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YCHOLOGY
AS -APPLIED TO

EJDU'CATION

MAGNUSSON

liilRDKTT

THE LIBRARY

THE UNIVERSITY
OF CALIFORNIA

LOS ANGELES

This book is DUE on the last date stamped below

This book is DUE on the last Damped

NORMAL SCHOOL

LOS ANGELES*

PSYCHOLOGY

AS APPLIED TO

EDUCATION

P. M. MAGNUSSON, PH.D.

STATE NORMAL SCHOOL
ST. CLOUD, MINNESOTA

277<£ X

SILVER, BURDETT AND COMPANY

BOSTON NEW YORK CHICAGO

PREFACE

THIS book does not attempt to cover the whole field of
modern psychology. Its scope is limited to those aspects
of the vast subject which form the basis for rational edu-
cation. It aims not only to present these principles in
compact form, but also to show their practical application
to the problems of the schoolroom.

This work has "grown up" in the classroom. There
is scarcely a sentence in the book that has not been used
repeatedly in the author's classes in psychology. The
author has found it a good plan in his own teaching of the
subject to require every pupil to bring to class a written
summary of the previous lesson. At the beginning of
each recitation there is a brief review and a few of the
pupils read their written summaries. These summaries,
besides being brief general statements, should also con-
tain a liberal number of examples and illustrations.

In the recitations, the teacher should insist especially
on these two points : (a) numerous and varied illustra-
tions and examples, as it is only through the gate of the
concrete that a saving knowledge of anything can ever be
reached ; and (6) exact and clear definitions, showing
that the pupil has grasped the coordinating principles
which underlie the concrete instances. To aid in this
work, most chapters have appended a set of exercises that
have been found helpful.

iii

iv Preface

I cannot close this foreword without acknowledging my
obligation to the friends and colleagues who have con-
tributed ideas and inspiration for this work. I must
refrain from mentioning names, except those of Miss Isa-
bel Lawrence and Dr. Waite A. Shoemaker, President of
the State Normal School at St. Cloud, Minnesota. Many
of the essentials of this book are the result of sixteen
years of professional intercourse with the well-poised and
trenchant mind of Dr. Shoemaker.

P. M. MAGNUSSON

PUBLISHERS' NOTE

The publishers wish to acknowledge their indebtedness
to Professor Herbert W. Conn of Wesleyan University
and Professor Robert A. Budington of Oberlin College for
the use of several illustrations from their "Advanced
Physiology and Hygiene."

CONTENTS

PART I
ANALYTIC PSYCHOLOGY

CHAPTER

I. INTRODUCTION 3

Value of Practical Psychology to the Educator, 3. The /
Subject Matter of Psychology, 5. The Three Aspects of
the Mind, 7. The Triangle of Education, 8.

(A). The Intellect

IL SENSATION AND THE SENSES 10

Sensation Defined, 10. Classification of the Senses, 11.
The Sense of Sight, 12. The Sense of Hearing, 14. The
Sense of Touch, 16. The Muscular or Motor Sense, 16.
The Sense of Smell, 16. The Sense of Taste, 16. The
Temperature Sense, 16. The Organic Senses, 16. Weber's
Law, 17. The Spatial Element, 19. The Pedagogy of Sen-
sation, 19. Analysis of the Sensations, 20-21.

III. PERCEPTION

An Analysis of Perception, 26 . The Element from Past
Experience, Apperception, 27. The Sensations as Factors
in Perception, 29. The Training of Perception, 84.

IV. IMAGINATION 36

Imagination and Perception, 36. Kinds of Imagination,
37. Practical Value of Imagination, 37. The Training of
the Imagination, 38. The Abuse of the Imagination, 40.

V. MEMORY 43

The Physical Basis of Memory, 43. Analysis of Memory,
44. Sense Classes of Memory, 46. The Two Kinds of
Memory, 47. The Pedagogy of Memory, 60.

vi Contents

CHAPTim PAGE

VI. CONCEPTION AND JUDGMENT 58

Concepts, their Formation and Application, 53. Class
Concepts and Practical Concepts, 54. Symbol and Con-
cept, 56. The Right Kind of Concepts, 58. The Logical
Classes of Concepts, 59. Judgment, 60.

VII. REASONING 62

Inductive Reasoning, 62. Deductive Reasoning, 68.
Pedagogy of Reasoning, 69. Summary of Stages of Men- •
tal Activity, 72.

VIII. How WE THINK : ATTENTION . . . . .74

Three Phases of the Knowledge-making Activity, 74.
Meaning of Term "Attention," 74. Characteristics of
Attention, 76. How the Mind acts in Attention, 79.
Kinds of Attention, 80. Interest, 82. The Pedagogy
of Attention, 83.

IX. How WE THINK: ANALYSIS AND COMPARISON . . . 87

Function of Analysis and Comparison, 87. Pedagogy
• of Analysis and Comparison, 89.

X. How WE THINK : ASSOCIATION, OB SYNTHESIS . . . % 92
Kinds of Association, 92. The Physical Basis of Asso-
ciation, 94. Association an Aspect of Every Mental Ac-
tivity, 95. The Organization of our Associations, 96.

(B). The Motives and Feelings

XI. MAN AS A REACTING ORGANISM . . • . . . .98
The Different Kinds of Stimuli, 98. Impulse Defined, 99.
Gradation of Motives, 103.

XII. FEELINGS, IMPULSES, AND THEIR EXPRESSION . . . 106
The Relation of Feeling to Impulse, 105. Common Char-
acteristics of Emotions and Impulses, 110. Expression
of Impulses and Emotions, 111.

XIII. FEELINGS AND IMPULSES CLASSIFIED ..... 118
Classification of Feelings and Impulses, 118. Discus-
sion of Classification, 119.

Contents vii

CHAPTER PAGK

XIV. THE CONTROL AND DEVELOPMENT OF CERTAIN IMPULSES

AND EMOTIONS . 127

The Emotions of Self-preservation, 127. The Social Emo-
tions and Interests, 132. Fatigue and Industry, 135.
Perverted Emotional States, 138. The Hygiene of the
Emotions, 140.

XV. CULTURE 144

The Inner Side of Experience, 144. The Norm, 146.
An Analysis of Culture, 147. Means of acquiring Cul-
ture, 149.

XVI. HABIT 163

The Physical Basis of Habit, 163. The Two Classes
of Habits, 154. Function of Habit in the Economy of
Life, 165. Laws of Habit, 156. Habit and Age, 160.
Habits as Elements in Character, 161.

XVII. IDEALS, OR RATIONAL INTERESTS 165

Impulse as a Motive for Action, 165. A Higher Mo-
tive for Action, Rational Interest, 168.

XVHI. OUR SELVES 172

Our Rational Interests, Ideal Selves, 172. Our System
of Selves, 173. The Historical Evolution of Ideals,
176. The Development of the Ideal Personality, 178.

XIX. THE WILL 182

Two Classes of Voluntary Action, 182. The Motor
Process and the Voluntary Process, 184. General Con- ^
spectus of the Active Side of Human Nature, 185. The
Education of the Will, 18V.

XX. THE CREATION OP IDEALS K . . . . . . 190

The Failure of Abstract Morality, 190. The Best Method
of Moral Instruction, 192. The Cultivation of High
Ideals, 195.

XXL CHARACTER * 197

Elements of a Well-developed Character, 197. Sum-
mary, 199.

viii Contents

(C). Subconsciousness

OHAPTIK PAOB

XXII. THE SUBCONSCIOUS LIFE 201

The Field of Consciousness, 201. The Tendency to
Beact, 202. The Stream of Thought, 205. Effect of
Subconscious Life upon Health and Character, 206.
Suggestive Power of Thoughts and Feelings of Others,
212. Summary, 216.

(D). Child Study
XXIH. CHILDHOOD 220

Value of Child Study to the Teacher, 220. The Periods
in the Evolution of the Mind, 221. The Two Ages of
Childhood, 221. The Child not a Miniature of the
Adult, 222. How Children Think, 222. The Child's
Impulsive and Emotional Life, 227. Children's Inter-
ests and how to appeal to Them, 229. The Ethics of
Childhood and of Antiquity, 232. Summary, 236.

XXIV. EARLY ADOLESCENCE AND YOUTH 238

General Characteristics of Early Adolescence, 238.
Adolescence the Time for Character Formation, 240.
Teaching the Adolescent to know Himself, 243. Sum-
mary of Adolescence, 246. Youth, 246. Contrast
between Childhood and Youth, 246. Medievalism and
the Ethics of Youth, 248. Comparison of Youth and
Maturity, 250. The Sphere of Instruction for Youth,
252.

PART II

PEDAGOGICAL APPLICATION OF PSYCHOLOGY

XXV. THE ART OF STUDYING 255

Eye, Ear, and Hand, 255. The Proper Attitude for
Study, 258. Suggestions in Regard to the Notebook,
261.

XXVI. THE RECITATION 264

The Purposes of the Recitation, 264. The Test, 264.
Drill, 266. Training in Thought, 268. Training in
Culture, 270. The Art of Questioning, 271. The
Pupils as Critics, 272,

Contents ix

CHAPTER PAO»

XXVII. HOW TO TEACH SCIENCE, AND WHAT SCIENCE TO TEACH 274

The Double Object of Scientific Study, 274. The
Place of Science in the School Curriculum, 276. The
Natural Sciences, 277. Mathematics, 279. The Social
Sciences, 280. The Sciences of Language, 282. The
Teacher and the Pupil, 283.

XXVin. How TO TEACH AN ART 286

A Fallacy of Educational Theory, 285. Education
in Science and in Art Contrasted, 287. The Place of
the Culture and Arts of Civilization in the School Cur-
riculum, 288. The Intellectual Arts, 289. The Intel-
lectual and ^Esthetic Arts, 290. The Esthetic Arts,
294. Social Culture, 297.

XXIX. THE PEDAGOGY OF TECHNICAL HABITS .... 300
Physical Education, 300. How Writing should be
Taught, 303. Manual Training, Sloyd, 304. Indus-
trial Education, 305. Elementary Agriculture, 308.
Domestic Economy, 811. Sewing, 311. Commercial
Subjects, 312.

XXX. EDUCATIONAL REORGANIZATION 314

The Montessori Method, 314. The Boy Scout Move-
ment, 326. The Reorganization of the Curriculum,
327. The Function of Education, 330.

APPENDIX, THE NERVOUS SYSTEM 331

INDEX . 339

PART I
PSYCHOLOGY

CHAFiEK 1

•277£^
INTRODUCTION

VALUE OF PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY TO THE EDUCATOR

" EDUCATION consists in the organizing of resources
in the human being, of powers of conduct which shall
fit him to his social and physical world, " says William
James. Thus, education has a twofold aspect : first,
to develop what is in the individual to a harmonious
whole, and second, to fit the individual into his place
in society. But the individual is a bunch of human
nature; and society is a bundle of such bunches of
human nature. Hence it is evident that education
is throughout a developing, organizing, and harmo-
nizing of human nature.

It follows that psychology is the one indispensable
science for him who would educate human beings,
whether he be teacher or parent.

And still the paradox is true that probably no study
has been more barren of results to the teacher than psy-
chology. Less than a generation ago psychology had the
same relation to teaching that the science of formal logic
has to thinking. It was too abstract and theoretic
to be useful. The subtle, speculative classifications
and distinctions of psychology treated as a branch of
metaphysics have no practical value to the teacher.
Likewise modern laboratory psychology is, when " taken
straight," quite indigestible. The scientist who wishes

4 Psychology as Applied to Education

to specialize in psychology requires one kind of in-
struction, the teacher or parent quite another.

Thus it comes to pass that just as we have agricul-
tural botany, industrial chemistry, and homiletic the-
ology, we have developed an educational psychology.
Here we leave ultimate questions of metaphysics un-
answered, just as we do in every other practical science ;
not because such questions should not be answered
or cannot be answered, but because metaphysics is
of theoretic interest only. Here we busy ourselves
with the highways of the science, follow the beaten
paths, and ignore the byways and the frontier; be-
cause happily, as a rule, the useful is the obvious, and
the commonplace is the most vital. And everywhere
we look at questions primarily from the practical side.
Our theoretic interest is only secondary.

The human mind is of practical interest to us as the
source and explanation of human behavior. The sim-
plest psychologic view of man is that he is a sensitive
organism that reacts. Practical psychology is a study
of what stimuli produce what reactions. It is a study
of how human nature behaves. It is this practical
side of psychology which is the especial interest of
this book.

The great instrument of the mind is the nervous
system. By means of the nervous system the mind
controls the body and receives (through the senses) its
knowledge of the material world. To the student of
psychology, a knowledge of the nervous system* is
invaluable. He should understand the structure of the
great center of this system, the brain, and the structure

* See Appendix : The Nervous System.

Introduction 5

of the spinal cord, and should be able to trace the course
of a nerve current from its excitation by a stimulus
to the producing of a reaction.

Practical psychology is the oldest science in the
world and a science that all but hermits must study.
Here we shall try to systematize, clarify, and make
explicit what the reader has known and practiced all
his life.

THE SUBJECT MATTER OF PSYCHOLOGY

" Cogito, ergo sum," " I think, therefore I exist,"
is the famous dictum of Descartes, which he made the
corner stone of his philosophy. The expression has
been much criticised. Scarcely any modern thinker
is satisfied with it the way it stands ; and still, some-
how we cannot escape the grip of it. For, after all,
we do know of our own existence in a direct and un-
qualified way. We are conscious of other objects, but
we recognize ourselves as that which is conscious.

When we try to satisfy ourselves as to what conscious-
ness is, we meet with more or less difficulty. It is easy
to see that our voluntary acts are expressions of the
mind, of consciousness. On the other hand, many of
our acts are involuntary and seem to be operated by
some mechanism within us, rather than by any con-
scious effort. It seems almost incredible that the
same force loves, decides, imagines, yearns, feels pain
and hunger, sends the blood coursing through the veins,
digests food, and performs all the various functions of
the body.

Yet there is overwhelming testimony to show that
the human being is a unit and that it is the same force

6 Psychology as Applied to Education

— the mind, the self, consciousness — that acts in the
highest and lowest processes of the human organism.
Every swell of the emotions is recorded in the heart-
beat ; a fit of anger may impede and even stop diges*
tion; and the thought of vinegar will stimulate the
salivary glands to increased activity. Conversely,
dyspepsia causes ill humor; and the presence of a
little alcohol in the blood and in the nervous system
will, for the time being, change a person's character
and morals, thoughts and feelings. All the activities,
from the highest reason to the lowest vital functions,
are carried on by one and the same entity; there is
a continuum all the way from our highest artistic
aspirations to that within us which secretes the bile
or sends the phagocytes to a wound.

However, only a very small part of our being is known
to us by the immediate testimony of consciousness.
The field of consciousness is very much like the field
of vision. Only an infinitesimally small region is abso-
lutely clear. This clear field is surrounded by a twi-
light zone of thoughts, feelings, and impulses that are
but dimly perceived. The twilight zone gradually
darkens as it extends out from the clear center until
it is impossible to distinguish it from the absolute
night of the absence of consciousness. Thus, because
we cannot discover consciousness in a certain function,
is no proof that it contains none. That organic func-
tions of the body and reflex actions are expressions
of consciousness is proved by the fact that they all
respond to suggestion.

The subject matter of psychology is then the whole
conscious human being. While, in order to under-

Introduction 7

stand this conscious being, we must analyze it into its
various states and processes, we should not lose sight
of the fact that it is one force, not a series of separate
forces.

THE THREE ASPECTS OF THE MIND

We act, we feel, we think. This is the time-honored
division of mental ^Kenomena. Here we must be
careful not to allow a materialistic conception to creep
in. We must not conceive the mind as three pigeon-
holes, in one of which there are actions, in the next
feelings, and in the last thought. Nor must we con-
ceive the mind as a " three in one " tool, which can be
used one moment for thinking and the next for action
or feeling. For these are three aspects only of one and
the same activity of the same mind. Every act of
the mind involves the whole mind, and every act of
the mind is motor, intellectual, and sentient. Only
in thought may we make an artificial abstraction and
think of one aspect apart from the rest. Just as we
can easily think of one side of a sheet of paper, so we
can think of the aspects of the mind separately. But
we cannot carry away one side of a sheet of paper
without also taking the opposite side along; nor can
we think without feeling and motive, nor act without
thought and feeling.

But though it is true that all three aspects of the
mind are present in every act, it does not follow that
the emphasis falls equally on all three. Thus one
state of mind may be full of motive force, but be de-
ficient in thought and feeling, as when a person of

Psychology as Applied to Education

strong will persists in athletic practices. In solving
a problem in algebra, intellect predominates and there
is but a trace of. motive and feeling.

Activity, sensibility, intelligence; to do, to feel, to
know ; motives, feelings, thoughts, — these are the three
aspects of the mind, consciousness, human nature.

THE TRIANGLE OF EDUCATION

Since every human mind has these three aspects,
education to be effective must develop the individual
in each of these directions. The educated man is
known by his trained and refined sensibilities and the
coordination of his activities as well as by his capacity
for clear thinking.

The following diagram illustrates the conception of
complete education as conceived in this book : —

ART
Education

of
Activities

/DEALS
Education

of
PERSONALITY

Education
of .
Thought

CULTURE

Education

of
Feeling

Introduction 9

Exercises and Illustrations

1. (A Hindu example of aspect.) Around the market place
are placed mirrors. In every mirror the same market place is
seen. But there is a different scene in every mirror.

2. How much shorter the same distance looks from the bottom
of the tower than from the top.

3. Expand the following examples of the three aspects of
human nature. Tell which is most prominent in each.

a. Boy sees fish. Baits hook, lets down into water. Catch !
Lands the fish. — Young man stands just under the eaves,
makes his best bow to somebody. Snow on eaves loosens —
falls — between collar and neck. Oh !

6. 6 X 6 = 36.

c. Singing a hymn.

4. Define the three aspects of the mind.

5. Diagrams that show the importance of viewpoint: —

The world as God knows it: 123456789
The world as you (1) perceive it: J[ 23456789

What the world is to 9: 12345678 9
What 5 realizes of the world: i 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 •

(A). The Intellect

CHAPTER II

SENSATION AND THE SENSES
SENSATION DEFINED

BY means of the nervous system the mind and the
material universe enter into relation. The nervous
system is stimulated by external agencies, and the
mind in reacting to such stimulation has sensations,
feelings, and impulses.

Fundamentally and primarily the mental reaction
to a sense stimulus is an impulse to some motor activity.

A certain degree of pleasure or pain accompanies
the excitation of every impulse. Hence one aspect
of every impulse is a feeling.

Again, if an impulse is far enough up in the light of
consciousness, we know we have the impulse and the
feeling. This aspect has been called a sensation.

Thus, the reaction of the mind to a sense stimulus
has three aspects, and is at the same time an impulse,
a feeling, and a sensation.

Considered as a cognitive process the mental reaction,
then, may be called a sensation. The same mental
event is called a feeling when we are concerned with
the pleasure or pain of it, and an impulse when we think
of its motor aspect.

Sensation and the Senses 11

A sensation is, then, the intellectual aspect of the
reaction of the mind (consciousness) in response to a
neural stimulus.

CLASSIFICATION OF THE SENSES

In order to respond perfectly to the stimulations of
the external world, man has developed various senses,
each of which is equipped with end-organs adapted to
the receiving of some special kind of stimulus.

Thus, we have the sense of sight, whose sense or-
gan, the eye, is adapted to the receiving of light waves,
the sense of smell, whose sense organ, the nose, is
sensitive to gases, and so on.

In the following classification we have differentiated
the senses according to the stimuli which they are
adapted to receive, and grouped them as to their rela-
tive importance in furnishing the mind with data for
knowledge.

A. Special Senses.

I. The major special senses : —

1. The sense of sight.

2. The sense of hearing.

3. The sense of touch.

4. The motor sense.

II. The minor special senses : —

1. The sense of smell.

2. The sense of taste.

3. The sense of temperature.

B. Organic Senses. — From these we have such sen-
sations as : pain from a wounded nerve, hunger, thirst,
dizziness, feelings of health^ energy, and fatigue.

Psychology as Applied to Education

We will consider first the various ways in which the
nervous system is stimulated, and the organs for this
purpose.

THE SENSE OF SIGHT

The eye is a camera, and the light reflected from
the object before it, is focused on the rear wall of the

eye cavity, called
the retina, and
paints a small in-
verted image of the
scene before the
eye. The retina
(which means little
net) is a network
of nerve endings
of the optic nerve.
These end-organs
of the optic nerve
are curious curved rods and cones. The rods are filled
with a substance called visual purple. This substance
undergoes chemical decomposition rapidly when struck
by light (but is very rapidly secreted again), and the en-
ergy of this chemical activity acts as a stimulus to the
end-organs of the optic nerve, each one of which sends
through its own nerve fiber a distinct current of neural
energy to the occipital lobes of the brain. The optic
nerves from the two eyes cross, and one branch goes
to each occipital lobe, thus forming an X, and hence
the name, the optic chiasma, from the Greek letter
chi (X). But only half of the fibers from each eye
cross to the opposite side, so half of the fibers of each

DIAGRAM OF A SECTION THROUGH THE EYEBALL

Sensation and the Senses

eye go to each occipital lobe. When the neural cur-
rent arrives at the occipital lobes, some sort of change
occurs — chemical or physical, or both — in the gray
matter of the cortex at this place. This cerebral

DlAQBAM SHOWING THE EYES IN POSITION IN THEIR SOCKETS

activity in the cortex of the occipital lobes causes a re-
action of the mind which is known as the sensation of
light.

The Sensation of Light. — Light, like all other sensa-
tions, has the attributes of quantity and quality. In
quantity (intensity) it may be dim or bright. Its
quality is known as color. There are three primary
colors: red, blue, and yellow. These are primary be-
cause they have nothing in common. Different com-
binations and proportions of these three produce all
other colors.

Psychology as Applied to Education

It seems that there are three sets of nerve endings
of the optic nerve. One set is most sensitive to the
upper reaches of the spectrum (violet), another to
the middle (green), and the remaining to the lower end
(red). The absence of one of these sets of nerve endings
probably accounts for color blindness. Some have
therefore held that red, green, and violet are primary
colors. This, however, is an indefensible use of the
term " primary colors," for green and violet both
have the blue element, and red and violet have the red
element in common.

The inner ear is a labyrinthic cavity and is partly
filled with a watery liquid. Here are the end-organs
of the auditory nerves. The vibrations of physical

sound stimulate
these end-organs,
and the nerve re-
acts by sending a
neural current to
the auditory tract
of the cortex of
the brain, which
is situated a little
above and behind
the ear. The

DIAGRAM SHOWING STRUCTURE OF THE EAR neural event in

In the lower figure the inner ear is shown nat- ,1 QnrJifrki-«r ft-o^f

uralsize. In the upper figure the external ear is ory l

shown much too small relatively to the size of the \Q£ ^Jjg COrtCX acts

internal structures. The oblique shading repre- . . ,

aents bone. A, nerve. &S a StlHlUlUS tO

Sensation and the Senses 15

the mind, and the mind responds with the sensation
of sound.

The Sensation of Sound. — Sound has intensity
and pitch as well as qualities that depend on the com-
binations of wave systems. Pitch corresponds to
color in light. But while there is but one " octave "
of light, the ear can distinguish some ten or twelve of
sound. So, while the spectrum (since the two ends
are nearly alike) may be said to form a circle, the oc-
taves of sound might be represented by a spiral, each
ring of the spiral representing an octave.

A tone differs from a noise in that the sound waves
for a tone are regular, while those for a noise are irreg-
ular.

A full, rich tone is one composed of a fundamental
with many overtones, i.e. with weaker thirds, fifths,
and octaves above. This corresponds somewhat to
soft colors as opposed to "raw" colors, which means
pure colors.

THE SENSE OF TOUCH

The organs for this sense are the nerve endings all
over the surface of the body. The motor zone (which
extends along the fissure of Rolando, that is, about
from ear to ear over the top of the head), and the re-
gion bordering the motor zone is probably the region
for both the touch sense and the motor sense. While
the skin and mucous membrane everywhere are fur-
nished with tactile nerve endings, the finger tips are our
chief tactile knowledge gatherers. The tactile sensation
is that of contact, and its chief qualities are expressed
by the adjectives rough, smooth, hard, and soft.

16 Psychology as Applied to Education

THE MUSCULAR OR MOTOR SENSE

By the pressure on the nerve ending when the muscles
contract, we measure the strain on muscles and tendons
and the amount of muscular work. Through this sense
we know the amount of muscular energy we put forth,
and perceive weight and space. The pure sensation
may perhaps be called one of strain, tension, or motion.

THE SENSE OF SMELL

The end-organs in the mucous membrane of the nose
are sensitive to certain gases. The cortex centers are
probably the median lower parts of the temporal lobes.
The sensations are known as odors.

THE SENSE OF TASTE

The nerve endings in the papillae of the tongue are
sensitive to certain liquids. The brain center is prob-
ably in the neighborhood of that for smell. Sensa-
tions are known as flavors.

THE TEMPERATURE SENSE

It is quite well established that we have a distinct
set of nerve endings sensitive to temperature. The
sensations are of heat and of cold. The cortical center
is not definitely localized.

THE ORGANIC SENSES

According to the evolutionary theory, all our senses
were once organic, and fundamentally so they still
remain. That is, they report to the brain the con-
dition of the respective organs in which then* nerve

Sensation and the Senses 17

endings are located. But, as we shall see under Per-
ception, the mind has in the case of the special sense
come to disregard the condition of the organ entirely,
and has fixed its attention on the stimulus, to gain in-
formation about the external world. Sight no longer
gives us any information about the condition of the ret-
ina, but we project the sensation out into space. Even
in smell, which, like the other minor special senses, is
less separated from organic sensations, we refer odors
not to the mucous membrane of the nose, but to the
" circumambient " air.

Organic Sensations. — Organic sensations give us
information about the condition of the organs of the
body. We feel pain whenever a nerve is injured, and
the quality of the sensation differs with the nature of
the injury. A burn smarts differently from a knife
wound. Hunger indicates an aching void in the di-
gestive organs ; thirst, a lack of water not only in the
digestive organs, but probably also in the blood and
lymphatic fluids. Dizziness and seasickness are sup-
posed to be caused by the disturbance of the fluids
of the semicircular canals in the inner ear; the " close
air," choking, and yawning sensations, from lack of
oxygen in the lungs ; and the feeling of exhaustion, from
a scarcity of energy in the system. The cortical center
for organic sensations is supposed to be the region im-
mediately posterior to the fissure of Rolando.

WEBER'S LAW

It has been found that the increase necessary in
the stimulus to produce a just perceptible inctease in
the intensity of the sensation is a tolerably constant

18 Psychology as Applied to Education

percentage of the previous stimulus. This percentage
differs for each sense. Thus, if a weight of twenty
ounces is placed on the hand, the amount necessary
to make one feel any increase is one ounce. But if
forty ounces are on the hand, two ounces must be added
to make the increase noticeable.

The intellectual and feeling element of the reaction
complement each other reciprocally. The less pleasure
or pain there is, the more discrimination. This comes
from the fact that when pleasure or pain engrosses
attention, there is no attention left for observing the
distinguishing qualities of the reaction. Thus the
sensations, when moderate, of the four major special
senses are practically void of pleasure and pain, and
these sensations are the richest as material for knowl-
edge, and capable of very great discrimination. The
minor special senses are, rich in feeling but poor in intel-
lectual discrimination. Moderate temperatures occasion
no pain and are readily distinguished, but an iron bar
cold enough to blister the skin cannot be distinguished,
by the sensation caused, from one that is red hot. It
should also be noted that the use of an abnormally
strong stimulus will be followed by a rapidly and con-
stantly decreasing sensation.

This makes apparent the folly of employing habit-
ually strong stimuli. The consumer of highly sea-
soned food is actually capable of less delicate taste
discriminations than he who is sparing in the use of
condiments. The teacher and preacher who shout habit-
ually have themselves to blame that they do not com-
mand attention. Even corporal punishment becomes
ineffectual when inflicted too frequently. To the

Sensation and the Senses 10

normal vision, forest and field are a restful green, and
only the comparatively rare flower is of vivid hue.
Just think if this were reversed; if the prairie were
bright scarlet with here and there a drab gray or
green flower ! A speaker who tries to keep his audi-
ence sobbing or laughing all the time soon becomes
tiresome.

THE SPATIAL ELEMENT

The spatial element, extensiveness, is found in some
sensation if not in all (William James says it is found
in all sensation), and this is the source of our perception
of space. The motor sense possesses this element more
clearly and more convincingly than any other, and so
this sense gives us the basis of our perception of
space.

THE PEDAGOGY OF SENSATION

The pedagogy of sensation and the senses is funda-
mentally a chapter in physiological hygiene.

It is the teacher's duty to discover and estimate,
and if possible to relieve, any physical abnormalities
of sense organs, such as nearsightedness, deafness, and
color blindness ; and to see that the necessary physical
conditions are supplied : fresh air without which all
cerebral activity flags, sufficient light from the right
direction, and the absence of disturbing noises.

The sense organs themselves are susceptible of train-
ing. In fact, education consists largely in training
the senses to act intelligently. Further discussion
of the pedagogy of the senses is given in Part II.

Psychology as Applied to Education

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22 Psychology as Applied to Education

Exercises

1. Give devices by which abnormalities such as those men-
tioned above may be detected and measured.

2. What can a teacher ordinarily do for pupils suffering with
defects of this kind?

3. Organic sensations express the harmony or disharmony
of any part of the bodily organism. Example : Hunger, nausea,
vertigo, fatigue, dizziness, pain, feeling of well-being.

Give five other examples of such sensations, and name the part
of the body affected.

4. A sense organ is a bodily organ so contrived as to pick up
a stimulus of a certain class so that it will stimulate nerve
currents in some afferent nerve. Describe the chief sense
organs.

5. Describe the whole process of stimulus and reaction from
the external stimulus to the sensation, for each sense.

MODEL. — Waves of ether pass through the cornea, aqueous
humor, lens, and vitreous humor, and in passing are focused
so as to throw an inverted image on the retina. Here the ether
waves are " picked up " by the end-organs of the optic nerve.
In other words, the waves excite the optic nerve, and its ner-
vous energy reacts and sends pulse after pulse of nerve waves
to the occipital lobes of the brain. When these pulses reach the
brain, in some way the mind feels stimulated, and it responds
by the peculiar sensation we know as light.

6. Which are the primary colors? Note that we seek for
the psychologically primary colors, not for the physiologically
primary.

7. What is the difference between noise and pure tone?

8. How can you tell that what your neighbor calls red is
not perhaps what you call blue?

9. Suppose a person cannot distinguish red and green,
how does a field of strawberries appear to him all red, all
green, or neither?

10. Suppose the optic nerve were by an operation made to
discharge its currents into the hearing center of the brain, what
sensations would a glance at the moon give ?

Sensation and the Senses 23

11. Give non-psychological illustrations of the relation of
stimulus and sensation and of cause and effect. The following
are suggestions : —

What is the logical relation between the jumping jack's
motion and motion of strings? between the movement of a
watch and the force employed in winding it? between the dig-
ging of a hole in a dam and the consequent devastating flood
which occurs when the waters by means of the hole wear out the
dam and escape.

12. Give examples of sensations and their stimuli.

MODEL. — A nerve is severed. This starts a violent current
in the remaining portion of the nerve. This travels by way
of the spinal cord up to the cerebrum, and sets up some kind of
molecular disturbance there. This disturbance acts as a stimu-
lus to the mind and it reacts, or responds, by the sensation of
pain.

CHAPTER III
PERCEPTION

IT seems strange that concerning the very activity
that lies closest to us, we know least. The answer to
the question, How do we think? how do we learn?
is, as George Eliot remarks in " The Mill on the Floss,"
almost invariably a metaphor. The mind is thought
of as a field to be cultivated ; as a storehouse to be filled
with useful knowledge; as muscles and sinews to be
strengthened by mental exercise, the " splendid mental
gymnastics of the classics," for example; and finally,
often as a stomach which is to digest and assimilate
knowledge.

All of which is very well ; in fact, inevitable. Things
that are not seen must be spoken of in figures of things
that are seen. But what is not well, is that we take
for granted that all that may be said of the figure is
true of the thing shadowed forth by the figure. For
it is not true that the mind acts or is acted upon in
all respects like a field, a storehouse, a muscular system,
or a stomach.

In studying perception, which is the basis of all ac-
quirement of knowledge, we must look at the activity
itself stripped of all metaphor. We can best obtain
a clear idea of what perception is by studying in detail

a concrete example.

Perception 25

AN ANALYSIS OF PERCEPTION

Miss Utterly beholds on Easter morning her " dear-
est friend's " new bonnet. So does a baby of six months.
Both have, in all probability, very similar sensations,
for the sense organs of both are affected in very much
the same way. But the baby and Miss Utterly have
very different perceptions. The baby sees only a
blooming confusion, which, if there is not yellow in it,
is not likely to interest him much. To Miss Utterly,
the hat is a very definite thing. At a glance she takes
in color, texture, flowers, lace, plumes, and the various
grades and qualities of each.

Our ordinary conception is that percepts walk into
our field of consciousness through our eyes, full-fledged.
We think of the percept as something given to the
mind from the outside. We think of the mind as
passive in perception, as simply receiving impressions.
This view is entirely erroneous. The mind is active
in perception. We make our own percepts. Let us
watch the process of making a percept.

As the image of the hat falls on Miss Utterly's ret-
ina, she has a sensation of colors. These sensations,
however, give her no image. They are simply the
material out of which images may be made. But
Miss Utterly has seen spring hats before. The memo-
ries of these hats are not dead, they simply slumber.
A new sensation awakens in the mind memories of
similar objects. These old memories coalesce with
the new sensation, and the result is a new percept.

Oh, what a commotion there is among all the old
millinery memories in Miss Utterly's mind! There

26 Psychology as Applied to Education

come trooping forward all recent and long-forgotten
hats and bonnets, plumes, flowers, leaves, grasses,
ribbons, laces, bows, plaited straw, and memories of
all other things more or less like these.

They all throng upward to the " threshold of con-
sciousness," but few if any pass this threshold as in-
dividuals. Before they pass into full consciousness,
they melt together with the sensation from the new
bonnet, and Miss Utterly has a clear, crisp, vivid,
and detailed percept of the new bonnet and exclaims,
" Oh, what a dear ! "

Under ordinary circumstances, perception is more
memory than it is sensation. Nine tenths of what we
think we see, hear, and otherwise perceive now, we do
not sense now at all; we simply recollect it from our
past experience. As a rule, the present sensation is
simply a hint which calls up from the nether depths of
our being that which we perceive.

There are then two factors in every perception:
the present sensation and the element from past experi-
ence. The mind takes up the material furnished it
by the various sense organs, arranges it, and combines
it with the products of previous sensory experience
to form what we call a percept.

We must guard against thinking that sensations are
taken in their raw, natural state and just united with
the image from past experience. Far from it. The
original reaction of the mind which we call sensation
is no more like the percept into which it is worked up,
than a pile of bricks and a carload of lime are like a
brick house. Often the relation and resemblance is
even more tenuous. The sensations are mere direc-

Perception 27

tions and limits to the mind and show how it is to build
its percepts. Do not imagine that anything from the
" external world " creeps into the mind in sensation.
The sensation is a purely mental affair, and contains
no foreign element. Likewise the percept is built
purely from home-grown timbers. But how, then, do
we gain any knowledge of that which is outside of our
organism ? Because the nature of the reaction, though
purely mental and our own, differs with the nature of
the stimulus. And the percept, though built by the
mind entirely, according to its own laws, will more or
less faithfully reflect the universe, since the mind is an
expression of the universe, or, to use Professor James's
expression, since, after all, the mind and the universe
developed together, and hence are something of a fit.

THE ELEMENT FROM PAST EXPERIENCE, APPERCEPTION

The process of combining the new sensation with
past experience is often called apperception. It is this
apperceptive process which gives form and meaning
to the unshaped material received by the senses. This
store of past experiences which comes out to meet and
absorb, as it were, the new experience has been called
by Herbart the " apperceiving mass."

The importance of the part played by past experi-
ence in the formation of a percept varies according to
the person's age and consequent experience.

In the case of a grown person it often forms the greater
part of the percept. I see a person coming towards
me a long distance away. As he comes nearer, my
percept of him becomes larger and clearer, and suddenly
I recognize him as my friend Mr. Brown. The instant

28 Psychology as Applied to Education

I recognize him, my percept undergoes a wonderful
change. At once it becomes much more definite and
clear and its " Brownishness " fairly sticks out all
over it. What has happened? Simply this, the in-
stant I decided it was Mr. Brown, out came the mental
pictures I had of him, and these all coalesced with the
sensations, and made a very much improved percept.
This conclusion is very much strengthened by the
fact that if I was mistaken in my surmise that this
person was Mr. Brown, the instant I discover this, all
" Brownishness " drops out of the percept, and I am
surprised that I ever could have mistaken this person
for Mr. Brown.

The figure here used of two images, one the image
from sensations, and one an image from past experi-
ence, coalescing into one, represents the main facts
so far brought out fairly well. But there is a very
important side of this affair which is not brought out
at all. To appreciate this, let us take another example :

In the days of my youth in the woods of eastern
Minnesota I used to hunt with an old blunderbuss of
an army musket. Entirely innocent of the hunter's
ethical code which forbids his shooting a bird not on
the wing, I would steal down to the shore of the lake,
and when I saw the head of a swimming duck, blaze
away with a charge of buckshot. Once I saw the head
and neck of a splendid fellow in the reeds, and I stole
softly nearer until I could see the glitter of his eyes
and the metallic sheen of feathers on the back of the
neck. I shot, and lo! nothing happened! The duck
did not fly, but underwent a strange transformation.
There was nothing there but a crooked stick.

Perception 29

I had really fired at the ghost of a duck brought up
from the cold storage of my memory. Here the active
formulating element came from my past experience,
and the passive material from the present crooked-
stick sensations. The active element, the " apper-
ceiving mass," becomes the tool, the sensation becomes
the raw material, or we may say the " apperceiving
mass " furnishes the matrix, the casting form, and the
sensation the molten metal that is run into the form.

A fisherman's tale which has unnumbered varia-
tions runs as follows: A fisher had a minnow on the
hook, which was swallowed by a perch, but before he
could get the perch out of the water, it acted as bait
and was swallowed by a bass, and just as he had the
bass at the surface, the bass was swallowed by a fifty-
pound muscallonge. Each fish except the last had
been caught on a bait, and then in turn became the
bait of a larger fish. Now this story of the fisherman
may be doubted, but it is in just this way that knowl-
edge, when acquired, becomes a bait by means of which
we acquire more knowledge. Every idea, as soon as
fashioned, becomes a tool for fashioning more ideas. -

THE SENSATIONS AS FACTORS IN PERCEPTION

Tactile and Motor Perception. — Sensations to form
percepts must be arranged into combinations having
space relations. Our primary and fundamental per-
ception of space comes to us in the motor sense. With
this the tactile sense is very intimately united.

In moving our hands and feet, we have sensations
of strain, motion, of spending energy. This the mind
interprets as space. Space, then, is psychologically

30 Psychology as Applied to Education

that in which one can move, and the amount of energy
spent in moving is the measure of the space moved in.

Form, or extension, of an object is thus the space re-
lations of that object's parts to one another. This is
primarily perceived by tactile and motor perception.

Weight is perceived by the motor sense, by so in-
terpreting the sensation of tension or pressure. It is
called in this connection the baric sense by Dr. Mon-
tessori and others.

We perceive our own motor effort by so interpreting
the strain on the muscles. For muscular efforts in-
volving practically the whole system, as in pushing
or pulling, we estimate the effort from the strain on
the diaphragm only. Hence, one can easily get the
" feeling " (percept) of pulling or pushing by taking
the proper bodily attitude and contracting the dia-
phragm.

Strictly speaking, the only tactile percepts are per-
cepts of surface conditions, such as rough, smooth,
sticky, hard, soft, and plastic, and even in these there
is a motor element.

The tactile and motor senses may be called our
primary senses, as they furnish the fundamental ele-
ments of our perceptual world. They give life, im-
mediateness, and the sense of reality to our percepts.
When Thomas was in doubt as to the reality of his
Lord's resurrection, he said he could not believe until
he had touched the wounds of the Lord with his own
hands. And John puts as a climax above what they had
heard and seen, "which — our hands have handled."

Visual Perception. — Since the retinal image has
two dimensions, doubtless purely visual sensations

Perception 31

have elements of extension; but these are very weak
and uncertain until reenforced. Let us experiment.

Estimate the length of the blackboard. Twelve
feet. Very well. Now, you will notice that in es-
timating distance right and left and up and down,
your eyes move up and down or right and left as the
case may be, over the distance to be measured. This
gives you a muscular sensation from the strain on the
muscles that move the eye, and this sensation is used
as a yardstick to measure the distance.

But for the " third dimension " (distance away from
the eye) there is no direct element in visual sensations.
The third dimension must be interpreted into visual
perception from various indirect indications in visual
sensations and from motor sensations. Let us examine
a case.

I see a horse and carriage the other side of the river.
I see them half a mile away, and I see that there is a
large black horse and a four-wheeled carriage. Now
the physical stimulus consists of two flat images on the
retina of my eyes. Why do I interpret these two some-
what different " flat " sensations as a solid percept
half a mile away in the third dimension? Well, I
get the third dimension by interpreting the image in
terms of a third dimension horse and carriage which
I have examined previously at close range. Then I
see the river between me and these objects, and its
width fills a certain visual angle which I have learned
to know is half a mile.

I look at the class before me. I have a very definite
perspective of the class, and see plainly that Smith
sits about three feet behind Jones. If, however, I

32 Psychology as Applied to Education

cover one eye, my perspective becomes very much
poorer. Why? When I look with both eyes I must
make the axes of both eyes meet on the object I am
looking at. I must pull the axes of the eyes much far-
ther from the parallel, and much closer together when
viewing an object near me than one far away. This
causes a strain on the muscles of the eyes located be-
tween the eyes and the nose. This strain occasions
a muscular (or motor) sensation, and the stronger this
sensation is, the nearer I judge and the nearer I see
the object. This sensation is so slight, that usually it is
only subconscious in its original form, but it is of great
use in helping us to discover the " third dimension."

Besides the means of getting the third dimension by
binocular vision and by the apparent and real size,
we get in vision our perception of third dimension from
the muscular sensation of the strain of the ciliary muscle
of the lens in focusing, from the indefiniteness or dim-
ness of distant objects, and from the number and posi-
tions of intervening objects. Notice how very unlike
distance the sensory data for distance are.

All this perception of extension (space) through the
sense of sight is, however, secondary. But by fitting
our visual sensations into the space scheme of the motor
sense, we get a visual world clear, distinct, and external
to the eye. The space which we see is literally hand-m&de.

Auditory Perception. — As the motor sense, touch,
and sight may be called the space senses or the senses
of extension, so the motor sense and hearing may be
called the time senses or the senses of succession. Dura-
tion, succession, rhythm, periodicity, are attributes of
motion, hence here too the primary time sense is the

Perception 33

motor sense. But just as we usually translate into
visual terms the space we first perceived by the motor
sense, so we translate motor time into auditory time.
Thus, while the visual world is a world of outside-of-
one-anotherness, the auditory world is a world of after-
one-anotherness.

Direction and distance are the only space relations
of hearing, and these are very imperfectly perceived.
Direction is determined by the relative loudness of
the sound in the two ears. Hence persons having
hearing in only one ear cannot tell the direction of
sound. Distance is arrived at only secondarily by so
interpreting the intensity and clearness of the sensation.

Olfactory and Gustatory Perception. — Our olfac-
tory and gustatory senses give us practically no space
relations. Odors are often mistaken for flavors. More
than half of the joy of coffee is its odor. What we
think its taste is mostly the aroma entering the nose
through the " back door." Hence, when the nose is
closed by a cold, coffee becomes flat and insipid. The
" taste " of pepper is rather a pain from inflamed nerves
than true flavor.

Perception by the Temperature Sense. — Tempera-
ture, naturally, is the primary perception by this sense.
There are some interesting secondary perceptions.
As a wet surface by evaporation usually is cooler than
its surroundings, we usually perceive dampness or
wetness in fabrics and of objects by this sense. Metals
are good conductors of heat, and hence when tempera-
ture is below blood heat metals feel cooler than poorer
heat conductors. Thus we often perceive metals by
the temperature sense.

34 Psychology as Applied to Education

Organic Perception. — The organic sensations are per-
ceived usually as pain or well-being in the organs affected.
Sometimes, though, the feeling is not perceived at the
true place of stimulus. Thus deranged digestion is often
felt as headache, and a jar of the " funny bone " at the
elbow is perceived as a whirring pain in the little finger.

Thus, then, are sensations synthesized and inter-
preted to form percepts.

THE TRAINING OF PERCEPTION

The time for training perception is childhood.
Perception should be trained to be accurate, swift,
and acute. There is need of introducing special exer-
cises to train the senses, but these exercises should not
be detached or artificial, and should connect naturally
with the use of the senses in daily tasks.

There is affecting our senses what may be called the
disease of civilization. Civilized man does not " have
to " use his senses. Road overseers see that the road
is safe ; we expect plain and patent warning wherever
there is any danger ; we expect the vendor to make it
impossible for us to fail to notice his wares ; in school,
our portion of science and arts comes to us cut up into
edible lengths, and labeled with name and directions ;
our work is almost always a routine, in which we con-
tinually go in a beaten path; and guidebooks, sign-
boards, guards, advertisements, newspapers, and teach-
ers make observation unnecessary. As a result
civilized man is blind and deaf and insensible to nine
tenths of his environment.

Education ought to do something to remedy this
defect in modern life. First, if we would remedy this

Perception 35

defect, it is imperative that we have a direct, cold-
blooded determination to know this universe at first
hand. To this end, in the hands of a wise teacher,
almost every subject may contribute ; but the subjects
particularly rich in opportunities of this kind are the
natural sciences and manual training.

A detailed discussion of the training of the senses
and the perceptive faculties will be found in Part II.

Exercises

1. In what respects are the following figures inapplicable?

Studying mathematics is mental gymnastics.
He had not digested the book thoroughly.
He has a well-cultivated mind.

2. A sailor tried to give a friend an idea of Liverpool, and
the main thing he could say was that in Liverpool he had had
the best ale and the poorest lodging in his life. What was the
matter with his apperceiving mass ?

3. When a child for the first time in his life looks at letters,
how does the percept he gets differ from that of his teacher?

4. Why, in the case above, do- the teacher's and the pupil's
percepts differ?

5. How do we get the direction from which a sound comes by
auditory perception?

6. We locate flavors in the mouth, but we do not locate
sight percepts in the eye, but in space outside the body. Where
do we locate odors ?

7. A violinist in a diminuendo passage moves the bow a
couple of times over the strings without touching them. Still
the audience hears a faint sound. Why?

8. How do we perceive distance up and down and right and
left by visual perception?

9. Why can you read English in a poorer light than any
other language?

10. Explain some illusion in your personal experience.

CHAPTER IV
IMAGINATION

EVEN without the nerve stimulus and the sensa-
tion, we are still able to construct images from our past
experiences. This power is imagination.

IMAGINATION AND PERCEPTION

Imagination depends on perception for its material.
Every element in imagination must first have been
found in perception. A color-blind person blind to
red cannot imagine red. A person deaf from birth
cannot imagine sound.

The chief difference between imagination and per-
ception lies in the fact that in perception the stimulus
is present to the senses, while in imagination there is
no external stimulus, and it is therefore as a rule less
vivid. However, the two processes are sometimes so
nearly equal in vividness, that we mistake imagination
for actual sensory experience. Especially is this true
of our dreams, which, though wholly the creation of
imagination, seem to be reality.

Perception is also dependent on imagination. When
we read in a familiar language, we never take the trouble
to see all the letters ; we just catch a few characteris-
tic points in the shape of a word, and then supply the
rest by imagination from memory.

Imagination 37

KINDS OF IMAGINATION

Sense Classes of Imagination. — Thus there are
as many kinds of imagination as there are kinds of
perception, and of the same types, as visual imagina-
tion, auditory imagination, etc.

For example, if a certain song is mentioned, one may
have a mental picture of the printed score, or one may
imagine hearing some one sing it. Again, one may feel
certain vibrations in the throat like those felt in singing,
or one may feel the touch of the piano keys as one thinks
of playing the song.

Reproductive and Productive. — Some psychologists
classify imagination as reproductive or productive.
In the first form of imagination, the mind merely rep-
resents an image exactly as it formerly appeared in
consciousness. In the second, the mind creates a new
image by combining elements from many images.

To illustrate, if I close my eyes and see the image of
the house I used to live in, I am using reproductive
imagination. But if I picture to myself the house I
should like to build, combining the attractive features
of the various houses I have seen, I am employing pro-
ductive imagination.

PRACTICAL VALUE OF IMAGINATION

Imagination is needful in every mental effort. Many
people think that imagination is only for the actor,
the artist, and the poet with his " eye in a fine frenzy
rolling," but this is wrong. The scientist, mathema-
tician, engineer, and soldier are just as necessarily and
just as fully men of imagination. A part of Napo-

38 Psychology as Applied to Education

Icon's genius consisted in his ability to imagine so per-
fectly and so vividly the complex movements of troops
from one place to another in battle. In solving " men-
tally " a problem like this : If f of a pound of tea costs
f of a dollar, what will one pound cost ? we must imag-
ine f, f, pound, and dollar, and keep them without
confounding the images. Imagination is not neces-
sarily something wild, fanciful, and irresponsible. It
may be as sober, grim, and exact as the iron law of
necessity.

THE TRAINING OF THE IMAGINATION

Training for Accuracy. — Imagination should be
trained to be (a) exact, clear, and definite, and (fe)
rich, colored, varied, and full of detail. Mathematics
is perhaps the best discipline for clearness, exactness,
and definiteness, as in mathematics we shall be left
floundering helplessly unless we keep our symbols apart
and definite, and unless our thought images are clear.
This involves also the faculty of being able to handle a
great number of images at once without confusing or
losing them. Chess, cards, and many other games are
an excellent drill for this purpose, for there also suc-
cess depends on not confusing images. Sloyd also
contributes to this discipline, for in sloyd the article
produced will inevitably reveal any inexactness in the
image in the mind of the workman. The same is true
of drawing. These forms of discipline also enrich
the imagination by adding more detail.

Since exactness and clearness are the great desidera-
tum in these studies, the teacher must insist upon hav-
ing them. An exact mathematical language, both

Imagination 39

oral and written (in statements) , should be required at
all times. Insist on perfect work in handicraft, and
thus secure exact and clear imagination.

Training for Enrichment. — For enriching the im-
agination with color, detail, life, and variety the most
important school subjects are literature and history.
It is a pity, though, that the school and textbook way
of treating these subjects is so " outliny." In fact,
teachers and text often seem to avoid the human,
broad, interesting side of these subjects as not digni-
fied or " scientific " enough for the schoolroom ; and
present everything in a solemn drab dullness. Re-
member that detail, color, action, and human interest
give life to learning and enrich the imagination.

We are economical in the expenditure of mental en-
ergy ; in other words, we are all mentally lazy. We
were born that way. As a result, whenever we can,
we are prone to use the merest skeleton of an image
that will serve the purpose. In reading of Robinson
Crusoe's landing on the desert island, we " see " in
our imagination the mere outline of a man in water.
We ought to see the wide sandy beach, with the vast
green billows curling over and breaking into white
foam; notice the color and texture of the clothing of
Crusoe ; see the shrubbery and trees on the shore and
notice the tall gaunt trunks of the palms, with their
giant brush of dark green foliage. We ought to hear
the soughing and roar of the wind and the pounding
and rolling of the waves on the beach. We ought to
get the motor " feel " in our limbs of the man strug-
gling with the breakers, and the annihilating sensa-
tion of the salt billows engulfing him. Read with

40 Psychology as Applied to Education

such imagination, we have an exciting tale indeed, and
we have all the liberal education of a shipwreck with-
out wetting our feet.

THE ABUSE OF THE IMAGINATION

Daydreaming as Recreation. — How far is it allow-
able to use one's imagination just for pleasure? Of
course, it goes without saying that all imagination on
morbid, ethically forbidden, or immoral topics is
harmful. Morally and even physically, the essence
of a deed is its idea, and so he who imagines an action
has " committed it in his heart."

But what of perfectly innocent but perfectly useless
building of air castles, reading of novels and poetry?
I think a certain homeopathic amount of such reading
may be defended as recreation. This would apply
especially to persons employed in dry, routine occupa-
tions, as, for example, bookkeepers, or those whose
labor is manual. They may well relieve the monotony
of their existence by building castles in Spain, or read-
ing light literature for the mere pleasure of using an
unrestrained imagination. Why should not the hard-
working kitchen maid forget for a brief hour the
drudgery of her life and live the life of a countess
with the heroine of the society novel? Would it not
be cruelty to snatch the sentimental story from her
hands, and put in them instead an analytical tale by
Henry James, and tell her to read it carefully and im-
prove her mind ?

For the student and teacher, and others in pursuits
full of intellectual interest, there is less occasion for
the mere sweetness of imagination; but even here I

Imagination 41

think we can scarcely with safety make the rule, often
insisted on by the mentors of the young, that they
must never " skim over " a book, but that the only
proper way to read a book is to study it thoroughly.
I think it is safe to say that a novel should not always
be as thoroughly digested as a scientific treatise and
that daydreaming is not always harmful.

But let it be understood that dissipation of the
imagination is frightfully common ; and that the temp-
tation thus to dissipate is very great, since the wine of
imagination is always on tap. Recreation should
occupy only a small portion of our time. Few prac-
tices are more destructive than professional pleasure
hunting. And the person who spends a portion of his
working time in ever so innocent daydreaming or in
reading light literature merely for pleasure, is as truly
a voluptuary as he who debauches in grosser ways.
He does not travel towards perdition as fast as the
drunkard, but he is headed that way.

