENTION.--Everyone knows what it is to attend. The story
+so fascinating that we cannot leave it, the critical points in a game,
+the interesting sermon or lecture, the sparkling conversation--all these
+compel our attention. So completely is our mind's energy centered on
+them and withdrawn from other things that we are scarcely aware of what
+is going on about us.
+
+We are also familiar with another kind of attention. For we all have
+read the dull story, watched the slow game, listened to the lecture or
+sermon that drags, and taken part in conversation that was a bore. We
+gave these things our attention, but only with effort. Our mind's energy
+seemed to center on anything rather than the matter in hand. A thousand
+objects from outside enticed us away, and it required the frequent
+"mental jerk" to bring us to the subject in hand. And when brought back
+to our thought problem we felt the constant "tug" of mind to be free
+again.
+
+NORMAL CONSCIOUSNESS ALWAYS IN A STATE OF ATTENTION.--But this very
+effort of the mind to free itself from one object of thought that it may
+busy itself with another is _because attention is solicited by this
+other_. Some object in our field of consciousness is always exerting an
+appeal for attention; and to attend _to_ one thing is always to attend
+_away from_ a multitude of other things upon which the thought might
+rest. We may therefore say that attention is constantly _selecting_ in
+our stream of thought those aspects that are to receive emphasis and
+consideration. From moment to moment it determines the points at which
+our mental energy shall be centered.
+
+
+2. THE EFFECTS OF ATTENTION
+
+ATTENTION MAKES ITS OBJECT CLEAR AND DEFINITE.--Whatever attention
+centers upon stands out sharp and clear in consciousness. Whether it be
+a bit of memory, an "air-castle," a sensation from an aching tooth, the
+reasoning on an algebraic formula, a choice which we are making, the
+setting of an emotion--whatever be the object to which we are attending,
+that object is illumined and made to stand out from its fellows as the
+one prominent thing in the mind's eye while the attention rests on it.
+It is like the one building which the searchlight picks out among a city
+full of buildings and lights up, while the remainder are left in the
+semilight or in darkness.
+
+ATTENTION MEASURES MENTAL EFFICIENCY.--In a state of attention the mind
+may be likened to the rays of the sun which have been passed through a
+burning glass. You may let all the rays which can pass through your
+window pane fall hour after hour upon the paper lying on your desk, and
+no marked effects follow. But let the same amount of sunlight be passed
+through a lens and converged to a point the size of your pencil point,
+and the paper will at once burst into flame. What the diffused rays
+could not do in hours or in ages is now accomplished in seconds.
+Likewise the mind, allowed to scatter over many objects, can accomplish
+but little. We may sit and dream away an hour or a day over a page or a
+problem without securing results. But let us call in our wits from their
+wool-gathering and "buckle down to it" with all our might, withdrawing
+our thoughts from everything else but this _one thing_, and
+concentrating our mind on it. More can now be accomplished in minutes
+than before in hours. Nay, _things which could not be accomplished at
+all before_ now become possible.
+
+Again, the mind may be compared to a steam engine which is constructed
+to run at a certain pressure of steam, say one hundred and fifty pounds
+to the square inch of boiler surface. Once I ran such an engine; and
+well I remember a morning during my early apprenticeship when the
+foreman called for power to run some of the lighter machinery, while my
+steam gauge registered but seventy-five pounds. "Surely," I thought, "if
+one hundred and fifty pounds will run all this machinery, seventy-five
+pounds should run half of it," so I opened the valve. But the powerful
+engine could do but little more than turn its own wheels, and refused
+to do the required work. Not until the pressure had risen above one
+hundred pounds could the engine perform half the work which it could at
+one hundred and fifty pounds. And so with our mind. If it is meant to do
+its best work under a certain degree of concentration, it cannot in a
+given time do half the work with half the attention. Further, there will
+be much _which it cannot do at all_ unless working under full pressure.
+We shall not be overstating the case if we say that as attention
+increases in arithmetical ratio, mental efficiency increases in
+geometrical ratio. It is in large measure a difference in the power of
+attention which makes one man a master in thought and achievement and
+another his humble follower. One often hears it said that "genius is but
+the power of sustained attention," and this statement possesses a large
+element of truth.
+
+
+3. HOW WE ATTEND
+
+Someone has said that if our attention is properly trained we should be
+able "to look at the point of a cambric needle for half an hour without
+winking." But this is a false idea of attention. The ability to look at
+the point of a cambric needle for half an hour might indicate a very
+laudable power of concentration; but the process, instead of
+enlightening us concerning the point of the needle, would result in our
+passing into a hypnotic state. Voluntary attention to any one object can
+be sustained for but a brief time--a few seconds at best. It is
+essential that the object change, that we turn it over and over
+incessantly, and consider its various aspects and relations. Sustained
+voluntary attention is thus a repetition of successive efforts to bring
+back the object to the mind. Then the subject grows and develops--it is
+living, not dead.
+
+ATTENTION A RELATING ACTIVITY.--When we are attending strongly to one
+object of thought it does not mean that consciousness sits staring
+vacantly at this one object, but rather that it uses it as a central
+core of thought, and thinks into relation with this object the things
+which belong with it. In working out some mathematical solution the
+central core is the principle upon which the solution is based, and
+concentration in this case consists in thinking the various conditions
+of the problem in relation to this underlying principle. In the
+accompanying diagram (Fig. 4) let A be the central core of some object
+of thought, say a patch of cloud in a picture, and let _a_, _b_, _c_,
+_d_, etc., be the related facts, or the shape, size, color, etc., of the
+cloud. The arrows indicate the passing of our thought from cloud to
+related fact, or from related fact to cloud, and from related fact to
+related fact. As long as these related facts lead back to the cloud each
+time, that long we are attending to the cloud and thinking about it. It
+is when our thought fails to go back that we "wander" in our attention.
+Then we leave _a_, _b_, _c_, _d_, etc., which are related to the cloud,
+and, flying off to _x_, _y_, and _z,_ finally bring up heaven knows
+where.
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 4]
+
+THE RHYTHMS OF ATTENTION.--Attention works in rhythms. This is to say
+that it never maintains a constant level of concentration for any
+considerable length of time, but regularly ebbs and flows. The
+explanation of this rhythmic action would take us too far afield at this
+point. When we remember, however, that our entire organism works within
+a great system of rhythms--hunger, thirst, sleep, fatigue, and many
+others--it is easy to see that the same law may apply to attention. The
+rhythms of attention vary greatly, the fluctuations often being only a
+few seconds apart for certain simple sensations, and probably a much
+greater distance apart for the more complex process of thinking. The
+seeming variation in the sound of a distant waterfall, now loud and now
+faint, is caused by the rhythm of attention and easily allows us to
+measure the rhythm for this particular sensation.
+
+
+4. POINTS OF FAILURE IN ATTENTION
+
+LACK OF CONCENTRATION.--There are two chief types of inattention whose
+danger threatens every person. _First_, we may be thinking about the
+right things, but not thinking _hard_ enough. We lack mental pressure.
+Outside thoughts which have no relation to the subject in hand may not
+trouble us much, but we do not attack our problem with vim. The current
+in our stream of consciousness is moving too slowly. We do not gather up
+all our mental forces and mass them on the subject before us in a way
+that means victory. Our thoughts may be sufficiently focused, but they
+fail to "set fire." It is like focusing the sun's rays while an eclipse
+is on. They lack energy. They will not kindle the paper after they have
+passed through the lens. This kind of attention means mental dawdling.
+It means inefficiency. For the individual it means defeat in life's
+battles; for the nation it means mediocrity and stagnation.
+
+A college professor said to his faithful but poorly prepared class,
+"Judging from your worn and tired appearance, young people, you are
+putting in twice too many hours on study." At this commendation the
+class brightened up visibly. "But," he continued, "judging from your
+preparation, you do not study quite half hard enough."
+
+Happy is the student who, starting in on his lesson rested and fresh,
+can study with such concentration that an hour of steady application
+will leave him mentally exhausted and limp. That is one hour of triumph
+for him, no matter what else he may have accomplished or failed to
+accomplish during the time. He can afford an occasional pause for rest,
+for difficulties will melt rapidly away before him. He possesses one key
+to successful achievement.
+
+MENTAL WANDERING.--_Second_, we may have good mental power and be able
+to think hard and efficiently on any one point, but lack the power to
+think in a straight line. Every stray thought that comes along is a
+"will-o'-the-wisp" to lead us away from the subject in hand and into
+lines of thought not relating to it. Who has not started in to think on
+some problem, and, after a few moments, been surprised to find himself
+miles away from the topic upon which he started! Or who has not read
+down a page and, turning to the next, found that he did not know a word
+on the preceding page, his thoughts having wandered away, his eyes only
+going through the process of reading! Instead of sticking to the _a_,
+_b_, _c_, _d_, etc., of our topic and relating them all up to A, thereby
+reaching a solution of the problem, we often jump at once to _x_, _y_,
+_z_, and find ourselves far afield with all possibility of a solution
+gone. We may have brilliant thoughts about _x_, _y_, _z_, but they are
+not related to anything in particular, and so they pass from us and are
+gone--lost in oblivion because they are not attached to something
+permanent.
+
+Such a thinker is at the mercy of circumstances, following blindly the
+leadings of trains of thought which are his master instead of his
+servant, and which lead him anywhere or nowhere without let or hindrance
+from him. His consciousness moves rapidly enough and with enough force,
+but it is like a ship without a helm. Starting for the intellectual port
+_A_ by way of _a_, _b_, _c_, _d_, he is mentally shipwrecked at last on
+the rocks _x_, _y_, _z_, and never reaches harbor. Fortunate is he who
+can shut out intruding thoughts and think in a straight line. Even with
+mediocre ability he may accomplish more by his thinking than the
+brilliant thinker who is constantly having his mental train wrecked by
+stray thoughts which slip in on his right of way.
+
+
+5. TYPES OF ATTENTION
+
+THE THREE TYPES OF ATTENTION.--Attention may be secured in three ways:
+(1) It is demanded by some sudden or intense sensory stimulus or
+insistent idea, or (2) it follows interest, or (3) it is compelled by
+the will. If it comes in the first way, as from a thunderclap or a flash
+of light, or from the persistent attempt of some unsought idea to secure
+entrance into the mind, it is called _involuntary_ attention. This form
+of attention is of so little importance, comparatively, in our mental
+life that we shall not discuss it further.
+
+If attention comes in the second way, following interest, it is called
+_nonvoluntary_ or spontaneous attention; if in the third, compelled by
+the will, _voluntary_ or active attention. Nonvoluntary attention has
+its motive in some object external to consciousness, or else follows a
+more or less uncontrolled current of thought which interests us;
+voluntary attention is controlled from within--_we_ decide what we shall
+attend to instead of letting interesting objects of thought determine it
+for us.
+
+INTEREST AND NONVOLUNTARY ATTENTION.--In nonvoluntary attention the
+environment largely determines what we shall attend to. All that we have
+to do with directing this kind of attention is in developing certain
+lines of interest, and then the interesting things attract attention.
+The things we see and hear and touch and taste and smell, the things we
+like, the things we do and hope to do--these are the determining factors
+in our mental life so long as we are giving nonvoluntary attention. Our
+attention follows the beckoning of these things as the needle the
+magnet. It is no effort to attend to them, but rather the effort would
+be to keep from attending to them. Who does not remember reading a
+story, perhaps a forbidden one, so interesting that when mother called
+up the stairs for us to come down to attend to some duty, we replied,
+"Yes, in a minute," and then went on reading! We simply could not stop
+at that place. The minute lengthens into ten, and another call startles
+us. "Yes, I'm coming;" we turn just one more leaf, and are lost again.
+At last comes a third call in tones so imperative that it cannot be
+longer ignored, and we lay the book down, but open to the place where we
+left off, and where we hope soon to begin further to unravel the
+delightful mystery. Was it an effort to attend to the reading? Ah, no!
+it took the combined force of our will and of mother's authority to
+drag the attention away. This is nonvoluntary attention.
+
+Left to itself, then, attention simply obeys natural laws and follows
+the line of least resistance. By far the larger portion of our attention
+is of this type. Thought often runs on hour after hour when we are not
+conscious of effort or struggle to compel us to cease thinking about
+this thing and begin thinking about that. Indeed, it may be doubted
+whether this is not the case with some persons for days at a time,
+instead of hours. The things that present themselves to the mind are the
+things which occupy it; the character of the thought is determined by
+the character of our interests. It is this fact which makes it vitally
+necessary that our interests shall be broad and pure if our thoughts are
+to be of this type. It is not enough that we have the strength to drive
+from our minds a wrong or impure thought which seeks entrance. To stand
+guard as a policeman over our thoughts to see that no unworthy one
+enters, requires too much time and energy. Our interests must be of such
+a nature as to lead us away from the field of unworthy thoughts if we
+are to be free from their tyranny.
+
+THE WILL AND VOLUNTARY ATTENTION.--In voluntary attention there is a
+conflict either between the will and interest or between the will and
+the mental inertia or laziness, which has to be overcome before we can
+think with any degree of concentration. Interest says, "Follow this
+line, which is easy and attractive, or which requires but little
+effort--follow the line of least resistance." Will says, "Quit that line
+of dalliance and ease, and take this harder way which I direct--cease
+the line of least resistance and take the one of greatest resistance."
+When day dreams and "castles in Spain" attempt to lure you from your
+lessons, refuse to follow; shut out these vagabond thoughts and stick to
+your task. When intellectual inertia deadens your thought and clogs your
+mental stream, throw it off and court forceful effort. If wrong or
+impure thoughts seek entrance to your mind, close and lock your mental
+doors to them. If thoughts of desire try to drive out thoughts of duty,
+be heroic and insist that thoughts of duty shall have right of way. In
+short, see that _you_ are the master of your thinking, and do not let it
+always be directed without your consent by influences outside of
+yourself.
+
+It is just at this point that the strong will wins victory and the weak
+will breaks down. Between the ability to control one's thoughts and the
+inability to control them lies all the difference between right actions
+and wrong actions; between withstanding temptation and yielding to it;
+between an inefficient purposeless life and a life of purpose and
+endeavor; between success and failure. For we act in accordance with
+those things which our thought rests upon. Suppose two lines of thought
+represented by _A_ and _B_, respectively, lie before you; that _A_ leads
+to a course of action difficult or unpleasant, but necessary to success
+or duty, and that _B_ leads to a course of action easy or pleasant, but
+fatal to success or duty. Which course will you follow--the rugged path
+of duty or the easier one of pleasure? The answer depends almost wholly,
+if not entirely, on your power of attention. If your will is strong
+enough to pull your thoughts away from the fatal but attractive _B_ and
+hold them resolutely on the less attractive _A_, then _A_ will dictate
+your course of action, and you will respond to the call for endeavor,
+self-denial, and duty; but if your thoughts break away from the
+domination of your will and allow the beckoning of your interests
+alone, then _B_ will dictate your course of action, and you will follow
+the leading of ease and pleasure. _For our actions are finally and
+irrevocably dictated by the things we think about._
+
+NOT REALLY DIFFERENT KINDS OF ATTENTION.--It is not to be understood,
+however, from what has been said, that there are _really_ different
+kinds of attention. All attention denotes an active or dynamic phase of
+consciousness. The difference is rather _in the way we secure
+attention_; whether it is demanded by sudden stimulus, coaxed from us by
+interesting objects of thought without effort on our part, or compelled
+by force of will to desert the more interesting and take the direction
+which we dictate.
+
+
+6. IMPROVING THE POWER OF ATTENTION
+
+While attention is no doubt partly a natural gift, yet there is probably
+no power of the mind more susceptible to training than is attention. And
+with attention, as with every other power of body and mind, the secret
+of its development lies in its use. Stated briefly, the only way to
+train attention is by attending. No amount of theorizing or resolving
+can take the place of practice in the actual process of attending.
+
+MAKING DIFFERENT KINDS OF ATTENTION REENFORCE EACH OTHER.--A very close
+relationship and interdependence exists between nonvoluntary and
+voluntary attention. It would be impossible to hold our attention by
+sheer force of will on objects which were forever devoid of interest;
+likewise the blind following of our interests and desires would finally
+lead to shipwreck in all our lives. Each kind of attention must support
+and reenforce the other. The lessons, the sermons, the lectures, and
+the books in which we are most interested, and hence to which we attend
+nonvoluntarily and with the least effort and fatigue, are the ones out
+of which, other things being equal, we get the most and remember the
+best and longest. On the other hand, there are sometimes lessons and
+lectures and books, and many things besides, which are not intensely
+interesting, but which should be attended to nevertheless. It is at this
+point that the will must step in and take command. If it has not the
+strength to do this, it is in so far a weak will, and steps should be
+taken to develop it. We are to "_keep the faculty of effort alive in us
+by a little gratuitous exercise every day_." We are to be systematically
+heroic in the little points of everyday life and experience. We are not
+to shrink from tasks because they are difficult or unpleasant. Then,
+when the test comes, we shall not find ourselves unnerved and untrained,
+but shall be able to stand in the evil day.
+
+THE HABIT OF ATTENTION.--Finally, one of the chief things in training
+the attention is _to form the habit of attending_. This habit is to be
+formed only by _attending_ whenever and wherever the proper thing to do
+is to attend, whether "in work, in play, in making fishing flies, in
+preparing for an examination, in courting a sweetheart, in reading a
+book." The lesson, or the sermon, or the lecture, may not be very
+interesting; but if they are to be attended to at all, our rule should
+be to attend to them completely and absolutely. Not by fits and starts,
+now drifting away and now jerking ourselves back, but _all the time_.
+And, furthermore, the one who will deliberately do this will often find
+the dull and uninteresting task become more interesting; but if it never
+becomes interesting, he is at least forming a habit which will be
+invaluable to him through life. On the other hand, the one who fails to
+attend except when his interest is captured, who never exerts effort to
+compel attention, is forming a habit which will be the bane of his
+thinking until his stream of thought shall end.
+
+
+7. PROBLEMS IN OBSERVATION AND INTROSPECTION
+
+1. Which fatigues you more, to give attention of the nonvoluntary type,
+or the voluntary? Which can you maintain longer? Which is the more
+pleasant and agreeable to give? Under which can you accomplish more?
+What bearing have these facts on teaching?
+
+2. Try to follow for one or two minutes the "wave" in your
+consciousness, and then describe the course taken by your attention.
+
+3. Have you observed one class alert in attention, and another lifeless
+and inattentive? Can you explain the causes lying back of this
+difference? Estimate the relative amount of work accomplished under the
+two conditions.
+
+4. What distractions have you observed in the schoolroom tending to
+break up attention?
+
+5. Have you seen pupils inattentive from lack of (1) change, (2) pure
+air, (3) enthusiasm on the part of the teacher, (4) fatigue, (5) ill
+health?
+
+6. Have you noticed a difference in the _habit_ of attention in
+different pupils? Have you noticed the same thing for whole schools or
+rooms?
+
+7. Do you know of children too much given to daydreaming? Are you?
+
+8. Have you seen a teacher rap the desk for attention? What type of
+attention was secured? Does it pay?
+
+9. Have you observed any instance in which pupils' lack of attention
+should be blamed on the teacher? If so, what was the fault? The remedy?
+
+10. Visit a school room or a recitation, and then write an account of
+the types and degrees of attention you observed. Try to explain the
+factors responsible for any failures in attention, and also those
+responsible for the good attention shown.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+THE BRAIN AND NERVOUS SYSTEM
+
+
+A fine brain, or a good mind. These terms are often used
+interchangeably, as if they stood for the same thing. Yet the brain is
+material substance--so many cells and fibers, a pulpy protoplasmic mass
+weighing some three pounds and shut away from the outside world in a
+casket of bone. The mind is a spiritual thing--the sum of the processes
+by which we think and feel and will, mastering our world and
+accomplishing our destiny.
+
+
+1. THE RELATIONS OF MIND AND BRAIN
+
+INTERACTION OF MIND AND BRAIN.--How, then, come these two widely
+different facts, mind and brain, to be so related in our speech? Why are
+the terms so commonly interchanged?--It is because mind and brain are so
+vitally related in their processes and so inseparably connected in their
+work. No movement of our thought, no bit of sensation, no memory, no
+feeling, no act of decision but is accompanied by its own particular
+activity in the cells of the brain. It is this that the psychologist has
+in mind when he says, _no psychosis without its corresponding neurosis_.
+
+So far as our present existence is concerned, then, no mind ever works
+except through some brain, and a brain without a mind becomes but a mass
+of dead matter, so much clay. Mind and brain are perfectly adapted to
+each other. Nor is this mere accident. For through the ages of man's
+past history each has grown up and developed into its present state of
+efficiency by working in conjunction with the other. Each has helped
+form the other and determine its qualities. Not only is this true for
+the race in its evolution, but for every individual as he passes from
+infancy to maturity.
+
+THE BRAIN AS THE MIND'S MACHINE.--In the first chapter we saw that the
+brain does not create the mind, but that the mind works through the
+brain. No one can believe that the brain secretes mind as the liver
+secretes bile, or that it grinds it out as a mill does flour. Indeed,
+just what their exact relation is has not yet been settled. Yet it is
+easy to see that if the mind must use the brain as a machine and work
+through it, then the mind must be subject to the limitations of its
+machine, or, in other words, the mind cannot be better than the brain
+through which it operates. A brain and nervous system that are poorly
+developed or insufficiently nourished mean low grade of efficiency in
+our mental processes, just as a poorly constructed or wrongly adjusted
+motor means loss of power in applying the electric current to its work.
+We will, then, look upon the mind and the brain as counterparts of each
+other, each performing activities which correspond to activities in the
+other, both inextricably bound together at least so far as this life is
+concerned, and each getting its significance by its union with the
+other. This view will lend interest to a brief study of the brain and
+nervous system.
+
+
+2. THE MIND'S DEPENDENCE ON THE EXTERNAL WORLD
+
+But can we first see how in a general way the brain and nervous system
+are primarily related to our thinking? Let us go back to the beginning
+and consider the babe when it first opens its eyes on the scenes of its
+new existence. What is in its mind? What does it think about? Nothing.
+Imagine, if you can, a person born blind and deaf, and without the sense
+of touch, taste, or smell. Let such a person live on for a year, for
+five years, for a lifetime. What would he know? What ray of intelligence
+would enter his mind? What would he think about? All would be dark to
+his eyes, all silent to his ears, all tasteless to his mouth, all
+odorless to his nostrils, all touchless to his skin. His mind would be a
+blank. He would have no mind. He could not get started to think. He
+could not get started to act. He would belong to a lower scale of life
+than the tiny animal that floats with the waves and the tide in the
+ocean without power to direct its own course. He would be but an inert
+mass of flesh without sense or intelligence.
+
+THE MIND AT BIRTH.--Yet this is the condition of the babe at birth. It
+is born practically blind and deaf, without definite sense of taste or
+smell. Born without anything to think about, and no way to get anything
+to think about until the senses wake up and furnish some material from
+the outside world. Born with all the mechanism of muscle and nerve ready
+to perform the countless complex movements of arms and legs and body
+which characterize every child, he could not successfully start these
+activities without a message from the senses to set them going. At birth
+the child probably has only the senses of contact and temperature
+present with any degree of clearness; taste soon follows; vision of an
+imperfect sort in a few days; hearing about the same time, and smell a
+little later. The senses are waking up and beginning their acquaintance
+with the outside world.
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 5.--A NEURONE FROM A HUMAN SPINAL CORD. The central
+portion represents the cell body. N, the nucleus; P, a pigmented or
+colored spot; D, a dendrite, or relatively short fiber,--which branches
+freely; A, an axon or long fiber, which branches but little.]
+
+THE WORK OF THE SENSES.--And what a problem the senses have to solve! On
+the one hand the great universe of sights and sounds, of tastes and
+smells, of contacts and temperatures, and whatever else may belong to
+the material world in which we live; and on the other hand the little
+shapeless mass of gray and white pulpy matter called the brain,
+incapable of sustaining its own shape, shut away in the darkness of a
+bony case with no possibility of contact with the outside world, and
+possessing no means of communicating with it except through the senses.
+And yet this universe of external things must be brought into
+communication with the seemingly insignificant but really wonderful
+brain, else the mind could never be. Here we discover, then, the two
+great factors which first require our study if we would understand the
+growth of the mind--_the material world without, and the brain within_.
+For it is the action and interaction of these which lie at the bottom of
+the mind's development. Let us first look a little more closely at the
+brain and the accompanying nervous system.
+
+
+3. STRUCTURAL ELEMENTS OF THE NERVOUS SYSTEM
+
+It will help in understanding both the structure and the working of the
+nervous system to keep in mind that it contains _but one fundamental
+unit of structure_. This is the neurone. Just as the house is built up
+by adding brick upon brick, so brain, cord, nerves and organs of sense
+are formed by the union of numberless neurones.
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 6.--Neurones in different stages of development,
+from _a_ to _e_. In _a_, the elementary cell body alone is present; in
+_c_, a dendrite is shown projecting upward and an axon downward.--After
+DONALDSON.]
+
+THE NEURONE.--What, then, is a neurone? What is its structure, its
+function, how does it act? A neurone is _a protoplasmic cell, with its
+outgrowing fibers_. The cell part of the neurone is of a variety of
+shapes, triangular, pyramidal, cylindrical, and irregular. The cells
+vary in size from 1/250 to 1/3500 of an inch in diameter. In general the
+function of the cell is thought to be to generate the nervous energy
+responsible for our consciousness--sensation, memory, reasoning, feeling
+and all the rest, and for our movements. The cell also provides for the
+nutrition of the fibers.
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 7.--Longitudinal (a) and Transverse (b) section of
+nerve fiber. The heavy border represents the medullary, or enveloping
+sheath, which becomes thicker in the larger fibers.--After DONALDSON.]
+
+NEURONE FIBERS.--The neurone fibers are of two kinds, _dendrites_ and
+_axons_. The dendrites are comparatively large in diameter, branch
+freely, like the branches of a tree, and extend but a relatively short
+distance from the parent cell. Axons are slender, and branch but little,
+and then approximately at right angles. They reach a much greater
+distance from the cell body than the dendrites. Neurones vary greatly in
+length. Some of those found in the spinal cord and brain are not more
+than 1/12 of an inch long, while others which reach from the extremities
+to the cord, measure several feet. Both dendrites and axons are of
+diameter so small as to be invisible except under the microscope.
+
+NEUROGLIA.--Out of this simple structural element, the neurone, the
+entire nervous system is built. True, the neurones are held in place,
+and perhaps insulated, by a kind of soft cement called _neuroglia_. But
+this seems to possess no strictly nervous function. The number of the
+microscopic neurones required to make up the mass of the brain, cord and
+peripheral nervous system is far beyond our mental grasp. It is computed
+that the brain and cord contain some 3,000 millions of them.
+
+COMPLEXITY OF THE BRAIN.--Something of the complexity of the brain
+structure can best be understood by an illustration. Professor Stratton
+estimates that if we were to make a model of the human brain, using for
+the neurone fibers wires so small as to be barely visible to the eye, in
+order to find room for all the wires the model would need to be the size
+of a city block on the base and correspondingly high. Imagine a
+telephone system of this complexity operating from one switch-board!
+
+"GRAY" AND "WHITE" MATTER.--The "gray matter" of the brain and cord is
+made up of nerve cells and their dendrites, and the terminations of
+axons, which enter from the adjoining white matter. A part of the mass
+of gray matter also consists of the neuroglia which surrounds the nerve
+cells and fibers, and a network of blood vessels. The "white matter" of
+the central system consists chiefly of axons with their enveloping or
+medullary, sheath and neuroglia. The white matter contains no nerve
+cells or dendrites. The difference in color of the gray and the white
+matter is caused chiefly by the fact that in the gray masses the
+medullary sheath, which is white, is lacking, thus revealing the ashen
+gray of the nerve threads. In the white masses the medullary sheath is
+present.
+
+
+4. GROSS STRUCTURE OF THE NERVOUS SYSTEM
+
+DIVISIONS OF THE NERVOUS SYSTEM.--The nervous system may be considered
+in two divisions: (1) The _central_ system, which consists of the brain
+and spinal cord, and (2) the _peripheral_ system, which comprises the
+sensory and motor neurones connecting the periphery and the internal
+organs with the central system and the specialized end-organs of the
+senses. The _sympathetic_ system, which is found as a double chain of
+nerve connections joining the roots of sensory and motor nerves just
+outside the spinal column, does not seem to be directly related to
+consciousness and so will not be discussed here. A brief description of
+the nervous system will help us better to understand how its parts all
+work together in so wonderful a way to accomplish their great result.
+
+THE CENTRAL SYSTEM.--In the brain we easily distinguish three major
+divisions--the _cerebrum_, the _cerebellum_ and the _medulla oblongata_.
+The medulla is but the enlarged upper part of the cord where it connects
+with the brain. It is about an inch and a quarter long, and is composed
+of both medullated and unmedullated fibers--that is of both "white" and
+"gray" matter. In the medulla, the unmedullated neurones which comprise
+the center of the cord are passing to the outside, and the medullated to
+the inside, thus taking the positions they occupy in the cerebrum. Here
+also the neurones are crossing, or changing sides, so that those which
+pass up the right side of the cord finally connect with the left side of
+the brain, and vice versa.
+
+THE CEREBELLUM.--Lying just back of the medulla and at the rear part of
+the base of the cerebrum is the cerebellum, or "little brain,"
+approximately as large as the fist, and composed of a complex
+arrangement of white and gray matter. Fibers from the spinal cord enter
+this mass, and others emerge and pass on into the cerebrum, while its
+two halves also are connected with each other by means of cross fibers.
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 8.--View of the under side of the brain. B, basis of
+the crura; P, pons; Mo, medulla oblongata; Ce, cerebellum; Sc, spinal
+cord.]
+
+THE CEREBRUM.--The cerebrum occupies all the upper part of the skull
+from the front to the rear. It is divided symmetrically into two
+hemispheres, the right and the left. These hemispheres are connected
+with each other by a small bridge of fibers called the _corpus
+callosum_. Each hemisphere is furrowed and ridged with convolutions, an
+arrangement which allows greater surface for the distribution of the
+gray cellular matter over it. Besides these irregularities of surface,
+each hemisphere is marked also by two deep clefts or _fissures_--the
+fissure of Rolando, extending from the middle upper part of the
+hemisphere downward and forward, passing a little in front of the ear
+and stopping on a level with the upper part of it; and the fissure of
+Sylvius, beginning at the base of the brain somewhat in front of the
+ear and extending upward and backward at an acute angle with the base
+of the hemisphere.
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 9.--Diagrammatic side view of brain, showing
+cerebellum (CB) and medulla oblongata (MO). F' F'' F''' are placed on
+the first, second, and third frontal convolutions, respectively; AF, on
+the ascending frontal; AP, on the ascending parietal; M, on the
+marginal; A, on the angular. T' T'' T''' are placed on the first,
+second, and third temporal convolutions. R-R marks the fissure of
+Rolando; S-S, the fissure of Sylvius; PO, the parieto-occipital
+fissure.]
+
+The surface of each hemisphere may be thought of as mapped out into four
+lobes: The frontal lobe, which includes the front part of the hemisphere
+and extends back to the fissure of Rolando and down to the fissure of
+Sylvius; the parietal lobe, which lies back of the fissure of Rolando
+and above that of Sylvius and extends back to the occipital lobe; the
+occipital lobe, which includes the extreme rear portion of the
+hemisphere; and the temporal lobe, which lies below the fissure of
+Sylvius and extends back to the occipital lobe.
+
+THE CORTEX.--The gray matter of the hemispheres, unlike that of the
+cord, lies on the surface. This gray exterior portion of the cerebrum is
+called the _cortex_, and varies from one-twelfth to one-eighth of an
+inch in thickness. The cortex is the seat of all consciousness and of
+the control of voluntary movement.
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 10.--Different aspects of sections of the spinal
+cord and of the roots of the spinal nerves from the cervical region: 1,
+different views of anterior median fissure; 2, posterior fissure; 3,
+anterior lateral depression for anterior roots; 4, posterior lateral
+depression for posterior roots; 5 and 6, anterior and posterior roots,
+respectively; 7, complete spinal nerve, formed by the union of the
+anterior and posterior roots.]
+
+THE SPINAL CORD.--The spinal cord proceeds from the base of the brain
+downward about eighteen inches through a canal provided for it in the
+vertebrae of the spinal column. It is composed of white matter on the
+outside, and gray matter within. A deep fissure on the anterior side and
+another on the posterior cleave the cord nearly in twain, resembling the
+brain in this particular. The gray matter on the interior is in the form
+of two crescents connected by a narrow bar.
+
+The _peripheral_ nervous system consists of thirty-one pairs of
+_nerves_, with their end-organs, branching off from the cord, and twelve
+pairs that have their roots in the brain. Branches of these forty-three
+pairs of nerves reach to every part of the periphery of the body and to
+all the internal organs.
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 11.--The projection fibers of the brain. I-IX, the
+first nine pairs of cranial nerves.]
+
+It will help in understanding the peripheral system to remember that a
+_nerve_ consists of a bundle of neurone fibers each wrapped in its
+medullary sheath and sheath of Schwann. Around this bundle of neurones,
+that is around the nerve, is still another wrapping, silvery-white,
+called the neurilemma. The number of fibers going to make up a nerve
+varies from about 5,000 to 100,000. Nerves can easily be identified in a
+piece of lean beef, or even at the edge of a serious gash in one's own
+flesh!
+
+Bundles of sensory fibers constituting a sensory nerve root enter the
+spinal cord on the posterior side through holes in the vertebrae. Similar
+bundles of motor fibers in the form of a motor nerve root emerge from
+the cord at the same level. Soon after their emergence from the cord,
+these two nerves are wrapped together in the same sheath and proceed in
+this way to the periphery of the body, where the sensory nerve usually
+ends in a specialized _end-organ_ fitted to respond to some certain
+stimulus from the outside world. The motor nerve ends in minute
+filaments in the muscular organ which it governs. Both sensory and motor
+nerves connect with fibers of like kind in the cord and these in turn
+with the cortex, thus giving every part of the periphery direct
+connection with the cortex.
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 12.--Schematic diagram showing association fibers
+connecting cortical centers with each other.--After JAMES and STARR.]
+
+The _end-organs_ of the sensory nerves are nerve masses, some of them,
+as the taste buds of the tongue, relatively simple; and others, as the
+eye or ear, very complex. They are all alike in one particular; namely,
+that each is fitted for its own particular work and can do no other.
+Thus the eye is the end-organ of sight, and is a wonderfully complex
+arrangement of nerve structure combined with refracting media, and
+arranged to respond to the rapid ether waves of light. The ear has for
+its essential part the specialized endings of the auditory nerve, and is
+fitted to respond to the waves carried to it in the air, giving the
+sensation of sound. The end-organs of touch, found in greatest
+perfection in the finger tips, are of several kinds, all very
+complicated in structure. And so on with each of the senses. Each
+particular sense has some form of end-organ specially adapted to respond
+to the kind of stimulus upon which its sensation depends, and each is
+insensible to the stimuli of the others, much as the receiver of a
+telephone will respond to the tones of our voice, but not to the touch
+of our fingers as will the telegraph instrument, and _vice versa_. Thus
+the eye is not affected by sounds, nor touch by light. Yet by means of
+all the senses together we are able to come in contact with the material
+world in a variety of ways.
+
+
+5. LOCALIZATION OF FUNCTION IN THE NERVOUS SYSTEM
+
+DIVISION OF LABOR.--Division of labor is the law in the organic world as
+in the industrial. Animals of the lowest type, such as the amoeba, do
+not have separate organs for respiration, digestion, assimilation,
+elimination, etc., the one tissue performing all of these functions. But
+in the higher forms each organ not only has its own specific work, but
+even within the same organ each part has its own particular function
+assigned. Thus we have seen that the two parts of the neurone probably
+perform different functions, the cells generating energy and the fibers
+transmitting it.
+
+It will not seem strange, then, that there is also a division of labor
+in the cellular matter itself in the nervous system. For example, the
+little masses of ganglia which are distributed at intervals along the
+nerves are probably for the purpose of reenforcing the nerve current,
+much as the battery cells in the local telegraph office reenforce the
+current from the central office. The cellular matter in the spinal cord
+and lower parts of the brain has a very important work to perform in
+receiving messages from the senses and responding to them in directing
+the simpler reflex acts and movements which we learn to execute without
+our consciousness being called upon, thus leaving the mind free from
+these petty things to busy itself in higher ways. The cellular matter of
+the cortex performs the highest functions of all, for through its
+activity we have consciousness.
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 13.--Side view of left hemisphere of human brain,
+showing the principal localized areas.]
+
+The gray matter of the cerebellum, the medulla, and the cord may receive
+impressions from the senses and respond to them with movements, but
+their response is in all cases wholly automatic and unconscious. A
+person whose hemispheres had been injured in such a way as to interfere
+with the activity of the cortex might still continue to perform most if
+not all of the habitual movements of his life, but they would be
+mechanical and not intelligent. He would lack all higher consciousness.
+It is through the activity of this thin covering of cellular matter of
+the cerebrum, the _cortex_, that our minds operate; here are received
+stimuli from the different senses, and here sensations are experienced.
+Here all our movements which are consciously directed have their origin.
+And here all our thinking, feeling, and willing are done.
+
+DIVISION OF LABOR IN THE CORTEX.--Nor does the division of labor in the
+nervous system end with this assignment of work. The cortex itself
+probably works essentially as a unit, yet it is through a shifting of
+tensions from one area to another that it acts, now giving us a
+sensation, now directing a movement, and now thinking a thought or
+feeling an emotion. Localization of function is the rule here also.
+Certain areas of the cortex are devoted chiefly to sensations, others to
+motor impulses, and others to higher thought activities, yet in such a
+way that all work together in perfect harmony, each reenforcing the
+other and making its work significant. Thus the front portion of the
+cortex seems to be devoted to the higher thought activities; the region
+on both sides of the fissure of Rolando, to motor activities; and the
+rear and lower parts to sensory activities; and all are bound together
+and made to work together by the association fibers of the brain.
+
+In the case of the higher thought activities, it is not probable that
+one section of the frontal lobes of the cortex is set apart for
+thinking, one for feeling, and one for willing, etc., but rather that
+the whole frontal part of the cortex is concerned in each. In the motor
+and sensory areas, however, the case is different; for here a still
+further division of labor occurs. For example, in the motor region one
+small area seems connected with movements of the head, one with the arm,
+one with the leg, one with the face, and another with the organs of
+speech; likewise in the sensory region, one area is devoted to vision,
+one to hearing, one to taste and smell, and one to touch, etc. We must
+bear in mind, however, that these regions are not mapped out as
+accurately as are the boundaries of our states--that no part of the
+brain is restricted wholly to either sensory or motor nerves, and that
+no part works by itself independently of the rest of the brain. We name
+a tract from the predominance of nerves which end there, or from the
+chief functions which the area performs. The motor localization seems to
+be the most perfect. Indeed, experimentation on the brains of monkeys
+has been successful in mapping out motor areas so accurately that such
+small centers as those connected with the bending of one particular leg
+or the flexing of a thumb have been located. Yet each area of the cortex
+is so connected with every other area by the millions of association
+fibers that the whole brain is capable of working together as a unit,
+thus unifying and harmonizing our thoughts, emotions, and acts.
+
+
+6. FORMS OF SENSORY STIMULI
+
+Let us next inquire how this mechanism of the nervous system is acted
+upon in such a way as to give us sensations. In order to understand
+this, we must first know that all forms of matter are composed of minute
+atoms which are in constant motion, and by imparting this motion to the
+air or the ether which surrounds them, are constantly radiating energy
+in the form of minute waves throughout space. These waves, or
+radiations, are incredibly rapid in some instances and rather slow in
+others. In sending out its energy in the form of these waves, the
+physical world is doing its part to permit us to form its acquaintance.
+The end-organs of the sensory nerves must meet this advance half-way,
+and be so constructed as to be affected by the different forms of energy
+which are constantly beating upon them.
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 14.--The prism's analysis of a bundle of light rays.
+On the right are shown the relation of vibration rates to temperature
+stimuli, to light and to chemical stimuli. The rates are given in
+billions per second.--After WITMER.]
+
+THE END-ORGANS AND THEIR RESPONSE TO STIMULI.--Thus the radiations of
+ether from the sun, our chief source of light, are so rapid that
+billions of them enter the eye in a second of time, and the retina is of
+such a nature that its nerve cells are thrown into activity by these
+waves; the impulse is carried over the optic nerve to the occipital lobe
+of the cortex, and the sensation of sight is the result. The different
+colors also, from the red of the spectrum to the violet, are the result
+of different vibration rates in the waves of ether which strike the
+retina; and in order to perceive color, the retina must be able to
+respond to the particular vibration rate which represents each color.
+Likewise in the sense of touch the end-organs are fitted to respond to
+very rapid vibrations, and it is possible that the different qualities
+of touch are produced by different vibration rates in the atoms of the
+object we are touching. When we reach the ear, we have the organ which
+responds to the lowest vibration rate of all, for we can detect a sound
+made by an object which is vibrating from twenty to thirty times a
+second. The highest vibration rate which will affect the ear is some
+forty thousand per second.
+
+Thus it is seen that there are great gaps in the different rates to
+which our senses are fitted to respond--a sudden drop from billions in
+the case of the eye to millions in touch, and to thousands or even tens
+in hearing. This makes one wonder whether there are not many things in
+nature which man has never discovered simply because he has not the
+sense mechanism enabling him to become conscious of their existence.
+There are undoubtedly "more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt
+of in our philosophy."
+
+DEPENDENCE OF THE MIND ON THE SENSES.--Only as the senses bring in the
+material, has the mind anything with which to build. Thus have the
+senses to act as messengers between the great outside world and the
+brain; to be the servants who shall stand at the doorways of the
+body--the eyes, the ears, the finger tips--each ready to receive its
+particular kind of impulse from nature and send it along the right path
+to the part of the cortex where it belongs, so that the mind can say, "A
+sight," "A sound," or "A touch." Thus does the mind come to know the
+universe of the senses. Thus does it get the material out of which
+memory, imagination, and thought begin. Thus and only thus does the mind
+secure the crude material from which the finished superstructure is
+finally built.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+MENTAL DEVELOPMENT AND MOTOR TRAINING
+
+
+Education was long looked upon as affecting the mind only; the body was
+either left out of account or neglected. Later science has shown,
+however, that the mind cannot be trained _except as the nervous system
+is trained and developed_. For not sensation and the simpler mental
+processes alone, but memory, imagination, judgment, reasoning and every
+other act of the mind are dependent on the nervous system finally for
+their efficiency. The little child gets its first mental experiences in
+connection with certain movements or acts set up reflexly by the
+pre-organized nervous system. From this time on movement and idea are so
+inextricably bound together that they cannot be separated. The mind and
+the brain are so vitally related that it is impossible to educate one
+without performing a like office for the other; and it is likewise
+impossible to neglect the one without causing the other to suffer in its
+development.
+
+
+1. FACTORS DETERMINING THE EFFICIENCY OF THE NERVOUS SYSTEM
+
+DEVELOPMENT AND NUTRITION.--Ignoring the native differences in nervous
+systems through the influence of heredity, the efficiency of a nervous
+system is largely dependent on two factors: (1) The development of the
+cells and fibers of which it is composed, and (2) its general tone of
+health and vigor. The actual number of cells in the nervous system
+increases but little if at all after birth. Indeed, it is doubtful
+whether Edison's brain and nervous system has a greater number of cells
+in it than yours or mine. The difference between the brain of a genius
+and that of an ordinary man is not in the _number_ of cells which it
+contains, but rather in the development of the cells and fibers which
+are present, potentially, at least, in every nervous system. The
+histologist tells us that in the nervous system of every child there are
+tens of thousands of cells which are so immature and undeveloped that
+they are useless; indeed, this is the case to some degree in every adult
+person's nervous system as well. Thus each individual has inherent in
+his nervous system potentialities of which he has never taken advantage,
+the utilizing of which may make him a genius and the neglecting of which
+will certainly leave him on the plane of mediocrity. The first problem
+in education, then, is to take the unripe and inefficient nervous system
+and so develop it in connection with the growing mind that the
+possibilities which nature has stored in it shall become actualities.
+
+UNDEVELOPED CELLS.--Professor Donaldson tells us on this point that: "At
+birth, and for a long time after, many [nervous] systems contain cell
+elements which are more or less immature, not forming a functional part
+of the tissue, and yet under some conditions capable of further
+development.... For the cells which are continually appearing in the
+developing cortex no other source is known than the nuclei or granules
+found there in its earliest stages. These elements are metamorphosed
+neuroblasts--that is, elementary cells out of which the nervous matter
+is developed--which have shrunken to a volume less than that which they
+had at first, and which remain small until, in the subsequent process of
+enlargement necessary for their full development, they expand into
+well-marked cells. Elements intermediate between these granules and the
+fully developed cells are always found, even in mature brains, and
+therefore it is inferred that the latter are derived from the former.
+The appearances there also lead to the conclusion that many elements
+which might possibly develop in any given case are far beyond the number
+that actually does so.... The possible number of cells latent and
+functional in the central system is early fixed. At any age this number
+is accordingly represented by the granules as well as by the cells which
+have already undergone further development. During growth the proportion
+of developed cells increases, and sometimes, owing to the failure to
+recognize potential nerve cells in the granules, the impression is
+carried away that this increase implies the formation of new elements.
+As has been shown, such is not the case."[1]
+
+DEVELOPMENT OF NERVE FIBERS.--The nerve _fibers_, no less than the
+cells, must go through a process of development. It has already been
+shown that the fibers are the result of a branching of cells. At birth
+many of the cells have not yet thrown out branches, and hence the fibers
+are lacking; while many of those which are already grown out are not
+sufficiently developed to transmit impulses accurately. Thus it has been
+found that most children at birth are able to support the weight of the
+body for several seconds by clasping the fingers around a small rod, but
+it takes about a year for the child to become able to stand. It is
+evident that it requires more actual strength to cling to a rod than to
+stand; hence the conclusion is that the difference is in the earlier
+development of the nerve centers which have to do with clasping than of
+those concerned in standing. Likewise the child's first attempts to feed
+himself or do any one of the thousand little things about which he is so
+awkward, are partial failures not so much because he has not had
+practice as because his nervous machinery connected with those movements
+is not yet developed sufficiently to enable him to be accurate. His
+brain is in a condition which Flechsig calls "unripe." How, then, shall
+the undeveloped cells and system ripen? How shall the undeveloped cells
+and fibers grow to full maturity and efficiency?
+
+
+2. DEVELOPMENT OF NERVOUS SYSTEM THROUGH USE
+
+IMPORTANCE OF STIMULUS AND RESPONSE.--Like all other tissues of the
+body, the nerve cells and fibers are developed by judicious use. The
+sensory and association centers require the constant stimulus of nerve
+currents running in from the various end-organs, and the motor centers
+require the constant stimulus of currents running from them out to the
+muscles. In other words, the conditions upon which both motor and
+sensory development depend are: (1) A rich environment of sights and
+sounds and tastes and smells, and everything else which serves as proper
+stimulus to the sense organs, and to every form of intellectual and
+social interest; and (2) no less important, an opportunity for the
+freest and most complete forms of response and motor activity.
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 15.--Schematic transverse section of the human brain
+showing the projection of the motor fibers, their crossing in the
+neighborhood of the medulla, and their termination in the different
+areas of localized function in the cortex. S, fissure of Sylvius; M, the
+medulla; VII, the roots of the facial nerves.]
+
+An illustration of the effects of the lack of sensory stimuli on the
+cortex is well shown in the case of Laura Bridgman, whose brain was
+studied by Professor Donaldson after her death. Laura Bridgman was born
+a normal child, and developed as other children do up to the age of
+nearly three years. At this time, through an attack of scarlet fever,
+she lost her hearing completely and also the sight of her left eye. Her
+right eye was so badly affected that she could see but little; and it,
+too, became entirely blind when she was eight. She lived in this
+condition until she was sixty years old, when she died. Professor
+Donaldson submitted the cortex of her brain to a most careful
+examination, also comparing the corresponding areas on the two
+hemispheres with each other. He found that as a whole the cortex was
+thinner than in the case of normal individuals. He found also that the
+cortical area connected with the left eye--namely, the right occipital
+region--was much thinner than that for the right eye, which had retained
+its sight longer than the other. He says: "It is interesting to notice
+that those parts of the cortex which, according to the current view,
+were associated with the defective sense organs were also particularly
+thin. The cause of this thinness was found to be due, at least in part,
+to the small size of the nerve cells there present. Not only were the
+large and medium-sized cells smaller, but the impression made on the
+observer was that they were also less numerous than in the normal
+cortex."
+
+EFFECT OF SENSORY STIMULI.--No doubt if we could examine the brain of a
+person who has grown up in an environment rich in stimuli to the eye,
+where nature, earth, and sky have presented a changing panorama of color
+and form to attract the eye; where all the sounds of nature, from the
+chirp of the insect to the roar of the waves and the murmur of the
+breeze, and from the softest tones of the voice to the mightiest sweep
+of the great orchestra, have challenged the ear; where many and varied
+odors and perfumes have assailed the nostrils; where a great range of
+tastes have tempted the palate; where many varieties of touch and
+temperature sensations have been experienced--no doubt if we could
+examine such a brain we should find the sensory areas of the cortex
+excelling in thickness because its cells were well developed and full
+sized from the currents which had been pouring into them from the
+outside world. On the other hand, if we could examine a cortex which had
+lacked any one of these stimuli, we should find some area in it
+undeveloped because of this deficiency. Its owner therefore possesses
+but the fraction of a brain, and would in a corresponding degree find
+his mind incomplete.
+
+NECESSITY FOR MOTOR ACTIVITY.--Likewise in the case of the motor areas.
+Pity the boy or girl who has been deprived of the opportunity to use
+every muscle to the fullest extent in the unrestricted plays and games
+of childhood. For where such activities are not wide in their scope,
+there some areas of the cortex will remain undeveloped, because unused,
+and the person will be handicapped later in his life from lack of skill
+in the activities depending on these centers. Halleck says in this
+connection: "If we could examine the developing motor region with a
+microscope of sufficient magnifying power, it is conceivable that we
+might learn wherein the modification due to exercise consists. We might
+also, under such conditions, be able to say, 'This is the motor region
+of a piano player; the modifications here correspond precisely to those
+necessary for controlling such movements of the hand.' Or, 'This is the
+motor tract of a blacksmith; this, of an engraver; and these must be the
+cells which govern the vocal organs of an orator.'" Whether or not the
+microscope will ever reveal such things to us, there is no doubt that
+the conditions suggested exist, and that back of every inefficient and
+awkward attempt at physical control lies a motor area with its cells
+undeveloped by use. No wonder that our processes of learning physical
+adjustment and control are slow, for they are a growth in the brain
+rather than a simple "learning how."