Newspaper Reading. — Here may be the place to
say a word about newspaper reading. Probably no
industrial waste in this country is greater than the time
spent in useless newspaper reading. A good deal of
the news is not fit to read; we should be better off
without knowing it. Much of the contents of a daily
is perfectly valueless to the average man, and most
of what is worth while is much diluted. Every person
who values his time — and every one should value his
time — should learn the art of skimming the cream off
a daily in a few minutes. One great trouble is that the
daily in its struggle to " scoop " tries to be fifteen
minutes ahead of truth, and hence contains much that

42 Psychology as Applied to Education

is untrue. The busy man will do well to get his serious
history of current events from a weekly or monthly
periodical.

Need of Reading more Serious Literature. — We
read too much fiction. There is no better literature
than the best fiction ; but there can be too , much of a
good thing, and there is too much of the good thing
called fiction. Let us enrich our imagination with fic-
tion, but not exclusively with fiction, as the records of
our libraries seem to prove is now the well-nigh univer-
sal practice. We ought to read at least as much history
as fiction. After all, the characters that God actually
has permitted to exist, have as strong a claim on our
attention as those which some novelist has created.
We ought to read at least as much science as we read
fiction. And lastly, we ought to read at least as much
serious fiction as that which aims simply to amuse.

CHAPTER V

MEMORY
THE PHYSICAL BASIS OF MEMORY

MEMORY is a habit, and in its usual meaning noth-
ing but a habit. When we say we remember how to
spell a word we mean simply that when the image of
the word is before the mind and when we start to write
it the hand has the habit of writing just the right suc-
cession of letters. There must be some sort of * ' groove ' '
or " rail " in the brain, built up by previous repetitions
of the act, over which the nervous impulses travel in
such a way as to make the hand go through the neces-
sary motions to form the word. To remember the
multiplication table, means to have a certain set of
habits in the nerve centers for the organs of speech,
which makes these organs repeat the multiplication
table aright. If we know the multiplication table
so well that we do not need to repeat a table from the
beginning even silently or in imagination in order to
find out any product in that table, this means that the
visual or auditory centers of the brain have the habit
of innervating in the proper way for picturing the re-
quired portion of the table whenever it is necessary,
or that the motor center for speech acts automatically.
Map knowledge in geography, names and dates in
history, are memorized in the same way. We get into

44 Psychology as Applied to Education

the habit of thinking " 1492 " as soon as we have
thought " Columbus discovered America."

Hence physiologically, psychologically, and peda-
gogically, habit, skill, and memory are one and the
same in almost all aspects.

The student is warned, however, from holding the
doctrine of the physical basis of memory in its bald
materialistic form. We must not imagine that the
cortex of the brain is simply a tabula inscripta upon
which neural currents have recorded the experience
of the past.

Since the cortex of the brain changes every few weeks,
it takes an athletic imagination to believe that every
atom in the new set of matter should occupy exactly
the position of a corresponding set, unless there is some
syntactic force that places the atoms according to a cer-
tain plan, which this rebuilding force possesses. Le-
sions have occurred in the cortex of the brain and
entailed loss of corresponding functions and memory.
But sometimes the lesions have grown in again and
healed, and the patient has recovered. Evidently
the " paths " and " channels " have been reproduced
in the new matter just as they were in the old, though
for a tune there had simply been a hole there.

ANALYSIS OF MEMORY

Every complete act of memory involves reproduction
and recognition. The act of reproduction is nothing
more than reproductive imagination, which is the sim-
plest form of imagination, just reproducing former
percepts in their original form.

But this is not a complete act of memory. In fact,

Memory 45

the essential element of memory is lacking. I am con-
scious of having a wart on my finger to-day, I was con-
scious of it yesterday, and I will be to-morrow, but if
to-morrow I do not recognize my present percept of a
wart as being in any way related to my former percepts,
I cannot say that I remember anything. To be com-
plete memory, there must be a recognition that the
present image or percept is a copy of a former image
or percept. This involves a great mystery. How can
we compare the present image with a mental state
that is past and gone? It will not do to say that we
have the record in the brain to go by, because all that
the " paths " in the brain can do is to furnish the con-
ditions for the revival of the former, image. But
when " revived," it will be a new present image, of
course, with no odor clinging to it of a grave from
which it was resurrected. To me, this power of the
mind to compare its present state with a past state,
proves that time is in the mind and not the mind in
time. It proves that both the past and present are
included by the mind. For that matter, if the mind
existed in the present only, how could we ever get so
much as an inkling that there is such a thing as a past ?

SENSE CLASSES OF MEMORY

Just as in the case of perception and imagination,
so memory may be said to be of as many classes as
there are senses. The three most important classes
are visual, motor, and auditory; next, but far less im-
portant, is tactile memory, and again far below tactile,
we find gustatory, olfactory, and temperature memories.

Visual Memory. — Visual memory is probably in

46 Psychology as Applied to Education

most persons of greatest importance. The art of read-
ing tends to increase the visual sphere at the expense
of the auditory. This subject will be discussed more
fully in Part II.

Motor Memory. — Motor memory is more promi-
nent in our lives than we usually recognize. Languages
that we speak, we remember by motor memory of the
vocal organs. When we have a thought to express,
just the right movements of the vocal organs to express
that thought occur to us. So, physiologically, a
spoken language resides in a portion of the motor zone
of the brain. A language we read is of course remem-
bered by visual memory, more or less in connection
with auditory memory. In the case of a language we
have first learned from books we probably, most of us,
translate immediately the auditory image into a visual
image before we have a complete percept of it. For,
usually, languages first learned from books never pene-
trate very far into auditory memory. To most college
students an oral Latin sentence is unintelligible and
to be understood must be reduced to writing. If an
oral Latin sentence is understood, the mind usually
translates the auditory images into the visual memories
of printed words.

Tactile Memory. — Memories connected with the
sense of touch have a wonderful way of attaching them-
selves to visual percepts. Things look hard or soft,
appear rough or velvety, we say; which means that
our experience tells us that objects of a certain visual
appearance have these qualities. When the visual
image appears in the mind, the tactile memory revives,
and we have the tactile experiences connected in

Memory 47

imagination and perception with the visual. Now
those tactile memories attach themselves directly to
the visual percepts and seem to be a part of them.

Gustatory and Olfactory Experiences. — Flavors
and odors can scarcely be imagined at all by the ordi-
nary tongue and nose. Try to imagine as common a
taste as salt and contrast it with, say, quinine. Or
compare in imagination the odor of a rose with that of
a violet. To most persons the result will be vague.
But though it is difficult to recall flavors and odors in
imagination, it is easy to recognize them when they
recur, which, of course, is as truly memory as the first
case.

Odor memories attach themselves readily to memories
of emotions. In fact, odors are the cues for the rec-
ollection of emotions. When a child of five years I
lived for a summer in Minneapolis, then a lumber mill
town. Every tune now that I get the odor of pine
lumber, I am back again in the emotional atmosphere
of childhood, and I remember just how it felt to clam-
ber down the steep banks of the Mississippi.

THE TWO KINDS OF MEMORY

Memory may be divided into two classes, mechanical
and logical.

Logical Memory. — All our past experience is found
in our subconsciousness, — but not in a confused un-
related mass, but more or less connected by bonds of
association. These bonds are stronger, more system-
atic, and more frequent in the well developed, well
educated mind than in the uneducated. The problem
in memory is how to get the idea from the subconscious

48 Psychology as Applied to Education

" part " of the mind into consciousness. This can
only be done by starting from something in conscious-
ness at the present moment and following the associa-
tion strands as they lead down into the subconscious,
until if possible the desired idea is reached. Logical
memory is a process of integration. The mind recon-
structs the logical whole of which both the idea present
in the mind and the desired idea to be remembered
form parts. All we have to do is to bring up the whole
unity from the subconscious, and then necessarily
the desired idea will also come up. In the vast vault
of the subconscious, ideas are grouped and connected
according to their logical affinity: cause and effect,
whole and parts, purpose, means and result, similarity
and dissimilarity. When the desired idea is fished up
by means of a logical line of relations, we have logical
memory.

The way to memorize logically is then plain. Form
firm and clear logical unities. Dwell upon relations,
not alone upon facts. Discriminate in your choice
of relations ; choose those which make useful and nat-
ural logical unities. The Council of Worms may of
course be associated with worms in zoology, because
of the similarity of sound or rather of letters, but it
is unwise to establish such a unity in the mind, as we
are not likely to desire to think of worms when the
" Council of Worms " is before the mind. Clarity
and distinctness of conception are vital necessities to
good logical memory.

In studying any subject where there is a field for
logical memory, try to understand the subject as thor-
oughly as possible. That is, seek out as many of its

Memory 49

relations and ramifications as possible, and determine
the logical rank and value of each. Put the subject
in its true perspective so that the small may appear
small, and the important truly great. Leave no dark
corner unexplored and leave no misty borderland.
At times you must finally leave an idea under the
category : " I don't know," but then be sure just where
your knowledge stops and your ignorance begins.
Always look for the unifying idea. No logical study
is ripe until it has discovered the great mother thought
that unifies, illuminates, and informs the whole region.
It is safe to say that under normal circumstances noth-
ing that has been thoroughly learned by the logical
method can ever be forgotten.

Mechanical Memory. — Some things must be memo-
rized, however, whose logical relations are so weak or
recondite that they are of no practical value for mem-
ory, or which are entirely without such relations.
Why should the names of our foremost national heroes
be Washington and Lincoln? There is no logical
strand that leads to those names rather than to Smith
or Jones. Again, that 7 X 7 = 49 may be verified
" logically " on the fingers, but this process is so slow,
that it is well to know the multiplication table mechani-
cally as an arbitrary set of facts.

Mechanical memory depends on mechanical asso-
ciation, and seems to be most perfectly explained by
the hypothetical grooves, or " paths " in the gray mat-
ter of the cortex of the brain. Let us anticipate the
law of mechanical association: If two ideas have
been together in the mind, either simultaneously or in
succession, the recurrence of one of these ideas will

50 Psychology as Applied to Education

tend to recall the other. The strength of this associa-
tion varies in direct proportion to the time the two ideas
have been together in the mind in clear consciousness
and in inverse proportion to the time that has elapsed
since they were so together.

There is therefore one method and one method only
for mechanical memorizing : Repeat. Practice, re-
view, drill, are other names for the same process. This
is not simply the most important, it is absolutely the
only exercise, method, or device that will in the least
further mechanical memorizing. Clear understanding
of the subject does not contribute to mechanical mem-
ory. Nonsense rhymes are as easily memorized as
poetry, as far as the mere mechanical part is concerned.
Thoughtless, " parrot " repetition of the multiplica-
tion table, provided it is accurate, is as efficacious as
repetition with concentrated attention in fixing the
table in memory.

THE PEDAGOGY OF MEMORY

The pedagogy of memory becomes, then, very sim-
ple. Whenever possible, use logical memory. That
is, find some rational connection between the known
and the unknown. Form some larger logical unit of
which that to be remembered is an integral part.
Find for every new acquisition of knowledge its appro-
priate, logical place in your intellectual store. Do
this whenever possible, and reduce mechanical memory
to its lowest terms, but don't fail to recognize that
there is an irreducible surd in every branch of knowl-
edge that refuses to be memorized logically. This
must be memorized by drill, by plain, simple repetition.

Memory 51

Old-fashioned and Modern Methods of Teaching
Compared. — One reason why so often the inspiring
teacher of to-day, who makes the pupil think, is apt to
" lack in thoroughness " is that he does not drill enough.
He fails to fix the mechanical starting points and mile
posts in the minds of his pupils. And often he attempts
the impossibility of trying to get even this surd ra-
tionally. He will stop his drill to pursue some delight-
ful logical chain of thought with his pupils. Now this
exercise in thinking is surely more entertaining than
mere mechanical memorizing, and in every way a
higher kind of mental activity. But the mechanical
element is absolutely necessary. Hence it is an injury
to the pupil to allow him to neglect the only exercise
that ever will give him this element in his education.

Our grandfathers spent all their time in the ele-
mentary schools in memorizing. Their teachers were
all drill masters, and school was a treadmill of repeti-
tion. Very naturally, our grandfathers detested school,
and considered it a necessary evil. Our fathers dis-
covered that there is nobler work to be done in the
schoolroom than memorizing. The pupil was invited
and incited to think. Converts easily become fanatics.
The teaching profession, discovering that it had neg-
lected the greatest things in school life, became en-
thusiastic for reform. No more soul-killing drill now
in the schoolroom ! All was to be " development " !
The pupil was always and everywhere asked, did he
understand f never, did he know ? The result is slightly
ludicrous. We have classes in English history dis-
cussing the spirit of English liberty, who do not know
whether Alfred was a Saxon or a Dane.

52 Psychology as Applied to Education

The product of the old school knew as a rule only a
string of meaningless names and dates ; the product of
the new school knows not even that. A certain amount
of memorizing is necessary, and to get it we must still
maintain some of that old-fashioned drill our grand-
fathers practiced and our fathers ridiculed.

Exercises

1. Illustrate how the paths of discharge in the nervous
system are supposed to condition memory.

2. In a history lesson, what would you memorize by logical
and what by mechanical memory?

3. How would you memorize the logical element of a lesson?

4. How would you learn the multiplication table ?

5. How would you learn to spell ?

6. Give any devices you may know for making drill less
tedious.

7. Recall the odor of coffee and contrast it with the odor of
tea.

8. Give an example if you can of a case where an odor has
recalled a past event in your life.

CHAPTER VI
CONCEPTION AND JUDGMENT

CONCEPTS, THEIR FORMATION AND APPLICATION

HITHERTO, we have dealt only with products of the
mind which have the space form, images and percepts.
We shall now study the higher form of the intellectual
activity, thought proper, and its products. The unit
of thought is the concept.

The concept is a unit of the meaning of things, which
the mind handles as an integer and as having indi-
vidual existence. It may be defined as a unity of
attributes, or notions.

Abstraction. — Concepts are formed by abstrac-
tion. This consists in mentally separating a notion
or attribute from some percept or image. Abstrac-
tion is no spatial affair even when dealing with space
concepts. Thus when we abstract red from a red sur-
face, we do something which cannot possibly be pic-
tured. For we cannot imagine or perceive red without
also imagining or perceiving a red surface. But we
can think of a color without logical reference to surface.

But qualities, notions,, are not only abstracted.
They are also put together into new unities, which we
call concepts. This process ought by rights to be called
concretion.

Generalization. — After having formed a concept,
we apply it ; that is, determine what objects contain the

54 Psychology as Applied to Education

concept, or " come under "it. This is generalization.
The number of objects to which a concept applies forms
its extension.

Sometimes it is given as an absolute rule that " in-
tension, the number of attributes, varies inversely as
extension." This is generally but not always true.

The general truth of the statement can be appre-
ciated from the following : —

The concept vertebrate is very simple; it is only an
animal with a backbone. Its intension is hence very
small ; but its extension is very great, as it includes
all animals with backbone.

The concept carnivora has a greater intension than
vertebrate, as it has all the attributes of vertebrate with
flesh eating added. But of course, by the same token
its extension is smaller since it contains only a part of
vertebrate animals.

Concepts may also be classified as general, if they
apply to all of a certain class ; and particular, if they
apply only to individuals.

Evolution of Concepts. — Now study the genera-
tion and evolution of concepts concretely. The baby
learns to call a certain bearded man father. He forms
the concept man-with-whiskers = father; and will at first
call all bearded men father. In time he learns that
the intension of the concept his father includes much
more than whisker-man.

CLASS CONCEPTS AND PRACTICAL CONCEPTS

Some psychologists recognize no concept except class
concepts. But the unit of thought most frequently
used is not the class concept.

Conception and Judgment 55

Thus in ordinary thinking we do not think of the
cat as the domesticated small member of the feline
family carnivora, class vertebrate. We think of it
as a mouse catcher, a nuisance for shedding hair, a
nice pet, or the one who is to have the milk, just as it
happens. We may call this other class of concepts prac-
tical concepts.

We are all practical in forming our workaday con-
cepts, and none more so than children. We are in
the best sense pragmatists ; a thing goes with us under
the concept of its use. Ask a child, and he will tell
you that a cup is " something to drink out of," a pen is
" something to write with," a bed is " what we sleep
on," and snow is " to make snowballs of and to coast
on."

So rich in attributes or relations (as attributes also
may be called) are the objects around us that we never
use more than a small part of them in forming our
concepts. And naturally, we pick out those relations
which are of most interest to us. Thus an oak is so
many hundred feet of lumber, to the lumberman;
a tree of the Quercus family and with certain biolog-
ical peculiarities, to the botanist ; a source of tan-
bark, to the tanner; a producer of acorns as food for
hogs, to the hog-raising farmer; a splendid shade
producer, to the picnic party; and an important ele-
ment in the composition of a landscape picture, to the
artist. Each has a concept of the oak, true and ade-
quate for his present purpose, and still each has a
different concept. A practical concept, then, may be
said to form around a center of interest.

However, in the system of human knowledge known

56 Psychology as Applied to Education

as science, there is a concept of every object of thought,
which we call the scientific or class concept. This is
the essential meaning, the central meaning, of that
thing, and may be considered the mother concept
from which all other meanings can be derived.

Definitions. — Class concepts can very easily be
tagged and identified, and this process is the scientific
form of definition. A definition consists in giving the
next general class (genus proximum) and the specific
difference (differentia specified). Example: —

A quadrilateral may be defined as a plane figure with
four sides. Here plane figure is the next class and four
sides is the specific difference. Again, a parallelogram
may be defined as a quadrilateral with opposite sides
parallel.

SYMBOL AND CONCEPT

/ No concept can be pictured, not even the concepts
of space-occupying objects. For example, take the
concept " dog." You cannot make a picture of it,
for, pray, what size would you make it, and what color ?
It must at the same time fit a lapdog and a St. Bernard.
It must be as long and low as a dachshund, as slender
as a greyhound, and as stocky as a bulldog. So it is
quite evident that no picture can be made of this con-
cept. Harder still would it be to picture beauty or
truth, or reciprocity.

Concept without Symbol Impossible. — But we
cannot think of a concept without the use of some
image. However general an assertion we make about
dogs, we must have some " doggy " image to which to
fasten our thoughts. " Pure thought " without any

Conception and Judgment 57

space image is an impossibility. But the image is
never the concept. It is a counter which stands for f
a meaning that always transcends it.

This representative image is naturally an example
of the class, if the concept is such as to allow it. Thus
the representative image in the case of the concept
dog is an image of a dog, usually of some dog familiar
to the thinker. But in many of the higher concepts
this is not possible. Where the concept is an abstract
quality, the symbol may be the image of a thing con-
taining it. Thus heat may be represented by a flame,
and beauty by a beautiful woman.

But often the relation between symbol and concept
is much more tenuous, and sometimes entirely artificial.
Thus when the banker thinks of profit and loss, he
probably sees in his imagination simply those written
words in a ledger.

Danger of mistaking Symbol for Concept. — Much
vicious thinking consists in mistaking the symbol of
the concept for the meaning for which the symbol
stands. It is natural and perfectly right that we should
allow the symbol to share in the glory and honor of
its meaning, for only thus can we practically honor the
meaning. Thus the Christian rightly honors the cross,
and the patriot will not allow his country's flag to be
treated disrespectfully. But as soon as we lose the
sense of the derivative and reflected nature of the
symbol's value, we are in grave danger. Much of
the fanaticism of the world results from the mistaking
of symbols for concepts.

" Bonehead " is a picturesque term of the diamond.
There is a kind of ossification of the mind that is com-

58 Psychology as Applied to Education

mon both off and on the baseball field. This ossifica-
tion is much facilitated by the unvarying use of the
same symbol for the same concept. Thus, a convict's
stripes stand for moral depravity, and a " stove pipe "
hat for respectability, and many find it difficult to
dissociate the symbol and its usual meaning even when
they know that the actual facts are exactly the opposite.
Much narrowness of thought results from mistaking
the symbol for the meaning. The simplest of symbols
or representative images is noted when an individual
is made to represent a class. Two patriots are discuss-
ing woman's suffrage. " I tell you," says A, " women
have not sense enough to use the ballot. I know they
haven't. Now my kitchen maid, this morning, mis-
took a sack of Portland cement for buckwheat flour,
and actually had it on the griddle ! And you would
give the women the ballot ! " His interlocutor, who
is madly in love, can think of nobody but his lady love
when he thinks of the fair sex, and he declares that if
women had the ballot, corruption would vanish from
politics before their pure presence as mist before the
morning sun, that even the sin-seared political boss in
the presence of such angelic beings would shrivel up
like the guilty thing he is, and reform or hie himself to a
hole to die in. Both are making an accidental indi-
vidual stand as the synopsis as well as the symbol of
the whole sex.

THE RIGHT KIND OF CONCEPTS

Concepts should be clear, definite, and rich. The
store of concepts in the mind should be well organized;
that is, classified and related. This is almost self-

Conception and Judgment 59

evident. Loose and lazy thinking results in lazy ideas
which imperceptibly melt into one another. Science
has been defined as classified knowledge, and as the
concept is the logical unit of knowledge, science con-
sists in classified concepts,

THE LOGICAL CLASSES OF CONCEPTS

Concepts are often divided into substantive and
attributive concepts, but the following seems to be
a more consistent and complete division : —

(a) Ideas of things, substantive concepts.

(6) Ideas of events, motor concepts.

(d) Ideas of manner or circumstance, modal concepts.

(e) Ideas of relation between two other concepts,

relative concepts.

These classes correspond respectively to nouns and
pronouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, and relation
words, as prepositions and conjunctions.

It is to be noted that substantive concepts may be
thought of independent of any other concept. Motor
concepts are always thought of as united to some sub-
stantive concept. Thus we cannot have the idea
running without that of some one running. Attrib-
utive and modal concepts are always dependent or
secondary to some other concept. They are fractions
of a larger unity. Thus good implies that some be-
ing is good, and swiftly that some motion happens
swiftly. The relative concept, of course, implies two
other concepts, since a relation is always between two
ideas. This discussion shows that grammar is logic
incarnate, and that logic is the soul of grammar.

60 Psychology as Applied to Education

JUDGMENT

How a Judgment is Formed. — Judgment is explicit
conception, and the object of the judgment activity
is to organize and relate our concepts and to produce
new concepts by uniting old ones.

A judgment when put into words takes the form of a
sentence and, as such, can be studied and analyzed
without difficulty. The judgment, then, consists of
subject and predicate. The subject concept is always
a substantive concept. Hence the subject is always
thought of as a space-occupying object, a thing, while
the predicate is always thought of as a time-occupying
energy, an event. Thus, in the judgment, " Birds fly,"
birds is the subject, a space-occupying object, and fly
is the predicate, a time-occupying event. But mere
existence, a state of being, has duration and is an event.
Thus in " The mountain is high," the predicate is
high may be translated " endures as a high object."
A judgment then consists in the union of a space con-
cept with a time concept, and the result is a space-
and-time concept.

Kinds of Judgments. — Judgments may be positive
or negative ; particular or general, as : " Birds fly ; "
"Dogs do not fly;" " All horses are vertebrates;"
" Some horses are black."

In positive judgments, the subject never exceeds
the predicate in extension. Thus in " This butter is
strong," the subject concept this butter (happily for
the boarder) is not as extensive as is the predicate is
strong (butter).

Relation of Judgment to Conception. — Judgment
should not be thought of as a less fundamental process

Conception and Judgment 61

than conception. The mind does not first make con-
cepts and then proceed to piece these concepts together
to form judgments. It is probable that the two pro-
cesses appeared in consciousness together and developed
together.

For purposes of study, conception and judgment
have been separated from each other and recognized
as two separate processes, but in our conscious life
they are inextricably bound together, each involving
the other.

Exercises

1. Illustrate the differences between concept and percept by
describing what is meant by the concept and the percept of
the following : circle, lion, goodness, ratio, ocean.

2. What is your everyday concept of house, dinner, book.

3. What is your thought symbol for beauty, truth, United
States, Congress, war, learning, mercy f

4. Give an instance of mistaking symbol for meaning.

5. Why is spit vulgar and saliva admissible? Why is
serpent more dignified than snake f

6. Give an example of a subject that is equal in extension
to its predicate.

CHAPTER VII
REASONING

Reasoning may be used broadly as a synonym of
thinking, and reason and intellect have practically the
same meaning. But it is convenient in psychology to
use reason and reasoning in a more restricted sense.
Here reasoning will be used as meaning a logically
connected chain of judgments resulting in a judgment
which is a conclusion.

Hence reasoning is explicit judgment, as judgment
is explicit conception.

So we have —

Concept + concept = judgment.

Judgment + judgment = chain of reasoning.

There are two kinds of reasoning, inductive and
deductive.

INDUCTIVE REASONING

Our one source of knowledge is experience. But
we should be in a sorry plight if we could not anticipate
experience. A child touches a red-hot stove. Very
well (or rather, very ill, from the child's standpoint),
he knows something from experience. What does he
know directly from experience? " That the stove must
not be touched." Not at all ; that is a very complex
conclusion. " That he will burn his finger again, if he
touches the stove again." Yes, he knows that, but

Reasoning 63

not directly from experience. In fact, he can hardly
be said to know anything directly from experience ;
or rather, experience itself, as he knows it, is a complex
series of conclusions he has arrived at more or less
logically. He knows that if he touches that stove
again he will again be burnt ; and he knows it as the
result of a complex mental process. This process we
are now to study.

The hot stove burnt me, is the first judgment, which
comes as near being pure experience as is possible.
Like causes have like results, is the universal postulate
which we all subconsciously make. The stove seems
to be in the same condition now as it was a moment ago,
when I burnt myself, hence if I touch the stove again, I
shall make all the conditions the same as at my former
experience. This now completes the chain of reason-
ing, except for the conclusion : The result would be the
same: I should be burnt.

In this way we anticipate experience, and profit
by experience. Inductive reasoning is hence a way
of getting ahead of experience, of making it unnecessary.

The rational world is an organized unity lying be-
tween the two poles, law and fact. Induction is a
method for getting from the facts to the law.

Complete Induction. — If every instance, or fact,
under a certain class, or law, is examined, we can ar-
rive at a truth that is as certain as experience itself.
Thus we may say that for half a century there has
been no frost in Iowa in July.

But complete induction is seldom possible and some-
times not desirable. For example, farmers in Minne-
sota will plant corn about the middle of May, a long

64 Psychology as Applied to Education

series of inductions having told them that it is generally
safe from frost at that time. They cannot in the na-
ture of the case wait until all Mays are gone before
they assert that the middle of May is safe, and plant
their corn.

The story is told of a gentleman whose " man "
brought home a box of poor matches. " Next time
you buy matches, test them," said he to his " man."
The next box of matches proved even a worse dis-
appointment. Not one of them would light. " Why
didn't you test them ? " the servant was asked. " Oh,
but I did," responded he ; "I tested every last match in
the box." He had made a complete induction.

So practically we must be satisfied with a limited
number of inductive examples. In this way, to be
sure, we never reach absolute certainty, but we get
what is just as useful, pragmatic certainty. We al-
ways try to apply to the problem the axiom, " Like
causes produce like effects," which removes the problem
from the sphere of induction, and makes it deductive.
But generally the problem cannot be made to come
under the law of like causes fully, since it is hardly
possible to become absolutely certain that the causal
situations are absolutely alike. Sometimes we come
pretty near it, though.

A chemist mixes certain chemicals. He knows the
chemicals by certain characteristics. He confidently
predicts the result because he has mixed the identical
kinds of chemicals in the identical way before, and he
is sure of the uniformity of Nature : that she will re-
spond to-day exactly as she did yesterday to the same
experimental question.

Reasoning 65

Knowledge based on Authority. — Much of our knowl-

edge is based on authority. A small percentage of
what we know is based on our own experience or reason-
ing. We have been told so, hence we know. Thus my
"knowledge" of Africa is wholly based on faith in
human authority. All I know of what happened before
I was born and most of what I know of what has
happened after I was born I know on human authority.
Most of what we know, we know on what lawyers call
" hearsay evidence."

Our belief in authority is based ultimately on an
induction. We notice that the vastly greater number
of assertions which we have had a chance to test, made
by accepted texts and encyclopedias, have turned out
to be true; hence we infer that such authority may
be trusted in this case. But the case is usually more
complex. The fact that other people with more ex-
perience than ourselves recognize certain authority,
makes us accept it. Thus the average scholar takes
the statements in his textbooks entirely on authority.

Knowledge based on Faith. — Only through experi-
ence do we gain knowledge; but there is some knowl-
edge which we did not gain directly from experience.
Thus I know that the whole of anything is equal to
all its parts, that the same object cannot be in two
places at the same time, that it is impossible to con-
ceive space as limited, and all other axioms, to be true
without depending on experience. Of course I could
not have these ideas or any other ideas, if I had not
had experience. But as soon as I begin to perceive
and think, I know that these self-evident truths are
true, without any testimony from experience.

66 Psychology as Applied to Education

Some thinkers claim, however, that this seemingly
immediate knowledge of ours is the result of the ex-
perience of our ancestors. Thus our assumption that
every effect must have a cause, is said to be based on
the universal experience of the race in the past. This
reasoning is, however, based on a misconception of the
nature of our a priori or self-evident knowledge. It
is not that we simply naturally assume a certain prop-
osition to be true ; it is more : we cannot conceive
anything different to be true, and we see directly that
the proposition must be true. Besides, in many cases,
experience cannot possibly teach these truths.

Take the axiom last referred to : Every effect must
have a cause. This cannot be verified by experiment
without using the most refined scientific instruments
and methods. Experience seems in fact to teach just
the opposite. Trees shoot up from the ground, as if
by magic, and no visible or tangible cause can be found.
The wind bloweth whither it listeth and we know not
whence it cometh. In fact, we can never in ordinary
experience trace the chain of cause and effect more
than a link or two, and often not even that. And still,
as soon as a human mind really knows what is meant,
it will always assent to this proposition. Yet few un-
educated persons recognize the truth of this axiom
when it is mixed in daily experience. Thus countless
lives have been spent in seeking for " perpetual mo-
tion " ; and inexplicable events are dismissed from
discussion as having " just happened." But as
soon as such a person clearly sees the implication
of the statement of the law of cause and effect,
he at once assents to it.

Reasoning 67

Or, take another axiom just mentioned : The same
object cannot be in two places at once. Experience is
wholly against this axiom. In hundreds of classes of
objects the individual objects are so similar that it is
impossible to tell one object from another. In a bushel
of peas, why don't we assume there is only one pea ap-
pearing in a thousand places at the same time ? When
twins are so exactly alike that one cannot be told from
the other, why don't we assume there is only one person
who exists at once in two places ? So, I think it is safe
to assert that we know some things to be true because
of the very nature of the mind.

But evidently even here we must base our knowledge
on faith, faith in the integrity of our intellect. It is
conceivable that our minds might all be insane on some
point, and hence it would be impossible for us to de-
tect our error.

Knowledge gained from experience is also based on
faith. Experience is always gained through the senses,
and is reduced to knowledge by the process known as
perception, and preserved by memory. Hence, we
must trust our senses and our memory in every case
where we rely on experience. Witness saw defendant
strike plaintiff; he is sure of it. Now his certainty
is based on : (a) his faith in his sense of sight and his
perception (it might be an hallucination), and (6) his
faith in his own memory.

Laws or principles may then become ours in two ways.
Either we gain them by inductions from experience, or
they are simply awakened in us by experience and then
elaborated or deduced. The latter are what we call
self-evident truths. Thus the law of gravitation was

68 Psychology as Applied to Education

induced from experience, while it is quite possible
that the law of falling bodies was evolved from reason
alone. The arbitrary fact, however, that if a body
falls 16 feet the first second, its speed must be 32
feet per second at the end of first second, we need no
experiment to know. The body began with no speed
at the beginning of first second. It passed over 16
feet acted on by a constant force. Hence 16 feet
per second must be the average speed, and the other
extreme to 0 speed must be 2 x 16 feet or 32 feet per
second.

Thus all geometry, and much of other mathematics,
is deduced entirely from the axioms awakened by
experience in the mind. Much of physics is a priori
deduction.

All pure mathematics is based on laws of conscious-
ness alone, as mathematics is the science of time and
space as we conceive them.

DEDUCTIVE REASONING

From the law, the principle, we can descend the logi-
cal ladder to the fact, the instance; from the general
we can arrive at the particular, thus reversing the
process of induction. Deductive reasoning, hence, con-
sists simply in recognizing a part of a concept as a part.

The Syllogism. — The explicit form of reasoning is
the classical syllogism, of which there are four funda-
mental types. Of these four forms the following may
be considered basic : —

Water expands when it freezes.

The liquid in this glass is water.

Hence the liquid in this glass will expand when it freezes.

Reasoning 69

The logical relations may be expressed by the
diagram shown below: —

B is (in) C (Major premise).
A is (in) B (Minor premise).
Hence A is (in) C (Conclusion).

The first sentence is called the major premise; the
second the minor premise; the third the conclusion.
Now the predicate of the major premise, expanding
when freezing, has the greatest extension, and includes
the subject, water, which is also the predicate of the
minor premise. Hence the subject of the minor prem-
ise and of the conclusion, the liquid in this glass, is a
fortiori included in that which includes its predicate,
water.

PEDAGOGY OF REASONING

Logical Relations. — Reasoning consists in perceiv-
ing the relations of ideas to one another. Hence put
all your attention on the logical relations. The facts
will take care of themselves. To be exact, the fact is
nothing more nor less than a center of logical relations,
just as modern physics is inclined to view the atom,
the unit of matter, as simply a center of forces. In
studying a battle, for example, don't clog up your mind
with " 60,000 men, no cavalry, 6 o'clock in the morn-
ing, bombardment, charge, retreat ten miles on north
road, ' ' and the like. These facts, thought of as mere facts,

70 Psychology as Applied to Education

will remain barren and cold in the mind, as so much
lumber. Instead ask yourself : " Why 60,000 men ? He
could get no more, as of the army of 200,000 enlisted,
only 75 per cent were effective, and of these 150,000,
50,000 were too far away to reach the commander and
40,000 had to be left guarding the route to the base of
supply. The enemy were estimated at only half of
this number, but the enemy fought on the defensive
and in their own country ; hence conditions were fairly
equal." Similarly: " Why had he no cavalry ? Would he
have been benefited by exchanging 10,000 infantry for
10,000 cavalry? Why did he attack at 6 A.M. Was
this a mistake? " In this way study becomes reason-
ing ; in this way we learn to think.

Application of Laws to Particular Facts. — Never
be_-satisfied with your own or your pupils' knowledge of
principles or laws until you have applied them to con-
crete examples and particular facts. This is the main
reason for the existence of laboratories and experiments.
A student does not know what oxygen is until he has
generated it, experimented with it, stuck glowing splin-
ters into it, and noticed how they have suddenly flared
into flame. A psychological principle, like the one
we just now discussed, was not understood by you
half so well before you read these illustrations, and you
will understand it better still when you have studied
the problems and examples at the end of the chapter.

Sympathy as an Aid to Understanding. — Get into
sympathy with your subject ; for contrary to the antique
slander, love is not blind, love is the very eye of the
soul. No study, from botany to theology, can be studied
right, until we love it. No student does his best until

Reasoning 71

he loves his study. It is not because he will not, as
teachers so often claim. He can not.

Intellectual Honesty. — While we must have sym-
pathy as an asset to right thinking, we should at the
same time be careful lest our sympathies stand in the
way of intellectual honesty. How few fathers can
judge fairly between the characters and deeds of their
own darlings and those of the neighbors' " brats."
If our own family, or party, or church, or nation makes
a mistake, it is very venial, a mere bagatelle, not worth
mentioning ; while if the blunder belongs to the other
side, it is a scandal, a crime, a sure indication that the
whole institution is rotten.

Now, the cure isn't to have less sympathy, it is to
have more, and more catholic sympathy. We should
be less selfish, and that means not to love self less,
but the other -fellow more. A broader view, less
provincial and more balanced, is the right prescription.

We need perspective in our thinking. If we might
stand away some distance from ourselves so as " to see
oursePs as ithers see us ; it wad frae monie a blunder
free us."

" Original " Thought. — Many teachers imagine that
in " development " lessons and in the laboratory they
make their pupils original, pioneer thinkers on a wide
range of subjects. This is too high praise. They
make them simply thinkers. The chances are that
before the subject was developed, before he experi-
mented, the pupil had no conception at all that was
even passably satisfactory. The conception he gets
now is not original by any means. It comes straight
from the teacher, the text, and the experiment. But

72 Psychology as Applied to Education

then, most of our thought, our steady diet of thought, is
copied thought. This following in the footsteps of
another thinker is no mean art, and is one in which we
should become experts. It is the most useful kind of
thinking, so let us not despise it.

Original thinking is a dangerous and difficult art,
and usually barren of useful results. Hence few at-
tempt it. Still, as a bracing exercise, and as a moral
stimulant, it should be encouraged.

SUMMARY OF STAGES OF MENTAL ACTIVITY

The stages of mental activity may be thus classi-
fied:—

A. The Fundamental Basal Stages

ACTIVITY PRODUCT

1. Perception Percept

2. Memory Image

3. Imagination Image

B. The Complex Developed Stages

ACTIVITY PRODUCT

1. Conception Concept = a unity of notions, or

attributes

2. Judgment= explicit conception Judgment=& union of two con-

cepts to form a new concept

3. Reasoning = explicit judgment Syllogism, Chain of Reasoning =&

union of judgments to form a
new judgment

Reasoning 73

Exercises

What is wrong in each of the three following problems ?

1. A certain gardener, ninety years of age, was congratulated
on his birthday in May, and wished many returns of the day.
He responded that he felt sure he would at least see another
New Year, " for," said he, " I have noticed in the garden that if
anything lives over the month of March, it is sure to live the rest
of the year."

2. No cat has four tails.
This dog is no cat.
Hence he has four tails.

3. All lions are animals.
All lambs are animals.
Hence all lions are lambs.

4. A person who had never told a truth in his life said, "I
never tell the truth." Was he then speaking the truth?

5. What is the best way of teaching what is meant by an
object's being a good conductor of heat?

6. What is the best way of teaching what is meant by " the
state legislature " ?

7. In determining the botanical name and classification of a
plant, what kind or kinds of reasoning do you use ?

CHAPTER VIII

HOW WE THINK: ATTENTION
THREE PHASES OF THE KNOWLEDGE-MAKING ACTIVITY

WE may discuss the intellect both from the stand-
point of the activity that produces knowledge and from
the standpoint of the product.

In the previous discussion we have taken up the
stages of knowledge. We are now ready to study the
knowledge-making activity of the mind, or, as it might
also appropriately be called, the art of thinking.

We shall find a surprising similarity in the activity
of the mind in every stage of knowledge. Reduced
to its elements, the behavior of the mind does not differ
much when it reasons from its activity when it per-
ceives. Here again we find that we cannot divide the
subject into parts, but we can find distinct aspects of
the intellectual activity. These are- —

Attention;

Analysis and Comparison;

Association, or Synthesis.

In this chapter, we will turn to that phase of the
mind's activity which we call attention.

MEANING OF TERM "ATTENTION"

Earlier in this book we compared consciousness to
the field of vision, which consists of a clear and distinct

How We Think: Attention 75

center surrounded by a field which gradually decreases
in clarity and definiteness, until it finally vanishes in
a "fringe" of obscurity and confusion.

Consciousness, however, has a power which the eye
has not. It can vary the degree of its concentration.
When we so will we can withdraw the energy of con-
sciousness from the periphery of the field of conscious-
ness and center our mind narrowly on the focus. This
renders the circle of distinct consciousness smaller,
but it becomes in proportion more vivid. We call
such an effort a concentration of attention.

Attention, then, is the centering of consciousness on
a portion of its contents. As Professor James says, one
of the elementary characteristics of consciousness is
its partiality for certain parts of itself. The vaster
portion of the mind is in the shadows of the twilight
which ranges from nearly complete consciousness to a
profound darkness that we cannot distinguish from
the absolute night of unconsciousness. This twilight
zone is called subconsciousness. Whtn the mind is
hard at work, attention sharpens to a fine point, and
we think vividly of a small range of topics, and almost
not at all of neighboring fields of thought. When
the mind rests, it " flattens out," and spreads itself
over a larger area, but as the light of thought is dif-
fused over so wide a territory, the whole field is in an
intellectual penumbra, and nothing distinct is before the
mind. The diagrams on page 76 illustrate this.

The following diagrams also illustrate the difference
between the idiot's mind and the genius' mind. The
main difference among minds intellectually is differ-
ence in power of concentration. Carlyle's definition

76 Psychology as Applied to Education

of genius as "an infinite capacity for taking pains "
is literally correct; and translated into the language
of psychology it would read as follows : an ability for
extraordinary concentration of attention. Only by
concentrating the mind can we be painstaking.

CONCENTRATED ATTENTION DIFFUSED ATTENTION

Thought training, then, is mainly an education of
attention, for he who can concentrate his attention at
will can do all with his intellect that it ^is capable of
being trained to do. He is intellectually trained.

CHARACTERISTICS OF ATTENTION

(a) The field of attention shades off gradually into
that of subconsciousness. This will be discussed more
fully in the chapter on subconsciousness.

(6) Attention is constantly moving. It is impossible
to keep on thinking of precisely the same idea for any
appreciable length of time. You will find that as soon
as you decide to think of one subject and of one alone
and only one phase of that subject, you straightway
begin to think about the subject. That means around
it. The attempt to fix the attention on one object and

How We Think: Attention 77

not allow it to move will, if continued long enough,
bring on hypnotic sleep. The reason why a genius
can attend so intently for a long time to a topic of
thought is, as Professor James says, because in his
mind the topic is constantly developing, showing new
sides, details, and consequences, while the idiot cannot
fix his thoughts on anything, because in his mind the
idea is sterile, and remains the same. Hence, as his
attention cannot rest, it must abandon this idea for
another.

(1) Attention moves in pulses, waves, periods. This
follows from what has been said. Hence our atten-
tion does not move like a boat or horse, in a constant
and evenly rapid motion, but in leaps and bounds of
uneven length.

As a corollary to (1) we deduce (2) that Attention
varies constantly in intensity. We do not think with
the same intensity for two consecutive minutes.

How does the student work, for example, in solving
a problem in algebra ? He adopts a certain hypothesis,
and then concentrates his attention with all his might
on the problem in applying this hypothesis. ~He
brings all the factors of the problem together in the
limelight of his concentrated attention, only to find
that his hypothesis is untrue. Then he relaxes, for
a moment at least, and casts about leisurely for another
hypothesis. A lecture in which everything is equally
emphatic and in which therefore an equally pitched
attention is required, is hard to follow. Attention
refuses to be an ever constant stream. The orator,
therefore, gives relief to his presentation by having
his emphatic passages separated by lighter material

78 Psychology as Applied to Education

that does not demand so close attention. Attention
is never sharpened up to its finest point for more than
a few seconds at a tune. Then it relaxes, the mind
" flattens out," and rests. Thus our attention works
in pulses or beats, like the heart, or the respiratory
organs. The two motions of attention — its varying
intensity and its movement over its object — are
combined so as to make the intensity greatest when
the movement over the object is slowest.

This varying intensity of attention has brought
about the division of time into certain periods. We
have the diurnal wave or period, which consists of a
day and a night. During our waking hours, our atten-
tion is at least in some measure concentrated. Psy-
chologically, sleep is the total or practical absence of
attention. Dreams are very imperfect and abortive
attempts to center the attention during sleep. In
sleep our whole being sinks into subconsciousness.
When we awake, we concentrate our mental powers.
" We pull ourselves together," literally and begin
again to attend.

Usually we divide the day into three long periods of
attention, separated by rests : forenoon, afternoon,
evening, separated by meals and the nightly rest. These
three periods may be called the session periods, if a
name must be attached.

The length of time the mind is engaged in thought
in the same general direction is the next period. In
school work this may be called the recitation, lecture, or
study period.

(3) Attention tends to move rhythmically. Do not
confuse this with (1). Attention always moves in

How We Think: Attention 79

pulses or waves, but it does not always move rhythmi-
cally. Not all periodicity is rhythmic, for rhythm
consists in regularly recurring series of pulses. It is
a marked characteristic of the mind that it prefers
to act rhythmically.

This is the reason why poetry is more pleasing than
prose, and is the essential charm of marching and danc-
ing. Here is where doggerel gets its great vitality.
This is the reason that children so easily fall into the
singsong habit in reading. Thus the mind will put a
rhythm into regular successions of sound, even when the
rhythm is wanting or when this rhythm is too monot-
onous, as in the ticking of a clock or the click of the
wheels of a railroad car. These may with a little imag-
ination be made to recite poetry, sing tunes, and repeat
rhymes.

HOW THE MIND ACTS IN ATTENTION

So much for the movements of attention. After
the mind is once concentrated upon the chosen portion
of the contents of consciousness, what then?

First, remember the mind is never passive; it is
always essentially active. The mind paints the pic-
tures we see, makes the music we hear, and produces
impressions and feeling, just as certainly as the mind
makes its own judgments and syllogisms.

When now the attention is centered upon any por-
tion of the contents of consciousness, it acts at once as
a solvent and a cohesive. The mind picks apart and
puts together again. It analyzes, compares, and asso-
ciates. What it does, depends on the store of knowl-
edge at its command.

80 Psychology as Applied to Education

This analysis, comparison, and synthesis is done ac-
cording to the laws of the mind, which laws are also
the laws of the universe. The result is thought, and
if the mind is normal and follows its own laws, knowl-
edge. The work of the mind corresponds to the truth
as it is in the universe.

KINDS OF ATTENTION

The practically important division of attention is
into involuntary or spontaneous attention and voluntary
attention.

Involuntary. — Involuntary or spontaneous atten-
tion is the attention which comes as the reaction of
the mind to certain stimuli. In studying sensation
we find that the mind is so constructed that spe-
cific stimuli are answered by the mind by specific
reactions. A stimulus, whether it be an external stim-
ulus or a suggestion, awakens some impulse or desire.
As soon as this happens, our whole soul flows to this
point, we attend to it. A famished person in the
presence of food concentrates involuntarily his whole
consciousness on food getting. A mother, caring for
her child, will find her attention centered on that
child without any effort of thought. The next mo-
ment after making acquaintance with the wrong end of
a hornet, it seems to us as if our whole being were in
that sting, and doubled up in pain at that. The motive
(instinct or desire) has in this relation generally been
called interest, and shall be so denominated here. Reflex
or involuntary attention, then, depends on interest.

Voluntary. — The second kind of attention is a
direct product of the will. Man has the power to

' How We Think: Attention 81

concentrate his mind by sheer effort on that which is
not interesting. We may hence say that voluntary
attention depends on effort.

How the Mind economizes Voluntary Attention. — Vol-
untary attention is exceedingly expensive ; spon-
taneous attention costs nothing. Hence we have
learned to get along with very little of the expensive
kind. Just as for many purposes gold plating is just
as good as solid gold, so here with the precious metal
of the mind. For instance, I would rather gossip with
my neighbor than study to-night. If I obeyed the
spontaneous impulse, gossiping is what I would do.
But I inhibit the expression of this impulse, and by
sheer effort direct my attention to my lessons. I force
myself to read the first lines and to think upon what I
read. This is hard work, but it can be done. Not
for a very long time, however. Few people could
stand the struggle for more than a quarter of an hour.
But happily, I soon get interested in my lessons. This
means that some ideas I have forced myself to gather
from the book have acted as a stimulus to my intel-
lectual interest (we call it curiosity when directed to
trivial things). Now I no longer need to use volun-
tary attention. My interest supplies me with reflex
attention. Then if I am a well-conditioned student I
will run like a self-igniting engine, one that produces
the stimulus that sets it to work.

Spontaneous or involuntary attention is the iron of
the mind. It is the material that is used in great
quantities in every conceivable need. It is plentiful
and cheap, and " fills the bill." Voluntary attention
is^the gold of the mind. It is very expensive and is

82 Psychology as Applied to Education

seldom used, but when we want it we must have it,
for there is nothing that can take its place.

INTEREST

Important Laws of Interest. — Interest is the atten-
tion-compelling element of instincts and desires. More
especially it is the intellectual and aesthetic interests
with which we are here concerned. Some of the
practically important laws of interest are the fol-
lowing:—

(a) We have no intellectual interest in that which we
know perfectly. After a teacher has gone over the
elements of a subject until he is perfectly familiar with
them, this elementary aspect of the subject has no
particular attraction for him. Nor have we any in-
terest in that which is perfectly unknown to us. We do
not care to listen long to a language that is totally
unknown to us. But we are interested in that which
is partly known and partly unknown. All our intel-
lectual interests are in this twilight zone.

(6) We all have a more or less well-defined sphere of
interests. In order to be interesting, a subject must be
brought within this sphere. In other words, it must be
brought into relation with us. Thus, children are more
interested in child life than in adult life; a merchant
is more interested in market quotations than is a
clergyman, even when the merchant is not contem-
plating buying anything.

(c) Interest in a thing is not to be confounded with
delight in a thing. If when groping around for a match
in the still watches of the night, you step on a tack
whose point is up, you become suddenly filled with an

How We Think: Attention 83

absorbing interest in the tack ; but you certainly do not
delight in it.

Pleasant interest is more economical as a motor
force for attention. If pleased as well as interested, a
person can do several times as much work, both mental
and muscular, without fatigue, as is possible if the
work is accompanied by fear or disgust. This is one
strong reason why we should make our pupils like
their work. This is also the reason why natural in-
terest is better than artificial. When a pupil studies
from fear of punishment or from desire for reward, he
generally dislikes his work; and this disgust with his
work is a constant and heavy drain on his energies.
There is sound psychology in the slang phrase we use
to express contempt and disgust : "It makes me
tired."

(d) The mind is bound to be busy with something, as
long as it is in a waking condition. Hence, we can
interest ourselves in almost anything by shutting off all
more attractive stimuli. This is the fundamental prin-
ciple applied by the schoolmaster since time immemo-
rial. This principle every one must apply who would
accomplish some serious study. He must by using
voluntary attention resolutely shut off all alluring
excursions of the mind into what temporarily appear
to be more attractive regions.

THE PEDAGOGY OF ATTENTION

Alternation of the Important and Unimportant. —
From the laws of attention just stated we gather that
to gain best results in attention, there must be relief
and perspective in presentation. Monotony is the great

84 Psychology as Applied to Education

enemy of attention. To secure attention, alternate
the important and the unimportant. If you attempt
to make everything striking, nothing will strike.

Value of arousing Interest at Beginning of Work. —
At the beginning of a recitation, session of school,
lecture, book, article, or drama, the listener or reader
is usually interested in something else, and entirely
ignorant and uninterested in what is to come. Hence
at the beginning of any period of attention, the subject
should be made as interesting as possible. Notice the
alluring way in which novelists begin. Almost every
political orator begins with a story alleged to be funny.
The teacher should try to start every recitation with
something more than ordinarily interesting. This is
done in order to make voluntary attention unnecessary
and to substitute spontaneous attention. This is
one important reason for " opening exercises," and
this defines their nature. Opening exercises ought
to contain something the pupil can do, to enlist his
interest in the school. Hence the value of singing, best
of all, motion songs.

The Time for the Hardest Work. — As soon as the
pupil's or audience's attention is " caught," that is, as
soon as voluntary attention gives way to spontaneous
attention, give the hardest and least interesting work of
the period. The pupil is rested now. He has more
energy now than he will have during any later time in the
period. Therefore, put your hardest work, like arith-
metic, in the early part of the morning session. Ask
your test questions early in the recitation.

When the Work should be made Easier. — As the
pupils' fund of energy is constantly decreasing, ease up

How We Think : Attention 85

the work as the hour or day progresses, and if possible
increase the stimulus of interest. Towards the end
of the period you may have to use your funny
stories.

Value of Closing Exercises. — End the period (reci-
tation, address, session, day) in a blaze of glory and
interest, leave a good taste in the mouths of the pupils
for the next recitation, the next day of school. For
that reason, I would recommend closing exercises
at the end of the school day. A scientific experiment
of the spectacular sort, a story read by the teacher, or
a song sung by the school, are good varieties of closing
exercises.

Teaching Pupils the Value of Powers of Attention. —
Acquaint your pupils with the immense value you place
upon the power of attention. Almost the whole secret
of good thinking is a trained power of attention. As
attention is one aspect of the whole intellectual activity,
the preceding sentence is self-evident.

Exercises and Illustrations

i. Think of a pin's head for one minute. Notice how long
a period of time that minute seems. Could you keep your
mind on the subject the whole time? Did it ever for a moment
remain on one portion of the subject?

'2. This story is told of two Eastern hermits who lived to-
gether. Basil complained that he could not keep his mind on
his devotions, that worldly thoughts would creep in. Cyril
rebuked him for being so weak. Basil felt injured and said that
perhaps even brother Cyril might find it hard, if he observed
himself closely. The end of it was that Basil wagered a donkey
that Cyril could not say the Lord's prayer without allowing
some worldly thoughts to intrude. So Cyril began, but when
he came to the fourth petition, he stopped and confessed:

86 Psychology as Applied to Education

" Brother, I lost, for as I said 'Our daily bread,' I thought, 'I
wonder if I will get a bridle too with the donkey."

3. If you " skim " a book, why do you skip the solid pages
and read the ones broken into small paragraphs and conversa-
tion?

4. Mark Twain, in a story, makes the wheels of a train
say: —

" Punch, conductor, oh, punch with care,'—
Punch in the presence of the passenjare,
A blue trip slip for a five- cent fare,
A buff trip slip for a three-cent fare,
A red trip slip for a ten-cent fare.
Punch, conductor, oh, punch with care,
Punch in the presence of the passenjare."

This so fastened itself to the mind of a certain man that he
could not get rid of it, and told it to his pastor. The pastor
caught it and found himself giving it out as a hymn at a funeral.

5. What psychological limit is there to the proper length
of the paragraph?

CHAPTER IX

HOW WE THINK: ANALYSIS AND COMPARISON
FUNCTION OF ANALYSIS AND COMPARISON

IT would be equally correct to write " Analysis,
or Comparison," for analysis is essentially the same
as comparison. We always analyze by comparison.
Thus, in abstracting the attribute red color from the
concept red apple, we compare a red apple with, say,
a green one. We note that the difference is one of
color, and individualize the color red by comparing it
with the color green.

Attention is the whole knowledge-making activity.
Consciousness concentrates, we have learned, on some
small portion of its contents. What does the mind
(consciousness) do with the material before it? In
brief, the mind makes order out of confusion, a cosmos
out of chaos, something of nothing-in-particular and
everything-in-general, and it does so by comparing one
sensation, perception, or concept with another and
discriminating.

Analysis. — Chronologically, everything is done at
the same time, — comparison, discrimination, associa-
tion, individualizing, and generalizing. Each one of
these aspects involves all the rest. But logically,
perhaps, individualization may be said to be first.
That is, whether perceiving, imaging, judging, or rea-

88 Psychology as Applied to Education

soning, the mind must first get units to work with.
When we first peer into a distant scene, we see nothing
but a confusion of patches of colors and shades. We
begin to perceive by making out a tree here and a man
there. We have individualized these objects. When
we try to solve a problem in algebra, we first have a
chaos of mathematical relations. We begin to see
light when we can definitely pin down one mathematical
idea, and say, for example, let x equal the distance
traveled the first day.

Now, how do we do it ? It is by analysis, discrimina-
tion. We separate that idea from every other idea.
We center our attention on it, and withdraw our at-
tention from every other idea. The mind acts like a
cleaver. It makes a gash between this idea and every
other. Watt noticed that the cover on his aunt's
teakettle bobbed up and down. He centered his
attention on this bobbing cover and escaping steam
and singled out of this group of ideas, as most signifi-
cant, the force of steam. " Steam has power to lift
that cover" must have been the form of his idea.
This idea led to the invention of the steam engine.

How Comparison aids Process of Analysis. — But
of what does the act of analysis consist? We shall
find that in every case the act of analysis involves an
act of comparison. I notice that sugar is sweet. I
compare the sweet taste with the taste that just pre-
ceded it, and thus it gets individuality. When a
person has eaten pancakes and sirup he cannot taste
the sugar in his coffee. How do we notice the moon
in the sky ? By comparing the bright disk of the moon
with the darker sky. If the whole sky shone as brightly

How We Think : Analysis and Comparison 89

as the moon, we could not see the moon at all, or, more
precisely, we could not individualize the moon, we
could not discriminate between the moon and the rest
of the field of vision.

In the formation of concepts we call this analyzing
activity abstraction. Thus, in order to add the attribute
ferocious to the concept lion, I must compare the ac-
tion of the lion with, say, the lamb, and find that they
differ. This comparison makes it possible for me to
segregate the quality ferocity and make it an individual
object of thought. If all animals were ferocious and
all ferocious beings animals, it is quite certain that I
should never have distinguished between being an animal
and being ferocious, because I should have had no chance
of making a revealing comparison.

PEDAGOGY OP ANALYSIS AND COMPARISON

(a) Limit the field of analysis to the smallest possible
area. This is the fundamental rule for successful
analysis, and also for comparison. The naturalist
uses the microscope. The lawyer takes up his oppo-
nent's brief, point by point. The critic will dwell
fondly on a comma or the quantity of a vowel. The
successful mathematician takes up his problem, bit
by bit, and largely because he can make the bits so
small, is he so successful.

(6) A corollary of the first rule is the following : —
Exclude every factor and element from attention except
the two under consideration. The minimum is two;
we cannot think of only one unit of thought. There
must be substance and attribute in the concept, sub-
ject and predicate in the judgment, premises and con-

90 Psychology as Applied to Education

elusion in the reasoning, the object and its environment
in vision, sound and silence in hearing, and motion and
rest in motor ideas.

(c) Be in no hurry to generalize. — Almost every
novice in thinking, and the great majority of those who
have had experience and ought to know better, will gen-
eralize from the first bit of comparison, the first streak of
analysis. Most hallucinations of the senses are due
to this tendency. John, late in the park at night, hears
a few indistinct words. He compares these sounds
with some memories of words; these sounds partly
correspond to " Money or your life," and his subcon-
scious mind, which does the hearing for him, makes
him hear the words " Money or your life " very dis-
tinctly ; so he flees in terror from the scene, and reports
to the police that he was held up in the park. Now the
truth is that he compared and discriminated only these
sounds : — oney — ife, and if he had not generalized
so abruptly, he might have found that on the other
side of the hedge was a swain kneeling before his lady
love, entreating : " Honey, be my wife."

Exercises

1. When a tea taster tests teas, with what does he compare
each sample? Notice that taste of sample A must be out of
his mouth before he can taste sample B. How can he then
compare ?

2. In counting objects, what comes under the head of com-
parison and analysis?

3. What part do analysis and comparison play in our con-
sciousness when we are listening to a quartet singing ?

4. The famous dervish saw that the impression made by one
foot of the camel was always much fainter than those of the others.

How We Think : Analysis and Comparison 91

He concluded that the camel was lame in that foot. Show his
analysis.

5. Give some cases of analysis and comparison from novels.

6. Show that analysis, comparison, and attention are all
involved in the same mental act.

7. What act of analysis do we perform in perceiving a sail at
the horizon at sea ?

8. In scanning a line of poetry show what acts of analysis and
comparison we perform.

9. In the following selection point out what are cases of analysis
and what of comparison :

" One of the expensive factors in the production of cotton was
the removing of the seeds, as long as this was done by hand. When
the cotton gin was invented, this factor became so small compared
to what it had been before, and compared to the value of the cotton,
that it was almost negligible. Hence cotton became a paying crop,
and a staple was found that could be raised by slave labor at great
profit."

CHAPTER X

HOW WE THINK: ASSOCIATION, OR
SYNTHESIS

THE process of association is another aspect of think-
ing, or the knowledge-making activity. In making
knowledge, the mind connects, unites, relates, and
organizes its contents. This integrating process is
called association. It is the synthetic activity of the
mind. Care should be taken to hold fast to the truth
that attention, analysis, comparison, and association
are but different aspects of one mental activity. When
the mind attends, it associates and discriminates.

KINDS OF ASSOCIATION

Logical Association. — There are two kinds of asso-
ciation : logical and mechanical. In most concrete
cases, however, the two varieties are mixed. When-
ever the mind sees a reason why any pair of ideas should
be associated, we may call the association logical.
Thus, cause is logically associated with effect, the part
with the whole, the purpose with the means. All that
is necessary is that the mind should grasp this logical
relation. As soon as the mind is in possession of this
relation, the ideas so related are permanently connected
in the mind. Thus, tobacco was a staple export in
colonial times, and had a practically unlimited market.

How We Think: Association, or Synthesis 93

Therefore, it paid to raise tobacco in great quantities ;
hence great plantations. Tobacco culture requires
a great deal of simple manual labor. This was fur-
nished cheaply by the negro slaves. Thus, slavery
was profitable in the tobacco colonies. Therefore it
survived there. This chain of ideas is held together
in the mind by logical relations. All that is necessary
to associate this series of ideas is for the mind to be
clearly cognizant of these relations.

Mechanical Association. — The second kind of asso-
ciation is a connection of ideas in the mind without
reference to any intrinsic thought relation. Its funda-
mental law may be stated thus : —

When two ideas come contiguously before attention,
they become associated. Every repetition .of contiguity
strengthens the association.

Contiguity may be of two kinds : simultaneous and
successive. Thus, if we think simultaneously of Tom
and Dick, Tom and Dick will be associated in the mind.
This is simultaneous contiguity. But if we repeat
the letters in the alphabet in order a great many times,
that order will be firmly fixed in the mind. This is
successive contiguity. This is the usual statement of
the case, and it is convenient and simple. Under a
more rigid analysis the two cases, the " simultaneous "
and the " successive," may be shown to be identical.
Whenever two ideas occupy the field of clear conscious-
ness together, and the mind's center of attention travels
from the one to the other, the ideas are associated.
When we think of two ideas simultaneously, the mind's
center of attention oscillates rapidly from one to the
other. When the ideas pass through the mind in sue-

94 Psychology as Applied to Education

cession, they are also simultaneously before the mind ;
for in repeating, for example, the alphabet, a is not
wholly out of the mind when we say 6.

Similarity is often given as an associating force, but
it can easily be proven that similarity is only a case of
the fundamental law given above. Thus friend A
may remind us of friend B, because their features are
similar, both having " pronounced " noses. When I
see A, I see his nose. That nose is as to size and shape
identical with B's nose, but B's nose has occurred in
my mind together with the rest of the features of B ;
hence it is associated with the other features of B, and
therefore A reminds me of B.

Subordinate Laws of Mechanical Association. — The
more vivid the experience is which connects two ideas,
the stronger the association. Thus, we are not likely
to forget the place where we saw a stroke of lightning
within a rod of us, or what happened to us in a ship-
wreck.

The more recent the association, the stronger it is.
This is known and depended on by every pupil who
crams on the evening before examination.

THE PHYSICAL BASIS OF ASSOCIATION

The physical basis of association is supposed to be
the same as that of memory. Corresponding to every
psychosis there is a neurosis. For every idea before
consciousness in attention there is a corresponding
reaction in the brain. The series of brain events and
of mind events run parallel, and the one occasions the
other. Careless and materialistic thinkers talk of ideas,
sensations, and thoughts as coursing through the nerve

How We Think: Association, or Synthesis 95

cells. Many psychologists, of whom we have a right
to expect better things, persist in this unscientific
romancing, and use " brain " when they mean " mind,"
and speak of " associations in the brain cells " and the
like. It may safely be asserted that we do not know
one practical truth more about association because we
know or think we know what is the physical basis of
association. It does, however, satisfy our theoretic
interest to have a scientific reason for the fundamental
law of mechanical association.

The physical basis, then, of association is the same as
that of memory and habit. Mechanical association
may presumably be supposed to depend entirely on
these modifications of the structure of the nerve center
which we call the reaction paths of sensory and motor
nerve currents.

ASSOCIATION AN ASPECT OF EVERY MENTAL ACTIVITY

Psychologists have generally confined their atten-
tion in studying association to the phase of it connected
with memory. But we must not forget that associa-
tion is an aspect of the intellectual activity that is
present in every stage. Thus, in perception there is
association. For example, in hearing a quartet sing,
while we discriminate the four parts as four distinct
series of sounds, we also put the four together into a
harmonious whole. This uniting of the four parts
into a harmony is association, synthesis. In seeing a
landscape, we associate the color sensations, the in-
terpretation of the motor sensations of the muscles of
the eye into the whole which we know as the percept
of the landscape. We often associate the images of

96 Psychology as Applied to Education

one sense with another, so that when we perceive with
one sense we imagine the corresponding image with
the other. We hear a mosquito and immediately
imagine the visual form and the sting of the little
tormentor.

We cannot compare, analyze, or attend without
associating. In the very act of making a distinction
between two notions, we associate these two elements
of thought. Thus, when I say, " The moon is brighter
than the sky," I have associated the moon and the sky
into a greater whole.

THE ORGANIZATION OF OUR ASSOCIATIONS

In order to be of value to us, our mental associations
must not only be extensive, but classified and related
as well. Some people's minds are like some people's
desks. There is a great deal in them, but it might just
as well not be there, for no one can find it in the dis-
order.

Our scientific theories and then- unifying philosophy
are our mental filing system. The trained mind has
its associations arranged and classified according to
their importance, trivial and casual relations being
subordinated to fundamental laws and principles. A
very important service of education is this organiza-
tion of associations.

Our systems of thought should not, however, be re-
garded as fixed and unchanging. It is the mark of
intellectual youth and vigor to be willing to change
even one's basic principles, if convincing evidence is
brought forward to prove that they are unsound. Con-
versely, the condition of being unconvinced in spite

How We Think: Association, or Synthesis 97

of valid arguments is the sure index of intellectual
senility.

Thus, the mind has two kinds of work to do : (a) to
gather facts and classify them; (6) to improve its
scheme of classification by emendations and additions.

Exercises

1. What mistake in kinds of association does the pupil
make who memorizes his geometry without understanding it V

2. Are odor memories useful and practical? Illustrate.

3. What association is found in seeing a mansion half a mile
away?

4. The odor of petunias reminds John of his childhood home.
Explain the association.

5. Show how and what the architect associates when he plans
a house.

6. Take a lesson in geography and show what associations
must be made.

7. What state of mind does this famous adage show ? " I'm
open to conviction, but I'd like to see any one who could con-
vince me."

(B). The Motives and Feelings

CHAPTER XI
MAN AS A REACTING ORGANISM

MAN responds, or reacts, to stimuli. This is per-
haps the simplest and most fundamental attribute of
his nature. In place of man in the first sentence, we
may with equal propriety and truth put mind or con-
sciousness. Hence responsiveness to stimuli lies at
the base of all mentality.

The door opens in the rear of the schoolroom. Every
single pupil has an impulse to turn his face to the door,
and all who do not inhibit the impulse do so turn.
Put a slice of lemon in your mouth. Instantly the
salivary glands secrete saliva. Think of tasting lemon,
and much the same reaction takes place. Here we
have three examples of a stimulus and a mental reac-
tion.

THE DIFFERENT KINDS OF STIMULI

A stimulus may be —

(a) Foreign, when caused by something foreign to
the organism, as the prick of a pin.

(6) Organic, when produced by the organism itself,
as hunger. For the human organism is auto-stimulat-
ing, and is not forced to rely on the push and pull of
the external world to set it to working.

Man as a Reacting Organism 99

Stimuli may also be divided into —

(a) External, or physical, stimuli which are produced
by the excitation of sensory nerve endings, as the con-
tact with the sting of a bee or the taste of lemon in
the example on the preceding page.

(6) Mental stimuli, usually called suggestions, which
consist in the presence of ideas with motor valency in
the field of consciousness. Thus, military leaders try
to inflame their troops to valorous deeds, as did Na-
poleon at the Pyramids, by filling their minds with
unages of honor, glory, and riches to be won with victory.
Thus, thinking of a lemon has almost as great an effect
on the salivary glands as the actual presence of the
lemon in the mouth.

IMPULSE DEFINED

The mind responds to stimuli, but it does not re-
spond in the same way to every stimulus. The mind
replies in a different and definite way to every different
stimulus. We have a complex system of responses,
very delicately and definitely organized.

Let us call the mental response to a stimulus an
impulse. We may define it thus : An impulse or mental
reaction is a tension or pressure in consciousness towards
some definite activity.

We say a pressure towards an activity, and we do
not call the act itself an impulse, because it happens
that the reaction sometimes remains simply mental,
a tendency, and never becomes an external action.
This is because the mind has the power of inhibition.
This power is not found in the lower reaches of the
mind. We cannot inhibit at will any of the organic

100 Psychology as Applied to Education

functions, except breathing, and the reflex actions are
only very imperfectly subject to inhibition. The
lower animals, and every human being in infancy, and
even later when in the subconscious state, react with
the fatal precision of mechanisms. But in its higher
forms, the mind has the power of delaying and even of
refusing the reaction. We shall hear more of inhibition
later.

Desires. — With experience and deliberation a
purpose, a " final end," becomes explicit in conscious-
ness. This develops, magnifies, and transforms the
impulse. A desire is a pressure or tension in the mind
toward realizing a purpose. In the case of a desire,
the impulse reaches out for the result of the activity,
not for the activity itself. When the boy climbs upon
a chair in the pantry cupboard, preparatory to the
acquirement of a pumpkin pie, the impulse, the inner
pressure, is towards the enjoyment of pie eating, which
is the purpose of his actions, and there is no direct
impulse to climb on a chair. A desire, then, is a mental
pressure purpose-ward. Desires are entirely hide-
pendent of the will, and are neither diminished nor
increased by the direct command of the will. The
measure of the strength of a desire is the intensity of
feeling with which it is indissolubly connected.

The stimulus in the case of a desire is an imagined
future good either for one's self or for some one else.
In the example given, the stimulus is the imagined
bliss of future pie eating, which quickens the impulse
to invade the cupboard.

Instincts. — A great many of our actions, however,
are done without any reference to results or future

Man as a Reacting Organism 101

effects. We simply feel like acting in a certain way,
and this is all the explanation we can give. For ex-
ample, a few years earlier, that boy we just spoke of
put anything and everything he could move into his
mouth. He had no idea that by so doing he could
or would increase his happiness. He simply felt like
doing it, and did it. Here the stimulus seems to be the
mere sight or touch of an object.

Examples of instinct are laughing, smiling, and weep-
ing. When done with a purpose in view, these expres-
sions of feeling are not genuine. A person when " kill-
ing time " will walk, whistle, and whittle, just because
he feels like doing something.

The lower animals have more numerous, and more
complex, instincts than man. The honeybee con-
structs cells that are mathematically perfect for econ-
omy and strength, and still we feel sure the bee never
studied geometry ; the squirrel gathers and stores nuts
in the fall for his winter food, but we don't imagine
he keeps an almanac ; in fact, we know he does not,
for he will do the same thing whether he has ever asso-
ciated with other squirrels or not, and even when the
practice is perfectly useless.

An impulse, then, is a conscious pressure towards some
specific activity. Experience develops these impulses
into desires, that is, impulses with a conscious pur-
pose, and usually we think of this purpose as the orig-
inal propelling force in the impulse. This, however,
is false. All our impulses were at first blind, or in-
stinctive, and many remain such throughout life, at
least may reappear thus on occasion.

The impulse is always accompanied by a feeling,

102 Psychology as Applied to Education

and the intensity of the feeling is a measure of the
strength of the impulse. When the purpose of the
impulse is not present in consciousness, we may
speak of it as a blind impulse, or instinct. When
the impulse is not native to the individual but
acquired, it is a habit.

Instinct and Desire Differentiated. — The stimulus
which awakens a desire is always the image of some-
thing thought attainable in the future. The motive
force lies in the desirability of this future goal. But
here it must be noted that the happiness of another
person may be directly desirable, and not simply in-
directly desirable as increasing one's own happiness.

In blind impulse the stimulus is something imme-
diate, a sensation or an " idea." Our minds are so
constructed that without reflection and without pur-
pose they tend to respond to certain stimuli in certain
definite ways. Thus if a person is insulted, he will have
an impulse to strike before he has had time to formulate
a purpose, and before he has pondered on the conse-
quences. A hungry person has an impulse to eat
without any thought of the purpose of eating. The
mother kisses the child, not because she has figured out
that this is a fine way of getting enjoyment, but because
there is something in her that impels her to do this
without any aid of philosophy.

The Subconscious Reactions (or Impulses). — (a) Re-
flex actions. An incoming neural current may be sub-
consciously switched in a nerve center into an out-
going motor neural current. This is reflex action.
Sneezing, winking, coughing, grasping for support when
falling, are examples. The stimulus is a " sensory "

Man as a Reacting Organism 103

neural current. We have classed it under the subcon-
scious, though we may be clearly, even painfully, con-
scious of our reflex actions. But clear consciousness
is in no way an aid to reflex actions ; hence it best fits
into the subconscious class.

(b) Organic functions. Our minds " run " our
bodies, but we waste very little consciousness on that
business. Still even our deepest subconsciousness
partakes of all the essential characteristics of mind,
consciousness. The bodily organs respond to stimula-
tion not only of the physical kind, but also that of sug-
gestion. Mental excitement makes the heart beat
faster, and a disgusting thought " turns the stomach."

GRADATION OF MOTIVES

The direct response of the mind to a stimulus we
have called impulse. But man has evolved beyond
the necessity of a direct and unvarying reaction to
stimuli. He can inhibit his impulse deliberately and
choose among several possible lines of action. Such
chosen motives we have here called ideals or rational
interests.

We may then grade or classify motives according
to their evolution as follows : —

I. Ideals, or rational interests. — These are chosen purposes and

have motive power independent of emotions.
II. Impulses or emotional interests. — These occur without our
choice, and cease to exist when the accompanying emotion
dies.

1. Desires. — Impulses (direct mental reactions) with a

conscious purpose.

2. Instincts. — Impulses without a conscious purpose.

3. Subconscious impulses, or mental reactions.

104 Psychology as Applied to Education

(a) Reflex actions, as shutting one's eyes when an object

comes near them.
(6) Organic functions, as the beating of the heart.

Exercises

1. Define and describe stimulus, reaction, suggestion, impulse,
desire, instinct, expression, and inhibition.

2. Give examples of physical reaction.

3. Give examples of instincts in human beings.

4. Give examples of instincts in animals.

5. Try to improve upon the classification of stimuli.

6. Try to improve upon the classification of reactions, or
impulses.

7. Place the following reactions in the scale, or classification
from desire to organic function.

Some one trails a string over the upper lip of a sleeping person.
The sleeper, without awakening, brushes his lip with his hand.
Where would you place the act of the sleeper ? Where the act
of the joker?

John grasps inadvertently a heated poker, intending to stir
the fire. He drops the poker quicker than he grasped it. What
kind of impulse impelled him to the first act? To the drop-
ping of the poker ?

CHAPTER XII

FEELINGS, IMPULSES, AND THEIR
EXPRESSION

MAN appreciates, puts a value on, his experience.
He is pleased or displeased with his contact with the
world. This aspect of pain or pleasure in our mental
life is called feeling.

Note carefully that feeling is not a separate psychic
reality, a distinct mental event, but that it is an ele-
ment, an aspect, of every mental state. It is the pleas-
ure or pain of any state of consciousness.

THE RELATION OP FEELING TO IMPULSE

Feeling and impulse are intimately united. Every
feeling is accompanied by an impulse, and there are
no impulses without feelings. In fact, feeling and im-
pulse are two sides of the same psychic reality. In
everyday thinking we seldom discriminate between
the two. Thus hunger is at once the name both of the
painful feeling of an aching void and the impulse to fill
this vacuum; and fear denotes both the constricting,
crushing, painful sense of danger and the impulse to
flee.

The popular conception is that the feeling is the
cause of the impulse. We usually think that we have
an impulse to run away because we are afraid. Some

105

106 Psychology as Applied to Education

psychologists, and among them William James, main-
tain the exact opposite, viz., that we feel afraid because
we run away and we feel angry because we strike.

Neither of these views can be maintained, if we
strictly adhere to our definitions, and are careful in our
analysis. Feeling and impulse are aspects of the same
psychic event, and both are occasioned by a common
stimulus. In the case of fear, it is the idea of impend-
ing danger that is the stimulus both of the feeling and
the impulse of fear.

Feelings and impulses are, then, indissolubly united.
Wherever fear as an impulse is present, there is also
fear as a feeling, and the strength of the impulse is
exactly the same as the intensity of the feeling. Every
impulse has its peculiar feeling attached to it, and the
impulse is born a twin with the feeling and expires at
the same moment with its twin brother. But notice
that they are twin brothers, not father and son. The
feeling is neither the cause nor the effect of the impulse
any more than this page is the cause or the result of
the page on the other side of the paper.

The Universal Motive. — It is the province of phi-
losophy to unify all things. A prominent class of phi-
losophers and psychologists of all ages have found the
universal motive for human action in a desire for hap-
piness. Usually it has been put in the absolutely
selfish form of a desire for one's own happiness only.
Every impulse, it is argued, is a fleeing from pain and
a seeking of pleasure. The mind, they say, always
seeks the line of least resistance, and we act hence in
the way that promises a minimum of suffering and a
maximum of enjoyment.

Feelings, Impulses, and Their Expression 107

The trouble with this hypothesis is that experience
shows it isn't so. Our motives are not originally united
into one grand aim in life. We have, on the contrary,
many discrete desires for various concrete experiences
and activities. The boy does not desire joy, he wants
to go fishing. James does not long for love's bliss, he
longs for Sally ; and he does not long for Sally because
he has figured out that Sally means happiness to him.
The munching schoolgirl is not pursuing happiness, her
soul is set on caramels. We are not under the domina-
tion of one all-inclusive desire for happiness and we do
not, consequently, sit down coolly and rationally and
choose from the means at our command the ones that
will lead to the desired result — happiness — as the
angler critically selects from a number of flies in his box
that fly which he thinks most likely to catch the fish.
No, our yearnings and impulses are directly connected
with something concrete to be obtained, attained, or
done, and in our less developed state we care not
whether it increases the sum total of our life's happi-
ness or not. Thus the boy goes in swimming though
he knows he will be spanked for it, and the drunkard
drains the glass though he knows the ultimate result is
only woe.

The point we wish to make here is that we have many
and diverse desires and impulses, and that though these
doubtless could be reduced to a system and unity by a
philosopher, the average human being is emphatically
not conscious of any unifying connection binding all
his emotions and impulses into one. Very often, the
best reason we can give for an action is, "I felt like
doing that." We are so constituted that there is in us

108 Psychology as Applied to Education

a pressure or tension in consciousness to act in certain
ways. This conscious propulsion to action we here call
impulse or emotional interest and it is aroused by stimu-
lus. There is not one impulse, one motive, one reaction
to stimulus, but there is a specific reaction for each
stimulus. Thus, when hungry, we have a lively interest
in food ; when angered, an impulse to strike ; when a
sound occurs behind us, an impulse to turn the head ;
when reading a mystery story, an emotional interest
in continuing reading to find out how it " turned out."

The feeling that forms a part of the psychic event that
contains the impulse is either painful or pleasant. If
painful, this feeling is accompanied by a secondary
impulse to rid one's self of this pain; if pleasant, to
seek to increase this pleasure. But note that this sec-
ondary impulse is not the primary impulse, and is
usually much weaker. Thus the lovesick swain enjoys
many a weary hour by daydreaming of " her," but he
does not think of her because it is pleasant to think of
her, but because he loves her. This is proven by the
fact that if he lose her, or grow jealous, so that his
thoughts of her become painful to him, he does not by
any means cease to think of her. His impulse to think
of her is directly bound up with his love of her, and
this impulse he has whether the exercise of it brings him
pain or pleasure.

The angry child hits his adversary because the in-
ternal pressure to hit is too strong for any inhibiting
force present to hinder. To be sure, the pent-up feel-
ing accompanying anger is disagreeable and the relief
experienced when the child gives way to the pressure
to strike, is very pleasant, but it was not to get rid of

Feelings, Impulses, and Their Expression 109

the disagreeable feeling and to get pleasure that the
child struck. The child was not thinking of itself and
its condition at all. It never speculated on the psy-
chological effect of the blow on itself. It simply felt
it had to strike, and it struck.

A child is in danger of drowning. The mother jumps
into the water and with imminent peril to herself saves
her child. When the child fell into the water, the
mother had at once a strong impulse, a tension, a pres-
sure, a mental pushing towards jumping in at any risk
to save her child. This impulse was accompanied by
a most poignantly painful feeling of terror at the
thought of possibly losing the child. But it was not to
escape this pain that the mother saved the child.

Yet another example and analysis of impulse and
emotion may be of value. Let us analyze fear. Fear
consists of an impulse to flee from what is conceived as
danger, and a disagreeable emotion so intimately associ-
ated with the impulse that most psychologists have
talked now of the emotion and now of the impulse with-
out distinction. The mischief of the blunder is the
accompanying tacit assumption that the disagreeable
feeling is the motive power of the impulse to flight;
that hence the measure of the disagreeableness of the
emotion is the measure of the force of the impulse to
flee, that a person wants to flee because it pains him to
be afraid. This is fundamentally false. The emotion
and the impulse are two aspects of the same psycho-
logical event. We are so constituted that we want to
flee when in presence of danger. We also feel pain in
the presence of danger, and we feel worse if our desire
for flight cannot be gratified. But we do not primarily

110 Psychology as Applied to Education

want to flee because fear is painful. In fact, when very
much afraid we pay no attention at all to our suffer-
ings from fear. Our whole mind is occupied with the
thought of the danger confronting us.

Thus we may conclude that we are impelled by
primary forces, for the existence of which we can find
in consciousness nothing ulterior, to certain definite
actions, and the aversion to pain and desire for pleasure
constitute only one of these impelling forces.

COMMON CHARACTERISTICS OF EMOTIONS AND
IMPULSES

All emotions and impulses are in themselves good ;
they become evil only when developed out of propor-
tion and when we lose control of ourselves.

All emotions and impulses are short-lived. An emo-
tion and impulse that continues above the threshold of
consciousness for several hours is a menacing psycho-
logical phenomenon. It is certainly debilitating, and
there is probably danger of insanity. " But certainly
the grief for a dead friend lasts more than a few hours."
Yes, but how? In a few hours does not sleep put an
end for a time to the sorrow ? If the sorrow is so great
that sleep is impossible, there is indeed great danger.
And even in waking moments, there will soon come
times when, at least for a little while, the weight of grief
lifts from the " heart" of the bereaved one.

During its short life, the emotion is constantly vary-
ing in intensity. Very great intensity is not maintained
for more than a few seconds at a time.

Consequently impulses and emotions are equally
variable, equally short-lived. They are also liable to

Feelings, Impulses, and Their Expression 111

frequent resurrections. Actions caused by impulse
are therefore " jerky," intermittent, never carried on
consistently and uninterruptedly for any great length
of tune, though this does not hinder them from having
a most frequent recurrence.

EXPRESSION OF IMPULSES AND EMOTIONS

We cannot control or even influence our impulses
and feelings directly. We cannot help having them.
No one can say successfully, " There now, I shall no
longer be afraid of the dark; I shall no longer like
mince pie." Our emotions are totally independent of
our will.

Every emotion has some bodily expression. Thus in
fear there are pallor and trembling, and, if the impulse
triumphs, the motions of flight. The emotions, the
impulse, and the expressions are intimately connected
and interdependent. Impulses and emotions can be
starved to death, yes, in some cases choked down almost
instantly, by refusing them expression. Giving free
and vigorous expression to a slight impulse and emotion
fans it into a violent flame. Thus when the child
slightly afraid of the dark begins to run, its fears in-
crease and it is seized by an uncontrollable terror. A
retreat in war invariably tends to become a panicky
flight and requires more skillful handling by the officers
than a storming. In the sullen crowd that surrounds
the prisoner, there is not one person that really intends
to lynch him. But some one cries, "Lynch him," and
dangles a rope before the crowd. Here is expression
for the slumbering passions. The prisoner is seized,
dragged to a tree, the rope is adjusted, the deed is done.

112 Psychology as Applied to Education

The impulse to wreak vengeance on the prisoner grew
with each detail in the performance, and very likely not
a man there, not even the one who first cried, " Lynch
him," could have otherwise brought himself to take the
prisoner's life.

How to inhibit the Expression of an Emotion. —
Suppressing the expression suppresses emotion and
impulse. This is done by shifting the attention to
another subject. The same soldiers that will change a
retreat to a terror-stricken flight, as the Federals at
Manassas, will charge with absolute fearlessness in the
face of certain death, as at Cold Harbor. Why?
Keeping the attention on the activities involved in
charging, they do not give any expression to the in-
cipient impulse and emotion of fear. Hence fear is
choked out; and giving the strongest possible expres-
sion to the combative impulse and the emotion of cour-
age, raises this emotion and this impulse to a state
of ferocious frenzy which excludes every other thought
and interest from consciousness. We may hence state
the law as follows : —

' Emotions and impulses and their expressions are in-
terdependent. The suppression of the expression will
at once decrease and finally annihilate the impulse and
the emotion.

We cannot by a mere fiat of the will obliterate an
impulse or kill an emotion, but by this indirect method
we may become masters of our emotional and impulsive
nature. An ungovernable temper in a middle-aged
person shows that he has not disciplined himself by
practicing self-restraint in his youth. One of the
finest products of human endeavor is the type of char-

Feelings, Impulses, and Their Expression 113

acter we call " well-bred," and the charm of such a
character lies in the perfect control of appetite, pas-
sions, desires, and temper. We do well in admiring the
ease and suavity of such a person, his uniform courtesy
and imperturbable self-possession in danger and in
irritation, for they represent years of patient and exact-
ing training in self-control.

/ Hence emotions and impulses depend for their life
and growth on expression. Sobbing and weeping feed
our sorrow, and laughter keeps up our hilarity. The
person who never restrains his anger, but rages and
swears to his heart's content, is sure to develop an
uncommonly " hot temper." If when walking a high
railroad bridge you do not check the first tremor of
dizziness by knitting your muscles and taking firm,
steady strides, you will soon be overcome by dizziness.

To be sure, some people enjoy having a good cry;
and the bitterness of grief is assuaged by tears ; but this
in no way contradicts our theory. It is always painful
to inhibit a strong emotion or impulse. Therefore,
though the feeling of sadness is as great or greater than
ever, we experience a great relief in allowing our feelings
their natural expression. Let it also be noted that our
emotions exhaust themselves in the expression. After
having " had her cry out," the girl feels better. The
fellow who " flies off the handle," and roars and curses,
is shamefaced and subdued after the brain storm is
over.

There are, then, two ways of getting rid of an emo-
tion or impulse. First : Inhibit all expression, and it
will die of starvation. Second : Give it full sway, and
it will burn itself out. But the burning-out process

114 Psychology as Applied to Education

is dangerous — wildfire always is — and deceptive,
since every time we give way to an emotion, we come
deeper into its clutches for the next attack.

Now I expect this objection : Inhibited grief and
anger do not die out. Have you not heard of " nurs-
ing one's anger "?

Precisely. When anger or grief is nursed, the ex-
pression is not fully inhibited. In grief the chest is
depressed, the eyes cast down, the breath short, and
sometimes there are convulsive sobs and moist eyes.
In anger, your man who thinks he inhibits his emotion,
grits his teeth, wrinkles up his brow, doubles up his
fist, and allows bitter thoughts to infest his mind. This
is not inhibition. In fact, perfect inhibition may be
impossible, but this is always possible, and is given as
a sure cure : Inhibit every bodily expression under
the control of the will by doing something else, and keep
your mind off the subject by thinking of something
else.

Here is where the iron law of habit again asserts
itself. Every time we give way to an appetite or a pas-
sion, every time we give expression to an emotion or
an impulse, we make it easier to repeat and harder to
resist.

Perhaps some persons do inhabit systems whose
tastes, appetites, passions, and impulses are diseased
from birth. But such cases are certainly rare. With
most of us it is true that per se our impulses and emo-
tions are neither right nor wrong, but simply natural.

System of True and Just Proportion. — Our training
in habit should be such as to reduce and expand the
emotions and impulses into a harmonious system, and

Feelings, Impulses, and Their Expression 115

to subordinate the lower motives of our nature to those
of the higher. Thus, we ought to like our food, and
enjoy our meals, but any abandonment of our whole
being to the pleasures of the table is gluttony or greedi-
ness, and degrades us. No one needs to be told that
slavery under the appetite of perverted thirst is one of
man's greatest curses.

Value of Self-control. — This is the highest of the
impulse virtues. No emotion or impulse should be
allowed to grow so strong that its owner is not its
master.

In the vernacular we say that a person is mad when
he is so angry that he will say and do things that he
would not do after deliberation. That expression is
not elegant but it is scientifically correct. When anger
is not under self-control it is really temporary insanity,
madness.

/ Every impulse and emotion is dangerous when beyond
control. Hence self-control is of greatest importance.

The pedagogy of emotions and impulses is, then, ex-
ceedingly simple : —

Give all expression possible to every emotion and
impulse you wish to develop ; inhibit every expression
of every emotion and impulse when it transcends its
proper limit.

Continue this line of treatment until it crystallizes
into a habit.

But since self-control is a habit, it can be acquired
only gradually. Hence we should not expect children
to be perfect in this art. How much of it we can ex-
pect in children depends on their previous training
and degree of mental development.

116 Psychology as Applied to Education

It is therefore absurd of teachers to try by threats
to keep children from turning their heads around when
a noise, as of some one coming in late, occurs behind
them. To inhibit this neck twisting requires a certain
amount of self-control. If the pupils have it, well and
good. They will not turn around. If they have it
not, a threat to behead them will not stop their neck
muscles from turning their heads.

This should be the aim of the teacher : so to train
his pupils that when they arrive at maturity they may
have perfect control of themselves.

Keep your pupils ever pressing forward to new con-
quests in self-control. Give your approbation for every
victory and your pity, not unmixed with contempt, for
every defeat in this struggle to learn the art of self-
control. But don't let your approbations and criti-
cisms be voluble. Be chary with words. A look, a
smile, a frown from a teacher that says little and means
much, is far more potent than scoldings and sermons.

Remember that this side of morality is an art, a habit,
and that no art, no habit, is ever learned by talking
about it, but by doing.

Above all, see that you yourself have the self-control
you wish to teach your pupils.

Exercises

1. Review this chapter by summing up each paragraph in a
line or two.

2. Distinguish the feeling and the impulse in each of the
following : —

On St. Valentine's day, May runs to meet the postman in the
street, grabs delighted a big envelope, only to find it is addressed
to her sister. She brings the valentine to her sister. They

Feelings, Impulses, and Their Expression 117

open it together, and find it is, contrary to their expectation,
an ugly one.

At each step, what is the impulse and what is the feeling of
each girl?

3. State all the principles you know for the training of the
impulses and emotions. Make the statements as terse as pos-
sible and try to improve upon the statements of the book.

4. Isn't it true that having " a good cry " relieves the blues?
Try to reconcile this with the law stated in this chapter that
the way to get rid of an undesirable emotion is to inhibit its
expression.

5. Why is revenge always wrong?

6. Arrange the chief emotions and impulses in a list, beginning
with the highest and most spiritual and ending with the lowest
or animal impulses and emotions.

7. Illustrate by an example from your own experience the
danger of doing anything to express one's feelings when in a
" fit of anger."

8. Illustrate the value of self-control by an example from
history.

CHAPTER XIII
FEELINGS AND IMPULSES CLASSIFIED

ALTHOUGH it is impossible to reduce all impulses to
one impulse in that the individual is conscious of any
such unity, still our impulses and emotions form a logi-
cal whole, and we may infer that in the Universal Mind
all striving and feeling are working as an harmonious
whole.

The following classification of feelings and impulses
is submitted : -

CLASSIFICATION OF FEELINGS AND IMPULSES

I. BODILY FEELINGS AND ATTENDANT IMPULSES.

1. Appetites.

2. Organic Feelings and Impulses.

II. EMOTIONS AND MOTIVES OF SELF-PRESERVATION.

1. Fear and the instinct and desire to hide or flee from

danger ; courage, defiance, and the instinct and desire
to defend. These two are primary and fundamental.
Love of adventure is evolved from these.

2. Anger, hate, jealousy, pugnacity, and the like are expres-

sions of self-preservation in the personal environment.

III. EMOTIONS AND MOTIVES OF SELF-EXPANSION, OR PROGRES-
SIVE SELF-REALIZATION.
1. Motor emotions and interests. The desire for motor

expression of one's self, by —
(a) destroying,
(6) owning,
(c) constructing, etc.

118

Feelings and Impulses Classified 119

2. The intellectual emotion and interest. The desire to

realize one's self ideally, to expand the self to include
as much as possible of the intellectual realm. (This
is " interest " in its usual pedagogical meaning.)
Curiosity, wonder, the joy of discovery, scientific interest.

3. The aesthetic emotion and interest. The desire to real-

ize the ideal. The love of beauty and the interest in
producing it.

4. Social emotions and motives1 (desires, interests, impulses,

instincts), such as —

(a) Love, sympathy, gregariousness, imitation, emula-
tion, pride, shame, love of praise, honor, glory.

(6) Pity, contempt, the patronizing feeling, desire to
protect, lead, rule, teach, etc. (felt towards inferiors).

(c) Respect, reverence, trust, loyalty, desire to follow,
obey, submit, believe on authority, etc. (felt towards
superiors).

5. Moral emotions and motives. These are the social

emotions and motives universalized. Love for and
devotion to —
(a) Purity, (6) honesty, (c) truth, (d) justice.

6. Religious emotions and motives. The instincts, de-

sires, and emotions connected with our communion
with the Supreme Being : awe, reverence, devotion,
trust, faith, submission, the instinct and desire for
worship. Strictly speaking, these are exalted social
emotions and motives.

DISCUSSION OF CLASSIFICATION

Bodily Feelings. — Class I is usually denominated
physical " feelings. But there is some objection to

1 We may also divide social emotions and motives into —

(a) Self-centered : as, pride, shame, vanity, haughtiness,

humility, desire for and joy in teaching, leading, in praise, honor.
(6) Society-centered: as, love, sympathy, pity, contempt,

respect, reverence, imitation, gregariousness, patriotism, loyalty,

desire for and joy in discipleship, obedience.

120 Psychology as Applied to Education

this term, as of course every feeling must be mental. In
this class are included those feelings which conscious-
ness locates in the body.

The name organic given to the second group under
this class only remotely connotes the meaning, but a
better name was not found. It is simply a name for
all that is left of " physical " or " bodily " feelings and
motives, after the appetites are subtracted.

Every emotion has, at least when strong, attendant
bodily feelings. Thus, when one is afraid, cold shivers
run down one's back ; when angry, one's face may burn.
But that these mere accompaniments are not the real
emotion is readily seen when we note that it is quite
possible to have cold shivers without being afraid, and
a burning skin without being angry ; and besides, that
it is never this little byplay of bodily feelings that
bothers us when we suffer from strong emotions.

Emotions of Self-realization. — Self-realization may
be said to be the end of all our activity, and hence the
object of all motives and the subject of all emotions.
Self-realization is not selfishness, is not merely the
development of our own individual self, but the develop-
ment in us and through us of the Universal Self. This
subject (the self) will be discussed further in a later
chapter.

Our interest in self-realization divides naturally into
two parts, above and below zero, so to speak. We are
interested in keeping what we have (self-preservation)
and in getting more (progressive self-realization, self-
expansion).

Actions of self-preservation are primary and funda-
mental. They are biologically the oldest of all the

Feelings and Impulses Classified 121

motor reactions. To preserve ourselves and ours from
diminution and destruction is our first duty.

When we are in the presence of danger, two al-
ternatives present themselves: escape or defense.
Fear or courage is aroused. Anger is often the name
given to the fighting emotion, but anger is a complex
emotion and motive, and consists not merely of the
motive of defense. We use the word courage ordinarily
to denote an attribute rather than our emotion or im-
pulse, but the emotion and motive corresponding to
courage is what we here mean by courage.

Love of adventure is a development from the impulse
to defend. For the progress of the race it is necessary
that some — that many — individuals risk life and
limb in the conquest of nature and the battle against
enemies. Hence the love of tempting danger is a very
prominent impulse in man, especially in youth. Seldom
was valuable work for humanity delayed because of
lack of daring among men.

Motor Emotions and Interests. — Man is interested
in making himself felt, in realizing himself in the phys-
ical world, in extending the sphere of influence and
control of his visible self. The child and the savage
especially, but even the most advanced of men, enjoy
making their own power felt by destroying. The child
tears the newspaper, the boy smashes windows, the
man hunts, not simply because he wishes to destroy,
but because the joy of annihilating forms a considerable
element in the mixture.

Still stronger is the constructive interest. We enjoy
making things. What boy has not littered up his
father's workshop, trying to make ships, guns, steam

122 Psychology as Applied to Education

engines, crossbows? Every true workman finds per-
ennial joy in the constructive side of his craft. The
constructive interest forms an indispensable factor in
the motor power which keeps the wheels of industry
turning.

Another strong impulse is the impulse to own. The
property interest lies at the very basis of the social struc-
ture. Again let us beware of philosophical generaliza-
tion. We do not desire property simply because we
wish to enjoy the use of it. When your father said,
" You may use this gun, but I do not give it to you,"
it did not please you half so much as if he had given
you the gun to be your very own. Many a farmer's
lad has extracted tons of bliss from the possession of a
colt, though he could not do a thing more, or profit a
cent more, with " his " colt than with any other colt
in the stable. But it was Ms colt, and there was
sweet enjoyment therein.

The Intellectual Emotion and Impulse, the Desire for
Knowledge. — We do not desire knowledge primarily
because knowledge is useful and may be a means of
happiness, but we simply desire knowledge. That is
as far as we can go back of the returns. There are good
biological reasons for this desire in the history of our
evolution, but of these we are not conscious ; we simply
want to know. The lower form of this impulse when
concerned with trivial affairs is called curiosity. The
higher may be called scientific interest. This interest
is the mainspring of the scholar's activity. This is
mainly responsible for newspapers, gossip, scientific
research, polar expeditions, astronomy, and the major
number of sentences that fall from human lips. Other

Feelings and Impulses Classified 123

interests, mainly social, are inextricably mixed with
the scientific interest, but in a very great section of
human activity it is the main source of power.

The ^Esthetic Interest, or Impulse, is the funda-
mental efficient cause for the fine arts, literature, taste
and refinement in dress, dwellings, and surroundings.
Philosophically we may say that the object of this im-
pulse is harmony and that it is our fundamental feeling
of an impulse from the great Oneness of the universe ;
but it is important to bear in mind the fact that we have
no immediate intuition of these philosophic doctrines.
We just feel a rapture when in the presence of certain
sights, sounds, and thoughts, and are impelled to seek,
to produce, and to enjoy certain objects, which we call
beautiful.

Social Emotions. — Under the subdivision social we
meet with a perfect welter of emotions and motives.
They are so numerous and so important that any
treatment would be fragmentary. Man is more than
an individual. He belongs to his fellow men and with
them forms a unity. Love, sympathy, fellow feeling,
kindness, are names applied to this great main stream
of emotions and interests that express the unity of all
persons. Closely allied to these are the social impulses
in the narrower sense, — gregariousness, imitation,
sociability.

It may be noticed that every social emotion and im-
pulse has its negative. Thus, love has hate as its nega-
tive, and the impulse to obey has the impulse to refuse
obedience. The negative is of course justified only
when there is something false in the environment which
should be removed.

124 Psychology as Applied to Education

Every social emotion and impulse has also a com-
plementary emotion and impulse. Thus, love of others
is complemented by love of self, imitation by the im-
pulse to be original, and the impulse to obey by the
impulse to command. Thus, while fashion rules with
a rod of iron, few women would like to copy exactly
I the dress of another. One of the fine problems of char-
^\, \ acter is to find just the right proportions of comple-
jmentary impulses.

It will be asked, "How can such purely selfish
emotions as pride, vanity, and shame be called social
emotions. In fact, is not the expression ' self-centered
social emotions and motives ' a contradiction in
terms?"

Pride, vanity, and all the other self-centered ("self-
ish ") emotions and motives are here classed as social
because they can find expression only in society. A
Robinson Crusoe, living alone, could feel proud or
humble only when in communion with God or other
spiritual persons, or when in memory he lives in imagi-
nary society. That is why it hurts us to associate with
an arrogant person. His undue aggrandizement of
himself is a social affair. Mentally he abases us by just
as much as he elevates himself. Selfishness is a social
vice. All egoistic emotions are necessarily social.

The Moral Interests. — Morality is not merely a
matter of impulse, interest, and emotion, but it is
partly this. The moral emotions and interests are
the social ones universalized. He who refrains from
stealing his friend's property but who is not averse to
filching the stranger's, is moved by social, not moral,
impulses. But he who feels like treating the stranger's

Feelings and Impulses Classified 125

property rights as scrupulously as his own has the
moral emotion and motive (impulse) of honesty.

Religious Emotions and Interests. — The emotions
classified as religious are in a way a combination or
adaptation of other objective emotions. In this group
we find emotions similar to the social emotions which we
call reverence and the desire to obey, but here they are
stronger and directed toward the Supreme Being.

Love and devotion to purity, honesty, truth, and
justice, when called forth by the conception of a divine
mind as a standard of these qualities, are religious emo-
tions.

The aesthetic emotions — love of beauty and of har-
mony — play a part in religious feeling.

The intellectual interest, the desire for knowledge,
when directed toward the mysteries of the universe,
becomes wonder or awe.

Exercises

1. Try to improve on the classification of impulses and feel-
ings given in this chapter.

2. Give an example of each feeling and impulse mentioned in
the classification.

3. How can the same person at the same time have both the
desire to lead and to follow?

4. Pocahontas warned the' English because they were her
friends. Was the motive social or moral?

5. A person abstains from doing wrong because he fears
punishment after death. Where would you class his motive?

6. Why are the windowpanes nearly always broken in vacant
buildings in secluded places ?

7. What emotion rightly belongs to the singing of a hymn?

8. Mrs. A and Mrs. B, fierce social rivals, had both ordered
expensive gowns of their respective dressmakers. An unlucky

126 Psychology as Applied to Education

fate ordained that the two gowns were precisely alike. Mrs. A
got hers first. When a little later Mrs. B got her gown, she was
heartbroken to find it was just like Mrs. A's, and she convinced
herself that Mrs. A had in some way stolen the design from Mrs.
B's dressmaker. So to get her revenge Mrs. B gave her gown
to her cook, on condition that she should dress in the gown next
Sunday and take a prominent place in church where Mrs. A
could not fail to notice her. Name the feelings involved.

9. What emotions and impulses were involved in the motives
that led Benedict Arnold to become a traitor ?

10. To what emotions does Dickens prefer to appeal?

11. Do you enjoy reading a pathetic story ? If not, why do you
read such literature ? How would you classify this emotion ?

CHAPTER XIV

THE CONTROL AND DEVELOPMENT OF CER-
TAIN IMPULSES AND EMOTIONS

WHILE all of our emotions and impulses can be in a
measure controlled and developed, there are certain
emotional states which deserve especial discussion be-
cause their control or development is a matter of vital
importance.

THE EMOTIONS OF SELF-PRESERVATION

Biologically the impulses of self-preservation are
fundamental in our being. Without these the race
could not have perdured.

In the presence of danger there are two courses of
action possible; the first, logically and historically, is
escape by hiding or flight. The impulse and emotion
that prompts to flight is fear. This is the over-shadow-
ing impulse of childhood and of primitive man and is
found even in the strongest and bravest. No boast
is vainer and falser than that one " has known no fear."

The other course of action in the presence of danger
is defense. The emotion that has evolved from the
primitive impulse to defend oneself and one's own,
though in some respects courage, pugnacity, or the
fighting impulse expresses it better, may be called anger.
Self-defense does not mean only defense of one's life,

127

128 Psychology as Applied to Education

one's mere existence. It means also the defense and
protection of all that is one's own : family, friends,
property, opinions, honor, dignity, plans, and purposes.

Anger as well as fear belongs to every normal char-
acter. A milksop who is incapable of just indignation
is not an admirable character. But in anger as in fear,
the more perfectly all expression of the emotion is
suppressed, the nearer to perfection is the character.

The Physiological Effects of Fear are primarily a
general depression of the activities of the organism, an
incipient, partial, or complete paralysis. The first
impulse of fear is to hide. The secondary effects are
stimulating, for the second impulse of fear is to flee.
Breathing and the beating of the heart are retarded
at first, usually to become much accelerated the next
moment. Digestion is retarded, or entirely ceases.
The salivary glands cease to function in some cases.
Trembling and shivering set in, which means that the
neural currents are intermittent ; that is, partial paraly-
sis has begun. Pallor, resulting from the contraction
of the capillary blood vessels, is one of the universal
symptoms.

Many insects suffer complete paralysis when fright-
ened. They curl up their legs and roll from their
perch, usually to a place of safety. The fox and the
opossum are popularly supposed to sham death when
they find flight impossible. It is more likely, however,
that such instances are simply cases of paralysis, brought
on by fear.

So we may say that nature has arranged that the
universal first expression of fear is a cessation from mo-
tion. No wiser universal prescription could have been

Control of Impulses and Emotions 129

given. The chances of remaining undiscovered are
many hundred times better when one is still than when
in motion, as we saw when studying vision. Be-
sides, when confronting danger, almost always the
safest thing to do is to stop. Hence by automatically
making movements difficult or impossible in the pres-
ence of danger, nature is doing on the average the best
thing possible for her children.

The Suppression of the Expression of Fear. — But
after the first moment of warning, man, especially
civilized man, is ill served by these physiological effects
of fear. Whether he decides to defend himself, to hide,
or to flee, it is of utmost importance to him that his
motor system be as far as possible from being paralyzed.
When Mr. Lummis was charged by his dog, which was
mad with hydrophobia, his life depended on not miss-
ing that one shot with the revolver. The reason for
accidents is almost always that somebody because of
fear loses his presence of mind and his ability to act
instantly.

Hence the rule : Suppress with all possible effort
every expression of fear in yourself, and never encourage
or favor any expressions of fear in your pupils. Raise
the chest. Keep the head erect. Whistle. Don't
stop and listen if you have no good reason for so doing,
but keep right on with your work. In war it is found
to be much more difficult to maintain the courage of
a defending corps which lies in inactivity behind the
breastworks than to inspire defiant courage in the
men that charge the same breastworks, though the
latter position is much more dangerous.

Fear is nature's alarm clock. As soon as we notice

130 Psychology as Applied to Education

the alarm ringing, its work is done, and the proper
thing is to stop the ringing. In man at least, intelli-
gence should take the place of fear as a means of keep-
ing out of danger after the danger is known.

The Physiological Effects of Anger or Pugnacity. —
The physiological expression of anger is the opposite
of the primary physiological expression of fear. Anger
(pugnacity) is the positive impulse of self-preservation,
as fear is the negative, and its expression is in general
increased innervation. The heart beats faster, the
muscles contract, the face is flushed, the stream of
thought is more rapid.

We should discriminate between anger and the fight-
ing instinct and emotion as a whole. Anger in its
ordinary meaning is only that peculiarly bitter phase
of the emotion which we have when we believe that
our adversary from moral turpitude is doing us an
injustice.