+
+The training of the nervous system consists finally, then, in the
+development and cooerdination of the neurones of which it is composed. We
+have seen that the sensory cells are to be developed by the sensory
+stimuli pouring in upon them, and the motor cells by the motor impulses
+which they send out to the muscles. The sensory and the motor fibers
+likewise, being an outgrowth of their respective cells, find their
+development in carrying the impulses which result in sensation and
+movement. Thus it is seen that the neurone is, in its development as in
+its work, a unit.
+
+DEVELOPMENT OF THE ASSOCIATION CENTERS.--To this simpler type of sensory
+and motor development which we have been considering, we must add that
+which comes from the more complex mental processes, such as memory,
+thought, and imagination. For it is in connection with these that the
+association fibers are developed, and the brain areas so connected that
+they can work together as a unit. A simple illustration will enable us
+to see more clearly how the nervous mechanism acts to bring this about.
+
+Suppose that I am walking along a country road deeply engaged in
+meditation, and that I come to a puddle of water in my pathway. I may
+turn aside and avoid the obstruction without my attention being called
+to it, and without interruption of my train of thought. The act has been
+automatic. In this case the nerve current has passed from the eye (_S_)
+over an afferent fiber to a sensory center (_s_) in the nervous system
+below the cortex; from there it has been forwarded to a motor center
+(_m_) in the same region, and on out over a motor fiber to the proper
+muscles (_M_), which are to execute the required act. The act having
+been completed, the sensory nerves connected with the muscles employed
+report the fact back that the work is done, thus completing the circuit.
+This event may be taken as an illustration of literally thousands of
+acts which we perform daily without the intervention of consciousness,
+and hence without involving the hemispheres.
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 16.--Diagram illustrating the paths of association.]
+
+If, however, instead of avoiding the puddle unconsciously, I do so from
+consideration of the danger of wet feet and the disagreeableness of
+soiled shoes and the ridiculous appearance I shall make, then the
+current cannot take the short circuit, but must pass on up to the
+cortex. Here it awakens consciousness to take notice of the obstruction,
+and calls forth the images which aid in directing the necessary
+movements. This simple illustration may be greatly complicated,
+substituting for it one of the more complex problems which are
+continually presenting themselves to us for solution, or the associated
+trains of thought that are constantly occupying our minds. But the truth
+of the illustration still holds. Whether in the simple or the complex
+act, there is always a forward passing of the nerve current through the
+sensory and thought centers, and on out through the motor centers to the
+organs which are to be concerned in the motor response.
+
+THE FACTORS INVOLVED IN A SIMPLE ACTION.--Thus it will be seen that in
+the simplest act which can be considered there are the following
+factors: (1) The stimulus which acts on the end-organ; (2) the ingoing
+current over an afferent nerve; (3) the sensory or interpreting cells;
+(4) the fibers connecting the sensory with a motor center; (5) the motor
+cells; (6) the efferent nerve to carry the direction for the movement
+outward to the muscle; (7) the motor response; and, finally, (8) the
+report back that the act has been performed. With this in mind it fairly
+bewilders one to think of the marvelous complexity of the work that is
+going on in our nervous mechanism every moment of our life, even without
+considering the higher thought processes at all. How, with these added,
+the resulting complexity all works out into beautiful harmony is indeed
+beyond comprehension.
+
+
+3. EDUCATION AND THE TRAINING OF THE NERVOUS SYSTEM
+
+Fortunately, many of the best opportunities for sensory and motor
+training do not depend on schools or courses of study. The world is full
+of stimuli to our senses and to our social natures; and our common lives
+are made up of the responses we make to these stimuli,--the movements,
+acts and deeds by which we fit ourselves into our world of environment.
+Undoubtedly the most rapid and vital progress we make in our development
+is accomplished in the years before we have reached the age to go to
+school. Yet it is the business of education to see that we do not lack
+any essential opportunity, to make sure that necessary lines of stimuli
+or of motor training have not been omitted from our development.
+
+EDUCATION TO SUPPLY OPPORTUNITIES FOR STIMULUS AND RESPONSE.--The great
+problem of education is, on the physical side, it would seem, then, to
+provide for ourselves and those we seek to educate as rich an
+environment of sensory and social stimuli as possible; one whose
+impressions will be full of suggestions to response in motor activity
+and the higher thought processes; and then to give opportunity for
+thought and for expression in acts and deeds in the largest possible
+number of lines. And added to this must be frequent and clear sensory
+and motor recall, a living over again of the sights and sounds and odors
+and the motor activities we have once experienced. There must also be
+the opportunity for the forming of worthy plans and ideals. For in this
+way the brain centers which were concerned in the original sensation or
+thought or movement are again brought into exercise, and their
+development continued. Through recall and imagination we are able not
+only greatly to multiply the effects of the immediate sensory and motor
+stimuli which come to us, but also to improve our power of thinking by
+getting a fund of material upon which the mind can draw.
+
+ORDER OF DEVELOPMENT IN THE NERVOUS SYSTEM.--Nature has set the order in
+which the powers of the nervous system shall develop. And we must follow
+this order if we would obtain the best results. Stated in technical
+terms, the order is _from fundamental to accessory_. This is to say that
+the nerve centers controlling the larger and more general movements of
+the body ripen first, and those governing the finer motor adjustments
+later. For example, the larger body muscles of the child which are
+concerned with sitting up come under control earlier than those
+connected with walking. The arm muscles develop control earlier than the
+finger muscles, and the head and neck muscles earlier than the eye
+muscles. So also the more general and less highly specialized powers of
+the mind ripen sooner than the more highly specialized. Perception and
+observation precede powers of critical judgment and association. Memory
+and imagination ripen earlier than reasoning and the logical ability.
+
+This all means that our educational system must be planned to follow the
+order of nature. Children of the primary grades should not be required
+to write with fine pencils or pens which demand delicate finger
+adjustments, since the brain centers for these finer cooerdinations are
+not yet developed. Young children should not be set at work
+necessitating difficult eye control, such as stitching through
+perforated cardboard, reading fine print and the like, as their eyes
+are not yet ready for such tasks. The more difficult analytical problems
+of arithmetic and relations of grammar should not be required of pupils
+at a time when the association areas of the brain are not yet ready for
+this type of thinking. For such methods violate the law of nature, and
+the child is sure to suffer the penalty.
+
+
+4. IMPORTANCE OF HEALTH AND VIGOR OF THE NERVOUS SYSTEM
+
+Parallel with opportunities for proper stimuli and response the nervous
+system must possess good _tonicity_, or vigor. This depends in large
+degree on general health and nutrition, with freedom from overfatigue.
+No favorableness of environment nor excellence of training can result in
+an efficient brain if the nerve energy has run low from depleted health,
+want of proper nourishment, or exhaustion.
+
+THE INFLUENCE OF FATIGUE.--Histologists find that the nuclei of nerve
+cells are shrunk as much as fifty per cent by extreme fatigue.
+Reasonable fatigue followed by proper recuperation is not harmful, but
+even necessary if the best development is to be attained; but fatigue
+without proper nourishment and rest is fatal to all mental operations,
+and indeed finally to the nervous system itself, leaving it permanently
+in a condition of low tone, and incapable of rallying to strong effort.
+For rapid and complete recuperation the cells must have not only the
+best of nourishment but opportunity for rest as well.
+
+Extreme and long-continued fatigue is hostile to the development and
+welfare of any nervous system, and especially to that of children. Not
+only does overfatigue hinder growth, but it also results in the
+formation of certain _toxins_, or poisons, in the organism, which are
+particularly harmful to nervous tissue. It is these fatigue toxins that
+account for many of the nervous and mental disorders which accompany
+breakdowns from overwork. On the whole, the evil effects from mental
+overstrain are more to be feared than from physical overstrain.
+
+THE EFFECTS OF WORRY.--There is, perhaps, no greater foe to brain growth
+and efficiency than the nervous and worn-out condition which comes from
+loss of sleep or from worry. Experiments in the psychological
+laboratories have shown that nerve cells shrivel up and lose their
+vitality under loss of sleep. Let this go on for any considerable
+length of time, and the loss is irreparable; for the cells can never
+recuperate. This is especially true in the case of children or young
+people. Many school boys and girls, indeed many college students, are
+making slow progress in their studies not because they are mentally slow
+or inefficient, not even chiefly because they lose time that should be
+put on their lessons, but because they are incapacitating their brains
+for good service through late hours and the consequent loss of sleep.
+Add to this condition that of worry, which often accompanies it from the
+fact of failure in lessons, and a naturally good and well-organized
+nervous system is sure to fail. Worry, from whatever cause, should be
+avoided as one would avoid poison, if we would bring ourselves to the
+highest degree of efficiency. Not only does worry temporarily unfit the
+mind for its best work, but its evil results are permanent, since the
+mind is left with a poorly developed or undone nervous system through
+which to work, even after the cause for worry has been removed and the
+worry itself has ceased.
+
+Not only should each individual seek to control the causes of worry in
+his own life, but the home and the school should force upon childhood as
+few causes for worry as may be. Children's worry over fears of the dark,
+over sickness and death, over prospective but delayed punishment, over
+the thousand and one real or imaginary troubles of childhood, should be
+eliminated so far as possible. School examinations that prey on the
+peace of mind, threats of failure of promotion, all nagging and sarcasm,
+and whatever else may cause continued pain or worry to sensitive minds
+should be barred from our schoolroom methods and practice. The price we
+force the child to pay for results through their use is too great for
+them to be tolerated. We must seek a better way.
+
+THE FACTORS IN GOOD NUTRITION.--For the best nutrition there is
+necessity first of all plenty of nourishing and healthful food. Science
+and experience have both disproved the supposition that students should
+be scantily fed. O'Shea claims that many brain workers are far short of
+their highest grade of efficiency because of starving their brains from
+poor diet. And not only must the food be of the right quality, but the
+body must be in good health. Little good to eat the best of food unless
+it is being properly digested and assimilated. And little good if all
+the rest is as it should be, and the right amount of oxidation does not
+go on in the brain so as to remove the worn-out cells and make place for
+new ones. This warns us that pure air and a strong circulation are
+indispensable to the best working of our brains. No doubt many students
+who find their work too hard for them might locate the trouble in their
+stomachs or their lungs or the food they eat, rather than in their
+minds.
+
+
+5. PROBLEMS FOR INTROSPECTION AND OBSERVATION
+
+1. Estimate the mental progress made by the child during the first five
+years and compare with that made during the second five years of its
+life. To do this make a list, so far as you are able, of the
+acquisitions of each period. What do you conclude as to the importance
+of play and freedom in early education? Why not continue this method
+instead of sending the child to school?
+
+2. Which has the better opportunity for sensory training, the city child
+or the country child? For social training? For motor development through
+play? It is said by specialists that country children are not as good
+players as city children. Why should this be the case?
+
+3. Observe carefully some group of children for evidences of lack of
+sensory training (Interest in sensory objects, skill in observation,
+etc.). For lack of motor training (Failure in motor control,
+awkwardness, lack of skill in play, etc.). Do you find that general
+mental ability seems to be correlated with sensory and motor ability, or
+not?
+
+4. What sensory training can be had from (1) geography, (2) agriculture,
+(3) arithmetic, (4) drawing? What lines of motor training ought the
+school to afford, (1) in general, (2) for the hand, (3) in the grace and
+poise of carriage or bearing, (4) in any other line? Make observation
+tests of these points in one or more school rooms and report the
+results.
+
+5. Describe what you think must be the type of mental life of Helen
+Keller. (Read "The World I Live In," by Helen Keller.)
+
+6. Study groups of children for signs of deficiency in brain power from
+lack of nutrition. From fatigue. From worry. From lack of sleep.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+HABIT
+
+
+Habit is our "best friend or worst enemy." We are "walking bundles of
+habits." Habit is the "fly-wheel of society," keeping men patient and
+docile in the hard or disagreeable lot which some must fill. Habit is a
+"cable which we cannot break." So say the wise men. Let me know your
+habits of life and you have revealed your moral standards and conduct.
+Let me discover your intellectual habits, and I understand your type of
+mind and methods of thought. In short, our lives are largely a daily
+round of activities dictated by our habits in this line or that. Most of
+our movements and acts are habitual; we think as we have formed the
+habit of thinking; we decide as we are in the habit of deciding; we
+sleep, or eat, or speak as we have grown into the habit of doing these
+things; we may even say our prayers or perform other religious exercises
+as matters of habit. But while habit is the veriest tyrant, yet its good
+offices far exceed the bad even in the most fruitless or depraved life.
+
+
+1. THE NATURE OF HABIT
+
+Many people when they speak or think of habit give the term a very
+narrow or limited meaning. They have in mind only certain moral or
+personal tendencies usually spoken of as one's "habits." But in order to
+understand habit in any thorough and complete way we must, as suggested
+by the preceding paragraph, broaden our concept to include every
+possible line of physical and mental activity. Habit may be defined as
+_the tendency of the nervous system to repeat any act that has been
+performed once or many times_.
+
+THE PHYSICAL BASIS OF HABIT.--Habit is to be explained from the
+standpoint of its physical basis. Habits are formed because the tissues
+of our brains are capable of being modified by use, and of so retaining
+the effects of this modification that the same act is easier of
+performance each succeeding time. This results in the old act being
+repeated instead of a new one being selected, and hence the old act is
+perpetuated.
+
+Even dead and inert matter obeys the same principles in this regard as
+does living matter. Says M. Leon Dumont: "Everyone knows how a garment,
+having been worn a certain time, clings to the shape of the body better
+than when it was new; there has been a change in the tissue, and this
+change is a new habit of cohesion; a lock works better after having been
+used some time; at the outset more force was required to overcome
+certain roughness in the mechanism. The overcoming of this resistance is
+a phenomenon of habituation. It costs less trouble to fold a paper when
+it has been folded already. This saving of trouble is due to the
+essential nature of habit, which brings it about that, to reproduce the
+effect, a less amount of the outward cause is required. The sounds of a
+violin improve by use in the hands of an able artist, because the fibers
+of the wood at last contract habits of vibration conformed to harmonic
+relations. This is what gives such inestimable value to instruments that
+have belonged to great masters. Water, in flowing, hollows out for
+itself a channel, which grows broader and deeper; and, after having
+ceased to flow, it resumes when it flows again the path traced for
+itself before. Just so, the impressions of outer objects fashion for
+themselves in the nervous system more and more appropriate paths, and
+these vital phenomena recur under similar excitements from without, when
+they have been interrupted for a certain time."[2]
+
+ALL LIVING TISSUE PLASTIC.--What is true of inanimate matter is doubly
+true of living tissue. The tissues of the human body can be molded into
+almost any form you choose if taken in time. A child may be placed on
+his feet at too early an age, and the bones of his legs form the habit
+of remaining bent. The Flathead Indian binds a board on the skull of his
+child, and its head forms the habit of remaining flat on the top. Wrong
+bodily postures produce curvature of the spine, and pernicious modes of
+dress deform the bones of the chest. The muscles may be trained into the
+habit of keeping the shoulders straight or letting them droop; those of
+the back, to keep the body well up on the hips, or to let it sag; those
+of locomotion, to give us a light, springy step, or to allow a shuffling
+carriage; those of speech, to give us a clear-cut, accurate
+articulation, or a careless, halting one; and those of the face, to give
+us a cheerful cast of countenance, or a glum and morose expression.
+
+HABIT A MODIFICATION OF BRAIN TISSUE.--But the nervous tissue is the
+most sensitive and easily molded of all bodily tissues. In fact, it is
+probable that the real _habit_ of our characteristic walk, gesture, or
+speech resides in the brain, rather than in the muscles which it
+controls. So delicate is the organization of the brain structure and so
+unstable its molecules, that even the perfume of the flower, which
+assails the nose of a child, the song of a bird, which strikes his ear,
+or the fleeting dream, which lingers but for a second in his sleep, has
+so modified his brain that it will never again be as if these things had
+not been experienced. Every sensory current which runs in from the
+outside world; every motor current which runs out to command a muscle;
+every thought that we think, has so modified the nerve structure through
+which it acts, that a tendency remains for a like act to be repeated.
+Our brain and nervous system is daily being molded into fixed habits of
+acting by our thoughts and deeds, and thus becomes the automatic
+register of all we do.
+
+The old Chinese fairy story hits upon a fundamental and vital truth.
+These celestials tell their children that each child is accompanied by
+day and by night, every moment of his life, by an invisible fairy, who
+is provided with a pencil and tablet. It is the duty of this fairy to
+put down every deed of the child, both good and evil, in an indelible
+record which will one day rise as a witness against him. So it is in
+very truth with our brains. The wrong act may have been performed in
+secret, no living being may ever know that we performed it, and a
+merciful Providence may forgive it; but the inexorable monitor of our
+deeds was all the time beside us writing the record, and the history of
+that act is inscribed forever in the tissues of our brain. It may be
+repented of bitterly in sackcloth and ashes and be discontinued, but its
+effects can never be quite effaced; they will remain with us a handicap
+till our dying day, and in some critical moment in a great emergency we
+shall be in danger of defeat from that long past and forgotten act.
+
+WE MUST FORM HABITS.--We _must_, then, form habits. It is not at all in
+our power to say whether we will form habits or not; for, once started,
+they go on forming themselves by day and night, steadily and
+relentlessly. Habit is, therefore, one of the great factors to be
+reckoned with in our lives, and the question becomes not, Shall we form
+habits? but _What habits we shall form._ And we have the determining of
+this question largely in our own power, for habits do not just happen,
+nor do they come to us ready made. We ourselves make them from day to
+day through the acts we perform, and in so far as we have control over
+our acts, in that far we can determine our habits.
+
+
+2. THE PLACE OF HABIT IN THE ECONOMY OF OUR LIVES
+
+Habit is one of nature's methods of economizing time and effort, while
+at the same time securing greater skill and efficiency. This is easily
+seen when it is remembered that habit tends towards _automatic_ action;
+that is, towards action governed by the lower nerve centers and taking
+care of itself, so to speak, without the interference of consciousness.
+Everyone has observed how much easier in the performance and more
+skillful in its execution is the act, be it playing a piano, painting a
+picture, or driving a nail, when the movements involved have ceased to
+be consciously directed and become automatic.
+
+HABIT INCREASES SKILL AND EFFICIENCY.--Practically all increase in
+skill, whether physical or mental, depends on our ability to form
+habits. Habit holds fast to the skill already attained while practice or
+intelligence makes ready for the next step in advance. Could we not form
+habits we should improve but little in our way of doing things, no
+matter how many times we did them over. We should now be obliged to go
+through the same bungling process of dressing ourselves as when we
+first learned it as children. Our writing would proceed as awkwardly in
+the high school as the primary, our eating as adults would be as messy
+and wide of the mark as when we were infants, and we should miss in a
+thousand ways the motor skill that now seems so easy and natural. All
+highly skilled occupations, and those demanding great manual dexterity,
+likewise depend on our habit-forming power for the accurate and
+automatic movements required.
+
+So with mental skill. A great portion of the fundamentals of our
+education must be made automatic--must become matters of habit. We set
+out to learn the symbols of speech. We hear words and see them on the
+printed page; associated with these words are meanings, or ideas. Habit
+binds the word and the idea together, so that to think of the one is to
+call up the other--and language is learned. We must learn numbers, so we
+practice the "combinations," and with 4x6, or 3x8 we associate 24. Habit
+secures this association in our minds, and lo! we soon know our
+"tables." And so on throughout the whole range of our learning. We learn
+certain symbols, or facts, or processes, and habit takes hold and
+renders these automatic so that we can use them freely, easily, and with
+skill, leaving our thought free for matters that cannot be made
+automatic. One of our greatest dangers is that we shall not make
+sufficiently automatic, enough of the necessary foundation material of
+education. Failing in this, we shall at best be but blunderers
+intellectually, handicapped because we failed to make proper use of
+habit in our development.
+
+For, as we have seen in an earlier chapter, there is a limit to our
+mental energy and also to the number of objects to which we are able to
+attend. It is only when attention has been freed from the many things
+that can always be thought or done _in the same way_, that the mind can
+devote itself to the real problems that require judgment, imagination or
+reasoning. The writer whose spelling and punctuation do not take care of
+themselves will hardly make a success of writing. The mathematician
+whose number combinations, processes and formulae are not automatic in
+his mind can never hope to make progress in mathematical thinking. The
+speaker who, while speaking, has to think of his gestures, his voice or
+his enunciation will never sway audiences by his logic or his eloquence.
+
+HABIT SAVES EFFORT AND FATIGUE.--We do most easily and with least
+fatigue that which we are accustomed to do. It is the new act or the
+strange task that tires us. The horse that is used to the farm wearies
+if put on the road, while the roadster tires easily when hitched to the
+plow. The experienced penman works all day at his desk without undue
+fatigue, while the man more accustomed to the pick and the shovel than
+to the pen, is exhausted by a half hour's writing at a letter. Those who
+follow a sedentary and inactive occupation do not tire by much sitting,
+while children or others used to freedom and action may find it a
+wearisome task merely to remain still for an hour or two.
+
+Not only would the skill and speed demanded by modern industry be
+impossible without the aid of habit, but without its help none could
+stand the fatigue and strain. The new workman placed at a high-speed
+machine is ready to fall from weariness at the end of his first day. But
+little by little he learns to omit the unnecessary movements, the
+necessary movements become easier and more automatic through habit, and
+he finds the work easier. We may conclude, then, that not only do
+consciously directed movements show less skill than the same movements
+made automatic by habit, but they also require more effort and produce
+greater fatigue.
+
+HABIT ECONOMIZES MORAL EFFORT.--To have to decide each time the question
+comes up whether we will attend to this lecture or sermon or lesson;
+whether we will persevere and go through this piece of disagreeable work
+which we have begun; whether we will go to the trouble of being
+courteous and kind to this or that poor or unlovely or dirty
+fellow-mortal; whether we will take this road because it looks easy, or
+that one because we know it to be the one we ought to take; whether we
+will be strictly fair and honest when we might just as well be the
+opposite; whether we will resist the temptation which dares us; whether
+we will do this duty, hard though it is, which confronts us--to have to
+decide each of these questions every time it presents itself is to put
+too large a proportion of our thought and energy on things which should
+take care of themselves. For all these things should early become so
+nearly habitual that they can be settled with the very minimum of
+expenditure of energy when they arise.
+
+THE HABIT OF ATTENTION.--It is a noble thing to be able to attend by
+sheer force of will when the interest lags, or some more attractive
+thing appears, but far better is it so to have formed the habit of
+attention that we naturally fall into that attitude when this is the
+desirable thing. To understand what I mean, you only have to look over a
+class or an audience and note the different ways which people have of
+finally settling down to listening. Some with an attitude which says,
+"Now here I am, ready to listen to you if you will interest me,
+otherwise not." Others with a manner which says, "I did not really come
+here expecting to listen, and you will have a large task if you
+interest me; I never listen unless I am compelled to, and the
+responsibility rests on you." Others plainly say, "I really mean to
+listen, but I have hard work to control my thoughts, and if I wander I
+shall not blame you altogether; it is just my way." And still others
+say, "When I am expected to listen, I always listen whether there is
+anything much to listen to or not. I have formed that habit, and so have
+no quarrel with myself about it. You can depend on me to be attentive,
+for I cannot afford to weaken my habit of attention whether you do well
+or not." Every speaker will clasp these last listeners to his heart and
+feed them on the choicest thoughts of his soul; they are the ones to
+whom he speaks and to whom his address will appeal.
+
+HABIT ENABLES US TO MEET THE DISAGREEABLE.--To be able to persevere in
+the face of difficulties and hardships and carry through the
+disagreeable thing in spite of the protests of our natures against the
+sacrifice which it requires, is a creditable thing; but it is more
+creditable to have so formed the habit of perseverance that the
+disagreeable duty shall be done without a struggle, or protest, or
+question. Horace Mann testifies of himself that whatever success he was
+able to attain was made possible through the early habit which he formed
+of never stopping to inquire whether he _liked_ to do a thing which
+needed doing, but of doing everything equally well and without question,
+both the pleasant and the unpleasant.
+
+The youth who can fight out a moral battle and win against the
+allurements of some attractive temptation is worthy the highest honor
+and praise; but so long as he has to fight the same battle over and over
+again, he is on dangerous ground morally. For good morals must finally
+become habits, so ingrained in us that the right decision comes largely
+without effort and without struggle. Otherwise the strain is too great,
+and defeat will occasionally come; and defeat means weakness and at last
+disaster, after the spirit has tired of the constant conflict. And so on
+in a hundred lines. Good habits are more to be coveted than individual
+victories in special cases, much as these are to be desired. For good
+habits mean victories all along the line.
+
+HABIT THE FOUNDATION OF PERSONALITY.--The biologist tells us that it is
+the _constant_ and not the _occasional_ in the environment that
+impresses itself on an organism. So also it is the _habitual_ in our
+lives that builds itself into our character and personality. In a very
+real sense we _are_ what we are in the habit of doing and thinking.
+
+Without habit, personality could not exist; for we could never do a
+thing twice alike, and hence would be a new person each succeeding
+moment. The acts which give us our own peculiar individuality are our
+habitual acts--the little things that do themselves moment by moment
+without care or attention, and are the truest and best expression of our
+real selves. Probably no one of us could be very sure which arm he puts
+into the sleeve, or which foot he puts into the shoe, first; and yet
+each of us certainly formed the habit long ago of doing these things in
+a certain way. We might not be able to describe just how we hold knife
+and fork and spoon, and yet each has his own characteristic and habitual
+way of handling them. We sit down and get up in some characteristic way,
+and the very poise of our heads and attitudes of our bodies are the
+result of habit. We get sleepy and wake up, become hungry and thirsty at
+certain hours, through force of habit. We form the habit of liking a
+certain chair, or nook, or corner, or path, or desk, and then seek this
+to the exclusion of all others. We habitually use a particular pitch of
+voice and type of enunciation in speaking, and this becomes one of our
+characteristic marks; or we form the habit of using barbarisms or
+solecisms of language in youth, and these cling to us and become an
+inseparable part of us later in life.
+
+On the mental side the case is no different. Our thinking is as
+characteristic as our physical acts. We may form the habit of thinking
+things out logically, or of jumping to conclusions; of thinking
+critically and independently, or of taking things unquestioningly on the
+authority of others. We may form the habit of carefully reading good,
+sensible books, or of skimming sentimental and trashy ones; of choosing
+elevating, ennobling companions, or the opposite; of being a good
+conversationalist and doing our part in a social group, or of being a
+drag on the conversation, and needing to be "entertained." We may form
+the habit of observing the things about us and enjoying the beautiful in
+our environment, or of failing to observe or to enjoy. We may form the
+habit of obeying the voice of conscience or of weakly yielding to
+temptation without a struggle; of taking a reverent attitude of prayer
+in our devotions, or of merely saying our prayers.
+
+HABIT SAVES WORRY AND REBELLION.--Habit has been called the "balance
+wheel" of society. This is because men readily become habituated to the
+hard, the disagreeable, or the inevitable, and cease to battle against
+it. A lot that at first seems unendurable after a time causes less
+revolt. A sorrow that seems too poignant to be borne in the course of
+time loses some of its sharpness. Oppression or injustice that arouses
+the fiercest resentment and hate may finally come to be accepted with
+resignation. Habit helps us learn that "what cannot be cured must be
+endured."
+
+
+3. THE TYRANNY OF HABIT
+
+EVEN GOOD HABITS NEED TO BE MODIFIED.--But even in good habits there is
+danger. Habit is the opposite of attention. Habit relieves attention of
+unnecessary strain. Every habitual act was at one time, either in the
+history of the race or of the individual, a voluntary act; that is, it
+was performed under active attention. As the habit grew, attention was
+gradually rendered unnecessary, until finally it dropped entirely out.
+And herein lies the danger. Habit once formed has no way of being
+modified unless in some way attention is called to it, for a habit left
+to itself becomes more and more firmly fixed. The rut grows deeper. In
+very few, if any, of our actions can we afford to have this the case.
+Our habits need to be progressive, they need to grow, to be modified, to
+be improved. Otherwise they will become an incrusting shell, fixed and
+unyielding, which will limit our growth.
+
+It is necessary, then, to keep our habitual acts under some surveillance
+of attention, to pass them in review for inspection every now and then,
+that we may discover possible modifications which will make them more
+serviceable. We need to be inventive, constantly to find out better ways
+of doing things. Habit takes care of our standing, walking, sitting; but
+how many of us could not improve his poise and carriage if he would? Our
+speech has become largely automatic, but no doubt all of us might remove
+faults of enunciation, pronunciation or stress from our speaking. So
+also we might better our habits of study and thinking, our methods of
+memorizing, or our manner of attending.
+
+THE TENDENCY OF "RUTS."--But this will require something of heroism. For
+to follow the well-beaten path of custom is easy and pleasant, while to
+break out of the rut of habit and start a new line of action is
+difficult and disturbing. Most people prefer to keep doing things as
+they always have done them, to continue reading and thinking and
+believing as they have long been in the habit of doing, not so much
+because they feel that their way is best, but because it is easier than
+to change. Hence the great mass of us settle down on the plane of
+mediocrity, and become "old fogy." We learn to do things passably well,
+cease to think about improving our ways of doing them, and so fall into
+a rut. Only the few go on. They make use of habit as the rest do, but
+they also continue to attend at critical points of action, and so make
+habit an _ally_ in place of accepting it as a _tyrant_.
+
+
+4. HABIT-FORMING A PART OF EDUCATION
+
+It follows from the importance of habit in our lives that no small part
+of education should be concerned with the development of serviceable
+habits. Says James, "Could the young but realize how soon they will
+become mere walking bundles of habits, they would give more heed to
+their conduct while in the plastic state. We are spinning our own fates,
+good or evil, and never to be undone. Every smallest stroke of virtue or
+of vice leaves its never-so-little scar." Any youth who is forming a
+large number of useful habits is receiving no mean education, no matter
+if his knowledge of books may be limited; on the other hand, no one who
+is forming a large number of bad habits is being well educated, no
+matter how brilliant his knowledge may be.
+
+YOUTH THE TIME FOR HABIT-FORMING.--Childhood and youth is the great time
+for habit-forming. Then the brain is plastic and easily molded, and it
+retains its impressions more indelibly; later it is hard to modify, and
+the impressions made are less permanent. It is hard to teach an old dog
+new tricks; nor would he remember them if you could teach them to him,
+nor be able to perform them well even if he could remember them. The
+young child will, within the first few weeks of its life, form habits of
+sleeping and feeding. It may in a few days be led into the habit of
+sleeping in the dark, or requiring a light; of going to sleep lying
+quietly, or of insisting upon being rocked; of getting hungry by the
+clock, or of wanting its food at all times when it finds nothing else to
+do, and so on. It is wholly outside the power of the mother or the nurse
+to determine whether the child shall form habits, but largely within
+their power to say what habits shall be formed, since they control his
+acts.
+
+As the child grows older, the range of his habits increases; and by the
+time he has reached his middle teens, the greater number of his personal
+habits are formed. It is very doubtful whether a boy who has not formed
+habits of punctuality before the age of fifteen will ever be entirely
+trustworthy in matters requiring precision in this line. The girl who
+has not, before this age, formed habits of neatness and order will
+hardly make a tidy housekeeper later in her life. Those who in youth
+have no opportunity to habituate themselves to the usages of society may
+study books on etiquette and employ private instructors in the art of
+polite behavior all they please later in life, but they will never cease
+to be awkward and ill at ease. None are at a greater disadvantage than
+the suddenly-grown-rich who attempt late in life to surround themselves
+with articles of art and luxury, though their habits were all formed
+amid barrenness and want during their earlier years.
+
+THE HABIT OF ACHIEVEMENT.--What youth does not dream of being great, or
+noble, or a celebrated scholar! And how few there are who finally
+achieve their ideals! Where does the cause of failure lie? Surely not in
+the lack of high ideals. Multitudes of young people have "Excelsior!" as
+their motto, and yet never get started up the mountain slope, let alone
+toiling on to its top. They have put in hours dreaming of the glory
+farther up, _and have never begun to climb_. The difficulty comes in not
+realizing that the only way to become what we wish or dream that we may
+become is _to form the habit of being that thing_. To form the habit of
+achievement, of effort, of self-sacrifice, if need be. To form the habit
+of deeds along with dreams; to form the habit of _doing_.
+
+Who of us has not at this moment lying in wait for his convenience in
+the dim future a number of things which he means to do just as soon as
+this term of school is finished, or this job of work is completed, or
+when he is not so busy as now? And how seldom does he ever get at these
+things at all! Darwin tells that in his youth he loved poetry, art, and
+music, but was so busy with his scientific work that he could ill spare
+the time to indulge these tastes. So he promised himself that he would
+devote his time to scientific work and make his mark in this. Then he
+would have time for the things that he loved, and would cultivate his
+taste for the fine arts. He made his mark in the field of science, and
+then turned again to poetry, to music, to art. But alas! they were all
+dead and dry bones to him, without life or interest. He had passed the
+time when he could ever form the taste for them. He had formed his
+habits in another direction, and now it was forever too late to form new
+habits. His own conclusion is, that if he had his life to live over
+again, he would each week listen to some musical concert and visit some
+art gallery, and that each day he would read some poetry, and thereby
+keep alive and active the love for them.
+
+So every school and home should be a species of habit-factory--a place
+where children develop habits of neatness, punctuality, obedience,
+politeness, dependability and the other graces of character.
+
+
+5. RULES FOR HABIT-FORMING
+
+JAMES'S THREE MAXIMS FOR HABIT-FORMING.--On the forming of new habits
+and the leaving off of old ones, I know of no better statement than that
+of James, based on Bain's chapter on "Moral Habits." I quote this
+statement at some length: "In the acquisition of a new habit, or the
+leaving off of an old one, we must take care to _launch ourselves with
+as strong and decided an initiative as possible_. Accumulate all the
+possible circumstances which shall reenforce right motives; put yourself
+assiduously in conditions that encourage the new way; make engagements
+incompatible with the old; take a public pledge, if the case allows; in
+short, develop your resolution with every aid you know. This will give
+your new beginning such a momentum that the temptation to break down
+will not occur as soon as it otherwise might; and every day during which
+a breakdown is postponed adds to the chances of its not occurring at
+all.
+
+"The second maxim is: _Never suffer an exception to occur until the new
+habit is securely rooted in your life._ Each lapse is like letting fall
+a ball of string which one is carefully winding up; a single slip undoes
+more than a great many turns will wind again. _Continuity_ of training
+is the great means of making the nervous system act infallibly right....
+The need of securing success nerves one to future vigor.
+
+"A third maxim may be added to the preceding pair: _Seize the very first
+possible opportunity to act on every resolution you make, and on every
+emotional prompting you may experience in the direction of the habits
+you aspire to gain._ It is not in the moment of their forming, but in
+the moment of their producing _motor effects_, that resolves and
+aspirations communicate the new 'set' to the brain."[3]
+
+THE PREPONDERANCE OF GOOD HABITS OVER BAD.--And finally, let no one be
+disturbed or afraid because in a little time you become a "walking
+bundle of habits." For in so far as your good actions predominate over
+your bad ones, that much will your good habits outweigh your bad habits.
+Silently, moment by moment, efficiency is growing out of all worthy acts
+well done. Every bit of heroic self-sacrifice, every battle fought and
+won, every good deed performed, is being irradicably credited to you in
+your nervous system, and will finally add its mite toward achieving the
+success of your ambitions.
+
+
+6. PROBLEMS IN OBSERVATION AND INTROSPECTION
+
+1. Select some act which you have recently begun to perform and watch it
+grow more and more habitual. Notice carefully for a week and see whether
+you do not discover some habits which you did not know you had. Make a
+catalog of your bad habits; of the most important of your good ones.
+
+2. Set out to form some new habits which you desire to possess; also to
+break some undesirable habit, watching carefully what takes place in
+both cases, and how long it requires.
+
+3. Try the following experiment and relate the results to the matter of
+automatic control brought about by habit: Draw a star on a sheet of
+cardboard. Place this on a table before you, with a hand-mirror so
+arranged that you can see the star in the mirror. Now trace the outline
+of the star with a pencil, looking steadily in the mirror to guide your
+hand. Do not lift the pencil from the paper from the time you start
+until you finish. Have others try this experiment.
+
+4. Study some group of pupils for their habits (1) of attention, (2) of
+speech, (3) of standing, sitting, and walking, (4) of study. Report on
+your observations and suggest methods of curing bad habits observed.
+
+5. Make a list of "mannerisms" you have observed, and suggest how they
+may be cured.
+
+6. Make a list of from ten to twenty habits which you think the school
+and its work should especially cultivate. What ones of these are the
+schools you know least successful in cultivating? Where does the trouble
+lie?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+SENSATION
+
+
+We can best understand the problems of sensation and perception if we
+first think of the existence of two great worlds--the world of physical
+nature without and the world of mind within. On the one hand is our
+material environment, the things we see and hear and touch and taste and
+handle; and on the other hand our consciousness, the means by which we
+come to know this outer world and adjust ourselves to it. These two
+worlds seem in a sense to belong to and require each other. For what
+would be the meaning or use of the physical world with no mind to know
+or use it; and what would be the use of a mind with nothing to be known
+or thought about?
+
+
+1. HOW WE COME TO KNOW THE EXTERNAL WORLD
+
+There is a marvel about our coming to know the external world which we
+shall never be able fully to understand. We have come by this knowledge
+so gradually and unconsciously that it now appears to us as commonplace,
+and we take for granted many things that it would puzzle us to explain.
+
+KNOWLEDGE THROUGH THE SENSES.--For example, we say, "Of course I see
+yonder green tree: it is about ten rods distant." But why "of course"?
+Why should objects at a distance from us and with no evident connection
+between us and them be known to us at all merely by turning our eyes in
+their direction when there is light? Why not rather say with the blind
+son of Professor Puiseaux of Paris, who, when asked if he would like to
+be restored to sight, answered: "If it were not for curiosity I would
+rather have long arms. It seems to me that my hands would teach me
+better what is passing in the moon than your eyes or telescopes."
+
+We listen and then say, "Yes, that is a certain bell ringing in the
+neighboring village," as if this were the most simple thing in the
+world. But why should one piece of metal striking against another a mile
+or two away make us aware that there is a bell there at all, let alone
+that it is a certain bell whose tone we recognize? Or we pass our
+fingers over a piece of cloth and decide, "That is silk." But why,
+merely by placing our skin in contact with a bit of material, should we
+be able to know its quality, much less that it is cloth and that its
+threads were originally spun by an insect? Or we take a sip of liquid
+and say, "This milk is sour." But why should we be able by taking the
+liquid into the mouth and bringing it into contact with the mucous
+membrane to tell that it is milk, and that it possesses the quality
+which we call _sour_? Or, once more, we get a whiff of air through the
+open window in the springtime and say, "There is a lilac bush in bloom
+on the lawn." Yet why, from inhaling air containing particles of lilac,
+should we be able to know that there is anything outside, much less that
+it is a flower and of a particular variety which we call lilac? Or,
+finally, we hold a heated flatiron up near the cheek and say, "This is
+too hot! it will burn the cloth." But why by holding this object a foot
+away from the face do we know that it is there, let alone knowing its
+temperature?
+
+THE UNITY OF SENSORY EXPERIENCE.--Further, our senses come through
+experience to have the power of fusing, or combining their knowledge, so
+to speak, by which each expresses its knowledge in terms of the others.
+Thus we take a glance out of the window and say that the day looks cold,
+although we well know that we cannot see _cold_. Or we say that the
+melon sounds green, or the bell sounds cracked, although a _crack_ or
+_greenness_ cannot be heard. Or we say that the box feels empty,
+although _emptiness_ cannot be felt. We have come to associate cold,
+originally experienced with days which look like the one we now see,
+with this particular appearance, and so we say we see the cold; sounds
+like the one coming from the bell we have come to associate with cracked
+bells, and that coming from the melon with green melons, until we say
+unhesitatingly that the bell sounds cracked and the melon sounds green.
+And so with the various senses. Each gleans from the world its own
+particular bit of knowledge, but all are finally in a partnership and
+what is each one's knowledge belongs to every other one in so far as the
+other can use it.
+
+THE SENSORY PROCESSES TO BE EXPLAINED.--The explanation of the ultimate
+nature of knowledge, and how we reach it through contact with our
+material environment, we will leave to the philosophers. And battles
+enough they have over the question, and still others they will have
+before the matter is settled. The easier and more important problem for
+us is to describe the _processes_ by which the mind comes to know its
+environment, and to see how it uses this knowledge in thinking. This
+much we shall be able to do, for it is often possible to describe a
+process and discover its laws even when we cannot fully explain its
+nature and origin. We know the process of digestion and assimilation,
+and the laws which govern them, although we do not understand the
+ultimate nature and origin of _life_ which makes these possible.
+
+THE QUALITIES OF OBJECTS EXIST IN THE MIND.--Yet even in the relatively
+simple description which we have proposed many puzzles confront us, and
+one of them appears at the very outset. This is that the qualities which
+we usually ascribe to objects really exist in our own minds and not in
+the objects at all. Take, for instance, the common qualities of light
+and color. The physicist tells us that what we see as light is
+occasioned by an incredibly rapid beating of ether waves on the retina
+of the eye. All space is filled with this ether; and when it is
+light--that is, when some object like the sun or other light-giving body
+is present--the ether is set in motion by the vibrating molecules of the
+body which is the source of light, its waves strike the retina, a
+current is produced and carried to the brain, and we see light. This
+means, then, that space, the medium in which we see objects, is not
+filled with light (the sensation), but with very rapid waves of ether,
+and that the light which we see really occurs in our own minds as the
+mental response to the physical stimulus of ether waves. Likewise with
+color. Color is produced by ether waves of different lengths and degrees
+of rapidity.
+
+Thus ether waves at the rate of 450 billions a second give us the
+sensation of red; of 472 billions a second, orange; of 526 billions a
+second, yellow; of 589 billions a second, green; of 640 billions a
+second, blue; of 722 billions a second, indigo; of 790 billions a
+second, violet. What exists outside of us, then, is these ether waves of
+different rates, and not the colors (as sensations) themselves. The
+beautiful yellow and crimson of a sunset, the variegated colors of a
+landscape, the delicate pink in the cheek of a child, the blush of a
+rose, the shimmering green of the lake--these reside not in the objects
+themselves, but in the consciousness of the one who sees them. The
+objects possess but the quality of reflecting back to the eye ether
+waves of the particular rate corresponding to the color which we ascribe
+to them. Thus "red" objects, and no others, reflect back ether waves of
+a rate of 450 billions a second: "white" objects reflect all rates;
+"black" objects reflect none.
+
+The case is no different with regard to sound. When we speak of a sound
+coming from a bell, what we really mean is that the vibrations of the
+bell have set up waves in the air between it and our ear, which have
+produced corresponding vibrations in the ear; that a nerve current was
+thereby produced; and that a sound was heard. But the sound (i.e.,
+sensation) is a mental thing, and exists only in our own consciousness.
+What passed between the sounding object and ourselves was waves in the
+intervening air, ready to be translated through the machinery of nerves
+and brain into the beautiful tones and melodies and harmonies of the
+mind. And so with all other sensations.
+
+THE THREE SETS OF FACTORS.--What exists outside of us therefore is a
+_stimulus_, some form of physical energy, of a kind suitable to excite
+to activity a certain end-organ of taste, or touch, or smell, or sight,
+or hearing; what exists within us is the _nervous machinery_ capable of
+converting this stimulus into a nerve current which shall produce an
+activity in the cortex of the brain; what results is the _mental object_
+which we call a _sensation_ of taste, smell, touch, sight, or hearing.
+
+
+2. THE NATURE OF SENSATION
+
+SENSATION GIVES US OUR WORLD OF QUALITIES.--In actual experience
+sensations are never known apart from the objects to which they belong.
+This is to say that when we see _yellow_ or _red_ it is always in
+connection with some surface, or object; when we taste _sour_, this
+quality belongs to some substance, and so on with all the senses. Yet by
+sensation we mean only _the simple qualities of objects known in
+consciousness as the result of appropriate stimuli applied to
+end-organs_. We shall later see how by perception these qualities fuse
+or combine to form objects, but in the present chapter we shall be
+concerned with the qualities only. Sensations are, then, the simplest
+and most elementary knowledge we may get from the physical world,--the
+red, the blue, the bitter, the cold, the fragrant, and whatever other
+qualities may belong to the external world. We shall not for the present
+be concerned with the objects or sources from which the qualities may
+come.
+
+To quote James on the meaning of sensation: "All we can say on this
+point is that _what we mean by sensations are first things in the way of
+consciousness_. They are the _immediate_ results upon consciousness of
+nerve currents as they enter the brain, and before they have awakened
+any suggestions or associations with past experience. But it is obvious
+that _such immediate sensations can be realized only in the earliest
+days of life_."
+
+THE ATTRIBUTES OF SENSATION.--Sensations differ from each other in at
+least four respects; namely, _quality_, _intensity_, _extensity_, and
+_duration_.
+
+It is a difference in _quality_ that makes us say, "This paper is red,
+and that, blue; this liquid is sweet, and that, sour." Differences in
+quality are therefore fundamental differences in _kind_. Besides the
+quality-differences that exist within the same general field, as of
+taste or vision, it is evident that there is a still more fundamental
+difference existing between the various fields. One can, for example,
+compare red with blue or sweet with sour, and tell which quality he
+prefers. But let him try to compare red with sweet, or blue with sour,
+and the quality-difference is so profound that there seems to be no
+basis for comparison.
+
+Differences in _intensity_ of sensation are familiar to every person who
+prefers two lumps of sugar rather than one lump in his coffee; the sweet
+is of the same quality in either case, but differs in intensity. In
+every field of sensation, the intensity may proceed from the smallest
+amount to the greatest amount discernible. In general, the intensity of
+the sensation depends on the intensity of the stimulus, though the
+condition of the sense-organ as regards fatigue or adaptation to the
+stimulus has its effect. It is obvious that a stimulus may be too weak
+to produce any sensation; as, for example, a few grains of sugar in a
+cup of coffee or a few drops of lemon in a quart of water could not be
+detected. It is also true that the intensity of the stimulus may be so
+great that an increase in intensity produces no effect on the sensation;
+as, for example, the addition of sugar to a solution of saccharine would
+not noticeably increase its sweetness. The lowest and highest intensity
+points of sensation are called the lower and upper _limen_, or
+threshold, respectively.
+
+By _extensity_ is meant the space-differences of sensations. The touch
+of the point of a toothpick on the skin has a different space quality
+from the touch of the flat end of a pencil. Low tones seem to have more
+volume than high tones. Some pains feel sharp and others dull and
+diffuse. The warmth felt from spreading the palms of the hands out to
+the fire has a "bigness" not felt from heating one solitary finger. The
+extensity of a sensation depends on the number of nerve endings
+stimulated.
+
+The _duration_ of a sensation refers to the time it lasts. This must not
+be confused with the duration of the stimulus, which may be either
+longer or shorter than the duration of the sensation. Every sensation
+must exist for some space of time, long or short, or it would have no
+part in consciousness.
+
+
+3. SENSORY QUALITIES AND THEIR END-ORGANS
+
+All are familiar with the "five senses" of our elementary physiologies,
+sight, hearing, taste, smell, and touch. A more complete study of
+sensation reveals nearly three times this number, however. This is to
+say that the body is equipped with more than a dozen different kinds of
+end-organs, each prepared to receive its own particular type of
+stimulus. It must also be understood that some of the end-organs yield
+more than one sense. The eye, for example, gives not only visual but
+muscular sensations; the ear not only auditory, but tactual; the tongue
+not only gustatory, but tactual and cold and warmth sensations.
+
+SIGHT.--Vision is a _distance_ sense; we can see afar off. The stimulus
+is _chemical_ in its action; this means that the ether waves, on
+striking the retina, cause a chemical change which sets up the nerve
+current responsible for the sensation.
+
+The eye, whose general structure is sufficiently described in all
+standard physiologies, consists of a visual apparatus designed to bring
+the images of objects to a clear focus on the retina at the _fovea_, or
+area of clearest vision, near the point of entrance of the optic nerve.
+
+The sensation of sight coming from this retinal image unaided by other
+sensations gives us but two qualities, _light and color_. The eye can
+distinguish many different grades of light from purest white on through
+the various grays to densest black. The range is greater still in color.
+We speak of the seven colors of the spectrum, violet, indigo, blue,
+green, yellow, orange, and red. But this is not a very serviceable
+classification, since the average eye can distinguish about 35,000 color
+effects. It is also somewhat bewildering to find that all these colors
+seem to be produced from the four fundamental hues, red, green, yellow,
+and blue, plus the various tints. These four, combined in varying
+proportions and with different degrees of light (i.e., different shades
+of gray), yield all the color effects known to the human eye. Herschel
+estimates that the workers on the mosaics at Rome must have
+distinguished 30,000 different color tones. The _hue_ of a color refers
+to its fundamental quality, as red or yellow; the _chroma_, to its
+saturation, or the strength of the color; and the _tint,_ to the amount
+of brightness (i.e., white) it contains.
+
+HEARING.--Hearing is also a distance sense. The action of its stimulus
+is mechanical, which is to say that the vibrations produced in the air
+by the sounding body are finally transmitted by the mechanism of the
+middle ear to the inner ear. Here the impulse is conveyed through the
+liquid of the internal ear to the nerve endings as so many tiny blows,
+which produce the nerve current carried to the brain by the auditory
+nerve.
+
+The sensation of hearing, like that of sight, gives us two qualities:
+namely, _tones_ with their accompanying pitch and timbre, and _noises_.
+Tones, or musical sounds, are produced by isochronous or equal-timed
+vibrations; thus _C_ of the first octave is produced by 256 vibrations a
+second, and if this tone is prolonged the vibration rate will continue
+uniformly the same. Noises, on the other hand, are produced by
+vibrations which have no uniformity of vibration rate. The ear's
+sensibility to pitch extends over about seven octaves. The seven-octave
+piano goes down to 27-1/2 vibrations and reaches up to 3,500 vibrations.
+Notes of nearly 50,000 vibrations can be heard by an average ear,
+however, though these are too painfully shrill to be musical. Taking
+into account this upper limit, the range of the ear is about eleven
+octaves. The ear, having given us _loudness_ of tones, which depends on
+the amplitude of the vibrations, _pitch_, which depends on the rapidity
+of the vibrations, and _timbre_, or _quality_, which depends on the
+complexity of the vibrations, has no further qualities of sound to
+reveal.
+
+TASTE.--The sense of taste is located chiefly in the tongue, over the
+surface of which are scattered many minute _taste-bulbs_. These can be
+seen as small red specks, most plentifully distributed along the edges
+and at the tip of the tongue. The substance tasted must be in
+_solution_, and come in contact with the nerve endings. The action of
+the stimulus is _chemical_.