In ninety-nine cases out of a hundred anger is a
mark of narrowness of the mind. If we had been
broader minded, we had not become angry. Still,
there is such a thing as just indignation. And it has
never been possible, in spite of teachers and preachers,
to convince the world that the milksop who cannot be
aroused to anger is a better character than the spirited
man who brooks no insult. So we may as well admit
that temper, spirit, the ability to become indignant,
angry, " mad " if you please, is an element that should
be found in a good character, but for all that its expres-
sion should always be suppressed.

Inhibition of the Emotion of Anger. — Always suppress
as far as possible every expression of anger. There

Control of Impulses and Emotions 131

will always be enough involuntary expression to save
you from being a milksop. Why this suppression?
Because, in nine hundred ninety-nine cases out of a
thousand, as soon as the passion dies down you will
be ashamed of what you did in expressing your anger.
Especially, unless compelled by the circumstances of
the case, observe the following rules : —

Never punish a child when you are angry.

Never scold, admonish, argue, or say anything at all
on the subject of your irritation when angry.

Never make up your mind on anything while angry.

Many devices for overcoming anger are recorded.
This story is told of Lincoln — and of a dozen other
great men. A partner of his was terribly indignant
over some shabby action of a fellow official. " Write
him a letter and tell him just what a mean skunk you
think he is," suggested Lincoln. This suggestion was
followed with alacrity. In the course of half an hour
Lincoln was handed the result, a letter so " hot " that
it fairly made the paper crinkle. Lincoln smiled and
said, " You certainly flay him properly/' and then put
the letter into a pigeonhole. " If you will hand me
the letter, Mr. Lincoln, I will mail it," said the of-
fended man. "Mail it," said Lincoln; "no indeed!
Let it rest in the pigeonhole till to-morrow, then you
may feel like revising it." On the morrow, the of-
fended man took his letter from the pigeonhole, and
without a word tore it into shreds and put it into the
wastebasket. When our passions are too strong for
our wills, such a device as that is a good crutch for weak
human nature.

The cure for anger, or for the habit of hot temper, is

132 Psychology as Applied to Education

to stop the expression. Don't rant, roar, scold, or
swear. Don't strike anybody or anything. Don't
even double up your fist, wrinkle your brow, or grit
your teeth, and with all speed get something else to
do. This is warranted to cure the worst temper be-
tween the poles.

In the case of a child, don't let it hit the cat or the
dog or even a chair or the floor. As soon as it is safe
to do so, force the child to stop crying. I never saw
a child under ten years of age remain " mad " or sad
for ten minutes after his " howl " had been shut off.
I have, on the other hand, seen children cry from pure
spunk for hours, when allowed to do so. Care should
be taken not to attempt to force a child to stop cry-
ing when it is hysterical or in a semihysterical condi-
tion, for then this is demanding the impossible.

Set the child to doing and thinking of something else.
The child that sulks or " flies off the handle " should
be set to work immediately. That is why a sound
whipping, though a barbarous measure, is not an un-
scientific way of cooling anger. It gives the delinquent
something else to think about.

THE SOCIAL EMOTIONS AND INTERESTS

Of all the emotions and impulses, those which we
have termed social are perhaps the most important.
Upon the proper development of these emotions de-
pends to a great extent the character of an individual.

Imitation. — KThe impulse of imitation is perhaps
the most primitive and fundamental of the social im-
pulses.x It is certainly very deep in our nature, and
may be described as an evolution of the fundamental

Control of Impulses and Emotions 133

suggestibility of consciousness. It is very strong in
the gregarious animals as well as in man.
Qmitation is the chief teacher of children up to the
age of five years, and remains an important impulse
throughout life. Thus, speech is learned entirely by
imitation. The child learning to talk will repeat dozens
of times every new word it hears, for apparently no
other reason than the desire to imitate.
The chief drivewheel of fashion is imitation. Many

Xw'

other social impulses and desires, however, cooperate
in the creation of this wonderful institution. Choice
of dishes, smoking, drinking of intoxicants, society
manners, the chief elements of custom and of social
atmosphere, and national characteristics have their
basis in imitation.

Balance between Imitation and Individuality. —
Opposite to imitation is the desire for individuality.
One of the nicest problems for good sense and good
taste is to keep the golden mean between these two
tendencies. To be oneself a positive, self-balanced,
and in the true sense distinguished (that is, individu-
alized) personality, and at the same time to be working
in harmony with one's age and people, is a truly fine
and noble art.

Sympathy. — The matrix of society is sympathy,
love, " charity." The great heresy of the psychology
of a generation ago was the doctrine that all altruism
is a veiled selfishness, that man in reality never seeks
anything else than his own individual happiness. This
theory is as false as it is sordid. The love of others, is
as fundamental in us as the love of self. The mother
loves and lives for her child fully as much as for her-

134 Psychology as Applied to Education

self. In fact, it is doubtful if a perfectly selfish person
ever existed. Your closefisted miser is generally sav-
ing up money for his children. The outcast shares
his crust with a pal. The girl and the boy just before
adolescence are just about as selfish as ordinary human
beings can be, but even they will oftener than not
share their joys with a friend. This is all, to be sure,
explained as very sophisticated and abstruse selfish-
ness, but the evidence must be greatly distorted to get
this result.

The sphere of sympathy is very narrow with the
young child. As he grows older his world expands,
and if he has a normal development, his sympathies
expand with his world. Your selfish man is just a
case of arrested development. The child is cruel to
the butterfly and the squirrel, because he does not
appreciate the suffering he causes.

In this connection it is curious to note how unde-
veloped is the average man's sympathy with the
" finny tribe " and the lower forms of life generally.
Men who have every outward appearance of being
civilized will calmly jab a hook through the nose of a
living frog or living minnow, and trail it through the
water as bait during its death agonies ; and after catch-
ing a fish let this die in torture from lack of oxygen in
its drying gills. If an eye is torn from the socket when
the fish is released from the hook, even this additional
agony does not prompt the fisherman, who seems to
have inherited his feelings from the stone age, merci-
fully to kill the fish. And then the barbarian will
run a rod or chain through the delicate, sensitive
gills in order to carry home his victim.

Control of Impulses and Emotions 135

Importance of the Education of the Social Emotions
and Motives. — Though absolute selfishness is rare or
impossible, relative selfishness is the source of most of
our woe. Man is a social animal, but not social enough.
Hence it becomes the duty of education to strengthen
the social tendencies of human nature. The great
virtue of the kindergarten is that it teaches children
to be social. The ever present lesson which children
should be taught in school in every class and every
subject is how to live together, and thus to be success-
ful members of a community when they are grown up.
Even the games ought to contribute to this end.
Games in which the individual plays for his own ad-
vantage alone should be discouraged, but those in
which he plays for the success of his side, his party,
should be encouraged. The child should learn obedi-
ence, leadership, and loyalty on the playground.

FATIGUE AND INDUSTRY

Though fatigue and industry are not, properly speak-
ing, emotions, the accompanying impulses are so uni-
versal that it seems fitting to discuss them here.

Fatigue, the Impulse to Rest. — The feeling of fa-
tigue (with the impulse to rest) is our system's energy
gauge, by which we are informed as to the amount of
energy available. But, like other gauges, it may be
"set" differently, and it may get out of order.

There are usually three points in a period of exer-
cise (if carried on far enough) at which we have the
negative impulse to stop work. The first has been
called the " tire point." This is usually reached
sooner than the true fatigue point. When our accus-

136 Psychology as Applied to Education

tomed daily task is done, we feel tired, whether our
energy is used up or not. Hence the fact that one is
tired is no sign at all that one has done a fair day's
work. The lady in the drawing room may have as
much strength as the scrub woman on the front steps,
but for all that, the former may feel just as tired out
after an automobile spin as the latter after ten hours
on her knees scrubbing. This is false fatigue, however,
in the former's case, and can and should be overcome.
Hence the fact that we feel tired is no evidence that
we have used up all the energy we should before we
seek rest.

When the current fund of energy has been exhausted,
we have reached the true fatigue point. If we pass
this, we begin to draw on our reserve energy. Take as
an example a person of sedentary habits walking ; soon
after he has walked his accustomed quarter of a mile
he begins to feel tired. He has a strong impulse to
quit walking. But if he persists, he will find that his
tired feeling will soon pass away, and he feels as bright
as ever. He has his " second wind." After a while
he begins to feel tired again. This is the true fatigue
point, and he is wise if he heeds nature's warning.
But if he does not, fchis tired feeling too will pass away,
and he will feel almost preternaturally light and wiry.
This is especially true if he is under some great excite-
ment. The work is now drawing on his reserve
strength. Wonderful feats have been performed in
this " third wind " period. A friend of mine is a poor
speller, but after two o'clock at night she is almost
perfect in the difficult art. Many students are troubled
with sleepiness the whole evening until bedtime. Then

Control of Impulses and Emotions 137

if they persist in studying, the tired feeling soon passes
away, and they are fully awake and capable of their
best work. If work is persisted in long enough after
the true fatigue point, the worker arrives finally at
the point of exhaustion. The manner of arrival
thither is different. Normally it is gradual. Weak-
ness steals by degrees upon the worker. But, especially
under great excitement, the worker may feel at his
best and work with undiminished zest and vigor until
suddenly the collapse comes. There is not a single
erg of energy left. The machine stops.

It is always more or less detrimental to work past
the true fatigue point ; and when the exigencies of
life demand that it be done, care should be taken to
stop as far as possible on the hither side of the point
of exhaustion. The results of working up to the point
of exhaustion are likely to be very serious. Physical
breakdown, nervous prostration, death, may be ex-
pected.

The tire point, or false fatigue point, is perhaps of
greatest interest to most students, for most of us are
prone to stop there in our studies and not work be-
yond it and get our " second wind." There is a cer-
tain mental inertia even in the best of us at times
which must be overcome by sheer force of will.

Industry, the Impulse to Work. — While the im-
pulses to anger, fear, pugnacity, and vanity are likely
to pass their proper bounds, if not inhibited, there
are other impulses which need strengthening so that
they may be well-defined habits in later life. One of
the most important is the habit of industry, the impulse
to work.

138 Psychology as Applied to Education

Young people easily get into the habit of dawdling.
They acquire the habit of " hanging around " without
anything particular to do. They neither work nor
play, but, in the expressive slang of the day, " just
rubber about." The cure for this malady is simple : —

Habituate your pupils to doing with all their might
what they do. Interest them so much that there is
not one waking moment they can afford to lose. And
if you cannot interest them, force them to work any-
way, interest or no interest. They should work with
the whole soul when they do work, and play with the
whole soul when they play.

PERVERTED EMOTIONAL STATES

We have learned in the foregoing that certain emo-
tions and motives and their expressions ought to be
cultivated and others ought to be inhibited. Our
problem is further complicated by the fact that emo-
tions and motives may be cultivated in different di-
rections, and some of these directions are detrimental
and produce abnormal results. We shall now study
some of these perverted emotional states.

Sentimentality. — This rather unfortunate word is
used to express a certain exuberance of emotions and
of expression of emotions, especially emotions of the
tender varieties. If certain emotions, like love, kind-
ness, pity, appreciation of the beautiful, of the noble,
and the sublime, are good, and if we cannot get too
much of them, it is hard to see at first what objection
there can be to sentimentality. But it comes to be
objectionable in this wise. What the emotions gain
in exuberance, in hair-trigger delicate sensitiveness,

Control of Impulses and Emotions 139

they lose in genuineness, in depth. A too florid ex-
pression of an emotion evaporates it. Sentimentality
emasculates character, and the long-haired man and
artistic-tempered girl who go into sublimate rap-
tures over Browning or an old master are almost sure
to be peevish and cranky at home, snippish to superi-
ors, and overbearing to inferiors. The teacher who
cannot talk about the children in her class except as
lambs and angels, and to whom (in public) every-
thing is either " simply perfect" or " perfectly simple"
isn't likely to be good for much when real work and
self-sacrifice are demanded. Cultivate deep feelings
rather than easily excited ones, and express your feelings
only sparingly in words but to the uttermost in deeds.

Morbidity. — In certain directions our emotions and
impulses are easily perverted. We have a desire to
dwell in imagination on the grewsome, horrible, and
ugly. Children's appetite for ghost stories is an ex-
ample. Nothing is more dangerous than to satisfy
this morbid desire, especially in the early adolescent
age. Indulgence in morbid emotions is a great corro-
sive of character, and often produces insanity.

Even the normal emotions of remorse and grief,
when dwelt upon and not kept under control, may de-
generate into morbidity and become positively in-
jurious to the mind.

Remorse. — The ethical value of remorse is easily
understood. Its purpose is achieved and its work is
done, however, as soon as it has prepared deeply enough
the soil of the heart for lasting reform. That mind,
however, is morbid which dwells habitually on the
guilty past. The mind should be trained to look

140 Psychology as Applied to Education

habitually to the future and to take immediate steps
to realize its good resolutions.

Grief. — Grief is detrimental to health, and has no
practical value. Still, it would be unwise to advocate
that this emotion should be suppressed as completely
as possible. Sorrow, especially the sorrow caused by
the loss of loved ones, has a mellowing and refining
influence on character, removing the garish common-
place, the crude self-centering of the spirit. But here,
as in remorse, care should be taken to avoid the habit
of living in the past. The past should be a place to
visit, never the abode of the soul. The living pres-
ent and the ideal future which we have determined to
realize should be the dwelling places of the spirit.

Queer, isn't it, that we love to be miserable ? But
what else keeps the pathetic in literature? The effect
of the pathetic is very much the same as that of grief,
only in a smaller degree. Hence it has a softening,
sensitizing effect on the soul. But the enjoyment of
the pathetic may very easily be overdone. Its effects
then become morbid.

THE HYGIENE OF THE EMOTIONS

Emotions cannot live without expression. They can,
however, live on almost any kind of expression. But
a healthy state of mind can be acquired and maintained
only by giving our emotions their proper expression
along the lines of useful and normal activity.

Always give your good emotions a practical and useful
expression in deeds at the earliest possible opportunity.
And don't wait for this opportunity. Make it. As
Professor James says : " Let the expression be the

Control of Impulses and Emotions 141

least thing in the world — speaking genially to one's
grandmother, or giving up one's seat in a car, if noth-
ing more heroic offers — but let it not fail to take place."
This being satisfied with having good emotions with-
out giving them expression is a fearfully prevalent
disease in our days, and is facilitated by literature and
the drama. In the story and the play we are brought
in sympathy with a host of personalities which it is
impossible for us to help or harm. We find this a
cheap way of enjoying the generous emotions. So we
pity, love, and sympathize with the imaginary char-
acters on the stage or in the novel, bask in the gener-
ous warmth of our own emotions, pat ourselves on our
metaphorical backs for being such sensitive, good-
hearted persons — and let the real, unfortunate neigh-
bors of ours suffer without our aid.

The bookworm, the traditional scholar and pro-
fessor, the artist, the musician, the actor, are characters
that are especially liable to this disease. In fact, our
complex civilization with its multitude of stimuli
and its limitation of avenues of reaction favors every-
where this do-nothing attitude. Modern man tends
to become a man of words and vain speculations.

It is then our duty to make special efforts to resist
this dry rot of character. Never let a desirable emo-
tion pass away without giving it some active expres-
sion. If you cannot save the heroine of the play,
make some real, even if trifling, sacrifice for your neigh-
bor. Take an interest in the institutions of civiliza-
tion around you, churches, charitable societies, social
clubs, commercial clubs, social settlements, and what
not. Let your interest be unselfish and broad, and

142 Psychology as Applied to Education

then act on it. Do something for humanity, remem-
bering that " one of the least of these, my brethren "
is just as truly humanity as the Son of Man himself.

Men engaged in occupations that do not call for
much exercise of the motive side of the soul, as authors,
teachers, scientists, and in a lesser degree other pro-
fessional men, whose motor (will) power is exercised
mostly in a routine fashion, should have some secondary
occupation which brings their active side into use.
A year off now and then spent in politics, exploration,
merchandising, or some form of manual labor would
tend to keep their souls from drying out, and preserve
virility in character.

To maintain virility and vitality of emotions and
genuineness and sincerity of character, always let
action follow every good emotion, and let the distance
between emotion and action be as short as possible.

Exercises

i. Give examples from history of each of the emotions dis-
cussed in this chapter.

2.. Formulate into a terse statement the law of control of
emotions, impulses, and desires by their expression.

3. State some peculiarity or practical observation about
each of the emotions discussed in this chapter.

4. Add some point of value to the discussion of some topic
in this chapter.

5. What can you say in favor of and against building air-
castles ?

6. John is afraid of the dark. Once, at night, when half a mile
from home, he thought he saw something white coming after
him. He began to walk a little faster, because he was afraid.
How did he end his adventure? Why?

7. Bill didn't mean to have a fight with Tom, and he only

Control of Impulses and Emotions 143

struck Tom's cheek with a spitball " for fun." Tom was not
angry, just slightly irritated, so he turned to Bill and said
sharply, " Quit that, will you?" Quoth Bill, " I'll quit when I
choose to." " Oh ! cut that out, or you will be sorry," retorts
Tom hotly. Conclude the story, and discuss its psychology.

8. Give some device for encouraging industry in children.

9. What do you think of Poe's stories as literature for school
use?

10. At what age are we most likely to be sentimental ? Give
an example.

CHAPTER XV
CULTURE

THE Hand, the Head, and the Heart! To do,
to know, and to appreciate ! These, as we have seen,
form the triangle of education. He who does some-
thing skillfully, knows an art; he who knows anything
systematically and organically, possesses a science;
he who feels with developed appreciation is in pos-
session of — what? There is no universally accepted
term, but the best candidate for the place seems to be
the word culture.

The term " the fine arts " is unfortunate in this
connection. The fine arts are more than arts; they
have a cultural value as well. The question is not
simply about something to be done, but also and chiefly
about something to be appreciated. Our business in
aesthetic education is chiefly with this element. Not
" Can the pupil produce something beautiful? " but
" Can the pupil enjoy the higher and purer form of
beauty? " should be with us the greater question.

THE INNER SIDE OF EXPERIENCE

The inner, or subjective aspect of every mental
event is a feeling. The outer, or objective aspect is
the thought. Thus, in reading a poem I am thinking
the poet's thoughts after him. This is thinking, the

144

Culture 145

objective side of what happens in my mind. But at
the same time my soul burns with the emotions evoked
by the poem. This is the subjective, or inner side of
my experience.

Thought and Feeling Contrasted. — Thoughts are
common property. When not led astray by its feel-
ings, every sane mind must get the same conclusion
from the same premises, if it thinks at all. The philos-
opher will say that it is not I, but Universal Man
that thinks in and through me when I say that 2x2 = 4.
We do not make truth, we simply discover it ; it is not
our individual property, it belongs to the race, nay,
to all Mind.

Feelings, on the other hand, are the individual's
own. We can be quite certain that two persons never
yet had precisely the same feelings. That as a gen-
eral rule we can foretell how an event will affect nine
out of ten persons depends simply on the fact that
individuals are so much alike.

The Pedagogy of Feeling and the Pedagogy of
Science. — As a result, the pedagogy of feeling pre-
sents a difficulty unknown to the pedagogy of science.
In all science there is little danger of going wrong in
one's development ; and in pure science there is abso-
lutely none. One either thinks right or not at all.
Either you get algebra, or you don't; you can't get
perverted algebra. But in the realm of our emotions
we know of no unquestioned standard. Hence the
opportunity for heresies and perversions is unbounded.
That your emotional nature is fast developing and get-
ting an education is not necessarily a good thing.
You may be evolving in the wrong direction. A dili-

146 Psychology as Applied to Education

gent education may result in bad and perverted taste
just as readily as in good taste.

THE NORM

There is difficulty in getting a norm, or standard,
for our emotions. Some, in fact, assert that there
is none. They insist that every one has a right to like
what he pleases. This has found expression in the
familiar Latin proverb : De gustibus non disputandum.
Most of us, however, will agree that this is the very
opposite of the truth. There should be discussion
about tastes.

That which is injurious to the preservation or de-
velopment of man as an individual and society is in
bad taste. This will be admitted without discussion.
The Chinese dwarfed feet, social pleasures that include
intoxication, indecent pictures, and lascivious literature
are all in bad taste, because they are injurious to the
physical and moral health of man.

That which does not harmonize with its purpose
is in bad taste. A bonnet is meant to protect the head
from sun and cold. If it does not do this, but is a mere
excuse for the display of trimmings, it is in bad taste.

We dare not say that what is unnatural is always in
bad taste or that the natural is without exception in
good taste, for man when civilized is an unnatural
animal. It is natural to satisfy the appetites when one
has the opportunity ; and the child and the savage act
in this respect naturally. But in spite of this, it would
not be " good form " for one when invited to dinner
to rush to the table and gorge oneself as soon as the
opportunity offered.

Culture 147

We dare say, however, that all that is cmfo'natural
is ugly and depraved, for what is antinatural is also
in disharmony with its purpose.

These rules, however, touch only the rim of the
subject ; they tell us of some things that are not in good
taste. There is not, in fact, nor can there be from the
very nature of the case, any formulated standard of
good taste that is absolutely infallible and applicable
to all cases. We have to fall back on this principle :
That is in good taste which strong, healthy, and symmetri-
cally developed minds find agreeable and enjoyable.

In the application of this rule comes the rub. We
can apply only rule-of-thumb standards in determining
what is healthy and symmetrical. On this score the
opinions of mankind are continually changing, — we
hope in a direction towards absolute truth.

The standard of good taste applied by the masses is
simply public opinion. This changes continually. No
better proof of this could be demanded than the con-
stant fluctuations of fashion. How atrociously ugly
are the fashions of ten years ago ! Ten years hence the
same will be said of the fashions of to-day ! Still, we
hope that the history of fashion shows progress toward
better things.

AN ANALYSIS OF CULTURE

The result of the training of the feelings is called
culture. Refinement is almost a synonym. True
culture may be thus analyzed : —

(a) Sensitiveness. Feelings, whether lower or higher,
come in response to a stimulus. The more alive we
are, the more fully organized we are, the less stimulus

148 Psychology as Applied to Education

it takes to " set us off." Other things being equal, the
more sensitive a person is, the more cultured he is.
The healthily cultured person is easily touched by
the sight of misery. He need not see a person on
the point of dying of starvation to be moved to
compassion.

(b) Balance. The truly cultured person does not
go to extremes. He keeps his balance and his bearings.
There is a quiet dignity about him which forbids emo-
tional excesses.

(c) Animal nature under control. The substratum
of man is animal. The very essence of boorishness, of
lack of culture, is lack of control of the animal in man.
It is a false culture which would eliminate the animal in
man. This was the ideal of the society woman in the
middle part of the nineteenth century, an ethereal,
fragile creature who " partook of food " solely from a
sense of duty, and tried to forget that she had muscles.
The healthy taste of mankind revolts at such unnatural-
ness. But the lower nature, though strong, should be
bridled, and the reins should always be in the hand of
our spiritual nature. Hence the dinner table is a fine
test of refinement. Gourmandizing is proof positive
of lack of culture. Here a curious psychological fact
meets us. Boorish behavior observed in another is
sure to disgust a person of any refinement. But even
persons of considerable culture fail to notice anything
particularly disgusting in their own transgressions of
this character. The test of culture is that the truly
refined person has himself so well in hand, and is so
thoughtful of the feelings of others, that he will keep the
reins on himself taut all the time.

Culture 149

(d) A taste for the simple as well as for the complex.
The barbarian can enjoy the simple and obvious only.
His literature is strong and direct, and deals with the
primary passions and impulses of men as manifested
in a simple unsophisticated society. But as mankind
advances in culture, it becomes interested in the subtler,
the more complex, forces and phases of human nature,
and in the more complicated situations that advanced
civilized society presents. It advances from Victor
Hugo, Dickens, and Moliere, who deal with elementary
obvious human nature, to Balzac, Henry James, and
Walter Pater, who conduct us through labyrinths of
psychic phenomena.

But that man is narrow and one-sided in his culture
who has lost his interest in the open highways of the
soul, for the lure of its mysterious byways. The well-
balanced man always retains a supreme interest in the
direct and ingenuous side of human nature. This
artificial overculture which can no longer enjoy folk
songs and tales of adventure, but must needs have only
grand opera and novels of psychological analysis is
just as narrow as its opposite, — frank ignorance of
higher art, — and what is worse, is unnatural. Igno-
rance is simply lack of development ; the man of arti-
ficial, superfine discriminations is the product of a
wrong development.

MEANS OF ACQUIRING CULTURE

Value of Interests outside of One's Vocation. —

Where should we seek for the means, the training, that
will give us the right kind of culture?
It is a popular dictum to-day that every occupation,

150 Psychology as Applied to Education

every study has its culture value, and that it is there-
fore a waste of time to study anything merely for culture.
Every one is urged to find his culture in his vocation.
Latin and Greek, literature, music and art are super-
fluous ; for, it is said, one may gain just as much culture
in bookkeeping or dentistry or mining.

Now, it is true that most fields of human activity
have some cultural value, and it is most true that we do
not appreciate enough the cultural value of common
and near things and vocations ; but it is decidedly not
true that all occupations are equal in culture value.
The factory worker, the miner, and in fact the majority
of the rank and file of the industrial army have to spend
their working hours in surroundings and activities that
are often bare of nourishment to the soul. They need
some interests outside and above their daily drudgery,
and their education ought to be broad enough to furnish
them with an opportunity. And even those of us who,
like the musician and the architect, have vocations that
are surcharged with interest, whose workaday atmosphere
is full of culture, should make it a practice to have some
interest outside of our vocations to save our minds from
getting stale. No man is more tiresome than he who
talks shop all the time. The farmer who cannot talk
about anything but crops, the teacher who always talks
pedagogy, the lawyer who always speaks as if he were
addressing a jury, what insufferable bores they are to us !
And then think what thrice insufferable bores they must
be to themselves! We all need a wider culture than
that which appertains merely to our vocation. The
idea that from whatever we study and do, if we can be
interested in it, if we appreciate it, we gain just as much

Culture 151

culture as from anything else, is false, because it does
make a difference what we appreciate. The person who
can appreciate nothing higher than a beefsteak is not
as cultured as he who appreciates music. And more,
the appreciation of music is no substitute for the ap-
preciation of nature. He has not entered upon his full
human heritage who has failed to find something to
appreciate in every department of his soul.

Value of a Broad Education. — The old American
idea and ideal of education, of a broad and liberal cul-
ture, is after all the right one. The notion that each
one of us shall find his culture exclusively in his own
narrow occupation is a reaction to the Hindu caste
system. No person can be said to have a liberal cul-
ture who is not trained in language, in literature, in
mathematics, in the natural sciences, and in the social
sciences. Just how big the dose should be in each
department is another question, but any education
which allows the pupil to grow up ignorant of any of
these lines of culture has failed in its mission. Right
here let me say that Latin and Greek cannot be sneered
out of higher liberal education by the argument that
they are useless subjects in the practical world ; for in
the narrow sense of the vocationalist every subject in
the high school course is just as useless as is Latin.
Not one pupil in one hundred except those who become
teachers will ever get any practical use from his algebra,
history, or nine tenths of his geography and arithmetic.
Only those who become farmers will have any practical
use for what they learn of agriculture. Manual train-
ing will be of no direct practical use even to the pupil
who is to spend his life as a carpenter or furniture maker,

152 Psychology as Applied to Education

for the operations in building houses are quite different
from those employed in the school shop in making a
pin tray, and the modern furniture maker works en-
tirely with machinery. Now, I am not saying that
every high school pupil should study Latin, or even
that any Latin should be taught there at all ; but I say
only that the attack on Latin that is now being made is
not rational. And then let me whisper this to you:
Nine tenths of those who attack the so-called classics
in high school and college are those who never studied
the classics themselves beyond a miserly high school
course, and perhaps not even that. Before a man is
allowed to set himself up as a judge to condemn the
classics he should be required to translate at sight, say,
a chapter of Tacitus. A great silence would fall on
the arena of classical onslaught.

Exercises

1. What is there worthy of the appreciation of a truly cul-
tured person in your present surroundings?

2. Culture may be divided into aesthetic and social culture.
In what does social culture consist?

3. What is aesthetic culture?

4. Mention some social gathering you have lately attended,
the purpose of which was mainly social enjoyment, and hence an
expression of social culture.

5. What was your most recent school exercise in aesthetic
culture ?

CHAPTER XVI

HABIT
THE PHYSICAL BASIS OF HABIT

THE most fruitful theory of physiological psychology
is that of the physical basis of habit and memory.
When a current of neural energy passes through a
nerve center, it leaves an impression, a trace, a " path "
behind. When the next current comes to the same
region, other things being equal, it will follow the path
of the former current, unless otherwise directed by the
will. For every current that passes over the " path,"
the "path" becomes deeper and more marked, and
the stronger must the conflicting force be to divert the
current from the beaten track. As our actions are de-
termined by the course that the motor neural currents
take through the nerve centers, this is evidently the
physical basis of habit.

Care should be taken, however, to note that this idea
of paths in the nerve centers is entirely theoretical.
There is no evidence from dissection or microscopy to
sustain it. And though the evidence as to the existence
of these paths is very satisfactory, we have not even a
theory as to the nature of the paths. All we know even
by circumstantial evidence is that currents tend to
follow the paths of former currents, and that the more
a " path " has been traveled, the stronger is the prob-
ability that the next current will take it.

153

154 Psychology as Applied to Education

THE TWO CLASSES OF HABITS

Motive Habits. — Two fundamentally distinct men-
tal phenomena are known under the name of habit.
Acquired appetites and other acquired desires are
called habits, as for example the drink habit, hot tem-
per, a taste for literature, cleanliness. These are im-
pulses to action and hence furnish motor energy for
action. These we may call motive habits.

Technical Habits. — Skating, bicycling, the skill of
the oculist, the art of the bricklayer and the blacksmith,
are not, strictly speaking, motives for action at all.
There is no impulse in his skill which drives the skater
to skate. His desire to skate is quite distinct from
his knowledge of skating. Still, thus far even such skill
is an impulse ; when he begins to skate, every movement
will become a stimulus for the next. Hence even these
habits may be called impulses. But not in our ordinary
sense. There is no moral motive power in them.
Habit when equivalent to skill or art means simply a
certain coordination of muscular movements, and has
no emotional value or motive force as have the true
motive habits, such as the habit of intemperance. Let
us call these habits, then, technical habits.

Often the two classes are mixed or rather coupled with
one another. Thus, we say a person has the habit of
gambling with cards. He has a desire for gambling,
and he has skill in playing cards. But it is evident
that the two are actually distinct affairs.

Happily for the simplicity of psychology, the laws
of the two lie quite parallel, .so that with one or two
exceptions we may easily discuss them together.

Habit 155

FUNCTION OF HABIT IN THE ECONOMY OF LIFE

Without habit we should be doomed to spend our
lives on trifles. The mechanical business of living,
dressing and undressing, walking, eating, and the like,
is very considerable in amount and very complex in
nature. To this must be added the mechanical element
in one's vocation. Think of all the complicated move-
ments a housewife, a blacksmith, or a tailor must exe-
cute in a day. If every movement had to be directed
in detail by consciousness, our attention would have
enough to do with a small fraction of the mechanical
routine of life.

Again, it is not possible to coordinate activities as
perfectly when directed by attention as when done
from babit. The trained penman, pianist, or athlete
can produce more perfect results than any one who
tries to do the same thing with conscious attention.

That which has become habitual is educated out of
consciousness into subconsciousness. Hence the meas-
ure of perfection of a habit as skill is the absolute ab-
sence of the necessity of attention.

Habit an Acquired Impulse. — The story of habit is
just the reverse of that of native reactions. The native
impulses start as subconscious and " blind," and gradu-
ate later as desires in full consciousness and with con-
scious purpose. When we first practice an art, on the
other hand, we are painfully conscious of the whole
thing, including the purpose ; but by degrees our atten-
tion can leave the subject until finally the acts may be
performed as mechanically as reflex action.

In man's almost boundless capacity for forming arti-

156 Psychology as Applied to Education

ficial reactions — habits — he has a tremendous supe-
riority over the lower animals, which have a very limited
ability to form habits, that is, to acquire new reactions.

LAWS OF HABIT

Fundamental Law of Habit. — Since the nerve centers
are living matter, the cells of which they are composed
are continually being renewed. Worn-out tissue is
being removed and new tissue put in its place. In so
doing, the tendency in living matter is slowly to ob-
literate any changes from the normal. The " paths "
are slowly obliterated, and we start to forget a habit
the moment we have formed it. Hence the necessity
of constant practice for the pianist, for example, to
maintain his skill.

Thus, the fundamental law of habit formation is very
simple : Practice; and the fundamental law of habit
breaking is : Quit.

There is one way and only one in which to acquire
a habit. It is by practice, repetition of the act itself.
Only by skating can one learn to skate, only by getting
into the water and pawing about with arms and feet
can one learn to swim. Reading about bicycles and
bicycling will never teach us how to ride a " wheel,"
and the study of all the Latin grammar in the world
will never teach us how to write Latin. Fit faber
fabricando. Only by doing do we learn to do.

This is not denying that it is profitable and wise to
study about the subject and to get as much theory as
possible.- It is well to know which side of the skate
should be up, and what is the proper way to splash in
the water when swimming. It pays to study psy-

Habit 157

chology and method before attempting to teach ; but
don't, please don't think you know how to teach
because you can theorize ever so beautifully about
it. But to know the theory of teaching will shorten
your apprenticeship and save you from many mis-
takes.

When asked how he acquired his marvelous skill as
a surgeon the famous oculist replied, " By spoiling
a peck of eyes." By careful study the number of eyes
sacrificed may be lessened, and by neglect of theory
the peck of eyes may easily grow into a bushel.

The negative side of the rule likewise admits of no
exception. It is absolutely necessary to abandon the
practice that one wishes to unlearn. To be sure, medi-
cal science may cure the appetite for liquor by medicine,
but even then it is necessary to stop drinking.

It seems well established that it is possible to get rid
of a motive habit in an instant. There are many seem-
ingly well-authenticated cases of persons who have been
reformed in an instant by religious conversion — not
simply so that they got new ideals, but so that they
actually lost instantaneously their depraved appetites
and desires. Cases of great psychic shocks seem some-
times to produce the same result.

Even, however, though we admit the possibility of
losing an undesirable habit in an instant, it remains
true that the ordinary way of getting rid of a bad desire
(motive habit) and the only way of getting rid of a bad
technical habit (for example, poor penmanship) is the
slow return to the normal, the slow re-formation of
the reactions which nature provides when we cease to
practice the habit.

158 Psychology as Applied to Education

Secondary Laws. — There are many canny and
shrewd observations made by moralists, preachers,
and psychologists on the subject of our habits. Here
are a few: —

(a) Prepare to pass safely over the critical period.
It is easy to act on a good resolution just after it is
made. To those who are addicted to New Year's
resolutions the first of January is a saintly day. But
this cannot be said of the second of January. When the
emotion that accompanied the resolution passes away,
as it must, then comes the critical period. The habit
is not yet established, it is foreign to our being, and
there is no emotional support. When the smoker
resolves to stop smoking, it is " dead easy " to refrain
the first day, and perhaps even the first month. But
soon the time comes when the holy ardor of reform is
gone, but the desire for a smoke is still as strong as
ever. Then the good resolution is generally shattered.

If you really want to stop smoking, prepare to pass
over this critical period. Tell all your friends of your
resolution, and brag of your strong will power. Wager
with some one to forfeit a goodly sum if you once more
touch the weed. Stay as much as possible in company
and in places where smoking is out of the question.
Don't keep tobacco in the house.

(&) Make no exceptions. Exceptions are expensive.
When breaking an old habit especially, exceptions are
more than expensive. They are fatal. When we stop
practicing a habit the old habit channels are slowly
filling up. But here comes an " exception " along the
old channel, sweeping it clear with one " flushing."
Innumerable instances might be related, like that of

Habit 159

John B. Gough, of persons addicted to liquor who, after
years of abstinence, in a weak moment have taken " just
one glass." Instantly the poor fellow is back in the
bonds of the drink habit. The one exception has de-
stroyed all that years of abstinence have built up, and
opened up the neural channels of a depraved appetite.

(c) Take every opportunity to practice a new habit,
and make opportunities when these do not spontaneously
offer themselves. This complements on the positive
side what has just been said on the negative. Repeti-
tion alone makes habit, skill, mechanical memory.
Practice, repetition, drill, not strenuous resolution and
emotional enthusiasm, give us the art, the skill, that
we want. Hence, if you want to learn to do a thing,
begin to do it. Repeat. If you are short of oppor-
tunities, make them. Set apart a few moments every
day for your exercise. If you want to qualify for the
village band, practice awhile on your cornet every day.
Your neighbor may feel like mobbing me for giving you
this advice, but it is nevertheless the only way to suc-
cess.

(d) Be exact in your practice. In engraving a char-
acter, if the engraver is careless and lets his instrument
scratch anywhere and anyhow, his work will be a fail-
ure. So in carving out our habit channels, if we
" carve " ever so diligently, and carve in the wrong
place, we are doomed to disappointment. Slovenly,
careless, inexact repetition is not only worthless, it is
positively injurious. When bent on acquiring some
skill or art, do your practicing right, or don't do it at
all. And it may be noted that it does not matter in
acquiring a habit whether we do a thing willingly or

160 Psychology as Applied to Education

under compulsion, nor whether we attend to what we
are doing or not. All that counts is the act, and nothing
counts but the act. Some psychologists tell us that
attention is essential, and that we will learn the habit
with a speed in proportion to the amount of attention
we pay to our practice. This is a mistake. There is
no virtue in attention in habit getting. Only this : To
acquire any skill it is of vital importance that we per-
form the act exactly right in practice. Now, this often
necessitates attention. The piano student who plays
his exercise wrong is told by his teacher : " You must
have failed to pay attention when practicing." And
this is probably true. But what hurt the pupil was not
directly his lack of attention, but the result of this lack
of attention, viz., that he practiced incorrectly. Pay
enough attention and exercise enough care to make
your repetition of the act exact.

HABIT AND AGE

If we are allowed to make two assumptions, we can
make psychology and physiology agree beautifully in
this matter of habit. Physiological psychologists have
assumed, though they have never proven anatomically
(a) that the neural substance is plastic; and (6) that
this plasticity decreases as the age of the individual
increases. Now, it is a fact that in childhood we ac-
quire habits very easily, and also lose them readily;
while as we grow older we find it gradually harder to ac-
quire new habits, but also that it is easier to keep them ;
and in extreme old age it becomes impossible to learn
and impossible to forget what was learned in younger
years.

Habit 161

The Relation of Habit to Education. — This, of
course, is simply the scientific basis for the doctrine
established long before there was any kind of book
psychology : that youth is the time for education.

(a) We should not attempt to train a child in any
habit or skill before (1) his muscular and nervous
systems are developed enough to perform movements
of such complexity and precision, and (2) he has the
ability to keep with reasonable practice the habit
he acquires.

I knew a child of -four years who memorized all the
names of the states of the Union and their capitals.
But when he began attending school he had forgotten
them all. As mechanical memory and habit are identi-
cal, this is an example in point.

(6) The mechanical part of education is acquired
with least effort in late childhood and early youth.
Penmanship, drawing, singing, elements of playing
musical instruments, dancing, swimming, skating,
bicycling, deportment in society, the elementary use
of common tools, and all of that element in book studies
which requires much mechanical memory, are acquired
best and with least effort before the age of sixteen.

HABITS AS ELEMENTS IN CHARACTER

The foundation of a good character lies in good habits.
In the first place, we must be equipped with a set of
technical habits which take the drudgery of routine
work out of conscious, voluntary life and make it
mechanical. Without a set of such habits our whole
life would be spent in the mere routine of existence.
Dressing and eating would occupy our whole attention.

162 Psychology as Applied to Education

Secondly, our everyday morality should be habitual.
There should be no necessity of appealing to the will
at all. A properly trained adult should do the right
thing from habit because it never occurs to him to do
anything else. It seems only natural to him to do the
right. In nine hundred ninety-nine cases out of a
thousand he does what is right without ever thinking
of the possibility of doing anything else.

Personal Habits. — Personal habits should be ac-
quired before adolescence, if conditions are ideal. By
this we mean habits of behavior in company, of dress,
manners at the table, carriage of the body, and habits
of personal cleanliness. It is possible to get the habits,
the air, the behavior that should go with a cultured,
refined, high-bred gentleman or lady later in life ; but
if this training was not acquired in early youth, there
is usually something exotic and artificial about the
result.

Moral Habits. — Moral habits should, of course, be
inculcated from earliest childhood, but the vital age
for the formation of moral habits is early adolescence
and the half dozen years that follow it. But this
is precisely the age when it is most natural to scorn
conventionalities and to have a burning desire for
originality and individuality at any price. Now, while
independence and individuality are fine things, one may
easily pay too high a price for them. Here the author-
ity and diplomacy of parents and teachers should be
directed towards the securing of correct moral habits,
especially during early youth. Contrary to common
opinion, there is no necessity of allowing the young
blades to sow their wild oats. True, great men often

Habit 163

have seeded acres of this pernicious cereal, but they
became great and good not because of it but in spite of
it. Many and many a man, great, small, and middle-
sized, has failed to grow to his full stature because of
his " free and unconventional " life in youth. Worst
of all, some varieties of wild oats do not mature before
late in Me. An acquaintance of mine, a man of great
ability and strong passions and appetites, lived a " gen-
erous " youth of this variety. He was not averse to
a " spree " at times, but very rarely could the effects
be detected the next day ; in fact he was never intoxi-
cated up to, or rather down to, the policeman's stand-
ard. But he straightened out when his college days
were over, and became a very prominent clergyman.
To all appearance he had mastered his bad habits, and
now lived a blameless life. In reality he was keeping
up his bibulous habits in secret. But the day of reckon-
ing came. His indulgence was slowly undermining not
only his physical system but also his power of self-
control. When the afternoon of life set in, he found
himself unable to cope with his appetite any longer.
He succumbed. To-day he fills a drunkard's grave.
Danger of Habits becoming Masters. — The daily
routine of life and of business should be carried on as
automatically as possible. For every ounce of energy
we save from the business of running the mechanical
part of existence, we have an ounce more of energy
for higher things. But there is always the danger that
habits, from dominating the nervous mechanism, will
begin to dominate the personality. Such an ossified
character is very comfortable, but wholly contemptible.
The possessor loses the ability to change his opinion,

164 Psychology as Applied to Education

.to make a new initiative, to take a fresh view, to do
anything unbiased or unprejudiced.

Hence the cure : Don't allow yourself to fall into
a rut. Take a vacation from your regular business at
times and engage in some other work (not play) for a
month or a year. Have some recreation or amateur
pursuit as different as possible from your regular busi-
ness. Take up a new language or a new science every
few years throughout life. Review your college course
with your son when he goes to college. Thus we might
go on indefinitely. The nub of it is to get out of the
rut — not permanently, for the rut serves the same
purpose as the rail to the locomotive, but just long
enough to prove our humanity.

Exercises and Illustrations

1 . Prove that mechanical memory and habit are, in reference
to teaching, identical.

2. Which is the better way of memorizing the multiplica-
tion table : repeat it over and over again as fast as one can
until learned, or repeat it once a day until learned, or repeat
it half a dozen times a day until learned?

3. Why is " tapering off " usually a deceptive plan in getting
rid of a bad habit?

4. How would you correct a pupil's bad carriage?

5. How would you habituate yourself to rising early in the
morning?

6. Illustrate the psychology of habit by the formation of new
channels for water in a delta of a river at flood times.

7. Illustrate by a character in history: (a) the power of
habits; (6) one of the secondary laws of habit.

8. Define : habit, custom.

CHAPTER XVII

IDEALS, OR RATIONAL INTERESTS
IMPULSE AS A MOTIVE FOR ACTION

Instinct. — In the preceding chapters we have studied
our lower interests, or motives. We have found that
our lowest fully conscious motive for action (lowest in
the sense of least evolved) is instinct, or blind impulse.
This is a mere pressure in consciousness toward a cer-
tain activity. The person subject to the instinct has
no purpose for his action. The stimulus that brings
the instinct into action is generally a physical stimulus
of nerve endings. Thus the stimulus of an empty
stomach brings on the instinctive craving for food
which we call hunger. But sometimes an " idea " may
be the stimulus for an instinct. Thus at hearing a
threat, one will quite instinctively put one's self in an
attitude of defense. Here the stimulus is not the sound,
but the idea conveyed by the threatening words.

Desire. — Next comes desire. A desire is an instinct
plus a purpose. The object of the desire is always in
the future. The motive force in a desire is the present
longing for something thought attainable in the future.
Thus the boy who gets up at three o'clock in the morn-
ing to go fishing has no interest in the walk to the boat,
certainly finds no interest, no motive, no delight in
breaking off his sweet slumber at so unseasonable an

165

166 Psychology as Applied to Education

hour, but the delectable joy of fishing which lies beyond
the vigil and the walk has attraction — motive power
- enough to drive him out of bed and into the boat.
Hence a desire is a pressure in consciousness towards
the obtaining of the result of some action.

Impulse dependent on a Stimulus. — In one respect,
then, all actions determined by impulse are alike.
The awakening of the impulse depends on the presence
of the appropriate stimulus. Hence all such actions,
whether from desire or instinct, are determined from
without. You see an orange. This sets the imagina-
tion to work, and you enjoy the imaginary pleasure of
eating an orange. This forms the stimulus that ex-
cites the desire to get the real orange. If you act on
this desire, your act is wholly determined by the pres-
ence of that orange. A child happens to think of the
pleasure of coasting. If the image thus awakened is a
stronger stimulus to the awakening of impulse than that
in which he is engaged — say sawing wood, — he will
leave the woodpile and start for his sled and hill. As
long as a person's activity is wholly determined by
impulse, he is at the mercy of his environment. In
whatever direction the stimulus of his environment is
strongest he must needs follow. Given the mechanism
and the nature of the environment, the resulting ac-
tivity is perfectly predicable.

The images of future pleasures and pains form, thus,
a very important class of stimuli for action. In fact
they are always the stimuli in the case of desires. As
images of pleasures and pains become weaker the farther
off the reality is for which they stand, the rule is that
persons determined wholly by impulse always choose

Ideals, or Rational Interests 167

the smaller proximate good in preference to the greater
good farther in the future. The boy saving up dimes
for a bicycle is very likely to spend it on candy and
circus tickets because the hope of a brief taste of ele-
phants and gumdrops ten minutes away produces a
much more vivid stimulus to activity than the distant
hopes of years of " century runs."

The Intermittent Nature of Impulse. — In both
instinct and desire the motive, or interest, is indis-
solubly connected with the accompanying feeling, and
varies in strength directly with the feeling. In fact
it were hardly inaccurate to say that the motive force
of both instinct and desire is the feeling. Thus, the
longing for food is precisely proportional to the sharp-
ness of the feeling of hunger. The more bitterly one
feels the insult, the more powerfully is one tempted to
" get even " by retaliation. As soon as the poignant
feeling of anger cools down, the desire to inflict pain on
one's adversary vanishes.

Feelings vary continually. They seldom last long,
and while they last, they have an ever varying intensity.
Since the motive power of a desire or an impulse varies
directly as the feeling, the result is that action from in-
stinct or desire is always intermittent.

If the present longing were the highest motive we
possessed, human achievements would never amount to
very much. A young man starts out to get an educa-
tion. An education seems to him desirable. As he
takes the train for college he is fairly burning with
longing for learning. But how long will this longing
last? To be precise, we must admit that it cannot
possibly last longer than until he falls asleep. But it

168 Psychology as Applied to Education

will reappear as soon as he awakes and hold an inter-
mittent sway with hunger, thirst, worries in passing
examinations, and a thousand other feelings for, per-
haps, the first week. Then the desire for learning will
fail to appear. Homesickness, a proclivity for sports,
pure laziness, or some other desire will occupy the
boards to the utter exclusion of erudite longings.
Frankly, he finds learning a bore, and though he knows
that an education will be of inestimable value to him,
he can't yearn for it. If desire is the highest motive
of which he is capable, that is where he " fails," unless
parental compulsion carries him along.

The savage is actuated mainly by desires and in-
stincts. Hence, when hungry, he will hunt assiduously,
and even when not hungry, if a specially tempting
opportunity comes to him, he will work hard for food,
because there is at such times in him a strong longing
for the future feast. But when his hunger is satisfied
and there are no unusual inducements, the longings for
rest, for society, or for war are usually stronger than
the longing for provisions even though he knows in a
cold, intellectual way that before another course of the
sun he will again be hungry.

A HIGHER MOTIVE FOR ACTION, RATIONAL INTEREST

If desires were our highest motives, we should all be
in the condition of the savage or the irresponsible
schoolboy. But there is a higher motive. There is an
interest in us that is not bound to our longings, our yearn-
ings, our emotions. We have the power of choosing ends
for our activity, and these ends have a motive force
quite independent of our desires, that is, of our longings.

Ideals, or Rational Interests 169

Thus the studefit, if he is of the right sort, will continue
his studies just as faithfully after the bloom of his ro-
mantic longing for an education has worn off. The
farmer will get up early and lie down late, and fill in
the time between with hard work for many a weary day
because he has made it his abiding purpose to raise a
crop that summer. His longings and yearnings shift
a thousand times during the summer, and for long
stretches of time he never thinks of the joy the crop will
give him, but still he keeps on steadily, persistently
working for the end he has set himself.

A man gets his fishhook in his finger above the barb.
He takes his knife and deliberately cuts out the hook.
The marvelously simple hedonistic psychology explains
this action thus : More pain would have resulted from
having the hook in the finger permanently than was
caused by cutting it out; his desire for the greater
quantity of pleasure was greater than his desire for the
less quantity; hence the hook was cut out. This is
juggling with the meaning of the word desire. When
the knife approached the quivering flesh, there was
only one desire, longing, conscious pressure, in that
man's mind of any appreciable magnitude and that
was don't. He knew, of course, perfectly well, that it
was best for him to get that hook out, however it
smarted, but this was a cold, unemotional intellectuality,
and there was not room in his conscious field for any
other emotional motive than the vivid shrinking of
quick flesh from the knife.

There was only one desire there, and that was all
against the surgical operation. And still the man, if
strong-minded, acted contrary to this desire, for he had

170 Psychology as Applied to Education

a motive that did not depend on feeling, he had a ra-
tional interest which was stronger than the emotional
interest.

This motive which is independent of feeling we have
called the ideal or rational interest.

Rational Interests the Result of Deliberate Choice. —
Man, then, has the power to choose ends for his activity,
and to endow these purposes of his with a motive force
that is wholly independent of impulse. These chosen
purposes, or, as we shall call them here, ideals or ra-
tional interests, differ fundamentally from desires
and instincts. A desire chooses us ; not we the desire.
I like oranges, not because I once chose to like oranges,
but just because it is a part of my nature to like or-
anges. We get angry, we desire to imitate, we love,
we hate, not because we have " made up our minds "
so to do, but because when the proper stimulus comes
upon us, the desire follows, wholly irrespective of our
will. It is not so with our ideals. We do not have
them until we have chosen them. All purposes are
not chosen purposes. Some we get gratis with our
desires. But until a purpose is chosen as a rational
interest, it has no motive force beyond what the emo-
tion gives to it. It is in the choosing that the purpose
gets that independent-of-the-feeling energy that ele-
vates it into an ideal.

By their very nature, all desires are bound to fluc-
tuate. If by affection we mean an emotion, there is
no such thing as " constant affection." The most
amorous swain will lose momentarily every vestige
of love for his lady by such a trifling thing as a carpet
tack driven three quarters of an inch into his foot.

Ideals, or Rational Interests 171

As far as his feelings are concerned, that carpet tack
will for a few seconds fill his whole being. But ideals
need not fluctuate. We may follow the same ideals
for weeks, months, years, yes, for life.

Exercises

In the following determine whether the act is done from im-
pulse or rational interest :

1. Sneezing.

2. Eating dinner.

3. Studying this lesson.

4. Going to a reception.

5. Attending some function " from a sense of duty."

6. A man's drinking until he becomes intoxicated.

7. The boy's good behavior, because he fears he will other-
wise be punished.

8. Washington as commander in the Revolutionary War.

9. Benedict Arnold, when he betrayed West Point into the
hands of the enemy.

10. An army charging a fortified position.

11. An army retreating step by step in good order.

12. Training for a game.

CHAPTER XVIII

OUR SELVES
OUR RATIONAL INTERESTS, IDEAL SELVES

WE have seen that human activity of the highest
type is not determined by impulse. Man chooses an
ideal, and having determined that it is the best for
him, he follows it both when it agrees with his feel-
ings and when it does not. Very often lines of ac-
tivity, not conducive to his chosen purpose, feel more
attractive than his ideal, but he has the mysterious
power of determining his activity without reference
to present feelings.

Another way of expressing the same truth is this:
When man becomes explicitly rational, he gains the
power of objectifying himself, i.e. of forming a dis-
tinct notion of himself. Now, if he is worthy of his
high dignity of rationality, he will cease to be controlled
by whatever stimulus happens to be the strongest,
he will cease to be controlled by his momentary im-
pulses, he will take an inventory of his present powers

\and opportunities (his present self and environment)
and construct an imaginary future self that he deems

j worthy of his best efforts. He will cletermine to real-
ize this future self, and from that moment, this future
self becomes the supreme motive from which all his
rational activity springs. Such a future self, chosen

172

Our Selves 173

as the aim and motive power of activity, may be called
an ideal. In every instance we shall find that our
rational interests always center in the self. Our ideals
are all future selves to be realized. John decides to
get an education. He has chosen, as the rational thing
for him to seek, an educated John. This is his ideal.
James decides to propose to Alice. Strictly speaking,
James's ideal, in the sense of rational purpose, is not
Alice. The ideal which he tries to realize is James-
married-to-Alice.

But although one's rational interests all center in
one's self, this does not mean selfishness, as we shall
presently see.

OUR SYSTEM OF SELVES

The center of our interest is our individual self.
This, with his mother, is all in which the little child
is interested. As the child develops, other persons
come within his sphere of interest : family, friends,
neighbors, community, nation, humanity, and finally
all sentient beings.

Thus the " self " normally expands until it includes
the universe. The schoolboy's interests are limited
to the future happiness of himself, his family, and his
friends. He will rise at five in the morning to give
himself a long holiday to spend in fishing. He will
deny himself heroically to buy his mother a Christmas
present, for he is interested in his mother; he loves
her. He will risk his life to save a comrade from drown-
ing, for his comrade is a part of his larger self. And
this is not selfishness of a sublimer sort, as the hedo-
nistic philosopher would have us believe. He is not

174 Psychology as Applied to Education

figuring : " Now if I let Jim drown, I will lose a most
enjoyable companion." Nor does he even reason :
"I'll never forgive myself if I let Jim drown; I shall
suffer from remorse as long as I live." He is directly
interested in Jim. He is just as directly interested in
Jim as in himself. Jim is a part of his larger self.
But he is not interested in the future of his town. He
is not public-spirited. He is not yet conscious of the
fact that his community is a part of himself.

Here is where some people stop developing. A per-
son of narrow sympathies, who is selfish and lacking
in public spirit, is simply a case of arrested develop-
ment. Our sphere of interest should expand with our
sphere of knowledge.

Thus, the youth ought to add the community to his
self. He ought to become public-spirited. A normally
developed adult will sacrifice much and work hard for
his school, his town, his fraternity, his " set." He is a
" good fellow," he is not stingy or close. He is
" right there " when he is needed. He is public-
spirited.

The normal adult is also patriotic. That means he
has taken his country to his heart, and made that a
part of his self. He loves his country and its insti-
tutions. Unless he is a pot-hunting politician, his
interest in politics is mainly to make his country a
better country, its laws more just and its institutions
more effective. If his country is threatened, he will
rush to the front and risk his own life in defense of his
flag. He may even rise to that dizzy height of patriotic
perfection of paying his taxes without a murmur.
What is more, he loves all humankind. He loves his

Our Selves 175

neighbor as himself. He would not rob or cheat a
foreigner, or leave him unaided in distress any more
than he would a fellow-countryman. He does not
desire a war in Argentina that the price of his wheat
may rise. He would not desire his own country to
gain an unjust advantage over another nation.

Many fail in thus universalizing their sphere of in-
terests. Many good men who would not take advan-
tage of a neighbor's misfortune rejoice in the calamities
that befall another nation, if thus their own business
prospers. Many a fine fellow cannot appreciate the
utter immorality of the toast. " My country, may she
ever be right ; but right or wrong, my country ! "

But our self should have even a wider sweep. It
should include all sentient beings. The dumb animals
have a claim upon our sympathy. But here mankind
is far from its ideal. Commercial travelers are justly
famous for their kind-heartedness, but how many ask
the driver to spare the overdriven livery team ? Many
a young lady is too fastidious to bait her own fishhook,
but she is hard-hearted enough to have her companion
impale a live minnow on her hook. The average fish-
erman never thinks of saving the fish from unnecessary
torture.

Place a sheet of paper over a magnet. Sprinkle some
iron filings over the paper, and jar it slightly. The
filings will arrange themselves in a starlike form around
the magnetic center of force. Likewise we all rational-
ize life more or less perfectly. All the activities of our
lives that we succeed in rationalizing radiate from our
self, or rather our system of selves. In fact, every-
thing in the universe falls in line and is evaluated by

176 Psychology as Applied to Education

our system of selves, our organized sphere of rational
interests. Thus following, and modifying, James, we
may say we have an individual self, a family self, a
community self, a national self, a humanity self, and a
religious self which includes an interest in all beings
with God as the Supreme Being.

Just here it is interesting to notice Professor James's
theory of the " social " self that " a man has as many
social selves as there are individuals who recognize him
and carry an image of him in their minds." An enor-
mous amount of our striving and worrying in this
world is centered on our social selves. Many a man
has ruined himself by extravagant display just because
he could not bear to think that his social circle should
image him as a man in straitened circumstances.
Whenever we are ashamed or proud or vain or restive
under criticism or happy with applause, it is some of
our social selves that concern us. Carrying this idea a
little further, we do not merely have individual social
selves. All our larger selves have their social counter-
parts. Countless opera heroes have proved the uni-
versality of the sentiment, " I'll knock any one down
who tries to besmirch my mother's honor." Such a
sentiment always brings applause from the galleries.
A derogatory remark on one's nationality awakens a
quick response in defense of one's national social self.

THE HISTORICAL EVOLUTION OF IDEALS

In primitive society it was of utmost importance
that the lower emotions and impulses be highly devel-
oped. The strong, brutally aggressive fighter, who saw
to it that his lair was supplied, was the successful in-

Our Selves 177

dividual then. Now such a person is an " undesirable
citizen."

In the very kindergarten class of society man must
cease to be a fighter and become fraternal. The de-
lightful directness of life is lost, that frank immediate-
ness of action and stimulus that give such a charm to
the life at the frontier and in the wilderness. Man must
cease to rely on his fist and his sword and must instead
go to court with his troubles.

Militarism. — But even until this day the nations
of the world as nations are in the fist-right state.
Nations in war continue the appeal to brute force. So
while fighting between individuals has been tabooed as
very wicked, fighting as a soldier has been extolled to
the skies as the greatest of the virtues.

Militarism is rampant even in civilized lands for sev-
eral reasons. First, because pugnacity, fighting courage,
is the oldest and most deep-seated of our virtues,
and hence, nothing makes a more universal appeal
in all ages of life and to all classes of society. Second,
governments and potentates depend finally for their
existence on the fighting ability of their peoples. Fi-
nally, demagogues find that humanity can be best
" worked " from this side.

Commercialism. — Just as primitive society favored
the fighting instinct, so modern society favors the prop-
erty impulses. " To him that hath shall be given,"
is our motto. Society now looks for industrial effi-
ciency. Thus the big prizes in the world are mainly for
the victors in the industrial competition. Rothschild,
Vanderbilt, Rockefeller, Morgan, Krupp, Carnegie hold
the center of the stage in the modern world. Hence

178 Psychology as Applied to Education

the property instincts and ideals are inordinately fa-
vored by present society. Because the getting of
daily bread is such a difficult business for a large por-
tion of humanity, and occupies by far most of its
active time and thought, the tendency is strong to
make industrial efficiency the main requirement of our
ideal, and the central element in character.

The True Ideal. — But our better nature protests

against this sordid view. Just merely keeping alive

cannot possibly be the main and ultimate purpose of

life. That would be reasoning in a very vicious and

| very narrow circle. Humanity is all the time evolving

| a broader and more unselfish sphere of interests. One

j who is adjusted to our advanced society, whose sphere

of interests and sympathies include the whole world,

who keeps the proper balance between his social and

selfish interests, and who puts the emphasis on the

higher things of the spirit, he has the true ideal.

THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE WEAL PERSONALITY

The Choice and Renunciation of Selves. — In the
language we have adopted here, we have unnumbered
potential selves. Of these we must choose a compara-
tively small number for realization. Thus, I have a
holiday, and there are twenty tempting ways in which
I may spend it. But I can spend it in only one way.
If I go fishing, I cannot spend the day in the city or
in visiting my uncle. Hence, my choosing fishing
means denying myself nineteen pleasant holidays. A
young man chooses his life work. He decides to be-
come a lawyer. But in so doing he turns his back
upon hundreds of occupations. He might have become

Our Selves 179

a physician, clergyman, artist, blacksmith, journalist,
or sailor; but all these possibilities become impossi-
bilities the moment he is committed to the lawyer's
course. Thus a choice of an ideal, of a rational interest,
involves limitation and negation. Only he who has
courage to be ignorant of many things will ever be wise
in one. The " jack of all trades " is ever the master
of none. When accidents happen, the difficulty is
that every one tries to do a dozen different things at
once, and so nothing is done. It is the same in every
situation in life. We must deny ourselves and re-
nounce an infinite number of potential lines of action
to become effective in one.

The Ideal Human Personality. — Our true purpose
in life is the building of a noble human personality.
The ideal personality is one whose rational interests
have been organized into an ethically just and prac-
tically useful system.

In the nervous system the higher centers exercise
an inhibitive power over the lower centers, and this
indicates the proper scale and gradation of our im-
pulses. Our lower animal self should be in subjection
to our social and spiritual self. To attain this end,
however, it is necessary to favor in every way possible
these higher aspirations and interests of ours. For
our lower nature is centuries older than our nobler
impulses, and the tendency to a reversion to an earlier,
cruder, and baser type is strong. It is the path of
least resistance. In the training of the emotions and
impulses, then, the proper gradation of values should
be observed, and a balance be secured between the
higher and the lower. The ideal character is not one

180 Psychology as Applied to Education

in which the higher impulses and feelings alone are
developed, but one in which the whole individual is
harmoniously developed with reference to our present
civilization — one with well-developed lower impulses
and feelings, but with these strictly subordinated and
subjected to the higher. Philosophically we may say
that our ideal should be to realize in thought, in feel-
ing, and in action our unity with all mankind, with the
universe, with the Divine Mind, and at the same time to
realize our individuality. We should live in harmony
with all creation ; but harmony does not mean a Bud-
dhistic coalescence with the divisionless sea of being.
Rather it means preserving and fostering our own in-
dividuality, but only in harmony with the divine moral
order of the universe.

This ideal may be regarded as eternal and unchange-
able. But mankind is developing. And as the indi-
vidual and society change, the combinations and pro-
portions in the elements of an ideal character change
also.

When a member of a savage tribe is brave and loyal
to his tribe, and conforms to their notions of morality
and religion, he has reached the highest form of char-
acter possible in that stage. He may be a dirty savage,
leading a life absolutely at variance with civilized
standards of right living, but he is living true to the
highest ideal possible to him.

Thus the actual ideal which good men set before
themselves is evolving through the ages and constantly
approximating, in healthy ages, the absolute ideal in
the Divine Mind. But it does not approach the divine
ideal in a straight line. Rather may we say that the

Our Selves 181

course is that of an irregular spiral, always aiming at a
point a good deal to one side of perfection, but on the
whole higher than before. And the aberrations from
the true course seem roughly to balance one another,
so that what was lost by a tendency too much to the left
in one age is balanced by an error to the right in another.

Exercises

1. Name the ten greatest Americans. How many of them
gained their fame in war?

2. Name ten characters from history (not American). How
many of them are military men?

3. If Richard the Lion-hearted had lived in our day, what of
his fame and career?

4. How many of the present multimillionaires would have
been heard from, if they had lived a thousand years ago ?

5. If commercialism is favored by our age, why not adopt
commercialism as our ideal ?

6. Why keep any subject in the curriculum of the schools
which does not pay in dollars and cents ?

7. Draw a diagram illustrating our system of selves.

8. Even as late as the sixteenth century, on many coasts of
Europe, the inhabitants lured foreign ships on the rocks by false
lights, in order to get goods from the wreck. These same people
who did such dastardly deeds were fond fathers and fierce pa-
triots. What was the matter with them psychologically?

9. John cries if his brother is punished in school, but laughs
and jeers if any other boy " catches it." Explain his selves.

10. Show how we may make our choice too narrow as well as
too wide, in the matter of selves.

11. Give examples from history of persons who have chosen
and realized remarkable selves, and state in the language of this
book what these selves were.

12. What is the difference between an impulse (an emotional
interest) and a rational interest (an ideal)?

13. When you studied this lesson, were you actuated by emo-
tional or rational interests?

CHAPTER XIX
THE WILL

TWO CLASSES OF VOLUNTARY ACTION

Two very different classes of action are spoken of as
voluntary, (a) Ordinarily we have the power and time
to inhibit our impulses. Hence when we allow an im-
pulse to pass into an action, such an action is said to be
voluntary. The following examples will give an idea
of this class of voluntary actions. A finger itches ; I
scratch it. At the table I am offered some food ; I eat
it. People weep when sad and laugh when amused.

The function of the will is wholly negative in these
cases. We simply will nothing when we do such ac-
tions. But when we refrain from doing them, we do
exercise the will in inhibiting the impulse.

(6) Actions done from rational interest, that is,
actions controlled by an ideal, are voluntary actions
in a higher sense. They are positively willed. Any-
thing a person has " made up his mind "to do is truly
a voluntary action. For here will power is pretty sure
to be needed.

Our ordinary use of the words wish and desire both
as verbs and nouns cover both the meanings of desire
proper and of ideals. This creates no end of confusion
in psychological and philosophical reasoning. Thus,
" I wish to study Greek " may mean that at the mo-
ment of speaking I have a longing for this linguistic

182

The Will 183

study; or it may mean simply that I have concluded
that it is best for me to study Greek, though at this
particular moment I may not have any feeling one way
or the other. " His greatest desire was constantly
during his whole life for military honor," cannot mean
that he was constantly conscious of a tension accom-
panied by feeling towards deeds of " glory," and that
this longing and feeling was always during his whole
life strongest. He must have been hungry sometimes.
He -must have thought of something else sometimes.
No person rightly out of an insane asylum is such a
monomaniac as to have one emotion constantly during
a whole lifetime. So what the sentence must mean is :
His ideal was ever military glory ; that is, he had chosen
military glory as that which was most desirable to him.
In this work, we always mean by the term strongest
desire the strongest pressure or tension in consciousness
towards activity at any moment, irrespective of whether
this happens to be that which we decide on the whole to
be the best thing to do.

The ideal when chosen as the desirable goal of action
is usually and regularly accompanied by a strong
desire (and then also, of course, feeling). But when the
feeling and the desire went out like a burnt-out match,
the ideal remained as strong a motive as before. Usu-
ally when the mind is rested and turns anew its atten-
tion to its ideal, the old fire of desire flames up again
with all its former heat. But when the desire and its
feeling die down again, the ideal may be by the use of
will power as effective as before.

The Struggle between the Ideal and the Desire. —
The fact that the ideal can be a constant motive inde-

184 Psychology as Applied to Education

pendent of the shifting and fitful winds of desire and
feeling makes it possible to work on steadily, peacefully,
and evenly towards a chosen goal in spite of the fact
that impulses (desires) with then* feeling are in a con-
stant flux and sometimes entirely absent.

The moral arena is here. This is the battle ground
of will. The battle is ever between the ideal and the
desire. The temptation is ever to follow the momen-
tary desire, and all desires are ever " momentary "
and nothing else, for a desire that does not exist this
moment does not exist at all. The moral victory
always consists in following the ideal chosen by con-
templation.

THE MOTOR PROCESS AND THE VOLUNTARY PROCESS

The Motor Process. — The stream of thought is
constantly passing out of subconsciousness in the
fringe towards the center of attention and then out
again into the fringe of subconsciousness. What par-
ticular images and thoughts are to pass into this vortex
depends, the will being absent, upon the impulses,
habits, and desires. Using desire as a common name
for the three, when the will is inactive, the strongest
desire will always conquer ; that is, whatever image is
in the center of attention will be expressed in action.

Thus the motor process is this : Will being absent,
the strongest desire determines the image in con-
sciousness ; as soon as an image appears in conscious-
ness, it is immediately acted out. Hence this is the
psychic series : strongest desire — image — action.

The Voluntary Process. — The will may change the
psychic series fundamentally, (a) By an act of will we

The Will 185

may refuse to think on the subject of our strongest f
desires. We are not forced to allow the center of at-;
tention to rest upon the object of our strongest desire. .
The power of voluntary attention, then, is the essence / ,-
of the " freedom of the will." Voluntary attention is
the most expensive in nerve efforts of all the functions
of the mind.

(6) The will may inhibit the action that naturally
follows the presence of an image in consciousness. This ;
makes thought and imagination without action pos- '
sible.

The voluntary process, then, is very simple. We
simply imagine the act we will to do, and — that's all.
The complex affair is not to act. A great deal of our
training in character consists in learning to inhibit the
action that naturally follows an image. What requires /
explanation is not our willing-to-do but our willing-not- !
to-do. There is where the fiat of the will occurs. In *
willing to do anything, we simply imagine the act and
" let go."

GENERAL CONSPECTUS OF THE ACTIVE SIDE OP HUMAN

NATURE

The body as a physiological organism functions by
motor impulses in subconsciousness. Some of its pro-
cesses, like breathing, may be at will brought into the
voluntary sphere. The body is also protected by means
of reflex actions of subconsciousness.

Instinct (or blind impulse) is almost wholly respon-
sible for the conduct of the young child. Instinct, or
blind impulse, together with habit and desire, always
continue to manage the greater portions of our lives

186 Psychology as Applied to Education

measured in time. Still very few of our conscious
moments are out of the grasp of the will and our rational
interests (ideals). This seeming contradiction is solved
as follows : —

When I awake in the morning, habit is usually suffi-
cient to get me out of bed, perform the morning ablution,
and dress. That is, no specific resolutions of the will
are necessary. If I have routine work, there is small
chance that anything but habit will be necessary to
run me all day. Still I am under the control of my
ideals, for, some time in the past, when I chose my
business and habituated myself to my daily program,
I did use will in conforming to my ideals. But suppose
my day's work is not all cut out for me. Then I must
decide what to do. Then will power is needed. It is
a beautiful day, and I am fond of picnics. Of several
attractive ways of spending the day, this is the most
attractive. Hence this is my strongest desire.1 Im-
agination begins to picture all the steps preparatory to
picnic going. But I am not sure that such a course is
in line with my rational interests. So I inhibit the
actions that regularly should follow these ideas. After
some deliberation I decide that it is best that I should
write this chapter instead. I choose the writing of this
chapter as my ideal, my rational interest for the day.
At first I have to use voluntary attention to pin myself
down to the work. That is, I must by a sheer effort of
the will keep the center of attention on my work. But
soon I get interested in my work, forget sylvan attrac-
tions, and my strongest desire at the moment is usually
just what I am thinking about and doing. So that,
1 See above, definition of strongest desire.

The Will 187

after all, only during a little fraction of the day have
I been forcing myself to abstain from following my
strongest desire.

This is the universal rule. Normally we get inter-
ested in our work after a few moments of voluntary
attention, and as soon as we get interested in the work
set us by our ideals, our desires and our ideals are in j
line and there is no conflict.

Since no impulse or desire can last long if denied
expression and attention, we align our desires with our
ideals by keeping, through an act of will power, our
attention on the course of action prescribed by our
ideal. Restricted to that field, the right desire will
arise in response to the only stimulus allowed, and nec-
essarily pull in the same direction as our ideal.

Where Military Discipline Fails. — The proper edu-
cation of the will presents the most difficult problem
that teacher and parent have to solve. It is not a
simple affair like the pedagogy of habit. That is
where military discipline fails. The soldier, precise in
his habits as a machine, is not famous for his will
power. The discharged soldier will to the end of his
days keep his soldierly bearing and address, and most
of his orderly personal habits ; but for all that many a
one becomes a moral wreck.

The system of close supervision and military dis-
cipline in schools is equally successful in teaching good
habits and inadequate in training the will aright. Sup-
pose a pupil is every moment of his waking hours under
the watchful eyes of a custodian, suppose that his every

188 Psychology as Applied to Education

action is prescribed. That may provide for most ex-
cellent habits, it may prescribe an exemplary life in
every detail, and still in one respect it fails not only to
provide training of the will, but absolutely prohibits
any such training.

Need of Allowing Freedom. — In order that the will
may be trained, there must be freedom. But when
there is freedom in which to exercise the will, there is
of course also freedom to go wrong. Hence we are
face to face with what seems like a contradiction.

Still that contradiction can be solved. Begin by
giving practically no liberty. The circle of liberty at
first is merely a mathematical point. As children ad-
vance in age and experience give them a little more
freedom. If they prove worthy of this freedom, in-
crease it; if it is not wisely used, let a part of the
punishment be a decreased sphere of freedom.

This can be applied in dozens of ways. Rules, regu-
lations, and restrictions should diminish as the pupil
advances in school. The pupil should more and more
be trusted on his honor. He should have increasing
responsibility.

Parents should allow their children some money, with
the suggestion that they spend it for some worthy end.
They should be encouraged to save up then* money for
something worth while in the future. Let the boy
save up money for a year for a bicycle. That means,
give him a chance to earn enough for a wheel in a year ;
but if he succumbs to the temptation of the soda foun-
tain and spends his money on the fleeting pleasures of
the day, let him bear the punishment of being without
a bicycle.

The Wm 189

Give Harry freedom to visit his friend and spend
his half holiday as he pleases, provided he comes home
at the hour set and behaves as he should while away ;
but if he fails to meet these requirements, take away
his freedom in this respect for a season.

Parental restraint should be removed very gradually,
so that when the young man or woman leaves the pro-
tection of the parental roof, there is no appreciable
increase in his freedom. There should be the corre-
sponding increase in responsibility. Let the boy early
keep his own clothing in shape and care for his own
room. A little later, let him order his own clothes and
pay for them from his own earnings. Doing the chores
around the house has of old been the boy's portion, and
there is good pedagogy in this arrangement.

By all means foster the young person's appreciation
of the importance of a strong will, and teach the dignity
of the free and loyal person.

Exercises

Prove the following propositions : —

1. The strongest desire is not always the motive we follow.

2. It is hardest to keep the attention on our study the first
few moments after some interesting diversion.

3. Motive habits differ from instinct only in being acquired.
Solve the following problems : —

4. One youngster held a heavy ax edge downward over a
block of wood. Another child put his hand under the ax and
said, " I dare you to cut off my finger." What happened?

5. Why is it so hard to do the right motions in the game,
" Simon says, ' Thumbs up ' " ?

6. How are ideals chosen ?

7. Illustrate by characters from history what is meant by &
strong will.

CHAPTER XX

THE CREATION OF IDEALS

THE FAILURE OF ABSTRACT MORALITY

WE are saved by hero worship. Only by devotion
to some person are our lives transformed from mere
animalism to spirituality.

The Man of Abstract " Principles." — There is a
certain very respectable sort of character which is
based on nothing but abstract formulas. Such a
character is a clever counterfeit, and passes current
the world over ; but when the real acid test is applied,
he shows the baser metal. Take a narrow, stolid,
cold soul to start with, one whose appetites and pas-
sions are not very strong, and whose feelings are not
very sensitive. Take, that is, one of these comfort-
able little persons whose head has never bumped
against the ceiling of environment, and give him a
training that early fixes the grooves in his brain, so
that his habits move like clockwork. Such a person
will infallibly act according to conventional morality;
but it is little more to his praise than correct time-
keeping is to a watch. He is nothing but a machine.
He acts as he does from mere habit. He has not soul
enough to spoil. He does not lie or steal, because he
has not the required moral courage or initiative.

For long stretches of everyday life, such a character

190

The Creation of Ideals 191

cannot be distinguished from the genuine article.
But there are times that try men's souls. Then watch
your man of " principle," whose principles are only a
better sort of prejudices. He will not stand the test.
He has no high and noble ideals. His morality is
mere habit, and when justice demands that he shall
leave his ruts he cannot obey.

Faith is the only basis for ideals. There is no such
thing as devotion to abstractions. No person is de-
voted to " duty for duty's sake." We do not love
Truth spelled with ever so big a capital. We love
truthful persons. We are never the slaves of beauty,
but we may be enthralled by the beautiful. What is
mistaken for devotion to abstractions is often a mere
set of habits.

Abstract Moral Training Poor Pedagogy. — It is
this failure of the human mind to be moved by abstrac-
tions that gives rise to the problem of moral training
in the school. Every now and then some well-meaning
brother or sister rises up and demands that our schools
teach morals. Texts on morals have been written,
and Solonic legislatures have ordered that our teachers
" shall teach honesty, truthfulness, chastity, industry,"
etc., to the end of the category. But it is difficult to see
how text-and-recitation work in the virtues will improve
the morality of our race. What is needed is life, not
more knowledge; moral energy, not commandments.
These advocates of the teaching of rules ought to read
Paul's dissertation on this subject. His assertion that
the law is impotent to save from sin is as good psy-
chology as it is theology.

Of direct teaching of " morality " or ideals there

192 Psychology as Applied to Education

should be very little, if any. We all hate to be told
to be good, for this is an insult to our common sense.
Very few people, happily, need be told that industry,
sobriety, mercy, justice, and the like are virtues ; and
that the vices are bad. I say " happily," for if a per-
son is so lacking in moral sense that it is not self-evi-
dent to him that virtue is right and vice is wrong, a mere
telling him that such is the case availeth not. He
needs to feel that it is so. The trouble with the world
is not the lack of knowledge of good and evil. What
we need is the will and power to live lives consistent
with our convictions.

The inculcation of ideals should be incidental.
When, in history or literature, or in the daily incidents
of the school, a moral question comes up, the true
teacher goes on record with no uncertain sound. He
always takes the broad, sympathetic, but also immu-
tably honest and just attitude towards every question
involving a moral issue. And he takes it with warmth.
He is enthusiastic for the cause of God and humanity.
He will inoculate his pupils with the same enthusiasm.
They will catch the contagion of his ideals.

THE BEST METHOD OF MORAL INSTRUCTION

Sympathy and Example. — How can we implant
these ideals in our pupils ? How can we refine, broaden,
and strengthen their ideals? Not by drill, not by
increasing their knowledge, not by training their logi-
cal faculties, not by the study of moral philosophy.
There is but one way, that is by sympathy and ex-
ample. Only a human heart ever moves vitally a
human heart. The first requisite, then, for the teacher

The Creation of Ideals 193

who wishes to develop character, is to have a strong
and sympathetic soul. He must have the ideals he
wishes to develop in others. These ideals must be
triumphant in his own life. High ideals count for
nothing if the person is fitfully ruled by passions and
appetites. This strong, ideal-ruled soul must also be
sympathetic. Now and then we find a really good
man who is constitutionally cold and distant, and who
for this reason can never be an inspiration. Such per-
sons should not become teachers.

Every act is an influence for higher ideals when the
soul is in possession of higher ideals and is faithful
and sympathetic. Such a teacher cannot hide his
light under a bushel. He may be forbidden to say
one word on religion, he may never once in his teachings
refer to the virtues, but he can no more help sowing
and growing higher ideals in his pupils than the sun
can help shining. Every look is a benediction ; every
word is instinct with the higher life of the spirit that
uttered it. The spirit in which he meets opposition,
the attitude he manifests toward the vital questions
of humanity, the interest he takes in the welfare of
his pupils, are so many ways by which the nobility of
the soul of the teacher stands forth and awakens no-
bility in the pupils in response.

The Need of Individual Work. — To awaken ideals
for the higher life, individual work is the most fruit-
ful. We cannot save men wholesale; it is a retail
business. The soul of finer grain shrinks from laying
bare its holy of holies in a crowd. If you want to get
at the inmost being of your pupil, — and you do want
this if you intend to help him to greater ideals, — you

194 Psychology as Applied to Education

must be alone with him. To administer properly this
sacrament of soul communion, is not a grace given
unto all teachers, and for some to attempt it were
sacrilege ; but many can attain this art, and no attain-
ment is greater.

If I were a bishop about to ordain a class of men for
the ministry, this is what I would say : Preach and
pray and teach by all means whenever you have an
opportunity; but don't expect to save the world that
way. Remember that the world is perishing for the
want of individual work. There is probably not one
person out of a thousand who is not longing, consciously
or unconsciously, for some stronger and wiser soul with
whom he might be intimate, and with whom he could
share his hopes, his fears, his worries, and aspirations.
But this intimate soul sharing is sacred work ; would
to God that you were struck dead the moment you
approach it with unclean hands! Never do you need
to feel the presence of God more clearly and more truly
than when you have but one listener and you are com-
muning with his inmost soul.

The adolescent needs especially a confidential ad-
viser and leader, not only in questions touching sexual
subjects, but for the whole new realm of his increased
spiritual life. Don't say that this is the duty of the
parents. You know, as a matter of fact, most parents
are not the confidants of their half-grown and grown
children. Many are not fit to be anybody's confidants.
Many more have an unconquerable aversion against
intruding on the privacy of their children's inner life.
Most important of all in this connection is to notice
that with very many adolescents the persons they last

The Creation of Ideals 195

of all would make their confidants are their parents.
They may love their parents immensely; they may
feel perfectly free and easy in their company — but
to confide to them the inmost soul — no, they cannot.
Honestly, now, wasn't that your experience? If you
made a confidant of any one on the subject of your
personal religion or love, was this confidant one of
your parents ?

THE CULTIVATION OF HIGH IDEALS

And how may the teacher best become this spiritual
adviser and leader? Simply by embodying in his own
life the ideals he wishes to develop in his pupils.

Emphasize that which is noble and refined in your
nature. Be on the alert to give your higher self every
opportunity for expression.

Be true to your ideals. Do not let your life be a
patchwork of devotion to what you deem noblest, and
base surrender to appetite and desire.

Be consistent. Don't, as Professor James says, try
to run several conflicting selves at once. Take your
ideals with you, and the same ideals, and live up
to them when at home or abroad, at work and in
vacation.

Do. Never feel satisfied with mere feeling. Put
every ideal into action at the earliest possible oppor-
tunity; and don't wait for the opportunity, but make
it. The world is full of fine worthless fellows, who
think entrancing thoughts and fairly gush with the
noblest sentiments, who are so busy admiring their
stock of ideals that they never get around to doing
anything.

196 Psychology as Applied to Education

Seek the society and confidence of those whose ideals
are higher than your own. Two coals burn better
than one.

Settle the religious question for yourself and live up
to the settlement. This question of ideals is essentially
a religious one, and indifference to religion is incom-
patible with high and true ideals.

Exercises

1. Try to find a man in history who preached only an abstract
moral philosophy whose moral influence has been equal to that
of St. Bernard, St. Francis, or John Wesley.

2. Think of some case in your own experience of some one
who was saved by hero worship.

3. Think of some one who was ruined by hero worship.

THE supreme object of life is the formation of the
right kind of character. Character is determined by
the fixation of the motives. Hence a study of charac-
ter is a review from the standpoint of morals of what
we have studied about motives.

ELEMENTS OF A WELL-DEVELOPED CHARACTER

Self-control. — The virtue of the impulses is self-
control. The person of good character is master of
himself. In the huge welter of impulses and emotions,
desires, inclinations, and instincts we have the power
to choose some to be realized and leave others. The
well-born and well-educated person has his desires,
instincts, and appetites well balanced and proportioned.
He follows the Greek motto, " Measure in all things."

Systematized Habits. — The virtue of the habits
is system. By all means, systematize life. Nothing
adds to the efficiency of life more than well-ordered
habits. The strong, well-developed character has a
corps of efficient habits, thoroughly trained and or-
ganized to do its bidding.

But like most other good things, habits are good
servants but poor masters. The person who is abso-
lutely under the control of the habits of thought and

197

198 Psychology as Applied to Education

action which he has adopted can make no progress,
can accomplish no mental growth.

Breadth and Refinement of Ideals. — The vir-
tues of the ideals are several. The rational interests
or ideals of a good character must be adequate, noble,
and refined; and, to have all these characteristics, our
ideals must be the product of a certain evolution. They
ought to broaden with the years and add layer over
layer of wider interests. One's ideal should be to live
in true harmony with all conscious beings, and to fur-
ther by one's life the true happiness of all persons.
But it is not enough that our ideals be broad and un-
selfish. They should also be noble and refined. The
converted slave who prayed that his fellow men might
have all the tobacco they wanted to smoke, was an
unselfish and kind-hearted soul; but his conceptions
of ideal humanity were not very lofty or refined. No
mechanical and external graduated scale can be given
for nobility of ideals, for the scale itself is growing.
Our notions of what is refined differ even from those
our fathers had. This is because the ethical ideal of
every civilization is a living, growing affair. Every
age approximates the perfect ideal, and the ethical
progress consists in getting nearer to this highest
ideal. Our faith is, therefore, that healthy, well-
balanced persons in healthy, well-balanced ages and
communities are continually approximating more and
more nearly to the absolute ideal as it exists in the
Divine Mind.

Strength of Will. — The virtue of the will is strength.
How strong should the will be? Strong enough to
keep us true to our rational interests. The man of

Character 199

strong character follows his ideals, not his impulses
or desires. An ideal may be defined as a chosen goal
for action. The question of the freedom of the will
is one that cannot be touched here; and the expres-
sion " rational freedom " of the will is not always used
with the same meaning; but when a person has con-
quered his impulses and desires so perfectly that he
always does what his reason tells him is best, despite
his momentary passions and appetites, his will may be
said to have acquired its rational freedom. He has
ideals and is true to them.

He who is rationally free has the same desires and
instincts as other men, but he is not ruled by them. His
ideals are supreme. Every voluntary act or thought
of his is directed to the end he has chosen. This pre-
supposes that he has chosen an end. His life is ra-
tionalized. He has something to live for. He does
not follow the direction of the push and pull of mo-
mentary and ever shifting desire and instinct, but he
controls indirectly even his desires, appetites, and pas-
sions. He is indeed a free man I

SUMMARY

The well-developed character, then, has the following
attributes : —

Impulses normal and natural, refined and under con-
trol of the will.

Habits of virtue, industry, work, order, and optimism
perfectly formed ; but slavery to no habit.

Emotions refined, sensitive, and strong, but under
control of the will.

200 Psychology as Applied to Education

Ideals supreme over all, unselfish, adequate, true to
the highest standards of our civilization and living;
and hence growing and constantly approximating the
absolute ideal.

A Will that holds impulses, feelings, and habits sub-
ordinate to the chosen ideals.

(C). Subconsciousness

CHAPTER XXII

THE SUBCONSCIOUS LIFE

THE FIELD OP CONSCIOUSNESS

As we have already noticed there is a single force —
consciousness — which is operative in the highest and
lowest processes of the human organism. The fun-
damental characteristic of consciousness, its power of
concentration, we have studied at length under at-
tention. We are vividly conscious, fully alive, to only
one aspect of one topic of thought at once ; all the rest
of the field of consciousness shades off rapidly from this
central point of light into the penumbra and twilight of
partial consciousness. This surrounding twilight of
half thought is called subconsdousness, or, as it has
been well named by Professor James, the " fringe " of
thought.

Thus we may arbitrarily divide the field of conscious-
ness into clear consciousness and subconsciousness.
In the same way we may recognize all degrees of sub-
consciousness, from what is almost complete con-
sciousness to the absolute night of unconsciousness.
Although, for instance, we have no smallest inkling of
consciousness in the action of the lymphatic glands, still
they seem to be vitally and directly connected with our

201

202 Psychology as Applied to Education

consciousness, so that it seems best to consider that such
purely physiological functions share in consciousness,
though so infinitesimally that we cannot directly recog-
nize it.

Characteristics of Subconsciousness. — All the vital
functions, the whole physiological machinery, is oper-
ated by our subcohsciousness. The building and tear-
ing down of cells, the secretion of the glands, digestion,
respiration, the circulation of the blood — all are carried
on by the subconscious vital force, which not only sup-
plies the energy, but also furnishes the plan or model
which then is incarnate in the flesh. This is deep down
in subconsciousness, and nothing of it ever comes even
into the partial twilight where conscious observation
is possible.

Many bodily functions come much higher up in con-
sciousness. Thus, within certain limits, we can breathe
or stop breathing as we please. Sneezing, hunger,
thirst, fatigue, rise out of the subconscious gloom into
clear consciousness and tell us of the condition of the
bodily organs. But they are still in origin and control
subconscious.

THE TENDENCY TO REACT

Reaction to Stimuli. — All consciousness responds to
stimulation. This, as we have seen, is one of its funda-
mental characteristics, from the highest reason to the
lowest subconscious vital force. It is responsive.
Thus a lofty ideal stimulates the hero to action. A
straw tickling the breast of the headless frog will be
responded to by the brushing motion of a foreleg. The
presence of a liquid in the mouth of a sleeping person

The Subconscious Life 203

will make him swallow. Lack of oxygen in the blood
will produce a yawn. A doleful thought will make the
tears start. The appreciation of the ludicrous will
start a smile. A savory odor when one is hungry will
make the mouth " water." A soft answer turneth away
wrath. The small boy itches to spoil the dude's hat
with a snowball. A difficult mathematical problem
stimulates the thinker to try to solve it.

Responsiveness to Suggestion. — Responsiveness to
suggestion is really one type of reaction to stimulus, but
it needs a special treatment. A fundamental charac-
teristic of consciousness is its striving to make real
whatever is presented to it ideally, that is, pictured to
it. Consciousness is ever busy realizing the ideal. Thus
when I wish to take my watch from my pocket to see
what time it is, I simply imagine myself doing just this,
then let myself go, and it is done. Hence, if a person
does not restrain himself, he does whatever he imagines.
A child telling a story invariably acts it out ; not be-
cause it is anxious to make the story plain to its auditors,
but simply because its imagination of these actions
suggests them to the motor centers, and the dramatic
rendering is the natural result. If we do not consciously
inhibit the action, we beat time with foot or head to the
music we hear, because the rhythm suggests these move-
ments. Nervous people feel a strong impulse to throw
themselves over precipices when standing on the brink.
They cannot help imagining very forcibly how awful a
tragedy it would be to fall over the precipice. This
imagination of the act of the tragedy acts as a suggestion
to the mind, and it has a strong impulse to make this
miage real.

204 Psychology as Applied to Education

All consciousness, whether clear or subconscious,
responds to suggestion, but our clear consciousness has
the power of inhibiting the response to suggestions,
while our subconsciousness has not the power to inhibit
this response. It will respond with fatalistic certainty
to every suggestion that reaches it. Hence the impor-
tance of guarding our subconsciousness from wrong sug-
gestions.

Subconscious Reactions. — Subconsciousness acts
solely in response to stimulus and suggestion. The phys-
iological machinery seems to be self-exciting. The
lack of oxygen in the blood in the lungs stimulates the
chest to expansion. Emptiness of the digestive organs
produces hunger. A lesion stimulates the phagocytes
to congregate.

External or physical stimulus, that is, stimulus from
other material agents not of the organism itself, has
great influence on the subconscious mind. To this
belong all the effects of drugs, food, heat, cold, wounds,
and, in general, the contact with the rest of the universe.

But a vast and undefined region is yet left for sug-
gestion. Subconsciousness takes its orders regularly
from above, from clear consciousness. Every state of
clear consciousness acts as a suggestion to subconscious-
ness. All that we consciously think, feel, and do sifts
down to the subconscious and colors it. Our subcon-
sciousness is constantly saturated with the suggestion
derived from our conscious life.

Cumulative Effect of Suggestion. — Merely thinking
once, " I will soon die," will not kill you. But repeating
this thought day after day, hour after hour, allowing it
to depress your spirits and influence your conscious

The Subconscious Life 205

actions, this will surely be very detrimental to your
health, and may shorten your life.

The subconscious mind is the repository for the prod-
ucts of the conscious activity of the mind. Every
thought, every feeling, every act leaves its impression
on our minds. Each individual mental event leaves
behind itself an influence, light and fragile as a gossamer
thread, but still a filament that tends to bind us faster
to some conviction, attitude, character, morality, or
immorality. But though the influence of each act of
the mind may be frail as a spider's web, the united
power of a long-continued course of action becomes
strong as iron bands. We are daily hammering out our
own character and destiny, and though we are every
minute free to act as we choose, the accumulated result
leads us whithersoever it will. It has become a Fate.

THE STREAM OF THOUGHT

From out the mysterious depths of the subconscious
there wells up constantly into our full consciousness a
spring of thoughts, feelings, and impulses, colored al-
ready by our dominant mood. The nature of this
stream of emotions, aspirations, appetites, and moods
is determined by the nature of our subconsciousness.
And this subconsciousness is, in its turn, determined by
the sum total of the suggestions we have sunk into it
from our conscious mental life.

This stream, then, that takes its rise from this spring
from subconsciousness flows across the brief field of
clear consciousness to be again lost in the deepening
shades of subconsciousness. Here it acts as a sugges-
tion for the future to the subconscious.

206 Psychology as Applied to Education

Character of this Stream of Thought dependent on
Ourselves. — If this stream were an affair of fate so
that we could in nowise change its nature, then this
whole study were interesting, perhaps, but certainly
impractical. But we can change the nature of the
stream of thought and feeling in full consciousness.
By using our voluntary attention we can suppress any
thought at will, and substitute another for it. We
cannot directly change our feelings, but we can suppress
the expression of the undesirable feelings, and then they
will soon vanish, and we can cultivate and emphasize
the expression of virile, optimistic feelings, and thereby
strengthen such feelings. Thus the right suggestions
will be given to the subconscious, and in time the waters
from its spring will be sweet.

EFFECT OF SUBCONSCIOUS LIFE UPON HEALTH AND
CHARACTER

The suggestions of our conscious life to our subcon-
sciousness make or ruin health and character. " As a
man thinketh, so is he," comes very near being an ab-
solute scientific truth. He who thinks, acts, and feels
health, vigor, triumph, and harmony will be healthy,
vigorous, successful, happy. Causes external to him
may sometimes mar the perfection of this result, but he
is certainly always much happier, healthier, and more
successful than he would have been if he had given re-
pining, regret, and dejection a place in his life. Con-
versely, it is almost certain that timorous, cowardly
souls who always fear that sorrow, sickness, and dis-
aster are to overtake them, who always look on the dark
side of life, will be in poor health, be unfortunate in

The Subconscious Life 207

their work, and, in general, be failures. It shall be unto
thee according to thy faith.

Many, however, object to this view. Many a famous
worrier, they contend, enjoys good health and a long
life, and often misfortune overtakes us where we cer-
tainly had never invited it by expecting it.

In answer, it may be pointed out that much of the
worry of the professional worrier is only skin deep and
covers a soul that at bottom is quite optimistic and
confident of the future. Then it is to be noticed that
nature is patient and long-suffering in this department
as well as in all others. It is wonderful what amount
of abuse human nature will stand before it is ruined.
Then it should not be forgotten, that this theory does
not try to explain everything by suggestion. In order
to break one's leg in a railway accident, it is not at all
necessary or even possible to have brought it on by
autosuggestion.

The subconscious does not understand a negative. The
suggestion to the subconsciousness is furnished by the
image before the mind. To imagine something undesir-
able, and then say to one's self, " I will not do that,"
does not destroy the evil suggestion. As far as sugges-
tion goes, it is just as bad to think, " I have not con-
sumption," as to think, " I have consumption," for
the mental image is the same in both cases. Of course,
the grammatical form does not matter; the image in
the mind is the only important affair. This image
should always be cheerful, optimistic, tonic.

Effect of the Morbid. — The mind finds an unhealthy
enjoyment in reveling in the details of crime and suffer-
ing. Hence, detailed accounts of murders, executions,

208 Psychology as Applied to Education

accidents, misfortunes, and other horrors are a promi-
nent feature in the daily press. Children love ghost
stories, and silly nurses' tales of the bogey man are lis-
tened to with horrified interest. A friend of mine tells
me that in his childhood he used to sit on the edge of
the bed and listen to ghost stories until he was afraid
the ghost might come in the dark under the bed and grab
his legs. But he could not choose but hear. This
kind of suggestion to the subconscious is very harmful,
especially to the young.

Effect of the Indecent. — Young people, especially
boys, are tempted to indulge in stories, thoughts, and
fancies that border more or less closely on the indecent.
They should remember that the soul, especially its
subconscious phase, is like a sheet of white paper, and
that every base suggestion is like a rub by a grimy hand
on this paper. There are soul erasers, happily, and the
marks may be rubbed out, but the unsullied purity of
the days before the grime, cannot be restored. The
soul, like the paper, retains some trace of the soil.

Protection against Evil Suggestions. — We should
shun all imagination of evil and wrong, for thus by evil
thoughts and wrong ideas we store up iniquity for
ourselves in subconsciousness. Here, however, we run
up against a practical difficulty. It is impossible to do
one's duty in this world without witnessing, knowing,
and thinking about much that is evil, ugly, and sad.
The teacher must hear and read libraries of bad gram-
mar and illogical thought. The doctor spends his time
with sickness and death. The lawyer deals with
wrongs of all kinds, and gets very familiar with the
seamy side of life. Besides, every intelligent person

The Subconscious Life 209

must know something about history and contemporary
life, and how full is not this with ignorance, vice, and
crime ?

In solution of this problem, this may be said : First,
an antidote should be taken against this necessary evil.
Let the teacher read some classical literature every day,
to take the taint of school compositions out of his
system. Let the doctor, the lawyer, and the business
man choose some line of ideal pursuit as far as possible
away from the prosaic side of their callings, and devote
some time every day to this line of work, to act as an
antidote to the carking cares, the souring or fossilizing
influences of their business upon their subconscious-
nesses. Literature, some university extension study,
gardening, amateur photography, painting, music, the
study of birds through an opera glass, are some sugges-
tions of such ideal occupations. Thus Stedman was a
banker and a poet, and Gladstone was a statesman, a
Homeric scholar, and a theologian.

But the most important thing to remember about
our undesirable experiences is that to a very great
extent the impression that they will make upon the
subconscious self depends upon our own attitude. A
duck may be in the water all day, and still never a
drop touches the skin protected by feathers. Likewise,
if we do not with morbid sympathy fondle the evil and
the untoward that necessarily meet us in life, very
little will penetrate to our deeper self. The teacher
thinks vividly of the right forms when he corrects ex-
ercises. Hence these, upon which he puts his sym-
pathetic emphasis, get recorded in subconsciousness
and not the wrong forms which he is correcting. The

210 Psychology as Applied to Education

doctor ought to picture with emotional vigor the condi-
tion in which he wishes his patients, in beauty, health,
strength. The man of affairs should ever have vividly
before his mind's eye his ideal human character, and
his ideal of business, so that this ideal is daily the most
real element of his experience, and daily fills his sub-
consciousness more completely.

When you have to think of yourself as sick or as being
in danger of becoming ill, always do this with as little
emotion as possible. Let the thought stay in the
superficial, rational part of your mind. Think of it
as you would a problem in chess, — without any feel-
ing. And think, in any manner, as little as possible of
sickness. When ill, imagine as vividly as possible the
condition you wish to be in. Think of the health
which you should have, not disease which you actually
but accidentally and irrationally have. These cheer-
ful, optimistic, health-inspiring thoughts and feelings
will direct the subconscious self into the right channel.
You will thus convince the subconscious self that you
have a right to be well and that you have the power
to get well, yes, that it is a sin to be ill.

The Correct Attitude of Mind. — Do not capitulate
to the sordid. This is a brave, grand universe, just as
near paradise as we think it. In a very fundamental
sense we make our own world. Almost every person
lives in his youth for a while in Arcadia. He has ideals.
He is filled with noble aspirations. He bubbles over
with ambition. Life is supremely worth while : this
is his daily mood.

This is the correct attitude in which to live. This
atmosphere of enthusiasm, optimism, ambition, aspira-

The Subconscious Life 211

tion, and hope should constantly surround us. This is
the true fountain of youth. And this fountain may be
made perpetual. One of the saddest heresies of life is
the prevalent belief that it is necessary, nay, desirable,
to lose the buoyancy of youth soon after the teens are
past, or at least when the thirties are over. I fear that
it is true that most middle-aged and elderly people
plod through life. They just do — their — duty -
every — day without joy, without sorrow, without look-
ing forward to anything better than a little rest or rec-
reation now and then. They take no delight in their
work. In the morning they greet the new day with a
sigh of resignation, and they welcome the end of the
workday with another sigh of relief. They are down at
the three-square-meals-a-day and daily-stint-of-work
basis of life. If they are weak, they look fagged;
if they are sensitive, they look frazzled ; if blunt, they
look apathetic and woodeny ; if strong, they look prosy
and sordid.

This should not be so ! This is the wrong attitude
towards life. Its cause is very natural. Life's duties
overwhelm us. We become weary under the " eternal
grind." From sheer inertia we slip into the plodding
attitude. At once a current of suggestion sets in to the
subconscious : " The world is mean, sordid, shabby,
tiresome, burdensome ; let us plod on since we have to."
Soon we are confirmed in this attitude.

Cultivate an optimistic spirit. Have faith in your-
self. Measured one way, you are infinite, divine. As
long as you act in harmony with the universe, you are
invincible. There is a wealth of truth in Sam W.
Foss's poem where he lets a " lunkhead " relate how he

212 Psychology as Applied to Education

and other " lunkheads " grew up together " like
cornstalks in the same hill," but that while the
relator is still an undistinguished countryman, some
of his comrades have reached the highest pinnacles
of success.

"For I stayed home and rassled in the cornfiel' like a chump,
Coz I knew I was a lunkhead and a lummox and a gump;
But if on'y I hadn't known it, like them other fellers there,
To-day I might be settin' in the presidential chair.
We all are lunkheads — don't git mad — an' lummoxes an*

gawks ;
But us poor chaps who know we be — we walk in humble

walks.
So I say to all good lunkheads, Keep your own selves in the

dark;
Don't own or reckernize the fact, an' you will make yer mark."

SUGGESTIVE POWER OF THOUGHTS AND FEELINGS OF

OTHERS

Expressed Thoughts and Feelings. — The expressed
thoughts and feelings of others act as suggestions upon
our subconsciousness. When we listen to speech, we
picture in our minds what is said. Every image in our
consciousness becomes a suggestion to the subconscious.
So this is only another form of autosuggestion. Phy-
sicians and nurses experience a horrible wear and tear
from constantly witnessing misery and pain. In self-
defense, the mind builds up a sort of wall or protection
against these constant suggestions of pessimism. People
that see a great deal of misery become, as we say,
hardened to it. This, however, is an expensive way of
defense, for this is the same process of " sordidifying "
which we have just condemned.

The Subconscious Life 213

Unexpressed Thoughts and Feelings. — Whether
or not the unexpressed thoughts and feelings of other
persons influence subconsciousness is at present a
debatable borderland in psychology. There is, how-
ever, a mass of evidence which seems to lend itself
most naturally to such an interpretation. Most
people believe that by looking intently at the back of
a person and wishing hard that he may turn around
we may get him to do so. " Absent treatment " is
given by various schools of mental healing, and there
the thoughts and volitions of a person not in the pres-
ence of the sick person are supposed to effect a cure.
Until a comparatively recent period it was a crime
(treason) in England " to imagine the death of the
king." To be sure, this had to be something more
than mere imagining, but the historical essence of the
crime lay in the belief that such imagining had a baleful
influence on the king's health. The witch of old used
to make images of wax of the persons she wished to
harm and then maltreat these images as she wished the
real persons to be treated. As the image wasted away,
the person represented was supposed to waste away.
Believers in the occult hold that every person has a
spiritual " atmosphere " about himself, and that all
who come within his influence are more or less affected
by it.

If there be such an extrasensual exchange of influ-
ence between minds, it is probable that proximity in
space facilitates its transmission. But the space re-
lation is by no means the most important. Positive,
aggressive, self-contained characters are in less danger
of being disturbed by such influence, and even when

214 Psychology as Applied to Education

they seek it, they will probably find it hard to get a
clear conscious experience. But the subconscious in-
fluence is still there. The negative, the passive, the
hypersensitive, the neurotic^ the plastic minds are
more likely to be consciously the recipients of such
influence. This does not mean, however, that the
ability to be conscious of such influence must neces-
sarily mean mental disease or imperfection of char-
acter.

The Spiritual Atmosphere. — That we are constantly
in spiritual company is the doctrine of all religions.
To complement this theory we might add that if we
believe in a spirit existence at all as distinct from the
body, we cannot suppose the mind to be limited by
space. There is a communion of sinners as well as of
saints, even while in the body, according to this theory.
All lovers and mothers believe or try to believe that
though thousands of miles away from their beloved,
still they are with them in spirit, actually influencing,
comforting, leading, and being led by them. Accord-
ing to this faith, which we all try to hold to some extent
at least in every great crisis of life, we are always in
the company of our spiritual relations. Those who
are dear to us are always near us in the most essential
sense in the world.

This doctrine on a grand scale is put beautifully
and powerfully by Lowell in his " Present Crisis " : —

When a deed is done for freedom, through the broad earth's

acting breast

Runs a thrill of joy prophetic, trembling on from east to west;
And the slave, where'er he cowers, feels the soul within him

climb

The Subconscious Life 215

To the awful verge of manhood, as the energy sublime

Of a century bursts full-blossomed on the thorny stem of time.

Through the walls of hut and palace shoots the instantaneous

throe,

When the travail of the Ages wrings earth's system to and fro;
At the birth of each new Era, with a recognizing start,
Nation wildly looks at nation, standing with mute lips apart,
And glad Truth's yet mightier man-child leaps beneath the

Future's heart.

So the Evil's triumph sendeth, with a terror and a chill,
Under continent to continent, the sense of coming ill,
And the slave where'er he cowers, feels his sympathies with God
In hot tear drops ebbing earthward, to be drunk up by the sod,
Till a corpse crows round unburied, delving in the nobler clod.

For mankind are one in spirit, and an instinct bears along,
Round the earth's electric circle, the swift flash of right or

wrong ;

Whether conscious or unconscious, yet Humanity's vast frame
Through its ocean-sundered fibers feels the gush of joy or

shame, —
In the gain or loss of one race all the rest have equal claim.

This doctrine teaches emphatically that soul com-
munes with soul even without and beyond the use of
the senses; and that hence the importance of a deed
is not measured by its effect in the sense world.

This theory makes the complexion of our secret
thinking and brooding literally terribly important.
Our thoughts, moods, and imaginings, if base and
morbid, will sink us into low and wicked spiritual
company, and from this company we shall constantly
receive debasing suggestions which will fill our sub-
consciousness with filth and wickedness. But if we
keep our souls in lofty spiritual regions, if we dwell in

216 Psychology as Applied to Education

the Upper Room, if we think, feel, imagine, and enjoy
those things that are pure and wholesome, our souls
shall even now enjoy heavenly company, and from this
cloud of noble spirit companions we shall constantly
receive suggestions that strengthen us against tempta-
tion, guide us in doubt, hearten us in dismay, and give
us victory in our battles. Conversely, an unexpressed
thought, if evil, will make the path of virtue and life
harder to walk for every human being ; while if good
and noble, it will to some extent elevate the whole
human race.