+
+The sense of taste recognizes the four qualities of _sour_, _sweet_,
+_salt_, and _bitter_. Many of the qualities which we improperly call
+tastes are in reality a complex of taste, smell, touch, and temperature.
+Smell contributes so largely to the sense of taste that many articles of
+food become "tasteless" when we have a catarrh, and many nauseating
+doses of medicine can be taken without discomfort if the nose is held.
+Probably none of us, if we are careful to exclude all odors by plugging
+the nostrils with cotton, can by taste distinguish between scraped
+apple, potato, turnip, or beet, or can tell hot milk from tea or coffee
+of the same temperature.
+
+SMELL.--In the upper part of the nasal cavity lies a small brownish
+patch of mucous membrane. It is here that the olfactory nerve endings
+are located. The substance smelled must be volatile, that is, must exist
+in gaseous form, and come in direct contact with the nerve endings.
+Chemical action results in a nerve current.
+
+The sensations of smell have not been classified so well as those of
+taste, and we have no distinct names for them. Neither do we know how
+many olfactory qualities the sense of smell is capable of revealing. The
+only definite classification of smell qualities is that based on their
+pleasantness or the opposite. We also borrow a few terms and speak of
+_sweet_ or _fragrant_ odors and _fresh_ or _close_ smells. There is some
+evidence when we observe animals, or even primitive men, that the human
+race has been evolving greater sensibility to certain odors, while at
+the same time there has been a loss of keenness of what we call scent.
+
+VARIOUS SENSATIONS FROM THE SKIN.--The skin, besides being a protective
+and excretory organ, affords a lodging-place for the end-organs giving
+us our sense of pressure, pain, cold, warmth, tickle, and itch.
+_Pressure_ seems to have for its end-organ the _hair-bulbs_ of the skin;
+on hairless regions small bulbs called the _corpuscles of Meissner_
+serve this purpose. _Pain_ is thought to be mediated by free nerve
+endings. _Cold_ depends on end-organs called the _bulbs of Krause_; and
+_warmth_ on the _Ruffinian corpuscles_.
+
+Cutaneous or skin sensation may arise from either _mechanical_
+stimulation, such as pressure, a blow, or tickling, from _thermal_
+stimulation from hot or cold objects, from _electrical_ stimulation, or
+from the action of certain _chemicals_, such as acids and the like.
+Stimulated mechanically, the skin gives us but two sensation qualities,
+_pressure_ and _pain_. Many of the qualities which we commonly ascribe
+to the skin sensations are really a complex of cutaneous and muscular
+sensations. _Contact_ is light pressure. _Hardness_ and _softness_
+depend on the intensity of the pressure. _Roughness_ and _smoothness_
+arise from interrupted and continuous pressure, respectively, and
+require movement over the rough or smooth surface. _Touch_ depends on
+pressure accompanied by the muscular sensations involved in the
+movements connected with the act. Pain is clearly a different sensation
+from pressure; but any of the cutaneous or muscular sensations may, by
+excessive stimulation, be made to pass over into pain. All parts of the
+skin are sensitive to pressure and pain; but certain parts, like the
+finger tips, and the tip of the tongue, are more highly sensitive than
+others. The skin varies also in its sensitivity to _heat_ and _cold_. If
+we take a hot or a very cold pencil point and pass it rather lightly and
+slowly over the skin, it is easy to discover certain spots from which a
+sensation of warmth or of cold flashes out. In this way it is possible
+to locate the end-organs of temperature very accurately.
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 17.--Diagram showing distribution of hot and cold
+spots on the back of the hand. C, cold spots; H, hot spots.]
+
+THE KINAESTHETIC SENSES.--The muscles, tendons, and joints also give rise
+to perfectly definite sensations, but they have not been named as have
+the sensations from most of the other end-organs. _Weight_ is the most
+clearly marked of these sensations. It is through the sensations
+connected with movements of muscles, tendons, and joints that we come to
+judge _form_, _size_, and _distance_.
+
+THE ORGANIC SENSES.--Finally, to the sensations mentioned so far must be
+added those which come from the internal organs of the body. From the
+alimentary canal we get the sensations of _hunger_, _thirst_, and
+_nausea_; from the heart, lungs, and organs of sex come numerous
+well-defined but unnamed sensations which play an important part in
+making up the feeling-tone of our daily lives.
+
+Thus we see that the senses may be looked upon as the sentries of the
+body, standing at the outposts where nature and ourselves meet. They
+discover the qualities of the various objects with which we come in
+contact and hand them over to the mind in the form of sensations. And
+these sensations are the raw material out of which we begin to construct
+our material environment. Only as we are equipped with good organs of
+sense, especially good eyes and ears, therefore, are we able to enter
+fully into the wonderful world about us and receive the stimuli
+necessary to our thought and action.
+
+
+4. PROBLEMS IN OBSERVATION AND INTROSPECTION
+
+1. Observe a schoolroom of children at work with the aim of discovering
+any that show defects of vision or hearing. What are the symptoms? What
+is the effect of inability to hear or see well upon interest and
+attention?
+
+2. Talk with your teacher about testing the eyes and ears of the
+children of some school. The simpler tests for vision and hearing are
+easily applied, and the expense for material almost nothing. What tests
+should be used? Does your school have the test card for vision?
+
+3. Use a rotator or color tops for mixing discs of white and black to
+produce different shades of gray. Fix in mind the gray made of half
+white and half black; three-fourths white and one-fourth black;
+one-fourth-white and three-fourths black.
+
+4. In the same way mix the two complementaries yellow and blue to
+produce a gray; mix red and green in the same way. Try various
+combinations of the four fundamental colors, and discover how different
+colors are produced. Seek for these same colors in nature--sky, leaves,
+flowers, etc.
+
+5. Take a large wire nail and push it through a cork so that it can be
+handled without touching the metal with the fingers. Now cool it in ice
+or very cold water, then dry it and move the point slowly across the
+back of the hand. Do you feel occasional thrills of cold as the point
+passes over a bulb of Krause? Heat the nail with a match flame or over a
+lamp, and perform the same experiment. Do you feel the thrills of heat
+from the corpuscles of Ruffini?
+
+6. Try stopping the nostrils with cotton and having someone give you
+scraped apple, potato, onion, etc., and see whether, by taste alone, you
+can distinguish the difference. Why cannot sulphur be tasted?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+PERCEPTION
+
+
+No young child at first sees objects as we see them, or hears sounds as
+we hear them. This power, the power of perception, is a gradual
+development. It grows day by day out of the learner's experience in his
+world of sights and sounds, and whatever other fields his senses respond
+to.
+
+
+1. THE FUNCTION OF PERCEPTION
+
+NEED OF KNOWING THE MATERIAL WORLD.--It is the business of perception to
+give us knowledge of our world of material _objects_ and their relations
+in _space_ and _time_. The material world which we enter through the
+gateways of the senses is more marvelous by far than any fairy world
+created by the fancy of story-tellers; for it contains the elements of
+all they have conceived and much more besides. It is more marvelous than
+any structure planned and executed by the mind of man; for all the
+wonders and beauties of the Coliseum or of St. Peter's existed in nature
+before they were discovered by the architect and thrown together in
+those magnificent structures. The material advancement of civilization
+has been but the discovery of the objects, forces, and laws of nature,
+and their use in inventions serviceable to men. And these forces and
+laws of nature were discovered only as they were made manifest through
+objects in the material world.
+
+The problem lying before each individual who would enter fully into this
+rich world of environment, then, is to discover at first hand just as
+large a part of the material world about him as possible. In the most
+humble environment of the most uneventful life is to be found the
+material for discoveries and inventions yet undreamed of. Lying in the
+shade of an apple tree under the open sky, Newton read from a falling
+apple the fundamental principles of the law of gravitation which has
+revolutionized science; sitting at a humble tea table Watt watched the
+gurgling of the steam escaping from the kettle, and evolved the steam
+engine therefrom; with his simple kite, Franklin drew down the lightning
+from the clouds, and started the science of electricity; through
+studying a ball, the ancient scholars conceived the earth to be a
+sphere, and Columbus discovered America.
+
+THE PROBLEM WHICH CONFRONTS THE CHILD.--Well it is that the child,
+starting his life's journey, cannot see the magnitude of the task before
+him. Cast amid a world of objects of whose very existence he is
+ignorant, and whose meaning and uses have to be learned by slow and
+often painful experience, he proceeds step by step through the senses in
+his discovery of the objects about him. Yet, considered again, we
+ourselves are after all but a step in advance of the child. Though we
+are somewhat more familiar with the use of our senses than he, and know
+a few more objects about us, yet the knowledge of the wisest of us is at
+best pitifully meager compared with the richness of nature. So
+impossible is it for us to know all our material environment, that men
+have taken to becoming specialists. One man will spend his life in the
+study of a certain variety of plants, while there are hundreds of
+thousands of varieties all about him; another will study a particular
+kind of animal life, perhaps too minute to be seen with the naked eye,
+while the world is teeming with animal forms which he has not time in
+his short day of life to stop to examine; another will study the land
+forms and read the earth's history from the rocks and geological strata,
+but here again nature's volume is so large that he has time to read but
+a small fraction of the whole. Another studies the human body and learns
+to read from its expressions the signs of health and sickness, and to
+prescribe remedies for its ills; but in this field also he has found it
+necessary to divide the work, and so we have specialists for almost
+every organ of the body.
+
+
+2. THE NATURE OF PERCEPTION
+
+HOW A PERCEPT IS FORMED.--How, then, do we proceed to the discovery of
+this world of objects? Let us watch the child and learn the secret from
+him. Give the babe a ball, and he applies every sense to it to discover
+its qualities. He stares at it, he takes it in his hands and turns it
+over and around, he lifts it, he strokes it, he punches it and jabs it,
+he puts it to his mouth and bites it, he drops it, he throws it and
+creeps after it. He leaves no stone unturned to find out what that thing
+really is. By means of the _qualities_ which come to him through the
+avenues of sense, he constructs the _object_. And not only does he come
+to know the ball as a material object, but he comes to know also its
+uses. He is forming his own best definition of a ball in terms of the
+sensations which he gets from it and the uses to which he puts it, and
+all this even before he can name it or is able to recognize its name
+when he hears it. How much better his method than the one he will have
+to follow a little later when he goes to school and learns that "A ball
+is a spherical body of any substance or size, used to play with, as by
+throwing, kicking, or knocking, etc.!"
+
+THE PERCEPT INVOLVES ALL RELATIONS OF THE OBJECT.--Nor is the case in
+the least different with ourselves. When we wish to learn about a new
+object or discover new facts about an old one, we do precisely as the
+child does if we are wise. We apply to it every sense to which it will
+afford a stimulus, and finally arrive at the object through its various
+qualities. And just in so far as we have failed to use in connection
+with it every sense to which it can minister, just in that degree will
+we have an incomplete perception of it. Indeed, just so far as we have
+failed finally to perceive it in terms of its functions or uses, in that
+far also have we failed to know it completely. Tomatoes were for many
+years grown as ornamental garden plants before it was discovered that
+the tomatoes could minister to the taste as well as to the sight. The
+clothing of civilized man gives the same sensation of texture and color
+to the savage that it does to its owner, but he is so far from
+perceiving it in the same way that he packs it away and continues to go
+naked. The Orientals, who disdain the use of chairs and prefer to sit
+cross-legged on the floor, can never perceive a chair just as we do who
+use chairs daily, and to whom chairs are so saturated with social
+suggestions and associations.
+
+THE CONTENT OF THE PERCEPT.--The percept, then, always contains a basis
+of _sensation_. The eye, the ear, the skin or some other sense organ
+must turn in its supply of sensory material or there can be no percept.
+But the percept contains more than just sensations. Consider, for
+example, your percept of an automobile flashing past your windows. You
+really _see_ but very little of it, yet you _perceive_ it as a very
+familiar vehicle. All that your sense organs furnish is a more or less
+blurred patch of black of certain size and contour, one or more objects
+of somewhat different color whom you know to be passengers, and various
+sounds of a whizzing, chugging or roaring nature. Your former experience
+with automobiles enables you to associate with these meager sensory
+details the upholstered seats, the whirling wheels, the swaying movement
+and whatever else belongs to the full meaning of a motor car.
+
+The percept that contained only sensory material, and lacked all memory
+elements, ideas and meanings, would be no percept at all. And this is
+the reason why a young child cannot see or hear like ourselves. It lacks
+the associative material to give significance and meaning to the sensory
+elements supplied by the end-organs. The dependence of the percept on
+material from past experience is also illustrated in the common
+statement that what one gets from an art exhibit or a concert depends on
+what he brings to it. He who brings no knowledge, no memory, no images
+from other pictures or music will secure but relatively barren percepts,
+consisting of little besides the mere sensory elements. Truly, "to him
+that hath shall be given" in the realm of perception.
+
+THE ACCURACY OF PERCEPTS DEPENDS ON EXPERIENCE.--We must perceive
+objects through our motor response to them as well as in terms of
+sensations. The boy who has his knowledge of a tennis racket from
+looking at one in a store window, or indeed from handling one and
+looking it over in his room, can never know a tennis racket as does the
+boy who plays with it on the court. Objects get their significance not
+alone from their qualities, but even more from their use as related to
+our own activities.
+
+Like the child, we must get our knowledge of objects, if we are to get
+it well, from the objects themselves at first hand, and not second hand
+through descriptions of them by others. The fact that there is so much
+of the material world about us that we can never hope to learn it all,
+has made it necessary to put down in books many of the things which have
+been discovered concerning nature. This necessity has, I fear, led many
+away from nature itself to books--away from the living reality of things
+to the dead embalming cases of words, in whose empty forms we see so
+little of the significance which resides in the things themselves. We
+are in danger of being satisfied with the _forms_ of knowledge without
+its _substance_--with definitions contained in words instead of in
+qualities and uses.
+
+NOT DEFINITIONS, BUT FIRST-HAND CONTACT.--In like manner we come to know
+distance, form and size. If we have never become acquainted with a mile
+by actually walking a mile, running a mile, riding a bicycle a mile,
+driving a horse a mile, or traveling a mile on a train, we might listen
+for a long time to someone tell how far a mile is, or state the distance
+from Chicago to Denver, without knowing much about it in any way except
+word definitions. In order to understand a mile, we must come to know it
+in as many ways as possible through sense activities of our own.
+Although many children have learned that it is 25,000 miles around the
+earth, probably no one who has not encircled the globe has any
+reasonably accurate notion just how far this is. For words cannot take
+the place of perceptions in giving us knowledge. In the case of shorter
+distances, the same rule holds. The eye must be assisted by experience
+of the muscles and tendons and joints in actually covering distance, and
+learn to associate these sensations with those of the eye before the
+eye alone can be able to say, "That tree is ten rods distant." Form and
+size are to be learned in the same way. The hands must actually touch
+and handle the object, experiencing its hardness or smoothness, the way
+this curve and that angle feels, the amount of muscular energy it takes
+to pass the hand over this surface and along that line, the eye taking
+note all the while, before the eye can tell at a glance that yonder
+object is a sphere and that this surface is two feet on the edge.
+
+
+3. THE PERCEPTION OF SPACE
+
+Many have been the philosophical controversies over the nature of space
+and our perception of it. The psychologists have even quarreled
+concerning whether we possess an _innate_ sense of space, or whether it
+is a product of experience and training. Fortunately, for our present
+purpose we shall not need to concern ourselves with either of these
+controversies. For our discussion we may accept space for what common
+sense understands it to be. As to our sense of space, whatever of this
+we may possess at birth, it certainly has to be developed by use and
+experience to become of practical value. In the perception of space we
+must come to perceive _distance_, _direction_, _size_, and _form_. As a
+matter of fact, however, size is but so much distance, and form is but
+so much distance in this, that, or the other direction.
+
+THE PERCEIVING OF DISTANCE.--Unquestionably the eye comes to be our
+chief dependence in determining distance. Yet the muscle and joint
+senses give us our earliest knowledge of distance. The babe reaches for
+the moon simply because the eye does not tell it that the moon is out of
+reach. Only as the child reaches for its playthings, creeps or walks
+after them, and in a thousand ways uses its muscles and joints in
+measuring distance, does the perception of distance become dependable.
+
+At the same time the eye is slowly developing its power of judging
+distance. But not for several years does visual perception of distance
+become in any degree accurate. The eye's perception of distance depends
+in part on the sensations arising from the muscles controlling the eye,
+probably in part from the adjustment of the lens, and in part from the
+retinal image. If one tries to look at the tip of his nose he easily
+feels the muscle strain caused by the required angle of adjustment. We
+come unconsciously to associate distance with the muscle sensations
+arising from the different angles of vision. The part played by the
+retinal image in judging distance is easily understood in looking at two
+trees, one thirty feet and the other three hundred feet distant. We note
+that the nearer tree shows the _detail_ of the bark and leaves, while
+the more distant one lacks this detail. The nearer tree also reflects
+more _light_ and _color_ than the one farther away. These minute
+differences, registered as they are on the retinal image, come to stand
+for so much of distance.
+
+The ear also learns to perceive distance through differences in the
+quality and the intensity of sound. Auditory perception of distance is,
+however, never very accurate.
+
+THE PERCEIVING OF DIRECTION.--The motor senses probably give us our
+first perception of direction, as they do of distance. The child has to
+reach this way or that way for his rattle; turn the eyes or head so far
+in order to see an interesting object; twist the body, crawl or walk to
+one side or the other to secure his bottle. In these experiences he is
+gaining his first knowledge of direction.
+
+Along with these muscle-joint experiences, the eye is also being
+trained. The position of the image on the retina comes to stand for
+direction, and the eye finally develops so remarkable a power of
+perceiving direction that a picture hung a half inch out of plumb is a
+source of annoyance. The ear develops some skill in the perception of
+direction, but is less dependable than the eye.
+
+
+4. THE PERCEPTION OF TIME
+
+The philosophers and psychologists agree little better about our sense
+of time than they do about our sense of space. Of this much, however, we
+may be certain, our perception of time is subject to development and
+training.
+
+NATURE OF THE TIME SENSE.--How we perceive time is not so well
+understood as our perception of space. It is evident, however, that our
+idea of time is simpler than our idea of space--it has less of content,
+less that we can describe. Probably the most fundamental part of our
+idea of time is _progression_, or change, without which it is difficult
+to think of time at all. The question then becomes, how do we perceive
+change, or succession?
+
+If one looks in upon his thought stream he finds that the movement of
+consciousness is not uniformly continuous, but that his thought moves in
+pulses, or short rushes, so to speak. When we are seeking for some fact
+or conclusion, there is a moment of expectancy, or poising, and then the
+leap forward to the desired point, or conclusion, from which an
+immediate start is taken for the next objective point of our thinking.
+It is probable that our sense of the few seconds of passing time that
+we call the _immediate present_ consists of the recognition of the
+succession of these pulsations of consciousness, together with certain
+organic rhythms, such as heart beat and breathing.
+
+NO PERCEPTION OF EMPTY TIME.--Our perception does not therefore act upon
+empty time. Time must be filled with a procession of events, whether
+these be within our own consciousness or in the objective world without.
+All longer periods of time, such as hours, days, or years, are measured
+by the events which they contain. Time filled with happenings that
+interest and attract us seems short while passing, but longer when
+looked back upon. On the other hand, time relatively empty of
+interesting experience hangs heavy on our hands in passing, but, viewed
+in retrospect, seems short. A fortnight of travel passes more quickly
+than a fortnight of illness, but yields many more events for the memory
+to review as the "filling" for time.
+
+Probably no one has any very accurate feeling of the length, that is,
+the actual _duration_ of a year--or even of a month! We therefore divide
+time into convenient units, as weeks, months, years and centuries. This
+allows us to think of time in mathematical terms where immediate
+perception fails in its grasp.
+
+
+5. THE TRAINING OF PERCEPTION
+
+In the physical world as in the spiritual there are many people who,
+"having eyes, see not and ears, hear not." For the ability to perceive
+accurately and richly in the world of physical objects depends not alone
+on good sense organs, but also on _interest_ and the habit of
+_observation_. It is easy if we are indifferent or untrained to look at
+a beautiful landscape, a picture or a cathedral without _seeing_ it; it
+is easy if we lack interest or skill to listen to an orchestra or the
+myriad sounds of nature without _hearing_ them.
+
+PERCEPTION NEEDS TO BE TRAINED.--Training in perception does not depend
+entirely on the work of the school. For the world about us exerts a
+constant appeal to our senses. A thousand sights, sounds, contacts,
+tastes, smells or other sensations, hourly throng in upon us, and the
+appeal is irresistible. We must in some degree attend. We must observe.
+
+Yet it cannot be denied that most of us are relatively unskilled in
+perception; we do not know how, or take the trouble to observe. For
+example, a stranger was brought into the classroom and introduced by the
+instructor to a class of fifty college students in psychology. The class
+thought the stranger was to address them, and looked at him with mild
+curiosity. But, after standing before them for a few moments, he
+suddenly withdrew, as had been arranged by the instructor. The class
+were then asked to write such a description of the stranger as would
+enable a person who had never seen him to identify him. But so poor had
+been the observation of the class that they ascribed to him clothes of
+four different colors, eyes and hair each of three different colors, a
+tie of many different hues, height ranging from five feet and four
+inches to over six feet, age from twenty-eight to forty-five years, and
+many other details as wide of the mark. Nor is it probable that this
+particular class was below the average in the power of perception.
+
+SCHOOL TRAINING IN PERCEPTION.--The school can do much in training the
+perception. But to accomplish this, the child must constantly be brought
+into immediate contact with the physical world about him and taught to
+observe. Books must not be substituted for things. Definitions must not
+take the place of experiment or discovery. Geography and nature study
+should be taught largely out of doors, and the lessons assigned should
+take the child into the open for observation and investigation. All
+things that live and grow, the sky and clouds, the sunset colors, the
+brown of upturned soil, the smell of the clover field, or the new mown
+hay, the sounds of a summer night, the distinguishing marks by which to
+identify each family of common birds or breed of cattle--these and a
+thousand other things that appeal to us from the simplest environment
+afford a rich opportunity for training the perception. And he who has
+learned to observe, and who is alert to the appeal of nature, has no
+small part of his education already assured.
+
+
+6. PROBLEMS IN OBSERVATION AND INTROSPECTION
+
+1. Test your power of observation by walking rapidly past a well-filled
+store window and then seeing how many of the objects you can name.
+
+2. Suppose a tailor, a bootblack, a physician, and a detective are
+standing on the street corner as you pass by. What will each one be most
+likely to observe about you? _Why?_
+
+3. Observe carefully green trees at a distance of a few rods; a quarter
+of a mile; a mile; several miles. Describe differences (1) in color, (2)
+in brightness, or light, and (3) in detail.
+
+4. How many common birds can you identify? How many kinds of trees? Of
+wild flowers? Of weeds?
+
+5. Observe the work of an elementary school for the purpose of
+determining:
+
+a. Whether the instruction in geography, nature study, agriculture,
+etc., calls for the use of the eyes, ears and fingers.
+
+b. Whether definitions are used in place of first-hand information in
+any subjects.
+
+c. Whether the assignment of lessons to pupils includes work that would
+require the use of the senses, especially out of doors.
+
+d. Whether the work offered in arithmetic demands the use of the senses
+as well as the reason.
+
+e. Whether the language lessons make use of the power of observation.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+MENTAL IMAGES AND IDEAS
+
+
+As you sit thinking, a company of you together, your thoughts run in
+many diverse lines. Yet with all this diversity, your minds possess this
+common characteristic: _Though your thinking all takes place in what we
+call the present moment, it goes on largely in terms of past
+experiences._
+
+
+1. THE PART PLAYED BY PAST EXPERIENCE
+
+PRESENT THINKING DEPENDS ON PAST EXPERIENCE.--Images or ideas of things
+you have seen or heard or felt; of things you have thought of before and
+which now recur to you; of things you remember, such as names, dates,
+places, events; of things that you do not remember as a part of your
+past at all, but that belong to it nevertheless--these are the things
+which form a large part of your mental stream, and which give content to
+your thinking. You may think of a thing that is going on now, or of one
+that is to occur in the future; but, after all, you are dependent on
+your past experience for the material which you put into your thinking
+of the present moment.
+
+Indeed, nothing can enter your present thinking which does not link
+itself to something in your past experience. The savage Indian in the
+primeval forest never thought about killing a deer with a rifle merely
+by pulling a trigger, or of turning a battery of machine guns on his
+enemies to annihilate them--none of these things were related to his
+past experience; hence he could not think in such terms.
+
+THE PRESENT INTERPRETED BY THE PAST.--Not only can we not think at all
+except in terms of our past experience, but even if we could, the
+present would be meaningless to us; for the present is interpreted in
+the light of the past. The sedate man of affairs who decries athletic
+sports, and has never taken part in them, cannot understand the wild
+enthusiasm which prevails between rival teams in a hotly contested
+event. The fine work of art is to the one who has never experienced the
+appeal which comes through beauty, only so much of canvas and variegated
+patches of color. Paul says that Jesus was "unto the Greeks,
+foolishness." He was foolishness to them because nothing in their
+experience with their own gods had been enough like the character of
+Jesus to enable them to interpret Him.
+
+THE FUTURE ALSO DEPENDS ON THE PAST.--To the mind incapable of using
+past experience, the future also would be impossible; for we can look
+forward into the future only by placing in its experiences the elements
+of which we have already known. The savage who has never seen the
+shining yellow metal does not dream of a heaven whose streets are paved
+with gold, but rather of a "happy hunting ground." If you will analyze
+your own dreams of the future you will see in them familiar pictures
+perhaps grouped together in new forms, but coming, in their elements,
+from your past experience nevertheless. All that would remain to a mind
+devoid of a past would be the little bridge of time which we call the
+"present moment," a series of unconnected _nows_. Thought would be
+impossible, for the mind would have nothing to compare and relate.
+Personality would not exist; for personality requires continuity of
+experience, else we should be a new person each succeeding moment,
+without memory and without plans. Such a mind would be no mind at all.
+
+RANK DETERMINED BY ABILITY TO UTILIZE PAST EXPERIENCE.--So important is
+past experience in determining our present thinking and guiding our
+future actions, that the place of an individual in the scale of creation
+is determined largely by the ability to profit by past experience. The
+scientist tells us of many species of animals now extinct, which lost
+their lives and suffered their race to die out because when, long ago,
+the climate began to change and grow much colder, they were unable to
+use the experience of suffering in the last cold season as an incentive
+to provide shelter, or move to a warmer climate against the coming of
+the next and more rigorous one. Man was able to make the adjustment;
+and, providing himself with clothing and shelter and food, he survived,
+while myriads of the lower forms perished.
+
+The singed moth again and again dares the flame which tortures it, and
+at last gives its life, a sacrifice to its folly; the burned child fears
+the fire, and does not the second time seek the experience. So also can
+the efficiency of an individual or a nation, as compared with other
+individuals or nations, be determined. The inefficient are those who
+repeat the same error or useless act over and over, or else fail to
+repeat a chance useful act whose repetition might lead to success. They
+are unable to learn their lesson and be guided by experience. Their past
+does not sufficiently minister to their present, and through it direct
+their future.
+
+
+2. HOW PAST EXPERIENCE IS CONSERVED
+
+PAST EXPERIENCE CONSERVED IN BOTH MENTAL AND PHYSICAL TERMS.--If past
+experience plays so important a part in our welfare, how, then, is it to
+be conserved so that we may secure its benefits? Here, as elsewhere, we
+find the mind and body working in perfect unison and harmony, each doing
+its part to further the interests of both. The results of our past
+experience may be read in both our mental and our physical nature.
+
+On the physical side past experience is recorded in modified structure
+through the law of habit working on the tissues of the body, and
+particularly on the delicate tissues of the brain and nervous system.
+This is easily seen in its outward aspects. The stooped shoulders and
+bent form of the workman tell a tale of physical toil and exposure; the
+bloodless lips and pale face of the victim of the city sweat shop tell
+of foul air, long hours, and insufficient food; the rosy cheek and
+bounding step of childhood speak of fresh air, good food and happy play.
+
+On the mental side past experience is conserved chiefly by means of
+_images_, _ideas_, and _concepts_. The nature and function of concepts
+will be discussed in a later chapter. It will now be our purpose to
+examine the nature of images and ideas, and to note the part they play
+in the mind's activities.
+
+THE IMAGE AND THE IDEA.--To understand the nature of the image, and then
+of the idea, we may best go back to the percept. You look at a watch
+which I hold before your eyes and secure a percept of it. Briefly, this
+is what happens: The light reflected from the yellow object, on striking
+the retina, results in a nerve current which sets up a certain form of
+activity in the cells of the visual brain area, and lo! a _percept_ of
+the watch flashes in your mind.
+
+Now I put the watch in my pocket, so that the stimulus is no longer
+present to your eye. Then I ask you to think of my watch just as it
+appeared as you were looking at it; or you may yourself choose to think
+of it without my suggesting it to you. In either case _the cellular
+activity in the visual area of the cortex is reproduced_ approximately
+as it occurred in connection with the percept, and lo! an _image_ of the
+watch flashes in your mind. An image is thus an approximate copy of a
+former percept (or several percepts). It is aroused indirectly by means
+of a nerve current coming by way of some other brain center, instead of
+directly by the stimulation of a sense organ, as in the case of a
+percept.
+
+If, instead of seeking a more or less exact mental _picture_ of my
+watch, you only think of its general _meaning_ and relations, the fact
+that it is of gold, that it is for the purpose of keeping time, that it
+was a present to me, that I wear it in my left pocket, you then have an
+_idea_ of the watch. Our idea of an object is, therefore, the general
+meaning of relations we ascribe to it. It should be remembered, however,
+that the terms image and idea are employed rather loosely, and that
+there is not yet general uniformity among writers in their use.
+
+ALL OUR PAST EXPERIENCE POTENTIALLY AT OUR COMMAND.--Images may in a
+certain sense take the place of percepts, and we can again experience
+sights, sounds, tastes, and smells which we have known before, without
+having the stimuli actually present to the senses. In this way all our
+past experience is potentially available to the present. All the objects
+we have seen, it is potentially possible again to see in the mind's eye
+without being obliged to have the objects before us; all the sounds we
+have heard, all the tastes and smells and temperatures we have
+experienced, we may again have presented to our minds in the form of
+mental images without the various stimuli being present to the
+end-organs of the senses.
+
+Through images and ideas the total number of objects in our experience
+is infinitely multiplied; for many of the things we have seen, or heard,
+or smelled, or tasted, we cannot again have present to the senses, and
+without this power we would never get them again. And besides this fact,
+it would be inconvenient to have to go and secure afresh each sensation
+or percept every time we need to use it in our thought. While _habit_,
+then, conserves our past experience on the physical side, the _image_
+and the _idea_ do the same thing on the mental side.
+
+
+3. INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES IN IMAGERY
+
+IMAGES TO BE VIEWED BY INTROSPECTION.--The remainder of the description
+of images will be easier to understand, for each of you can know just
+what is meant in every case by appealing to your own mind. I beg of you
+not to think that I am presenting something new and strange, a curiosity
+connected with our thinking which has been discovered by scholars who
+have delved more deeply into the matter than we can hope to do. Every
+day--no, more than that, every hour and every moment--these images are
+flitting through our minds, forming a large part of our stream of
+consciousness. Let us see whether we can turn our attention within and
+discover some of our images in their flight. Let us introspect.
+
+I know of no better way to proceed than that adopted by Francis Galton
+years ago, when he asked the English men of letters and science to think
+of their breakfast tables, and then describe the images which appeared.
+I am about to ask each one of you to do the same thing, but I want to
+warn you beforehand that the images will not be so vivid as the sensory
+experiences themselves. They will be much fainter and more vague, and
+less clear and definite; they will be fleeting, and must be caught on
+the wing. Often the image may fade entirely out, and the idea only be
+left.
+
+THE VARIED IMAGERY SUGGESTED BY ONE'S DINING TABLE.--Let each one now
+recall the dining table as you last left it, and then answer questions
+concerning it like the following:
+
+Can I see clearly in my "mind's eye" the whole table as it stood spread
+before me? Can I see all parts of it equally clearly? Do I get the snowy
+white and gloss of the linen? The delicate coloring of the china, so
+that I can see where the pink shades off into the white? The graceful
+lines and curves of the dishes? The sheen of the silver? The brown of
+the toast? The yellow of the cream? The rich red and dark green of the
+bouquet of roses? The sparkle of the glassware?
+
+Can I again hear the rattle of the dishes? The clink of the spoon
+against the cup? The moving up of the chairs? The chatter of the voices,
+each with its own peculiar pitch and quality? The twitter of a bird
+outside the window? The tinkle of a distant bell? The chirp of a
+neighborly cricket?
+
+Can I taste clearly the milk? The coffee? The eggs? The bacon? The
+rolls? The butter? The jelly? The fruit? Can I get the appetizing odor
+of the coffee? Of the meat? The oranges and bananas? The perfume of the
+lilac bush outside the door? The perfume from a handkerchief newly
+treated to a spray of heliotrope?
+
+Can I recall the touch of my fingers on the velvety peach? On the
+smooth skin of an apple? On the fretted glassware? The feel of the fresh
+linen? The contact of leather-covered or cane-seated chair? Of the
+freshly donned garment? Can I get clearly the temperature of the hot
+coffee in the mouth? Of the hot dish on the hand? Of the ice water? Of
+the grateful coolness of the breeze wafted in through the open window?
+
+Can I feel again the strain of muscle and joint in passing the heavy
+dish? Can I feel the movement of the jaws in chewing the beefsteak? Of
+the throat and lips in talking? Of the chest and diaphragm in laughing?
+Of the muscles in sitting and rising? In hand and arm in using knife and
+fork and spoon? Can I get again the sensation of pain which accompanied
+biting on a tender tooth? From the shooting of a drop of acid from the
+rind of the orange into the eye? The chance ache in the head? The
+pleasant feeling connected with the exhilaration of a beautiful morning?
+The feeling of perfect health? The pleasure connected with partaking of
+a favorite food?
+
+POWER OF IMAGERY VARIES IN DIFFERENT PEOPLE.--It is more than probable
+that some of you cannot get perfectly clear images in all these lines,
+certainly not with equal facility; for the imagery from any one sense
+varies greatly from person to person. A celebrated painter was able,
+after placing his subject in a chair and looking at him attentively for
+a few minutes, to dismiss the subject and paint a perfect likeness of
+him from the visual image which recurred to the artist every time he
+turned his eyes to the chair where the sitter had been placed. On the
+other hand, a young lady, a student in my psychology class, tells me
+that she is never able to recall the looks of her mother when she is
+absent, even if the separation has been only for a few moments. She can
+get an image of the form, with the color and cut of the dress, but never
+the features. One person may be able to recall a large part of a concert
+through his auditory imagery, and another almost none.
+
+In general it may be said that the power, or at least the use, of
+imagery decreases with age. The writer has made a somewhat extensive
+study of the imagery of certain high-school students, college students,
+and specialists in psychology averaging middle age. Almost without
+exception it was found that clear and vivid images played a smaller part
+in the thinking of the older group than of the younger. More or less
+abstract ideas and concepts seemed to have taken the place of the
+concrete imagery of earlier years.
+
+IMAGERY TYPES.--Although there is some difference in our ability to use
+imagery of different sensory types, probably there is less variation
+here than has been supposed. Earlier pedagogical works spoke of the
+_visual_ type of mind, or the _audile_ type, or the _motor_ type, as if
+the possession of one kind of imagery necessarily rendered a person
+short in other types. Later studies have shown this view incorrect,
+however. The person who has good images of one type is likely to excel
+in all types, while one who is lacking in any one of the more important
+types will probably be found short in all.[4] Most of us probably make
+more use of visual and auditory than of other kinds of imagery, while
+olfactory and gustatory images seem to play a minor role.
+
+
+4. THE FUNCTION OF IMAGES
+
+Binet says that the man who has not every type of imagery almost equally
+well developed is only the fraction of a man. While this no doubt puts
+the matter too strongly, yet images do play an important part in our
+thinking.
+
+IMAGES SUPPLY MATERIAL FOR IMAGINATION AND MEMORY.--Imagery supplies the
+pictures from which imagination builds its structures. Given a rich
+supply of images from the various senses, and imagination has the
+material necessary to construct times and events long since past, or to
+fill the future with plans or experiences not yet reached. Lacking
+images, however, imagination is handicapped, and its meager products
+reveal in their barrenness and their lack of warmth and reality the
+poverty of material.
+
+Much of our memory also takes the form of images. The face of a friend,
+the sound of a voice, or the touch of a hand may be recalled, not as a
+mere fact, but with almost the freshness and fidelity of a percept. That
+much of our memory goes on in the form of ideas instead of images is
+true. But memory is often both aided in its accuracy and rendered more
+vital and significant through the presence of abundant imagery.
+
+IMAGERY IN THE THOUGHT PROCESSES.--Since logical thinking deals more
+with relations and meanings than with particular objects, images
+naturally play a smaller part in reasoning than in memory and
+imagination. Yet they have their place here as well. Students of
+geometry or trigonometry often have difficulty in understanding a
+theorem until they succeed in visualizing the surface or solid involved.
+Thinking in the field of astronomy, mechanics, and many other sciences
+is assisted at certain points by the ability to form clear and accurate
+images.
+
+THE USE OF IMAGERY IN LITERATURE.--Facility in the use of imagery
+undoubtedly adds much to our enjoyment and appreciation of certain
+forms of literature. The great writers commonly use all types of images
+in their description and narration. If we are not able to employ the
+images they used, many of their most beautiful pictures are likely to be
+to us but so many words suggesting prosaic ideas.
+
+Shakespeare, describing certain beautiful music, appeals to the sense of
+smell to make himself understood:
+
+    ... it came o'er my ear like the sweet sound
+    That breathes upon a bank of violets,
+    Stealing and giving odor!
+
+_Lady Macbeth_ cries:
+
+    Here's the smell of the blood still:
+    All the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand.
+
+Milton has _Eve_ say of her dream of the fatal apple:
+
+    ... The pleasant sav'ry smell
+    So quickened appetite, that I, methought,
+    Could not but taste.
+
+Likewise with the sense of touch:
+
+    ... I take thy hand, this hand
+    As soft as dove's down, and as white as it.
+
+Imagine a person devoid of delicate tactile imagery, with senseless
+finger tips and leaden footsteps, undertaking to interpret these
+exquisite lines:
+
+    Thus I set my printless feet
+    O'er the cowslip's velvet head,
+    That bends not as I tread.
+
+Shakespeare thus appeals to the muscular imagery:
+
+    At last, a little shaking of mine arm
+    And thrice his head thus waving up and down,
+    He raised a sigh so piteous and profound
+    As it did seem to shatter all his bulk
+    And end his being.
+
+Many passages like the following appeal to the temperature images:
+
+    Freeze, freeze, thou bitter sky,
+    Thou dost not bite so nigh
+    As benefits forgot!
+
+To one whose auditory imagery is meager, the following lines will lose
+something of their beauty:
+
+    How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank!
+    Here we will sit and let the sounds of music
+    Creep in our ears; soft stillness and the night
+    Become the touches of sweet harmony.
+
+Note how much clear images will add to Browning's words:
+
+    Are there not two moments in the adventure of a diver--one when a
+    beggar he prepares to plunge, and one, when a prince he rises with
+    his pearl?
+
+POINTS WHERE IMAGES ARE OF GREATEST SERVICE.--Beyond question, many
+images come flooding into our minds which are irrelevant and of no
+service in our thinking. No one has failed to note many such. Further,
+we undoubtedly do much of our best thinking with few or no images
+present. Yet we need images. Where, then, are they most needed? _Images
+are needed wherever the percepts which they represent would be of
+service._ Whatever one could better understand or enjoy or appreciate by
+seeing it, hearing it, or perceiving it through some other sense, he can
+better understand, enjoy or appreciate through images than by means of
+ideas only.
+
+
+5. THE CULTIVATION OF IMAGERY
+
+IMAGES DEPEND ON SENSORY STIMULI.--The power of imaging can be
+cultivated the same as any other ability.
+
+In the first place, we may put down as an absolute requisite _such an
+environment of sensory stimuli as will tempt every sense to be awake and
+at its best_, that we may be led into a large acquaintance with the
+objects of our material environment. No one's stock of sensory images is
+greater than the sum total of his sensory experiences. No one ever has
+images of sights, or sounds, or tastes, or smells which he has never
+experienced.
+
+Likewise, he must have had the fullest and freest possible liberty in
+motor activities. For not only is the motor act itself made possible
+through the office of imagery, but the motor act clarifies and makes
+useful the images. The boy who has actually made a table, or a desk, or
+a box has ever afterward a different and a better image of one of these
+objects than before; so also when he has owned and ridden a bicycle, his
+image of this machine will have a different significance from that of
+the image founded upon the visual perception alone of the wheel he
+longingly looked at through the store window or in the other boy's
+dooryard.
+
+THE INFLUENCE OF FREQUENT RECALL.--But sensory experiences and motor
+responses alone are not enough, though they are the basis of good
+imagery. _There must be frequent recall._ The sunset may have been never
+so brilliant, and the music never so entrancing; but if they are never
+thought of and dwelt upon after they were first experienced, little will
+remain of them after a very short time. It is by repeating them often in
+experience through imagery that they become fixed, so that they stand
+ready to do our bidding when we need next to use them.
+
+THE RECONSTRUCTION OF OUR IMAGES.--To richness of experience and
+frequency of the recall of our images we must add one more factor;
+namely, that of their _reconstruction_ or working over. Few if any
+images are exact recalls of former percepts of objects. Indeed, such
+would be neither possible nor desirable. The images which we recall are
+recalled for a purpose, or in view of some future activity, and hence
+must be _selective_, or made up of the elements of several or many
+former related images.
+
+Thus the boy who wishes to construct a box without a pattern to follow
+recalls the images of numerous boxes he may have seen, and from them all
+he has a new image made over from many former percepts and images, and
+this new image serves him as a working model. In this way he not only
+gets a copy which he can follow to make his box, but he also secures a
+new product in the form of an image different from any he ever had
+before, and is therefore by so much the richer. It is this working over
+of our stock of old images into new and richer and more suggestive ones
+that constitutes the essence of constructive imagination.
+
+The more types of imagery into which we can put our thought, the more
+fully is it ours and the better our images. The spelling lesson needs
+not only to be taken in through the eye, that we may retain a visual
+image of the words, but also to be recited orally, so that the ear may
+furnish an auditory image, and the organs of speech a motor image of the
+correct forms. It needs also to be written, and thus given into the
+keeping of the hand, which finally needs most of all to know and retain
+it.
+
+The reading lesson should be taken in through both the eye and the ear,
+and then expressed by means of voice and gesture in as full and complete
+a way as possible, that it may be associated with motor images. The
+geography lesson needs not only to be read, but to be drawn, or molded,
+or constructed. The history lesson should be made to appeal to every
+possible form of imagery. The arithmetic lesson must be not only
+computed, but measured, weighed, and pressed into actual service.
+
+Thus we might carry the illustration into every line of education and
+experience, and the same truth holds. _What we desire to comprehend
+completely and retain well, we must apprehend through all available
+senses and conserve in every possible type of image and form of
+expression._
+
+
+6. PROBLEMS IN INTROSPECTION AND OBSERVATION
+
+1. Observe a reading class and try to determine whether the pupils
+picture the scenes and events they read about. How can you tell?
+
+2. Similarly observe a history class. Do the pupils realize the events
+as actually happening, and the personages as real, living people?
+
+3. Observe in a similar way a class in geography, and draw conclusions.
+A pupil in computing the cost of plastering a certain room based the
+figures on the room _filled full of plaster_. How might visual imagery
+have saved the error?
+
+4. Imagine a three-inch cube. Paint it. Then saw it up into inch cubes,
+leaving them all standing in the original form. How many inch cubes have
+paint on three faces? How many on two faces? How many on one face? How
+many have no paint on them? Answer all these questions by referring to
+your imagery alone.
+
+5. Try often to recall images in the various sensory lines; determine in
+what classes of images you are least proficient and try to improve in
+these lines.
+
+6. How is the singing teacher able, after his class has sung through
+several scores, to tell that they are flatting?
+
+7. Study your imagery carefully for a few days to see whether you can
+discover your predominating type of imagery.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+IMAGINATION
+
+
+Everyone desires to have a good imagination, yet not all would agree as
+to what constitutes a good imagination. If I were to ask a group of you
+whether you have good imaginations, many of you would probably at once
+fall to considering whether you are capable of taking wild flights into
+impossible realms of thought and evolving unrealities out of airy
+nothings. You would compare yourself with great imaginative writers,
+such as Stevenson, Poe, De Quincey, and judge your power of imagination
+by your ability to produce such tales as made them famous.
+
+
+1. THE PLACE OF IMAGINATION IN MENTAL ECONOMY
+
+But such a measure for the imagination as that just stated is far too
+narrow. A good imagination, like a good memory, is the one which serves
+its owner best. If DeQuincey and Poe and Stevenson and Bulwer found the
+type which led them into such dizzy flights the best for their
+particular purpose, well and good; but that is not saying that their
+type is the best for you, or that you may not rank as high in some other
+field of imaginative power as they in theirs. While you may lack in
+their particular type of imagination, they may have been short in the
+type which will one day make you famous. The artisan, the architect, the
+merchant, the artist, the farmer, the teacher, the professional
+man--all need imagination in their vocations not less than the writers
+need it in theirs, but each needs a specialized kind adapted to the
+particular work which he has to do.
+
+PRACTICAL NATURE OF IMAGINATION.--Imagination is not a process of
+thought which must deal chiefly with unrealities and impossibilities,
+and which has for its chief end our amusement when we have nothing
+better to do than to follow its wanderings. It is, rather, a
+commonplace, necessary process which illumines the way for our everyday
+thinking and acting--a process without which we think and act by
+haphazard chance or blind imitation. It is the process by which the
+images from our past experiences are marshaled, and made to serve our
+present. Imagination looks into the future and constructs our patterns
+and lays our plans. It sets up our ideals and pictures us in the acts of
+achieving them. It enables us to live our joys and our sorrows, our
+victories and our defeats before we reach them. It looks into the past
+and allows us to live with the kings and seers of old, or it goes back
+to the beginning and we see things in the process of the making. It
+comes into our present and plays a part in every act from the simplest
+to the most complex. It is to the mental stream what the light is to the
+traveler who carries it as he passes through the darkness, while it
+casts its beams in all directions around him, lighting up what otherwise
+would be intolerable gloom.
+
+IMAGINATION IN THE INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY, LITERATURE, AND ART.--Let
+us see some of the most common uses of the imagination. Suppose I
+describe to you the battle of the Marne. Unless you can take the images
+which my words suggest and build them into struggling, shouting,
+bleeding soldiers; into forts and entanglements and breastworks; into
+roaring cannon and whistling bullet and screaming shell--unless you can
+take all these separate images and out of them get one great unified
+complex, then my description will be to you only so many words largely
+without content, and you will lack the power to comprehend the
+historical event in any complete way. Unless you can read the poem, and
+out of the images suggested by the words reconstruct the picture which
+was in the mind of the author as he wrote "The Village Blacksmith" or
+"Snowbound," the significance will have dropped out, and the throbbing
+scenes of life and action become only so many dead words, like the shell
+of the chrysalis after the butterfly has left its shroud. Without the
+power of imagination, the history of Washington's winter at Valley Forge
+becomes a mere formal recital, and you can never get a view of the
+snow-covered tents, the wind-swept landscape, the tracks in the snow
+marked by the telltale drops of blood, or the form of the heartbroken
+commander as he kneels in the silent wood to pray for his army. Without
+the power to construct this picture as you read, you may commit the
+words, and be able to recite them, and to pass examination upon them,
+but the living reality of it will forever escape you.
+
+Your power of imagination determines your ability to interpret literature
+of all kinds; for the interpretation of literature is nothing, after
+all, but the reconstruction on our part of the pictures with their
+meanings which were in the mind of the writer as he penned the words,
+and the experiencing of the emotions which moved him as he wrote. Small
+use indeed to read the history of the centuries unless we can see in it
+living, acting people, and real events occurring in actual environments.
+Small use to read the world's great books unless their characters are
+to us real men and women--our brothers and sisters, interpreted to us by
+the master minds of the ages. Anything less than this, and we are no
+longer dealing with literature, but with words--like musical sounds
+which deal with no theme, or like picture frames in which no picture has
+been set. Nor is the case different in listening to a speaker. His words
+are to you only so many sensations of sounds of such and such pitches
+and intensities and quality, unless your mind keeps pace with his and
+continually builds the pictures which fill his thought as he speaks.
+Lacking imagination, the sculptures of Michael Angelo and the pictures
+of Raphael are to you so many pieces of curiously shaped marble and
+ingeniously colored canvas. What the sculptor and the painter have
+placed before you must suggest to you images and thoughts from your own
+experience, to fill out and make alive the marble and the canvas, else
+to you they are dead.
+
+IMAGINATION AND SCIENCE.--Nor is imagination less necessary in other
+lines of study. Without this power of building living, moving pictures
+out of images, there is small use to study science beyond what is
+immediately present to our senses; for some of the most fundamental laws
+of science rest upon conceptions which can be grasped only as we have
+the power of imagination. The student who cannot get a picture of the
+molecules of matter, infinitely close to each other and yet never
+touching, all in vibratory motion, yet each within its own orbit, each a
+complete unit in itself, yet capable of still further division into
+smaller particles,--the student who cannot see all this in a clear
+visual image can never at best have more than a most hazy notion of the
+theory of matter. And this means, finally, that the explanations of
+light and heat and sound, and much besides, will be to him largely a
+jumble of words which linger in his memory, perchance, but which never
+vitally become a possession of his mind.
+
+So with the world of the telescope. You may have at your disposal all
+the magnificent lenses and the accurate machinery owned by modern
+observatories; but if you have not within yourself the power to build
+what these reveal to you, and what the books tell you, into the solar
+system and still larger systems, you can never study astronomy except in
+a blind and piecemeal sort of way, and all the planets and satellites
+and suns will never for you form themselves into a system, no matter
+what the books may say about it.
+
+EVERYDAY USES OF IMAGINATION.--But we may consider a still more
+practical phase of imagination, or at least one which has more to do
+with the humdrum daily life of most of us. Suppose you go to your
+milliner and tell her how you want your spring hat shaped and trimmed.
+And suppose you have never been able to see this hat _in toto_ in your
+mind, so as to get an idea of how it will look when completed, but have
+only a general notion, because you like red velvet, white plumes, and a
+turned-up rim, that this combination will look well together. Suppose
+you have never been able to see how you would look in this particular
+hat with your hair done in this or that way. If you are in this helpless
+state shall you not have to depend finally on the taste of the milliner,
+or accept the "model," and so fail to reveal any taste or individuality
+on your own part?
+
+How many times have you been disappointed in some article of dress,
+because when you planned it you were unable to see it all at once so as
+to get the full effect; or else you could not see yourself in it, and so
+be able to judge whether it suited you! How many homes have in them
+draperies and rugs and wall paper and furniture which are in constant
+quarrel because someone could not see before they were assembled that
+they were never intended to keep company! How many people who plan their
+own houses, would build them just the same again after seeing them
+completed? The man who can see a building complete before a brick has
+been laid or a timber put in place, who can see it not only in its
+details one by one as he runs them over in his mind, but can see the
+building in its entirety, is the only one who is safe to plan the
+structure. And this is the man who is drawing a large salary as an
+architect, for imaginations of this kind are in demand. Only the one who
+can see in his "mind's eye," before it is begun, the thing he would
+create, is capable to plan its construction. And who will say that
+ability to work with images of these kinds is not of just as high a type
+as that which results in the construction of plots upon which stories
+are built!
+
+THE BUILDING OF IDEALS AND PLANS.--Nor is the part of imagination less
+marked in the formation of our life's ideals and plans. Everyone who is
+not living blindly and aimlessly must have some ideal, some pattern, by
+which to square his life and guide his actions. At some time in our life
+I am sure that each of us has selected the person who filled most nearly
+our notion of what we should like to become, and measured ourselves by
+this pattern. But there comes a time when we must idealize even the most
+perfect individual; when we invest the character with attributes which
+we have selected from some other person, and thus worship at a shrine
+which is partly real and partly ideal.
+
+As time goes on, we drop out more and more of the strictly individual
+element, adding correspondingly more of the ideal, until our pattern is
+largely a construction of our own imagination, having in it the best we
+have been able to glean from the many characters we have known. How
+large a part these ever-changing ideals play in our lives we shall never
+know, but certainly the part is not an insignificant one. And happy the
+youth who is able to look into the future and see himself approximating
+some worthy ideal. He has caught a vision which will never allow him to
+lag or falter in the pursuit of the flying goal which points the
+direction of his efforts.
+
+IMAGINATION AND CONDUCT.--Another great field for imagination is with
+reference to conduct and our relations with others. Over and over again
+the thoughtless person has to say, "I am sorry; I did not think." The
+"did not think" simply means that he failed to realize through his
+imagination what would be the consequences of his rash or unkind words.
+He would not be unkind, but he did not imagine how the other would feel;
+he did not put himself in the other's place. Likewise with reference to
+the effects of our conduct on ourselves. What youth, taking his first
+drink of liquor, would continue if he could see a clear picture of
+himself in the gutter with bloated face and bloodshot eyes a decade
+hence? Or what boy, slyly smoking one of his early cigarettes, would
+proceed if he could see his haggard face and nerveless hand a few years
+farther along? What spendthrift would throw away his money on vanities
+could he vividly see himself in penury and want in old age? What
+prodigal anywhere who, if he could take a good look at himself
+sin-stained and broken as he returns to his "father's house" after the
+years of debauchery in the "far country" would not hesitate long before
+he entered upon his downward career?
+
+IMAGINATION AND THINKING.--We have already considered the use of
+imagination in interpreting the thoughts, feelings and handiwork of
+others. Let us now look a little more closely into the part it plays in
+our own thinking. Suppose that, instead of reading a poem, we are
+writing one; instead of listening to a description of a battle, we are
+describing it; instead of looking at the picture, we are painting it.
+Then our object is to make others who may read our language, or listen
+to our words, or view our handiwork, construct the mental images of the
+situation which furnished the material for our thought.
+
+Our words and other modes of expression are but the description of the
+flow of images in our minds, and our problem is to make a similar stream
+flow through the mind of the listener; but strange indeed would it be to
+make others see a situation which we ourselves cannot see; strange if we
+could draw a picture without being able to follow its outlines as we
+draw. Or suppose we are teaching science, and our object is to explain
+the composition of matter to someone, and make him understand how light,
+heat, etc., depend on the theory of matter; strange if the listener
+should get a picture if we ourselves are unable to get it. Or, once
+more, suppose we are to describe some incident, and our aim is to make
+its every detail stand out so clearly that no one can miss a single one.
+Is it not evident that we can never make any of these images more clear
+to those who listen to us or read our words than they are to ourselves?
+
+
+2. THE MATERIAL USED BY IMAGINATION
+
+What is the material, the mental content, out of which imagination
+builds its structures?
+
+IMAGES THE STUFF OF IMAGINATION.--Nothing can enter the imagination the
+elements of which have not been in our past experience and then been
+conserved in the form of images. The Indians never dreamed of a heaven
+whose streets are paved with gold, and in whose center stands a great
+white throne. Their experience had given them no knowledge of these
+things; and so, perforce, they must build their heaven out of the images
+which they had at command, namely, those connected with the chase and
+the forest. So their heaven was the "happy hunting ground," inhabited by
+game and enemies over whom the blessed forever triumphed. Likewise the
+valiant soldiers whose deadly arrows and keen-edged swords and
+battle-axes won on the bloody field of Hastings, did not picture a
+far-off day when the opposing lines should kill each other with mighty
+engines hurling death from behind parapets a dozen miles away. Firearms
+and the explosive powder were yet unknown, hence there were no images
+out of which to build such a picture.
+
+I do not mean that your imagination cannot construct an object which has
+never before been in your experience as a whole, for the work of the
+imagination is to do precisely this thing. It takes the various images
+at its disposal and builds them into _wholes_ which may never have
+existed before, and which may exist now only as a creation of the mind.
+And yet we have put into this new product not a single _element_ which
+was not familiar to us in the form of an image of one kind or another.
+It is the _form_ which is new; the _material_ is old. This is
+exemplified every time an inventor takes the two fundamental parts of a
+machine, the _lever_ and the _inclined plane_, and puts them together in
+relations new to each other and so evolves a machine whose complexity
+fairly bewilders us. And with other lines of thinking, as in mechanics,
+inventive power consists in being able to see the old in new relations,
+and so constantly build new constructions out of old material. It is
+this power which gives us the daring and original thinker, the Newton
+whose falling apple suggested to him the planets falling toward the sun
+in their orbits; the Darwin who out of the thigh bone of an animal was
+able to construct in his imagination the whole animal and the
+environment in which it must have lived, and so add another page to the
+earth's history.
+
+THE TWO FACTORS IN IMAGINATION.--From the simple facts which we have
+just been considering, the conclusion is plain that our power of
+imagination depends on two factors; namely, (1) _the materials available
+in the form of usable images capable of recall_, and (2) _our
+constructive ability_, or the power to group these images into new
+_wholes, the process being guided by some purpose or end_. Without this
+last provision, the products of our imagination are daydreams with their
+"castles in Spain," which may be pleasing and proper enough on
+occasions, but which as an habitual mode of thought are extremely
+dangerous.
+
+IMAGINATION LIMITED BY STOCK OF IMAGES.--That the mind is limited in its
+imagination by its stock of images may be seen from a simple
+illustration: Suppose that you own a building made of brick, but that
+you find the old one no longer adequate for your needs, and so purpose
+to build a new one; and suppose, further, that you have no material for
+your new building except that contained in the old structure. It is
+evident that you will be limited in constructing your new building by
+the material which was in the old. You may be able to build the new
+structure in any one of a multitude of different forms or styles of
+architecture, so far as the material at hand will lend itself to that
+style of building, and providing, further, that you are able to make
+the plans. But you will always be limited finally by the character and
+amount of material obtainable from the old structure. So with the mind.
+The old building is your past experience, and the separate bricks are
+the images out of which you must build your new structure through the
+imagination. Here, as before, nothing can enter which was not already on
+hand. Nothing goes into the new structure so far as its constructive
+material is concerned except images, and there is nowhere to get images
+but from the results of our past experience.
+
+LIMITED ALSO BY OUR CONSTRUCTIVE ABILITY.--But not only is our
+imaginative output limited by the _amount_ of material in the way of
+images which we have at our command, but also and perhaps not less by
+our _constructive ability_. Many persons might own the old pile of
+bricks fully adequate for the new structure, and then fail to get the
+new because they were unable to construct it. So, many who have had a
+rich and varied experience in many lines are yet unable to muster their
+images of these experiences in such a way that new products are
+obtainable from them. These have the heavy, draft-horse kind of
+intellect which goes plodding on, very possibly doing good service in
+its own circumscribed range, but destined after all to service in the
+narrow field with its low, drooping horizon. They are never able to take
+a dash at a two-minute clip among equally swift competitors, or even
+swing at a good round pace along the pleasant highways of an experience
+lying beyond the confines of the narrow _here_ and _now_. These are the
+minds which cannot discover relations; which cannot _think_. Minds of
+this type can never be architects of their own fate, or even builders,
+but must content themselves to be hod carriers.
+
+THE NEED OF A PURPOSE.--Nor are we to forget that we cannot
+intelligently erect our building until we know the _purpose_ for which
+it is to be used. No matter how much building material we may have on
+hand, nor how skillful an architect we may be, unless our plans are
+guided by some definite aim, we shall be likely to end with a structure
+that is fanciful and useless. Likewise with our thought structure.
+Unless our imagination is guided by some aim or purpose, we are in
+danger of drifting into mere daydreams which not only are useless in
+furnishing ideals for the guidance of our lives, but often become
+positively harmful when grown into a habit. The habit of daydreaming is
+hard to break, and, continuing, holds our thought in thrall and makes it
+unwilling to deal with the plain, homely things of everyday life. Who
+has not had the experience of an hour or a day spent in a fairyland of
+dreams, and awakened at the end to find himself rather dissatisfied with
+the prosaic round of duties which confronted him! I do not mean to say
+that we should _never_ dream; but I know of no more pernicious mental
+habit than that of daydreaming carried to excess, for it ends in our
+following every will-o'-the-wisp of fancy, and places us at the mercy of
+every chance suggestion.
+
+
+3. TYPES OF IMAGINATION
+
+Although imagination enters every field of human experience, and busies
+itself with every line of human interest, yet all its activities can be
+classed under two different types. These are (1) _reproductive_, and (2)
+_creative_ imagination.
+
+REPRODUCTIVE IMAGINATION.--Reproductive imagination is the type we use
+when we seek to reproduce in our minds the pictures described by others,
+or pictures from our own past experience which lack the completeness
+and fidelity to make them true memory.
+
+The narration or description of the story book, the history or geography
+text; the tale of adventure recounted by traveler or hunter; the account
+of a new machine or other invention; fairy tales and myths--these or any
+other matter that may be put into words capable of suggesting images to
+us are the field for reproductive imagination. In this use of the
+imagination our business is to follow and not lead, to copy and not
+create.
+
+CREATIVE IMAGINATION.--But we must have leaders, originators--else we
+should but imitate each other and the world would be at a standstill.
+Indeed, every person, no matter how humble his station or how humdrum
+his life, should be in some degree capable of initiative and
+originality. Such ability depends in no small measure on the power to
+use creative imagination.
+
+Creative imagination takes the images from our own past experience or
+those gleaned from the work of others and puts them together in new and
+original forms. The inventor, the writer, the mechanic or the artist who
+possesses the spirit of creation is not satisfied with _mere_
+reproduction, but seeks to modify, to improve, to originate. True, many
+important inventions and discoveries have come by seeming accident, by
+being stumbled upon. Yet it holds that the person who thus stumbles upon
+the discovery or invention is usually one whose creative imagination is
+actively at work _seeking_ to create or discover in his field. The
+world's progress as a whole does not come by accident, but by creative
+planning. Creative imagination is always found at the van of progress,
+whether in the life of an individual or a nation.
+
+
+4. TRAINING THE IMAGINATION
+
+Imagination is highly susceptible of cultivation, and its training
+should constitute one of the most important aims of education. Every
+school subject, but especially such subjects as deal with description
+and narration--history, literature, geography, nature study and
+science--is rich in opportunities for the use of imagination. Skillful
+teaching will not only find in these subjects a means of training the
+imagination, but will so employ imagination in their study as to make
+them living matter, throbbing with life and action, rather than so many
+dead words or uninteresting facts.
+
+GATHERING OF MATERIAL FOR IMAGINATION.--Theoretically, then, it is not
+hard to see what we must do to cultivate our imagination. In the first
+place, we must take care to secure a large and usable _stock of images_
+from all fields of perception. It is not enough to have visual images
+alone or chiefly, for many a time shall we need to build structures
+involving all the other senses and the motor activities as well. This
+means that we must have a first-hand contact with just as large an
+environment as possible--large in the world of Nature with all her
+varied forms suited to appeal to every avenue of sense; large in our
+contact with people in all phases of experience, laughing with those who
+laugh and weeping with those who weep; large in contact with books, the
+interpreters of the men and events of the past. We must not only let all
+these kinds of environment drift in upon us as they may chance to do,
+but we must deliberately _seek_ to increase our stock of experience;
+for, after all, experience lies at the bottom of imagination as of every
+other mental process. And not only must we thus put ourselves in the way
+of acquiring new experience, but we must by recall and reconstruction,
+as we saw in an earlier discussion, keep our imagery fresh and usable.
+For whatever serves to improve our images, at the same time is bettering
+the very foundation of imagination.
+
+WE MUST NOT FAIL TO BUILD.--In the second place, we must not fail _to
+build_. For it is futile to gather a large supply of images if we let
+the material lie unused. How many people there are who put in all their
+time gathering material for their structure, and never take time to do
+the building! They look and listen and read, and are so fully occupied
+in absorbing the immediately present that they have no time to see the
+wider significance of the things with which they deal. They are like the
+students who are too busy studying to have time to think. They are so
+taken up with receiving that they never perform the higher act of
+combining. They are the plodding fact gatherers, many of them doing good
+service, collecting material which the seer and the philosopher, with
+their constructive power, build together into the greater wholes which
+make our systems of thought. They are the ones who fondly think that, by
+reading books full of wild tales and impossible plots, they are training
+their imagination. For them, sober history, no matter how heroic or
+tragic in its quiet movements, is too tame. They have not the patience
+to read solid and thoughtful literature, and works of science and
+philosophy are a bore. These are the persons who put in all their time
+in looking at and admiring other people's houses, and never get time to
+do any building for themselves.
+
+WE SHOULD CARRY OUR IDEALS INTO ACTION.--The best training for the
+imagination which I know anything about is that to be obtained by taking
+our own material and from it building our own structure. It is true
+that it will help to look through other people's houses enough to
+discover their style of building: we should read. But just as it is not
+necessary for us to put in all the time we devote to looking at houses,
+in inspecting doll houses and Chinese pagodas, so it is not best for us
+to get all our notions of imaginative structures from the marvelous and
+the unreal; we get good training for the imagination from reading
+"Hiawatha," but so can we from reading the history of the primitive
+Indian tribes. The pictures in "Snowbound" are full of suggestion for
+the imagination: but so is the history of the Puritans in New England.
+But even with the best of models before us, it is not enough to follow
+others' building. We must construct stories for ourselves, must work out
+plots for our own stories; we must have time to meditate and plan and
+build, not idly in the daydream, but purposefully, and then make our
+images real by _carrying them out in activity_, if they are of such a
+character that this is possible; we must build our ideals and work to
+them in the common course of our everyday life; we must think for
+ourselves instead of forever following the thinking of others; we must
+_initiate_ as well as imitate.
+
+
+5. PROBLEMS FOR OBSERVATION AND INTROSPECTION
+
+1. Explain the cause and the remedy in the case of such errors as the
+following:
+
+    Children who defined mountain as land 1,000 or more feet in height
+    said that the factory smokestack was higher than the mountain
+    because it "went straight up" and the mountain did not.
+
+    Children often think of the horizon as fastened to the earth.
+
+    Islands are thought of as floating on the water.
+
+2. How would you stimulate the imagination of a child who does not seem
+to picture or make real the descriptions in reading, geography, etc.? Is
+it possible that such inability may come from an insufficient basis in
+observation, and hence in images?
+
+3. Classify the school subjects, including domestic science and manual
+training, as to their ability to train (1) reproductive and (2) creative
+imagination.
+
+4. Do you ever skip the descriptive parts of a book and read the
+narrative? As you read the description of a bit of natural scenery, does
+it rise before you? As you study the description of a battle, can you
+see the movements of the troops?
+
+5. Have you ever planned a house as you think you would like it? Can you
+see it from all sides? Can you see all the rooms in their various
+finishings and furnishings?
+
+6. What plans and ideals have you formed, and what ones are you at
+present following? Can you describe the process by which your plans or
+ideals change? Do you ever try to put yourself in the other person's
+place?
+
+7. Take some fanciful unreality which your imagination has constructed
+and see whether you can select from it familiar elements from actual
+experiences.
+
+8. What use do you make of imagination in the common round of duties in
+your daily life? What are you doing to improve your imagination?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+ASSOCIATION
+
+
+Whence came the thought that occupies you this moment, and what
+determines the next that is to follow? Introspection reveals no more
+interesting fact concerning our minds than that our thoughts move in a
+connected and orderly array and not in a hit-and-miss fashion. Our
+mental states do not throng the stream of consciousness like so many
+pieces of wood following each other at random down a rushing current,
+now this one ahead, now that. On the contrary, our thoughts come, one
+after the other, as they are beckoned or _caused_. The thought now in
+the focal point of your consciousness appeared because it sprouted out
+of the one just preceding it; and the present thought, before it
+departs, will determine its successor and lead it upon the scene. This
+is to say that our thought stream possesses not only a continuity, but
+also a _unity_; it has coherence and system. This coherence and system,
+which operates in accordance with definite laws, is brought about by
+what the psychologist calls _association_.
+
+
+1. THE NATURE OF ASSOCIATION
+
+We may define association, then, as the tendency among our thoughts to
+form such a system of bonds with each other that the objects of
+consciousness are vitally connected both (1) as they exist at any given
+moment, and (2) as they occur in succession in the mental stream.
+
+THE NEURAL BASIS OF ASSOCIATION.--The association of thoughts--ideas,
+images, memory--or of a situation with its response, rests primarily on
+a neural basis. Association is the result of habit working in neurone
+groups. Its fundamental law is stated by James as follows: "When two
+elementary brain-processes have been active together or in immediate
+succession, one of them, on recurring, tends to propagate its excitement
+into the other." This is but a technical statement of the simple fact
+that nerve currents flow most easily over the neurone connections that
+they have already used.
+
+It is hard to teach an old dog new tricks, because the old tricks employ
+familiar, much-used neural paths, while new tricks require the
+connecting up of groups of neurones not in the habit of working
+together; and the flow of nerve energy is more easily accomplished in
+the neurones accustomed to working together. One who learns to speak a
+foreign language late in life never attains the facility and ease that
+might have been reached at an earlier age. This is because the neural
+paths for speech are already set for his mother-tongue, and, with the
+lessened plasticity of age, the new paths are hard to establish.
+
+The connections between the various brain areas, or groups of neurones,
+are, as we have seen in an earlier chapter, accomplished by means of
+_association fibers_. This function requires millions of neurones, which
+unite every part of the cortex with every other part, thus making it
+possible for a neural activity going on in any particular center to
+extend to any other center whatsoever. In the relatively unripe brain of
+the child, the association fibers have not yet set up most of their
+connections. The age at which memory begins is determined chiefly by
+the development of a sufficient number of association fibers to bring
+about recall. The more complex reasoning, which requires many different
+associative connections, is impossible prior to the existence of
+adequate neural development. It is this fact that makes it futile to
+attempt to teach young children the more complicated processes of
+arithmetic, grammar, or other subjects. They are not yet equipped with
+the requisite brain machinery to grasp the necessary associations.
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 18.--Diagrammatic scheme of association, in which V
+stands for the visual, A for the auditory, G for the gustatory, M for
+the motor, and T for the thought and feeling centers of the cortex.]
+
+ASSOCIATION THE BASIS OF MEMORY.--Without the machinery and processes of
+association we could have no memory. Let us see in a simple illustration
+how association works in recall. Suppose you are passing an orchard and
+see a tree loaded with tempting apples. You hesitate, then climb the
+fence, pick an apple and eat it, hearing the owner's dog bark as you
+leave the place. The accompanying diagram will illustrate roughly the
+centers of the cortex which were involved in the act, and the
+association fibers which connect them. (See Fig. 18.) Now let us see
+how you may afterward remember the circumstance through association. Let
+us suppose that a week later you are seated at your dining table, and
+that you begin to eat an apple whose flavor reminds you of the one which
+you plucked from the tree. From this start how may the entire
+circumstance be recalled? Remember that the cortical centers connected
+with the sight of the apple tree, with our thoughts about it, with our
+movements in getting the apple, and with hearing the dog bark, were all
+active together with the taste center, and hence tend to be thrown into
+activity again from its activity. It is easy to see that we may (1) get
+a visual image of the apple tree and its fruit from a current over the
+gustatory-visual association fibers; (2) the thoughts, emotions, or
+deliberations which we had on the former occasion may again recur to us
+from a current over the gustatory-thought neurones; (3) we may get an
+image of our movements in climbing the fence and picking the apple from
+a current over the gustatory-motor fibers; or (4) we may get an auditory
+image of the barking of the dog from a current over the
+gustatory-auditory fibers. Indeed, we are _sure_ to get some one or more
+of these unless the paths are blocked in some way, or our attention
+leads off in some other direction.
+
+FACTORS DETERMINING DIRECTION OF RECALL.--_Which_ of these we get first,
+which of the images the taste percept calls to take its place as it
+drops out of consciousness, will depend, other things being equal, on
+which center was most keenly active in the original situation, and is at
+the moment most permeable. If, at the time we were eating the stolen
+fruit, our thoughts were keenly self-accusing for taking the apples
+without permission, then the current will probably discharge through
+the path gustatory-thought, and we shall recall these thoughts and their
+accompanying feelings. But if it chances that the barking of the dog
+frightened us badly, then more likely the discharge from the taste
+center will be along the path gustatory-auditory, and we shall get the
+auditory image of the dog's barking, which in turn may call up a visual
+image of his savage appearance over the auditory-visual fibers. It is
+clear, however, that, given any one of the elements of the entire
+situation back, the rest are potentially possible to us, and any one may
+serve as a "cue" to call up all the rest. Whether, given the starting
+point, we get them all, depends solely on whether the paths are
+sufficiently open between them for the current to discharge between
+them, granting that the first experience made sufficient impression to
+be retained.
+
+Since this simple illustration may be made infinitely complex by means
+of the millions of fibers which connect every center in the cortex with
+every other center, and since, in passing from one experience to another
+in the round of our daily activities, these various areas are all
+involved in an endless chain of activities so intimately related that
+each one can finally lead to all the others, we have here the machinery
+both of retention and of recall--the mechanism by which our past may be
+made to serve the present through being reproduced in the form of memory
+images or ideas. Through this machinery we are unable to escape our
+past, whether it be good or bad; for both the good and the bad alike are
+brought back to us through its operations.
+
+When the repetition of a series of acts has rendered habit secure, the
+association is relatively certain. If I recite to you A-B-C-D, your
+thought at once runs on to E, F, G. If I repeat, "Tell me not in
+mournful numbers," association leads you to follow with "Life is but an
+empty dream." Your neurone groups are accustomed to act in this way, so
+the sequence follows. Memorizing anything from the multiplication table
+to the most beautiful gems of poetic fervor consists, therefore, in the
+setting up of the right associative connections in the brain.
+
+ASSOCIATION IN THINKING.--All thinking proceeds by the discovery or
+recognition of relations between the terms or objects of our thought.
+The science of mathematics rests on the relations found to exist between
+numbers and quantities. The principles and laws of natural science are
+based on the relations established among the different forms of matter
+and the energy that operates in this field. So also in the realm of
+history, art, ethics, or any other field of human experience. Each fact
+or event must be linked to other facts or events before it possesses
+significance. Association therefore lies at the foundation of all
+thinking, whether that of the original thinker who is creating our
+sciences, planning and executing the events of history, evolving a
+system of ethics, or whether one is only learning these fields as they
+already exist by means of study. Other things being equal, he is the
+best thinker who has his knowledge related part to part so that the
+whole forms a unified and usable system.
+
+ASSOCIATION AND ACTION.--Association plays an equally important part in
+all our motor responses, the acts by which we carry on our daily lives,
+do our work and our play, or whatever else may be necessary in meeting
+and adapting ourselves to our environment. Some sensations are often
+repeated, and demand practically the same response each time. In such
+cases the associations soon become fixed, and the response certain and
+automatic. For example, we sit at the table, and the response of eating
+follows, with all its complex acts, as a matter of course. We lie down
+in bed, and the response of sleep comes. We take our place at the piano,
+and our fingers produce the accustomed music.
+
+It is of course obvious that the influence of association extends to
+moral action as well. In general, our conduct follows the trend of
+established associations. We are likely to do in great moral crises
+about as we are in the habit of doing in small ones.
+
+
+2. THE TYPES OF ASSOCIATION
+
+FUNDAMENTAL LAW OF ASSOCIATION.--Stated on the physiological side, the
+law of habit as set forth in the definition of association in the
+preceding section includes all the laws of association. In different
+phrasing we may say: (1) Neurone groups accustomed to acting together
+have the tendency to work in unison. (2) The more frequently such groups
+act together the stronger will be the tendency for one to throw the
+other into action. Also, (3) the more intense the excitement or tension
+under which they act together the stronger will be the tendency for
+activity in one to bring about activity in the other.
+
+The corresponding facts may be expressed in psychological terms as
+follows: (1) Facts accustomed to being associated together in the mind
+have a tendency to reappear together. (2) The more frequently these
+facts appear together the stronger the tendency for the presence of one
+to insure the presence of the other. (3) The greater the tension,
+excitement or concentration when these facts appear in conjunction with
+each other, the more certain the presence of one is to cause the
+presence of the other.
+
+Several different types of association have been differentiated by
+psychologists from Aristotle down. It is to be kept in mind, however,
+that all association types _go back to the elementary law of
+habit-connections among the neurones_ for their explanation.
+
+ASSOCIATION BY CONTIGUITY.--The recurrence in our minds of many of the
+elements from our past experience is due to the fact that at some time,
+possibly at many times, the recurring facts were contiguous in
+consciousness with some other element or fact which happens now to be
+again present. All have had the experience of meeting some person whom
+we had not seen for several months or years, and having a whole series
+of supposedly forgotten incidents or events connected with our former
+associations flood into the mind. Things we did, topics we discussed,
+trips we took, games we played, now recur at the renewal of our
+acquaintance. For these are the things that were contiguous in our
+consciousness with our sense of the personality and appearance of our
+friend. And who has not in similar fashion had a whiff of perfume or the
+strains of a song recall to him his childhood days! Contiguity is again
+the explanation.
+
+AT THE MERCY OF OUR ASSOCIATIONS.--Through the law thus operating we are
+in a sense at the mercy of our associations, which may be bad as well as
+good. We may form certain lines of interest to guide our thought, and
+attention may in some degree direct it, but one's mental make-up is,
+after all, largely dependent on the character of his associations. Evil
+thoughts, evil memories, evil imaginations--these all come about through
+the association of unworthy or impure images along with the good in our
+stream of thought. We may try to forget the base deed and banish it
+forever from our thinking, but lo! in an unguarded moment the nerve
+current shoots into the old path, and the impure thought flashes into
+the mind, unsought and unwelcomed. Every young man who thinks he must
+indulge in a little sowing of wild oats before he settles down to a
+correct life, and so deals in unworthy thoughts and deeds, is putting a
+mortgage on his future; for he will find the inexorable machinery of his
+nervous system grinding the hated images of such things back into his
+mind as surely as the mill returns to the sack of the miller what he
+feeds into the hopper. He may refuse to harbor these thoughts, but he
+can no more hinder their seeking admission to his mind than he can
+prevent the tramp from knocking at his door. He may drive such images
+from his mind the moment they are discovered, and indeed is guilty if he
+does not; but not taking offense at this rebuff, the unwelcome thought
+again seeks admission.
+
+The only protection against the return of the undesirable associations
+is to choose lines of thought as little related to them as possible. But
+even then, do the best we may, an occasional "connection" will be set
+up, we know not how, and the unwelcome image stands staring us in the
+face, as the corpse of Eugene Aram's victim confronted him at every
+turn, though he thought it safely buried. A minister of my acquaintance
+tells me that in the holiest moments of his most exalted thought, images
+rise in his mind which he loathes, and from which he recoils in horror.
+Not only does he drive them away at once, but he seeks to lock and bar
+the door against them by firmly resolving that he will never think of
+them again. But alas! that is beyond his control. The tares have been
+sown among the wheat, and will persist along with it until the end. In
+his boyhood these images were given into the keeping of his brain cells,
+and they are only being faithful to their trust.
+
+ASSOCIATION BY SIMILARITY AND CONTRAST.--All are familiar with the fact
+that like tends to suggest like. One friend reminds us of another friend
+when he manifests similar traits of character, shows the same tricks of
+manner, or has the same peculiarities of speech or gesture. The telling
+of a ghost or burglar story in a company will at once suggest a similar
+story to every person of the group, and before we know it the
+conversation has settled down to ghosts or burglars. One boastful boy is
+enough to start the gang to recounting their real or imaginary exploits.
+Good and beautiful thoughts tend to call up other good and beautiful
+thoughts, while evil thoughts are likely to produce after their own
+kind; like produces like.
+
+Another form of relationship is, however, quite as common as similars in
+our thinking. In certain directions we naturally think in _opposites_.
+Black suggests white, good suggests bad, fat suggests lean, wealth
+suggests poverty, happiness suggests sorrow, and so on.
+
+The tendency of our thought thus to group in similars and opposites is
+clear when we go back to the fundamental law of association. The fact is
+that we more frequently assemble our thoughts in these ways than in
+haphazard relations. We habitually group similars together, or compare
+opposites in our thinking; hence these are the terms between which
+associative bonds are formed.
+
+PARTIAL, OR SELECTIVE, ASSOCIATION.--The past is never wholly reinstated
+in present consciousness. Many elements, because they had formed fewer
+associations, or because they find some obstacle to recall, are
+permanently dropped out and forgotten. In other words, association is
+always _selective_, favoring now this item of experience, now that,
+above the rest.
+
+It is well that this is so; for to be unable to escape from the great
+mass of minutiae and unimportant detail in one's past would be
+intolerable, and would so cumber the mind with useless rubbish as to
+destroy its usefulness. We have surely all had some experience with the
+type of persons whose associations are so complete and impartial that
+all their conversation teems with unessential and irrelevant details.
+They cannot recount the simplest incident in its essential points but,
+slaves to literalness, make themselves insufferable bores by entering
+upon every lane and by-path of circumstance that leads nowhere and
+matters not the least in their story. Dickens, Thackeray, George Eliot,
+Shakespeare, and many other writers have seized upon such characters and
+made use of them for their comic effect. James, in illustrating this
+mental type, has quoted the following from Miss Austen's "Emma":
+
+"'But where could _you_ hear it?' cried Miss Bates. 'Where could you
+possibly hear it, Mr. Knightley? For it is not five minutes since I
+received Mrs. Cole's note--no, it cannot be more than five--or at least
+ten--for I had got my bonnet and spencer on, just ready to come out--I
+was only gone down to speak to Patty again about the pork--Jane was
+standing in the passage--were not you, Jane?--for my mother was so
+afraid that we had not any salting-pan large enough. So I said I would
+go down and see, and Jane said: "Shall I go down instead? for I think
+you have a little cold, and Patty has been washing the kitchen." "Oh, my
+dear," said I--well, and just then came the note.'"
+
+THE REMEDY.--The remedy for such wearisome and fruitless methods of
+association is, as a matter of theory, simple and easy. It is to
+emphasize, intensify, and dwell upon the _significant and essential_ in
+our thinking. The person who listens to a story, who studies a lesson,
+or who is a participant in any event must apply a _sense of value_,
+recognizing and fixing the important and relegating the trivial and
+unimportant to their proper level. Not to train one's self to think in
+this discriminating way is much like learning to play a piano by
+striking each key with equal force!
+
+
+3. TRAINING IN ASSOCIATION
+
+Since association is at bottom nothing but habit at work in the mental
+processes, it follows that it, like other forms of habit, can be
+encouraged or suppressed by training. Certainly, no part of one's
+education is of greater importance than the character of his
+associations. For upon these will largely depend not alone the _content_
+of his mental stream, the stuff of his thinking, but also its
+_organization_, or the use made of the thought material at hand. In
+fact, the whole science of education rests on the laws and principles
+involved in setting up right systems of associative connections in the
+individual.
+
+THE PLEASURE-PAIN MOTIVE IN ASSOCIATION.--A general law seems to obtain
+throughout the animal world that associative responses accompanied by
+pleasure tend to persist and grow stronger, while those accompanied by
+pain tend to weaken and fall away. The little child of two years may not
+understand the gravity of the offense in tearing the leaves out of
+books, but if its hands are sharply spatted whenever they tear a book,
+the association between the sight of books and tearing them will soon
+cease. In fact, all punishment should have for its object the use of
+pain in the breaking of associative bonds between certain situations and
+wrong responses to them.
+
+On the other hand, the dog that is being trained to perform his tricks
+is rewarded with a tidbit or a pat when the right response has been
+made. In this way the bond for this particular act is strengthened
+through the use of pleasure. All matter studied and learned under the
+stimulus of good feeling, enthusiasm, or a pleasurable sense of victory
+and achievement not only tends to set up more permanent and valuable
+associations than if learned under opposite conditions, but it also
+exerts a stronger appeal to our interest and appreciation.
+
+The influence of mental attitude on the matter we study raises a
+question as to the wisdom of assigning the committing of poetry, or
+Bible verses, or the reading of so many pages of a literary masterpiece
+as a punishment for some offense. How many of us have carried away
+associations of dislike and bitterness toward some gem of verse or prose
+or Scripture because of having our learning of it linked up with the
+thought of an imposed task set as penance for wrong-doing! One person
+tells me that to this day she hates the sight of Tennyson because this
+was the volume from which she was assigned many pages to commit in
+atonement for her youthful delinquencies.
+
+INTEREST AS A BASIS FOR ASSOCIATION.--Associations established under the
+stimulus of strong interest are relatively broad and permanent, while
+those formed with interest flagging are more narrow and of doubtful
+permanence. This statement is, of course, but a particular application
+of the law of attention. Interest brings the whole self into action.
+Under its urging the mind is active and alert. The new facts learned are
+completely registered, and are assimilated to other facts to which they
+are related. Many associative connections are formed, hence the new
+matter is more certain of recall, and possesses more significance and
+meaning.
+
+ASSOCIATION AND METHODS OF LEARNING.--The number and quality of our
+associations depends in no small degree on our methods of learning. We
+may be satisfied merely to impress what we learn on our memory,
+committing it uncritically as so many facts to be stored away as a part
+of our education. We may go a step beyond this and grasp the simplest
+and most obvious meanings, but not seek for the deeper and more
+fundamental relations. We may learn separate sections or divisions of a
+subject, accepting each as a more or less complete unit, without
+connecting these sections and divisions into a logical whole.
+
+But all such methods are a mistake. They do not provide for the
+associative bonds between the various facts or groups of facts in our
+knowledge, without which our facts are in danger of becoming but so much
+lumber in the mind. Meanings, relations, definitely recognized
+associations, should attach to all that we learn. Better far a smaller
+amount of _usable_ knowledge than any quantity of unorganized and
+undigested information, even if the latter sometimes allows us to pass
+examinations and receive honor grades. In short, real mastery demands
+that we _think_, that is _relate_ and _associate_, instead of merely
+_absorbing_ as we learn.
+
+
+4. PROBLEMS IN OBSERVATION AND INTROSPECTION
+
+1. Test the uncontrolled associations of a group of pupils by
+pronouncing to the class some word, as _blue_, and having the members
+write down 20 words in succession as rapidly as they can, taking in each
+instance the first word that occurs to them. The difference in the
+scope, or range, of associations, can easily be studied by applying this
+test to, say, a fourth grade and an eighth grade and then comparing
+results.
+
+2. Have you ever been puzzled by the appearance in your mind of some
+fact or incident not thought of before for years? Were you able to trace
+out the associative connection that caused the fact to appear? Why are
+we sometimes unable to recall, when we need them, facts that we
+perfectly well know?
+
+3. You have observed that it is possible to be able to spell certain
+words when they occur in a spelling lesson, but to miss them when
+employing them in composition. It is possible to learn a conjugation or
+a declension in tabular form, and then not be able to use the correct
+forms of words in speech or writing. Relate these facts to the laws of
+association, and recommend a method of instruction that will remove the
+discrepancy.
+
+4. To test the quickness of association in a class of children, copy the
+following words clearly in a vertical column on a chart; have your class
+all ready at a given signal; then display the chart before them for
+sixty seconds, asking them to write down on paper the exact _opposite_
+of as many words as possible in one minute. Be sure that all know just
+what they are expected to do.
+
+     Bad, inside, slow, short, little, soft, black, dark, sad, true,
+     dislike, poor, well, sorry, thick, full, peace, few, below, enemy.
+
+     Count the number of correct opposites got by each pupil.
+
+5. Can you think of garrulous persons among your acquaintance the
+explanation of whose tiresomeness is that their association is of the
+_complete_ instead of the _selective_ type? Watch for such illustrations
+in conversation and in literature (e.g., Juliet's nurse).
+
+6. Observe children in the schoolroom for good and poor training in
+association. Have you ever had anything that you otherwise presumably
+would enjoy rendered distasteful because of unpleasant associations?
+Pass your own methods of learning in review, and also inquire into the
+methods used by children in study, to determine whether they are
+resulting in the best possible use of association.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+MEMORY
+
+
+Every hour of our lives we call upon memory to supply us with some fact
+or detail from out our past. Let memory wholly fail us, and we find
+ourselves helpless and out of joint in a world we fail to understand. A
+poor memory handicaps one in the pursuit of education, hampers him in
+business or professional success, and puts him at a disadvantage in
+every relation of life. On the other hand, a good memory is an asset on
+which the owner realizes anew each succeeding day.
+
+
+1. THE NATURE OF MEMORY
+
+Now that you come to think of it, you can recall perfectly well that
+Columbus discovered America in 1492; that your house is painted white;
+that it rained a week ago today. But where were these once-known facts,
+now remembered so easily, while they were out of your mind? Where did
+they stay while you were not thinking of them? The common answer is,
+"Stored away in my memory." Yet no one believes that the memory is a
+warehouse of facts which we pack away there when we for a time have no
+use for them, as we store away our old furniture.
+
+WHAT IS RETAINED.--The truth is that the simple question I asked you is
+by no means an easy one, and I will answer it myself by asking you an
+easier one: As we sit with the sunlight streaming into our room, where
+is the darkness which filled it last night? And where will all this
+light be at midnight tonight? Answer these questions, and the ones I
+asked about your remembered facts will be answered. While it is true
+that, regardless of the conditions in our little room, darkness still
+exists wherever there is no light, and light still exists wherever there
+is no darkness, yet for this particular room _there is no darkness when
+the sun shines in_, and _there is no light when the room is filled with
+darkness_. So in the case of a remembered fact. Although the fact that
+Columbus discovered America some four hundred years ago, that your house
+is of a white color, that it rained a week ago today, exists as a fact
+regardless of whether your minds think of these things at all, yet the
+truth remains as before: for the particular mind which remembers these
+things, _the facts did not exist while they were out of the mind_.
+
+_It is not the remembered fact which is retained_, BUT THE POWER TO
+REPRODUCE THE FACT WHEN WE REQUIRE IT.
+
+THE PHYSICAL BASIS OF MEMORY.--The power to reproduce a once-known fact
+depends ultimately on the brain. This is not hard to understand if we go
+back a little and consider that brain activity was concerned in every
+perception we have ever had, and in every fact we have ever known.
+Indeed, it was through a certain neural activity of the cortex that you
+were able originally to know that Columbus discovered America, that your
+house is white, and that it rained on a day in the past. Without this
+cortical activity, these facts would have existed just as truly, but
+_you_ would never have known them. Without this neural activity in the
+brain there is no consciousness, and to it we must look for the
+recurrence in consciousness of remembered facts, as well as for those
+which appear for the first time.
+
+HOW WE REMEMBER.--Now, if we are to have a once-known fact repeated in
+consciousness, or in other words _remembered_, what we must do on the
+physiological side is to provide for a repetition of the neural activity
+which was at first responsible for the fact's appearing in
+consciousness. The mental accompaniment of the repeated activity _is the
+memory_. Thus, as _memory is the approximate repetition of
+once-experienced mental states or facts, together with the recognition
+of their belonging to our past, so it is accomplished by an approximate
+repetition of the once-performed neural process in the cortex which
+originally accompanied these states or facts_.
+
+The part played by the brain in memory makes it easy to understand why
+we find it so impossible to memorize or to recall when the brain is
+fatigued from long hours of work or lack of sleep. It also explains the
+derangement in memory that often comes from an injury to the brain, or
+from the toxins of alcohol, drugs or disease.
+
+DEPENDENCE OF MEMORY ON BRAIN QUALITY.--Differences in memory ability,
+while depending in part on the training memory receives, rest ultimately
+on the memory-quality of the brain. James tells us that four distinct
+types of brains may be distinguished, and he describes them as follows:
+
+Brains that are:
+
+    (1) Like _marble_ to receive and like _marble_ to retain.
+    (2) Like _wax_ to receive and like _wax_ to retain.
+    (3) Like _marble_ to receive and like _wax_ to retain.
+    (4) Like _wax_ to receive and like _marble_ to retain.
+
+The first type gives us those who memorize slowly and with much heroic
+effort, but who keep well what they have committed. The second type
+represents the ones who learn in a flash, who can cram up a lesson in a
+few minutes, but who forget as easily and as quickly as they learn. The
+third type characterizes the unfortunates who must labor hard and long
+for what they memorize, only to see it quickly slipping from their
+grasp. The fourth type is a rare boon to its possessor, enabling him
+easily to stock his memory with valuable material, which is readily
+available to him upon demand.
+
+The particular type of brain we possess is given us through heredity,
+and we can do little or nothing to change the type. Whatever our type of
+brain, however, we can do much to improve our memory by obeying the laws
+upon which all good memory depends.
+
+
+2. THE FOUR FACTORS INVOLVED IN MEMORY
+
+Nothing is more obvious than that memory cannot return to us what has
+never been given into its keeping, what has not been retained, or what
+for any reason cannot be recalled. Further, if the facts given back by
+memory are not recognized as belonging to our past, memory would be
+incomplete. Memory, therefore, involves the following four factors: (1)
+_registration_, (2) _retention_, (3) _recall_, (4) _recognition_.
+
+REGISTRATION.--By registration we mean the learning or committing of the
+matter to be remembered. On the brain side this involves producing in
+the appropriate neurones the activities which, when repeated again
+later, cause the fact to be recalled. It is this process that
+constitutes what we call "impressing the facts upon the brain."
+
+Nothing is more fatal to good memory than partial or faulty
+registration. A thing but half learned is sure to be forgotten. We
+often stop in the mastery of a lesson just short of the full impression
+needed for permanent retention and sure recall. We sometimes say to our
+teachers, "I cannot remember," when, as a matter of fact, we have never
+learned the thing we seek to recall.
+
+RETENTION.--Retention, as we have already seen, resides primarily in the
+brain. It is accomplished through the law of habit working in the
+neurones of the cortex. Here, as elsewhere, habit makes an activity once
+performed more easy of performance each succeeding time. Through this
+law a neural activity once performed tends to be repeated; or, in other
+words, a fact once known in consciousness tends to be remembered. That
+so large a part of our past is lost in oblivion, and out of the reach of
+our memory, is probably much more largely due to a failure to _recall_
+than to _retain_. We say that we have forgotten a fact or a name which
+we cannot recall, try as hard as we may; yet surely all have had the
+experience of a long-striven-for fact suddenly appearing in our memory
+when we had given it up and no longer had use for it. It was retained
+all the time, else it never could have come back at all.
+
+An aged man of my acquaintance lay on his deathbed. In his childhood he
+had first learned to speak German; but, moving with his family when he
+was eight or nine years of age to an English-speaking community, he had
+lost his ability to speak German, and had been unable for a third of a
+century to carry on a conversation in his mother tongue. Yet during the
+last days of his sickness he lost almost wholly the power to use the
+English language, and spoke fluently in German. During all these years
+his brain paths had retained the power to reproduce the forgotten words,
+even though for so long a time the words could not be recalled. James
+quotes a still more striking case of an aged woman who was seized with a
+fever and, during her delirious ravings, was heard talking in Latin,
+Hebrew and Greek. She herself could neither read nor write, and the
+priests said she was possessed of a devil. But a physician unraveled the
+mystery. When the girl was nine years of age, a pastor, who was a noted
+scholar, had taken her into his home as a servant, and she had remained
+there until his death. During this time she had daily heard him read
+aloud from his books in these languages. Her brain had indelibly
+retained the record made upon it, although for years she could not have
+recalled a sentence, if, indeed, she had ever been able to do so.
+
+RECALL.--Recall depends entirely on association. There is no way to
+arrive at a certain fact or name that is eluding us except by means of
+some other facts, names, or what-not so related to the missing term as
+to be able to bring it into the fold. Memory arrives at any desired fact
+only over a bridge of associations. It therefore follows that the more
+associations set up between the fact to be remembered and related facts
+already in the mind, the more certain the recall. Historical dates and
+events should when learned be associated with important central dates
+and events to which they naturally attach. Geographical names, places or
+other information should be connected with related material already in
+the mind. Scientific knowledge should form a coherent and related whole.
+In short, everything that is given over to the memory for its keeping
+should be linked as closely as possible to material of the same sort.
+This is all to say that we should not expect our memory to retain and
+reproduce isolated, unrelated facts, but should give it the advantage
+of as many logical and well grounded associations as possible.
+
+RECOGNITION.--A fact reproduced by memory but not recognized as
+belonging to our past experience would impress us as a new fact. This
+would mean that memory would fail to link the present to the past. Often
+we are puzzled to know whether we have before met a certain person, or
+on a former occasion told a certain story, or previously experienced a
+certain present state of mind which seems half familiar. Such baffling
+mental states are usually but instances of partial and incomplete
+recognition. Recognition no longer applies to much of our knowledge; for
+example, we say we remember that four times six is twenty-four, but
+probably none of us can recall when and where we learned this fact--we
+cannot _recognize_ it as belonging to our past experience. So with ten
+thousand other things, which we _know_ rather than remember in the
+strict sense.
+
+
+3. THE STUFF OF MEMORY
+
+What are the forms in which memory presents the past to us? What are the
+elements with which it deals? What is the stuff of which it consists?
+
+IMAGES AS THE MATERIAL OF MEMORY.--In the light of our discussion upon
+mental imagery, and with the aid of a little introspection, the answer
+is easy. I ask you to remember your home, and at once a visual image of
+the familiar house, with its well-known rooms and their characteristic
+furnishings, comes to your mind. I ask you to remember the last concert
+you attended, or the chorus of birds you heard recently in the woods;
+and there comes a flood of images, partly visual, but largely auditory,
+from the melodies you heard. Or I ask you to remember the feast of
+which you partook yesterday, and gustatory and olfactory images are
+prominent among the others which appear. And so I might keep on until I
+had covered the whole range of your memory; and, whether I ask you for
+the simple trivial experiences of your past, for the tragic or crucial
+experiences, or for the most abstruse and abstract facts which you know
+and can recall, the case is the same: much of what memory presents to
+you comes in the form of _images_ or of _ideas_ of your past.
+
+IMAGES VARY AS TO TYPE.--We do not all remember what we call the same
+fact in like images or ideas. When you remembered that Columbus
+discovered America in 1492, some of you had an image of Columbus the
+mariner standing on the deck of his ship, as the old picture shows him;
+and accompanying this image was an idea of "long agoness." Others, in
+recalling the same fact, had an image of the coast on which he landed,
+and perchance felt the rocking of the boat and heard it scraping on the
+sand as it neared the shore. And still others saw on the printed page
+the words stating that Columbus discovered America in 1492. And so in an
+infinite variety of images or ideas we may remember what we call the
+same fact, though of course the fact is not really the same fact to any
+two of us, nor to any one of us when it comes to us on different
+occasions in different images.
+
+OTHER MEMORY MATERIAL.--But sensory images are not the only material
+with which memory has to deal. We may also recall the bare fact that it
+rained a week ago today without having images of the rain. We may recall
+that Columbus discovered America in 1492 without visual or other images
+of the event. As a matter of fact we do constantly recall many facts of
+abstract nature, such as mathematical or scientific formulae with no
+imagery other than that of the words or symbols, if indeed these be
+present. Memory may therefore use as its stuff not only images, but also
+a wide range of facts, ideas and meanings of all sorts.
+
+
+4. LAWS UNDERLYING MEMORY
+
+The development of a good memory depends in no small degree on the
+closeness with which we follow certain well-demonstrated laws.
+
+THE LAW OF ASSOCIATION.--The law of association, as we have already
+seen, is fundamental. Upon it the whole structure of memory depends.
+Stating this law in neural terms we may say: Brain areas which are
+_active together at the same time tend to establish associative paths_,
+so that when one of them is again active the other is also brought into
+activity. Expressing the same truth in mental terms: If two facts or
+experiences _occur together in consciousness_, and one of them is later
+recalled, it tends to cause the other to appear also.
+
+THE LAW OF REPETITION.--The law of repetition is but a restatement of
+the law of habit, and may be formulated as follows: The _more
+frequently_ a certain cortical activity occurs, the more easily is its
+repetition brought about. Stating this law in mental terms we may say:
+The more often a fact is recalled in consciousness the easier and more
+certain the recall becomes. It is upon the law of repetition that
+reviews and drills to fix things in the memory are based.
+
+THE LAW OF RECENCY.--We may state the law of recency in physiological
+terms as follows: The _more recently_ brain centers have been employed
+in a certain activity, the more easily are they thrown into the same
+activity. This, on the mental side, means: The more recently any facts
+have been present in consciousness the more easily are they recalled. It
+is in obedience to this law that we want to rehearse a difficult lesson
+just before the recitation hour, or cram immediately before an
+examination. The working of this law also explains the tendency of all
+memories to fade out as the years pass by.
+
+THE LAW OF VIVIDNESS.--The law of vividness is of primary importance in
+memorizing. On the physical side it may be expressed as follows: The
+_higher the tension_ or the more intense the activity of neural centers
+the more easily the activity is repeated. The counterpart of this law in
+mental terms is: _The higher the degree of attention_ or concentration
+when the fact is registered the more certain it is of recall. Better far
+one impression of a high degree of vividness than several repetitions
+with the attention wandering or the brain too fatigued to respond. Not
+drill alone, but drill with concentration, is necessary to sure
+memory,--in proof of which witness the futile results on the part of the
+small boy who "studies his spelling lesson over fifteen times," the
+while he is at the same time counting his marbles.