SUMMARY

Practical Conclusions about Subconsciousness. —
That part of our being of which we are conscious is
only a very small part of us. In cases of sudden refor-
mation it is still fearfully possible that the subcon-
scious mind is pursuing the downward road, however
respectable the conscious life may be. Every act,
every thought, every emotion adds something to our
subconscious self, and thus our subconscious life rep-
resents the accumulated momentum of our past.
Our subconscious life gives depth and body to our
conscious thoughts and emotions. It is, therefore,
impossible for one who has lived a thoughtless and
frivolous life to feel very deeply or think very power-
fully on any subject on any occasion, even when he is
stirred to the bottom of his being. He is shallow, that's
why. To him who secretly dallies with filthy thoughts
it becomes impossible to keep a single subject in his
mental possession unsullied. He who is an oppor-
tunist in the trifles of daily life, who is insincere habitu-

The Subconscious Life 217

ally in small things, will find that he has no fund of
moral courage to draw from even when at some crisis
in his life he earnestly desires to play the man. The
yellow streak in character does not come down upon
the unfortunate one, like the potato blight, in a night.
Silently and imperceptibly flake after flake of the yellow
rust fastened itself upon the soul as the result of infin-
itesimal cowardices, petty insincerities, trifles of indul-
gence, and traces of selfishness. In short, life is one
and inseparable. It has a fatal integrity. We cannot
serve God and mammon.

Our subconscious self connects with the whole uni-
verse of being. To speak in theological language, we
can draw upon the strength and power of God through
faith. Deep down in the foundation of our being we
are one with the great Consciousness of the world.
That is why we have an exhaustless spring to dip
from, and that is why " all things are possible for him
that believeth."

The Proper Attitude towards Life. — Our subcon-
sciousness is the bar of soft iron, surrounded by the
induction coil. Our conscious life is the current of
electricity that induces (suggests) magnetism to the
bar and makes it capable of attracting by magnetic
force. Here the similarity ceases, for while there is
but one kind of electricity, there are many kinds of sug-
gestion. The nature of that current of conscious life
lived, so to speak, on the outside of us in the induction
coil, determines the nature of our inner subconscious
life, out of which are the issues of life as to health of
both body and soul. It becomes, then, supremely
important that we have the right attitude toward life,

218 Psychology as Applied to Education

for it is this attitude that acts as a suggestion to our
subconsciousness.

Our attitude should be that of optimism, hope, of a
triumphant, forward-march mood. Our imagination
should constantly be filled with bright, happy, har-
monious images. We should resolutely shut the door
to fear, distrust, moody brooding on what might have
been, as well as all morbid thoughts of the details of
crime and disaster and misery. Anger, hate, and
jealousy should be resolutely banished. Every sen-
sible person must take the possibility of failure into
account when he is planning any course of action. But
when once our course of action is determined upon, we
should never dwell further upon the possibility of
failure. No ignoble, impure, or sordid thought should
ever be harbored.

The Physical Attitude. — Our mental attitude is in-
timately dependent on the position and condition of
the body. We should therefore keep the body in the
position which expresses the thoughts and feelings
recommended above. One little phrase of two words
gives the essence of all that belongs to a correct bodily
carriage. It is: Chest up. Unless there is very good
reason for it, it is impossible to feel downhearted and
dejected with the " chest up." Brisk, vigorous move-
ments and lungs well filled with oxygen are also im-
portant. This is an almost perfect and complete rule
of physical carriage. Express as vigorously as possible
by the body, its action and carriage, a tonic, virile,
and healthy frame of mind.

Pedagogical Observations. — The schoolroom should
be permeated by a brisk, breezy, tonic mental atmos-

The Subconscious Life 219

phere. Teachers and pupils should find joy in their
work. Nothing morbid or depressing should be found
in books for children. In teaching physiology and
hygiene, the healthy and normal conditions and func-
tions of the body should be dwelt on, not the abnormal
and diseased.

In Conclusion. — " Finally, brethren, whatsoever
things are true, whatsoever things are honest, what-
soever things are just, whatsoever things are pure,
whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are
of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there
be any praise, THINK ON THESE THINGS." Phil, iv : 8.

Exercises

z . What is the effect on subconsciousness of much reading of
trashy novels ?

2. What is the effect of constant association, as in an asylum,
with the insane and with imbeciles?

3. What is the value of starting the day with a deeply felt
devotional exercise?

4. What should you think of just before you fall asleep?

5. What effect did the fine specimens of the arts of architec-
ture and sculpture have upon the children who grew up in classi-
cal Athens?

6. Draw a diagram representing the relation of the conscious
mind and the subconscious mind.

7. Illustrate by some character from history the unconscious
tuition of war.

(D). Child Study

CHAPTER XXIII
CHILDHOOD

VALUE OF CHILD STUDY TO THE TEACHER

MAN is a living organism, not a mechanism. Mechan-
isms are built from without ; organisms grow from
within. Therefore, to get a living knowledge of an
organism, one must know its history. We do not know
the oak until we know how it develops from the acorn.
We do not understand a nation until we are acquainted
with its history. For the same reason, if we are to
understand the mind, human nature, we must study
its growth. Since man is a living organism, a study
of the history of the individual's development is
essential to a true perspective of psychology.

Child Study. — The study of the evolution of the human
individual is, therefore, the necessary foundation of all
valid pedagogy. But of all the voluminous writings
of educators and investigators on this subject, what is
of value for our purpose can be summarized in a few
pages. In the two following chapters, we shall try to
place before the reader as tersely and succinctly as
possible a few of the results of child study which are
most applicable to this discussion.

220

Childhood 221

THE PERIODS IN THE EVOLUTION OF THE MIND

There are four well-marked periods in the evolution
of the human individual : childhood, early adolescence,
youth, and maturity.

Of these the first is the subject of this chapter.
This may be subdivided into two periods.

THE TWO AGES OF CHILDHOOD

About the age of eight or nine, when children cut
their permanent teeth, there is a time of rather rapid
change which separates childhood quite definitely into
two divisions, which we may call early and later child-
hood.

In early childhood perhaps the most striking char-
acteristic of children is then* timidity, and well it is
that nature has thus guarded them; for they are
surrounded by danger on all sides, with which their
weakness and ignorance is far from able to cope. A
prominent intellectual peculiarity of this period is the
frequent inability to distinguish reality from imagina-
tion. Very often the reputation of children for fibbing
is entirely undeserved. They are simply unable to
distinguish the products of their imagination from the
percepts of the senses. Thus many children have
imaginary playmates to whom they get as attached as
to real flesh-and-blood comrades.

In later childhood these characteristics are lost, and
the love for adventure and braggadocio becomes very
apparent in boys, a characteristic which has caused
this period to be called the " Big Injun " period.
With girls the homing and maternal instincts begin to

222 Psychology as Applied to Education

be manifest at this tune. The period from about ten
to fourteen years is a period of slow growth. As little
energy is spent in growing, the child can spend all his
vitality for " current expenses." Hence he is now
capable of doing hard work without injury. This is
the drill period in education. Now let him get the
main part of the mechanical element in school work.

THE CHILD NOT A MINIATURE OF THE ADULT

Primers used to contain material of interest to
grown people, put into simple language. If poly-
syllables were avoided, it was thought that children
certainly would thrive on an exposition of the English
constitution, the theory of the atonement, or manners
at the table. But child study has taught us that the
child has a mental life altogether his own. If we wish
to influence it, we must first know it.

Child World the World of the Senses. — The world
as it exists to the child is largely the concrete, tangible
world of the senses. One step beyond the senses is all
the wise teacher of children will venture. Objects,
models, pictures, vivid descriptions — stop there. If
you venture farther away from the actual, you will
leave your juvenile charge behind.

HOW CHILDREN THINK

Our past experience is our thinking tool. Just as a
gardener digs with a spade, so the thinker thinks with
his past knowledge.

The Child's Small Store of Associations. — Children
have not experienced much, and hence have only a very
small store of knowledge to draw upon. For this

Childhood 223

reason, their thoughts differ from those of the adult.
For example, you and a child of six meet a funeral
procession. As soon as the scene stimulates your
senses, up spring your very complex and powerful asso-
ciations relating to funerals and take charge of your
mind. Some personal bereavement perchance presents
itself; pictures and emotions you have acquired by
reading of death and the grave awake within you.
Your theories concerning death and the life beyond
come back to you. Religious sentiments and thoughts
give color and tone to the whole.

And the child? Why, bless his heart, that funny
black carriage with plumes and glass sides, in the
midst of such a line of vehicles, reminds him of the
aquarium in last summer's circus parade.

Hence, before the teacher can teach his class to do
better thinking, he must know how they think now,
and before he can know how they think now, he must
know the children's minds.

The Three Kinds of Thinking. — To understand
how children think we must begin quite a distance
back.

The diagram on page 224 is a representation of the in-
tellectual universe. At the materialistic end, or rather,
bottom, we have facts — events, objects, things. These
are combined, subsumed, under laws or principles that
express their essence, then* meaning. These laws again
are united under higher, more universal principles,
until, as we believe, the lines of the whole universe
converge to one point. Now, thinking consists in
climbing these intellectual ladders ; either up from
fact to law, or down from law to fact.

224 Psychology as Applied to Education

The Universal

Law or/pTPrinciple LaworAPrinciple LaworXPrinciple

FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF

But it must not be forgotten that this " climbing "
is a complex performance in which both the habits of
ancestry and the spontaneous creative elements sup-
plied by the individual " climber " are ever present.

There are two ways of thinking, explicitly and im-
plicitly. Examples of these two methods are given
below. Which is your way?

(a) " I have eaten several Bartlett pears. They are
all excellent. Hence I infer the law : All Bartlett
pears are excellent. This is a Bartlett pear. It must
be excellent."

(6) "I have eaten several Bartlett pears, and liked
them. Hence, this being a Bartlett pear, I guess it
must be good."

For cases like the above, I use the second way every
time. It is shorter, and it is satisfactory. It differs
from the first in apparently leaving out all reference to
a law and in jumping directly from one fact to another.
In reality, however, we do have a glimmer of the law,
even in the second process. But the reference is im-
plicit. We do think of the law, but we do not con-
sciously abstract it from the facts in which we see it
exemplified.

Most of our thinking is of this class. In our daily

Childhood 225

life our mind skips nimbly from fact to fact, and passes
through the intervening law without alighting on it.
In practical thinking, the mind's eye is riveted on
things, facts, and has not time to focus itself on the
principles that it employs.

The next higher grade of thinking is scientific think-
ing. When the botanist classifies plants ; when the stu-
dent of plant ecology sees and formulates the relation
that exists between insects and flowers, or between hu-
midity and f oliage surface ; when the student of political
economy discovers the essence of free government or the
economist speaks of the principle of free competition :
then these thinkers have laws and principles explicitly
in their minds. This may be called scientific thinking,
or explicit reasoning.

There is a still higher phase of thinking. When the
mind seeks fundamental truth, the great unifying prin-
ciples that explain all laws, it Is engaged in philosophic
thought. Very few people are capable of this kind of
thinking.

We have, then, three kinds of thinking : —

(a) Common thinking, which consists in reasoning
from fact to fact without formulating the principle or
law upon which the reasoning depends.

(6) Scientific thinking, hi which laws, principles,
and relations are thought out explicitly.

Children's Thinking Unscientific. — Normally, chil-
dren do not think out laws, principles, and relations
explicitly. Ideas and images never tarry long before
the child's mental vision. There is a change of scene on

226 Psychology as Applied to Education

the stage of thought every few seconds. Naturally
they use exclusively the first kind of thinking. Formal
abstractions, generalizations, and deductions are anti-
natural to the child. Definitions committed to memory
are to him not definitions at all; they are but husks,
shells, and are correspondingly unpalatable and indi-
gestible.

Hence formal grammar and the science of arithmetic
have no place in the first six or seven grades of our
schools. This will be more thoroughly discussed later.
We shall now restrict ourselves to the answering of a
few current objections.

The first objectors are the preternaturally bright
teachers. "Why," these object, " I can make children
comprehend the reason for every rule in arithmetic,
and I know they are interested and like it."

I would answer : So they do — for the moment.
Why? Because, with your marvelous social powers,
you have hypnotized the children into doing what is
not healthful or natural for them to do. Still, they
seldom like the subject, even then. They like you and
your bright, breezy ways, not the subject. Then, notice
how quickly they lose what they get in your training !
Healthy children have a happy faculty for shedding
abnormal accomplishments.

Next comes the young trained thinker. " But, sir,"
he objects, " is not all education artificial ? We want
the child to develop more completely and faster than
he would naturally if left without schooling." True,
but this artificial stimulation should not be antinatural.
And so, to require children to do scientific thinking,
to learn definitions, to use and state universal prin-

Childhood 227

ciples, to have laws and relations explicitly in mind
when reasoning, is at best a waste of time and energy
on the part of both teacher and pupil, and is often a
source of serious injury to the growing mind.

THE CHILD'S IMPULSIVE AND EMOTIONAL LIFE

Child swayed by Present Impulse. — Holmes some-
where says sarcastically that the Indian of the novel is
"merely a bundle of instincts on legs." This is the
literal truth when said of children. Throughout
childhood the impulse of the moment is by far the
greatest factor in determining action. Ignorance of this
truth is responsible for much injustice. In nine cases
out of ten, your bad boy never planned his wicked
prank at all. The opportunity offered itself; the
impulse seized him ; it was done : there is the whole
story. Of course, plans and deliberations become more
frequent and more extended as the child grows older;
the boy of twelve years schemes more than the child
of two ; but still, characters like Peck's "Bad Boy "
are a libel on childhood. Real boys are not so long-
headed. Equally impossible is the creation of the
imagination that did duty as the Good Little Boy of
the Sunday-school book. Observe, I do not assert
that the wickedness or holiness per se of these characters
is impossible in children, but I do claim that the
grown-up premeditation and speculation attributed
to these characters is impossible in normal childhood.
At the bottom of all true understanding of childhood
there must be a recognition of the simple, unpre-
meditated, spontaneous nature of the child's mental
life.

228 Psychology as Applied to Education

Futility of Threats or Promises of Reward. — Since to
the child there is but a rudimentary past and practically
no future, the memory of past suffering and the hope of
future reward are equally powerless in the presence of a
strong present temptation.

The teacher or parent who expatiates in the summer
on the coming glory of the Christmas tree wonders
why his young hearers are not enthusiastic. To him,
Christmas six months hence is as real as the present
Fourth of July. Not so to the child. Things six
months in the future have to him only a very shadowy
existence, if any at all. We have all had the " Be-
a - good - boy-and- you-may-one-day-become- president ' '
maxim repeated to us in our juvenile days. Did it, as
was intended, inspire us to untiring energy and de-
votion to work? Scarcely. The next cool swimming-
hole had a million times more persuasion in it ; and in
just about a second and a half it had washed away
every vestige of presidential ambition. Early one
spring, while frost was still in the ground, I found a
number of boys wading in a marsh. I asked the boys if
then* mothers allowed such trifling with health. One
boy told me that he " expected he would get a whipping
when he came home." But coming home was still a
long way into the future; and wading was such fun.
No normal child was very long kept from doing what he
really wanted to do by the most dire threats of " lick-
ing," " thrashing," or " skinning." Promises of reward
are equally futile, if they are not to be fulfilled in the
immediate future.

It follows that punishments, too, are less effective
with children than with adults as deterrents from

Childhood 229

crime. However, the actual infliction of punishment is
much more effective than the most vivid description of
reward or punishment to come.

It follows that the government of children should
consist chiefly in so arranging their environment that
they are stimulated and tempted to do right, while
they are restrained from doing wrong mainly by having
temptations removed and by having their lives filled
to the brim with activity in useful or at least harmless
directions. As long as teachers and environments are
imperfect, however, punishments will probably be
more or less necessary. But threats and promises of
reward far in the future are nearly always ineffective.

Children not Sentimental. — We older people like to
feel miserable at times. We like to moisten the eyes
with a pathetic story. Children do not. When
moved by pity or compassion, they are pained, and
they do not like being pained.

Normal children seldom expatiate on their feelings
and emotions, even when these are pleasant. This
can easily be deduced from the foregoing, but we reach
the same conclusion from direct observation of children.
If not taught to do so, they seldom speak of kind
mamma, dear sister, the beauties of sunset, or the
pleasures of friendship. Their minds are riveted on
the facts, and, though they enjoy the by-play of
emotions, they think of them only implicitly.

CHILDREN'S INTERESTS AND HOW TO APPEAL TO THEM

Predominance of the Motor Element. — Nothing is
likely to interest children long unless it contains a
strong motor element. We are all motor-minded ; that

230 Psychology as Applied to Education

is, motor images are a very important part of the mental
images of every one ; but in children the motor element
seems to predominate. " Still life " does not interest
them. The successful teacher will find something for
his pupil to do with hands and feet, and not merely
something to listen to, or contemplate. Closely con-
nected with this characteristic is the dramatic instinct.
Strength of the Dramatic Instinct in Children. — The
dramatic idea — make-believe — is a very complex
idea. Still, even brute creation is in possession of
it. Two kittens engage in a mock fight. Oh, how
they chew each other up, — apparently, — but they are
very careful that teeth and claws do not penetrate
the skin. It certainly appears as if they understand
and enjoy to make-believe that they are and do what
they are not and do not. Children at a very early age
show that they have mastered this very complex idea
of make-believe. Many of their most beloved games
consist in playing that they are " grown ups " ; they
play school, and church, and " company." Many a
fond parent has elaborately kept up the fiction of a
Santa Glaus and innocently thought the child " be-
lieved " in " Santy," when as a matter of fact the child
was fully aware of the mythical character of the Christ-
mas saint, but was so perfect an actor that he deceived
even his parents. It is entirely unnecessary for parents
and teachers to tell myths and fairy tales to children
as truth, for children will enjoy these stories fully as
much if they know they are fiction. To the adult,
truth is more interesting than fiction, but to the child
the zest of make-believe is so rich that it fully counter-
balances the lack of reality.

Childhood 231

A small boy about four years of age very much
enjoyed " surprises " at the table. Some delicacy,
supposedly unknown to the rest, was covered with a
napkin and when the family was assembled at the
table, he removed the napkin. Then all were supposed
to clap their hands in joy and surprise. For a long time
they had oranges pretty regularly for breakfast, but
although he knew all were aware that there were
oranges under the napkin, he would cry " surprise "
and dramatically snatch the napkin away. " You
must clap your hands," he admonished any one who
failed to play surprised. At another time he came in
with a cane in his hand. His mother said, " Oh,
Howard, where did you get that cane? " This struck
him as an uncommonly good play, so he said, " Now
I'll go out again, and when I come back, you must clap
your hands, and say : ' Oh, Howard, where did you get
that cane?'"

Children's Fondness for Repetition. — Children like
repetition much more than do their elders. In the
case just given Howard repeated his appearances and
demands for his mother's recognition and repetition
of the formula, " Why, Howard, where did you get that
cane?" until his mother was thoroughly tired of it.
When a story is told to a child, in nine cases out of ten,
he will say, " Tell it again " ; and he will repeat this
request for the same story until his narrator is ex-
hausted. Dramatic plays, like London Bridge, will
be repeated again and again and again for whole hours,
without " change of bill." This is a very convenient
characteristic in children for the teachers, for it makes
drill work far less tedious to the pupils. It shows also

232 Psychology as Applied to Education

the wisdom of constant repetition of a few cardinal
ideas, expressions, and principles. This is not drudgery
to the child. This dynamic interest of the child should
be utilized in teaching. Drill on the multiplication table
may be made a pastime.

Imitativeness. — Imitation is a very prominent im-
pulse in children, even more than with their elders.
This is both conscious and unconscious. The child
must have a pencil of just the same color as his brother's
and must whistle when he whistles, but he will also
unconsciously imitate the grimaces and limp of a com-
rade. From this it is evident how sensitive a child's
soul is to its environment. Butter takes a taint from
the odors in the refrigerator no quicker than do children's
minds from any taint in the spiritual atmosphere. This
is closely connected with the mystic power of suggestion.

Suggestion has a terrific force with children. This is
why it is usually so futile to forbid a child to do any-
thing without at the same time removing the immediate
temptation. " Don't lick the iron fence to-day, Bobby.
It is so cold your tongue would freeze fast," said mother,
as Bobby stood with his mouth half an inch from the
the fence. The next minute Bobby was screaming with
a half of a square inch of tongue adhering to the iron.

THE ETHICS OF CHILDHOOD AND OF ANTIQUITY

Primitive Morality of Children. — The moral aspect
of the child's evolution depends, of course, wholly upon
the development of the ideal. The moral standards
held by children are not unlike those of primitive
society. The study of children reveals that few chil-
dren before ten years of age have admiration, worthy

Childhood 233

of the name, for honor, truthfulness, courage, and mercy.
Be not misled by the fact that the child will try to
make his conscience correspond to Sunday-school
models. He may even have quite clear intellectual
conceptions of the moral law, and be ready and able to
apply it to any given case. This morality is, however,
wholly an exotic.

Strength and Cunning. — Boys brag of how many
other "fellows" they can "lick" with impunity, not
of the odds they dare to take in a fight. They are very
indignant at a " cheat," but usually only when their
side gets cheated. Boys boast of their muscular
strength or mental cunning, not of bravery. " I'm not
afraid of going into the river, because I can swim," is
an example. The fact that Siegfried was invulnerable
reduces the grown man's admiration for the hero, for
what valor does the warrior show who knows that he
cannot be wounded? But to the child Siegfried with
the charmed " coat " was a greater man than Siegfried
without it. There is a peculiar tendency to join the
stronger side. In schools where no pupils over fourteen
years of age are found, and where the teacher makes no
conscious effort in that direction, there is seldom a
" code of honor " ; pupils feel entirely free to " tattle "
to the teacher. They do not consider it unmanly to
cry at the least provocation. Nor do they recognize
mercy as a virtue worth the having. The vikings of
the North or Izdubar's heroes in Chaldea were simply
overgrown boys, and the boy of to-day exhibits the
same cruelty, or rather indifference to the sufferings of
others, in his exultant pursuit of some terrified squirrel.
Strength and cunning were and are — in the case of chil-

234 Psychology as Applied to Education

dren — almost the only virtues recognized, with one
possible exception. Boys do hate a thief.

Honesty. — Historically the law of property was the
first moral law evolved, and for good reasons. The
institution of property (industrial society) was, together
with the family, the first institution evolved. The first
truly human relation after those of the family that
becomes explicit in man is the relation of owner to
property. With the masses " thief " and " convict " are
often synonymous terms. Even in the writings of
Hume we find that " justice " means right in property
relations only. " Honesty " to this day simply means
absence of thievish proclivities.

Loyalty. — We find, also, in children and barbarians
the rudiments of the virtue of loyalty. Children think,
at least under favorable circumstances, that it is
mean to desert their recognized leader. Instinctively
they are loyal to their parents, but even here a gleam
of explicit opinion that one ought to stand by one's
father and mother at all times may sometimes be dis-
coverable.

Piety is an early virtue. The barbarian and the
child find it easy to believe in a supreme Master and
Father and to recognize their duty of obedience.

Thus honesty, loyalty, and piety put in their appear-
ance, rising, as it seems, from the realm of instinct. The
child recognizes the personalities of master and God
much earlier and more clearly than those of himself
and his playmates. Thus, paradoxical as it may seem,
it is nevertheless true that the child can earlier com-
prehend by an act of " moral judgment " the duties of
worship, of obedience to God, and of submission and

Childhood 235

service to a person in authority than the duties of
charity of neighbor to neighbor or of the respect that
the individual owes to himself. The great fault of
nine tenths of our attempted moral instruction is that
it ignores this order of evolution of self-consciousness
and proceeds on the notion that, of course, the child has
the clearest notion of his own personality.

Hence, " virtues " recognized by the child and by
primitive man are : physical strength ; cunning ; and
the rudiments of honesty, loyalty, and piety.

Tabu Morality. — On such a system of morality as
that described, only savagery can exist. But we do
not want our children to be unqualified savages. In
spite of the fact that it is natural, we do not desire
scalping and cannibalism in the nursery. In its slow
upward strivings, the race has also found that this
primitive morality does not suffice. Hence an artifi-
cial complement has been added to it very early in the
evolution of society. This may be conveniently called
tabu morality.

Thus every tribe that has ever amounted to anything
has put certain restrictions on man which are wholly
without reason as far as the individual who obeys them
is concerned. In general, among primitive peoples to
kill a stranger is allowable, even laudable ; but if the
stranger is under one's roof and has partaken of one's
salt, his life is sacred. Per se, to lie shows one's acute-
ness, and even the gods of the mythologies lied ; but
it must not, in India, be done under a particular species
of tree. The malefactor is safe in the temple, however
black his crime ; to hurt him there would be sacrilege.

Thus antique society imposed many obligations upon

236 Psychology as Applied to Education

the individual, which, so far as the individual was con-
cerned, were obeyed without the slightest notion why
this was right and that was wrong, and in all but an
infinitesimal fraction of the whole number of instances,
without the least attempt or desire on the part of the
individual to know any reason why.

Such tabu morality must be established for the child
by teacher and parents. It is a great mistake to at-
tempt to make explicit every moral reason why to the
child. It cannot be done. Instead of wearying him
by moral disquisitions on truth, kindness, justice, and
mercy, just tell him that he must not do this, that, or
the other false, cruel, or unjust deed. The child, if he
trusts you, will construe himself the most gruesome
notion of the badness of the forbidden thing, and will
hate and detest it with all his heart. Thus the average
child has no rational basis whatever for holding that
a lie is wicked; he cannot have. In fact, many an
adult cannot get it by reasoning. But if his trusted
grown-up friends tell him that lying is despicable, he
will believe them implicitly, and will come to feel in
his very bones that lying is contemptible.

The true order in morals as well as in every other
art is first do and then know.

SUMMARY

In early childhood the nervous and muscular systems
are too immature to make training in accuracy and com-
plexity of motor and sense operations profitable or even
safe. The age of later childhood is the age for drill and
memory work.

Children live in the present. Their associations are

Childhood 237

narrow and limited, and, normally, they do not formulate
any general principles in their thinking. They think
rapidly but not scientifically ; and therefore all abstract
reasoning more than one step removed from the con-
crete has 10 place in elementary schools. Children
have only rudimentary notions of a past and a future,
but are mainly guided by the present impulse. Hence,
threats are wasted on children. Rewards, if in the
distant future, are equally powerless. Children are
unemotional and unsentimental. They are full of the
motor and dramatic instincts, understand and enjoy
fiction, like repetition, and are governed by imitation
and suggestion much more than are their elders.

The ethics of childhood is very much like that of
primitive man, and an adaptation of the ancient tabu
morality is the most effective method of developing, for
the child, a standard of right and wrong.

CHAPTER XXIV
EARLY ADOLESCENCE AND YOUTH

EARLY adolescence is the name given to the period of
change from childhood to manhood or womanhood.
Its determining physiological event is the development
into full functioning of the sexual organs; but this is
by no means all. Every nook and corner of the whole
being, mental and physical, is affected. It is a verita-
ble rebirth.

From birth to adolescence the rate of growth is
constantly decreasing. In fact, often for two or three
years just before adolescence, growth almost entirely
ceases. Even the most superficial observer must have
noticed how of a sudden the child who has almost
ceased developing starts growing again, and changes
more in a month than before in a year. This is the out-
ward mark of adolescence.

GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS OF EARLY ADOLESCENCE

Before discussing the characteristics of adolescence,
let me premise this warning. The adolescent is very
variable; no single statement can be made which is
true of all adolescents. I have seen many cases in
which the adolescent did not manifest a single char-
acteristic mentioned below. In fact every adolescent
must be studied individually to get useful results.

238

Early Adolescence and Youth 239

What is given below is, however, in the great majority
of cases true.

The Adolescent's Lack of Energy. — The adolescent
is lazy, or has at least the reputation for being so.
No wonder ! All his energies go to the building up
of " the hew, improved, and vastly enlarged plant "
which is to take the place of the physical system of
childhood. He has very little energy left to put into
the running of it. Hence the adolescent scholar should
have his program lightened. Treat him as a con-
valescent.

The Unsettled State of the Nervous System. — The
adolescent is fidgety and unreliable, likely to go off at
any moment in the most inexplicable way. He will
cry or get offended for nothing at all. He changes his
mind twenty times a day. One moment he plays and
romps as a child in perfect abandon ; the next moment
he is ashamed of himself and tries in his awkward way
to act grown up. His habits, even his morals, are
unsettled, however steady a child he may have been.
The reason for all this is not far to seek. The physical
basis of habit and morals we now believe to be the
make-up of the nervous system. But in the great
change from child to man or woman, the nervous system
is redeveloping, so no wonder if many of the old chan-
nels and threads get mixed. Deal gently with him,
then. He is, in a sense, a baby again, and is not re-
sponsible for his actions.

Adolescence an Awkward, Self-conscious Period. —
Because the period of early adolescence is the beginning
of youth, the adolescent finds himself possessed by new
emotions and impulses. They are strange and in-

240 Psychology as Applied to Education

convenient to him. He does not know how to handle
them. His new length of limb, his head's elevation
above the floor, the new cut of his clothes, the Mister
and the Miss make him feel uncomfortable. He feels
as if he had been mislaid with no chance of being found.
Then everybody is in the habit of staring at him. The
second sentence every one addresses to him is, " You
are growing, aren't you ? Why, you are quite a little
man ! "

Let us take pity on the young martyr. Don't compel
him to speak " pieces." Keep him out of the public
glare as much as possible. Don't show him that you
notice his growth any more than you would tell a
woman that you notice that her hair is turning gray.
Let him get used to his new life as mercifully as pos-
sible.

ADOLESCENCE THE TIME FOR CHARACTER FORMATION

" The hand that rocks the cradle rules the world "
may be a very fine sentiment, but it is absolutely false.
The first twelve years of a child's life count for com-
paratively little in the formation of character. The
period from thirteen to sixteen is immeasurably more
important in giving the ethical trend to the mind than
all the years of childhood. As we have just seen in the
preceding chapter, the child is incapable of more than
a very rudimentary moral development. The child's
world of thought, emotion, and action is too contracted
to form any safe basis for the development of a charac-
ter that will withstand the temptations of manhood.
From many of the strongest temptations, such as the
sexual, the child is practically exempt. As to explicit,

Early Adolescence and Youth 241

intelligent, religious, moral, and social opinions, the child
simply hasn't any.

The Fixation of Certain Habits. — It is true that a
great deal of character consists in habit, and many
habits may be formed for life in childhood. But in the
great revolution of mind and body, known as adoles-
cence, the habits of childhood lose some of their com-
pelling force, and in all normal cases it is possible to re-
shape the whole habit system of the adolescent. The
habit that becomes fixed earliest is probably that of
pronunciation. The pronunciation of a child of five
years is usually as perfect in every shade of dialect and
in every linguistic peculiarity as that of a man of fifty.
But still, in nine cases out of ten, an adolescent can
learn to speak a language without the least foreign
accent.

Hence it is safe to say that moral, religious, and social
habits can be formed and must be fixed after the begin-
ning of adolescence, and that social, moral, and religious
beliefs, codes, ideals, and standard of values must be
formed after childhood is at an end.

This truth has been recognized by religious society
in all ages. Almost every heathen cult of every age
imposed and imposes some solemn ordeal for the adoles-
cent, intended to fit him for the larger duties of adult
life. . Christian churches have placed confirmation at or
near this time. The immersionists do not, as a rule,
allow the rite of baptism at any earlier period.

The Right Kind of Teacher for Adolescents. —
Adolescence, then, is the age of character formation,
and in spite of the high pedagogical authority they
quote in their favor, it seems to us evident that those

242 Psychology as Applied to Education

are wrong who claim that the kindergarten and the
primary grades are the most important periods of
education.

Character is largely propagated by contagion. The
noble heart, the strong will, the refined sensibilities,
the pure soul alone can instill nobility, strength, refine-
ment, and purity into other minds.

Persons with ideal characters are not exactly plen-
tiful, even in the teacher's profession; and hence if
I were a city superintendent, I should choose among
my teachers the most perfect specimens of manhood
and womanhood, mental, moral, social, and physical,
for the classes made up of early adolescents. This
would mean the eighth grade and the first two years
of the high school. I should not care half so much in
these grades for scholarship as for character. But what
is a "good character"? How should it be chosen?
First, don't mistake stupidity and moral cowardice for
virtue. This is a most common mistake. Often your
man of limited intelligence is likely to be more correct
according to the models of conventionality than your
genius. Do not choose for a teacher of adolescents a
character which is chiefly remarkable for the evil that
is left out of it. Whatever you do, choose a dynamic
intelligence, one that dares and does. Choose a leader
among men, a person with initiative, with personal
magnetism, one whom the pupils will trust, look up to,
and follow. Choose him for the good that is in him,
not for the bad that is out of him. Don't expect to
find a faultless person. Choose a person so much
bigger than his faults that he can afford to have
them.

Early Adolescence and Youth 243

TEACHING THE ADOLESCENT TO KNOW HIMSELF

To be plain, — and it is silly to be anything else, —
teach the pupil the facts about his sexual organs. I
know how hard it is to do this, how every person with
delicate sensibilities " hates " to obtrude himself upon
the sacred personal reserve of another individual. But
if for a moment the veil were lifted and we could see
the millions of victims of sexual ignorance, the count-
less young lives blighted, the numberless stars and suns
of talent and genius dimmed and darkened just for the
lack of a little elementary knowledge of the laws of the
springs of life ; yea, if we knew but a tithe of this, we
should esteem it base cowardice to allow our pupils
to grow up without a proper knowledge of them-
selves.

You cannot overestimate the ignorance on this
subject. An excellent teacher, in whose judgment I
have absolute confidence, asserts that in a teachers'
training school, where she spoke on this subject to some
eighty teachers, there were several who had not the
faintest conception of the most elementary facts about
themselves. Thus we leave each generation to solve for
itself the most vital and delicate mystery of life.

Dangers against which the Adolescent should be
Protected. — Who will teach them if we don't ? Very
likely the vilest dregs of human society. Have you
considered what that means? You cannot protect
your son or daughter from such tuition. Many an
attractive young person of the same sex as your child,
and with whom you never think of forbidding com-
munication, is inwardly filled with "dead men's bones,

244 Psychology as Applied to Education

and of all uncleanness." He or she will make an in-
timate of your child and communicate this inward
filth.

Modern civilization has added two other ghouls to
the list of fiends on the track of the adolescent — the
patent medicine vender and the " renowned specialist
in private diseases." They want as many patients as
possible. So it is in their interest to make as many
people as possible think they need treatment. Hence
the most innocent and ordinary trifles are minutely
described and heralded forth as " certain symptoms "
and " awful danger signals " of some loathsome and
dangerous disease.

Untold agonies are suffered by timid and modest
young people who, though sound as church bells, have
fallen victims to these medical sharks. All the vic-
tim's little savings, pocket money, and pin money is
spent for " free private medical advice " and medicines
sent by mail " in plain wrappers." One part of their
promise they fulfill. They keep the whole thing secret
enough. Trust them for that, the vampires ! Add
to the unnecessary worry and expense the amount of
useless or harmful drugs taken by the victims, and we
have an inkling of the magnitude of the evil !

Methods of Instruction. — Against these dangers
teachers and parents are in duty bound to protect their
charges. The necessary information can be given in
three ways : -

(a) By private interview with each pupil alone.

(6) By class instruction to a class composed of one
sex only.

Early Adolescence and Youth 245

The last way is the easiest for all concerned. But
never put a book of this description into the hands of
a pupil until you know it is right in letter and in spirit.
Investigate the statements of the book and verify them
by good medical authority before you give it to your
pupil. If, as is most likely, you find no book perfectly
satisfactory, annotate the least objectionable one in
such a way that the pupils are thoroughly safeguarded
against falling into any dangerous error.

As a rule, the best results are obtained if the book
method is supplemented by the class method. For
instruction, there is nothing equal to the living voice.
Very few people are able to get a " saving knowledge "
of any subject from books alone without the living
teacher. Hence a few class meetings, with a chance to
ask questions by both pupils and teacher, is generally
desirable.

Now and then you will find pupils whose peculiar
character and environment are such that more is needed.
Then the private interview is the duty of the teacher.

SUMMARY OF ADOLESCENCE

The adolescent is a very variable creature, and here
it is more necessary than anywhere else in school life
Nto study the individual and treat him according to
his idiosyncracies.

Some adolescents retain the care-free, light-hearted
child spirit till they are six feet tall ; and thus change
without any embarrassment from childhood to manhood.

Others fall naturally into the manners of grown people
while they are yet children. They, of course, know
nothing of the gawky age.

246 Psychology as Applied to Education

Children are no more attracted to the opposite sex
than to their own; but in the nature of things, the
adolescent, as a rule, begins to feel drawn to the op-
posite sex. But instances are not uncommon where
adolescents do not care more for the other sex than
children do. This liking for the opposite sex is often
manifested by the show of unspeakable contempt which
boys affect for girls at this age, and the aversion for boys
manifested by the girls.

Early adolescence is a veritable second birth, and a
birth into a higher life than childhood. It is the in-
troduction to the true golden age — youth.

YOUTH

Youth is the true golden age of life. Childhood is
not. Child life is too narrow, too near the animal stage
of existence to be worthy of the extravagant praise
bestowed upon it by the retrospective poet. Here it
is indeed true that " 'tis distance lends enchantment
to the view." But in youth the spirit sweeps through
the whole vast range of human interests; and to the
zest that comes from wide interests, strong emotions,
and new-found power is added the joy of novelty, and
of unknown possibilities, the bliss of the " first time/'

CONTRAST BETWEEN CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH

The Child, a Materialist; the Youth, an Idealist. —
As we have seen, the child is unsentimental. Youth
builds castles in Spain, loves the mystic and super-
natural, delights in daydreams and sentiment.

The Child, Self-centered; the Youth, Social. — The
child is necessarily narrow in his sympathies. He is

Early Adolescence and Youth 247

interested in the welfare of but few persons outside of
the immediate family circle. " Lord, save me and my
wife, my son John and his wife," is a sentiment that
children find perfectly natural. As the child's imagina-
tion is weak, he cannot " put himself in the other fel-
low's place," and hence often appears hard-hearted and
cruel. Not so youth. This is the age when we over-
flow with tenderness, pity, and sympathy. The child
can scarcely be said to have a social world at all. Youth
is the very time of all times for comradeship, fellowship,
social pleasures, love, and, above all, friendship. He
who had no intimate friend in his youth is not likely to
be worth much. How we do trust humankind in those
noble days ! How we do enjoy the society of our kind !
Youth is the age for reformers and martyrs, for hero-
ism and self-sacrifice, for loyalty and discipleship.

The Child, Utilitarian; the Youth, Esthetic. — The
child's first question about an object is, " What is it
for? " By this the child means : In what way can we
get bread, butter, or amusement out of it ? Even when
drawing or painting, children do not desire primarily
to make pretty things. A child's highest ambition is
to make something that is " good for something," i.e.
useful. But for youth, beauty is one of the great con-
cerns of life. The child-girl cares comparatively little
how she " looks." The maiden in her teens finds this
a topic of absorbing interest. No normal child cares
for classic poetry; no normal youth but tries to write
it. The child likes stories of adventure, not because he
admires bravery, for he does not to any enthusiastic
extent ; but because he idolizes success. The youth
is enamored of tales of romance and mystery, for they

248 Psychology as Applied to Education

feed his sentimental nature. He loves courage, chiv-
alry, and magnanimity for their own sake, and not
simply for the power to gain the victory.

MEDIEVALISM AND THE ETHICS OF YOUTH

Adolescence and early youth correspond to the
Middle Ages in history. There is in both the same re-
ligious fervor, the same enthusiasm for the " things
beyond." The same tendency to romanticism and
mysticism, asceticism and chivalry is noticeable in both.
The teacher in treating the adolescent should constantly
remember that he is handling a denizen of the medieval
world.

Nowhere is this more important than when the eth-
ical concepts of the pupil form a factor in the problem.

The moral code of youth is almost the exact oppo-
site of that of childhood. The emphasis is placed on
the social or " altruistic " virtues, and mere brute
force and cunning are held in contempt. The moral
sense is in this period liable to certain diseases, and
against these the parent and teacher should always be
on guard.

Mental Diseases of Youth. — Morbidity. — There is
in all of us a certain appetite for grewsome imaginings.
In youth this can easily develop into a disease, luring
the unfortunate victim to poison his mind with that
literature found in novels and newspapers which deals
with the loathsome details of crime.

Asceticism. — Society in its medieval stage, and the
individual in early youth, have a tendency to accept
the beliaf that there is moral merit in mere suffering.
" Be sure," said a devotee of this doctrine, " that what

Early Adolescence and Youth 249

is repulsive to you is pleasing to God." This morbid
view is responsible for much misery among young
people of more contemplative disposition.

Abstract Altruism and Concrete Selfishness. — This
is perhaps the most common disease of character among
the young. Pious Lulu wants to be a missionary and
dreams of sacrificing her lifetime, her energy, and beauty
in teaching " black little lambs " in Africa. But she
cuffs and scolds her little brother who prefers play to
waiting on her. Many young girls aspire to work in
the slums or to devote themselves to the emancipation
of woman ; but it never occurs to them to find out if
Sally in the kitchen is overworked or to help Sally's
brothers or sisters out of their abject poverty.

The Cure. — The cure is the same as that which
the Lord gave the world for medievalism : work.
The discovery of a New World, which had to be ex-
plored, conquered, settled, and quarreled about; the
increased industrial activity of Europe ; the invention
of printing and the coincident intellectual revival;
religious and political quarrels : all these things gave
Europe enough to do, so that she found it impossible
to go on any longer with morbid mopings.

Let us apply the same cure to the morbid, over-
wrought, sentimentalizing youth. Keep him occupied.
A little drudgery will not hurt him. Mechanical
drudgery only is, however, far from sufficient. Above
all, give him work that calls out his constructive and
combative propensities. A small dose of athletic com-
petitive games is not bad. But constructive work, such
as gardening, sloyd, actual work on the farm and in
the shop, teaching, and the study of subjects that re-

250 Psychology as Applied to Education

quire a great deal of concentration, form the best anti-
dote. Sunny, simple, and sincere home life gives the
atmosphere in which these morbid bacteria do not
long thrive.

But let all elder leaders of the young heed this
solemn warning : Do not mistake the vital idealism of
youth for morbid sentimentality ! Very often when we
think we discover silly sentimentality in medieval life
and in youth, the mistake is not theirs, but ours. The
sordid prose of mature life and modern civilization is
as frightful a failure in reaching life's ideal as is the
overwrought poetry of medievalism and youth.

COMPARISON OF YOUTH AND MATURITY

If men lived ideal lives, maturity would be a larger,
stronger, and freer youth. But men do not always
live ideal lives. In many of us the divine fire of youth
is succeeded by the cold, calculating spirit that we have
misnamed practical. I recall a case in point. O, the
lavish majesty of his youth ! What grace, what poetry
was there, what breadth of view, what charity for all
mankind, what courage in every just cause ! But he
grew a year older every year, married, had children,
likewise political ambitions; succeeded with both,
became a statesman, a pillar of society, a deacon of
the church, and a millionaire. Oh, yes — yes — he
had marvelous success, had this man — but at what
cost ? At fifty, he was a man without ideals — illu-
sions of youth, he called them. His life was sordid
prose, mere ledger accounts. In politics he had com-
promised with his conscience and the devil Expediency
until, to save his soul, he could not tell his conscience

Early Adolescence and Youth 251

from expediency. Still he was what the world calls a
man of " sterling character," and was held up as a
model to the young men of the state. All that was
really human in him in his mature life were the funda-
mental impulses connected with family life — his love
and devotion to his wife and children. All else had
dried up in the fervent heat of a " practical " life.

It need not be so. All the enthusiasm of youth can
be kept, even under the snow of old age. All that we
must of necessity lose with age is the youthful physical
frame and that delicious shuddering expectancy with
which inexperience greets the first experiences of adult
life ; and these are more than counterbalanced by the
widening of the intellectual horizon and the deepening
of our whole nature which ought to be the result of an
enlarged experience.

But, alas! it is yet true in many cases, that the
individual, as he advances in years, becomes more
sordid, hard-hearted, and narrow-minded.

Psychologically, the process of growing old consists
in getting confirmed in a set of habits. This is at
once the strength and weakness of maturity. Our
habits are the grooves in which our minds run, the rails
along which a much greater speed can be maintained
than on a road without rails. The mind works faster,
better, more easily, and more efficiently in these ruts
than out of them. Thus maturity, with its established
system of habits, can do more work, and can do it more
easily and more gracefully, than youth which is with-
out these habits.

But the locomotive which runs so well on its rails
is perfectly helpless when off them. The whole wide

252 Psychology as Applied to Education

world that is unrailed is not for the locomotive. Like-
wise, as the ruts of habit deepen in our minds, we, as
a rule, find it harder and harder to get out of these
ruts. This refers not to ethical and technical habits
alone, but to intellectual as well. Youth is open to
conviction; the person of middle age has his beliefs
fixed. Harvey, the discoverer of the circulation of the
blood, said that he could make no man over forty
believe in his discovery. Almost all converts and
proselytes are young.

THE SPHERE OF INSTRUCTION FOR YOUTH

Instruction in Science. — Youth is the time to learn
to think scientifically. Not that it is natural for youth
to be scientific. Far from it! Most young people are
perfectly content to go on in the same slipshod rule-of-
thumb manner of thought that served them so well in
childhood. But youth can be scientific if it tries. It
is no longer antinatural to think principles, laws, and
relations explicitly. Hence youth should begin the
study of science — not only natural science, but social
and linguistic science as well. By science we mean
here the systematized laws (concepts) that constitute
the essence of the facts of the universe. Just as truly
as it is false pedagogy to require definitions of children,
just as certainly is it bad teaching to neglect to demand
definitions and the exact statement of principles of
youth. The logical why, the scientific how, should be
the main theme in the education of youth.

^Esthetic and Ethical Instruction. — Youth is also
the time for aesthetic education, and for the crowning
of the work of ethical education.

P ARTEL

PEDAGOGICAL APPLICATION
OF PSYCHOLOGY

CHAPTER XXV
THE ART OF STUDYING

EYE, EAR, AND HAND

PUT down in black and white, it is a truism, but never-
theless it needs constant repetition, that the eye, ear,
and hand of the student should be in condition to do
the work required of them.

The Eye. — Every teacher should know that his
pupils can see their work. Nearsightedness and astig-
matism are the two most frequent imperfections that
escape the teacher's observation. Every teacher should
learn the simple tests by which the presence of these
imperfections can be discovered.

The Ear. — Deafness is so easily discovered by tests
that any person with common sense can invent, that
there is no excuse for the fact that in a large per cent
of our schools there are pupils who are thought and
even called dull by the teacher, when the real truth is
that they do not hear sufficiently well to understand
all that is said.

The Hand. — The hand of the young child is seldom
ready for the work imposed upon it by our present
system of education. The child is not ready to write
and draw except with arm movements until his eighth
or tenth year. To determine when the child is fit to
begin to use pen and pencil does not require technical

255

256 Psychology as Applied to Education

skill; only observation and moral courage to obey
common sense when convinced that our time-honored
practice is wrong.

Visualizers, Audiles, and Motiles. — The mind deals
in symbols. There is no such thing as " pure " thought ;
every idea is shadowed forth to the mind itself by the
image of something visible, audible, or tangible. Only
through these images is thought communicated from
one person to another. The same thought has several
sets of images as its representatives. Thus piano may
be represented in the mind by the visual image of a
piano, by its sound, or even by the image of the motion
in playing it. So, in reading a description of an his-
torical scene, we see, hear, and do it in imagination.
Some chiefly see the scene in imagination; these are
the visualizers. Others find their auditory images
strongest and most reliable for memorizing. These
are called audiles. Finally, many find that their
appreciation and grasp of the situation depend almost
exclusively on a mental imitation of the motor element
of the scene. These are of the motor type, or motiles.

Eye Training at the Expense of Ear Training. — Some
minds learn best through the eye, others through the
ear. The eye-minded pupil should spend some time
daily in training his neglected sense of hearing, but at
the same time it is wise for him, when he is after
results, to use his eyes chiefly. Likewise, mutatis
mutandis, should be the course of the ear-minded.

Our present system of education trains the eye at
the expense of the ear. We gain almost all our knowl-
edge through silent reading or through visual obser-
vation or experiments. The result is that our ears are

The Art of Studying 257

left in pristine ignorance. Few people, nowadays,
gain any knowledge worth having from speeches,
lectures, and sermons. When we have heard a speaker
on some subject, and are interested, we hie ourselves
home to " read up on it " ; for we don't know " the
first thing about it " yet. An ancient scholastic super-
stition makes professors still lecture, but their students
do not listen to learn, but to scribble off the words as
completely as possible. To get at the thought of the
lecture, they afterwards burn the midnight oil and
" bone " over the crabbed notes so as to get the knowl-
edge through the eyes.

That the neglect of hearing as a knowledge-gathering
sense is an evil needs no proof. To make its full im-
pression upon us, truth should come to the soul through
every avenue. The full grasp of a truth is not obtained
until hearing furnishes its part in the circuit of compre-
hension.

As remedies, the following are suggested. Students
should be encouraged to read aloud whenever and
wherever possible. When two students occupy the
same room and have the same lessons, it is a good
plan for one student to read, and the other to listen to
the lesson. The listening student should not have his
book open; thus he gains doubly in discipline; his
ears are trained, and he acquires the valuable habit of
holding his mind responsible for the retention of that
which has been presented to it only once. When read-
ing from a book, one often lets his attention wander
because he knows that if he should miss anything, he
can easily glance back and pick it up. As a result
his attention is slovenly, and he has no definite grasp

258 Psychology as Applied to Education

of anything ; but in listening to something, he knows
that it is now or never, and his attention will act accord-
ingly. This habit of close attention is really in the end
the cheapest for the amount of work it will accomplish.
Importance of the Motor Element. — Until he has
observed himself scientifically, almost every one is
ignorant of the great importance of the motor element
in his imagination. The motor element is strengthened
by actual imitation. Hence the device employed in
the Gouin method of learning languages : When pos-
sible, act out the expression while saying it. Thus,
when saying in the new language, " I open the door,"
open a door. Then, as you close the door, say, " I
close the door." You will find that this makes your
practice more than doubly effective. Dramatic repre-
sentations by the pupils, however slight, aid greatly
in the study of history. After a pupil has once acted
out an historical character, that character lives for him.
This is one of the reasons why experimenting in natural
science produces so much more vital knowledge than
that derived from books. This is also one of the rea-
sons for putting sloyd in the front rank as a means of
education.

THE PROPER ATTITUDE FOR STUDY

The Right Mood. — Teach your pupils to make work,
not play, of their study. They should train themselves
to have definite times for study and to buckle down on
the minute, and keep buckled down to business as long
as the study period lasts. Teach them to disregard
their " moods " altogether in this matter, and to mind
their " tenses " (times) ; and they will soon find that

The Art of Studying 259

the proper attitude will come of its own accord; for
it is true that the emotional state does make a great
difference in the fruitfulness of our efforts. The pupil
should be in physical and mental comfort and in sym-
pathy with his study. Any excess of feeling is likely
to decrease his logical acuteness ; but this should not
be interpreted to mean that he must not feel strongly
when the subject so requires.

The Critical Attitude. — The attitude of the student
is all-important. In receiving information he should
be critical and independent and take nothing for
granted until it has justified itself to his sense of ra-
tionality. That is, he should never for any chain of
reasoning take the author's say-so. He should always
run through the logical process from premises to con-
clusion and satisfy himself that it is correct. At the
same time he should learn to have the receptive atti-
tude. After having studied a piece of literature criti-
cally, he should not stop, but read it again, surrendering
himself to its charms, and attending to its emotional
interests.

Sympathy. — Wherever the human element enters,
his attitude should be sympathetic. No person, age,
or race can be understood by us until we have sympa-
thized with them in weal and woe.

In studying the French Revolution, the pupil should
sympathize in turn with the miserable peasants, the
brilliant political philosophers, the brave reformers, the
refined emigre's, the splendid nobility, the unfortunate
king and queen, and all the unhappy victims of that
awful political hurricane. Sympathy with all that is
truly human in every partaker in the great drama im-

260 Psychology as Applied to Education

plies necessarily righteous indignation and passionate
condemnation of all that is vicious, low, and brutal.
Thus, in the above example, the students should fully
realize the selfishness of the nobility, the weakness of the
king, and the brutality of the reformers. Our boys
do not understand the War of the Revolution until
they see the English side of it as well as the American,
until they realize that it was inevitable for most good
and wise men on the British side, like Samuel Johnson,
to regard the American patriots as rebels. The broad,
warm, intensely human spirit who rejoices, suffers,
lives with the characters he describes, is the ideal his-
torian and the ideal student.

Intellectual Courage. — The grit to launch out, to
take the initiative, to venture a decided posito, lies at
the very heart of successful thinking. Suppose it is
a problem in algebra. The mental coward is not dar-
ing and reckless enough in his invention of hypotheses
for a solution. He dares not take for granted that his
mind will and must keep a great number of conditions
clear and distinct and in the very center of its atten-
tion. When black mystery surrounds him, he gives
it up secretly to himself from the beginning, and feels
sure he is to be defeated. And so he is, of course.

The grim determination that the edge of one's mind
shall not turn, that whatever betides and whatever the
cost, one will solve the mystery, this is an essential of
successful thinking. Self-reliance, courage, integrity of
purpose mark the clear thinker.