+
+
+5. RULES FOR USING THE MEMORY
+
+Much careful and fruitful experimentation in the field of memory has
+taken place in recent years. The scientists are now able to give us
+certain simple rules which we can employ in using our memories, even if
+we lack the time or opportunity to follow all their technical
+discussions.
+
+WHOLES VERSUS PARTS.--Probably most people in setting to work to commit
+to memory a poem, oration, or other such material, have a tendency to
+learn it first by stanzas or sections and then put the parts together to
+form the whole. Many tests, however, have shown this to be a less
+effective method than to go over the whole poem or oration time after
+time, finally giving special attention to any particularly difficult
+places. The only exception to this rule would seem to be in the case of
+very long productions, which may be broken up into sections of
+reasonable length. The method of committing by wholes instead of parts
+not only economizes time and effort in the learning, but also gives a
+better sense of unity and meaning to the matter memorized.
+
+RATE OF FORGETTING.--The rate of forgetting is found to be very much
+more rapid immediately following the learning than after a longer time
+has elapsed. This is to say that of what one is going to forget of
+matter committed to memory approximately one-half will fall away within
+the first twenty-four hours and three-fourths within the first three
+days. Since it is always economy to fix afresh matter that is fading out
+before it has been wholly forgotten, it will manifestly pay to review
+important memory material within the first day or two after it has once
+been memorized.
+
+DIVIDED PRACTICE.--If to commit a certain piece of material we must go
+over it, say, ten different times, the results are found to be much
+better when the entire number of repetitions are not had in immediate
+succession, but with reasonable intervals between. This is due, no
+doubt, to the well-known fact that associations tend to take form and
+grow more secure even after we have ceased to think specifically of the
+matter in hand. The intervals allow time for the associations to form
+their connections. It is in this sense that James says we "learn to swim
+during the winter and to skate during the summer."
+
+FORCING THE MEMORY TO ACT.--In committing matter by reading it, the
+memory should be forced into activity just as fast as it is able to
+carry part of the material. If, after reading a poem over once, parts of
+it can be repeated without reference to the text, the memory should be
+compelled to reproduce these parts. So with all other material.
+Re-reading should be applied only at such points as the memory has not
+yet grasped.
+
+NOT A MEMORY, BUT MEMORIES.--Professor James has emphasized the fact,
+which has often been demonstrated by experimental tests, that we do not
+possess a memory, but a collection of memories. Our memory may be very
+good in one line and poor in another. Nor can we "train our memory" in
+the sense of practicing it in one line and having the improvement extend
+equally to other lines. Committing poetry may have little or no effect
+in strengthening the memory for historical or scientific data. In
+general, the memory must be trained in the specific lines in which it is
+to excel. General training will not serve except as it may lead to
+better modes of learning what is to be memorized.
+
+
+6. WHAT CONSTITUTES A GOOD MEMORY
+
+Let us next inquire what are the qualities which enter into what we call
+a good memory. The merchant or politician will say, "Ability to remember
+well people's faces and names"; the teacher of history, "The ability to
+recall readily dates and events"; the teacher of mathematics, "The power
+to recall mathematical formulae"; the hotel waiter, "The ability to keep
+in mind half-a-dozen orders at a time"; the manager of a corporation,
+"The ability to recall all the necessary details connected with the
+running of the concern." While these answers are very divergent, yet
+they may all be true for the particular person testifying; for out of
+them all there emerges this common truth, that _the best memory is the
+one which best serves its possessor_. That is, one's memory not only
+must be ready and exact, but must produce the right kind of material; it
+must bring to us what we need in our thinking. A very easy corollary at
+once grows out of this fact; namely, that in order to have the memory
+return to us the right kind of matter, we must store it with the right
+kind of images and ideas, for the memory cannot give back to us anything
+which we have not first given into its keeping.
+
+A GOOD MEMORY SELECTS ITS MATERIAL.--The best memory is not necessarily
+the one which impartially repeats the largest number of facts of past
+experience. Everyone has many experiences which he never needs to have
+reproduced in memory; useful enough they may have been at the time, but
+wholly useless and irrelevant later. They have served their purpose, and
+should henceforth slumber in oblivion. They would be but so much rubbish
+and lumber if they could be recalled. Everyone has surely met that
+particular type of bore whose memory is so faithful to details that no
+incident in the story he tells, no matter however trivial, is ever
+omitted in the recounting. His associations work in such a tireless
+round of minute succession, without ever being able to take a jump or a
+short cut, that he is powerless to separate the wheat from the chaff; so
+he dumps the whole indiscriminate mass into our long-suffering ears.
+
+Dr. Carpenter tells of a member of Parliament who could repeat long
+legal documents and acts of Parliament after one reading. When he was
+congratulated on his remarkable gift, he replied that, instead of being
+an advantage to him, it was often a source of great inconvenience,
+because when he wished to recollect anything in a document he had read,
+he could do it only by repeating the whole from the beginning up to the
+point which he wished to recall. Maudsley says that the kind of memory
+which enables a person "to read a photographic copy of former
+impressions with his mind's eye is not, indeed, commonly associated with
+high intellectual power," and gives as a reason that such a mind is
+hindered by the very wealth of material furnished by the memory from
+discerning the relations between separate facts upon which judgment and
+reasoning depend. It is likewise a common source of surprise among
+teachers that many of the pupils who could outstrip their classmates in
+learning and memory do not turn out to be able men. But this, says
+Whately, "is as reasonable as to wonder that a cistern if filled should
+not be a perpetual fountain." It is possible for one to be so lost in a
+tangle of trees that he cannot see the woods.
+
+A GOOD MEMORY REQUIRES GOOD THINKING.--It is not, then, mere
+re-presentation of facts that constitutes a good memory. The pupil who
+can reproduce a history lesson by the page has not necessarily as good a
+memory as the one who remembers fewer facts, but sees the relations
+between those remembered, and hence is _able to choose what he will
+remember_. Memory must be _discriminative_. It must fasten on that which
+is important and keep that for us. Therefore we can agree that "_the art
+of remembering is the art of thinking_." Discrimination must select the
+important out of our mental stream, and these images must be associated
+with as many others as possible which are already well fixed in memory,
+and hence are sure of recall when needed. In this way the old will
+always serve as a cue to call up the new.
+
+MEMORY MUST BE SPECIALIZED.--And not only must memory, if it is to be a
+good memory, omit the generally worthless, or trivial, or irrelevant,
+and supply the generally useful, significant, and relevant, but it must
+in some degree be a _specialized memory_. It must minister to the
+particular needs and requirements of its owner. Small consolation to you
+if you are a Latin teacher, and are able to call up the binomial theorem
+or the date of the fall of Constantinople when you are in dire need of a
+conjugation or a declension which eludes you. It is much better for the
+merchant and politician to have a good memory for names and faces than
+to be able to repeat the succession of English monarchs from Alfred the
+Great to Edward VII and not be able to tell John Smith from Tom Brown.
+It is much more desirable for the lawyer to be able to remember the
+necessary details of his case than to be able to recall all the various
+athletic records of the year; and so on.
+
+In order to be a good memory for _us_, our memory must be faithful in
+dealing with the material which constitutes the needs of our vocations.
+Our memory may, and should, bring to us many things outside of our
+immediate vocations, else our lives will be narrow; but its chief
+concern and most accurate work must be along the path of our everyday
+requirements at its hands. And this works out well in connection with
+the physiological laws which were stated a little while since, providing
+that our vocations are along the line of our interests. For the things
+with which we work daily, and in which we are interested, will be often
+thought of together, and hence will become well associated. They will be
+frequently recalled, and hence more easily remembered; they will be
+vividly experienced as the inevitable result of interest, and this goes
+far to insure recall.
+
+
+7. MEMORY DEVICES
+
+Many devices have been invented for training or using the memory, and
+not a few worthless "systems" have been imposed by conscienceless fakers
+upon uninformed people. All memorizing finally must go back to the
+fundamental laws of brain activity and the rules growing out of these
+laws. There is no "royal road" to a good memory.
+
+THE EFFECTS OF CRAMMING.--Not a few students depend on cramming for much
+of their learning. If this method of study would yield as valuable
+permanent results, it would be by far the most sensible and economical
+method to use; for under the stress of necessity we often are able to
+accomplish results much faster than when no pressure is resting upon us.
+The difficulty is, however, that the results are not permanent; the
+facts learned do not have time to seek out and link themselves to
+well-established associates; learned in an hour, their retention is as
+ephemeral as the application which gave them to us.
+
+Facts which are needed but temporarily and which cannot become a part of
+our body of permanent knowledge may profitably be learned by cramming.
+The lawyer needs many details for the case he is trying, which not only
+are valueless to him as soon as the case is decided, but would
+positively be in his way. He may profitably cram such facts. But those
+facts which are to become a permanent part of his mental equipment, such
+as the fundamental principles of law, he cannot cram. These he must have
+in a logical chain which will not leave their recall dependent upon a
+chance cue. Crammed facts may serve us during a recitation or an
+examination, but they never really become a part of us. Nothing can take
+the place of the logical placing of facts if they are to be remembered
+with facility, and be usable in thinking when recalled.
+
+REMEMBERING ISOLATED FACTS.--But after all this is taken into
+consideration there still remain a large number of facts which refuse to
+fit into any connected or logical system. Or, if they do belong with
+some system, their connection is not very close, and we have more need
+for the few individual facts than for the system as a whole. Hence we
+must have some means of remembering such facts other than by connecting
+them with their logical associations. Such facts as may be typified by
+the multiplication table, certain dates, events, names, numbers,
+errands, and engagements of various kinds--all these need to be
+remembered accurately and quickly when the occasion for them arises. We
+must be able to recall them with facility, so that the occasion will not
+have passed by before we can secure them and we have failed to do our
+part because of the lapse.
+
+With facts of this type the means of securing a good memory are the same
+as in the case of logical memory, except that we must of necessity
+forego the linking to naturally related associates. We can, however,
+take advantage of the three laws which have been given. If these methods
+are used faithfully, then we have done what we can in the way of
+insuring the recall of facts of this type, unless we associate them with
+some artificial cue, such as tying a thread around our finger to
+remember an errand, or learning the multiplication table by singing it.
+We are not to be too ready to excuse ourselves, however, if we have
+forgotten to mail the letter or deliver the message; for our attention
+may have been very lax when we recorded the direction in the first
+place, and we may never have taken the trouble to think of the matter
+between the time it was given into our keeping and the time we were to
+perform the errand.
+
+MNEMONIC DEVICES.--Many ingenious devices have been invented to assist
+the memory. No doubt each one of you has some way of your own of
+remembering certain things committed to you, or some much-needed fact
+which has a tendency to elude you. You may not tie the traditional
+string around your finger or place your watch in the wrong pocket; but
+if not, you have invented some method which suits your convenience
+better. While many books have been written, and many lectures given
+exploiting mnemonic systems, they are, however, all founded upon the
+same general principle: namely, that of _association of ideas_ in the
+mind. They all make use of the same basis for memory that any of us use
+every time we remember anything, from the commonest event which occurred
+last hour to the most abstruse bit of philosophy which we may have in
+our minds. They all tie the fact to be remembered to some other fact
+which is sure of recall, and then trust the old fact to bring the new
+along with it when it again comes into the mind.
+
+Artificial devices may be permissible in remembering the class of facts
+which have no logical associates in which we can relate them; but even
+then I cannot help feeling that if we should use the same care and
+ingenuity in carefully recording the seemingly unrelated facts that we
+do in working out the device and making the association in it, we should
+discover hidden relations for most of the facts we wish to remember, and
+we should be able to insure their recall as certainly and in a better
+way than through the device. Then, also, we should not be in danger of
+handing over to the device various facts for which we should discover
+relations, thus placing them in the logical body of our usable
+knowledge where they belong.
+
+
+8. PROBLEMS IN OBSERVATION AND INTROSPECTION
+
+1. Carefully consider your own powers of memory and see whether you can
+decide which of the four types of brain you have. Apply similar tests to
+your classmates or a group of school children whom you have a chance to
+observe. Be sure to take into account the effects of past training or
+habits of memory.
+
+2. Watch in your own memorizing and also that of school children for
+failures in recall caused by lack of proper associations. Why is it
+particularly hard to commit what one does not understand?
+
+3. Observe a class in a recitation or an examination and seek to
+discover whether any defects of memory revealed are to be explained by
+lack of (1) repetition, (2) recency, (3) vividness in learning.
+
+4. Make a study of your own class and also of a group of children in
+school to discover their methods of memorizing. Have in mind the rules
+for memorizing given in section 5 of this chapter.
+
+5. Observe by introspection your method of recall of historical events
+you have studied, and note whether _images_ form an important part of
+your memory material; or does your recall consist chiefly of bare
+_facts_? In how far does this depend on your method of _learning_ the
+facts in the first place?
+
+6. Carefully consider your experience from cramming your lessons. Does
+the material learned in this way stay with you? Do you _understand_ it
+and find yourself able to _use_ it as well as stuff learned during a
+longer interval and with more time for associations to form?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+THINKING
+
+
+No word is more constantly on our lips than the word _think_. A hundred
+times a day we tell what we think about this thing or that. Any
+exceptional power of thought classes us among the efficient of our
+generation. It is in their ability to think that men stand preeminently
+above the animals.
+
+
+1. DIFFERENT TYPES OF THINKING
+
+The term _think_, or _thinking_, is employed in so many different senses
+that it will be well first of all to come to an understanding as to its
+various uses. Four different types of thinking which we shall note
+are:[5] (1) _chance_, or idle, thinking; (2) thinking in the form of
+_uncritical belief_; (3) _assimilative_ thinking; and (4) _deliberative_
+thinking.
+
+CHANCE OR IDLE THINKING.--Our thinking is of the chance or idle kind
+when we think to no conscious end. No particular problem is up for
+solution, and the stream of thought drifts along in idleness. In such
+thinking, immediate interest, some idle fancy, the impulse of the
+moment, or the suggestions from our environment determine the train of
+associations and give direction to our thought. In a sense, we surrender
+our mental bark to the winds of circumstance to drive it whithersoever
+they will without let or hindrance from us. Since no results are sought
+from our thinking, none are obtained. The best of us spend more time in
+these idle trains of thought than we would like to admit, while inferior
+and untrained minds seldom rise above this barren thought level. Not
+infrequently even when we are studying a lesson which demands our best
+thought power we find that an idle chain of associations has supplanted
+the more rigid type of thinking and appropriated the field.
+
+UNCRITICAL BELIEF.--We often say that we think a certain thing is true
+or false when we have, as a matter of fact, done little or no thinking
+about it. We only _believe_, or uncritically accept, the common point of
+view as to the truth or untruth of the matter concerned. The ancients
+believed that the earth was flat, and the savages that eclipses were
+caused by animals eating up the moon. Not a few people today believe
+that potatoes and other vegetables should be planted at a certain phase
+of the moon, that sickness is a visitation of Providence, and that
+various "charms" are potent to bring good fortune or ward off disaster.
+Probably not one in a thousand of those who accept such beliefs could
+give, or have ever tried to give, any rational reason for their point of
+view.
+
+But we must not be too harsh toward such crude illustrations of
+uncritical thinking. It is entirely possible that not all of us who
+pride ourselves on our trained powers of thought could give good reasons
+discovered by our own thinking why we think our political party, our
+church, or our social organization is better than some other one. How
+few of us, after all, really _discover_ our creed, _join_ a church, or
+_choose_ a political party! We adopt the points of view of our nation or
+our group much as we adopt their customs and dress--not because we are
+convinced by thinking that they are best, but because they are less
+trouble.
+
+ASSIMILATIVE THINKING.--It is this type of thinking that occupies us
+when we seek to appropriate new facts or ideas and understand them; that
+is, relate them to knowledge already on hand. We think after this
+fashion in much of our study in schools and textbooks. The problem for
+our thought is not so much one of invention or discovery as of grasp and
+assimilation. Our thinking is to apprehend meanings and relations, and
+so unify and give coherence to our knowledge.
+
+In the absence of this type of thinking one may commit to memory many
+facts that he does not understand, gather much information that contains
+little meaning to him, and even achieve very creditable scholastic
+grades that stand for a small amount of education or development. For
+all information, to become vital and usable, must be thought into
+relation to our present active, functioning body of knowledge; therefore
+assimilative thinking is fundamental to true mastery and learning.
+
+DELIBERATIVE THINKING.--Deliberative thinking constitutes the highest
+type of thought process. In order to do deliberative thinking there is
+necessary, first of all, what Dewey calls a "split-road" situation. A
+traveler going along a well-beaten highway, says Dr. Dewey, does not
+deliberate; he simply keeps on going. But let the highway split into two
+roads at a fork, only one of which leads to the desired destination, and
+now a problem confronts him; he must take one road or the other, but
+_which_? The intelligent traveler will at once go to _seeking for
+evidence_ as to which road he should choose. He will balance this fact
+against that fact, and this probability against that probability, in an
+effort to arrive at a solution of his problem.
+
+Before we can engage in deliberative thinking we must be confronted by
+some problem, some such "_split-road_" situation in our mental
+stream--we must have something to think about. It is this fact that
+makes one writer say that the great purpose of one's education is not to
+solve all his problems for him. It is rather to help him (1) to
+_discover_ problems, or "_split-road_" situations, (2) to assist him in
+gathering the facts necessary for their solution, and (3) to train him
+in the weighing of his facts or evidence, that is, in deliberative
+thinking. Only as we learn to recognize the true problems that confront
+us in our own lives and in society about us can we become thinkers in
+the best sense. Our own plans and projects, the questions of right and
+wrong that are constantly arising, the social, political and religious
+problems awaiting solution, all afford the opportunity and the necessity
+for deliberative thinking. And unhappy is the pupil whose school work
+does not set the problems and employ the methods which will insure
+training in this as well as in the assimilative type of thinking. Every
+school subject, besides supplying certain information to be "learned,"
+should present its problems requiring true deliberative thinking within
+the range of development and ability of the pupil, and no
+subject--literature, history, science, language--is without many such
+problems.
+
+
+2. THE FUNCTION OF THINKING
+
+All true thinking is for the purpose of discovering relations between
+the things we think about. Imagine a world in which nothing is related
+to anything else; in which every object perceived, remembered, or
+imagined, stands absolutely by itself, independent and self-sufficient!
+What a chaos it would be! We might perceive, remember, and imagine all
+the various objects we please, but without the power to think them
+together, they would all be totally unrelated, and hence have no
+meaning.
+
+MEANING DEPENDS ON RELATIONS.--To have a rational meaning for us, things
+must always be defined in terms of other things, or in terms of their
+uses. _Fuel_ is that which feeds _fire_. _Food_ is what is eaten for
+_nourishment_. A _locomotive_ is a machine for _drawing a train_.
+_Books_ are to _read_, _pianos_ to _play_, _balls_ to _throw_, _schools_
+to _instruct_, _friends_ to _enjoy_, and so on through the whole list of
+objects which we know or can define. Everything depends for its meaning
+on its relation to other things; and the more of these relations we can
+discover, the more fully do we see the meaning. Thus balls may have
+other uses than to throw, schools other functions than to instruct, and
+friends mean much more to us than mere enjoyment. And just in the degree
+in which we have realized these different relations, have we defined the
+object, or, in other words, have we seen its meaning.
+
+THE FUNCTION OF THINKING IS TO DISCOVER RELATIONS.--Now it is by
+_thinking_ that these relations are discovered. This is the function of
+thinking. Thinking takes the various separate items of our experience
+and discovers to us the relations existing among them, and builds them
+together into a unified, related, and usable body of knowledge,
+threading each little bit on the string of relationship which runs
+through the whole. It was, no doubt, this thought which Tennyson had in
+mind when he wrote:
+
+    Flower in the crannied wall,
+    I pluck you out of the crannies,
+    I hold you here, root and all, in my hand,
+    Little flower--but if I could understand
+    What you are, root and all, and all in all,
+    I should know what God and man is.
+
+Starting in with even so simple a thing as a little flower, if he could
+discover all the relations which every part bears to every other part
+and to all other things besides, he would finally reach the meaning of
+God and man. For each separate thing, be it large or small, forms a link
+in an unbroken chain of relationships which binds the universe into an
+ordered whole.
+
+NEAR AND REMOTE RELATIONS.--The relations discovered through our
+thinking may be very close and simple ones, as when a child sees the
+relation between his bottle and his dinner; or they may be very remote
+ones, as when Newton saw the relation between the falling of an apple
+and the motion of the planets in their orbits. But whether simple or
+remote, the seeing of the relationships is in both cases alike thinking;
+for thinking is nothing, in its last analysis, but the discovering of
+the relationships which exist between the various objects in our mental
+stream.
+
+Thinking passes through all grades of complexity, from the first faint
+dawnings in the mind of the babe when it sees the relation between the
+mother and its feeding, on to the mighty grasp of the sage who is able
+to "think God's thoughts after Him." But it all comes to the same end
+finally--the bringing to light of new meanings through the discovery of
+new relations. And whatever does this is thinking.
+
+CHILD AND ADULT THINKING.--What constitutes the difference in the
+thinking of the child and that of the sage? Let us see whether we can
+discover this difference. In the first place the relations seen by the
+child are _immediate_ relations: they exist between simple percepts or
+images; the remote and the general are beyond his reach. He has not had
+sufficient experience to enable him to discover remote relations. He
+cannot think things which are absent from him, or which he has never
+known. The child could by no possibility have seen in the falling apple
+what Newton saw; for the child knew nothing of the planets in their
+orbits, and hence could not see relations in which these formed one of
+the terms. The sage, on the other hand, is not limited to his immediate
+percepts or their images. He can see remote relations. He can go beyond
+individuals, and think in classes. The falling apple is not a mere
+falling apple to him, but one of a _class of falling bodies_. Besides a
+rich experience full of valuable facts, the trained thinker has acquired
+also the habit of looking out for relations; he has learned that this is
+the method _par excellence_ of increasing his store of knowledge and of
+rendering effective the knowledge he has. He has learned how to think.
+
+The chief business of the child is the collection of the materials of
+thought, seeing only the more necessary and obvious relations as he
+proceeds; his chief business when older grown is to seek out the network
+of relations which unites this mass of material, and through this
+process to systematize and give new meanings to the whole.
+
+
+3. THE MECHANISM OF THINKING
+
+It is evident from the foregoing discussion that we may include under
+the term thinking all sorts of mental processes by which relations are
+apprehended between different objects of thought. Thus young children
+think as soon as they begin to understand something of the meaning of
+the objects of their environment. Even animals think by means of simple
+and direct associations. Thinking may therefore go on in terms of the
+simplest and most immediate, or the most complex and distant
+relationships.
+
+SENSATIONS AND PERCEPTS AS ELEMENTS IN THINKING.--Relations seen between
+sensations would mean something, but not much; relations seen between
+_objects_ immediately present to the senses would mean much more; but
+our thinking must go far beyond the present, and likewise far beyond
+individual objects. It must be able to annihilate both time and space,
+and to deal with millions of individuals together in one group or class.
+Only in this way can our thinking go beyond that of the lower animals;
+for a wise rat, even, may come to see the relation between a trap and
+danger, or a horse the relation between pulling with his teeth at the
+piece of string on the gate latch, and securing his liberty.
+
+But it takes the farther-reaching mind of man to _invent_ the trap and
+the latch. Perception alone does not go far enough. It is limited to
+immediately present objects and their most obvious relations. The
+perceptual image is likewise subject to similar limitations. While it
+enables us to dispense with the immediate presence of the object, yet it
+deals with separate individuals; and the world is too full of individual
+objects for us to deal with them separately. It is in _conception_,
+_judgment_, and _reasoning_ that true thinking takes place. Our next
+purpose will therefore be to study these somewhat more closely, and see
+how they combine in our thinking.
+
+
+4. THE CONCEPT
+
+Fortunately for our thinking, the great external world, with its
+millions upon millions of individual objects, is so ordered that these
+objects can be grouped into comparatively few great classes; and for
+many purposes we can deal with the class as a whole instead of with the
+separate individuals of the class. Thus there are an infinite number of
+individual objects in the world which are composed of _matter_. Yet all
+these myriads of individuals may be classed under the two great heads of
+_inanimate_ and _animate_. Taking one of these again: all animate forms
+may be classed as either _plants_ or _animals_. And these classes may
+again be subdivided indefinitely. Animals include mammals, birds,
+reptiles, insects, mollusks, and many other classes besides, each class
+of which may be still further separated into its _orders_, _families_,
+_genera_, _species_, and _individuals_. This arrangement economizes our
+thinking by allowing us to think in large terms.
+
+THE CONCEPTS SERVE TO GROUP AND CLASSIFY.--But the somewhat complicated
+form of classification just described did not come to man ready-made.
+Someone had to _see_ the relationship existing among the myriads of
+animals of a certain class, and group these together under the general
+term _mammals_. Likewise with birds, reptiles, insects, and all the
+rest. In order to accomplish this, many individuals of each class had to
+be observed, the qualities common to all members of the class
+discriminated from those not common, and the common qualities retained
+as the measure by which to test the admission of other individuals into
+this class. The process of classification is made possible by what the
+psychologist calls the _concept_. The concept enables us to think
+_birds_ as well as bluebirds, robins, and wrens; it enables us to think
+_men_ as well as Tom, Dick, and Harry. In other words, _the concept lies
+at the bottom of all thinking which rises above the seeing of the
+simplest relations between immediately present objects_.
+
+GROWTH OF A CONCEPT.--We can perhaps best understand the nature of the
+concept if we watch its growth in the thinking of a child. Let us see
+how the child forms the concept _dog_, under which he is able finally to
+class the several hundred or the several thousand different dogs with
+which his thinking requires him to deal. The child's first acquaintance
+with a dog is, let us suppose, with a pet poodle, white in color, and
+named _Gyp_. At this stage in the child's experience, _dog_ and _Gyp_
+are entirely synonymous, including Gyp's color, size, and all other
+qualities which the child has discovered. But now let him see another
+pet poodle which is like Gyp except that it is black in color. Here
+comes the first cleavage between _Gyp_ and _dog_ as synonyms: _dog_ no
+longer means white, but may mean _black_. Next let the child see a brown
+spaniel. Not only will white and black now no longer answer to _dog_,
+but the roly-poly poodle form also has been lost; for the spaniel is
+more slender. Let the child go on from this until he has seen many
+different dogs of all varieties: poodles, bulldogs, setters, shepherds,
+cockers, and a host of others. What has happened to his _dog_, which at
+the beginning meant the one particular little individual with which he
+played?
+
+_Dog_ is no longer white or black or brown or gray: _color_ is not an
+essential quality, so it has dropped out; _size_ is no longer essential
+except within very broad limits; _shagginess_ or _smoothness_ of coat is
+a very inconstant quality, so this is dropped; _form_ varies so much
+from the fat pug to the slender hound that it is discarded, except
+within broad limits; _good nature_, _playfulness_, _friendliness_, and a
+dozen other qualities are likewise found not to belong in common to
+_all_ dogs, and so have had to go; and all that is left to his _dog_ is
+_four-footedness_, and a certain general _form_, and a few other dog
+qualities of habit of life and disposition. As the term _dog_ has been
+gaining in _extent_, that is, as more individuals have been observed and
+classed under it, it has correspondingly been losing in _content_, or it
+has been losing in the specific qualities which belong to it. Yet it
+must not be thought that the process is altogether one of elimination;
+for new qualities which are present in all the individuals of a class,
+but at first overlooked, are continually being discovered as experience
+grows, and built into the developing concept.
+
+DEFINITION OF CONCEPT.--A concept, then, is _our general idea or notion
+of a class of individual objects_. Its function is to enable us to
+classify our knowledge, and thus deal with classes or universals in our
+thinking. Often the basis of a concept consists of an _image_, as when
+you get a hazy visual image of a mass of people when I suggest _mankind_
+to you. Yet the core, or the vital, functioning part of a concept is its
+_meaning_. Whether this meaning attaches to an image or a word or stands
+relatively or completely independent of either, does not so much matter;
+but our meanings must be right, else all our thinking is wrong.
+
+LANGUAGE AND THE CONCEPT.--We think in words. None has failed to watch
+the flow of his thought as it is carried along by words like so many
+little boats moving along the mental stream, each with its freight of
+meaning. And no one has escaped the temporary balking of his thought by
+failure to find a suitable word to convey the intended meaning. What
+the grammarian calls the _common nouns_ of our language are the words by
+which we name our concepts and are able to speak of them to others. We
+define a common noun as "the name of a class," and we define a concept
+as the meaning or idea we have of a class. It is easy to see that when
+we have named these class _ideas_ we have our list of common nouns. The
+study of the language of a people may therefore reveal much of their
+type of thought.
+
+THE NECESSITY FOR GROWING CONCEPTS.--The development of our concepts
+constitutes a large part of our education. For it is evident that, since
+thinking rests so fundamentally on concepts, progress in our mental life
+must depend on a constant growth in the number and character of our
+concepts. Not only must we keep on adding new concepts, but the old must
+not remain static. When our concepts stop growing, our minds have ceased
+to grow--we no longer learn. This arrest of development is often seen in
+persons who have settled into a life of narrow routine, where the
+demands are few and of a simple nature. Unless they rise above their
+routine, they early become "old fogies." Their concepts petrify from
+lack of use and the constant reconstruction which growth necessitates.
+
+On the other hand, the person who has upon him the constant demand to
+meet new situations or do better in old ones will keep on enriching his
+old concepts and forming new ones, or else, unable to do this, he will
+fail in his position. And the person who keeps on steadily enriching his
+concepts has discovered the secret of perpetual youth so far as his
+mental life is concerned. For him there is no old age; his thought will
+be always fresh, his experience always accumulating, and his knowledge
+growing more valuable and usable.
+
+
+5. JUDGMENT
+
+But in the building up of percepts and concepts, as well as in making
+use of them after they are formed, another process of thinking enters;
+namely, the process of _judging_.
+
+NATURE OF JUDGMENT.--Judging enters more or less into all our thinking,
+from the simplest to the most complex. The babe lies staring at his
+bottle, and finally it dawns on his sluggish mind that this is the
+object from which he gets his dinner. He has performed a judgment. That
+is, he has alternately directed his attention to the object before him
+and to his image of former nursing, discovered the relation existing
+between the two, and affirmed to himself, "This is what gives me my
+dinner." "Bottle" and "what-gives-me-my-dinner" are essentially
+identical to the child. _Judgment is, then, the affirmation of the
+essential identity of meaning of two objects of thought._ Even if the
+proposition in which we state our judgment has in it a negative, the
+definition will still hold, for the mental process is the same in either
+case. It is as much a judgment if we say, "The day is not-cold," as if
+we say, "The day is cold."
+
+JUDGMENT USED IN PERCEPTS AND CONCEPTS.--How judgment enters into the
+forming of our percepts may be seen from the illustration just given.
+The act by which the child perceived his bottle had in it a large
+element of judging. He had to compare two objects of thought--the one
+from past experience in the form of images, and the other from the
+present object, in the form of sensations from the bottle--and then
+affirm their essential identity. Of course it is not meant that what I
+have described _consciously_ takes place in the mind of the child; but
+some such process lies at the bottom of every perception, whether of
+the child or anyone else.
+
+Likewise it may be seen that the forming of concepts depends on
+judgment. Every time that we meet a new object which has to be assigned
+its place in our classification, judgment is required. Suppose the
+child, with his immature concept _dog_, sees for the first time a
+greyhound. He must compare this new specimen with his concept _dog_, and
+decide that this is or is not a dog. If he discovers the identity of
+meaning in the essentials of the two objects of thought, his judgment
+will be affirmative, and his concept will be modified in whatever extent
+_greyhound_ will affect it.
+
+JUDGMENT LEADS TO GENERAL TRUTHS.--But judgment goes much farther than
+to assist in building percepts and concepts. It takes our concepts after
+they are formed and discovers and affirms relations between them, thus
+enabling us finally to relate classes as well as individuals. It carries
+our thinking over into the realm of the universal, where we are not
+hampered by particulars. Let us see how this is done. Suppose we have
+the concept _man_ and the concept _animal_, and that we think of these
+two concepts in their relation to each other. The mind analyzes each
+into its elements, compares them, and finds the essential identity of
+meaning in a sufficient number to warrant the judgment, _man is an
+animal_. This judgment has given a new bit of knowledge, in that it has
+discovered to us a new relation between two great classes, and hence
+given both, in so far, a new meaning and a wider definition. And as this
+new relation does not pertain to any particular man or any particular
+animal, but includes all individuals in each class, it has carried us
+over into universals, so that we have a _general_ truth and will not
+have to test each individual man henceforth to see whether he fits into
+this relation.
+
+Judgments also, as we will see later, constitute the material for our
+reasoning. Hence upon their validity will depend the validity of our
+reasoning.
+
+THE VALIDITY OF JUDGMENTS.--Now, since every judgment is made up of an
+affirmation of relation existing between two terms, it is evident that
+the validity of the judgment will depend on the thoroughness of our
+knowledge of the terms compared. If we know but few of the attributes of
+either term of the judgment, the judgment is clearly unsafe. Imperfect
+concepts lie at the basis of many of our wrong judgments. A young man
+complained because his friend had been expelled from college for alleged
+misbehavior. He said, "Mr. A---- was the best boy in the institution."
+It is very evident that someone had made a mistake in judgment. Surely
+no college would want to expel the best boy in the institution. Either
+my complainant or the authorities of the college had failed to
+understand one of the terms in the judgment. Either "Mr. A----" or "the
+best boy in the institution" had been wrongly interpreted by someone.
+Likewise, one person will say, "Jones is a good man," while another will
+say, "Jones is a rascal." Such a discrepancy in judgment must come from
+a lack of acquaintance with Jones or a lack of knowledge of what
+constitutes a good man or a rascal.
+
+No doubt most of us are prone to make judgments with too little
+knowledge of the terms we are comparing, and it is usually those who
+have the least reason for confidence in their judgments who are the most
+certain that they cannot be mistaken. The remedy for faulty judgments
+is, of course, in making ourselves more certain of the terms involved,
+and this in turn sends us back for a review of our concepts or the
+experience upon which the terms depend. It is evident that no two
+persons can have just the same concepts, for all have not had the same
+experience out of which their concepts came. The concepts may be named
+the same, and may be nearly enough alike so that we can usually
+understand each other; but, after all, I have mine and you have yours,
+and if we could each see the other's in their true light, no doubt we
+should save many misunderstandings and quarrels.
+
+
+6. REASONING
+
+All the mental processes which we have so far described find their
+culmination and highest utility in _reasoning_. Not that reasoning comes
+last in the list of mental activities, and cannot take place until all
+the others have been completed, for reasoning is in some degree present
+almost from the dawn of consciousness. The difference between the
+reasoning of the child and that of the adult is largely one of
+degree--of reach. Reasoning goes farther than any of the other processes
+of cognition, for it takes the relations expressed in judgments and out
+of these relations evolves still other and more ultimate relations.
+
+NATURE OF REASONING.--It is hard to define reasoning so as to describe
+the precise process which occurs; for it is so intermingled with
+perception, conception, and judgment, that one can hardly separate them
+even for purposes of analysis, much less to separate them functionally.
+We may, however, define reasoning provisionally as _thinking by means of
+a series of judgments with the purpose of arriving at some definite end
+or conclusion_. What does this mean? Professor Angell has stated the
+matter so clearly that I will quote his illustration of the case:
+
+"Suppose that we are about to make a long journey which necessitates
+the choice from among a number of possible routes. This is a case of the
+genuinely problematic kind. It requires reflection, a weighing of the
+_pros_ and _cons_, and giving of the final decision in favor of one or
+other of several alternatives. In such a case the procedure of most of
+us is after this order. We think of one route as being picturesque and
+wholly novel, but also as being expensive. We think of another as less
+interesting, but also as less expensive. A third is, we discover, the
+most expedient, but also the most costly of the three. We find ourselves
+confronted, then, with the necessity of choosing with regard to the
+relative merits of cheapness, beauty, and speed. We proceed to consider
+these points in the light of all our interests, and the decision more or
+less makes itself. We find, for instance, that we must, under the
+circumstances, select the cheapest route."
+
+HOW JUDGMENTS FUNCTION IN REASONING.--Such a line of thinking is very
+common to everyone, and one that we carry out in one form or another a
+thousand times every day we live. When we come to look closely at the
+steps involved in arriving at a conclusion, we detect a series of
+judgments--often not very logically arranged, to be sure, but yet so
+related that the result is safely reached in the end. We compare our
+concept of, say, the first route and our concept of picturesqueness,
+decide they agree, and affirm the judgment, "This route is picturesque."
+Likewise we arrive at the judgment, "This route is also expensive, it is
+interesting, etc." Then we take the other routes and form our judgments
+concerning them. These judgments are all related to each other in some
+way, some of them being more intimately related than others. Which
+judgments remain as the significant ones, the ones which are used to
+solve the problem finally, depends on which concepts are the most vital
+for us with reference to the ultimate end in view. If time is the chief
+element, then the form of our reasoning would be something like this:
+"Two of the routes require more than three days: hence I must take the
+third route." If economy is the important end, the solution would be as
+follows: "Two routes cost more than $1,000; I cannot afford to pay more
+than $800; I therefore must patronize the third route."
+
+In both cases it is evident that the conclusion is reached through a
+comparison of two or more judgments. This is the essential difference
+between judgment and reasoning. Whereas judgment discovers relations
+between concepts, _reasoning discovers relations between judgments, and
+from this evolves a new judgment which is the conclusion sought_. The
+example given well illustrates the ordinary method by which we reason to
+conclusions.
+
+DEDUCTION AND THE SYLLOGISM.--Logic may take the conclusion, with the
+two judgments on which it is based, and form the three into what is
+called a _syllogism_, of which the following is a classical type:
+
+    All men are mortal;
+    Socrates is a man,
+    Therefore
+    Socrates is mortal.
+
+The first judgment is in the form of a proposition which is called the
+_major premise_, because it is general in its nature, including all men.
+The second is the _minor premise_, since it deals with a particular man.
+The third is the _conclusion_, in which a new relation is discovered
+between Socrates and mortality.
+
+This form of reasoning is _deductive_, that is, it proceeds from the
+general to the particular. Much of our reasoning is an abbreviated form
+of the syllogism, and will readily expand into it. For instance, we say,
+"It will rain tonight, for there is lightning in the west." Expanded
+into the syllogism form it would be, "Lightning in the west is a sure
+sign of rain; there is lightning in the west this evening; therefore, it
+will rain tonight." While we do not commonly think in complete
+syllogisms, it is often convenient to cast our reasoning in this form to
+test its validity. For example, a fallacy lurks in the generalization,
+"Lightning in the west is a sure sign of rain." Hence the conclusion is
+of doubtful validity.
+
+INDUCTION.--Deduction is a valuable form of reasoning, but a moment's
+reflection will show that something must precede the syllogism in our
+reasoning. The _major premise must be accounted for_. How are we able to
+say that all men are mortal, and that lightning in the west is a sure
+sign of rain? How was this general truth arrived at? There is only one
+way, namely, through the observation of a large number of particular
+instances, or through _induction_.
+
+Induction is the method of proceeding from the particular to the
+general. Many men are observed, and it is found that all who have been
+observed have died under a certain age. It is true that not all men have
+been observed to die, since many are now living, and many more will no
+doubt come and live in the world whom _we_ cannot observe, since
+mortality will have overtaken us before their advent. To this it may be
+answered that the men now living have not yet lived up to the limit of
+their time, and, besides, they have within them the causes working whose
+inevitable effect has always been and always will be death; likewise
+with the men yet unborn, they will possess the same organism as we,
+whose very nature necessitates mortality. In the case of the
+premonitions of rain, the generalization is not so safe, for there have
+been exceptions. Lightning in the west at night is not always followed
+by rain, nor can we find inherent causes as in the other case which
+necessitates rain as an effect.
+
+THE NECESSITY FOR BROAD INDUCTION.--Thus it is seen that our
+generalizations, or major premises, are of all degrees of validity. In
+the case of some, as the mortality of man, millions of cases have been
+observed and no exceptions found, but on the contrary, causes discovered
+whose operation renders the result inevitable. In others, as, for
+instance, in the generalization once made, "All cloven-footed animals
+chew their cud," not only had the examination of individual cases not
+been carried so far as in the former case when the generalization was
+made, but there were found no inherent causes residing in cloven-footed
+animals which make it necessary for them to chew their cud. That is,
+cloven feet and cud-chewing do not of necessity go together, and the
+case of the pig disproves the generalization.
+
+In practically no instance, however, is it possible for us to examine
+every case upon which a generalization is based; after examining a
+sufficient number of cases, and particularly if there are supporting
+causes, we are warranted in making the "inductive leap," or in
+proceeding at once to state our generalization as a working hypothesis.
+Of course it is easy to see that if we have a wrong generalization, if
+our major premise is invalid, all that follows in our chain of reasoning
+will be worthless. This fact should render us careful in making
+generalizations on too narrow a basis of induction. We may have observed
+that certain red-haired people of our acquaintance are quick-tempered,
+but we are not justified from this in making the general statement that
+all red-haired people are quick-tempered. Not only have we not examined
+a sufficient number of cases to warrant such a conclusion, but we have
+found in the red hair not even a cause of quick temper, but only an
+occasional concomitant.
+
+THE INTERRELATION OF INDUCTION AND DEDUCTION.--Induction and deduction
+must go hand in hand in building up our world of knowledge. Induction
+gives us the particular facts out of which our system of knowledge is
+built, furnishes us with the data out of which general truths are
+formed; deduction allows us to start with the generalization furnished
+us by induction, and from this vantage ground to organize and
+systematize our knowledge and, through the discovery of its relations,
+to unify it and make it usable. Deduction starts with a general truth
+and asks the question, "What new relations are made necessary among
+particular facts by this truth?" Induction starts with particulars, and
+asks the question, "To what general truth do these separate facts lead?"
+Each method of reasoning needs the other. Deduction must have induction
+to furnish the facts for its premises; induction must have deduction to
+organize these separate facts into a unified body of knowledge. "He only
+sees well who sees the whole in the parts, and the parts in the whole."
+
+
+7. PROBLEMS IN OBSERVATION AND INTROSPECTION
+
+1. Watch your own thinking for examples of each of the four types
+described. Observe a class of children in a recitation or at study and
+try to decide which type is being employed by each child. What
+proportion of the time supposedly given to study is given over to
+_chance_ or idle thinking? To _assimilative_ thinking? To _deliberative_
+thinking?
+
+2. Observe children at work in school with the purpose of determining
+whether they are being taught to _think_, or only to memorize certain
+facts. Do you find that definitions whose meaning is not clear are often
+required of children? Which should come first, the definition or the
+meaning and application of it?
+
+3. It is of course evident from the relation of induction and deduction
+that the child's natural mode of learning a subject is by induction.
+Observe the teaching of children to determine whether inductive methods
+are commonly used. Outline an inductive lesson in arithmetic,
+physiology, geography, civics, etc.
+
+4. What concepts have you now which you are aware are very meager? What
+is your concept of _mountain?_ How many have you seen? Have you any
+concepts which you are working very hard to enrich?
+
+5. Recall some judgment which you have made and which proved to be
+false, and see whether you can now discover what was wrong with it. Do
+you find the trouble to be an inadequate concept? What constitutes "good
+judgment"? "poor judgment"? Did you ever make a mistake in an example
+in, say, percentage, by saying "This is the base," when it proved not to
+be? What was the cause of the error?
+
+6. Can you recall any instance in which you made too hasty a
+generalization when you had observed but few cases upon which to base
+your premise? What of your reasoning which followed?
+
+7. See whether you can show that validity of reasoning rests ultimately
+on correct perceptions. What are you doing at present to increase your
+power of thinking?
+
+8. How ought this chapter to help one in making a better teacher? A
+better student?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+INSTINCT
+
+
+Nothing is more wonderful than nature's method of endowing each
+individual at the beginning with all the impulses, tendencies and
+capacities that are to control and determine the outcome of the life.
+The acorn has the perfect oak tree in its heart; the complete butterfly
+exists in the grub; and man at his highest powers is present in the babe
+at birth. Education _adds_ nothing to what heredity supplies, but only
+develops what is present from the first.
+
+We are a part of a great unbroken procession of life, which began at the
+beginning and will go on till the end. Each generation receives, through
+heredity, the products of the long experience through which the race has
+passed. The generation receiving the gift today lives its own brief
+life, makes its own little contribution to the sum total and then passes
+on as millions have done before. Through heredity, the achievements, the
+passions, the fears, and the tragedies of generations long since
+moldered to dust stir our blood and tone our nerves for the conflict of
+today.
+
+
+1. THE NATURE OF INSTINCT
+
+Every child born into the world has resting upon him an unseen hand
+reaching out from the past, pushing him out to meet his environment, and
+guiding him in the start upon his journey. This impelling and guiding
+power from the past we call _instinct_. In the words of Mosso: "Instinct
+is the voice of past generations reverberating like a distant echo in
+the cells of the nervous system. We feel the breath, the advice, the
+experience of all men, from those who lived on acorns and struggled like
+wild beasts, dying naked in the forests, down to the virtue and toil of
+our father, the fear and love of our mother."
+
+THE BABE'S DEPENDENCE ON INSTINCT.--The child is born ignorant and
+helpless. It has no memory, no reason, no imagination. It has never
+performed a conscious act, and does not know how to begin. It must get
+started, but how? It has no experience to direct it, and is unable to
+understand or imitate others of its kind. It is at this point that
+instinct comes to the rescue. The race has not given the child a mind
+ready made--that must develop; but it has given him a ready-made nervous
+system, ready to respond with the proper movements when it receives the
+touch of its environment through the senses.
+
+And this nervous system has been so trained during a limitless past that
+its responses are the ones which are necessary for the welfare of its
+owner. It can do a hundred things without having to wait to learn them.
+Burdette says of the new-born child, "Nobody told him what to do. Nobody
+taught him. He knew. Placed suddenly on the guest list of this old
+caravansary, he knew his way at once to two places in it--his bedroom
+and the dining-room." A thousand generations of babies had done the same
+thing in the same way, and each had made it a little easier for this
+particular baby to do his part without learning how.
+
+DEFINITION OF INSTINCT.--_Instincts are the tendency to act in certain
+definite ways, without previous education and without a conscious end in
+view._ They are a tendency to _act_; for some movement, or motor
+adjustment, is the response to an instinct. They do not require previous
+_education_, for none is possible with many instinctive acts: the duck
+does not have to be taught to swim or the baby to suck. They have no
+conscious _end_ in view, though the result may be highly desirable.
+
+Says James: "The cat runs after the mouse, runs or shows fight before
+the dog, avoids falling from walls and trees, shuns fire and water,
+etc., not because he has any notion either of life or death, or of self,
+or of preservation. He has probably attained to no one of these
+conceptions in such a way as to react definitely upon it. He acts in
+each case separately, and simply because he cannot help it; being so
+framed that when that particular running thing called a mouse appears in
+his field of vision he _must_ pursue; that when that particular barking
+and obstreperous thing called a dog appears he _must_ retire, if at a
+distance, and scratch if close by; that he _must_ withdraw his feet from
+water and his face from flame, etc. His nervous system is to a great
+extent a pre-organized bundle of such reactions. They are as fatal as
+sneezing, and exactly correlated to their special excitants as it to its
+own."[6]
+
+You ask, Why does the lark rise on the flash of a sunbeam from his
+meadow to the morning sky, leaving a trail of melody to mark his flight?
+Why does the beaver build his dam, and the oriole hang her nest? Why are
+myriads of animal forms on the earth today doing what they were
+countless generations ago? Why does the lover seek the maid, and the
+mother cherish her young? _Because the voice of the past speaks to the
+present, and the present has no choice but to obey._
+
+INSTINCTS ARE RACIAL HABITS.--Instincts are the habits of the race which
+it bequeaths to the individual; the individual takes these for his
+start, and then modifies them through education, and thus adapts himself
+to his environment. Through his instincts, the individual is enabled to
+short-cut racial experience, and begin at once on life activities which
+the race has been ages in acquiring. Instinct preserves to us what the
+race has achieved in experience, and so starts us out where the race
+left off.
+
+UNMODIFIED INSTINCT IS BLIND.--Many of the lower animal forms act on
+instinct blindly, unable to use past experience to guide their acts,
+incapable of education. Some of them carry out seemingly marvelous
+activities, yet their acts are as automatic as those of a machine and as
+devoid of foresight. A species of mud wasp carefully selects clay of
+just the right consistency, finds a somewhat sheltered nook under the
+eaves, and builds its nest, leaving one open door. Then it seeks a
+certain kind of spider, and having stung it so as to benumb without
+killing, carries it into the new-made nest, lays its eggs on the body of
+the spider so that the young wasps may have food immediately upon
+hatching out, then goes out and plasters the door over carefully to
+exclude all intruders. Wonderful intelligence? Not intelligence at all.
+Its acts were dictated not by plans for the future, but by pressure from
+the past. Let the supply of clay fail, or the race of spiders become
+extinct, and the wasp is helpless and its species will perish. Likewise
+the _race_ of bees and ants have done wonderful things, but _individual_
+bees and ants are very stupid and helpless when confronted by any novel
+conditions to which their race has not been accustomed.
+
+Man starts in as blindly as the lower animals; but, thanks to his higher
+mental powers, this blindness soon gives way to foresight, and he is
+able to formulate purposeful ends and adapt his activities to their
+accomplishment. Possessing a larger number of instincts than the lower
+animals have, man finds possible a greater number of responses to a more
+complex environment than do they. This advantage, coupled with his
+ability to reconstruct his experience in such a way that he secures
+constantly increasing control over his environment, easily makes man the
+superior of all the animals, and enables him to exploit them for his own
+further advancement.
+
+
+2. LAW OF THE APPEARANCE AND DISAPPEARANCE OF INSTINCTS
+
+No child is born with all its instincts ripe and ready for action. Yet
+each individual contains within his own inner nature the law which
+determines the order and time of their development.
+
+INSTINCTS APPEAR IN SUCCESSION AS REQUIRED.--It is not well that we
+should be started on too many different lines of activity at once, hence
+our instincts do not all appear at the same time. Only as fast as we
+need additional activities do they ripen. Our very earliest activities
+are concerned chiefly with feeding, hence we first have the instincts
+which prompt us to take our food and to cry for it when we are hungry.
+Also we find useful such abbreviated instincts, called _reflexes_, as
+sneezing, snuffling, gagging, vomiting, starting, etc.; hence we have
+the instincts enabling us to do these things. Soon comes the time for
+teething, and, to help the matter along, the instinct of biting enters,
+and the rubber ring is in demand. The time approaches when we are to
+feed ourselves, so the instinct arises to carry everything to the mouth.
+Now we have grown strong and must assume an erect attitude, hence the
+instinct to sit up and then to stand. Locomotion comes next, and with it
+the instinct to creep and walk. Also a language must be learned, and we
+must take part in the busy life about us and do as other people do; so
+the instinct to imitate arises that we may learn things quickly and
+easily.
+
+We need a spur to keep us up to our best effort, so the instinct of
+emulation emerges. We must defend ourselves, so the instinct of
+pugnacity is born. We need to be cautious, hence the instinct of fear.
+We need to be investigative, hence the instinct of curiosity. Much
+self-directed activity is necessary for our development, hence the play
+instinct. It is best that we should come to know and serve others, so
+the instincts of sociability and sympathy arise. We need to select a
+mate and care for offspring, hence the instinct of love for the other
+sex, and the parental instinct. This is far from a complete list of our
+instincts, and I have not tried to follow the order of their
+development, but I have given enough to show the origin of many of our
+life's most important activities.
+
+MANY INSTINCTS ARE TRANSITORY.--Not only do instincts ripen by degrees,
+entering our experience one by one as they are needed, but they drop out
+when their work is done. Some, like the instinct of self-preservation,
+are needed our lifetime through, hence they remain to the end. Others,
+like the play instinct, serve their purpose and disappear or are
+modified into new forms in a few years, or a few months. The life of the
+instinct is always as transitory as is the necessity for the activity
+to which it gives rise. No instinct remains wholly unaltered in man, for
+it is constantly being made over in the light of each new experience.
+The instinct of self-preservation is modified by knowledge and
+experience, so that the defense of the man against threatened danger
+would be very different from that of the child; yet the instinct to
+protect oneself in _some_ way remains. On the other hand, the instinct
+to romp and play is less permanent. It may last into adult life, but few
+middle-aged or old people care to race about as do children. Their
+activities are occupied in other lines, and they require less physical
+exertion.
+
+Contrast with these two examples such instincts as sucking, creeping,
+and crying, which are much more fleeting than the play instinct, even.
+With dentition comes another mode of eating, and sucking is no more
+serviceable. Walking is a better mode of locomotion than creeping, so
+the instinct to creep soon dies. Speech is found a better way than
+crying to attract attention to distress, so this instinct drops out.
+Many of our instincts not only would fail to be serviceable in our later
+lives, but would be positively in the way. Each serves its day, and then
+passes over into so modified a form as not to be recognized, or else
+drops out of sight altogether.
+
+SEEMINGLY USELESS INSTINCTS.--Indeed it is difficult to see that some
+instincts serve a useful purpose at any time. The pugnacity and
+greediness of childhood, its foolish fears, the bashfulness of
+youth--these seem to be either useless or detrimental to development.
+In order to understand the workings of instinct, however, we must
+remember that it looks in two directions; into the future for its
+application, and into the past for its explanation. We should not be
+surprised if the experiences of a long past have left behind some
+tendencies which are not very useful under the vastly different
+conditions of today.
+
+Nor should we be too sure that an activity whose precise function in
+relation to development we cannot discover has no use at all. Each
+instinct must be considered not alone in the light of what it means to
+its possessor today, but of what it means to all his future development.
+The tail of a polliwog seems a very useless appendage so far as the
+adult frog is concerned, yet if the polliwog's tail is cut off a perfect
+frog never develops.
+
+INSTINCTS TO BE UTILIZED WHEN THEY APPEAR.--A man may set the stream to
+turning his mill wheels today or wait for twenty years--the power is
+there ready for him when he wants it. Instincts must be utilized when
+they present themselves, else they disappear--never, in most cases, to
+return. Birds kept caged past the flying time never learn to fly well.
+The hunter must train his setter when the time is ripe, or the dog can
+never be depended upon. Ducks kept away from the water until full grown
+have almost as little inclination for it as chickens.
+
+The child whom the pressure of circumstances or unwise authority of
+parents keeps from mingling with playmates and participating in their
+plays and games when the social instinct is strong upon him, will in
+later life find himself a hopeless recluse to whom social duties are a
+bore. The boy who does not hunt and fish and race and climb at the
+proper time for these things, will find his taste for them fade away,
+and he will become wedded to a sedentary life. The youth and maiden must
+be permitted to "dress up" when the impulse comes to them, or they are
+likely ever after to be careless in their attire.
+
+INSTINCTS AS STARTING POINTS.--Most of our habits have their rise in
+instincts, and all desirable instincts should be seized upon and
+transformed into habits before they fade away. Says James in his
+remarkable chapter on Instinct: "In all pedagogy the great thing is to
+strike while the iron is hot, and to seize the wave of the pupils'
+interest in each successive subject before its ebb has come, so that
+knowledge may be got and a habit of skill acquired--a headway of
+interest, in short, secured, on which afterwards the individual may
+float. There is a happy moment for fixing skill in drawing, for making
+boys collectors in natural history, and presently dissectors and
+botanists; then for initiating them into the harmonies of mechanics and
+the wonders of physical and chemical law. Later, introspective
+psychology and the metaphysical and religious mysteries take their turn;
+and, last of all, the drama of human affairs and worldly wisdom in the
+widest sense of the term. In each of us a saturation point is soon
+reached in all these things; the impetus of our purely intellectual zeal
+expires, and unless the topic is associated with some urgent personal
+need that keeps our wits constantly whetted about it, we settle into an
+equilibrium, and live on what we learned when our interest was fresh and
+instinctive, without adding to the store."
+
+    There is a tide in the affairs of men
+    Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
+    Omitted, all the voyage of their life
+    Is bound in shallows and in miseries.
+
+THE MORE IMPORTANT HUMAN INSTINCTS.--It will be impossible in this brief
+statement to give a complete catalogue of the human instincts, much
+less to discuss each in detail. We must content ourselves therefore with
+naming the more important instincts, and finally discussing a few of
+them: _Sucking_, _biting_, _chewing_, _clasping objects with the
+fingers_, _carrying to the mouth_, _crying_, _smiling_, _sitting up_,
+_standing_, _locomotion_, _vocalization_, _imitation_, _emulation_,
+_pugnacity_, _resentment_, _anger_, _sympathy_, _hunting and fighting_,
+_fear_, _acquisitiveness_, _play_, _curiosity_, _sociability_,
+_modesty_, _secretiveness_, _shame_, _love_, _and jealousy_ may be said
+to head the list of our instincts. It will be impossible in our brief
+space to discuss all of this list. Only a few of the more important will
+be noticed.
+
+
+3. THE INSTINCT OF IMITATION
+
+No individual enters the world with a large enough stock of instincts to
+start him doing all the things necessary for his welfare. Instinct
+prompts him to eat when he is hungry, but does not tell him to use a
+knife and fork and spoon; it prompts him to use vocal speech, but does
+not say whether he shall use English, French, or German; it prompts him
+to be social in his nature, but does not specify that he shall say
+please and thank you, and take off his hat to ladies. The race did not
+find the specific _modes_ in which these and many other things are to be
+done of sufficient importance to crystallize them in instincts, hence
+the individual must learn them as he needs them. The simplest way of
+accomplishing this is for each generation to copy the ways of doing
+things which are followed by the older generation among whom they are
+born. This is done largely through _imitation_.
+
+NATURE OF IMITATION.--_Imitation is the instinct to respond to a
+suggestion from another by repeating his act._ The instinct of
+imitation is active in the year-old child, it requires another year or
+two to reach its height, then it gradually grows less marked, but
+continues in some degree throughout life. The young child is practically
+helpless in the matter of imitation. Instinct demands that he shall
+imitate, and he has no choice but to obey. His environment furnishes the
+models which he must imitate, whether they are good or bad. Before he is
+old enough for intelligent choice, he has imitated a multitude of acts
+about him; and habit has seized upon these acts and is weaving them into
+conduct and character. Older grown we may choose what we will imitate,
+but in our earlier years we are at the mercy of the models which are
+placed before us.
+
+If our mother tongue is the first we hear spoken, that will be our
+language; but if we first hear Chinese, we will learn that with almost
+equal facility. If whatever speech we hear is well spoken, correct, and
+beautiful, so will our language be; if it is vulgar, or incorrect, or
+slangy, our speech will be of this kind. If the first manners which
+serve us as models are coarse and boorish, ours will resemble them; if
+they are cultivated and refined, ours will be like them. If our models
+of conduct and morals are questionable, our conduct and morals will be
+of like type. Our manner of walking, of dressing, of thinking, of saying
+our prayers, even, originates in imitation. By imitation we adopt
+ready-made our social standards, our political faith, and our religious
+creeds. Our views of life and the values we set on its attainments are
+largely a matter of imitation.
+
+INDIVIDUALITY IN IMITATION.--Yet, given the same model, no two of us
+will imitate precisely alike. Your acts will be yours, and mine will be
+mine. This is because no two of us have just the same heredity, and
+hence cannot have precisely similar instincts. There reside in our
+different personalities different powers of invention and originality,
+and these determine by how much the product of imitation will vary from
+the model. Some remain imitators all their lives, while others use
+imitation as a means to the invention of better types than the original
+models. The person who is an imitator only, lacks individuality and
+initiative; the nation which is an imitator only is stagnant and
+unprogressive. While imitation must be blind in both cases at first, it
+should be increasingly intelligent as the individual or the nation
+progresses.
+
+CONSCIOUS AND UNCONSCIOUS IMITATION.--The much-quoted dictum that "all
+consciousness is motor" has a direct application to imitation. It only
+means that _we have a tendency to act on whatever idea occupies the
+mind_. Think of yawning or clearing the throat, and the tendency is
+strong to do these things. We naturally respond to smile with smile and
+to frown with frown. And even the impressions coming to us from our
+material environment have their influence on our acts. Our response to
+these ideas may be a conscious one, as when a boy purposely stutters in
+order to mimic an unfortunate companion; or it may be unconscious, as
+when the boy unknowingly falls into the habit of stammering from hearing
+this kind of speech. The child may consciously seek to keep himself neat
+and clean so as to harmonize with a pleasant and well-kept home, or he
+may unconsciously become slovenly and cross-tempered from living in an
+ill-kept home where constant bickering is the rule.
+
+Often we deliberately imitate what seems to us desirable in other
+people, but probably far the greater proportion of the suggestions to
+which we respond are received and acted upon unconsciously. In
+conscious imitation we can select what models we shall imitate, and
+therefore protect ourselves in so far as our judgment of good and bad
+models is valid. In unconscious imitation, however, we are constantly
+responding to a stream of suggestions pouring in upon us hour after hour
+and day after day, with no protection but the leadings of our interests
+as they direct our attention now to this phase of our environment, and
+now to that.
+
+INFLUENCE OF ENVIRONMENT.--No small part of the influences which mold
+our lives comes from our material environment. Good clothes, artistic
+homes, beautiful pictures and decoration, attractive parks and lawns,
+well-kept streets, well-bound books--all these have a direct moral and
+educative value; on the other hand, squalor, disorder, and ugliness are
+an incentive to ignorance and crime.
+
+Hawthorne tells in "The Great Stone Face" of the boy Ernest, listening
+to the tradition of a coming Wise Man who one day is to rule over the
+Valley. The story sinks deep into the boy's heart, and he thinks and
+dreams of the great and good man; and as he thinks and dreams, he spends
+his boyhood days gazing across the valley at a distant mountain side
+whose rocks and cliffs nature had formed into the outlines of a human
+face remarkable for the nobleness and benignity of its expression. He
+comes to love this Face and looks upon it as the prototype of the coming
+Wise Man, until lo! as he dwells upon it and dreams about it, the
+beautiful character which its expression typifies grows into his own
+life, and he himself becomes the long-looked-for Wise Man.
+
+THE INFLUENCE OF PERSONALITY.--More powerful than the influence of
+material environment, however, is that of other personalities upon
+us--the touch of life upon life. A living personality contains a power
+which grips hold of us, electrifies us, inspires us, and compels us to
+new endeavor, or else degrades and debases us. None has failed to feel
+at some time this life-touch, and to bless or curse the day when its
+influence came upon him. Either consciously or unconsciously such a
+personality becomes our ideal and model; we idolize it, idealize it, and
+imitate it, until it becomes a part of us. Not only do we find these
+great personalities living in the flesh, but we find them also in books,
+from whose pages they speak to us, and to whose influence we respond.
+
+And not in the _great_ personalities alone does the power to influence
+reside. From _every life_ which touches ours, a stream of influence
+great or small is entering our life and helping to mold it. Nor are we
+to forget that this influence is reciprocal, and that we are reacting
+upon others up to the measure of the powers that are in us.
+
+
+4. THE INSTINCT OF PLAY
+
+Small use to be a child unless one can play. Says Karl Groos: "Perhaps
+the very existence of youth is due in part to the necessity for play;
+the animal does not play because he is young, but he is young because he
+must play." Play is a constant factor in all grades of animal life. The
+swarming insects, the playful kitten, the frisking lambs, the racing
+colt, the darting swallows, the maddening aggregation of
+blackbirds--these are but illustrations of the common impulse of all the
+animal world to play. Wherever freedom and happiness reside, there play
+is found; wherever play is lacking, there the curse has fallen and
+sadness and oppression reign. Play is the natural role in the paradise
+of youth; it is childhood's chief occupation. To toil without play,
+places man on a level with the beasts of burden.
+
+THE NECESSITY FOR PLAY.--But why is play so necessary? Why is this
+impulse so deep-rooted in our natures? Why not compel our young to
+expend their boundless energy on productive labor? Why all this waste?
+Why have our child labor laws? Why not shut recesses from our schools,
+and so save time for work? Is it true that all work and no play makes
+Jack a dull boy? Too true. For proof we need but gaze at the dull and
+lifeless faces of the prematurely old children as they pour out of the
+factories where child labor is employed. We need but follow the
+children, who have had a playless childhood, into a narrow and barren
+manhood. We need but to trace back the history of the dull and brutish
+men of today, and find that they were the playless children of
+yesterday. Play is as necessary to the child as food, as vital as
+sunshine, as indispensable as air.
+
+The keynote of play is _freedom_, freedom of physical activity, and
+mental initiative. In play the child makes his own plans, his
+imagination has free rein, originality is in demand, and constructive
+ability is placed under tribute. Here are developed a thousand
+tendencies which would never find expression in the narrow treadmill of
+labor alone. The child needs to learn to work; but along with his work
+must be the opportunity for free and unrestricted activity, which can
+come only through play. The boy needs a chance to be a barbarian, a
+hero, an Indian. He needs to ride his broomstick on a dangerous raid,
+and to charge with lath sword the redoubts of a stubborn enemy. He needs
+to be a leader as well as a follower. In short, without in the least
+being aware of it, he needs to develop himself through his own
+activity--he needs freedom to play. If the child be a girl, there is no
+difference except in the character of the activities employed.
+
+PLAY IN DEVELOPMENT AND EDUCATION.--And it is precisely out of these
+play activities that the later and more serious activities of life
+emerge. Play is the gateway by which we best enter the various fields of
+the world's work, whether our particular sphere be that of pupil or
+teacher in the schoolroom, of man in the busy marts of trade or in the
+professions, or of farmer or mechanic. Play brings the _whole self_ into
+the activity; it trains to habits of independence and individual
+initiative, to strenuous and sustained effort, to endurance of hardship
+and fatigue, to social participation and the acceptance of victory and
+defeat. And these are the qualities needed by the man of success in his
+vocation.
+
+These facts make the play instinct one of the most important in
+education. Froebel was the first to recognize the importance of play,
+and the kindergarten was an attempt to utilize its activities in the
+school. The introduction of this new factor into education has been
+attended, as might be expected, by many mistakes. Some have thought to
+recast the entire process of education into the form of games and plays,
+and thus to lead the child to possess the "Promised Land" through
+aimlessly chasing butterflies in the pleasant fields of knowledge. It is
+needless to say that they have not succeeded. Others have mistaken the
+shadow for the substance, and introduced games and plays into the
+schoolroom which lack the very first element of play; namely, _freedom
+of initiative and action_ on the part of the child. Educational
+theorists and teachers have invented games and occupations and taught
+them to the children, who go through with them much as they would with
+any other task, enjoying the activity but missing the development which
+would come through a larger measure of self-direction.
+
+WORK AND PLAY ARE COMPLEMENTS.--Work cannot take the place of play,
+neither can play be substituted for work. Nor are the two antagonistic,
+but each is the complement of the other; for the activities of work grow
+immediately out of those of play, and each lends zest to the other.
+Those who have never learned to work and those who have never learned to
+play are equally lacking in their development. Further, it is not the
+name or character of an activity which determines whether it is play for
+the participant, but _his attitude toward the activity_. If the activity
+is performed for its own sake and not for some ulterior end, if it grows
+out of the interest of the child and involves the free and independent
+use of his powers of body and mind, if it is _his_, and not someone's
+else--then the activity possesses the chief characteristics of play.
+Lacking these, it cannot be play, whatever else it may be.
+
+Play, like other instincts, besides serving the present, looks in two
+directions, into the past and into the future. From the past come the
+shadowy interests which, taking form from the touch of our environment,
+determine the character of the play activities. From the future come the
+premonitions of the activities that are to be. The boy adjusting himself
+to the requirements of the game, seeking control over his companions or
+giving in to them, is practicing in miniature the larger game which he
+will play in business or profession a little later. The girl in her
+playhouse, surrounded by a nondescript family of dolls and pets, is
+unconsciously looking forward to a more perfect life when the
+responsibilities shall be a little more real. So let us not grudge our
+children the play day of youth.
+
+
+5. OTHER USEFUL INSTINCTS
+
+Many other instincts ripen during the stage of youth and play their part
+in the development of the individual.
+
+CURIOSITY.--It is inherent in every normal person to want to investigate
+and _know_. The child looks out with wonder and fascination on a world
+he does not understand, and at once begins to ask questions and try
+experiments. Every new object is approached in a spirit of inquiry.
+Interest is omnivorous, feeding upon every phase of environment. Nothing
+is too simple or too complex to demand attention and exploration, so
+that it vitally touches the child's activities and experience.
+
+The momentum given the individual by curiosity toward learning and
+mastering his world is incalculable. Imagine the impossible task of
+teaching children what they had no desire or inclination to know! Think
+of trying to lead them to investigate matters concerning which they felt
+only a supreme indifference! Indeed one of the greatest problems of
+education is to keep curiosity alive and fresh so that its compelling
+influence may promote effort and action. One of the greatest secrets of
+eternal youth is also found in retaining the spontaneous curiosity of
+youth after the youthful years are past.
+
+MANIPULATION.--This is the rather unsatisfactory name for the universal
+tendency to _handle_, _do_ or _make_ something. The young child builds
+with its blocks, constructs fences and pens and caves and houses, and a
+score of other objects. The older child, supplied with implements and
+tools, enters upon more ambitious projects and revels in the joy of
+creation as he makes boats and boxes, soldiers and swords, kites,
+play-houses and what-not. Even as adults we are moved by a desire to
+express ourselves through making or creating that which will represent
+our ingenuity and skill. The tendency of children to destroy is not from
+wantonness, but rather from a desire to manipulate.
+
+Education has but recently begun to make serious use of this important
+impulse. The success of all laboratory methods of teaching, and of such
+subjects as manual training and domestic science, is abundant proof of
+the adage that we learn by doing. We would rather construct or
+manipulate an object than merely learn its verbal description. Our
+deepest impulses lead to creation rather than simple mental
+appropriation of facts and descriptions.
+
+THE COLLECTING INSTINCT.--The words _my_ and _mine_ enter the child's
+vocabulary at a very early age. The sense of property ownership and the
+impulse to make collections of various kinds go hand in hand. Probably
+there are few of us who have not at one time or another made collections
+of autographs, postage stamps, coins, bugs, or some other thing of as
+little intrinsic value. And most of us, if we have left youth behind,
+are busy even now in seeking to collect fortunes, works of art, rare
+volumes or other objects on which we have set our hearts.
+
+The collecting instinct and the impulse to ownership can be made
+important agents in the school. The child who, in nature study,
+geography or agriculture, is making a collection of the leaves, plants,
+soils, fruits, or insects used in the lessons has an incentive to
+observation and investigation impossible from book instruction alone.
+One who, in manual training or domestic science, is allowed to own the
+article made will give more effort and skill to its construction than if
+the work be done as a mere school task.
+
+THE DRAMATIC INSTINCT.--Every person is, at one stage of his
+development, something of an actor. All children like to "dress up" and
+impersonate someone else--in proof of which, witness the many play
+scenes in which the character of nurse, doctor, pirate, teacher,
+merchant or explorer is taken by children who, under the stimulus of
+their spontaneous imagery and as yet untrammeled by self-consciousness,
+freely enter into the character they portray. The dramatic impulse never
+wholly dies out. When we no longer aspire to do the acting ourselves we
+have others do it for us in the theaters or the movies.
+
+Education finds in the dramatic instinct a valuable aid. Progressive
+teachers are using it freely, especially in the teaching of literature
+and history. Its application to these fields may be greatly increased,
+and also extended more generally to include religion, morals, and art.
+
+THE IMPULSE TO FORM GANGS AND CLUBS.--Few boys and girls grow up without
+belonging at some time to a secret gang, club or society. Usually this
+impulse grows out of two different instincts, the _social_ and the
+_adventurous_. It is fundamental in our natures to wish to be with our
+kind--not only our human kind, but those of the same age, interests and
+ambitions. The love of secrecy and adventure is also deep seated in us.
+So we are clannish; and we love to do the unusual, to break away from
+the commonplace and routine of our lives. There is often a thrill of
+satisfaction--even if it be later followed by remorse--in doing the
+forbidden or the unconventional.
+
+The problem here as in the case of many other instincts is one of
+guidance rather than of repression. Out of the gang impulse we may
+develop our athletic teams, our debating and dramatic clubs, our
+tramping clubs, and a score of other recreational, benevolent, or
+social organizations. Not repression, but proper expression should be
+our ideal.
+
+
+6. FEAR
+
+Probably in no instinct more than in that of fear can we find the
+reflections of all the past ages of life in the world with its manifold
+changes, its dangers, its tragedies, its sufferings, and its deaths.
+
+FEAR HEREDITY.--The fears of childhood "are remembered at every step,"
+and so are the fears through which the race has passed. Says
+Chamberlain: "Every ugly thing told to the child, every shock, every
+fright given him, will remain like splinters in the flesh, to torture
+him all his life long. The bravest old soldier, the most daring young
+reprobate, is incapable of forgetting them all--the masks, the bogies,
+ogres, hobgoblins, witches, and wizards, the things that bite and
+scratch, that nip and tear, that pinch and crunch, the thousand and one
+imaginary monsters of the mother, the nurse, or the servant, have had
+their effect; and hundreds of generations have worked to denaturalize
+the brains of children. Perhaps no animal, not even those most
+susceptible to fright, has behind it the fear heredity of the child."
+
+President Hall calls attention to the fact that night is now the safest
+time of the twenty-four hours; serpents are no longer our most deadly
+enemies; strangers are not to be feared; neither are big eyes or teeth;
+there is no adequate reason why the wind, or thunder, or lightning
+should make children frantic as they do. But "the past of man forever
+seems to linger in his present"; and the child, in being afraid of these
+things, is only summing up the fear experiences of the race and
+suffering all too many of them in his short childhood.
+
+FEAR OF THE DARK.--Most children are afraid in the dark. Who does not
+remember the terror of a dark room through which he had to pass, or,
+worse still, in which he had to go to bed alone, and there lie in cold
+perspiration induced by a mortal agony of fright! The unused doors which
+would not lock, and through which he expected to see the goblin come
+forth to get him! The dark shadows back under the bed where he was
+afraid to look for the hidden monster which he was sure was hiding there
+and yet dare not face! The lonely lane through which the cows were to be
+driven late at night, while every fence corner bristled with shapeless
+monsters lying in wait for boys!
+
+And that hated dark closet where he was shut up "until he could learn to
+be good!" And the useless trapdoor in the ceiling. How often have we
+lain in the dim light at night and seen the lid lift just a peep for
+ogre eyes to peer out, and, when the terror was growing beyond
+endurance, close down, only to lift once and again, until from sheer
+weariness and exhaustion we fell into a troubled sleep and dreamed of
+the hideous monster which inhabited the unused garret! Tell me that the
+old trapdoor never bent its hinges in response to either man or monster
+for twenty years? I know it is true, and yet I am not convinced. My
+childish fears have left a stronger impression than proof of mere facts
+can ever overrule.
+
+FEAR OF BEING LEFT ALONE.--And the fear of being left alone. How big and
+dreadful the house seemed with the folks all gone! How we suddenly made
+close friends with the dog or the cat, even, in order that this bit of
+life might be near us! Or, failing in this, we have gone out to the barn
+among the chickens and the pigs and the cows, and deserted the empty
+house with its torture of loneliness. What was there so terrible in
+being alone? I do not know. I know only that to many children it is a
+torture more exquisite than the adult organism is fitted to experience.
+
+But why multiply the recollections? They bring a tremor to the strongest
+of us today. Who of us would choose to live through those childish fears
+again? Dream fears, fears of animals, fears of furry things, fears of
+ghosts and of death, dread of fatal diseases, fears of fire and of
+water, of strange persons, of storms, fears of things unknown and even
+unimagined, but all the more fearful! Would you all like to relive your
+childhood for its pleasures if you had to take along with them its
+sufferings? Would the race choose to live its evolution over again? I do
+not know. But, for my own part, I should very much hesitate to turn the
+hands of time backward in either case. Would that the adults at life's
+noonday, in remembering the childish fears of life's morning, might feel
+a sympathy for the children of today, who are not yet escaped from the
+bonds of the fear instinct. Would that all might seek to quiet every
+foolish childish fear, instead of laughing at it or enhancing it!
+
+
+7. OTHER UNDESIRABLE INSTINCTS
+
+We are all provided by nature with some instincts which, while they may
+serve a good purpose in our development, need to be suppressed or at
+least modified when they have done their work.
+
+SELFISHNESS.--All children, and perhaps all adults, are selfish. The
+little child will appropriate all the candy, and give none to his
+playmate. He will grow angry and fight rather than allow brother or
+sister to use a favorite plaything. He will demand the mother's
+attention and care even when told that she is tired or ill, and not
+able to minister to him. But all of this is true to nature and, though
+it needs to be changed to generosity and unselfishness, is, after all, a
+vital factor in our natures. For it is better in the long run that each
+one _should_ look out for himself, rather than to be so careless of his
+own interests and needs as to require help from others. The problem in
+education is so to balance selfishness and greed with unselfishness and
+generosity that each serves as a check and a balance to the other. Not
+elimination but equilibrium is to be our watchword.
+
+PUGNACITY, OR THE FIGHTING IMPULSE.--Almost every normal child is a
+natural fighter, just as every adult should possess the spirit of
+conquest. The long history of conflict through which our race has come
+has left its mark in our love of combat. The pugnacity of children,
+especially of boys, is not so much to be deprecated and suppressed as
+guided into right lines and rendered subject to right ideals. The boy
+who picks a quarrel has been done a kindness when given a drubbing that
+will check this tendency. On the other hand, one who risks battle in
+defense of a weaker comrade does no ignoble thing. Children need very
+early to be taught the baseness of fighting for the sake of conflict,
+and the glory of going down to defeat fighting in a righteous cause. The
+world could well stand more of this spirit among adults!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Let us then hear the conclusion of the whole matter. The undesirable
+instincts do not need encouragement. It is better to let them fade away
+from disuse, or in some cases even by attaching punishment to their
+expression. They are echoes from a distant past, and not serviceable in
+this better present. _The desirable instincts we are to seize upon and
+utilize as starting points for the development of useful interests,
+good habits, and the higher emotional life. We should take them as they
+come, for their appearance is a sure sign that the organism is ready for
+and needs the activity they foreshadow; and, furthermore, if they are
+not used when they present themselves, they disappear, never to return._
+
+
+8. PROBLEMS IN OBSERVATION AND INTROSPECTION
+
+1. What instincts have you noticed developing in children? What ones
+have you observed to fade away? Can you fix the age in both cases? Apply
+these questions to your own development as you remember it or can get it
+by tradition from your elders.
+
+2. What use of imitation may be made in teaching (1) literature, (2)
+composition, (3) music, (4) good manners, (5) morals?
+
+3. Should children be _taught_ to play? Make a list of the games you
+think all children should know and be able to play. It has been said
+that it is as important for a people to be able to use their leisure
+time wisely as to use their work time profitably. Why should this be
+true?
+
+4. Observe the instruction of children to discover the extent to which
+use is made of the _constructive_ instinct. The _collecting_ instinct.
+The _dramatic_ instinct. Describe a plan by which each of these
+instincts can be successfully used in some branch of study.
+
+5. What examples can you recount from your own experience of conscious
+imitation? of unconscious imitation? of the influence of environment?
+What is the application of the preceding question to the esthetic
+quality of our school buildings?
+
+6. Have you ever observed that children under a dozen years of age
+usually cannot be depended upon for "team work" in their games? How do
+you explain this fact?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+FEELING AND ITS FUNCTIONS
+
+
+In the psychical world as well as the physical we must meet and overcome
+inertia. Our lives must be compelled by motive forces strong enough to
+overcome this natural inertia, and enable us besides to make headway
+against many obstacles. _The motive power that drives us consists
+chiefly of our feelings and emotions._ Knowledge, cognition, supplies
+the rudder that guides our ship, but feeling and emotion supply the
+power.
+
+To convince one's head is, therefore, not enough; his feelings must be
+stirred if you would be sure of moving him to action. Often have we
+_known_ that a certain line of action was right, but failed to follow it
+because feeling led in a different direction. When decision has been
+hanging in the balance we have piled on one side obligation, duty, sense
+of right, and a dozen other reasons for action, only to have them all
+outweighed by the one single: _It is disagreeable._ Judgment, reason,
+and experience may unite to tell us that a contemplated course is
+unwise, and imagination may reveal to us its disastrous consequences,
+and yet its pleasures so appeal to us that we yield. Our feelings often
+prove a stronger motive than knowledge and will combined; they are a
+factor constantly to be reckoned with among our motives.
+
+
+1. THE NATURE OF FEELING
+
+It will be our purpose in the next few chapters to study the _affective_
+content of consciousness--the feelings and emotions. The present chapter
+will be devoted to the feelings and the one that follows to the
+emotions.
+
+THE DIFFERENT FEELING QUALITIES.--At least six (some writers say even
+more) distinct and qualitatively different feeling states are easily
+distinguished. These are: _pleasure_, _pain_; _desire_, _repugnance_;
+_interest_, _apathy._ Pleasure and pain, and desire and repugnance, are
+directly opposite or antagonistic feelings. Interest and apathy are not
+opposites in a similar way, since apathy is but the absence of interest,
+and not its antagonist. In place of the terms pleasure and pain, the
+_pleasant_ and the _unpleasant_, or the _agreeable_ and the
+_disagreeable_, are often used. _Aversion_ is frequently employed as a
+synonym for repugnance.
+
+It is somewhat hard to believe on first thought that feeling comprises
+but the classes given. For have we not often felt the pain from a
+toothache, from not being able to take a long-planned trip, from the
+loss of a dear friend? Surely these are very different classes of
+feelings! Likewise we have been happy from the very joy of living, from
+being praised for some well-doing, or from the presence of friend or
+lover. And here again we seem to have widely different classes of
+feelings.
+
+We must remember, however, that feeling is always based on something
+_known_. It never appears alone in consciousness as _mere_ pleasures or
+pains. The mind must have something about which to feel. The "what" must
+precede the "how." What we commonly call a feeling _is a complex state
+of consciousness in which feeling predominates_, but which has,
+nevertheless, _a basis of sensation, or memory, or some other cognitive
+process_. And what so greatly varies in the different cases of the
+illustrations just given is precisely this knowledge element, and not
+the feeling element. A feeling of unpleasantness is a feeling of
+unpleasantness whether it comes from an aching tooth or from the loss of
+a friend. It may differ in degree, and the entire mental states of which
+the feeling is a part may differ vastly, but the simple feeling itself
+is of the same quality.
+
+FEELING ALWAYS PRESENT IN MENTAL CONTENT.--No phase of our mental life
+is without the feeling element. We look at the rainbow with its
+beautiful and harmonious blending of colors, and a feeling of pleasure
+accompanies the sensation; then we turn and gaze at the glaring sun, and
+a disagreeable feeling is the result. A strong feeling of pleasantness
+accompanies the experience of the voluptuous warmth of a cozy bed on a
+cold morning, but the plunge between the icy sheets on the preceding
+evening was accompanied by the opposite feeling. The touch of a hand may
+occasion a thrill of ecstatic pleasure, or it may be accompanied by a
+feeling equally disagreeable. And so on through the whole range of
+sensation; we not only _know_ the various objects about us through
+sensation and perception, but we also _feel_ while we know. Cognition,
+or the knowing processes, gives us our "whats"; and feeling, or the
+affective processes, gives us our "hows." What is yonder object? A
+bouquet. How does it affect you? Pleasurably.
+
+If, instead of the simpler sensory processes which we have just
+considered, we take the more complex processes, such as memory,
+imagination, and thinking, the case is no different. Who has not reveled
+in the pleasure accompanying the memories of past joys? On the other
+hand, who is free from all unpleasant memories--from regrets, from pangs
+of remorse? Who has not dreamed away an hour in pleasant anticipation of
+some desired object, or spent a miserable hour in dreading some calamity
+which imagination pictured to him? Feeling also accompanies our thought
+processes. Everyone has experienced the feeling of the pleasure of
+intellectual victory over some difficult problem which had baffled the
+reason, or over some doubtful case in which our judgment proved correct.
+And likewise none has escaped the feeling of unpleasantness which
+accompanies intellectual defeat. Whatever the contents of our mental
+stream, "we find in them, everywhere present, a certain color of passing
+estimate, an immediate sense that they are worth something to us at any
+given moment, or that they then have an interest to us."
+
+THE SEEMING NEUTRAL FEELING ZONE.--It is probable that there is so
+little feeling connected with many of the humdrum and habitual
+experiences of our everyday lives, that we are but slightly, if at all,
+aware of a feeling state in connection with them. Yet a state of
+consciousness with absolutely no feeling side to it is as unthinkable as
+the obverse side of a coin without the reverse. Some sort of feeling
+tone or mood is always present. The width of the affective neutral
+zone--that is, of a feeling state so little marked as not to be
+discriminated as either pleasure or pain, desire or aversion--varies
+with different persons, and with the same person at different times. It
+is conditioned largely by the amount of attention given in the direction
+of feeling, and also on the fineness of the power of feeling
+discrimination. It is safe to say that the zero range is usually so
+small as to be negligible.
+
+
+2. MOOD AND DISPOSITION
+
+The sum total of all the feeling accompanying the various sensory and
+thought processes at any given time results in what we may call our
+_feeling tone_, _or mood._
+
+HOW MOOD IS PRODUCED.--During most of our waking hours, and, indeed,
+during our sleeping hours as well, a multitude of sensory currents are
+pouring into the cortical centers. At the present moment we can hear the
+rumble of a wagon, the chirp of a cricket, the chatter of distant
+voices, and a hundred other sounds besides. At the same time the eye is
+appealed to by an infinite variety of stimuli in light, color, and
+objects; the skin responds to many contacts and temperatures; and every
+other type of end-organ of the body is acting as a "sender" to telegraph
+a message in to the brain. Add to these the powerful currents which are
+constantly being sent to the cortex from the visceral organs--those of
+respiration, of circulation, of digestion and assimilation. And then
+finally add the central processes which accompany the flight of images
+through our minds--our meditations, memories, and imaginations, our
+cogitations and volitions.
+
+Thus we see what a complex our feelings must be, and how impossible to
+have any moment in which some feeling is not present as a part of our
+mental stream. It is this complex, now made up chiefly on the basis of
+the sensory currents coming in from the end-organs or the visceral
+organs, and now on the basis of those in the cortex connected with our
+thought life, which constitutes the entire feeling tone, or _mood_.
+
+MOOD COLORS ALL OUR THINKING.--Mood depends on the character of the
+aggregate of nerve currents entering the cortex, and changes as the
+character of the current varies. If the currents run on much the same
+from hour to hour, then our mood is correspondingly constant; if the
+currents are variable, our mood also will be variable. Not only is mood
+dependent on our sensations and thoughts for its quality, but it in turn
+colors our entire mental life. It serves as a background or setting
+whose hue is reflected over all our thinking. Let the mood be somber and
+dark, and all the world looks gloomy; on the other hand, let the mood be
+bright and cheerful, and the world puts on a smile.
+
+It is told of one of the early circuit riders among the New England
+ministry, that he made the following entries in his diary, thus well
+illustrating the point: "Wed. Eve. Arrived at the home of Bro. Brown
+late this evening, hungry and tired after a long day in the saddle. Had
+a bountiful supper of cold pork and beans, warm bread, bacon and eggs,
+coffee, and rich pastry. I go to rest feeling that my witness is clear;
+the future is bright; I feel called to a great and glorious work in this
+place. Bro. Brown's family are godly people." The next entry was as
+follows: "Thur. Morn. Awakened late this morning after a troubled night.
+I am very much depressed in soul; the way looks dark; far from feeling
+called to work among this people, I am beginning to doubt the safety of
+my own soul. I am afraid the desires of Bro. Brown and his family are
+set too much on carnal things." A dyspeptic is usually a pessimist, and
+an optimist always keeps a bright mood.
+
+MOOD INFLUENCES OUR JUDGMENTS AND DECISIONS.--The prattle of children
+may be grateful music to our ears when we are in one mood, and
+excruciatingly discordant noise when we are in another. What appeals to
+us as a good practical joke one day, may seem a piece of unwarranted
+impertinence on another. A proposition which looks entirely plausible
+under the sanguine mood induced by a persuasive orator, may appear
+wholly untenable a few hours later. Decisions which seemed warranted
+when we were in an angry mood, often appear unwise or unjust when we
+have become more calm. Motives which easily impel us to action when the
+world looks bright, fail to move us when the mood is somber. The
+feelings of impending peril and calamity which are an inevitable
+accompaniment of the "blues," are speedily dissipated when the sun
+breaks through the clouds and we are ourselves again.
+
+MOOD INFLUENCES EFFORT.--A bright and hopeful mood quickens every power
+and enhances every effort, while a hopeless mood limits power and
+cripples effort. The football team which goes into the game discouraged
+never plays to the limit. The student who attacks his lesson under the
+conviction of defeat can hardly hope to succeed, while the one who
+enters upon his work confident of his power to master it has the battle
+already half won. The world's best work is done not by those who live in
+the shadow of discouragement and doubt, but by those in whose breast
+hope springs eternal. The optimist is a benefactor of the race if for no
+other reason than the sheer contagion of his hopeful spirit; the
+pessimist contributes neither to the world's welfare nor its happiness.
+Youth's proverbial enthusiasm and dauntless energy rest upon the supreme
+hopefulness which characterizes the mood of the young. For these
+reasons, if for no other, the mood of the schoolroom should be one of
+happiness and good cheer.
+
+DISPOSITION A RESULTANT OF MOODS.--The sum total of our moods gives us
+our _disposition_. Whether these are pleasant or unpleasant, cheerful or
+gloomy, will depend on the predominating character of the moods which
+enter into them. As well expect to gather grapes of thorns or figs of
+thistles, as to secure a desirable disposition out of undesirable moods.
+A sunny disposition never comes from gloomy moods, nor a hopeful one out
+of the "blues." And it is our disposition, more than the power of our
+reason, which, after all, determines our desirability as friends and
+companions.
+
+The person of surly disposition can hardly make a desirable companion,
+no matter what his intellectual qualities may be. We may live very
+happily with one who cannot follow the reasoning of a Newton, but it is
+hard to live with a person chronically subject to "black moods." Nor can
+we put the responsibility for our disposition off on our ancestors. It
+is not an inheritance, but a growth. Slowly, day by day, and mood by
+mood, we build up our disposition until finally it comes to characterize
+us.
+
+TEMPERAMENT.--Some are, however, more predisposed to certain types of
+mood than are others. The organization of our nervous system which we
+get through heredity undoubtedly has much to do with the feeling tone
+into which we most easily fall. We call this predisposition
+_temperament_. On the effects of temperament, our ancestors must divide
+the responsibility with us. I say _divide_ the responsibility, for even
+if we find ourselves predisposed toward a certain undesirable type of
+moods, there is no reason why we should give up to them. Even in spite
+of hereditary predispositions, we can still largely determine for
+ourselves what our moods are to be.
+
+If we have a tendency toward cheerful, quiet, and optimistic moods, the
+psychologist names our temperament the _sanguine_; if we are tense,
+easily excited and irritable, with a tendency toward sullen or angry
+moods, the _choleric_; if we are given to frequent fits of the "blues,"
+if we usually look on the dark side of things and have a tendency toward
+moods of discouragement and the "dumps," the _melancholic_; if hard to
+rouse, and given to indolent and indifferent moods, the _phlegmatic_.
+Whatever be our temperament, it is one of the most important factors in
+our character.
+
+
+3. PERMANENT FEELING ATTITUDES, OR SENTIMENTS
+
+Besides the more or less transitory feeling states which we have called
+moods, there exists also a class of feeling attitudes, which contain
+more of the complex intellectual element, are withal of rather a higher
+nature, and much more permanent than our moods. We may call these our
+_sentiments_, or _attitudes_. Our sentiments comprise the somewhat
+constant level of feeling combined with cognition, which we name
+_sympathy_, _friendship_, _love_, _patriotism_, _religious faith_,
+_selfishness_, _pride_, _vanity, etc._ Like our dispositions, our
+sentiments are a growth of months and years. Unlike our dispositions,
+however, our sentiments are relatively independent of the physiological
+undertone, and depend more largely upon long-continued experience and
+intellectual elements as a basis. A sluggish liver might throw us into
+an irritable mood and, if the condition were long continued, might
+result in a surly disposition; but it would hardly permanently destroy
+one's patriotism and make him turn traitor to his country. One's feeling
+attitude on such matters is too deep seated to be modified by changing
+whims.
+
+HOW SENTIMENTS DEVELOP.--Sentiments have their beginning in concrete
+experiences in which feeling is a predominant element, and grow through
+the multiplication of these experiences much as the concept is
+developed through many percepts. There is a residual element left
+behind each separate experience in both cases. In the case of the
+concept the residual element is intellectual, and in the case of the
+sentiment it is a complex in which the feeling element is predominant.
+
+How this comes about is easily seen by means of an illustration or two.
+The mother feeds her child when he is hungry, and an agreeable feeling
+is produced; she puts him into the bath and snuggles him in her arms,
+and the experiences are pleasant. The child comes to look upon the
+mother as one whose especial function is to make things pleasant for
+him, so he comes to be happy in her presence, and long for her in her
+absence. He finally grows to love his mother not alone for the countless
+times she has given him pleasure, but for what she herself is. The
+feelings connected at first wholly with pleasant experiences coming
+through the ministrations of the mother, strengthened no doubt by
+instinctive tendencies toward affection, and later enhanced by a fuller
+realization of what a mother's care and sacrifice mean, grow at last
+into a deep, forceful, abiding sentiment of love for the mother.
+
+THE EFFECT OF EXPERIENCE.--Likewise with the sentiment of patriotism. In
+so far as our patriotism is a true patriotism and not a noisy clamor, it
+had its rise in feelings of gratitude and love when we contemplated the
+deeds of heroism and sacrifice for the flag, and the blessings which
+come to us from our relations as citizens to our country. If we have had
+concrete cases brought to our experience, as, for example, our property
+saved from destruction at the hands of a mob or our lives saved from a
+hostile foreign foe, the patriotic sentiment will be all the stronger.
+
+So we may carry the illustration into all the sentiments. Our religious
+sentiments of adoration, love, and faith have their origin in our belief
+in the care, love, and support from a higher Being typified to us as
+children by the care, love, and support of our parents. Pride arises
+from the appreciation or over-appreciation of oneself, his attainments,
+or his belongings. Selfishness has its genesis in the many instances in
+which pleasure results from ministering to self. In all these cases it
+is seen that our sentiments develop out of our experiences: they are the
+permanent but ever-growing results which we have to show for experiences
+which are somewhat long continued, and in which a certain feeling
+quality is a strong accompaniment of the cognitive part of the
+experience.
+
+THE INFLUENCE OF SENTIMENT.--Our sentiments, like our dispositions, are
+not only a natural growth from the experiences upon which they are fed,
+but they in turn have large influence in determining the direction of
+our further development. Our sentiments furnish the soil which is either
+favorable or hostile to the growth of new experiences. One in whom the
+sentiment of true patriotism is deep-rooted will find it much harder to
+respond to a suggestion to betray his country's honor on battlefield, in
+legislative hall, or in private life, than one lacking in this
+sentiment. The boy who has a strong sentiment of love for his mother
+will find this a restraining influence in the face of temptation to
+commit deeds which would wound her feelings. A deep and abiding faith in
+God is fatal to the growth of pessimism, distrust, and a self-centered
+life. One's sentiments are a safe gauge of his character. Let us know a
+man's attitude or sentiments on religion, morality, friendship, honesty,
+and the other great questions of life, and little remains to be known.
+If he is right on these, he may well be trusted in other things; if he
+is wrong on these, there is little to build upon.
+
+Literature has drawn its best inspiration and choicest themes from the
+field of our sentiments. The sentiment of friendship has given us our
+David and Jonathan, our Damon and Pythias, and our Tennyson and Hallam.
+The sentiment of love has inspired countless masterpieces; without its
+aid most of our fiction would lose its plot, and most of our poetry its
+charm. Religious sentiment inspired Milton to write the world's greatest
+epic, "Paradise Lost." The sentiment of patriotism has furnished an
+inexhaustible theme for the writer and the orator. Likewise if we go
+into the field of music and art, we find that the best efforts of the
+masters are clustered around some human sentiment which has appealed to
+them, and which they have immortalized by expressing it on canvas or in
+marble, that it may appeal to others and cause the sentiment to grow in
+us.
+
+SENTIMENTS AS MOTIVES.--The sentiments furnish the deepest, the most
+constant, and the most powerful motives which control our lives. Such
+sentiments as patriotism, liberty, and religion have called a thousand
+armies to struggle and die on ten thousand battlefields, and have given
+martyrs courage to suffer in the fires of persecution. Sentiments of
+friendship and love have prompted countless deeds of self-sacrifice and
+loving devotion. Sentiments of envy, pride, and jealousy have changed
+the boundary lines of nations, and have prompted the committing of ten
+thousand unnamable crimes. Slowly day by day from the cradle to the
+grave we are weaving into our lives the threads of sentiment, which at
+last become so many cables to bind us to good or evil.
+
+
+4. PROBLEMS IN OBSERVATION AND INTROSPECTION
+
+1. Are you subject to the "blues," or other forms of depressed feeling?
+Are your moods very changeable, or rather constant? What kind of a
+disposition do you think you have? How did you come by it; that is, in
+how far is it due to hereditary temperament, and in how far to your
+daily moods?
+
+2. Can you recall an instance in which some undesirable mood was caused
+by your physical condition? By some disturbing mental condition? What is
+your characteristic mood in the morning after sleeping in an
+ill-ventilated room? After sitting for half a day in an ill-ventilated
+schoolroom? After eating indigestible food before going to bed?
+
+3. Observe a number of children or your classmates closely and see
+whether you can determine the characteristic mood of each. Observe
+several different schools and see whether you can note a characteristic
+mood for each room. Try to determine the causes producing the
+differences noted. (Physical conditions in the room, personality of the
+teacher, methods of governing, teaching, etc.)
+
+4. When can you do your best work, when you are happy, or unhappy?
+Cheerful, or "blue"? Confident and hopeful, or discouraged? In a spirit
+of harmony and cooeperation with your teacher, or antagonistic? Now
+relate your conclusions to the type of atmosphere that should prevail in
+the schoolroom or the home. Formulate a statement as to why the "spirit"
+of the school is all-important. (Effect on effort, growth, disposition,
+sentiments, character, etc.)
+
+5. Can you measure more or less accurately the extent to which your
+feelings serve as _motives_ in your life? Are feelings alone a safe
+guide to action? Make a list of the important sentiments that should be
+cultivated in youth. Now show how the work of the school may be used to
+strengthen worthy sentiments.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+THE EMOTIONS
+
+
+Feeling and emotion are not to be looked upon as two different _kinds_
+of mental processes. In fact, emotion is but _a feeling state of a high
+degree of intensity and complexity_. Emotion transcends the simpler
+feeling states whenever the exciting cause is sufficient to throw us out
+of our regular routine of affective experience. The distinction between
+emotion and feeling is a purely arbitrary one, since the difference is
+only one of complexity and degree, and many feelings may rise to the
+intensity of emotions. A feeling of sadness on hearing of a number of
+fatalities in a railway accident may suddenly become an emotion of grief
+if we learn that a member of our family is among those killed. A feeling
+of gladness may develop into an emotion of joy, or a feeling of
+resentment be kindled into an emotion of rage.
+
+
+1. THE PRODUCING AND EXPRESSING OF EMOTION
+
+Nowhere more than in connection with our emotions are the close
+inter-relations of mind and body seen. All are familiar with the fact
+that the emotion of anger tends to find expression in the blow, love in
+the caress, fear in flight, and so on. But just how our organism acts in
+_producing_ an emotion is less generally understood. Professor James and
+Professor Lange have shown us that emotion not only tends to produce
+some characteristic form of response, but that _the emotion is itself
+caused by certain deep-seated physiological reactions_. Let us seek to
+understand this statement a little more fully.
+
+PHYSIOLOGICAL EXPLANATION OF EMOTION.--We must remember first of all
+that _all_ changes in mental states are accompanied by corresponding
+physiological changes. Hard, concentrated thinking quickens the heart
+beat; keen attention is accompanied by muscular tension; certain sights
+or sounds increase the rate of breathing; offensive odors produce
+nausea, and so on. So complete and perfect is the response of our
+physical organism to mental changes that one psychologist declares it
+possible, had we sufficiently delicate apparatus, to measure the
+reactions caused throughout the body of a sleeping child by the shadow
+from a passing cloud falling upon the closed eyelids.
+
+The order of the entire event resulting in an emotion is as follows: (1)
+Something is _known_; some object enters consciousness coming either
+from immediate perception or through memory or imagination. This fact,
+or thing known, must be of such nature that it will, (2) set up
+deep-seated and characteristic _organic response_; (3) the feeling
+_accompanying and caused by these physiological reactions constitutes
+the emotion_. For example, we may be passing along the street in a
+perfectly calm and equable state of mind, when we come upon a teamster
+who is brutally beating an exhausted horse because it is unable to draw
+an overloaded wagon up a slippery incline. The facts grasped as we take
+in the situation constitute the _first_ element in an emotional response
+developing in our consciousness. But instantly our muscles begin to grow
+tense, the heart beat and breath quicken, the face takes on a different
+expression, the hands clench--the entire organism is reacting to the
+disturbing situation; the _second_ factor in the rising emotion, the
+physiological response, thus appears. Along with our apprehension of the
+cruelty and the organic disturbances which result we feel waves of
+indignation and anger surging through us. This is the _third_ factor in
+the emotional event, or the emotion itself. In some such way as this are
+all of our emotions aroused.