Fixing Facts. — Though we cannot diminish the
amount of repetition necessary to fasten irrationalized
facts in the mechanical memory, we can make the

The Art of Studying 261

process more or less pleasant. Thus, the best way of
getting the facts of history does not consist in reading
over and over again a small manual. The better way
is to read several extensive accounts of the events in
question. The constant recurrence of the same facts
in different connections will fix them in memory quite
as quickly as mechanical drill on the contents of a
small book.

In learning a science the student should strive
to reach as high a degree of the following attri-
butes as possible in his thought : vividness, clearness,
distinctness, comprehensiveness. Imitate Abraham
Lincoln, who said that when he studied he was never
satisfied until he had bounded the new truth north,
south, east, and west. As a rule, we are too easy on
our imaginations. Put color, detail, and life into
your everyday thinking.

SUGGESTIONS IN REGARD TO THE NOTEBOOK

The Abuse of the Notebook. — Nine tenths of the
notebooks of students are a decided detriment to their
owners. They have spoiled the memories of this gen-
eration. The notebook works its saddest havoc in
the higher institutions of learning where it is a part
of a greater evil — the traditional university lecture.
It is fairly safe to assert that as a rule what a student
puts down in his notebook during a lecture he does not
put down in his memory. Professor J. E. Erdmann in
his " History of Philosophy " sums up the whole situ-
ation in a sentence when he says, quoting Schleier-
macher, " A professor who dictates sentences for his
students to take down in reality claims for himself

262 Psychology as Applied to Education

the privilege of ignoring the discovery of printing."
The lecture which the students are expected to write
down word for word has to-day no excuse for being.

The lecture has its place, however, but only the
lecture that the pupils are expected to hear when it is
delivered. When the pupil listens, he should have his
whole soul in his ears; if he is scribbling for dear life
to get down the lecturer's words on paper, a part of his
mind is running down and out at his pencil point, and
we have the undesirable condition known as divided
attention. The result is that at the end of the lecture
the pupil has no clear and connected conception of
what the lecturer said, but rushes home to guess what
his scrawls in the notebook mean. That this is a de-
cided waste of mental energy ought to be plain.

How to use the Notebook. — At the lecture or reci-
tation the pupil should attend to what is said with his
undivided powers. He should take no notes. The
only permissible exception is the jotting down of names
and dates that cannot be remembered. When the
recitation is over, and the pupil is back at his desk, he
should proceed to make an entry in his notebook of
the lesson or lecture, as follows : —

First, he should make a very brief systematic out-
line of the subject, to occupy a separate place in the
book, or, better still, be put in a book of its own. This
outline should be the pupil's outline. The teacher or
the text may give an outline, and this may be used as
a basis for the pupil's outline, but the pupil should not
be satisfied until he has introduced some " improve-
ments " in the outline. He has not perfectly assim-
ilated the thought of teacher and text, or he has not

The Art of Studying 263

maintained the critical attitude as he should have
done, if he cannot suggest what to him seem improve-
ments. The pupil should also put in his notebook any
information gained in class or from lectures that cannot
readily be found in texts and that is of sufficient value
to be remembered ; also any valuable new point of
view, or new insight, he has gained ; and finally his own
views, especially when they differ from those generally
accepted.

A Few Rules. — Make your notes as brief and pithy
as possible. Half a dozen lines on each subject a day
is usually enough. Write nothing in your notebook
that you do not expect to read over and over again in
the future. Leave every other page blank for future
notes. Date every entry. Thus your notebook will
become a record of the evolution of your mind.

Exercise

1. Are you predominantly a visualizer or an audile?

2. Listen to a paragraph read by some one else, and then sum-
marize its contents ; then read another paragraph of about the same
length and difficulty, and summarize its contents. Which sense,
sight or hearing, gave you the best results ?

3. Have you ever heard of notebooks being bequeathed for years
from class to class in a school ? How much benefit does a pupil
get from copying another's notes ?

4. Did you ever hear of any one who was converted in religion,
politics, or anything else by means of a debate ? In what attitude
is the mind of the debater towards the propositions of the other
side?

CHAPTER XXVI

THE RECITATION

THE PURPOSES OF THE RECITATION

THE purposes of a recitation are : —

(a) To test the pupil's faithfulness and success in
acquiring and assimilating the lesson.

(6) To drill on the memory and art element of the
lesson.

(d) To help him gain culture.

(e) To prepare for the study of the next lesson.

In and through and above it all, the true teacher
seeks to create the right ideals in his pupils, but as
this is a constant element in all true teaching, and the
all-important element, it is not coordinate with the
specific purposes of the recitation and is not mentioned
as such.

THE TEST

As a rule, the test should be incidental. While the
teacher directs the energies of the class toward the
realization of the other purposes, it will generally
become manifest whether the pupils have been faithful
in their efforts to study the lesson.

At times, however, it becomes necessary to reveal the
poor student definitely and swiftly both to the teacher

264

The Recitation 265

and to himself. Then it is best to ask a question which
is capable of a brief, definite answer easily derived from
the lesson. If the pupil suffers from laziness or confu-
sion of ideas, make this very plain to him. Show him
the imperfections of his answer, generally by pointed
questions. Here " leading questions " are not out of
order. If lack of application is the cause of the failure,
let it be apparent. At times it may be best to inform
the pupil briefly and brutally, " You have not studied
this lesson," and ignore him for the rest of the recita-
tion. But some pupils develop a beautiful resignation
under this treatment, and will bob up cheerfully,
recitation after recitation, with an " I don't know,"
and sit down with a complacent sigh as if now that
worry were over. Some teachers inform such a pupil
regularly that he ought to study his lesson, that he
cannot expect to pass, and that it is a " shame."
To all of which the pupil agrees by a deprecatory stoop
in his shoulders and a downcast glance ; but a second
afterward he is as happy as the best of them. Scold-
ings run off his soul like water off the back of a goose.
The proper treatment in this case is a little judicious
"grilling." Don't let the habitually ill-prepared pupil
get off with an " I don't know." Ply him with other
questions, and let him repeat his formula till he gets
tired of it. Give him the book, point out the passage,
and let him read the paragraph referred to. Then
when he closes the book, open the battery of ques-
tions on him again. If one or two doses of this
treatment do not cure him, harsher methods may be
necessary. Too much time may easily be spent in
mere testing.

266 Psychology as Applied to Education

DRILL

Necessity for Drill. — Every subject contains a
certain element that must simply be memorized. In
some subjects, like arithmetic, there are certain pro-
cesses, a certain mental technique, to be acquired.
Others, again, like manual training and the experi-
mental sciences, require certain manual skill. This is
the art element in education. (Art here has no aesthetic
connotation.) These are the habit studies. These
can be acquired only by that repetition which is gen-
erally known as drill.

Much of this drill should be gained by the pupil
when preparing the lesson; but in all work below the
high school, drill of the technical element should con-
sume a generous share of the recitation time. Let us
adopt in a measure the practical methods of the fathers !
There is but one way of acquiring the technique of
civilization, and that is the method of the old school,
— drill, and drill in the class under the eye of the
teacher.

Methods of Drill at the Recitation. — The whole
class should be kept busy throughout the recitation
period of drill, and the teacher should be able to dis-
cover an error in the pupil's work the instant it is made.

In mathematics the whole class may be put to black-
board work. Rapid and accurate computation and
correct and neat statements should be required.
After the pupil has thus told what he has done in written
mathematical language, he may be required to spend
some little time in telling the same tale in oral mathe-
matical language. The rest of the class should act as

The Recitation 267

critics. In this explaining of problems, the tendency
is always to require too much of the pupil. Too often
the teacher will require the ten-year-old child to reason
as explicitly as he himself reasons.

If spelling is taught as a separate subject, the written
recitation on tablet or blackboard is the best form.
As a change and recreation, the oral recitation may be
introduced.

History and geography require less drill work than
most subjects. Frequent brief chronological sum-
maries, written by the pupils on the blackboard, are a
useful drill in history. If mistakes are made, the pupils
should correct them, not simply be made cognizant of
them. Gazeteer work and map drawing are useful
for the same purpose in the geography class. Free-
hand drawing of maps, first from copy and then from
memory, is the only kind of map drawing that is not
a waste of time and energy in the grades. For seat
work the tablet is excellent, but the recitation drill
should be conducted at the blackboard.

Every word the pupil speaks is a drill in oral language.
The general rule is : Correct every mistake in language
as soon as made, and see that the pupil repeats the
correct form. There are exceptions to this rule, the
occasions for which the tactful teacher will easily
discover.

The written language work of the recitation should
generally be blackboard work. It should be criticised
either by another pupil or by the teacher, and should
invariably be corrected by the pupil himself. Mis-
spelled words should be rewritten correctly several
times.

268 Psychology as Applied to Education

TRAINING IN THOUGHT

Though drill is important, it is by no means all-
sufficient. The pupils should also learn to think.
This mere drill cannot teach. The characteristics
of successful thought may be catalogued as follows :
interest, vividness, clearness, distinction, and organi-
zation.

Interest. — Keep on the pupil's plane. Let the pupil
do the thinking and talking ; don't talk to him and at
him all the time. Connect his lessons with his daily
life. Be a comrade to your pupils. Shed the solemn
Prince-Albert-coat air. Cultivate a sunny disposition
and invite smiles and even laughter to sojourn with
you in the scholastic shades.

Vividness. — Demand and give details. This gives
life and color to history and geography. If practicable,
bring the thing itself; but if the thing itself should
happen to be a volcano, bring a model or, if this is
impracticable, a picture. A colored picture is better
than one in black and white.

Clearness and Definiteness. — Almost invariably
the thought of the pupil is dim and indefinite. The
greatest service the teacher can do for the improvement
of the thinking of his pupils is in clarification. This
should be done at the recitation by judicious question-
ing. When a pupil has caught a truth by the hind
legs, don't become cheaply sarcastic over the undig-
nified appearance he and his truth make. Show your
gratitude for what he has done, but make it plain that
improvements are desirable, and indicate by question
or remark the direction in which improvement is needed.

The Recitation 269

Keep this thought clearly before your mind : It is
not sufficient that the teacher think clearly. This is
often forgotten. Some teachers get into the habit of
furbishing up the vague answers of their pupils into
logical exactness, and then passing on to another
question. The class easily falls into the habit of letting
the teacher do the thinking. This practice has given
rise to the rule : Never repeat and improve the answer
of a pupil. Let the pupils themselves do the improving.

This rule may, however, become a pedagogical heresy,
based on the false notion that there is something dis-
honorable in all thinking that is not wholly original.
By all means furnish the clear and exact thought and
expression yourself if you cannot readily get it from the
class; but be sure that the class thinks the thought
after you. Don't ask them to repeat your statement.
A mere repetition signifies nothing, for it may be done
without understanding the thought in the least; but
ask the next question so that an answer to it will in-
volve a clear conception of the thought that went before.

For example, the teacher has just made plain to the
pupil that Simon de Montfort's parliament of 1265,
though the first parliament in which the Commons
were represented, was not a legal parliament, because
summoned by a revolutionary leader; and that the
complete parliament consists of King, Lords, and
Commons. His next question may be, " Why was the
parliament of 1295 a legal parliament? " If the pupil
answers, " Because the King summoned it in the cus-
tomary fashion," he is right; but if he answers, as a
loose thinker is likely to do, " Because it consisted of
King, Lords, and Commons," he shows that he did

270 Psychology as Applied to Education

not follow the thought of the previous discussion.
Equally wrong would it be for him to answer the
question, " What made this parliament complete? "
by " Because it was legally summoned."

The formal lecture has no place in the grades or the
high school. The teacher, in giving information and
leading the thinking of his class, will find the conver-
sational method best.

Devices for securing Clearness of Thought. — Here
are a few devices that have proved useful in secur-
ing clearness and exactness of thought. Ask the
pupils to describe a character or an event by one word.
Let all that wish present candidate words, and then
let the class and the teacher decide. A recitation on
some topic expressed in one simple sentence is a useful
variation of the above. When, as often happens, the
beginning and end of a pupil's answer do not fit to-
gether, and the pupil does not readily note the error,
send him to the blackboard to write it out. A written
imperfection is more easily discovered than an oral.

Organization. — The organic connection of every
idea with other ideas should always be emphasized.
This is the truth of correlation. Oral and blackboard
summaries and outlines should often be called for.
A useful exercise is the Logical Chain. This consists
in giving the chain of effect and cause for as long a
distance as possible. For example : malaria — parasite
in the blood corpuscle — mosquitoes — stagnant water.

TRAINING IN CULTURE

The teacher and the class should not spend all their
time in the critical, analytical frame of mind that comes

The Recitation 271

naturally with intense intellectual work; the sympa-
thetic, synthetic mood should be invited when literary
beauty is at hand. Let the class read at times for pure
enjoyment, and don't worry about the " purpose of
the author " or the logic of the argument.

THE ART OF QUESTIONING

The teacher's questions should be definite. One
answer and only one should fit each question.

Leading questions are bad under all ordinary con-
ditions of the recitation. Rarely, however, occasions
may arise when a leading question will straighten out
a bewildered pupil better than direct information.

Questions that may be answered by yes or no are
generally inadvisable because they narrow down the
pupil's necessity for thinking to its smallest extent.
They also encourage guessing. The pupil is right one
chance out of two, — a luring gambling proposition.

The question that offers alternatives is objectionable
on the same grounds. Often, however, an alternative
question is the only natural one to ask. Then ask it,
but tack on a why or a how to compel the pupil to give
the reasons for his choice.

The topical recitation is to be preferred to the ques-
tion method, as soon as the pupils are ready for it.
It gives training in consecutive thinking.

The " Answer in Complete Sentences " Fallacy. —
To require the pupil to answer in a complete sentence
is often an absurdity. Pupils and teachers are human
beings, and schools are on the surface of this planet.
The same laws of grammar, logic, rhetoric, and good
sense hold inside of the walls of the schoolroom as

272 Psychology as Applied to Education

outside. Good taste and the laws of language require
that no effort should be wasted. The complete-sen-
tence answer is generally a clumsy and unwarranted
waste of words. Let your pupil answer you just as
you would expect a cultured person outside of school
to answer the same question. When you suspect that
the brevity of the answer hides imperfection of compre-
hension, it may sometimes be well to ask a pupil to
fill out the ellipsis ; but such occasions are exceptions,
even if frequent.

The following anecdote is better than an argument.
Institute conductor A believed that every answer in
the schoolroom should be made in a complete sentence.
B dared to question the absoluteness of this rule. A de-
clared dogmatically that there are no exceptions. A
little while later, when it was B's turn to speak, he asked
A what time it was. A, off his guard, answered, " Ten
o'clock." Back came the crushing query, " Why
didn't you answer in a complete sentence?" This
would have finished any ordinary mortal, but A was
not an ordinary mortal. He did not know when he
was beaten, so he began a long argument in favor of
the complete answer. B listened patiently until A
had exhausted his eloquence. Then, as if to sum it
up, B said, " So then, if I understand you, you hold that
the answer should always be a complete sentence?"
" Always," shouted A with emphasis.

THE PUPILS AS CRITICS

Some teachers fear their dignity would be impaired
if they allowed the pupils to criticise the teacher's
opinions. This is false pride, and such dignity never

The Recitation 273

did either them or their pupils any good. By its
very nature, truth is no respecter of persons, and as
truth-seekers we are not in the right attitude until all
superstitious regard for person and position is obliter-
ated. The teacher should recognize his own fallibility
and always welcome any respectful objection from the
pupils.

Many teachers object to allowing the pupils to criti-
cise one another. It is feared that this may breed
faultfinding and bitterness between pupils. This ob-
jection is based on a misconception. Truth and false-
hood are universal, and not our individual property.
Every pupil should recognize that it is not John and
Mary that are up for discussion, but the truth or false-
hood of John's or Mary's opinion. Children will
easily learn to conduct such a discussion in a perfectly
impersonal manner.

This is the only method of keeping all the pupils
busy in every recitation. Make each pupil responsible
for the correctness of every other pupil's recitation.
As a rule as soon as a pupil's recitation on any topic
is finished, every pupil who does not agree should
raise his hand immediately, and should be given a
chance to state his criticisms.

Exercises

1. Criticise this class recitation question: George, who was the
second president of the United States ?

2. In almost every class there are some pupils who are much
slower and others who are much quicker than the average in their
thinking. Give some devices by which the slow ones may share in
the recitation and the rapid ones may still be kept busy.

CHAPTER XXVII

HOW TO TEACH SCIENCE AND WHAT SCIENCE
TO TEACH*

THE DOUBLE OBJECT OF SCIENTIFIC STUDY

THE double object of all scientific study is to put the
pupil into possession of (a) a trained attention, that is,
skill in thinking, and (6) a well-chosen and well-organ-
ized store of knowledge.

Training in Attention, or the Skill of Thinking. —
More or less exact and happy synonyms for the power
of attention are concentration of mind, logical faculty,
ability to reason. Like all other skill, it can be acquired
only by practice. The constant aim of the pupil
should be to attain to a higher and higher degree of
concentrated attention. As he grows in ability to
concentrate he will find that his powers of analysis and
synthesis increase and that his ideas become clearer,
more definite, and more vivid.

Educated attention has the following characteristics :

It produces clear ideas. The subdivisions and
organization of the idea are plainly marked out for the
mind".

It produces distinct ideas. Each idea is definitely

* The word science is here used in its broad meaning, as denoting
all classified knowledge.

274

How to Teach Science 275

marked off from all other ideas, and its connections
with other ideas are defined.

It produces vivid ideas. There is no mist, incomplete-
ness, or elusiveness about the conceptions of the edu-
cated mind, except when it attempts problems which
lie on the border of the unknowable.

We may, perhaps, here distinguish two kinds of
thought : critical and constructive. Our schools drill
almost exclusively on critical thought. The object
of the thinker in school exercises is nearly always to
discover the thought that some one else has had before
him. Thus, the object of the scientist is to discover
the thought in nature, " to think God's thoughts after
him." In history the object of the student is to dis-
cover the thoughts of " the men of old." The student
of literature seeks to discover the thoughts of the author.
The student of mathematics seeks for the thought-
relations already in the problems. This we may call
critical thought, and of it there is an abundance in our
schools.

Constructive thought is, however, rarely met with
in the school, but is in great demand in real life. The
farmer in planning his work, the engineer in building
a bridge, the politician in laying his wires, do not simply
discover " the thought in the thing," but they must
build thought-complexes to meet special demands.

The following school exercises give training in con-
structive thought : composition, the invention of prob-
lems in mathematics, discussions of what " might have
been " in history, and all sloyd work, but especially
where the pupil is allowed to invent his model.

All exercises to strengthen attention should follow

276 Psychology as Applied to Education

the laws of attention. The work must accommodate
itself to the pulses of attention, and should make such
a demand on the pupil's energy that the maximum
amount of work can be secured before fatigue sets in.
The work should as far as possible be directly and
pleasantly interesting to the pupil.

The Acquirement of a Store of Knowledge. — The
mechanic does not bore with a saw nor file with a
hammer. Our store of knowledge furnishes our tools
for thought. We cannot judge horses by our knowledge
of Latin grammar ; nor will our familiarity with French
help us very much in understanding a German address.
Hence, whenever we offer a pupil a particle of knowl-
edge, we should first make sure that this bit of knowl-
edge will be of use to him in acquiring other knowledge
of which he stands in need. While gaining an educa-
tion it is the pupil's business to prepare for complete
living by acquiring tools for every great department of
knowledge. He should waste no time on worthless
knowledge, that is, knowledge that is neither useful
in itself, nor introductory in the most practical way
to useful knowledge. This condemns at once the one-
sided grammatical training of the old classical course.
Nor does the old-fashioned teaching of history fare
any better. In the life of the ordinary or even extraor-
dinary American, of what use is the knowledge of
the details and dates of the Peloponnesian war or the
intrigues of the court of Louis XIV?

THE PLACE OF SCIENCE IN THE SCHOOL CURRICULUM

Age and Stage. — It is a truism that the work of the
pupil should be suited to his mental development, yet

How to Teach Science 277

no law of teaching needs more repetition, for in our
anxiety to do much, we almost universally give the
pupil work that is from one to ten years in advance
of his ability.

The following seems to us a fair division of the field
for education in the sciences. (Note that the art, the
technique of civilization, is not in question at all at
this point.) The emphasis should fall on the substan-
tive side of the universe. The knowledge of man and
nature should get the lion's share of the time. This
means social science and natural science. Some atten-
tion should, however, be paid to the formal side of
the world of knowledge. Mathematics and language
should receive a share, but a smaller share than the
substantive sciences.

Classification of the Sciences. — We may group the
sciences as follows : —

(a) The natural sciences, which treat of the real, or substantial,
side of nature, or the external universe.

(6) Mathematics, which treats of the formal side of nature, or
the external universe, and includes the sciences of time and space.

(c) The social sciences (including history) and psychology,
which treat of man as an individual and as a member of society,
that is, of spirit (or of consciousness, or of the inner universe) on
the real or substantial side.

(d) Logic and the sciences of language (philology, grammar,
etc.), which treat of the formal aspect of the same subject.

(e) Philosophy, the science of sciences, which deals with the
postulates of the other sciences.

THE NATURAL SCIENCES

The purpose of instruction for children and youth
in the natural sciences is to give the pupil (a) some

278 Psychology as Applied to Education

" practically " useful knowledge, as, for example, of
hygiene ; but mainly (6) a broadened intellectual hori-
zon, the true scientific viewpoint, and the modern
attitude toward natural phenomena. He will not
fancy that a comet predicts war, that grain must be
sown during a certain phase of the moon, or that the
" humors " (liquids) of the body determine character.

Outline of a Course in the Natural Sciences

For Children : —
Nature Study

(The elements of all the natural sciences taught concretely
in connection with Geography and Hygiene, many ex-
periments, mainly performed by the teacher)

For the High School: —

At least one Biological Science in addition to Physiology
Physics

(Mainly descriptive, only slightly mathematical) .
Chemistry
Physiography

Value of School Laboratory Work. — It is scarcely
necessary to insist on the laboratory, as its importance
is conceded on every hand. But the reason for the
laboratory in the high school may need statement.

Why do we perform experiments at all? Because
a vivid, clear, and complete conception of any scien-
tific truth is the great desideratum in all teaching of
science, since no repetition of dim and confused con-
ceptions will ever result in a clear mental grasp; and
because a vivid and complete conception is never
reached so expeditiously and certainly as by handling
the thing itself. He who has burned a watch spring

How to Teach Science 279

in oxygen has a living knowledge of oxygen that no
textbook statement can give. A whiff of hydrogen
sulphide will identify that gas for you to all eternity.
Rigging up and running an amateur telegraph line is
an easier and surer way of understanding the telegraph
than listening to learned lectures.

Just as in the pedagogy of art the great word is
repetition, so in the teaching of science the important
principle is a clear and distinct conception; and our
chief means for acquiring a clear and distinct concep-
tion is experimenting, handling the thing itself.

MATHEMATICS

Purpose. — The practical use of arithmetic is very
great, although it has been exaggerated and over-
emphasized in our schools. But as a discipline in habits
of exact, clear, and definite thought and expression,
the study of mathematics is unexcelled. Every class
in mathematics is hence also a class in language and
logic.

Outline of a Course in Mathematics

For Children: —

Number Study and Inventional Geometry
(Much drill in the art of arithmetic (see Ch. XXVIII),
and a very little of the science of arithmetic)

For the High School : —

Elementary Algebra as the simpler science, first, then :
Scientific Arithmetic
Geometry
Higher Algebra
Trigonometry

280 Psychology as Applied to Education

THE SOCIAL SCIENCES

Purpose. — To know men and society, this expresses
the purpose the pupil should have in studying history
and the other social sciences. Herbert Spencer ob-
serves that history as philosophy-teaching by example
is a failure. Every sect and creed in religion, every
form of government, every social vagary, has appealed
to history for its justification. Able and brilliant men
defend protection by the " teachings of history," but
equally able and brilliant men use the same history to
prove that free trade alone is rational.

It is true. We should not look to history for a dog-
matic statement of any social theory. But he who has
studied history aright has become better acquainted
with men. He knows their foibles and weaknesses,
their ideals and aspirations. Given the circumstances,
he knows what they are likely to do. Tell him their
deeds, and the conditions under which they were com-
mitted, and he will tell you their motives. Because
he knows Caesar and Socrates, Shakespeare and Glad-
stone, the Athenian citizens, the Roman gladiators,
the American pioneers, the German scholars, and the
medieval monks, he knows his next-door neighbor
better, and makes a better neighbor. Then, how it
widens his intellectual horizon ! How much richer,
nobler, and more worth while is the world possessed by
him who is acquainted with the great drama of man,
than the petty and narrow circle of thought that im-
prisons him who is ignorant of history !

Nor is this all. Man as a man, as an individual,
does not exhaust history. It also — and indeed that

How to Teach Science 281

is its greatest work — acquaints us with society, the
institutions of civilization. Organized society, what
a mighty thought ! Ail that makes us better than the
beasts of the field is included in this word. All the
divinity of man is there. It is indeed no small thing
to get acquainted with the social, the institutional life
of man. The true study of history is the only source
of inspiration for intelligent philanthropy and rational
patriotism. Only this makes us truly human, or hu-
mane. And in spite of the strictures of Herbert Spen-
cer, the true study of history does save us from many a
social heresy. It is safe to say that three fourths of the
social nostrums proclaimed by cranks, charlatans, and
pot-hunting politicians never gain any adherents from
those who have studied history to some purpose.

Outline of a Course in the Social Sciences

For Children: —
History

(This should be taught incidentally by stories told to the
pupils by the teacher, by supplementary reading, and
literature. The material should be mainly biographical,
and should not be confined to American history. In the
seventh and eighth grades, the use of textbooks may
profitably be begun. Civics may be taught incidentally.
Let it connect with the daily life and surroundings of the
pupil.)
Ethics

(Every lesson in school, the personality of the teacher, and
the whole institution of the school should be and can be
an efficient course in this subject.)
Good Manners

(These are also best taught indirectly. But in this subject,
individual instruction as occasion offers is also needed.)

282 Psychology as Applied to Education

For the High School : —

Ancient and Medieval History

(A short course)
History of Modern Europe

(This course should be twice as long as the preceding, and
emphasis should be placed on the history since the French
Revolution.)
American History

(This should come last of the historical studies, to insure

ripeness of mind in the pupil.)
Civics, or Politics
Psychology
Economics
Ethics and Law

(It is questionable whether it is wise to have separate classes
in ethics, law, and psychology. Sometimes it may be pos-
sible to find a place in the high school curriculum for one
or two of them; but usually we must be satisfied with
teaching them incidentally.)

THE SCIENCES OF LANGUAGE

Again we must repeat the warning : scientific thought
is not for children. And of all science, none is less
suited for children than linguistic science. The subject
matter is so abstract, so formal, so elusive, and so far
removed from the regions of the child's natural habits
of thought that he has normally no interest in it.

However, if care is taken to make the work concrete,
if all abstract reasoning and definitions are shunned,
a very little of the elements of linguistic science may be
profitably taught to children. The interest, to be sure,
must be artificial and not natural, but there is no reason
to believe that all artificial interest is harmful. The
great danger is, however, that time may be taken away
from more suitable subjects. Hence, just as we have

How to Teach Science 283

nature study and number study and historical study
(social study), we may also have language study for
children.

Here are some suggested topics, with the warning
that any great extension of the field is dangerous : —
Sentence, subject, predicate, direct object, parts of
speech, the paragraph, some figures of speech, different
classes of style, rhyme and rhythm, vowel and con-
sonant.

The art of language is quite another matter, and will
be discussed in the next chapter. Every class should
be a class in language. Childhood is the time for ac-
quiring the art of language.

Outline of a Course in the Sciences of Language

For Children : —

The Art of Language in every grade and recitation (See Ch.

XXVIII.)

A very little of the Science of Language, Grammar
(Taught as concretely as possible)

For the High School : —
Etymology

Grammar (Of several languages)
Rhetoric

THE TEACHER AND THE PUPIL

The Teacher's Duty. — In teaching any science, make
everything as plain as possible. Put no artificial ob-
stacle in the path of the pupil. No gymnasium exer-
cises in thinking need be invented. There is enough
productive mental toil to give the pupil all the exercise
he needs. But be sure that the pupil thinks. Let the
pupil tell the part of the subject that he knows and
what he can infer of the yet unknown.

284 Psychology as Applied to Education

Get acquainted with the extent and organization of
your pupil's store of knowledge. That is, find out what
he knows and from what corner he looks on the world.
Only then can you tell what mental food is good for
him.

Demand the best of your pupil : the clearest ideas,
the widest grasp of relations, the vividest conceptions
of which he is capable.

The Pupil's Duty. — No one can think for a pupil.
The teacher should think before him, but the teacher
cannot think for him. In history, for example, he
ought to find many whys and wherefores not developed
in the text. He ought to find reasons for disagreeing
with the text at times. In natural science his obser-
vation and reasoning ought to find much more than is
set down in his textbooks. The teacher should require
this independent work of the pupils and stimulate it
by appropriate questions and demands. Mere worry-
bobbing and guessing bees, however, are of no value ;
but on the contrary a waste of time and energy.

Exercises

1. Up to the present time how much of the geography that you
studied in school has been of practical use to you ?

2. After the teacher has explained a point hi algebra, how can
he find out if the pupil followed him and did his own thinking ?
In history ? In botany ?

Criticise the following method :

3. Teacher, concluding an exposition: "That is so; isn't it?"
Vigorous nods by class.

4. How would you teach the multiplication table ?

CHAPTER XXVIII

HOW TO TEACH AN ART

A FALLACY OF EDUCATIONAL THEORY

THERE is an educational fallacy, and a most deep-
seated one, upon which much of the practical school
work of to-day rests. This fallacy is : We must first
know before we can do. We mistakenly suppose that
the logical order is : first, a clear intellectual view of the
whole subject, its whys and wherefores, its relations,
reasons, and causes ; then, a practical ability to do, to
make, to produce that which we thoroughly understand.
Furthermore, it is assumed that if the intellectual view
is perfect, the practical ability is as good as acquired.

The opposite is in most cases the truth. First do
and then know. The illustrations are innumerable. We
breathe long before we know why we do so. If we didn't,
we should never find out the necessity of it. We eat
before we study the physiology of nutrition ; we walk
before we know the mechanics of the lever or the physics
of stable equilibrium; we talk before we know gram-
mar; we speak the truth and abhor a lie before we
know any theory of ethics to justify such behavior;
we see before we know anything of the mechanics of
the eye or the science of optics.

On the other hand, the great military theorist may be
a very poor general ; one may know the whole science
of music and not be able to sing or play ; a knowledge of

285

286 Psychology as Applied to Education

physics will never teach a person to ride a bicycle ; one
may know Latin grammar and not know Latin ; an
expert in psychology, pedagogy, methods, and the his-
tory of education may still be an abominably poor
teacher.

There is no intention of denying that in most cases
the knowledge of the science is of value in acquiring
the art. Other things being equal, he who knows the
theory of education ought to be a better teacher than
he who does not. In some cases, it may even be ab-
solutely necessary to know a little of the science before
the art can be attained at all.

But this is asserted with all possible emphasis :
The knowledge of the science never gives skill in the
corresponding art. The only way to learn an art is to
practice that art itself. Fit faber fabricando.

Perfection in an art is attainable only by much rep-
etition. The only way to learn the multiplication
table is to repeat the multiplication table. The one
method of learning division is to divide. If that does
not help, divide some more. After you know enough of
the " science " of division to know how to proceed, the
only thing that will make you a better divider is to
divide. Don't waste time reading about division. A
deeper insight into the science of division will not help
one whit in making you a rapid or accurate divider.
If you don't know a solitary reason why you do as you
do in division, this does not matter as far as your
quotients are concerned.

The only way to learn French is to speak and read
French. A slight smattering of grammar aids you in
translation; but do not delude yourself by thinking

How to Teach an Art 287

that the study of French grammar has taught you
French. You have to repeat every French word just
about so many times before you know it; and every
phrase or expression must be given the same treatment,
even if you know every word of which it is composed.
Repetition, and repetition only, will put you in pos-
session of a new language. Reading about French in
another language will never bring you one step nearer
your goal.

The correct order is : first, the language, then its
grammar; first, computation (the four elementary
" rules "), the art of arithmetic, then the science of
arithmetic; first, literature, then the philosophy and
history of literature; first, practice in composition,
then the science of rhetoric; first, the art of rational
thinking, then logic, the science of thinking. I have no
wish to deny that often it is best to sandwich art and
science in the learning. Thus, there is no heresy in
mixing grammar and language practice.

EDUCATION IN SCIENCE AND IN ART CONTRASTED

Education into Consciousness. — Education in a
science is education into consciousness; education in
an art is education out of consciousness. The first
assertion needs no elucidation. A boy is educated in
botany when his mind is enriched with botanical con-
cepts, and the symptom that his education " takes "
is that now he has fuller, richer, and truer ideas of the
plant world than he had before. When he thinks of a
gentian or a clover blossom, he has much more in his
consciousness than he who is ignorant of the science of
botany.

288 Psychology as Applied to Education

Education out of Consciousness. — But in reference
to an art, the exact opposite obtains. When a beginner
tortures a piano, her head is full of notes and flats and
sharps and fingers and keys and " one-two-three " and
pedals and expression and touch. When a master
plays, his consciousness is free from all this. He thinks
only of the music he wishes to produce, and the brain
grooves do the rest. If we have to think how to spell
a word, we don't know how to spell it. We never think
of the forms of letters when we write; but the child
beginning to learn is painfully conscious of every curve.
The experienced accountant glances up a column of
figures and has the sum with scarcely any thinking;
while the novice expends much cogitation on the same
operation.

When an art is perfectly known, it is performed
mechanically, that is, without any conscious direction
from the mind. Hence we progress in our education
in an art in proportion as we perform its operations
with less and less thought. The more of a " thought-
less, parrot-like performance " an art becomes, the more
completely it is mastered.

But the sum and substance, the alpha and omega,
the core and essence, of all education in the arts, is
repetition, practice, drill, doing the thing itself over and
over again.

THE PLACE OF THE CULTURE AND ARTS OF CIVILIZA-
TION IN THE SCHOOL CURRICULUM

All that is taught is either an art or a science
or both. As the method of teaching an art is
radically different from that of teaching a science, it

How to Teach an Art 289

is worth while to distinguish carefully between arts
and sciences.

The arts that should be taught to children and
youths may be classified as follows : —

Intellectual Arts

Computation (the art of arithmetic)

Spelling (strictly one of the language arts)

The Business Arts (bookkeeping, typewriting, and shorthand)

The Mechanical Memory Elements in all subjects

Arts that are in about the same degree Intellectual and ^Esthetic
Languages
Composition
Literature
The Dramatic Arts

^Esthetic Arts

Drawing and Painting
Sculpture and Other Plastic Arts
Music

Moral and Social Arts
Training in Moral Habits
Training in Good Manners

Manual and Other Physical Arts
Penmanship
Manual Training
Elementary Agriculture
Domestic Economy
Physical Training
Athletics

THE INTELLECTUAL ARTS

The art of computation in arithmetic and the me
chanical memory element in other subjects have already
been touched upon in this chapter ; and brief mention
will be made of the business arts in the next. A few

290 Psychology as Applied to Education

remarks on the teaching of spelling, however, may not
be amiss at this point.

Spelling. — Use no rules ; English spelling is too
irrational to be benefited by rules. Besides, the art of
spelling as an art, is not a science. An art is not learned
by learning the corresponding science.

Spelling ought chiefly to be learned incidentally.
Every lesson is a spelling lesson. In history and geog-
raphy every new word arrived at should be spelled as
well as pronounced by the pupil. Much written work
should be required of pupils, and every written exercise
is at the same time a spelling exercise. Many teachers
have this practice : They correct the pupil's papers, and
return them to him, and that is the end of it. This is a
mistake. The pupil should be required to rewrite the
exercise correctly. Sometimes it may be too much to
require the pupil to rewrite the whole exercise ; but the
mistakes should all be corrected by the pupil.

English spelling is so difficult and our school condi-
tions so far from ideal, that as yet the spelling class is
generally a necessity. Just how much or how little is
necessary in each school, each teacher must decide for
himself. That writing is the most effective way of
studying and reciting spelling is self-evident, since our
practical use of spelling comes only in writing. Still,
for the sake of variety, an occasional oral recitation
may be tolerated.

THE INTELLECTUAL AND JESTHETIC ARTS

Language. — Language is, so to speak, the atmos-
phere of our intellectual and aesthetic world. Its
importance can hardly be overestimated. English, our

How to Teach an Art 291

national language, is the indispensable subject of in-
struction in our schools. No innovator has yet pro-
posed its removal from the curriculum, which in
itself is high testimony to its importance. Every class
in the school should be a class in the art of using the
English language.

Other languages should not be neglected, but they are.
The United States and England are the only enlightened
nations in the world in which a speaking knowledge of
at least two languages is not common among cultured
people. The finest, most volatile, most evanescent
element of culture is preserved in its language. This
is the element that cannot be translated, and it is also
the most precious element because it so exquisitely
expresses the inmost soul. The " natural method " is
the only method of teaching language that is scien-
tifically defensible.

Literature. — Literature is the greatest of all the
fine arts, and in spite of the prominent position it oc-
cupies in almost every school curriculum, it has not yet
achieved the place in the schools to which it is entitled.

There is now a body of real, classic literature for
children, and it is increased every year. But in our
schools we still have too much of the " Horses-can-run "
reading material.

Oratory, or spoken literature, though not as lasting
as letters, has a power and charm wholly its own, which
is well worth the seeking.

Some Remarks on the Pedagogy of Literature. —
Teachers should not shoot over the heads of pupils.
Girls in short dresses are often fed on Milton's " Para-
dise Lost," and boys whose thoughts center on the foot-

292 Psychology as Applied to Education

ball ground, are bidden to seek solace for their aspiring
souls in Browning. Such great masterpieces had better
be unread than presented at that early stage of the
pupil's education. Feed babes on milk!

Some teachers seem to think that the study of lit-
erature consists in finding the author infallible, and
praising him for anything and everything. A slight
adaptation of the well-known " sermon " on " Old
Mother Hubbard " illustrates this method. " ' To get
the poor dog a bone.' Ah, the pathetic simplicity
of that epithet poor! What a sensitive, humane soul
our author must have had, to feel so deeply and express
so exquisitely his sympathy with the lower creation!
How this word of four letters puts the whole scene
before us, as it were, in a nutshell ; so much better than
whole sermons could have done. And notice the
author's self-restraint. While his heart was breaking
for that ' poor dog ' — ah, the perfection of that expres-
sion ! — he does not allow his sense of artistic propor-
tion to be dimmed, but limits himself with heroic self-
restraint to one adjective. Less perfect authors would
— etc." Depend on it, the pupils see through this
unconscious insincerity.

A piece of literature is a thought complex, and as such
must be studied as other thought subjects; but it is
also a work of art, and as such it is the expression of the
whole of the human soul in one of its moods, or emotions.
It is not the expression of the emotion simply, it is the
expression of the whole person as affected or dominated
by that emotion. Like every work of art, it must be
studied synthetically.

Here is where much teaching of literature fails. It

How to Teach an Art 293

is analysis from beginning to end. One or two dramas
of Shakespeare ground into grammatical fragments,
half a dozen other representative selections from as
many authors, all reduced to literary macadam — this
is often called " a liberal course in English literature ! "
Paragraphs, sentences, words are mercilessly cut to
pieces. There are notes and dissertations on a semi-
colon or a syllable. All sorts of extraneous erudition
is introduced, such as mythology, archaeology, and bio-
graphical gossip. All of this is well enough in its place.
This analytical study is the due of literature as a scien-
tific subject. But after the analytical study is completed,
the unit of literature should be studied as a whole, as a
work of art. It should not only be understood, it should
be enjoyed. Thus, it will produce not only learning,
but culture.

Elementary study of literature should be extensive
rather than intensive. One Madonna of the masters
may contain more than your pupil of painting can ever
get on the canvas, but that is no reason why the student
should copy that Madonna to the end of his days. For
the high school, one thoughtful reading of a literary
masterpiece with just enough impedimenta of explana-
tory notes to make the meaning complete and clear
is all that is necessary and valuable.

A Few Rides for Teachers of Literature. — Be sure
that the literature selected is not above the ability and
interest of your pupils.

Let them read much. In the high school, twenty
pages a day is rather too little than too much.

Avoid all pedantry and trifling in notes and discus-
sion. Aim at giving the pupils a clear conception of

294 Psychology as Applied to Education

the purpose of the author. Waste no time on by-
paths.

To make literature a culture study, do not stop after
having studied it analytically. When a selection has
been thus studied, then is the time to read it for pure
enjoyment.

Study modern authors first, and when the pupils are
more mature, you can venture with them to literature
of ages that differ much from our own in thought and
feeling.

Composition. — Composition is an important ele-
ment in a literary education. It is the art of producing
literature, and should be studied by the average student
for two reasons : (a) for its value as a practical art, to
express thought and feeling in the ordinary business of
life ; and (6) for its value as a fine art, to express lit-
erary beauty. This, however, not for the purpose of
producing immortal works of art, but to acquire the
ability to enjoy literature.

Dramatic Art. — Dramatic art may be considered a
sort of climax of the fine arts. As an art in the narrower
sense of the word, it has no place in any but professional
education ; but for its cultural value every school should
teach it. That is, we should teach our pupils how to
enjoy and understand dramatic representations.

THE ESTHETIC ARTS

America has been notoriously tardy in aesthetic
development. The great maj ority of us never spend one
serious moment in the pursuit of the beautiful. When
we get rich and decide to acquire culture with our new
social position, we go to Europe, buy paintings war-

How to Teach an Art 295

ranted to be genuine, and think we have a love for the
fine arts. We yawn through Italian operas of which we
understand neither the words nor the music, just to
show that we are aesthetic. (But when we really want
fun, we go to a football contest or a minstrel show.)

A few of us take this matter seriously — very seri-
ously. We try to force the plant of taste by hothouse
methods. Thoroughly distrusting ourselves, we dare
not have an aesthetic opinion of our own, but meekly
subscribe to what the authorities tell us is beautiful.

Drawing and Painting. — Though children, and par-
ticularly boys, have only a very rudimentary apprecia-
tion of the beautiful, still they can begin early to acquire
the manual, vocal, and sense skill — the art — neces-
sary to bring beauty into their lives. A child can profit-
ably begin to learn to draw two or three years earlier
than he learns to read and write. The pupil should be
allowed to color his drawings from the first. Painting
is not sacred to adults. Children ought early to be
taught to see colors ; and painting is the best method
of teaching colors. They should not be required to
draw and paint unless they have something to draw
and paint, and some reason for picturing it. When they
reproduce stories, they should illustrate them. When
they study a plant or an animal, they should draw it.
They will be delighted to illustrate their reading les-
sons.

In this, as in every other art, exactness should not be
required of children. Children have a right to be in-
exact, to blunder, to make daubs and scrawls. But the
teacher should require constant progress toward exact-
ness. In order to do this intelligently, it is necessary

296 Psychology as Applied to Education

for the teacher to know the exact attainment of
each pupil ; for what would be commendable progress
in one may be mere carelessness and listlessness in
another.

Music. — The time to teach the elements of both
instrumental and vocal music is childhood, and the
place should be the public schools. Very few people
are unable to learn to sing, if drill is begun in
childhood.

The Fine Arts as Culture. — The technique of draw-
ing, painting, modeling, and music should be taught to
some degree in our schools ; but the emphasis should be
placed on the culture element. The pupil should be
trained to appreciate and enjoy the beautiful in these
forms of art.

As culture the fine arts have a wider mission than as
art. Few can become artists in music, painting, sculp-
ture, or acting, but all should learn to appreciate and
enjoy art.

In music practically nothing has been done in our
schools to teach appreciation. Many graduates from
conservatories do not enjoy the very compositions they
are playing, but become animated automatons who
enjoy only their own mastery of the technique. But
appreciation of music can be taught. Tell the learner
what to listen for. Sandwich music and explanation.
Give the theory and the mechanics of different musical
compositions, play them in sections, with explanations
between, and finish by playing the whole selection.

Children should early be taught to appreciate paint-
ing and sculpture. The mood of the artist, his peculiar
social and intellectual environment, and his purpose

How to Teach an Art 297

should be clearly before the pupil. Thus, to under-
stand Greek art, let us look at the frieze of the Par-
thenon. Cast away your theological, philosophical,
and social speculations, and look at it as the Greeks did,
as the spectacle of the perfect animal. Then you
will begin to understand the poetry of motion, the joy
of full, free, and healthy muscularity, the intoxication
of oxygenized blood in cool, exulting limb, and crisp-
pulsing heart.

Good Taste. — We have no name for that fine art
which clings closer to the individual than any other,
and which more definitely than anything else stamps its
possessor as cultured. We mean the display of good
taste in dress, home, and everyday surroundings. But
to impart this culture is one of the great objects of
education. This art is learned by imitation, mostly un-
conscious.

SOCIAL CULTURE

Not long ago the scholar was supposed to be a recluse
from society. This was not good either for the scholar
or for society. A very important art is this of getting
along with the minimum of friction and the maximum
of enjoyment with our fellow men. Perhaps it is not
a school study. Perhaps it is best " picked up " as
occasion offers. Certainly very few, if any, set lessons
should be given on this subject in our schools. But we
should preach by our practice.

Social culture cannot be acquired by reading about
it, talking about it, or speculating about it. Culture
is an art, and like every other art it comes only by prac-
tice, drill, and tireless though tiresome repetition.

298 Psychology as Applied to Education

Outline of a Course in the Arts for Elementary Schools

Computation

(Accuracy and reasonable speed in addition, subtraction,
multiplication, and division of integers and fractions)

The English Language
(Speaking, reading, spelling, and composition)

One or More Languages in addition to English
(Taught by the natural method, mainly orally)

Literature

(That the child can and should appreciate)

Music

(Singing, note reading, and the rudiments of the art of play-
ing some musical instrument)

Drawing, Painting, and Clay-modeling
Penmanship

Manual Training

(In woodwork [sloydj)

Elementary Agriculture

Domestic Economy
(For girls)

Physical Culture

Training in Manners and Morals

Outline of a Course in the Arts for the High Schools

English Language and Literature

Two at least of the following : —
German Language and Literature
French Language and Literature
Other Modern Languages and Literature
Latin Language and Literature
Greek Language and Literature

How to Teach an Art 299

Music

(With the emphasis on learning to appreciate music)

Drawing and Painting
(To teach the pupil to understand and enjoy art)

Manual Training
Elementary Agriculture

Domestic Economy
(For girls)

Bookkeeping and Typewriting
Physical Culture

Athletics
(Including outdoor sports)

Social Culture
Moral Training

Exercises

x. What portion of the time you devote to the study of Latin
is spent in studying Latin, and what portion to studying about
Latin?

2. Should a pupil-teacher study methods first or do practice-
teaching first ?

3. Why is it not wise to call the attention of a class to a mis-
spelled word on the blackboard ?

4. Name an English classic suitable for use in the first grade ; in
the fifth grade ; in the eighth grade.

5. Would you teach your pupils to sing first by note or by rote ?

CHAPTER XXIX
THE PEDAGOGY OF TECHNICAL HABITS

SINCE the downfall of Greek civilization, the right of
hands and feet to an education has not been recognized
by society until our day. That the whole body has a
right to training, to civilization, is so self-evident that
it should need no defense.

The Neglect of Physical Education in the Past. —
It is disturbing to think that until our day, and yet to
a great extent, for that matter, learned minds were
allowed to sojourn in perfectly uncultured, almost
imbecile, bodies. The professor, or doctor of divinity
of fifty years ago, had, stuck into his long coat, a skele-
ton with appurtenances that barely knew how to exist.
It was an idiot's body. He could walk after a fashion,
and push food into his mouth in some way, and tie a
cravat — and that was all.

Well, why not ? These men had specialized in other
kinds of culture. They had not time to educate the
muscles. Had not they as good right to be ignorant
of skating and whittling as the mechanic to be ignorant
of the Odes of Horace ?

The Value of Physical Education. — Let us see what
they lost. First, they sacrificed health. A certain

300

The Pedagogy of Technical Habits 301

amount of exercise and oxygen are necessary for the
health of the human system. It is, of course, possible
to get exercise and air without systematic training of
the muscles ; but there is no reason why we should not
kill two birds with one stone.

Furthermore, it is impossible to think perfectly
without trained and experienced muscles; for one
thinks with his whole body. When you imagine viv-
idly an army charging, there is a distinct sensation of
marching in your legs. Now, if you have never
marched and don't know how to march, the twitching
in your members will bear very little resemblance to
the real experience. You cannot imagine a charging
army and get life into your thoughts. " Stem the tide "
means very little to him who has not forced a skiff
against a brisk current. The boy who has sawed,
planed, and whittled oak, can appreciate what is meant
by " heart of oak " better than he to whom oak is just
three letters of the alphabet. The human being is a
unit. Other things being equal, he who can shoot
straight can think straighter than he who is a poor
marksman.

Physiologically, we really do not train the hand by
manual training, but the nerve centers that control
the hand. Psychologically, skill, even of the fingers
and toes, resides not in the body but in the mind. The
investigations of physiological psychology have shown
that in all probability the same event takes place in the
brain when we think of an action as when we actually
do it. The only difference is that in the former case
the neural current is inhibited before it reaches the
muscles. Hence thought is abortive action. From

302 Psychology as Applied to Education

this it is plain that the mind is not fully educated until
it is in a trained body.

To those pupils who later in life join the ranks of
manual workers, whether skilled or unskilled, the edu-
cation of the muscles is plainly of the greatest practical
value. The highest educational reason for muscular
education is, however, simply this : Education should
be a development of all the powers of man. Educa-
tion should put us in possession of our whole being;
and to do this we must be able to use our muscles with
skill.

Athletics and Physical Culture. — Athletic skill ought
to be a part of every education. Every one should be
taught marching, running, jumping, swimming, skat-
ing, wheeling, boxing, fencing, rowing, the principal
athletic games, and the simpler forms of apparatus
gymnastics.

The wrong spirit dominates our athletics. All we
are concerned about is to beat somebody. Hence only
those with unusual talents in this direction give much
attention to gymnastics. Again, as long as we can do
certain feats successfully, we care little how we do them.
Ease, grace, and command of the muscles should be our
first aim. Each person's purpose in athletics should be
to gain dominion over himself, not primarily " to
beat the other fellow."

The most beautiful object in the whole world is the
human body. But the human body is most beautiful
when in beautiful motion. Even a plain person with
grace of movement becomes a thing of beauty. The
art of good carriage, of graceful pose, of becoming move-
ments, may be called physical culture. We habitually

The Pedagogy of Technical Habits 303

underestimate its value. It is our duty to be healthy,
strong, and skillful ; and it is just as much our duty to
be graceful.

HOW WRITING SHOULD BE TAUGHT

The results of child study show that civilization
forces writing upon children at too early an age. Be-
fore eight or ten years, the child's muscles and fingers
are not sufficiently developed to hold comfortably so
small an object as a pen and to make so exact a figure
as a letter of ordinary script. Nor are the eyes ready
to distinguish such minute objects as those of the
" copy " of the ordinary writing book.

If our school system were fully rationalized, there
would be no need of teaching babes under eight years
the art of writing. But as it now is, a teacher who is
in the system cannot do altogether as she pleases. She
must teach reading and writing to the first and second
grade. If, then, writing must be taught, the best
thing to do is to make it mainly a blackboard exercise
and require beginners to make large letters, even on
paper.

The ideal teacher in the ideal school would teach
writing only incidentally. She would never have a
class just in writing. When her pupils had anything
to say and she or they preferred not to use oral lan-
guage, they would write. Whether this writing were
geography or history or letters, the pupils would take
pains to put it in their best hand, and the teacher would
be there to direct the exercise and give instruction in
the art. But we are a long way from the ideal yet. As
our school programs are arranged at present, there

304 Psychology as Applied to Education

would often be absolutely no chance to give any
instruction in the art of writing, if there were no
special period set apart for it. Still, copy-book writing
should be made a very subordinate subject in the
course.

The main things for the teacher to remember in
reference to writing are the following: —

Never allow the pupil to write in any other hand than
his best.

The characteristics of good handwriting in the order
of then* desirability are: legibility, rapidity, beauty.
There is a long distance between each of these.

The position of the body in writing should be such
that it can be maintained by an adult for ten hours a
day without injury and discomfort.

We shall not enter into the merits of the dispute
between the " verticals " and the " slants." Suffice
it to say that the war has brought out in strong relief
these three principles : rounded forms are more legible
than elongated forms ; beauty is secondary to legibility ;
and the simplest form of a letter is the best, as every
flourish or embellishment decreases legibility.

MANUAL TRAINING, SLOYD

The last word on manual training as pedagogical
material has already been said by Professor 0. Solomon
of Naas, Sweden. We can do nothing better than to
sum up his conclusions here.

The aim of manual training in children's schools
should be to help to furnish a well-rounded, all-sided
culture, not to teach any particular trade. The sloyd
teacher should aim at developing a cultured human

The Pedagogy of Technical Habits 305

being and not primarily the ability to make shoes,
bricks, or furniture.

How the Pupil should be Taught. — The children
should have a natural interest in their work. Hence
manual training should not consist in going through
unproductive exercises with tools, as for example plan-
ing a smooth surface, boring holes, sawing off boards
square ; but the pupils should from the very first make
something useful. What a pupil makes should become
his property.

The ornamental should be subordinated to the useful.
We shall never have true art until we recognize that
the true function of art is to beautify the useful. When
a people is truly artistic, its kitchen utensils and every-
day garments are beautiful and none the less useful.
So, as a rule, children should be restricted to what is
useful in their sloyd work ; but they should be taught
to make the useful as beautiful as possible.

The teacher should not do the least bit of the pupil's
work for him. If the pupil needs direction, the teacher
should not touch the tool and material of the student,
but should take another tool and another piece of ma-
terial and give the necessary sample of work.