+
+ORIGIN OF CHARACTERISTIC EMOTIONAL REACTIONS.--Why do certain facts or
+objects of consciousness always cause certain characteristic organic
+responses?
+
+In order to solve this problem we shall have first to go beyond the
+individual and appeal to the history of the race. What the race has
+found serviceable, the individual repeats. But even then it is hard to
+see why the particular type of physical response such as shrinking,
+pallor, and trembling, which naturally follow stimuli threatening harm,
+should be the best. It is easy to see, however, that the feeling which
+prompts to flight or serves to deter from harm's way might be useful. It
+is plain that there is an advantage in the tense muscle, the set teeth,
+the held breath, and the quickened pulse which accompany the emotion of
+anger, and also in the feeling of anger itself, which prompts to the
+conflict. But even if we are not able in every case to determine at this
+day why all the instinctive responses and their correlate of feeling
+were the best for the life of the race, we may be sure that such was the
+case; for Nature is inexorable in her dictates that only that shall
+persist which has proved serviceable in the largest number of cases.
+
+An interesting question arises at this point as to why we feel emotion
+accompanying some of our motor responses, and not others. Perceptions
+are crowding in upon us hour after hour; memory, thought, and
+imagination are in constant play; and a continuous motor discharge
+results each moment in physical expressions great or small. Yet, in
+spite of these facts, feeling which is strong enough to rise to an
+emotion is only an occasional thing. If emotion accompanies any form of
+physical expression, why not all? Let us see whether we can discover any
+reason. One day I saw a boy leading a dog along the street. All at once
+the dog slipped the string over its head and ran away. The boy stood
+looking after the dog for a moment, and then burst into a fit of rage.
+What all had happened? The moment before the dog broke away everything
+was running smoothly in the experience of the boy. There was no
+obstruction to his thought or his plans. Then in an instant the
+situation changes. The smooth flow of experience is checked and baffled.
+The discharge of nerve currents which meant thought, plans, action, is
+blocked. A crisis has arisen which requires readjustment. The nerve
+currents must flow in new directions, giving new thought, new plans, new
+activities--the dog must be recaptured. It is in connection with this
+damming up of nerve currents from following their wonted channels that
+the emotion emerges. Or, putting it into mental terms, the emotion
+occurs when the ordinary current of our thought is violently
+disturbed--when we meet with some crisis which necessitates a
+readjustment of our thought relations and plans, either temporarily or
+permanently.
+
+THE DURATION OF AN EMOTION.--If the required readjustment is but
+temporary, then the emotion is short-lived, while if the readjustment is
+necessarily of longer duration, the emotion also will live longer. The
+fear which follows the thunder is relatively brief; for the shock is
+gone in a moment, and our thought is but temporarily disturbed. If the
+impending danger is one that persists, however, as of some secret
+assassin threatening our life, the fear also will persist. The grief of
+a child over the loss of someone dear to him is comparatively short,
+because the current of the child's life has not been so closely bound up
+in a complexity of experiences with the lost object as in the case of an
+older person, and hence the readjustment is easier. The grief of an
+adult over the loss of a very dear friend lasts long, for the object
+grieved over has so become a part of the bereaved one's experience that
+the loss requires a very complete readjustment of the whole life. In
+either case, however, as this readjustment is accomplished the emotion
+gradually fades away.
+
+EMOTIONS ACCOMPANYING CRISES IN EXPERIENCE.--If our description of the
+feelings has been correct, it will be seen that the simpler and milder
+feelings are for the common run of our everyday experience; they are the
+common valuers of our thought and acts from hour to hour. The emotions,
+or more intense feeling states, are, however, the occasional high tide
+of feeling which occurs in crises or emergencies. We are angry on some
+particular provocation, we fear some extraordinary factor in our
+environment, we are joyful over some unusual good fortune.
+
+
+2. THE CONTROL OF EMOTIONS
+
+DEPENDENCE ON EXPRESSION.--Since all emotions rest upon some form of
+physical or physiological expression primarily, and upon some thought
+back of this secondarily, it follows that the first step in controlling
+an emotion is to secure _the removal of the state of consciousness_
+which serves as its basis. This may be done, for instance, with a child,
+either by banishing the terrifying dog from his presence, or by
+convincing him that the dog is harmless. The motor response will then
+cease, and the emotion pass away. If the thought is persistent, however,
+through the continuance of its stimulus, then what remains is to seek to
+control the physical expression, and in that way suppress the emotion.
+If, instead of the knit brow, the tense muscles, the quickened heart
+beat, and all the deeper organic changes which go along with these, we
+can keep a smile on the face, the muscles relaxed, the heart beat
+steady, and a normal condition in all the other organs, we shall have no
+cause to fear an explosion of anger. If we are afraid of mice and feel
+an almost irresistible tendency to mount a chair every time we see a
+mouse, we can do wonders in suppressing the fear by resolutely refusing
+to give expression to these tendencies. Inhibition of the expression
+inevitably means the death of the emotion.
+
+This fact has its bad side as well as its good in the feeling life, for
+it means that good emotions as well as bad will fade out if we fail to
+allow them expression. We are all perfectly familiar with the fact in
+our own experience that an interest which does not find means of
+expression soon passes away. Sympathy unexpressed ere long passes over
+into indifference. Even love cannot live without expression. Religious
+emotion which does not go out in deeds of service cannot persist. The
+natural end and aim of our emotions is to serve as motives to activity;
+and missing this opportunity, they have not only failed in their office,
+but will themselves die of inaction.
+
+RELIEF THROUGH EXPRESSION.--Emotional states not only have their rise
+in organic reactions, but they also tend to result in acts. When we are
+angry, or in love, or in fear, we have the impulse _to do something
+about it_. And, while it is true that emotion may be inhibited by
+suppressing the physical expressions on which it is founded, so may a
+state of emotional tension be relieved by some forms of expression. None
+have failed to experience the relief which comes to the overcharged
+nervous system from a good cry. There is no sorrow so bitter as a dry
+sorrow, when one cannot weep. A state of anger or annoyance is relieved
+by an explosion of some kind, whether in a blow or its equivalent in
+speech. We often feel better when we have told a man "what we think of
+him."
+
+At first glance this all seems opposed to what we have been laying down
+as the explanation of emotion. Yet it is not so if we look well into the
+case. We have already seen that emotion occurs when there is a blocking
+of the usual pathways of discharge for the nerve currents, which must
+then seek new outlets, and thus result in the setting up of new motor
+responses. In the case of grief, for example, there is a disturbance in
+the whole organism; the heart beat is deranged, the blood pressure
+diminished, and the nerve tone lowered. What is needed is for the
+currents which are finding an outlet in directions resulting in these
+particular responses to find a pathway of discharge which will not
+produce such deep-seated results. This may be found in crying. The
+energy thus expended is diverted from producing internal disturbances.
+Likewise, the explosion in anger may serve to restore the equilibrium of
+disturbed nerve currents.
+
+RELIEF DOES NOT FOLLOW IF IMAGE IS HELD BEFORE THE MIND.--All this is
+true, however, only when the expression does not serve to keep the idea
+before the mind which was originally responsible for the emotion. A
+person may work himself into a passion of anger by beginning to talk
+about an insult and, as he grows increasingly violent, bringing the
+situation more and more sharply into his consciousness. The effect of
+terrifying images is easily to be observed in the case of one's starting
+to run when he is afraid after night. There is probably no doubt that
+the running would relieve his fear providing he could do it and not
+picture the threatening something as pursuing him. But, with his
+imagination conjuring up dire images of frightful catastrophes at every
+step, all control is lost and fresh waves of terror surge over the
+shrinking soul.
+
+GROWING TENDENCY TOWARD EMOTIONAL CONTROL.--Among civilized peoples
+there is a constantly growing tendency toward emotional control.
+Primitive races express grief, joy, fear, or anger much more freely than
+do civilized races. This does not mean that primitive man feels more
+deeply than civilized man; for, as we have already seen, the crying,
+laughing, or blustering is but a small part of the whole physical
+expression, and one's entire organism may be stirred to its depths
+without any of these outward manifestations. Man has found it advisable
+as he has advanced in civilization not to reveal all he feels to those
+around him. The face, which is the most expressive part of the body, has
+come to be under such perfect control that it is hard to read through it
+the emotional state, although the face of civilized man is capable of
+expressing far more than is that of the savage. The same difference is
+observable between the child and the adult. The child reveals each
+passing shade of emotion through his expression, while the adult may
+feel much that he does not show.
+
+
+3. CULTIVATION OF THE EMOTIONS
+
+There is no other mental factor which has more to do with the enjoyment
+we get out of life than our feelings and emotions.
+
+THE EMOTIONS AND ENJOYMENT.--Few of us would care to live at all, if all
+feeling were eliminated from human experience. True, feeling often makes
+us suffer; but in so far as life's joys triumph over its woes, do our
+feelings minister to our enjoyment. Without sympathy, love, and
+appreciation, life would be barren indeed. Moreover, it is only through
+our own emotional experience that we are able to interpret the feeling
+side of the lives about us. Failing in this, we miss one of the most
+significant phases of social experience, and are left with our own
+sympathies undeveloped and our life by so much impoverished.
+
+The interpretation of the subtler emotions of those about us is in no
+small degree an art. The human face and form present a constantly
+changing panorama of the soul's feeling states to those who can read
+their signs. The ability to read the finer feelings, which reveal
+themselves in expression too delicate to be read by the eye of the gross
+or unsympathetic observer, lies at the basis of all fine interpretation
+of personality. Feelings are often too deep for outward expression, and
+we are slow to reveal our deepest selves to those who cannot appreciate
+and understand them.
+
+HOW EMOTIONS DEVELOP.--Emotions are to be cultivated as the intellect or
+the muscles are to be cultivated; namely, through proper exercise. Our
+thought is to dwell on those things to which proper emotions attach, and
+to shun lines which would suggest emotions of an undesirable type.
+Emotions which are to be developed must, as has already been said, find
+expression; we must act in response to their leadings, else they become
+but idle vaporings. If love prompts us to say a kind word to a suffering
+fellow mortal, the word must be spoken or the feeling itself fades away.
+On the other hand, the emotions which we wish to suppress are to be
+refused expression. The unkind and cutting word is to be left unsaid
+when we are angry, and the fear of things which are harmless left
+unexpressed and thereby doomed to die.
+
+THE EMOTIONAL FACTOR IN OUR ENVIRONMENT.--Much material for the
+cultivation of our emotions lies in the everyday life all about us if we
+can but interpret it. Few indeed of those whom we meet daily but are
+hungering for appreciation and sympathy. Lovable traits exist in every
+character, and will reveal themselves to the one who looks for them.
+Miscarriages of justice abound on all sides, and demand our indignation
+and wrath and the effort to right the wrong. Evil always exists to be
+hated and suppressed, and dangers to be feared and avoided. Human life
+and the movement of human affairs constantly appeal to the feeling side
+of our nature if we understand at all what life and action mean.
+
+A certain blindness exists in many people, however, which makes our own
+little joys, or sorrows, or fears the most remarkable ones in the world,
+and keeps us from realizing that others may feel as deeply as we. Of
+course this self-centered attitude of mind is fatal to any true
+cultivation of the emotions. It leads to an emotional life which lacks
+not only breadth and depth, but also perspective.
+
+LITERATURE AND THE CULTIVATION OF THE EMOTIONS.--In order to increase
+our facility in the interpretation of the emotions through teaching us
+what to look for in life and experience, we may go to literature. Here
+we find life interpreted for us in the ideal by masters of
+interpretation; and, looking through their eyes, we see new depths and
+breadths of feeling which we had never before discovered. Indeed,
+literature deals far more in the aggregate with the feeling side than
+with any other aspect of human life. And it is just this which makes
+literature a universal language, for the language of our emotions is
+more easily interpreted than that of our reason. The smile, the cry, the
+laugh, the frown, the caress, are understood all around the world among
+all peoples. They are universal.
+
+There is always this danger to be avoided, however. We may become so
+taken up with the overwrought descriptions of the emotions as found in
+literature or on the stage that the common humdrum of everyday life
+around us seems flat and stale. The interpretation of the writer or the
+actor is far beyond what we are able to make for ourselves, so we take
+their interpretation rather than trouble ourselves to look in our own
+environment for the material which might appeal to our emotions. It is
+not rare to find those who easily weep over the woes of an imaginary
+person in a book or on the stage unable to feel sympathy for the real
+suffering which exists all around them. The story is told of a lady at
+the theater who wept over the suffering of the hero in the play; and at
+the moment she was shedding the unnecessary tears, her own coachman,
+whom she had compelled to wait for her in the street, was frozen to
+death. Our seemingly prosaic environment is full of suggestions to the
+emotional life, and books and plays should only help to develop in us
+the power rightly to respond to these suggestions.
+
+HARM IN EMOTIONAL OVEREXCITEMENT.--Danger may exist also in still
+another line; namely, that of emotional overexcitement. There is a great
+nervous strain in high emotional tension. Nothing is more exhausting
+than a severe fit of anger; it leaves its victim weak and limp. A severe
+case of fright often incapacitates one for mental or physical labor for
+hours, or it may even result in permanent injury. The whole nervous tone
+is distinctly lowered by sorrow, and even excessive joy may be harmful.
+
+In our actual, everyday life, there is little danger from emotional
+overexcitement unless it be in the case of fear in children, as was
+shown in the discussion on instincts, and in that of grief over the loss
+of objects that are dear to us. Most of our childish fears we could just
+as well avoid if our elders were wiser in the matter of guarding us
+against those that are unnecessary. The griefs we cannot hope to escape,
+although we can do much to control them. Long-continued emotional
+excitement, unless it is followed by corresponding activity, gives us
+those who weep over the wrongs of humanity, but never do anything to
+right them; who are sorry to the point of death over human suffering,
+but cannot be induced to lend their aid to its alleviation. We could
+very well spare a thousand of those in the world who merely feel, for
+one who acts, James tells us.
+
+We should watch, then, that our good feelings do not simply evaporate as
+feelings, but that they find some place to apply themselves to
+accomplish good; that we do not, like Hamlet, rave over wrongs which
+need to be righted, but never bring ourselves to the point where we take
+a hand in their righting. If our emotional life is to be rich and deep
+in its feeling and effective in its results on our acts and character,
+it must find its outlet in deeds.
+
+
+4. EMOTIONS AS MOTIVES
+
+Emotion is always dynamic, and our feelings constitute our strongest
+motives to action and achievement.
+
+HOW OUR EMOTIONS COMPEL US.--Love has often done in the reformation of a
+fallen life what strength of will was not able to accomplish; it has
+caused dynasties to fall, and has changed the map of nations. Hatred is
+a motive hardly less strong. Fear will make savage beasts out of men who
+fall under its sway, causing them to trample helpless women and children
+under feet, whom in their saner moments they would protect with their
+lives. Anger puts out all the light of reason, and prompts peaceful and
+well-meaning men to commit murderous acts.
+
+Thus feeling, from the faintest and simplest feeling of interest, the
+various ranges of pleasures and pain, the sentiments which underlie all
+our lives, and so on to the mighty emotions which grip our lives with an
+overpowering strength, constitutes a large part of the motive power
+which is constantly urging us on to do and dare. Hence it is important
+from this standpoint, also, that we should have the right type of
+feelings and emotions well developed, and the undesirable ones
+eliminated.
+
+EMOTIONAL HABITS.--Emotion and feeling are partly matters of habit. That
+is, we can form emotional as well as other habits, and they are as hard
+to break. Anger allowed to run uncontrolled leads into habits of angry
+outbursts, while the one who habitually controls his temper finds it
+submitting to the habit of remaining within bounds. One may cultivate
+the habit of showing his fear on all occasions, or of discouraging its
+expression. He may form the habit of jealousy or of confidence. It is
+possible even to form the habit of falling in love, or of so
+suppressing the tender emotions that love finds little opportunity for
+expression.
+
+And here, as elsewhere, habits are formed through performing the acts
+upon which the habit rests. If there are emotional habits we are
+desirous of forming, what we have to do is to indulge the emotional
+expression of the type we desire, and the habit will follow. If we wish
+to form the habit of living in a chronic state of the blues, then all we
+have to do is to be blue and act blue sufficiently, and this form of
+emotional expression will become a part of us. If we desire to form the
+habit of living in a happy, cheerful state, we can accomplish this by
+encouraging the corresponding expression.
+
+
+5. PROBLEMS IN OBSERVATION AND INTROSPECTION
+
+1. What are the characteristic bodily expressions by which you can
+recognize a state of anger? Fear? Jealousy? Hatred? Love? Grief? Do you
+know persons who are inclined to be too expressive emotionally? Who show
+too little emotional expression? How would you classify yourself in this
+respect?
+
+2. Are you naturally responsive to the emotional tone of others; that
+is, are you sympathetic? Are you easily affected by reading emotional
+books? By emotional plays or other appeals? What is the danger from
+overexciting the emotions without giving them a proper outlet in some
+practical activity?
+
+3. Have you observed a tendency among adults not to take seriously the
+emotions of a child; for example, to look upon childish grief as
+trivial, or fear as something to be laughed at? Is the child's emotional
+life as real as that of the adult? (See Ch. IX, Betts, "Fathers and
+Mothers.")
+
+4. Have you known children to repress their emotions for fear of being
+laughed at? Have you known parents or others to remark about childish
+love affairs to the children themselves in a light or joking way? Ought
+this ever to be done?
+
+5. Note certain children who give way to fits of anger; what is the
+remedy? Note other children who cry readily; what would you suggest as a
+cure? (Why should ridicule not be used?)
+
+6. Have you observed any teacher using the lesson in literature or
+history to cultivate the finer emotions? What emotions have you seen
+appealed to by a lesson in nature study? What emotions have you observed
+on the playground that needed restraint? Do you think that on the whole
+the emotional life of the child receives enough consideration in the
+school? In the home?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+INTEREST
+
+
+The feeling that we call interest is so important a motive in our lives
+and so colors our acts and gives direction to our endeavors that we will
+do well to devote a chapter to its discussion.
+
+
+1. THE NATURE OF INTEREST
+
+We saw in an earlier chapter that personal habits have their rise in
+race habits or instincts. Let us now see how interest helps the
+individual to select from his instinctive acts those which are useful to
+build into personal habits. Instinct impartially starts the child in the
+performance of many different activities, but does not dictate what
+particular acts shall be retained to serve as the basis for habits.
+Interest comes in at this point and says, "This act is of more value
+than that act; continue this act and drop that." Instinct prompts the
+babe to countless movements of body and limb. Interest picks out those
+that are most vitally connected with the welfare of the organism, and
+the child comes to prefer these rather than the others. Thus it is that
+out of the random movements of arms and legs and head and body we
+finally develop the cooerdinated activities which are infinitely more
+useful than the random ones were. And these activities, originating in
+instincts, and selected by interest, are soon crystallized into habits.
+
+INTEREST A SELECTIVE AGENT.--The same truth holds for mental activities
+as for physical. A thousand channels lie open for your stream of thought
+at this moment, but your interest has beckoned it into the one
+particular channel which, for the time, at least, appears to be of the
+greatest subjective value; and it is now following that channel unless
+your will has compelled it to leave that for another. Your thinking as
+naturally follows your interest as the needle does the magnet, hence
+your thought activities are conditioned largely by your interests. This
+is equivalent to saying that your mental habits rest back finally upon
+your interests.
+
+Everyone knows what it is to be interested; but interest, like other
+elementary states of consciousness, cannot be rigidly defined. (1)
+Subjectively considered, interest may be looked upon as _a feeling
+attitude which assigns our activities their place in a subjective scale
+of values_, and hence selects among them. (2) Objectively considered, an
+interest is _the object which calls forth the feeling_. (3) Functionally
+considered, interest is _the dynamic phase of consciousness_.
+
+INTEREST SUPPLIES A SUBJECTIVE SCALE OF VALUES.--If you are interested
+in driving a horse rather than in riding a bicycle, it is because the
+former has a greater subjective value to you than the latter. If you are
+interested in reading these words instead of thinking about the next
+social function or the last picnic party, it is because at this moment
+the thought suggested appeals to you as of more value than the other
+lines of thought. From this it follows that your standards of values are
+revealed in the character of your interests. The young man who is
+interested in the race track, in gaming, and in low resorts confesses by
+the fact that these things occupy a high place among the things which
+appeal to him as subjectively valuable. The mother whose interests are
+chiefly in clubs and other social organizations places these higher in
+her scale of values than her home. The reader who can become interested
+only in light, trashy literature must admit that matter of this type
+ranks higher in his subjective scale of values than the works of the
+masters. Teachers and students whose strongest interest is in grade
+marks value these more highly than true attainment. For, whatever may be
+our claims or assertions, interest is finally an infallible barometer of
+the values we assign to our activities.
+
+In the case of some of our feelings it is not always possible to ascribe
+an objective side to them. A feeling of ennui, of impending evil, or of
+bounding vivacity, may be produced by an unanalyzable complex of causes.
+But interest, while it is related primarily to the activities of the
+self, is carried over from the activity to the object which occasions
+the activity. That is, interest has both an objective and a subjective
+side. On the subjective side a certain activity connected with
+self-expression is worth so much; on the objective side a certain object
+is worth so much as related to this self-expression. Thus we say, I have
+an interest in books or in business; my daily activities, my
+self-expression, are governed with reference to these objects. They are
+my interests.
+
+INTEREST DYNAMIC.--Many of our milder feelings terminate within
+ourselves, never attaining sufficient force as motives to impel us to
+action. Not so with interest. Its very nature is dynamic. Whatever it
+seizes upon becomes _ipso facto_ an object for some activity, for some
+form of expression of the self. Are we interested in a new book, we must
+read it; in a new invention, we must see it, handle it, test it; in some
+vocation or avocation, we must pursue it. Interest is impulsive. It
+gives its possessor no opportunity for lethargic rest and quiet, but
+constantly urges him to action. Grown ardent, interest becomes
+enthusiasm, "without which," says Emerson, "nothing great was ever
+accomplished." Are we an Edison, with a strong interest centered in
+mechanical invention, it will drive us day and night in a ceaseless
+activity which scarcely gives us time for food and sleep. Are we a
+Lincoln, with an undying interest in the Union, this motive will make
+possible superhuman efforts for the accomplishment of our end. Are we
+man or woman anywhere, in any walk of life, so we are dominated by
+mighty interests grown into enthusiasm for some object, we shall find
+great purposes growing within us, and our life will be one of activity
+and achievement. On the contrary, a life which has developed no great
+interest lacks motive power. Of necessity such a life must be devoid of
+purpose and hence barren of results, counting little while it is being
+lived, and little missed by the world when it is gone.
+
+HABIT ANTAGONISTIC TO INTEREST.--While, as we have seen, interest is
+necessary to the formation of habits, yet habits once formed are
+antagonistic to interest. That is, acts which are so habitually
+performed that they "do themselves" are accompanied by a minimum of
+interest. They come to be done without attentive consciousness, hence
+interest cannot attach to their performance. Many of the activities
+which make up the daily round of our lives are of this kind. As long as
+habit is being modified in some degree, as long as we are improving in
+our ways of doing things, interest will still cling to the process; but
+let us once settle into an unmodified rut, and interest quickly fades
+away. We then have the conditions present which make of us either a
+machine or a drudge.
+
+
+2. DIRECT AND INDIRECT INTEREST
+
+We may have an interest either (1) in the doing of an act, or (2) in the
+end sought through the doing. In the first instance we call the interest
+_immediate_ or _direct_; in the second instance, _mediate_ or
+_indirect_.
+
+INTEREST IN THE END VERSUS INTEREST IN THE ACTIVITY.--If we do not find
+an interest in the doing of our work, or if it has become positively
+disagreeable so that we loathe its performance, then there must be some
+ultimate end for which the task is being performed, and in which there
+is a strong interest, else the whole process will be the veriest
+drudgery. If the end is sufficiently interesting it may serve to throw a
+halo of interest over the whole process connected with it. The following
+instance illustrates this fact:
+
+A twelve-year-old boy was told by his father that if he would make the
+body of an automobile at his bench in the manual training school, the
+father would purchase the running gear for it and give the machine to
+the boy. In order to secure the coveted prize, the boy had to master the
+arithmetic necessary for making the calculations, and the drawing
+necessary for making the plans to scale before the teacher in manual
+training would allow him to take up the work of construction. The boy
+had always lacked interest in both arithmetic and drawing, and
+consequently was dull in them. Under the new incentive, however, he took
+hold of them with such avidity that he soon surpassed all the remainder
+of the class, and was able to make his calculations and drawings within
+a term. He secured his automobile a few months later, and still retained
+his interest in arithmetic and drawing.
+
+INDIRECT INTEREST AS A MOTIVE.--Interest of the indirect type, which
+does not attach to the process, but comes from some more or less
+distant end, most of us find much less potent than interest which is
+immediate. This is especially true unless the end be one of intense
+desire and not too distant. The assurance to a boy that he must get his
+lessons well because he will need to be an educated man ten years hence
+when he goes into business for himself does not compensate for the lack
+of interest in the lessons of today.
+
+Yet it is necessary in the economy of life that both children and adults
+should learn to work under the incitement of indirect interests. Much of
+the work we do is for an end which is more desirable than the work
+itself. It will always be necessary to sacrifice present pleasure for
+future good. Ability to work cheerfully for a somewhat distant end saves
+much of our work from becoming drudgery. If interest is removed from
+both the process and the end, no inducement is left to work except
+compulsion; and this, if continued, results in the lowest type of
+effort. It puts a man on a level with the beast of burden, which
+constantly shirks its work.
+
+INDIRECT INTEREST ALONE INSUFFICIENT.--Interest coming from an end
+instead of inhering in the process may finally lead to an interest in
+the work itself; but if it does not, the worker is in danger of being
+left a drudge at last. To be more than a slave to his work one must
+ultimately find the work worth doing for its own sake. The man who
+performs his work solely because he has a wife and babies at home will
+never be an artist in his trade or profession; the student who masters a
+subject only because he must know it for an examination is not
+developing the traits of a scholar. The question of interest in the
+process makes the difference between the one who works because he loves
+to work and the one who toils because he must--it makes the difference
+between the artist and the drudge. The drudge does only what he must
+when he works, the artist all he can. The drudge longs for the end of
+labor, the artist for it to begin. The drudge studies how he may escape
+his labor, the artist how he may better his and ennoble it.
+
+To labor when there is joy in the work is elevating, to labor under the
+lash of compulsion is degrading. It matters not so much what a man's
+occupation as how it is performed. A coachman driving his team down the
+crowded street better than anyone else could do it, and glorying in that
+fact, may be a true artist in his occupation, and be ennobled through
+his work. A statesman molding the affairs of a nation as no one else
+could do it, or a scholar leading the thought of his generation is
+subject to the same law; in order to give the best grade of service of
+which he is capable, man must find a joy in the performance of the work
+as well as in the end sought through its performance. No matter how high
+the position or how refined the work, the worker becomes a slave to his
+labor unless interest in its performance saves him.
+
+
+3. TRANSITORINESS OF CERTAIN INTERESTS
+
+Since our interests are always connected with our activities it follows
+that many interests will have their birth, grow to full strength, and
+then fade away as the corresponding instincts which are responsible for
+the activities pass through these same stages. This only means that
+interest in play develops at the time when the play activities are
+seeking expression; that interest in the opposite sex becomes strong
+when instinctive tendencies are directing the attention to the choice of
+a mate; and that interest in abstract studies comes when the
+development of the brain enables us to carry on logical trains of
+thought. All of us can recall many interests which were once strong, and
+are now weak or else have altogether passed away. Hide-and-seek,
+Pussy-wants-a-corner, excursions to the little fishing pond, securing
+the colored chromo at school, the care of pets, reading
+blood-and-thunder stories or sentimental ones--interest in these things
+belongs to our past, or has left but a faint shadow. Other interests
+have come, and these in turn will also disappear and other new ones yet
+appear as long as we keep on acquiring new experience.
+
+INTERESTS MUST BE UTILIZED WHEN THEY APPEAR.--This means that we must
+take advantage of interests when they appear if we wish to utilize and
+develop them. How many people there are who at one time felt an interest
+impelling them to cultivate their taste for music, art, or literature
+and said they would do this at some convenient season, and finally found
+themselves without a taste for these things! How many of us have felt an
+interest in some benevolent work, but at last discovered that our
+inclination had died before we found time to help the cause! How many of
+us, young as we are, do not at this moment lament the passing of some
+interest from our lives, or are now watching the dying of some interest
+which we had fondly supposed was as stable as Gibraltar? The drawings of
+every interest which appeals to us is a voice crying, "Now is the
+appointed time!" What impulse urges us today to become or to do, we must
+begin at once to be or perform, if we would attain to the coveted end.
+
+THE VALUE OF A STRONG INTEREST.--Nor are we to look upon these
+transitory interests as useless. They come to us not only as a race
+heritage, but they impel us to activities which are immediately useful,
+or else prepare us for the later battles of life. But even aside from
+this important fact it is worth everything just to be interested. For it
+is only through the impulsion of interest that we first learn to put
+forth effort in any true sense of the word, and interest furnishes the
+final foundation upon which volition rests. Without interest the
+greatest powers may slumber in us unawakened, and abilities capable of
+the highest attainment rest satisfied with commonplace mediocrity. No
+one will ever know how many Gladstones and Leibnitzes the world has lost
+simply because their interests were never appealed to in such a way as
+to start them on the road to achievement. It matters less what the
+interest be, so it be not bad, than that there shall be some great
+interest to compel endeavor, test the strength of endurance, and lead to
+habits of achievement.
+
+
+4. SELECTION AMONG OUR INTERESTS
+
+I said early in the discussion that interest is selective among our
+activities, picking out those which appear to be of the most value to
+us. In the same manner there must be a selection among our interests
+themselves.
+
+THE MISTAKE OF FOLLOWING TOO MANY INTERESTS.--It is possible for us to
+become interested in so many lines of activity that we do none of them
+well. This leads to a life so full of hurry and stress that we forget
+life in our busy living. Says James with respect to the necessity of
+making a choice among our interests:
+
+"With most objects of desire, physical nature restricts our choice to
+but one of many represented goods, and even so it is here. I am often
+confronted by the necessity of standing by one of my empirical selves
+and relinquishing the rest. Not that I would not, if I could, be both
+handsome and fat, and well dressed, and a great athlete, and make a
+million a year; be a wit, a bon vivant, and a lady-killer, as well as a
+philosopher; a philanthropist, statesman, warrior, and African explorer,
+as well as a 'tone poet' and saint. But the thing is simply impossible.
+The millionaire's work would run counter to the saint's; the bon vivant
+and the philosopher and the lady-killer could not well keep house in the
+same tenement of clay. Such different characters may conceivably at the
+outset of life be alike possible to man. But to make any one of them
+actual, the rest must more or less be suppressed. The seeker of his
+truest, strongest, deepest self must review the list carefully, and pick
+out the one on which to stake his salvation."
+
+INTERESTS MAY BE TOO NARROW.--On the other hand, it is just as possible
+for our interests to be too narrow as too broad. The one who has
+cultivated no interests outside of his daily round of humdrum activities
+does not get enough out of life. It is possible to become so engrossed
+with making a living that we forget to live--to become so habituated to
+some narrow treadmill of labor with the limited field of thought
+suggested by its environment, that we miss the richest experiences of
+life. Many there are who live a barren, trivial, and self-centered life
+because they fail to see the significant and the beautiful which lie
+just beyond where their interests reach! Many there are so taken up with
+their own petty troubles that they have no heart or sympathy for fellow
+humanity! Many there are so absorbed with their own little achievements
+that they fail to catch step with the progress of the age!
+
+SPECIALIZATION SHOULD NOT COME TOO EARLY.--It is not well to specialize
+too early in our interests. We miss too many rich fields which lie ready
+for the harvesting, and whose gleaning would enrich our lives. The
+student who is so buried in books that he has no time for athletic
+recreations or social diversions is making a mistake equally with the
+one who is so enthusiastic an athlete and social devotee that he
+neglects his studies. Likewise, the youth who is so taken up with the
+study of one particular line that he applies himself to this at the
+expense of all other lines is inviting a distorted growth. Youth is the
+time for pushing the sky line back on all sides; it is the time for
+cultivating diverse and varied lines of interests if we would grow into
+a rich experience in our later lives. The physical must be developed,
+but not at the expense of the mental, and vice versa. The social must
+not be neglected, but it must not be indulged to such an extent that
+other interests suffer. Interest in amusements and recreations should be
+cultivated, but these should never run counter to the moral and
+religious.
+
+Specialization is necessary, but specialization in our interests should
+rest upon a broad field of fundamental interests, in order that the
+selection of the special line may be an intelligent one, and that our
+specialty shall not prove a rut in which we become so deeply buried that
+we are lost to the best in life.
+
+A PROPER BALANCE TO BE SOUGHT.--It behooves us, then, to find a proper
+balance in cultivating our interests, making them neither too broad nor
+too narrow. We should deliberately seek to discover those which are
+strong enough to point the way to a life vocation, but this should not
+be done until we have had an opportunity to become acquainted with
+various lines of interests. Otherwise our decision in this important
+matter may be based merely on a whim.
+
+We should also decide what interests we should cultivate for our own
+personal development and happiness, and for the service we are to render
+in a sphere outside our immediate vocation. We should consider
+avocations as well as vocations. Whatever interests are selected should
+be carried to efficiency. Better a reasonable number of carefully
+selected interests well developed and resulting in efficiency than a
+multitude of interests which lead us into so many fields that we can at
+best get but a smattering of each, and that by neglecting the things
+which should mean the most to us. Our interests should lead us to live
+what Wagner calls a "simple life," but not a narrow one.
+
+
+5. INTEREST FUNDAMENTAL IN EDUCATION
+
+Some educators have feared that in finding our occupations interesting,
+we shall lose all power of effort and self-direction; that the will, not
+being called sufficiently into requisition, must suffer from non-use;
+that we shall come to do the interesting and agreeable things well
+enough, but fail before the disagreeable.
+
+INTEREST NOT ANTAGONISTIC TO EFFORT.--The best development of the will
+does not come through our being forced to do acts in which there is
+absolutely no interest. Work done under compulsion never secures the
+full self in its performance. It is done mechanically and usually under
+such a spirit of rebellion on the part of the doer, that the advantage
+of such training may well be doubted. Nor are we safe in assuming that
+tasks done without interest as the motive are always performed under the
+direction of the will. It is far more likely that they are done under
+some external compulsion, and that the will has, after all, but very
+little to do with it. A boy may get an uninteresting lesson at school
+without much pressure from his will, providing he is sufficiently afraid
+of the master. In order that the will may receive training through
+compelling the performance of certain acts, it must have a reasonably
+free field, with external pressure removed. The compelling force must
+come from within, and not from without.
+
+On the other hand, there is not the least danger that we shall ever find
+a place in life where all the disagreeable is removed, and all phases of
+our work made smooth and interesting. The necessity will always be
+rising to call upon effort to take up the fight and hold us to duty
+where interest has failed. And it is just here that there must be no
+failure, else we shall be mere creatures of circumstance, drifting with
+every eddy in the tide of our life, and never able to breast the
+current. Interest is not to supplant the necessity for stern and
+strenuous endeavor but rather to call forth the largest measure of
+endeavor of which the self is capable. It is to put at work a larger
+amount of power than can be secured in any other way; in place of
+supplanting the will, it is to give it its point of departure and render
+its service all the more effective.
+
+INTEREST AND CHARACTER.--Finally, we are not to forget that bad
+interests have the same propulsive power as good ones, and will lead to
+acts just as surely. And these acts will just as readily be formed into
+habits. It is worth noticing that back of the act lies an interest; in
+the act lies the seed of a habit; ahead of the act lies behavior, which
+grows into conduct, this into character, and character into destiny. Bad
+interests should be shunned and discouraged. But even that is not
+enough. Good interests must be installed in the place of the bad ones
+from which we wish to escape, for it is through substitution rather
+than suppression that we are able to break from the bad and adhere to
+the good.
+
+Our interests are an evolution. Out of the simple interests of the child
+grow the more complex interests of the man. Lacking the opportunity to
+develop the interests of childhood, the man will come somewhat short of
+the full interests of manhood. The great thing, then, in educating a
+child is to discover the fundamental interests which come to him from
+the race and, using these as a starting point, direct them into
+constantly broadening and more serviceable ones. Out of the early
+interest in play is to come the later interest in work; out of the early
+interest in collecting treasure boxes full of worthless trinkets and old
+scraps comes the later interest in earning and retaining ownership of
+property; out of the interest in chums and playmates come the larger
+social interests; out of interest in nature comes the interest of the
+naturalist. And so one by one we may examine the interests which bear
+the largest fruit in our adult life, and we find that they all have
+their roots in some early interest of childhood, which was encouraged
+and given a chance to grow.
+
+
+6. ORDER OF DEVELOPMENT OF OUR INTERESTS
+
+The order in which our interests develop thus becomes an important
+question in our education. Nor is the order an arbitrary one, as might
+appear on first thought; for interest follows the invariable law of
+attaching to the activity for which the organism is at that time ready,
+and which it then needs in its further growth. That we are sometimes
+interested in harmful things does not disprove this assertion. The
+interest in its fundamental aspect is good, and but needs more healthful
+environment or more wise direction. While space forbids a full
+discussion of the genetic phase of interest here, yet we may profit by a
+brief statement of the fundamental interests of certain well-marked
+periods in our development.
+
+THE INTERESTS OF EARLY CHILDHOOD.--The interests of early childhood are
+chiefly connected with ministering to the wants of the organism as
+expressed in the appetites, and in securing control of the larger
+muscles. Activity is the preeminent thing--racing and romping are worth
+doing for their own sake alone. Imitation is strong, curiosity is
+rising, and imagination is building a new world. Speech is a joy,
+language is learned with ease, and rhyme and rhythm become second
+nature. The interests of this stage are still very direct and immediate.
+A distant end does not attract. The thing must be worth doing for the
+sake of the doing. Since the young child's life is so full of action,
+and since it is out of acts that habits grow, it is doubly desirous
+during this period that environment, models, and teaching should all
+direct his interests and activities into lines that will lead to
+permanent values.
+
+THE INTERESTS OF LATER CHILDHOOD.--In the period from second dentition
+to puberty there is a great widening in the scope of interests, as well
+as a noticeable change in their character. Activity is still the
+keynote; but the child is no longer interested merely in the doing, but
+is now able to look forward to the end sought. Interests which are
+somewhat indirect now appeal to him, and the how of things attracts his
+attention. He is beginning to reach outside of his own little circle,
+and is ready for handicraft, reading, history, and science. Spelling,
+writing, and arithmetic interest him partly from the activities
+involved, but more as a means to an end.
+
+Interest in complex games and plays increases, but the child is not yet
+ready for games which require team work. He has not come to the point
+where he is willing to sacrifice himself for the good of all. Interest
+in moral questions is beginning, and right and wrong are no longer
+things which may or may not be done without rebuke or punishment. The
+great problem at this stage is to direct the interest into ways of
+adapting the means to ends and into willingness to work under voluntary
+attention for the accomplishment of the desired end.
+
+THE INTERESTS OF ADOLESCENCE.--Finally, with the advent of puberty,
+comes the last stage in the development of interests before adult life.
+This period is not marked by the birth of new interests so much as by a
+deepening and broadening of those already begun. The end sought becomes
+an increasingly larger factor, whether in play or in work. Mere activity
+itself no longer satisfies. The youth can now play team games; for his
+social interests are taking shape, and he can subordinate himself for
+the good of the group. Interest in the opposite sex takes on a new
+phase, and social form and mode of dress receive attention. A new
+consciousness of self emerges, and the youth becomes introspective.
+Questions of the ultimate meaning of things press for solution, and what
+and who am I, demands an answer.
+
+At this age we pass from a regime of obedience to one of self-control,
+from an ethics of authority to one of individualism. All the interests
+are now taking on a more definite and stable form, and are looking
+seriously toward life vocations. This is a time of big plans and
+strenuous activity. It is a crucial period in our life, fraught with
+pitfalls and dangers, with privileges and opportunities. At this
+strategic point in our life's voyage we may anchor ourselves with right
+interests to a safe manhood and a successful career; or we may, with
+wrong interests, bind ourselves to a broken life of discouragement and
+defeat.
+
+
+7. PROBLEMS IN OBSERVATION AND INTROSPECTION
+
+1. Try making a list of your most important interests in order of their
+strength. Suppose you had made such a list five years ago, where would
+it have differed from the present list? Are you ever obliged to perform
+any activities in which you have little or no interest, either directly
+or indirectly? Can you name any activities in which you once had a
+strong interest but which you now perform chiefly from force of habit
+and without much interest?
+
+2. Have you any interests of which you are not proud? On the other hand,
+do you lack certain interests which you feel that you should possess?
+What interests are you now trying especially to cultivate? To suppress?
+Have you as broad a field of interests as you can well take care of?
+Have you so many interests that you are slighting the development of
+some of the more important ones?
+
+3. Observe several recitations for differences in the amount of interest
+shown. Account for these differences. Have you ever observed an
+enthusiastic teacher with an uninterested class? A dull, listless
+teacher with an interested class?
+
+4. A father offers his son a dollar for every grade on his term report
+which is above ninety; what type of interest relative to studies does
+this appeal to? What do you think of the advisability of giving prizes
+in connection with school work?
+
+5. Most children in the elementary school are not interested in
+technical grammar; why not? Histories made up chiefly of dates and lists
+of kings or presidents are not interesting; what is the remedy? Would
+you call any teaching of literature, history, geography, or science
+successful which fails to develop an interest in the subject?
+
+6. After careful observation, make a statement of the differences in the
+typical play interests of boys and girls; of children of the third grade
+and the eighth grade.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+THE WILL
+
+
+The fundamental fact in all ranges of life from the lowest to the
+highest is _activity_, _doing_. Every individual, either animal or man,
+is constantly meeting situations which demand response. In the lower
+forms of life, this response is very simple, while in the higher forms,
+and especially in man, it is very complex. The bird sees a nook
+favorable for a nest, and at once appropriates it; a man sees a house
+that strikes his fancy, and works and plans and saves for months to
+secure money with which to buy it. It is evident that the larger the
+possible number of responses, and the greater their diversity and
+complexity, the more difficult it will be to select and compel the right
+response to any given situation. Man therefore needs some special power
+of control over his acts--he requires a _will._
+
+
+1. THE NATURE OF THE WILL
+
+There has been much discussion and not a little controversy as to the
+true nature of the will. Just what _is_ the will, and what is the
+content of our mental stream when we are in the act of willing? Is there
+at such times a new and distinctly different content which we do not
+find in our processes of knowledge or emotion--such as perception,
+memory, judgment, interest, desire? Or do we find, when we are engaged
+in an act of the will, that the mental stream contains only the
+familiar old elements of attention, perception, judgment, desire,
+purpose, etc., _all organized or set for the purpose of accomplishing or
+preventing some act_?
+
+THE CONTENT OF THE WILL.--We shall not attempt here to settle the
+controversy suggested by the foregoing questions, nor, for immediately
+practical purposes, do we need to settle it. It is perhaps safe to say,
+however, that whenever we are willing the mental content consists of
+elements of cognition and feeling _plus a distinct sense of effort_,
+with which everyone is familiar. Whether this sense of effort is a new
+and different element, or only a complex of old and familiar mental
+processes, we need not now decide.
+
+THE FUNCTION OF THE WILL.--Concerning the function of the will there can
+be no haziness or doubt. _Volition concerns itself wholly with acts,
+responses._ The will always has to do with causing or inhibiting some
+action, either physical or mental. We need to go to the dentist, tell
+some friend we were in the wrong, hold our mind to a difficult or
+uninteresting task, or do some other disagreeable thing from which we
+shirk. It is at such points that we must call upon the will.
+
+Again, we must restrain our tongue from speaking the unkind word, keep
+from crying out when the dentist drills the tooth, check some unworthy
+line of thought. We must here also appeal to the will. We may conclude
+then that the will is needed whenever the physical or mental activity
+must be controlled _with effort_. Some writers have called the work of
+the will in compelling action its _positive_ function, and in inhibiting
+action its _negative_ function.
+
+HOW THE WILL EXERTS ITS COMPULSION.--How does the will bring its
+compulsion to bear? It is not a kind of mental policeman who can take
+us by the collar, so to speak, and say _do this_, or _do not do that_.
+The secret of the will's power of control lies in _attention_. It is the
+line of action that we hold the mind upon with an attitude of intending
+to perform it that we finally follow. It is the thing we keep thinking
+about that we finally do.
+
+On the other hand, let us resolutely hold the mind away from some
+attractive but unsuitable line of action, directing our thoughts to an
+opposite course, or to some wholly different subject, and we have
+effectually blocked the wrong response. To control our acts is therefore
+to control our thoughts, and strength of will can be measured by our
+ability to direct our attention.
+
+
+2. THE EXTENT OF VOLUNTARY CONTROL OVER OUR ACTS
+
+A relatively small proportion of our acts, or responses, are controlled
+by volition. Nature, in her wise economy, has provided a simpler and
+easier method than to have all our actions performed or checked with
+conscious effort.
+
+CLASSES OF ACTS OR RESPONSE.--Movements or acts, like other phenomena,
+do not just happen. They never occur without a cause back of them.
+Whether they are performed with a conscious end in view or without it,
+the fact remains the same--something must lie back of the act to account
+for its performance. During the last hour, each of us has performed many
+simple movements and more or less complex acts. These acts have varied
+greatly in character. Of many we were wholly unconscious. Others were
+consciously performed, but without feeling of effort on our part. Still
+others were accomplished only with effort, and after a struggle to
+decide which of two lines of action we should take. Some of our acts
+were reflex, some were chiefly instinctive, and some were volitional.
+
+SIMPLE REFLEX ACTS.--First, there are going on within every living
+organism countless movements of which he is in large part unconscious,
+which he does nothing to initiate, and which he is largely powerless to
+prevent. Some of them are wholly, and others almost, out of the reach
+and power of his will. Such are the movements of the heart and vascular
+system, the action of the lungs in breathing, the movements of the
+digestive tract, the work of the various glands in their process of
+secretion. The entire organism is a mass of living matter, and just
+because it is living no part of it is at rest.
+
+Movements of this type require no external stimulus and no direction,
+they are _reflex_; they take care of themselves, as long as the body is
+in health, without let or hindrance, continuing whether we sleep or
+wake, even if we are in hypnotic or anaesthetic coma. With movements of
+reflex type we shall have no more concern, since they are almost wholly
+physiological, and come scarcely at all within the range of the
+consciousness.
+
+INSTINCTIVE ACTS.--Next there are a large number of such acts as closing
+the eyes when they are threatened, starting back from danger, crying out
+from pain or alarm, frowning and striking when angry. These may roughly
+be classed as instinctive, and have already been discussed under that
+head. They differ from the former class in that they require some
+stimulus to set the act off. We are fully conscious of their
+performance, although they are performed without a conscious end in
+view. Winking the eyes serves an important purpose, but that is not why
+we wink; starting back from danger is a wise thing to do, but we do not
+stop to consider this before performing the act.
+
+And so it is with a multitude of reflex and instinctive acts. They are
+performed immediately upon receiving an appropriate stimulus, because we
+possess an organism calculated to act in a definite way in response to
+certain stimuli. There is no need for, and indeed no place for, anything
+to come in between the stimulus and the act. The stimulus pulls the
+trigger of the ready-set nervous system, and the act follows at once.
+Acts of these reflex and instinctive types do not come properly within
+the range of volition, hence we will not consider them further.
+
+AUTOMATIC OR SPONTANEOUS ACTS.--Growing out of these reflex and
+instinctive acts is a broad field of action which may be called
+_automatic_ or _spontaneous_. The distinguishing feature of this type of
+action is that all such acts, though performed now largely without
+conscious purpose or intent, were at one time purposed acts, performed
+with effort; this is to say that they were volitional. Such acts as
+writing, or fingering the keyboard of a piano, were once consciously
+purposed, volitional acts selected from many random or reflex movements.
+
+The effects of experience and habit are such, however, that soon the
+mere presence of pencil and paper, or the sight of the keyboard, is
+enough to set one scribbling or playing. Stated differently, certain
+objects and situations come to suggest certain characteristic acts or
+responses so strongly that the action follows immediately on the heels
+of the percept of the object, or the idea of the act. James calls such
+action _ideo-motor_. Many illustrations of this type of acts will occur
+to each of us: A door starts to blow shut, and we spring up and avert
+the slam. The memory of a neglected engagement comes to us, and we have
+started to our feet on the instant. A dish of nuts stands before us, and
+we find ourselves nibbling without intending to do so.
+
+THE CYCLE FROM VOLITIONAL TO AUTOMATIC.--It is of course evident that no
+such acts, though they were at one time in our experience volitional,
+now require effort or definite intention for their performance. The law
+covering this point may be stated as follows: _All volitional acts, when
+repeated, tend, through the effects of habit, to become automatic, and
+thus relieve the will from the necessity of directing them._
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 19.--Star for mirror drawing. The mirror breaks up
+the automatic control previously developed, and requires one to start
+out much as the child does at the beginning. See text for directions.]
+
+To illustrate this law try the following experiment: Draw on a piece of
+cardboard a star, like figure 19, making each line segment two inches.
+Seat yourself at a table with the star before you, placing a mirror back
+of the star so that it can be seen in the mirror. Have someone hold a
+screen a few inches above the table so as to hide the star from your
+direct view, but so that you can see it in the mirror. Now reach your
+hand under the screen and trace with a pencil around the star from left
+to right, not taking your pencil off the paper until you get clear
+around. Keep track of how long it takes to go around and also note the
+irregular wanderings of your pencil. Try this experiment five times
+over, noting the decrease in time and effort required, and the increase
+in efficiency as the movements tend to become automatic.
+
+VOLITIONAL ACTION.--While it is obvious that the various types of action
+already described include a very large proportion of all our acts, yet
+they do not include all. For there are some acts that are neither reflex
+nor instinctive nor automatic, but that have to be performed under the
+stress of compulsion and effort. We constantly meet situations where the
+necessity for action or restraint runs counter to our inclinations. We
+daily are confronted by the necessity of making decisions in which the
+mind must be compelled by effort to take this direction or that
+direction. Conflicting motives or tendencies create frequent necessity
+for coercion. It is often necessary to drive our bark counter to the
+current of our desires or our habits, or to enter into conflict with a
+temptation.
+
+VOLITION ACTS IN THE MAKING OF DECISIONS.--Everyone knows for himself
+the state of inward unrest which we call indecision. A thought enters
+the mind which would of itself prompt an act; but before the act can
+occur, a contrary idea appears and the act is checked; another thought
+comes favoring the act, and is in turn counterbalanced by an opposing
+one. The impelling and inhibiting ideas we call _motives_ or _reasons_
+for and against the proposed act. While we are balancing the motives
+against each other, we are said to _deliberate_. This process of
+deliberation must go on, if we continue to think about the matter at
+all, until one set of ideas has triumphed over the other and secured the
+attention. When this has occurred, we have _decided_, and the
+deliberation is at an end. We have exercised the highest function of the
+will and made a _choice_.
+
+Sometimes the battle of motives is short, the decision being reached as
+soon as there is time to summon all the reasons on both sides of the
+question. At other times the conflict may go on at intervals for days or
+weeks, neither set of motives being strong enough to vanquish the other
+and dictate the decision. When the motives are somewhat evenly balanced
+we wisely pause in making a decision, because when one line of action is
+taken, the other cannot be, and we hesitate to lose either opportunity.
+A state of indecision is usually highly unpleasant, and no doubt more
+than one decision has been hastened in our lives simply that we might be
+done with the unpleasantness attendant on the consideration of two
+contrary and insistent sets of motives.
+
+It is of the highest importance when making a decision of any
+consequence that we should be fair in considering all the reasons on
+both sides of the question, allowing each its just weight. Nor is this
+as easy as it might appear; for, as we saw in our study of the emotions,
+our feeling attitude toward any object that occupies the mind is largely
+responsible for the subjective value we place upon it. It is easy to be
+so prejudiced toward or against a line of action that the motives
+bearing upon it cannot get fair consideration. To be able to eliminate
+this personal factor to such an extent that the evidence before us on a
+question may be considered on its merits is a rare accomplishment.
+
+TYPES OF DECISION.--A decision may be reached in a variety of ways, the
+most important ones of which may now briefly be described after the
+general plan suggested by Professor James:
+
+THE REASONABLE TYPE.--One of the simplest types of decision is that in
+which the preponderance of motives is clearly seen to be on one side or
+the other, and the only rational thing to do is to decide in accordance
+with the weight of evidence. Decisions of this type are called
+_reasonable_. If we discover ten reasons why we should pursue a certain
+course of action, and only one or two reasons of equal weight why we
+should not, then the decision ought not to be hard to make. The points
+to watch in this case are (a) that we have really discovered all the
+important reasons on both sides of the case, and (b) that our feelings
+of personal interest or prejudice have not given some of the motives an
+undue weight in our scale of values.
+
+ACCIDENTAL TYPE: EXTERNAL MOTIVES.--It is to be doubted whether as many
+of our decisions are made under immediate stress of volition as we
+think. We may be hesitating between two sets of motives, unable to
+decide between them, when a third factor enters which is not really
+related to the question at all, but which finally dictates the decision
+nevertheless. For example, we are considering the question whether we
+shall go on an excursion or stay at home and complete a piece of work.
+The benefits coming from the recreation, and the pleasures of the trip,
+are pitted against the expense which must be incurred and the
+desirability of having the work done on time. At this point, while as
+yet we have been unable to decide, a friend comes along, and we seek to
+evade the responsibility of making our own decision by appealing to him,
+"You tell me what to do!" How few of us have never said in effect if not
+in words, "I will do this or that if you will"! How few have never taken
+advantage of a rainy day to stay from church or shirk an undesirable
+engagement! How few have not allowed important questions to be decided
+by some trivial or accidental factor not really related to the choice in
+the least!
+
+This form of decision is _accidental decision_. It does not rest on
+motives which are vitally related to the case, but rather on the
+accident of external circumstances. The person who habitually makes his
+decisions in this way lacks power of will. He does not hold himself to
+the question until he has gathered the evidence before him, and then
+himself direct his attention to the best line of action and so secure
+its performance. He drifts with the tide, he goes with the crowd, he
+shirks responsibility.
+
+ACCIDENTAL TYPE: SUBJECTIVE MOTIVES.--A second type of _accidental_
+decision may occur when we are hesitating between two lines of action
+which are seemingly about equally desirable, and no preponderating
+motive enters the field; when no external factor appears, and no
+advising friend comes to the rescue. Then, with the necessity for
+deciding thrust upon us, we tire of the worry and strain of deliberation
+and say to ourselves, "This thing must be settled one way or the other
+pretty soon; I am tired of the whole matter." When we have reached this
+point we are likely to shut our eyes to the evidence in the case, and
+decide largely upon the whim or mood of the moment. Very likely we
+regret our decision the next instant, but without any more cause for
+the regret than we had for the decision.
+
+It is evident that such a decision as this does not rest on valid
+motives but rather on the accident of subjective conditions. Habitual
+decisions of this type are an evidence of a mental laziness or a mental
+incompetence which renders the individual incapable of marshaling the
+facts bearing on a case. He cannot hold them before his mind and weigh
+them against each other until one side outweighs the other and dictates
+the decision. Of course the remedy for this weakness of decision lies in
+not allowing oneself to be pushed into a decision simply to escape the
+unpleasantness of a state of indecision, or the necessity of searching
+for further evidence which will make the decision easier.
+
+On the other hand, it is possible to form a habit of _indecision_, of
+undue hesitancy in coming to conclusions when the evidence is all before
+us. This gives us the mental dawdler, the person who will spend several
+minutes in an agony of indecision over whether to carry an umbrella on
+this particular trip; whether to wear black shoes or tan shoes today;
+whether to go calling or to stay at home and write letters this
+afternoon. Such a person is usually in a stew over some inconsequential
+matter, and consumes so much time and energy in fussing over trivial
+things that he is incapable of handling larger ones. If we are certain
+that we have all the facts in a given case before us, and have given
+each its due weight so far as our judgment will enable us to do, then
+there is nothing to be gained by delaying the decision. Nor is there any
+occasion to change the decision after it has once been made unless new
+evidence is discovered bearing on the case.
+
+DECISION UNDER EFFORT.--The highest type of decision is that in which
+effort is the determining factor. The pressure of external circumstances
+and inward impulse is not enough to overcome a calm and determined _I
+will_. Two possible lines of action may lie open before us. Every
+current of our being leads toward the one; in addition, inclination,
+friends, honors, all beckon in the same direction. From the other course
+our very nature shrinks; duty alone bids us take this line, and promises
+no rewards except the approval of conscience. Here is the crucial point
+in human experience; the supreme test of the individual; the last
+measure of man's independence and power. Winning at this point man has
+exercised his highest prerogative--that of independent choice; failing
+here, he reverts toward the lower forms and is a creature of
+circumstance, no longer the master of his own destiny, but blown about
+by the winds of chance. And it behooves us to win in this battle. We may
+lose in a contest or a game and yet not fail, because we have done our
+best; if we fail in the conflict of motives we have planted a seed of
+weakness from which we shall at last harvest defeat.
+
+Jean Valjean, the galley slave of almost a score of years, escapes and
+lives an honest life. He wins the respect and admiration of friends; he
+is elected mayor of his town, and honors are heaped on him. At the
+height of his prosperity he reads one day that a man has been arrested
+in another town for the escaped convict, Jean Valjean, and is about to
+be sent to the galleys. Now comes the supreme test in Jean Valjean's
+life. Shall he remain the honored, respected citizen and let an innocent
+man suffer in his stead, or shall he proclaim himself the long-sought
+criminal and again have the collar riveted on his neck and take his
+place at the oars? He spends one awful night of conflict in which
+contending motives make a battle ground of his soul. But in the morning
+he has won. He has saved his manhood. His conscience yet lives--and he
+goes and gives himself up to the officers. Nor could he do otherwise and
+still remain a _man_.
+
+
+3. STRONG AND WEAK WILLS
+
+Many persons will admit that their memory or imagination or power of
+perception is not good, but few will confess to a weak will. Strength of
+will is everywhere lauded as a mark of worth and character. How can we
+tell whether our will is strong or weak?
+
+NOT A WILL, BUT WILLS.--First of all we need to remember that, just as
+we do not have a memory, but a system of memories, so we do not possess
+a will, but many different wills. By this I mean that the will must be
+called upon and tested at every point of contact in experience before we
+have fully measured its strength. Our will may have served us reasonably
+well so far, but we may not yet have met any great number of hard tests
+because our experience and temptations have been limited.
+
+Nor must we forget to take into account both the negative and the
+positive functions of the will. Many there are who think of the will
+chiefly in its negative use, as a kind of a check or barrier to save us
+_from_ doing certain things. That this is an important function cannot
+be denied. But the positive is the higher function. There are many men
+and women who are able to resist evil, but able to do little good. They
+are good enough, but not good for much. They lack the power of effort
+and self-compulsion to hold them up to the high standards and stern
+endeavor necessary to save them from inferiority or mediocrity. It is
+almost certain that for most who read these words the greatest test of
+their will power will be in the positive instead of the negative
+direction.
+
+OBJECTIVE TESTS A FALSE MEASURE OF WILL POWER.--The actual amount of
+volition exercised in making a decision cannot be measured by objective
+results. The fact that you follow the pathway of duty, while I falter
+and finally drift into the byways of pleasure, is not certain evidence
+that you have put forth the greater power of will. In the first place,
+the allurements which led me astray may have had no charms for you.
+Furthermore, you may have so formed the habit of pursuing the pathway of
+duty when the two paths opened before you, that your well-trained feet
+unerringly led you into the narrow way without a struggle. Of course you
+are on safer ground than I, and on ground that we should all seek to
+attain. But, nevertheless, I, although I fell when I should have stood,
+may have been fighting a battle and manifesting a power of resistance of
+which you, under similar temptation, would have been incapable. The only
+point from which a conflict of motives can be safely judged is that of
+the soul which is engaged in the struggle.
+
+
+4. VOLITIONAL TYPES
+
+Several fairly well-marked volitional types may be discovered. It is, of
+course, to be understood that these types all grade by insensible
+degrees into each other, and that extreme types are the exception rather
+than the rule.
+
+THE IMPULSIVE TYPE.--The _impulsive_ type of will goes along with a
+nervous organism of the hair-trigger kind. The brain is in a state of
+highly unstable equilibrium, and a relatively slight current serves to
+set off the motor centers. Action follows before there is time for a
+counteracting current to intervene. Putting it in mental terms, we act
+on an idea which presents itself before an opposing one has opportunity
+to enter the mind. Hence _the action is largely or wholly ideo-motor and
+but slightly or not at all deliberate_. It is this type of will which
+results in the hasty word or deed, or the rash act committed on the
+impulse of the moment and repented of at leisure; which compels the
+frequent, "I didn't think, or I would not have done it!" The impulsive
+person may undoubtedly have credited up to him many kind words and noble
+deeds. In addition, he usually carries with him an air of spontaneity
+and whole-heartedness which goes far to atone for his faults. The fact
+remains, however, that he is too little the master of his acts, that he
+is guided too largely by external circumstances or inward caprice. He
+lacks balance.
+
+Impulsive action is not to be confused with quick decision and rapid
+action. Many of the world's greatest and safest leaders have been noted
+for quickness of decision and for rapidity of action in carrying out
+their decisions. It must be remembered, however, that these men were
+making decisions in fields well known to them. They were specialists in
+this line of deliberation. The motives for and against certain lines of
+action had often been dwelt upon. All possible contingencies had been
+imaged many times over, and a valuation placed upon the different
+decisions. The various concepts had long been associated with certain
+definite lines of action. Deliberation under such conditions can be
+carried on with lightning rapidity, each motive being checked off as
+worth so much the instant it presents itself, and action can follow
+immediately when attention settles on the proper motive to govern the
+decision. This is not impulse, but abbreviated deliberation. These
+facts suggest to us that we should think much and carefully over matters
+in which we are required to make quick decisions.
+
+Of course the remedy for the over-impulsive type is to cultivate
+deliberative action. When the impulse comes to act without
+consideration, pause to give the other side of the question an
+opportunity to be heard. Check the motor response to ideas that suggest
+action until you have reviewed the field to see whether there are
+contrary reasons to be taken into account. Form the habit of waiting for
+all evidence before deciding. "Think twice" before you act.
+
+THE OBSTRUCTED WILL.--The opposite of the impulsive type of will is the
+_obstructed_ or _balky_ will. In this type there is too much inhibition,
+or else not enough impulsion. Images which should result in action are
+checkmated by opposing images, or do not possess vitality enough as
+motives to overcome the dead weight of inertia which clogs mental
+action. The person knows well enough what he should do, but he cannot
+get started. He "cannot get the consent of his will." It may be the
+student whose mind is tormented by thoughts of coming failure in
+recitation or examination, but who yet cannot force himself to the
+exertion necessary safely to meet the ordeal. It may be the dissolute
+man who tortures himself in his sober moments with remorse and the
+thought that he was intended for better things, but who, waking from his
+meditations, goes on in the same old way. It may be the child undergoing
+punishment, who is to be released from bondage as soon as he will
+promise to be good, but who cannot bring himself to say the necessary
+words. It not only may be, but is, man or woman anywhere who has ideals
+which are known to be worthy and noble, but which fail to take hold. It
+is anyone who is following a course of action which he knows is beneath
+him.
+
+No one can doubt that the moral tragedies, the failures and the
+shipwrecks in life come far more from the breaking of the bonds which
+should bind right ideals to action than from a failure to perceive the
+truth. Men differ far more in their deeds than in their standards of
+action.
+
+The remedy for this diseased type of will is much easier to prescribe
+than to apply. It is simply to refuse to attend to the contrary thoughts
+which are blocking action, and to cultivate and encourage those which
+lead to action of the right kind. It is seeking to vitalize our good
+impulses and render them effective by acting on them whenever
+opportunity offers. Nothing can be accomplished by moodily dwelling on
+the disgrace of harboring the obstructing ideas. Thus brooding over them
+only encourages them. What we need is to get entirely away from the line
+of thought in which we have met our obstruction, and approach the matter
+from a different direction. The child who is in a fit of sulks does not
+so much need a lecture on the disagreeable habit he is forming as to
+have his thoughts led into lines not connected with the grievance which
+is causing him the trouble. The stubborn child does not need to have his
+will "broken," but rather to have it strengthened. He may be compelled
+to do what he does not want to do; but if this is accomplished through
+physical force instead of by leading to thoughts connected with the
+performance of the act, it may be doubted whether the will has in any
+degree been strengthened. Indeed it may rather be depended upon that the
+will has been weakened; for an opportunity for self-control, through
+which alone the will develops, has been lost. The ultimate remedy for
+rebellion often lies in greater freedom at the proper time. This does
+not mean that the child should not obey rightful authority promptly and
+explicitly, but that just as little external authority as possible
+should intervene to take from the child the opportunity for
+_self_-compulsion.
+
+THE NORMAL WILL.--The golden mean between these two abnormal types of
+will may be called the _normal_ or _balanced_ will. Here there is a
+proper ratio between impulsion and inhibition. Ideas are not acted upon
+the instant they enter the mind without giving time for a survey of the
+field of motives, neither is action "sicklied o'er with the pale cast of
+thought" to such an extent that it becomes impossible. The evidence is
+all considered and each motive fully weighed. But this once done,
+decision follows. No dilatory and obstructive tactics are allowed. The
+fleeting impulse is not enough to persuade to action, neither is action
+unduly delayed after the decision is made.
+
+
+5. TRAINING THE WILL
+
+The will is to be trained as we train the other powers of the
+mind--through the exercise of its normal function. The function of the
+will is to direct or control in the actual affairs of life. Many
+well-meaning persons speak of training the will as if we could separate
+it from the interests and purposes of our daily living, and in some way
+put it through its paces merely for the sake of adding to its general
+strength. This view is all wrong. There is, as we have seen, no such
+thing as _general_ power of will. Will is always required in specific
+acts and emergencies, and it is precisely upon such matters that it must
+be exercised if it is to be cultivated.
+
+WILL TO BE TRAINED IN COMMON ROUND OF DUTIES.--What is needed in
+developing the will is a deep moral interest in whatever we set out to
+do, and a high purpose to do it up to the limit of our powers. Without
+this, any artificial exercises, no matter how carefully they are devised
+or how heroically they are carried out, cannot but fail to fit us for
+the real tests of life; with it, artificial exercises are superfluous.
+It matters not so much what our vocation as how it is performed. The
+most commonplace human experience is rich in opportunities for the
+highest form of expression possible to the will--that of directing us
+into right lines of action, and of holding us to our best in the
+accomplishment of some dominant purpose.
+
+There is no one set form of exercise which alone will serve to train the
+will. The student pushing steadily toward his goal in spite of poverty
+and grinding labor; the teacher who, though unappreciated and poorly
+paid, yet performs every duty with conscientious thoroughness; the man
+who stands firm in the face of temptation; the person whom heredity or
+circumstance has handicapped, but who, nevertheless, courageously fights
+his battle; the countless men and women everywhere whose names are not
+known to fame, but who stand in the hard places, bearing the heat and
+the toil with brave, unflinching hearts--these are the ones who are
+developing a moral fiber and strength of will which will stand in the
+day of stress. Better a thousand times such training as this in the
+thick of life's real conflicts than any volitional calisthenics or
+priggish self-denials entered into solely for the training of the will!
+
+SCHOOL WORK AND WILL TRAINING.--The work of the school offers as good an
+opportunity for training powers of will as of memory or reasoning. On
+the side of inhibition there is always the necessity for self-restraint
+and control so that the rights of others may not be infringed upon.
+Temptations to unfairness or insincerity in lessons and examinations are
+always to be met. The social relations of the school necessitate the
+development of personal poise and independence.
+
+On the positive side the opportunities for the exercise of will power
+are always at hand in the school. Every lesson gives the pupil a chance
+to measure his strength and determination against the resistance of the
+task. High standards are to be built up, ideals maintained, habits
+rendered secure.
+
+The great problem for the teacher in this connection is so to organize
+both control and instruction that the largest possible opportunity is
+given to pupils for the exercise of their own powers of will in all
+school relations.
+
+
+6. FREEDOM OF THE WILL, OR THE EXTENT OF ITS CONTROL
+
+We have seen in this discussion that will is a mode of control--control
+of our thoughts and, through our thoughts, of our actions. Will may be
+looked upon, then, as the culmination of the mental life, the highest
+form of directive agent within us. Beginning with the direction of the
+simplest movements, it goes on until it governs the current of our life
+in the pursuit of some distant ideal.
+
+LIMITATIONS OF THE WILL.--Just how far the will can go in its control,
+just how far man is a free moral agent, has long been one of the mooted
+questions among the philosophers. But some few facts are clear. If the
+will can exercise full control over all our acts, it by this very fact
+determines our character; and character spells destiny. There is not the
+least doubt, however, that the will in thus directing us in the
+achievement of a destiny works under two limitations: _First_, every
+individual enters upon life with a large stock of _inherited
+tendencies_, which go far to shape his interests and aspirations. And
+these are important factors in the work of volition. _Second_, we all
+have our setting in the midst of a great _material and social
+environment_, which is largely beyond our power to modify, and whose
+influences are constantly playing upon us and molding us according to
+their type.
+
+THESE LIMITATIONS THE CONDITIONS OF FREEDOM.--Yet there is nothing in
+this thought to discourage us. For these very limitations have in them
+our hope of a larger freedom. Man's heredity, coming to him through ages
+of conflict with the forces of nature, with his brother man, and with
+himself, has deeply instilled in him the spirit of independence and
+self-control. It has trained him to deliberate, to choose, to achieve.
+It has developed in him the power _to will_. Likewise man's environment,
+in which he must live and work, furnishes the problems which his life
+work is to solve, and _out of whose solution will receives its only true
+development_.
+
+It is through the action and interaction of these two factors, then,
+that man is to work out his destiny. What he _is_, coupled with what he
+may _do_, leads him to what he may _become_. Every man possesses in some
+degree a spark of divinity, a sovereign individuality, a power of
+independent initiative. This is all he needs to make him free--free to
+do his best in whatever walk of life he finds himself. If he will but do
+this, the doing of it will lead him into a constantly growing freedom,
+and he can voice the cry of every earnest heart:
+
+    Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul!
+    As the swift seasons roll!
+    Leave thy low-vaulted past!
+    Let each new temple, nobler than the last,
+    Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast,
+    Till thou at length art free,
+    Leaving thine outgrown shell by life's unresting sea!
+
+
+7. PROBLEMS IN OBSERVATION AND INTROSPECTION
+
+1. Give illustrations from your own experience of the various types of
+action mentioned in this discussion. From your own experience of the
+last hour, what examples of impulsive action can you give? Would it have
+been better in some cases had you stopped to deliberate?
+
+2. Are you easily influenced by prejudice or personal preference in
+making decisions? What recent decisions have been thus affected? Can you
+classify the various ones of your decisions which you can recall under
+the four types mentioned in the text? Under which class does the largest
+number fall? Have you a tendency to drift with the crowd? Are you
+independent in deciding upon and following out a line of action? What is
+the value of advice? Ought advice to do more than to assist in getting
+all the evidence on a case before the one who is to decide?
+
+3. Can you judge yourself well enough to tell to which volitional type
+you belong? Are you over-impulsive? Are you stubborn? What is the
+difference between stubbornness and firmness? Suppose you ask your
+instructor, or a friend, to assist you in classifying yourself as to
+volitional type. Are you troubled with indecision; that is, do you have
+hard work to decide in trivial matters even after you know all the facts
+in the case? What is the cause of these states of indecision? The
+remedy?
+
+4. Have you a strong power of will? Can you control your attention? Do
+you submit easily to temptation? Can you hold yourself up to a high
+degree of effort? Can you persevere? Have you ever failed in the
+attainment of some cherished ideal because you could not bring yourself
+to pay the price in the sacrifice or effort necessary?
+
+5. Consider the class work and examinations of schools that you know.
+Does the system of management and control throw responsibility on the
+pupils in a way to develop their powers of will?
+
+6. What motives or incentives can be used to encourage pupils to use
+self-compulsion to maintain high standards of excellence in their
+studies and conduct? Does it pay to be heroic in one's self-control?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+SELF-EXPRESSION AND DEVELOPMENT
+
+
+We have already seen that the mind and the body are associated in a
+copartnership in which each is an indispensable and active member. We
+have seen that the body gets its dignity and worth from its relation
+with the mind, and that the mind is dependent on the body for the crude
+material of its thought, and also for the carrying out of its mandates
+in securing adaptation to our environment. We have seen as a corollary
+of these facts that the efficiency of both mind and body is conditioned
+by the manner in which each carries out its share of the mutual
+activities. Let us see something more of this interrelation.
+
+
+1. INTER-RELATION OF IMPRESSION AND EXPRESSION
+
+_No impression without corresponding expression_ has become a maxim in
+both physiology and psychology. Inner life implies self-expression in
+external activities. The stream of impressions pouring in upon us hourly
+from our environment must have means of expression if development is to
+follow. We cannot be passive recipients, but must be active participants
+in the educational process. We must not only be able to _know_ and
+_feel_, but to _do_.
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 20]
+
+THE MANY SOURCES OF IMPRESSIONS.--The nature of the impressions which
+come to us and how they all lead on toward ultimate expression is shown
+in the accompanying diagram (Fig. 20). Our material environment is
+thrusting impressions upon us every moment of our life; also, the
+material objects with which we deal have become so saturated with social
+values that each comes to us with a double significance, and what an
+object _means_ often stands for more than what it _is_. From the lives
+of people with whom we daily mingle; from the wider circle whose lives
+do not immediately touch ours, but who are interpreted to us by the
+press, by history and literature; from the social institutions into
+which have gone the lives of millions, and of which our lives form a
+part, there come to us constantly a flood of impressions whose influence
+cannot be measured. So likewise with religious impressions. God is all
+about us and within us. He speaks to us from every nook and corner of
+nature, and communes with us through the still small voice from within,
+if we will but listen. The Bible, religious instruction, and the lives
+of good people are other sources of religious impressions constantly
+tending to mold our lives. The beautiful in nature, art, and human
+conduct constantly appeals to us in aessthetic impressions.
+
+ALL IMPRESSIONS LEAD TOWARD EXPRESSION.--Each of these groups of
+impressions may be subdivided and extended into an almost indefinite
+number and variety, the different groups meeting and overlapping, it is
+true, yet each preserving reasonably distinct characteristics. A common
+characteristic of them all, as shown in the diagram, is that they all
+point toward expression. The varieties of light, color, form, and
+distance which we get through vision are not merely that we may know
+these phenomena of nature, but that, knowing them, we may use the
+knowledge in making proper responses to our environment. Our power to
+know human sympathy and love through our social impressions are not
+merely that we may feel these emotions, but that, feeling them, we may
+act in response to them.
+
+It is impossible to classify logically in any simple scheme all the
+possible forms of expression. The diagram will serve, however, to call
+attention to some of the chief modes of bodily expression, and also to
+the results of the bodily expressions in the arts and vocations. Here
+again the process of subdivision and extension can be carried out
+indefinitely. The laugh can be made to tell many different stories.
+Crying may express bitter sorrow or uncontrollable joy. Vocal speech may
+be carried on in a thousand tongues. Dramatic action may be made to
+portray the whole range of human feelings. Plays and games are wide
+enough in their scope to satisfy the demands of all ages and every
+people. The handicrafts cover so wide a range that the material progress
+of civilization can be classed under them, and indeed without their
+development the arts and vocations would be impossible. Architecture,
+sculpture, painting, music, and literature have a thousand possibilities
+both in technique and content. Likewise the modes of society, conduct,
+and religion are unlimited in their forms of expression.
+
+LIMITATIONS OF EXPRESSION.--While it is more blessed to give than to
+receive, it is somewhat harder in the doing; for more of the self is,
+after all, involved in expression than in impression. Expression needs
+to be cultivated as an art; for who can express all he thinks, or feels,
+or conceives? Who can do his innermost self justice when he attempts to
+express it in language, in music, or in marble? The painter answers when
+praised for his work, "If you could but see the picture I intended to
+paint!" The pupil says, "I know, but I cannot tell." The friend says, "I
+wish I could tell you how sorry I am." The actor complains, "If I could
+only portray the passion as I feel it, I could bring all the world to my
+feet!" The body, being of grosser structure than the mind, must always
+lag somewhat behind in expressing the mind's states; yet, so perfect is
+the harmony between the two, that with a body well trained to respond to
+the mind's needs, comparatively little of the spiritual need be lost in
+its expression through the material.
+
+
+2. THE PLACE OF EXPRESSION IN DEVELOPMENT
+
+Nor are we to think that cultivation of expression results in better
+power of expression alone, or that lack of cultivation results only in
+decreased power of expression.
+
+INTELLECTUAL VALUE OF EXPRESSION.--There is a distinct mental value in
+expression. An idea always assumes new clearness and wider relations
+when it is expressed. Michael Angelo, making his plans for the great
+cathedral, found his first concept of the structure expanding and
+growing more beautiful as he developed his plans. The sculptor,
+beginning to model the statue after the image which he has in his mind,
+finds the image growing and becoming more expressive and beautiful as
+the clay is molded and formed. The writer finds the scope and worth of
+his book growing as he proceeds with the writing. The student, beginning
+doubtfully on his construction in geometry, finds the truth growing
+clearer as he proceeds. The child with a dim and hazy notion of the
+meaning of the story in history or literature discovers that the meaning
+grows clear as he himself works out its expression in speech, in the
+handicrafts, or in dramatic representation.
+
+So we may apply the test to any realm of thought whatever, and the law
+holds good: _It is not in its apprehension, but in its expression, that
+a truth finally becomes assimilated to our body of usable knowledge._
+And this means that in all training of the body through its motor
+expression we are to remember that the mind must be behind the act; that
+the intellect must guide the hand; that the object is not to make
+skillful fingers alone, but to develop clear and intelligent thought as
+well.
+
+MORAL VALUE OF EXPRESSION.--Expression also has a distinct moral value.
+There are many more people of good intentions than of moral character in
+the world. The rugged proverb tells us that the road to hell is paved
+with good intentions. And how easy it is to form good resolutions. Who
+of us has not, after some moral struggle, said, "I will break the bonds
+of this habit: I will enter upon that heroic line of action!" and then,
+satisfied for the time with having made the resolution, continued in the
+old path, until we were surprised later to find that we had never got
+beyond the resolution.
+
+It is not in the moment of the resolve but in the moment when the
+resolve is carried out in action that the moral value inheres. To take a
+stand on a question of right and wrong means more than to show one's
+allegiance to the right--it clears one's own moral vision and gives him
+command of himself. Expression is, finally, the only true test for our
+morality. Lacking moral expression, we may stand in the class of those
+who are merely good, but we can never enter the class of those who are
+good for something. One cannot but wonder what would happen if all the
+people in the world who are morally right should give expression to
+their moral sentiments, not in words alone, but in deeds. Surely the
+millennium would speedily come, not only among the nations, but in the
+lives of men.
+
+RELIGIOUS VALUE OF EXPRESSION.--True religious experience demands
+expression. The older conception of a religious life was to escape from
+the world and live a life of communion and contemplation in some
+secluded spot, ignoring the world thirsting without. Later religious
+teaching, however, recognized the fact that religion cannot consist in
+drinking in blessings alone, no matter how ecstatic the feeling which
+may accompany the process; that it is not the receiving, but this along
+with the giving that enriches the life. To give the cup of cold water,
+to visit the widow and the fatherless, to comfort and help the needy and
+forlorn--this is not only scriptural but it is psychological. Only as
+religious feeling goes out into religious expression, can we have a
+normal religious experience.
+
+SOCIAL VALUE OF EXPRESSION.--The criterion of an education once was, how
+much does he know? The world did not expect an educated man to _do_
+anything; he was to be put on a pedestal and admired from a distance.
+But this criterion is now obsolete. Society cares little how much we
+know if it does not enable us to do. People no longer admire mere
+knowledge, but insist that the man of education shall put his shoulder
+to the wheel and lend a hand wherever help is needed. Education is no
+longer to set men apart from their fellows, but to make them more
+efficient comrades and helpers in the world's work. Not the man who
+_knows_ chemistry and botany, but he who can use this knowledge to make
+two blades of grass grow where but one grew before, is the true
+benefactor of his race. In short, the world demands services returned
+for opportunities afforded; it expects social expression to result from
+education.
+
+And this is also best for the individual, for only through social
+service can we attain to a full realization of the social values in our
+environment. Only thus can we enter fully into the social heritage of
+the ages which we receive from books and institutions; only thus can we
+come into the truest and best relations with humanity in a common
+brotherhood; only thus can we live the broader and more significant
+life, and come to realize the largest possible social self.
+
+
+3. EDUCATIONAL USE OF EXPRESSION
+
+The educational significance of the truths illustrated in the diagram
+and the discussion has been somewhat slow in taking hold in our schools.
+This has been due not alone to the slowness of the educational world to
+grasp a new idea, but also to the practical difficulties connected with
+adapting the school exercises as well to the expression side of
+education as to the impression. From the fall of Athens on down to the
+time of Froebel the schools were constituted on the theory that pupils
+were to _receive_ education; that they were to _drink in_ knowledge,
+that their minds were to be _stored_ with facts. Children were to "be
+seen and not heard." Education was largely a process of gorging the
+memory with information.
+
+EASIER TO PROVIDE FOR THE IMPRESSION SIDE OF EDUCATION.--Now it is
+evident that it is far easier to provide for the passive side of
+education than for the active side. All that is needed in the former
+case is to have teachers and books reasonably full of information, and
+pupils sufficiently docile to receive it. But in the latter case, the
+equipment must be more extensive. If the child is to be allowed to carry
+out his impressions into action, if he is actually to _do_ something
+himself, then he must be supplied with adequate equipment.
+
+So far as the home life was concerned, the child of several generations
+ago was at a decided advantage over the child of today on the expression
+side of his education. The homes of that day were beehives of industry,
+in which a dozen handicrafts were taught and practiced. The buildings,
+the farm implements, and most of the furniture of the home were made
+from the native timber. The material for the clothing of the family was
+produced on the farm, made into cloth, and finally into garments in the
+home. Nearly all the supplies for the table came likewise from the farm.
+These industries demanded the combined efforts of the family, and each
+child did his or her part.
+
+But that day is past. One-half of our people live in cities and towns,
+and even in the village and on the farm the handicrafts of the home have
+been relegated to the factory, and everything comes into the home ready
+for use. The telephone, the mail carrier, and the deliveryman do all the
+errands even, and the child in the home is deprived of responsibility
+and of nearly all opportunity for manual expression. This is no one's
+fault, for it is just one phase of a great industrial readjustment in
+society. Yet the fact remains that the home has lost an important
+element in education, which the school must supply if we are not to be
+the losers educationally by the change.
+
+THE SCHOOL TO TAKE UP THE HANDICRAFTS.--And modern educational method is
+insisting precisely on this point. A few years ago the boy caught
+whittling in school was a fit subject for a flogging; the boy is today
+given bench and tools, and is instructed in their use. Then the child
+was punished for drawing pictures; now we are using drawing as one of
+the best modes of expression. Then instruction in singing was intrusted
+to an occasional evening class, which only the older children could
+attend, and which was taught by some itinerant singing master; today we
+make music one of our most valuable school exercises. Then all play time
+was so much time wasted; now we recognize play as a necessary and
+valuable mode of expression and development. Then dramatic
+representation was confined to the occasional exhibition or evening
+entertainment; now it has become a recognized part of our school work.
+Then it was a crime for pupils to communicate with each other in school;
+now a part of the school work is planned so that pupils work in groups,
+and thus receive social training. Then our schoolrooms were destitute of
+every vestige of beauty; today many of them are artistic and beautiful.
+
+This statement of the case is rather over-optimistic if applied to our
+whole school system, however. For there are still many schools in which
+all forms of handicraft are unknown, and in which the only training in
+artistic expression is that which comes from caricaturing the teacher.
+Singing is still an unknown art to many teachers. The play instinct is
+yet looked upon with suspicion and distrust in some quarters. A large
+number of our schoolrooms are as barren and ugly today as ever, and
+contain an atmosphere as stifling to all forms of natural expression. We
+can only comfort ourselves with Holmes's maxim, that it matters not so
+much where we stand as in what direction we are moving. And we certainly
+are moving toward a larger development and greater efficiency in
+expression on the part of those who pass through our schools.
+
+EXPRESSION AND CHARACTER.--Finally, all that has been said in this
+discussion has direct reference to what we call character--that
+mysterious something which we so often hear eulogized and so seldom
+analyzed. Character has two distinct phases, which may be called the
+_subjective_ phase and the _social_ phase; or, stating it differently,
+character is both what we _are_ and what we _do_. The first of these has
+to do with the nature of the real, innermost self; and the last, with
+the modes in which this self finds expression. And it is fair to say
+that those about us are concerned with what we are chiefly from its
+relation to what we do.
+
+Character is not a thing, but a process; it is the succession of our
+thoughts and acts from hour to hour. It is not something which we can
+hoard and protect and polish unto a more perfect day, but it is the
+everyday self in the process of living. And the only way in which it can
+be made or marred is through the nature of this stream of thoughts and
+acts which constitute the day's life--is through _being_ or _doing_ well
+or ill.
+
+TWO LINES OF DEVELOPMENT.--The cultivation of character must, then,
+ignore neither of these two lines. To neglect the first is to forget
+that it is out of the abundance of the heart that the mouth speaks; that
+a corrupt tree cannot bring forth good fruit; that the act is the true
+index of the soul. To omit the second is to leave the character half
+formed, the will weak, and the life inefficient and barren of results.
+The mind must be supplied with noble ideas and high ideals, with right
+emotions and worthy ambitions. On the other hand, the proper connection
+must be established between these mental states and appropriate acts.
+And the acts must finally grow into habits, so that we naturally and
+inevitably translate our ideas and ideals, our emotions and ambitions
+into deeds. Our character must be strong not in thought and feeling
+alone, but also in the power to return to the world its finished
+product in the form of service.
+
+
+4. PROBLEMS IN INTROSPECTION AND OBSERVATION
+
+1. Do you find that you understand better some difficult point or
+problem after you have succeeded in stating it? Do you remember better
+what you have expressed?
+
+2. In which particular ones of your studies do you think you could have
+done better if you had been given more opportunity for expression?
+Explain the psychology of the maxim, we learn to do by doing.
+
+3. Observe various schools at work for the purpose of determining
+whether opportunities for expression in the recitations are adequate.
+Have you ever seen a class when listless from listening liven up when
+they were given something to _do_ themselves?
+
+4. Make a study of the types of laughter you hear. Why is some laughter
+much more pleasant than other laughter? What did a noted sculptor mean
+when he said that a smile at the eyes cannot be depended upon as can one
+at the mouth?
+
+5. What examples have you observed in children's plays showing their
+love for dramatic representation? What handicrafts are the most suitable
+for children of primary grades? for the grammar school? for the high
+school?
+
+6. Do you number those among your acquaintance who seem bright enough,
+so far as learning is concerned, but who cannot get anything
+accomplished? Is the trouble on the expression side of their character?
+What are you doing about your own powers of expression? Are you seeking
+to cultivate expression in new lines? Is there danger in attempting too
+many lines?
+
+
+
+INDEX
+
+Action, automatic, 275
+  classes of, 273
+  factors involved in, 59
+  reflex, 274
+  volitional, 276
+
+Activity, necessity for motor, 56
+
+Adolescence, interests of, 269
+
+Association, and action, 149
+  chapter on, 144
+  development of centers, 57
+  laws of, 150
+  and methods of learning, 157
+  and memory, 146
+  nature of, 144
+  neural basis of, 145
+  partial or selective, 153
+  pleasure-pain motive in, 155
+  and thinking, 149
+  training in, 155
+  types of, 150
+
+Attention, chapter on, 15
+  effects of, 16
+  and efficiency, 17
+  points of failure in, 20
+  habit of, 27, 73
+  improvement of, 26
+  method of, 18
+
+Attention, nature of, 15
+  rhythms of, 20
+  types of, 22
+
+
+Belief, in thinking, 180
+
+Brain, chapter on, 30
+  and nervous system, 30
+  quality and memory, 162
+  relations of mind and, 30
+
+
+Cerebellum, the, 37
+
+Cerebrum, the, 37
+
+Concept, the, 187
+  definition of, 189
+  function of, 187
+  growth of, 188
+  and language, 189
+
+Consciousness, content of, 10
+  known by introspection, 2
+  the mind or, 1
+  nature of, 4
+  personal character of, 1
+  as a stream, 5
+  where it resides, 12
+
+Cord, the spinal, 40
+
+Cortex, the, 39
+  division of labor in, 45
+
+
+Decision, under effort, 281
+  types of, 279
+
+Decision and will, 277
+
+Deduction, 196
+
+Development, of association centers, 57
+  chapter on, 50
+  and instinct, 209
+  mental and motor training, 50
+  of nervous system, 60
+  through play, 215
+
+Direction, perception of, 105
+
+Disposition, and mood, 232, 230
+  and temperament, 233
+
+
+Education, as habit forming, 78
+
+Emotion, chapter on, 239
+  control of, 243, 246
+  cultivation of, 247
+  and feeling, 239
+  James-Lange theory of, 239
+  as a motive, 251
+  physiological explanation of, 240
+
+End-Organ(s) of hearing, 92
+  kinaesthetic, 96
+  and sensory qualities, 91
+  of skin, 94
+  of smell, 94
+  of taste, 93
+  of vision, 91
+
+Environment, influence of, 213
+
+Expression, and character, 303
+  educational use of, 301
+
+Expression, and impression, 296
+  learning to interpret, 4
+  limitations of, 297
+  self-, and development, 294, 298
+
+
+Fatigue, and habit, 72
+  and nervous system, 62
+
+Fear, instinct of, 221
+  types of, 222
+
+Feeling, chapter on, 226
+  effects of, 230
+  and mood, 230
+  nature of, 227
+  qualities, 227
+
+Forgetting, rate of, 170
+
+
+Habit, of attention, 27, 73
+  chapter on, 66
+  effects of, 70
+  emotional, 257
+  forming as education, 78
+  and life economy, 70
+  nature of, 66
+  and personality, 75
+  physical basis of, 67
+  rules for forming, 81
+  tyranny of, 77
+
+Handicrafts, and education, 302
+
+Hearing, 92
+
+
+Idea, and image, 111, 114
+
+Image(ry), ability in, 118
+  chapter on, 111
+  classes of, 117
+
+Image(ry), cultivation of, 123
+  and past experience, 111
+  functions of, 120
+  and ideas, 111, 114
+  and imagination, 134
+  types of, 119
+
+Imagination, chapter on, 127
+  and conduct, 133
+  cultivation of, 136, 140
+  function of, 127
+  the stuff of, 134
+  and thinking, 134
+  types of, 138
+
+Imitation, conscious and unconscious, 212
+  individuality in, 211
+  the instinct of, 210
+  in learning, 211
+
+Induction, 197
+
+Instinct(s), chapter on, 201
+  definition of, 202
+  of fear, 221
+  of imitation, 210
+  laws of, 205
+  nature of, 201
+  of play, 214
+  as starting points in development, 209
+  transitory nature of, 206
+  various undesirable, 222
+  various useful, 218
+
+Interest(s), chapter on, 254
+  direct and indirect, 258
+  and education, 265
+  and habit, 257
+  nature of, 254
+
+Interest(s) and nonvoluntary attention, 23
+  order of development of, 267
+  selection among, 262
+  transitoriness of certain, 260
+
+Introspection, 2
+  and imagery, 116
+  method of, 3
+
+
+James, quoted, 81
+  theory of emotion, 239
+
+Judgment, functions of, 192
+  nature of, 191
+  in percepts and concepts, 191
+  and reasoning, 195
+  validity of, 193
+
+
+Knowledge, raw material of, 96
+  through senses, 84
+
+
+Language, and the concept, 189
+
+Laws, of association, 150
+  of instinct, 205
+  of memory, 168
+
+Learning, and association, 157
+
+Localization of function in cortex, 43
+
+
+Meaning, dependence on relations, 193
+
+Memorizing, rules for, 169
+
+Memory, and association, 146
+  and brain quality, 162
+  chapter on, 160
+  devices, 175
+  factors involved in, 163
+  what constitutes good, 171
+  laws of, 168
+  material of, 166
+  nature of, 160
+  physical basis of, 161
+
+Mind, or consciousness, at birth, 32
+  and brain, 30
+  chapter on, 1
+  dependence on senses, 48
+  and external world, 32
+
+Mood, and disposition, 230, 232
+  influence of, 231
+  how produced, 230
+
+Motive, emotion as a, 257
+
+
+Neuroglia, 35
+
+Neurone, the, 34
+
+Nerve cells, and nutrition, 50
+  undeveloped, 57
+
+Nerve fibers, 57
+
+Nervous system, and association, 145
+  and consciousness, 12
+  division of labor in, 43
+  factors determining efficiency of, 50
+  and fatigue, 62
+  gross structure of, 36
+
+Nervous system, and nutrition, 64
+  order of development, 60
+  structural elements in, 34
+  and worry, 62
+
+
+Objects, defined through perception, 101
+  physical qualities of, 87, 89
+
+
+Percept, content of, 101
+  functions of, 103
+
+Perception, chapter on, 98
+  of direction, 105
+  function of, 98
+  nature of, 100
+  of space, 104
+  of time, 106
+  training of, 108
+
+Personality, and habit, 75
+  influence of, 213
+
+Play, and education, 215
+  instinct of, 214
+  and work, 217
+
+
+Qualities, sensory, auditory, 92
+  cutaneous, 94
+  kinaesthetic, 96
+  objects known through, 85
+  olfactory, 94
+  organic, 96
+  taste, 93
+  visual, 91
+
+
+Reason, and judgment, 193
+  nature of, 193
+  and the syllogism, 196
+
+Registration, and attention, 163
+  and memory, 163
+  recall, 165
+  recognition, 166
+
+Rhythm, of attention, 20
+
+
+Self expression and development, 294
+
+Sensation, attributes of, 89
+  chapter on, 84
+  cutaneous, 94
+  factors conditioning, 88
+  kinaesthetic, 96
+  nature of, 89
+  organic, 96
+  qualities of, 85
+  qualities of auditory, 92
+  qualities of olfactory, 94
+  qualities of taste, 93
+  qualities of visual, 91
+
+Senses, dependence of mind on, 48
+  knowledge through, 84
+  work of, 33
+
+Sentiments, development of, 235
+  influence of, 236
+  nature of, 234
+
+Smell, 94
+
+Space, perception of, 104
+
+Stimuli, education and, 60
+  effects of sensory, 55
+  end-organs and, 47
+  sensory, 46
+
+Stimuli, and response, 53
+
+Syllogism, the 196
+
+
+Taste, 93
+
+Temperament, 233
+
+Thinking, and association, 149
+  chapter on, 179
+  child and adult, 184
+  elements in, 186
+  good and memory, 171
+  types of, 179
+
+Time, perception of, 106
+
+
+Validity, of judgment, 193
+
+Vision, 91
+
+Volition, see will, 271
+  and decision, 277
+
+Volitional types, 284
+
+
+Will, and attention, 24
+  chapter on, 271
+  content of, 272
+  freedom of, 290
+  function of, 272
+  measure of power, 284
+  nature of, 271
+  strong and weak, 283
+  training of, 288
+  types of, 285
+
+Work, and play, 217
+
+Worry, effects of, 62
+
+
+Youth, and habit-forming, 79
+
+
+
+     *     *     *     *     *     *
+
+
+
+A VALUABLE BOOK FOR TEACHERS
+
+PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATIONAL PRACTICE
+
+By PAUL KLAPPER, Ph.D., Department of Education, College of the City of
+New York. 8vo, Cloth, $1.75.
+
+This book studies the basic principles underlying sound and progressive
+pedagogy. In its scope and organization it aims to give (1) a
+comprehensive and systematic analysis of the principles of education,
+(2) the modern trend and interpretation of educational thought, (3) a
+transition from pure psychology to methods of teaching and discipline,
+and (4) practical applications of educational theory to the problems
+that confront the teacher in the course of daily routine. Every
+practical pedagogical solution that is offered has actually stood the
+test of classroom demonstration.
+
+The book opens with a study of the function of education and a contrast
+of the modern social conception with those aims which have been guiding
+ideals in previous educational systems. Part II deals with the
+physiological aspects of education. Part III is taken up with the
+problem of socializing the child through the curriculum and the school
+discipline. The last part of the book, Part IV, The Mental Aspect of
+Education, is developed under the following sections: _Section A._ The
+Instinctive Aspect of Mind. Mind and its development through
+self-expression. Self-activity. Instincts. _Section B._ Intellectual
+Aspect of Mind. The functions of Intellect, Perception, Apperception,
+Memory, Imagination, Thought Activities. The Doctrine of Formal
+Discipline and its influence upon educational endeavor. _Section C._
+Emotional Aspect of Mind. _Section D._ Volitional Aspect of Mind. Study
+of will, kinds of volitional action, habit vs. deliberative
+consciousness. The Education of the Will. Education and Social
+Responsibility, the problems of ethical instruction, and the social
+functions of the School.
+
+In order to increase the usefulness of the book to teachers of education
+there is added a classified bibliography for systematic, intensive
+reference reading and a list of suggested problems suitable for advanced
+work.
+
+D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
+NEW YORK--CHICAGO
+
+
+     *     *     *     *     *     *
+
+
+APPLETONS' NEW TEACHERS' BOOKS
+
+A STUDENT'S TEXT-BOOK IN THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION
+
+By Stephen Pierce Duggan, Ph. D.
+
+Head of the Department of Education, College of the City of New York
+
+12mo., Cloth, $1.30 net
+
+Professor Duggan has produced the text-book in the history of education
+which has been such a need in our pedagogical work. Growing out of his
+work as a teacher and lecturer, this book combines the practical
+pedagogy of a teacher with the scholarship of an undisputed authority on
+education and its study. There is no book in this field containing such
+a fund of useful material arranged along such a skillful outline. An
+experience of years is here condensed and solidified into a splendid
+unit.
+
+"A Student's Text-Book in the History of Education" presents an
+authentic account of every educational system which has influenced our
+present-day scheme of pedagogy from the times of the Hebrews to the Age
+of the Montessori method. No time is wasted on detailed considerations
+of other systems. Professor Duggan's book aids the teacher by giving him
+a better understanding of present-day problems in education; by
+explaining how Western Civilization developed the educational ideals,
+content, organization, and practices which characterize it today; and by
+developing the manner in which each people has worked out the solution
+of the great problem of reconciling individual liberty with social
+stability.
+
+D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
+New York--Chicago
+
+
+     *     *     *     *     *     *
+
+
+APPLETONS' NEW TEACHERS' BOOKS
+
+EDUCATION FOR SOCIAL EFFICIENCY
+By Irving King, Ph. D.
+_Professor of Education, The State University of Iowa,
+Iowa City, Iowa_.
+
+12mo., Cloth, $1.50 net
+
+Written not so much for the educational specialist as for the practical
+needs of busy teachers, "Education For Social Efficiency" presents
+through the medium of illustration, a social view of education which is
+very prominent. It shows concretely various ways in which parents as
+well as teachers may contribute something towards the realization of the
+ideal of social efficiency as the goal of our educational enterprise.
+
+The idea that the school, especially the country school, should provide
+more than instruction in lessons for the scholars is Professor King's
+main point. Excellent chapters are included on The School as a Social
+Center, The School and Social Progress, and the Social Aim of Education.
+In discussing the rural schools particularly, the author writes on The
+Rural School and the Rural Community, Adapting the Country School to
+Country Needs, and an especially valuable chapter on The Consolidated
+School and Socially Efficient Education for the Country.
+
+The response with which Professor King's "Education for Social
+Efficiency" has met throughout the country is evidenced by the fact that
+the States of Iowa, Missouri, Tennessee, South Dakota, and Virginia have
+adopted it for reading circle use. It has also been adopted by the
+National Bureau of Education for use in its Rural Teachers' Reading
+Circles.
+
+D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
+New York--Chicago
+
+
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+     *     *     *     *     *     *
+
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+Footnote 1: Donaldson, "The Growth of the Brain," pp. 74, 238.
+
+Footnote 2: Quoted by James, "Psychology," Briefer Course, p. 135.
+
+Footnote 3: "Psychology," vol. i, pp. 123, 124; also, "Briefer Course,"
+            p. 145.
+
+Footnote 4: See Betts, "The Distribution and Functions of Mental
+            Imagery."
+
+Footnote 5: Cf. Dewey, "How We Think," p. 2 ff.
+
+Footnote 6: "Psychology," p. 391.
+
+
+
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