It is doubtful if pupils' work ever should be placed
on exhibition. The work, not the products, is what is of
pedagogical value ; very often the most finished product
is the result of the most vicious pedagogical work.

INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION

Childhood not the Time for Technical Training. —
Draw the sharpest line possible between sloyd (manual
training) and industrial education (instruction in the

306 Psychology as Applied to Education

trades). It is the acme of false pedagogy to teach a
trade to a child. Every consideration is against it.
In most cases it is impossible to tell for what trade a
child has the greatest aptitude. The muscles and the
nerve centers of the child are not sufficiently developed
to admit of such exactness of movements as are neces-
sary for the highest workmanship in most trades. More
than that, it is well established that training which
forces a high degree of technical skill prematurely upon
a child is distinctly injurious to him, retarding com-
plete physical development.

But the weightiest reason against teaching trades to
children is that childhood should be sacred to the full
and symmetrical development of the whole human being.
Primarily, the teacher's duty is not to raise lawyers,
physicians, tailors, barbers, and paper hangers. His
duty is to develop men. It is inexpressibly sad to hear
the sordid standard of " earning capacity " made the
standard of education. Not long ago I heard a very
prominent politician speak on this subject, and after
saying that the school should train for life, in the same
breath he gave as a synonym : " Any school study
which does not help the pupil in making a living is
useless." Now, with all deference to the high source
from which this sentiment came, he could not well
have expressed a more vicious heresy. He assumed
that the whole duty of man is to earn money. If it is,
let us tear down our school walls, and send our children
to the mills.

Let us cease a moment from our money madness.
The chief end of man is not the weekly reception of a
fat pay envelope, correspondence-school advertisements

The Pedagogy of Technical Habits 307

notwithstanding. The chief end of man is to live the
noblest, richest human life possible. For this he wants
spirit, mind, and body as highly and as symmetrically
developed as possible, and harmoniously adjusted to
his environment. Childhood and at least the early
teens are not too long a period for this all-sided develop-
ment.

But even according to the sordid standard of wage-
earning capacity, the wise course is to postpone tech-
nical education and instruction in the trades until
childhood and adolescence are passed. There is no
better basis for the production of mechanic or craftsman
than a healthy and symmetrically developed individual.
The wide-awake boy who has found himself and who
has himself under perfect control will in "a year become
a vastly superior workman to the lopsided and mentally
dwarfed individual who has been trained in a trade
since childhood.

Occupations for life cannot safely be chosen for
children. If the choice made by or for them while
they were children had been final, the lives of our great
men would have been very different. Linnaeus, the
world's greatest botanist, would have been a shoemaker,
Washington a sailor, and Jim, the ragman, would have
been President of the United States. If boys chose
for themselves, the world would soon consist only of
sailors, policemen, and chauffeurs — with a flying-
machine operator thrown in — or blown in — here
and there.

The Right Kind of Industrial Education. — But for
all this, we need industrial training in the grades.
Sloyd in wood and metals, elementary agriculture, and

308 Psychology as Applied to Education

domestic economy should be taught in every elementary
school that has the funds for it.

Education may be defined as adjustment to environ-
ment. The child should be so adjusted to his environ-
ment — the world of nature and the world of man —
that he can live the richest and most harmonious life.
There is no objection to vocational teaching, whenever
this can be done without diminishing the central purpose
of the school. In other words, whenever the so-called
practical subjects really educate in the broad and true
sense and not merely train for some occupation, there
is no better subject for our schools than these same
practical subjects.

The main object, then, of industrial or vocational
education is to make the school a part of the living,
throbbing life of the present and not allow it to remain
an artificial and detached world of its own. Education,
even elementary education, should not be a side show,
but should be right in the main tent of life.

ELEMENTARY AGRICULTURE

The traditional school curriculum has connected
beautifully and naturally with city life, especially with
sedentary occupations. The country, with all its wonder
and beauty, has been left a terra incognita to the student.
The educated farmer has lived a double life. While
he has known something of the siege of Troy, he has
been sublimely ignorant of the wonderful epic of natural
forces continually going on upon his farm. He may
have known something of chemistry and botany, but
it is a safe wager that not once a month did he meet
any of his book-and-laboratory science in field and

The Pedagogy of Technical Habits 309

stable. On school subjects he was modern, scientific,
progressive; but he ran his farm by rote, and was
content to travel on as a farmer in the rut of his fore-
fathers.

Now, this is all wrong. Education should adjust the
child fully as much to country life as to city life, since
nearly two thirds of us (in the United States) still
live in the country. What we need is a course that
trains for country life, and connects naturally with life
in the open, in close contact with the soil and nature.
This rural education should open the eyes and the
heart of the pupil to the beauties and opportunities
of country life. It should make him an acquaintance
and a friend of the animals of the barnyard and the
plants of the cultivated field. It should teach him to
find himself, get command of himself, in free, vigorous
outdoor occupations. The school in the country should
be itself a bit of country life in natural and intimate
connection with its environment; not, as is now so
often the case, a bit of city life that is mislaid in alien
surroundings.

Agriculture for the City Child. — And if in spite of
this alluring introduction to the charms of country life
the country boy goes to the city as he sometimes must,
he will have no reason to regret his rural training. Sed-
entary life is after all a violently unnatural form of
existence ; and now we are pretty well agreed that no
one should attempt such a life without long and frequent
visits and vacations spent in the country. His rural
education will teach the city man what to do with his
sojourns in the country. Now, it is often pathetic to
see how alien the country is to the city-bred person.

310 Psychology as Applied to Education

Watch a company of city people on an outing near one
of the beautiful Minnesota lakes on a glorious day in
June, with the fish biting and the water just right for
swimming. What do they do? Guess! Why, they
sit all day in a stuffy little summer cottage, playing
cards. They have no rural education. This is why I
never could see any sense in restricting a course in
rural education to rural districts. The city child needs
it just as much. By all means, when possible, have such
courses in the cities as well as in the country.

Agriculture for Girls as well as for Boys. — It is
customary to add that these courses in agriculture are
for boys only. Here is another place where the old
heresy crops out. The idea is that since the girl is
not to work in the fields after she is grown, it would
be a waste for her to study agriculture. Let us get
rid of this notion that in teaching what is called agri-
culture in the grades we are teaching a trade. We are
not. The girl needs an introduction to country life
as well as the boy. Our attention is often called to the
fact that no class is more frequently represented in
the insane asylums than the farmer's wife. Why?
She lives in an alien world in which she has no interest,
that means nothing to her. Intellectual and emotional
starvation is what is the matter with her. By all means,
educate the girls as well as the boys in your agriculture
classes to appreciate rural life.

Teach agriculture by all means. Teach it to all your
pupils, both girls and boys, to the future lawyer and
banker, no less than to the future farmer. The science
of agriculture is simply botany, zoology, mineralogy,
chemistry, physics, and geography viewed from their

The Pedagogy of Technical Habits 311

most interesting side ; for it is the side that is in closest
relation to us, that pertains to us, touches us. Hence
the agricultural part of these sciences is precisely the
most educative portion, for it can be assimilated into
the lives of the pupils. The art of agriculture should
be practiced in all schools that have facilities for it;
for next to wood sloyd no industrial employment
gives more varied and healthful exercise, and is more
suited to the needs and abilities of children. As the
object is not to teach the trade of farming, there is
nothing lost but much gained by having the future
banker and factory hand raise beans and graft apple
trees.

DOMESTIC ECONOMY

Cooking and the care of a house are also subjects
which have a great educational value. As the great
majority of women are destined to perform such work
in later life, the utilitarian argument applies here as
nowhere else. Instruction in cooking ought to tend
towards raising the health average of the race in a double
measure; it should provide healthful physical exer-
cise, and also improve the hygienic character of our
meals. Domestic economy should teach the pupils
that the world of the sciences and the books is precisely
the same world as that of the saucepan and the broom.

SEWING

Sewing has not as much to recommend it as a school
exercise as cooking. As a fine art, it comes nearer to
being inspired by vanity than any other (including
under sewing, embroidery and lace making). If our
girls should go to their graves ignorant of the gentle

312 Psychology as Applied to Education

art of taking certain stitches and doing certain kinds
of crochet work, neither they nor the world would be
very much the worse. The elements of sewing can be
taught by most mothers ; and for that matter, its rudi-
ments can be " picked up " by any intelligent girl.
There is evidence that even the bachelor will qualify upon
proper provocation. Worst of all, sewing is a monot-
onous and unhygienic occupation. There is no appre-
ciable muscular exercise in hand sewing; and the constant
temptation is to assume a stooping posture, very detri-
mental to the health of the lungs. As it is a sedentary
occupation besides, it is worthless as a corrective of
the sedentary nature of book work. Still, dressmak-
ing is an important art, and of great practical value to
most women ; and if a place can be found for it in our
crowded curriculum, it is certainly a valuable addition ;
but care should be taken to prevent unhygienic effects.

COMMERCIAL SUBJECTS

Many subjects of commercial education can defend
their place in a high school course. Bookkeeping is as
educative as cube root or percentage. Typewriting
and shorthand have nowadays a fairly universal use-
fulness.

Our schools, then, will be distinctly enriched by the
addition of agriculture, sloyd, domestic economy, and
a commercial -course. These subjects will be practi-
cally useful to some of the pupils in after life and educa-
tive to them all. Best of all, the introduction of these
subjects will make the school a part of the life of the
community and of that larger life into which the pupil
is soon to enter.

The Pedagogy of Technical Habits 313

Exercises

1. Distinguish between the following: manual training, in-
dustrial education in trades, technical education, gymnastics,
athletics, calisthenics.

2. How can school athletics be made to contribute to raising
the physical development of every student instead of giving
abnormally great development to a few students in a few lines
of physical development only?

3. How would you teach a pupil to appreciate to the full the
motor element in literature ?

4. What should be the aim of physical culture?

5. Outline a course in the arts of agriculture and horticulture
for a country elementary school ; for a city school.

6. /How could a course in the art of cooking be made to solve
the problem of a midday meal for the pupils while at school?

7. Illustrate from literature the old and the new conception
of the physical development of the scholar.

8. Outline a course in sloyd (manual training), agriculture,
domestic economy, and physical education for the grades and
high school.

CHAPTER XXX
EDUCATIONAL REORGANIZATION

IN the past the schools have been the citadel of con-
servatism. The schoolmaster and the professor ate
the bread of the government or were pensioners of
the privileged classes, and it behooved them to cham-
pion tradition and vested interests.

But times have changed. Progress is in the air,
and hi no profession is the innovator more honored than
in ours. Most of our late educational reformers,
however, exhaust themselves in denouncing what we
have. One of the notable exceptions is Dr. Maria
Montessori of Rome. The wonderful results she has
obtained have attracted the attention of educators to
such an extent that her methods are now being tested
in almost every civilized country.

THE MONTESSORI METHOD

It is impossible to study the work of Dr. Maria
Montessori without recognizing her genius and her
magnetic personality. The greatest thing in the Mon-
tessori movement is Dr. Maria Montessori herself.

The basic principle of this method is the best estab-
lished conclusion of modern psychology: Man is
primarily an organism that reacts to stimuli. Hence
the first business of the nascent human organism is

314

Educational Reorganization 315

learning to use its senses (which receive stimuli) and
to coordinate its motor reactions. That is, sense train-
ing and motor training come first and foremost in human
education.

The tactile and motor senses are primary. Develop
them first ; and train eye and ear only in closest depend-
ence upon them. The world as we see it is built up
on the framework of the world as we have handled it
with our hands. Therefore, if we have not handled
and touched things sufficiently, our perceptual world,
vision included, is uncertain and unsound. A solid
is primarily something that can be handled. A sur-
face is in origin a touch sensation. Hence let the child
touch, handle, and make things first, and thus get a
vital acquaintance with them, and then afterwards
recognize them by sight and hearing alone. The pupil
should study the world with his fingers and hands first,
next and secondarily with his eyes and ears. This is
the true pedagogical order, and on this psychological
basis Dr. Montessori has built her system.

Sense Training. — A large part of the sense-training
apparatus consists of blocks of geometric forms that
fit exactly into a series of holes. Some of the exercises
consist in fitting these insets into their proper places.
Bobbins with colored yarn are also to be arranged
according to color and shade. Most of this work can
be done without the intervention of the " directress,"
as the teacher is called.

As typical of the work of the directress, we may cite
the teaching of the names of colors. She shows the
red yarn and says, " This is red." Then a contrasting
color, as blue, and says, " This is blue," and so on.

316 Psychology as Applied to Education

Then the exercise is reversed. The child is asked,
" What color is this? " and if he answers correctly, the
directress goes on with her questions ; but as soon as
the child makes a mistake, the teacher " smiles " and
drops the exercise without correcting the error, —
this on the theory that a correction would be quite as
likely to fasten the error in memory. The Montessori
method was first devised for defective children, and in
their education this last rule is probably valid. But
it can scarcely be doubted that with normal children
immediate and direct correction of errors by the teacher
is the most economical method.

For children who come from the poverty-stricken
tenements of the great cities, as the majority of the
children in the Montessori Children's Houses do come,
and even for the city child from the middle-class home,
these apparatus exercises are a great improvement on
his former touchable and graspable universe. For
" Hands off " is the melancholy motto of the city child's
world. A Montessori Children's House is a paradise
for the touch-hungry city child ; but it is questionable
whether it has much to offer the country child in sense
training.

Motor Training. — The other half of this earliest
education is motor training, — exercises to establish
muscular coordination, or, to be more exact, coordina-
tion of reaction paths in the nerve centers. Every
Montessori exercise involves motor activity, but some
are especially designed for motor training. Among
these we find the ancient art of pottery, in this case a
glorified mud-pie baking and modeling in clay, includ-
ing the making and use of bricks.

Educational Reorganization 317

The children are taught to be self-dependent and self-
sufficient in their personal routine at a surprisingly early
age. They wash and dress themselves and keep their
belongings and the school utensils in order. To do
this they are given lessons by means of a special appa-
ratus in lacing and buttoning shoes and clothes. They
are also taught to set the table and serve meals, — this
both as social education and as sense and motor train-
ing. Four-year-olds do this work perfectly.

Social Education. — Politeness and good manners
are insisted upon everywhere. Easy, graceful motions,
proper carriage of the body, and clear, modulated voices
are results achieved at a very early age.

In self-help, manners, and deportment we find the
most beautiful work of the system. Dr. Montessori
has demonstrated that even before the age of five years
a normal child can and ought to dress himself and
conduct himself at the table with the same propriety
as a grown-up.

Exaggeration of the Value of Early Training. —
Dr. Montessori puts a tremendous value on early sense
and motor training. For example, she expresses the
conviction that naughtiness of children consists mainly
in imperfect motor development, and says it is a
well-known fact that a foreign language cannot be
perfectly acquired, nor a patois or dialect entirely
eradicated after the seventh year. This latter conten-
tion is demonstrably false. Any time before adoles-
cence a normal individual can acquire a new language or
dialect perfectly.

One can hardly escape the conclusion that Dr. Mon-
tessori's argument confuses two radically different

318 Psychology as Applied to Education

stages in sense training. The training of the sense
organs themselves, to be wholly successful, must occur
in early infancy. Happily, few adults have deficient
sense organs because of insufficient exercise in infancy.
The apperceptive training of perception (which is what
the Montessori system provides), while possible and
profitable both earlier and later, has its most remunera-
tive period of training in later childhood (from eight to
fifteen years of age).

The fundamental motor reactions must be learned
and coordinated in early childhood. Normally, we
establish during our first three years the ideomotor
associations for every elementary motion we are ever
to make. The earlier we study a language, the more
easily we acquire it.

But there is danger of overtraining not fully devel-
oped muscles. Fine and exact coordination of move-
ments may stunt the growth of the system. Many of
the Montessori exercises are suspiciously complex
and refined for immature bodies ; and it would be
rash indeed to assert that such training cannot be
harmful.

Practical and Dynamic Interests. — The young child
(the child under seven years, approximately) is ruled
by two classes of interests, which we may here call
the practical and the dynamic. The first class he
has in common with us all. He engages in certain
activities because he wants the results. He hunts the
squirrel because he wants the squirrel. He harnesses the
dog because he wants the dog to pull his sled. But he has
another interest that is almost atrophied in the adult, —
interest in an activity for the activity's own sake. He

Educational Reorganization 319

runs and shouts and whistles just because it is fun to
run and shout and whistle. He is interested in almost
any exercise of his motor powers. Hence a purpose-
less exercise, like fitting cylinders into holes, may be
exceedingly interesting to him.

When we perform an action with interest in the result,
we do not care to repeat. The interest in the action
is gone when the purpose is gained. Hence drill is
tedious to the older student. But as the child may be
interested in the activity itself, it follows that within
the limits of fatigue, repeating the exercise repeats
the enjoyment. The result is that children are easily
and naturally interested in any exercise of which they
are capable. The interest is enhanced if the exercise
is rhythmic ; and generally, its difficulty is the measure
of its interest.

Whence it follows that the artificiality and purpose-
lessness of most of the exercises of the Montessori
system cannot be urged per se as defects.

But two is twice one. It is better to unite the prac-
tical and dynamic interests wherever possible. Such
is nature's way. Spontaneously, naturally, the child's
efforts are in most cases first practical, and only after
skill has been won for practical purposes are the
motions repeated for dynamic pleasure. The child
struggles to talk because he wants to say something,
but when he has mastered a word, a phrase, or a sound,
he loves to repeat it dozens of times for the mere
dynamic pleasure of using his vocal organs and of hear-
ing himself speak.

Hence the more the educative exercises can be con-
nected with the practical interests of childhood, the

320 Psychology as Applied to Education

better. In this respect the Montessori system is cer-
tainly far from the ideal.

Teaching Reading and Writing. — The Montessori
system comes to its technical zenith in teaching reading
and writing.

When the children have played with insets until the
geometric solids are familiar to them, metal circles,
triangles, and the like, with a button in the middle of
each for lifting, are supplied. By drawing around
these, the pupil gets plane figures, and his attention
is called to lines and angles." He shades and colors
these figures, and thus learns to see and feel plane
figures.

Next he is given an alphabet of sandpaper letters.
These he studies by touch, then traces. While touch-
ing, tracing, and handling these letters he learns to call
them by the sounds they represent. Then he builds
and recognizes words. Sentences and phrases come of
their own accord next ; but still, as Dr. Montessori
observes, he has not used written language, for he has
never tried to express his own thoughts by that means.
But some day he explodes into written language. He
is surprised that he can write and read.

The advantage of this system, upon which the author
seems to put the emphasis, is that the children learn
written language without knowing it and without any
conscious effort. They grow into reading and writing
just as they acquire teeth or freckles or anything else
natural and inevitable.

For a practically phonetic language like the Italian,
the technique of this system is perfect. Derived from
the method used for feeble-minded children, it is so

Educational Reorganization 321

arranged that written language is attained with the
smallest possible expenditure of mentality. The normal
child cannot avoid the trap. It is inevitable. The
least wriggle of his soul will start him sliding on the
inclined plane towards writing and reading.

But is the whole of this process, with all its compli-
cated details so laborious for the teacher and so hard
if not impossible of application to large classes, neces-
sary for the normal child ? Can he not take a steeper
grade?

In contrasting her system with the ordinary one used
in the Italian public schools, Dr. Montessori intimates
that their method is wearisome and slow. Perhaps it
is. But in a good American primary grade learning
to read is enjoyed by the pupils, and they learn to
read soon enough. In fact, as to speed in the mastery
of written language, I doubt if the Montessori system
can equal the Ward method or that of the " Progressive
Road to Reading."

Certainly, let children learn to read as soon as they
desire it, even if only three or four years old. But do
not imagine that it is of any great advantage to the
child to know this art so early. Very little practical
use of it is possible until after his eighth year.

However, the consummate art of Dr. Montessori's
method of teaching graphic language repays study both
from the viewpoint of psychology and pedagogy;
and poor indeed is the teacher who cannot get sug-
gestions for the improvement of his own method from
a critical study of this technical masterpiece.

No Literature. — Literature has no place in the Mon-
tessori system. Myths, folklore, and fairy tales are

322 Psychology as Applied to Education

banished. It seems as if the spirit of the drab, prac-
tical common sense of modern industrialism had so
permeated the modern Italian philosopher's system
that she finds no place for what is not matter-of-fact.
Her claim that the literary element, from Mother Goose
up, tends to confuse and bewilder the child can scarcely
be established. It is unnecessary to criticise this point,
for we are not likely to impoverish our primary edu-
cation by following her example.

Spontaneous Self-direction of the Child. — That
all which does not come from the spontaneous activity
of the child is of evil, is to Dr. Montessori not simply
a doctrine but an axiom which she never tires of repeat-
ing and never tries to prove. She has indeed reduced
this to an absurdity. To follow her theory consistently
she should substitute a wax figure for the directress,
because a wax figure could do nothing so much more
gracefully than a mortal.

Now, how is the illusion produced that in this sys-
tem the child's actions are all spontaneous, self-directed
and the result of his own initiative ?

First, by exercises that must either be done right or
not at all (Nothing but the right inset will fit its
place) ; then, by limiting a child to doing a certain
exercise or doing nothing ; and finally, by making all
exercises appeal to the dynamic interest of the child.

But plainly, in all this the child is led, if not by the
nose or the hand, still by just as unmistakable direc-
tion as if the teacher had put the information and
command into a spoken sentence.

Nor is it certain that by concealing the purpose (as
is done in teaching reading) the pupil's sum total of

Educational Reorganization 323

pleasure is increased. There is also joy in anticipation,
and I am inclined to think that such " linked sweetness
long drawn out " totals more than the spasm of joyous
surprise.

The Silent Directress. — As we have seen, to be
perfectly consistent with its theory, the Montessori
system does not admit of a teacher at all. Since
every direction by another is an infringement of self-
direction on the part of the child, there is no place for
even a monosyllabic directress. But here we must
prefer Dr. Montessori's practice to her theory. The
true function of the teacher is to stimulate and direct
the intellectual, emotional, and motor activities of the
pupil. Perhaps the most common mistake of the inept
teacher is that of doing the work for the pupil instead
of merely directing the activities of the pupil. The
voluble teacher is particularly in danger of thus failing.
But teaching is by no means such a simple business
that it varies in excellence always in inverse propor-
tion to the number of words used. In fact, it depends
not at all on how much but entirely on what, and when
the teacher speaks. The vital question is: Do the
pupils react normally? If they do, they will develop
normally. The teacher's business, whether he does it
by few or many words, is to furnish the appropriate
stimuli and directions. Whether the stimuli and direc-
tions consist in a self-explanatory apparatus or in the
words of the teacher matters not ; that stimulus and
those directions are best which most economically and
naturally secure the desired reactions from the child.

The Government of Children. — In practice the
Children's Houses are distinctly institutions of social

324 Psychology as Applied to Education

education ; but the theory is an unqualified individual-
ism. Theoretically, the child is not to be governed.
There must be no imperative mood, no compulsion;
the child is never to be coerced. Over and over again
Dr. Montessori insists that the child should be reared
in " liberty," and not only does she not qualify this
principle, but she asserts that if only complete liberty
is given, all problems of government and discipline will
solve themselves.

Let us advert a moment to fundamentals. Man is a
social animal. One half at least of the educational
program is to fit children for their place in human
society. The fundamental lesson in this connection
is that of obedience. Children should find out, and
they should find out early, that the universe was not
constructed primarily to satisfy their whims. Class
work has this inestimable benefit that it teaches the
individual that he has a larger self, — the social self.
Obedience to the common will by following a common
program is another of those blessed "tyrannies" of the
schools. Man is an individual, and he is a social being.
Neither of these should be sacrificed. He should be
a strong individual and also a wholly socialized
being.

There are three possible relations between society
and the individual, (a) First, they may be in enmity.
This means tyranny or anarchy. This was the con-
dition in the old English boarding schools, as we see it in
"Tom Brown at Rugby" and Kipling's "Stalky and
Co." The best to be hoped for was a truce. The two
belligerent powers might at best view each other
with respect ; and certain laws of war were observed.

Educational Reorganization 325

(6) The second relation is that of compromise. The
individual and society have each their separate spheres,
and neither must infringe on that of the other. This
seems to be Dr. Montessori's creed, as it was that of
Rousseau and the majority of the pre-Revolutionary
French philosophers. But this gives only a dead
mechanical view of human relations, (c) The third
relation obtains when the individual can find his
highest development and his only true freedom in lov-
ing harmony and loyal obedience to society. By
subordinating himself to the school, the pupil loses
nothing ; he gains everything. He is not to give up his
own will, nor even, finally, to limit it. He is to find his
own true will in the common harmonious will of the
institution.

A fine example of unconscious humor is found in
Dr. Montessori's sweeping declaration of the liberty
of the pupil to follow his own initiative unhampered
by teachers and rules, followed a few pages farther on
by a detailed program of a day's work. Evidently if
John wants to play with insets when the rest are serv-
ing dinner, he — but here either the program or the
principle will be fractured.

The discipline in the Children's Houses must be,
after all, just what we have had for a generation in our
best American schools. There is compulsion and
restraint, but the vast majority of pupils are very
seldom conscious of either. The child must act not
as he will but as the school wills ; but school life and
child nature are so well harmonized that the pupil is
simply obeying his own better self. There are practi-
cally no punishments in the old sense. How much

326 Psychology as Applied to Education

corporal punishment is meted out in the primary grades
in the United States ?

THE BOY SCOUT MOVEMENT

From Froebel to Montessori the emphasis has been
placed on the education of early childhood. Compara-
tively little has been done for the most critical period
of development, early adolescence. And yet for char-
acter and culture, for individual development, and social
progress the education received during the last years
of childhood and the first of adolescence, from about the
twelfth to the eighteenth year, is worth more than all
that came before and all that can be given afterwards.

Character is a by-product of our self-directed ac-
tivity. It can be produced in no other way. The
modern boy and girl moving along the smooth and
narrow channel of school and home life have not much
chance for asserting their moral individuality. All
is foreordained. But in General Baden-Powell's Boy
Scout movement the boy is trained in self-reliance,
individuality, courage, initiative, and moral fiber at
the same time that he is trained in loyalty, obedience,
and the spirit of comradeship. In my opinion this is
the finest school for character yet devised. The wood
lore and field lore, the training in camp life and in what
to do in cases of emergency and accident are also
invaluable.

The Boy Scout movement supplements precisely the
cardinal defect of the school-room-and-school-book
education. Here is direct contact with nature, motor
education, initiative, a field for the exercise of moral
responsibility and self-reliance.

Educational Reorganization 327

The organization of the Camp Fire Girls, — the
feminine branch of the movement, — is not so far
advanced, but has the same promise.

The problem of this movement is how to weave it
into our social fabric and how to establish it in harmony
and cooperation with the rest of our educational sys-
tem. Here is constructive work worth doing.

THE REORGANIZATION OF THE CURRICULUM

The Education of Infants. — Since the country has
so many good things that the city lacks, such as fresh
air and plenty of space, some one has sapiently asked,
" Why not build the city in the country? " Allow
me to reverse that proposition. Why not import a
bit of children's country into the city? But I am
forestalled. It has already been done. The modern
playground, scientifically equipped and managed, is
just such a bit of children's country, and needs only to
be enriched and enlarged to be ideal. Let us call this
enriched playground the Children's Estate. Let us
add domestic animals, as cows, ponies, burros, sheep,
goats, cats, dogs, and chickens. It should contain a
piece of wild woodland where the child can absorb
wood lore with oxygen. Let each child have a plot
of arable ground for flowers and edible vegetables,
which he may plant and care for under the direction of
the teacher. There should be an orchard in which
the children may roam. On this estate let the
children spend most of their time in play, spon-
taneous except for the supervision and direction of
the teacher.

A part of the time should be spent in kindergarten

328 Psychology as Applied to Education

exercises. These can be much enriched by the addi-
tion of Montessori exercises. The training in self-
help, domestic usefulness, and polite behavior should
be adopted wholesale from the Montessori system.
As much of this kindergarten work as possible should
be carried on out of doors when the weather permits.
Note that some of this is work and not play. The
cultivation of the garden, the setting of the table,
dressing, washing one's self, are work, though a well-
trained child will find as much enjoyment in them as
in play.

Elementary Education. — We should learn from the
Montessori system that since our primary and funda-
mental functions are motor, the greater part of the
waking hours of the child should be employed in motor
reactions. Our elementary schools have been too
bookish. Manual training, domestic economy, agri-
culture, horticulture, wood lore, athletic and gymnastic
exercises must have a larger place in children's life in
the future than they have had in the past.

I should like to turn the grade-and-high-school
curriculum upside down. Later childhood is the time
for acquiring the story element of history and the
external facts of science. In childhood we should
become acquainted with Abraham and Alexander,
Marco Polo and Lincoln, with African elephants and
Hindu temples, with chemical reactions and the
physical properties of matter. Later childhood is also
the time for acquiring the art element (skill, the me-
chanical memory element) of learning, as languages,
spelling, drawing, elements of playing musical instru-
ments, arithmetical computation and the memorizing

Educational Reorganization 329

of names and dates, personal deportment and social
etiquette; in short, what may be called the tech-
nique of civilization.

The bookish part of elementary education would
appear thus : —

(a) Several languages (at least one more than the
mother tongue; the study of these should have been
begun in the kindergarten age), literature as advanced
as the children can understand, not in homeopathic
doses, but read in quantities with very little critical
study and explanation.

(6) Volumes and volumes of objective history of
every race and age, history rich in story and anecdote,
and mostly in the form of biography; also geography
and sociography in the form of books of travel and
adventure.

(c) The elements of all the natural sciences studied
in laboratory, nature, and from books, the emphasis
placed on a first-hand acquaintance with nature, and
practically no time spent upon recondite scientific
laws and classifications.

(d) The technique of civilization including reading,
writing, spelling, and the art of computation in arith-
metic.

Grammar and scientific arithmetic, definitions, and
the scientific systematization of knowledge should be
left for the high school.

Secondary Education. — With the main part of the
fact side of the sciences and the memory side of lan-
guages acquired in the grades, the high school pupil
could devote his book time to strictly scientific study.
This is the time for scientific study of the elements of

330 Psychology as Applied to Education

language, literature, mathematics, physical sciences,
biology, history, and the other social sciences.

Summary. — Early childhood (up to seven years)
is the time for sensory and motor organization and
coordination.

Later childhood (seven to fifteen years) is the time
for motor training in the technique of civilization and
the objective, descriptive study of our environment.

Youth is the time for scientific organization of
knowledge, and the preliminary vocational training.

THE FUNCTION OF EDUCATION

Slowly and painfully with many a blunder, man has
worked his way upward from primitive barbarism to
his present state of culture. Through all the long
process it has been the function of the parent and the
teacher to transmit the treasure of civilization from
generation to generation.

Yet even the highest civilization leaves much to be
desired. Above and far ahead gleams our ideal.
Would we reach it we must avidly accumulate, and with
miserly care hoard the treasures of the human mind,
the spiritual estate of human society. And it is the
high duty of every educator to transmit this spiritual
patrimony undiminished and untarnished.

APPENDIX

THE NERVOUS SYSTEM

BY means of the nervous system the mind controls the body
and receives (through the end-organs of the senses) its knowl-
edge of the material world.

The student of this book should have a fair knowledge of
the physiology of the nervous system. This appendix is not
intended as a substitute for such knowledge, but is meant to
give a brief summary of the subject from the psychologist's
standpoint.

TISSUES OF THE NERVOUS SYSTEM

The nervous system is
made up of structures
called neurons. A neuron
consists of a nerve cell with
its nucleus and tiny fila-
ments or nerve fibers which
extend from the cell body.

Wherein the functions of
the cell body and its fibers
are different, is a matter of
some uncertainty. Both
are sensitive to stimulation
and both possess conductil-
ity . The cell body is known
to possess, in addition, nu-
tritive capacities, and is
thought to have the power to enforce or inhibit impulses received
and even to be capable of automatic action.

831

THREE NERVE CELLS

332

Appendix

Cerebrum

THE CENTRAL SYSTEM

The central nervous system consists of two great clusters of
nerve centers known as the brain, and the spinal cord.

The Brain. — The brain consists of the cerebrum, or the
hemispheres which fill the greater part of the cavity of the

skull, and the cerebel-
lum, which lies behind
and below the cere-
brum.

The Cerebrum. —
The cerebrum is di-
vided into a left and
a right hemisphere.
These hemispheres are
united by a band of
white matter at the
bottom of the divid-
ing cleft. The cere-
brum is in form
surprisingly like the
kernel .of an English
walnut. Its surface,
like the walnut's, is a
series of convolutions. Deeper fissures divide each hemisphere
into four lobes — frontal, temporal, parietal, and occipital. The
deepest fissures are those of Rolando and Sylvius.

The tissues of the cerebrum are of two kinds. The outside,
or cortex, is gray matter, between jelly and porridge in consist-
ency, and beneath this is white stringy matter. The greater
part of the gray matter is made up of nerve cells, while the white
matter consists of nerve fibers, which, as we have seen, are out-
growths from the nerve cells.

The function of the gray matter, whether in the cortex, spinal
cord, or other nerve center, is to generate and switch nerve
currents. These masses of gray matter have the functions of the
batteries in a telegraph line and of the switches in a railroad
yard. Neural energy seems to be generated here, and here

THE HUMAN

Shown from the side with the cerebrum and
cerebellum separated from each other.

Appendix

333

.Olfactory

Cerebrum

Crura
CercM

sensory currents are changed into motor currents, and motor
currents are sent from one nerve fiber to another.
(When a current of neural energy passes through gray matter,
it leaves some kind of path behind. We do not know in the
least what is the nature of this path except that it becomes
easier for the next neural current in the gray matter to travel
through the path of its predecessor than to pass where no cur-
rent has gone before.
For every time that a
path is traveled it
becomes easier of
travel for currents.
This forms the physi-
cal basis for habit,
memory, and associa-
tion.

These neural paths
may be likened to a
path through a forest,
or to the channels
of water in a delta.
For every animal that
passes over the path
it becomes more defi-
nite and deeper. But
if it is left unused, it
will finally be over-
grown and obliterated.
In fact, it is always becoming effaced, and it must have a cer-
tain amount of use to be kept in existence. This plasticity
of the nervous system is greatest in childhood and then gradually
decreases throughout life, until in extreme old age it sometimes
vanishes almost completely. F^nce in childhood we learn
easily and forget easily, and in old age we may find it impossible
to acquire anything new, while our old memories are as intact
as ever.

Certain portions of the cortex, or gray matter, of the cerebrum
are supposed to be connected with certain sense organs from

Medulla

THE BRAIN AS SEEN FROM BELOW
The cranial nerves are numbered.

334 Appendix

which they receive stimuli. The visual, auditory, olfactory, and
tactual centers are quite clearly determined; the visual centers
in the occipital lobes, the auditory in that portion of the cortex
a little above and behind the ear, the olfactory probably in the
median lower parts of the temporal lobes, and the tactual
along the fissure of Rolando. The centers for taste are not so
exactly located, but are thought to be near the olfactory centers.
A large group of the cells of the cortex known as the region of
Rolando, because near the fissure of Rolando, is thought to be
in connection with the voluntary muscles. If a portion of this
region is injured, as by the pressure of a blood clot, a sliver of
bone, or a foreign substance that has penetrated to it, the
muscle which has its nerve centers in the injured region becomes
paralyzed.

There are also supposed to be in the cortex of the cerebrum,
association centers, whose function is to unite the various sensory
v* centers.

^ So interrelated are the sensory centers of the cerebrum, that
the loss of the use of one center produces disturbances in other
centers. For instance, the destruction of the auditory centers
would result not only in a loss of one's power to hear or to
remember what had previously been heard, but even in loss of
power to speak, provided the person so injured used auditory
images in formulating his speech. This crippled condition of a
sensory center is called ajjhjjsia.

The tissues of the gray matter are constantly wearing out
and being replaced. There is evidently an immaterial pattern
and force that fits into place according to its own laws the
particles of matter as they come and go. And not only is the
organic structure of the brain maintained, but the neural paths
are also reproduced and perpetuated.

Our clear consciousness is connected only with the neural
events of the cerebrum, it is asserted. The other nerve centers
are connected with subconsciousness. And with many functions
of even the cerebrum our mind is only subconsciously connected.

The Cerebellum. — The cerebellum, like the cerebrum, is
made up of gray and white matter. Little is known concern-
ing the functions of this organ, but it is thought to be a

Appendix

335

coordinating center, regulating the currents started in the cere-
brum, so that the complicated movements necessary to the body in
its various activities may be performed in an orderly manner.
The cerebellum is also thought to serve as a relay station to
strengthen the messages sent out by the cerebrum.

The Medulla Oblongata. — An enlarged portion of the spinal
cord just below the cerebellum, called the medulla oblongata,
is often spoken of as a coordinate part of the nervous system
with the brain and the spinal cord. The tissues of the medulla

Orau
Hotter
Anterior Root

A CROSS SECTION OP THE SPINAL CORD

The white matter is really filled with nerve fibers, but in the figure these are
shown at only one point.

consist of a complex mixture of nerve fibers and nerve cells.
Through the fibers, messages are transmitted from the brain
down to the spinal cord and in the opposite direction. The
cells of the medulla are connected with the control of the respira-
tory and circulatory organs.

The Spinal Cord. — In the spinal cord the arrangement of the
gray matter and white matter is the reverse of that shown in
the brain, the white matter being on the outside and the gray
matter within. A cross section will show the gray matter in
the form of a capital H. Two projections point inward and two

336

Appendix

point outward. They are called the anterior and posterior

projections respectively.

A very important function of the spinal cord is its power to

produce reflex action; that is,
action in immediate response to
sensory stimulation without the
direction of the cerebrum. In-
stances of such action are sneez-
ing, the twitching of the foot
when something tickles it, or an
involuntary shiver when a cold
draft is felt.

Through the spinal cord im-
pulses pass upward and down-
ward from the brain to the sense
organs and muscles and from the
sense organs and muscles to the
brain.

THE PERIPHERAL NERVOUS
SYSTEM

The central nervous system
communicates with the rest of
the body by means of a series of
nerves and nerve endings known
as the peripheral nervous system.

There are two groups of these
nerves — the cranial nerves, which
carry messages to and from the
brain without entering the spinal
cord, and the spinal nerves.

The cranial nerves, of which
there are twelve pairs, have con-

DlAGBAM ILLUSTRATING A SlMPLB
REFLEX ACTION

The impulse from the sense organ
passes in over the nerve fiber, d,
and may pass up to the brain
over a— c. But a part may b3
switched off through e down the
fiber / to the muscle, causjng it
to contract without the aid of
the brain.

trol of the muscles of the face and carry impulses communicated
to them by the nose, the eye, the ear, and the tongue.
. The spinal nerves branch out from the spinal cord, thirty-one
on each side. Each nerve has two roots, one arising from the

Appendix 337

posterior projection of the gray matter, and called the posterior
root, the other arising from the anterior projection and called
the anterior root.

By experiment, it has been ascertained that the function of
the posterior root is to bearjcrthe ^spinal corcLsengoj-y .impulses
coming from the various parts of the body ; while the anterior
rootslirTconcerne(I with the motor impulses, whicj^arejsent out
by the brain or spinal cord to the muscles.

The ~nerves~which have to do with incoming or sensory im-
pulses are called afferent nerves; those which have to do with
outgoing or motor impulses are called efferent nerves.

THE SYMPATHETIC SYSTEM OF NERVES

In addition to the central and peripheral nervous systems,
there is a series of nerve cells and nerve fibers to which has been
given the name of the sympathetic system.

This system consists of two strands of nerve tissue, which
are found within the cavity of the body, one on each side of the
spinal cord. Each strand of nerve tissue is connected with
each of the spinal nerves on its side of the cord by a mass of
nerve cells.

The sympathetic system has not the power to originate im-
pulses, but can take up impulses communicated to it by the
spinal nerves from the brain and spinal cord.

The nerves of this system are thought to have to do with the
functions of several of the large organs of the body, such as
regulating the action of the blood vessels in the abdominal
region, and controlling the secretions of the liver.

As a rule, the impulses which are carried by the sympathetic
system are not under the control of the will .

THE FUNCTION OF THE NERVOUS SYSTEM

The function of the nervous system is to convert stimuli
into motor reactions. The end-organs of the sensory nerves in
the different sense organs pick up stimuli for each sense of its
peculiar kind. The neural current excited in the nerve, often
first passing through several inferior centers, finally lands in

338 Appendix

the cortex of the brain in the region appropriate to that sense.
Then, if not inhibited by consciousness, a counter current is
started which travels out from the brain to some muscle and
causes a motor reaction. The motor reaction is specific for
each variety of stimuli, and is fixed by instinct unless modified
by habit.

In man and the higher animals consciousness can at any time
step in and inhibit, delay, or change the kind of motor response.

As we have seen, it is not necessary in all cases for the sensory
current to go all the way to the cortex to produce a motor
reaction. In habitual actions, and in the fundamental instincts,
it seems that a motor current is started from the spinal cord
as soon as the sensory current arrives there.

INDEX

abstract altruism, 249.

abstract principles, the man of,
190.

abstraction, 53.

acquired impulse, 155.

active side of human nature, 185.

adolescence, early, chapter
XXIV, p. 238; dangers of
sexual ignorance, 243 ; general
characteristics, 238 ; moral
training of, 191 ; right kind
of teacher for, 241 ; summary
of, 245; time for acquiring
moral habits, 162; time for
character development, 240 ;
time for fixation of habit, 241 ;
unsettled, 239.

adventure, love of, 121.

aesthetic education, 144.

aesthetic emotions and interests,
123.

agriculture, 308.

analysis and comparison, chapter
IX, p. 87; functions of, 87;
limit of area of, 89 ; pedagogy
of, 89.

anger, 127; cure for, 131; ex-
pression of, 130.

animal nature under control,
148.

"answer in complete sentences,"
fallacy, 271.

antinatural, the, 147.

apperceiving mass, 27.

apperception, 27; example of,
25 ; process of, 26.

a priori knowledge, 66.

arrested development, 174.

art, how to teach an, chapter
XXVIII, p. 285 ; of question-
ing, 271 ; of studying, chapter
XXV, p. 255.

arts, aesthetic, 294; courses in,
298; inteUectual, 289; of
civilization, 288.

asceticism, 248.

aspects of the mind, 7.

association, or synthesis, chap-
ter X, p. 92 ; logical, 92 ; me-
chanical, 93.

athletics, 302.

attendant bodily feelings, 120.

attention, chapter VIII, p. 74;
characteristics of, 76; invol-
untary, 80 ; pedagogy of, 83 ;
periods of, 78; spontaneous,
80; voluntary, 80.

attitude, critical, 259; proper,
for study, 258; sympathetic,
259 ; towards life, 210.

audiles, 256.

authority, 65.

axioms, 65.

balance of mind, 148.
baric sense, 30.

339

340

Index

bookkeeping, 312.

boy scout movement, 326.

building air castles, 40.

camp fire girls, 327.

carriage of the body, 218.

causation, 66.

character, chapter XXI, p. 197.

child, the, a materialist, 246 ;
not sentimental, 229; self-
centered, 246; small store of
associations of, 222; swayed
by present impulse, 227; util-
itarian, 247 ; world of, 222.

child study, 220.

childhood, chapter XXIII, p. 220;
ages of, two, 221 ; not the
time for technical training,
305; summary of, 236.

children, admiration of strength
and cunning in, 233; dy-
namic interests, 318; estates
for, 327; fondness for repeti-
tion of, 231 ; imitativeness, 232 ;
impulsive and emotional life,
227 ; interests and how to ap-
peal to them, 229; primitive
morality, 232; small store of
associations, 222 ; suggesti-
bility, 232.

classification of feelings and im-
pulses, chapter XIII, p. 118.

clearness and definiteness, 268.

closing exercises, value of, 85.

color, 13.

color blindness, 14.

commercialism, 177.

commercial subjects, 312.

comparison, how it aids analysis,
88.

composition, 294.

concept, class, or scientific, 54;
evolution of, 54 ; logical classes
of, 59; practical, 54; and
symbol, 56; without symbol
impossible, 56.

conception and judgment, chap-
ter VI, p. 53.

consciousness, clear, or complete,
75 ; diagram, 76 ; field of, 6 ;
fringe of, 75.

constructive thought, 275.

contrast of thought and feeling,
145.

control and development of cer-
tain impulses and emotions,
chapter XIV, p. 127.

cortex of brain, 44.

courage, 121, 127.

critical attitude, 259.

critical thought, 275.

critical period in habit formation,
158.

cruelty to animals, 134, 175.

cultivation of ideals, 195.

culture, chapter XV, p. 144;
analysis of, 147; in one's
vocation, 149; in study of
Latin and Greek, 150, 151 ;
means of acquiring, 149 ; place
in curriculum, 288 ; social, 297.

day dreaming, 40.

definitions, logical form of, 56.

desire, 100, 165, 182 ; and ideal
differentiated, 182 ; for knowl-
edge, 122 ; the strongest, 183.

domestic economy, 311.

dramatic art, 294.

dramatic instinct in children, 230.

drawing and painting, 295,

drill, value of, 51,

Index

341

ear, the, 255.

education, American ideal of,
151 ; function of, 8, 19, 34 ; into
consciousness, 287; out of
consciousness, 288.

educational reorganization, chap-
ter XXX, p. 314.

emotions, classified, 118; short-
lived and variable, 1 10 ; stand-
ard of, 146.

exactness in practice, 159.

exceptions, 158.

experience as a source of knowl-
edge, 62.

expression of impulses and emo-
tions, 111.

extension, as element in sensa-
tion, 19 ; of concepts, 54.

eye, the, 255; training of, at
expense of the ear, 256.

faith, 66, 207.

fashion, 147.

fatigue, 135.

fear, 121, 127; physiological
effects of, 128 ; suppression of
expression, 129.

feeling, 10, 105.

feelings, impulses and their ex-
pression, chapter XII, p. 105.

feelings and impulses, fluctua-
tion of, 167; pedagogy of,
145; relations of, 105.

fine arts, 144.

flavors, 16.

form, 30.

formal grammar not for children,
226.

Foss, SAM, quoted, 211.

freedom, need of allowing, 188.

future self, 172.

generalization, 53 ; too hasty, 90.
good taste, 146, 147, 297.
government, school, 323.
Greek and Latin, study of, 150,

151.

grief, 140.
growing old, 250.

habit, chapter XVI, p. 153;

element in character, 161;

function of, 155; laws, 156;

moral, 162; motive, 154;

pedagogy of, 156; personal,

162; servant not master,

163 ; technical, 154.
hand, the, 255.
hearing, 14; space relations of,

33.

hedonism, 106.
hero worship, 190.
honesty, intellectual, 71; in

children, 234.
human nature, 4; periods in

evolution of, 221.
hygiene of emotions, 140.

ideal, effective without emotion,
183; development of, 180;
struggle with desire, 183.

ideal human personality, 179.

idealism, lack of, in mature life,
250.

ideals, 168, 172, 178 ; contrasted
with desires, 169 ff. ; creation
of, chapter XX, p. 190; his-
torical evolution of, 176;
incidental inculcation of, 192;
or rational interests, chapter
XVII, p. 165 ; primitive, 176,
180 ; result of choice, 170.

ideas as stimuli, 165.

342

Index

illusion, example of, 28.

imagination, chapter IV, p. 36;
and perception, 36 ; dissipation
of, 41 ; kinds, 37 ; practical
value of, 37; trained for ac-
curacy, 38; enrichment, 39;
used for recreation, 40.

imitation, 132.

impulse, 10, 99 ; contrasted with
ideals, 169 ff. ; dependent on
stimuli, 166; intermittent in
nature, 167 ; to construct, 121 ;
to defend, 121, 127; to de-
stroy, 121 ; to flee or hide,
127; to own, 122; to work,
137.

impulses, gradation of, 103 ; how
to control, 112; pedagogy of,
116; shortlived, 110; sub-
conscious, 102.

indecent, effect of the, 208.

induction, 63.

industrial education, 305 ff .

industrial efficiency, 177.

inhibition, 99, 179.

inner side of experience, the, 144.

instinct, 100, 165, 185; and de-
sire differentiated, 102.

integrity of intellect, 67.

intellectual courage, 260.

intellectual emotions and motives
122.

intension of concept, 54.

interest, 268; center of, 175;
how to awaken, 83 ; in others,
173; laws of, 82.

interests of childhood, 318.

judgment, 60 ; kinds of, 60 ; pred-
icate of, event concept, 60;
subject of, space concept, 60.

knowledge based on faith, 65.

language as part of curriculum,

290; learning a, 258; the

sciences of, 282.
law, principle, 67.
laws, of association, 93 ff. ; of

attention, 76 ff . ; of habit, 156 ;

of interest, 82 ff .
lecturing by professors, 257.
light, sensation of, 13.
literature, 291 ff.
living and making a living, 306.
love, 133 ; of humanity, 174.
LOWELL, JAMES RUSSELL, quoted,

214.
loyalty, 234, 325; to ideals,

195.

major special senses, 11.

man as a reacting organism,

chapter XI, p. 98, 4, 314.
manual training, 304.
mathematics, course in, 279;

study of, 279.
meaning, 53.
mechanical element in education,

161.
memorizing, in studying history,

261.
memory, chapter V, p. 43;

analysis of, 44; auditory, 46;

gustatory, 47; logical, 47;

mechanical, 49; motor, 46;

olfactory, 47; physical basis

of, 43; recognition in, 44;

reproduction in, 44; sense

classes of, 45 ; tactile, 46 ; the

pedagogy of, 50 ; visual, 45.
militarism, 177.
military discipline, 187.

Index

343

minor special senses, 11.

MONTESSORI method, 314 ; Chil-
dren's Houses, 316 ; exaggera-
tion of sense training in, 317 ;
motor training in, 316; no
literature in, 321 ; sense train-
ing in, 315 ; social education
in, 317 ; spontaneous self -direc-
tion, 322 ; teaching of reading
and writing by, 320; the
government of children in,
323 ; the silent directress, 323.

moral battleground, 184.

moral interests, 124.

moral training, 191.

morality, teaching of, 191 ff.

morbid, effect of the, 207.

morbidity, 139, 248.

motiles, 256.

motive habits, 154.

motives, 106; gradation and
classification of, 103; lower,
to be subordinated, 114 ff.

motor element, 229, 258.

motor emotions and interests,
121.

motor process, 184.

motor sense, 16, 315.

muscular sense, 16.

music, 296.

natural sciences, 277 ff .

newspaper reading, 41.

noise, 15.

notebook, suggestions in regard

to, 261.
novel reading, 40.

obedience to common will, 324.
occipital lobes, 12.
odors, 16.

optimism, 211.
organic functions, 103.
organic sensations, 17.
organization of associations, 96.

patent medicine vender, 244.

pathetic, the, 140.

paths in nerve centers, 153.

patriotism, 174.

perception, chapter III, p. 24;
analysis of, 25; disease of
civilization affecting, 34; fac-
tors hi, 26; gustatory, 33;
memory as element hi, 26 ff . ;
motor, 29 ; of distance, 32 ff . ;
of duration, 32 ; of effort, 30 ;
of form or extension, 30; of
space, 29; of surface, 30; of
temperature, 33; of third
dimension, 31 ; olfactory, 33 ;
organic, 34 ; past experience as
element in, 27; relation to
sensation, 29; tactile, 29;
training of, 34 ; visual, 30.

perverted emotions, 138.

physical basis, of association,
94 ; of habit, 153 ; of memory,
43.

physical culture, 302.

physical education, 300.

piety, 234.

pitch, 15.

plodding through life, 211.

practical and dynamic interests,
318.

primary senses, 315.

"Progressive Road to Reading"
series, 321.

psychology, value of study of, to
educator, 3.

public spirit, 174,

344

Index

questioning, art of, 271.

rational interests, 168, 170, 182 ;
as ideal selves, 172 ; sphere of,
173.

react, the tendency to, 202.

reactions, to stimuli, 98 ; specific,
108; subconscious, 202, 204.

reasoning, chapter VII, p. 62;
deductive, 68; inductive, 62;
pedagogy of, 69.

recitation, chapter XXVI, p. 264 ;
drill in, 266 ; in history, 267 ;
in mathematics, 266; in oral
language, 267; in spelling,
267; in written languaglf 267 ;
pupils as critics in, 272; pur-
poses of, 264 ; the logical chain,
270; the test in, 264; topi-
cal, 270; training in culture
in, 270; training in thought
in, 268 ff.

reflex action, 102.

religious emotions and interests,
125.

remorse, 139.

reorganization of curriculum,
327; of education of infants,
327 ; of elementary education,
328; of secondary education,
329 ; summary of, 330.

repetition, 156.

representative image, 57.

responsiveness to suggestion, 203.

science, how to teach, chapter
XXVII, p. 274 ; of arithmetic
not for children, 226.

sciences, classification of, 277;
course in, 278; double object
of, 274; of languages, 282;

place in school curriculum,
276 ; pupil's duty in studying,
284; teacher's duty in teach-
ing, 283 ; value of laboratory
work to understanding of, 278.

self -centered emotions and inter-
ests, 119.

self-control, 115, 197.

selfishness, 133.

self-preservation, 120, 127.

self-realization, 120.

selves, choice and renunciation
of, 178; our, chapter XVIII,
p. 172 ; social, 176 ; system of,
173.

sensation and the senses, chapter
II, p. 10 ; analysis of, 20 ff . ;
pedagogy of, 19; the organic,
17; the spatial element of,
19.

sense, motor or muscular, 16;
of hearing, 14; of sight, 12;
of smell, 16; of taste, 16; of
touch, 15 ; of temperature, 16.

senses, classification of, 11 ; or-
ganic, 11, 16; special, 11.

sensitiveness, 147.

sentimentality, 138.

sewing, 311.

sex, method of teaching facts
concerning, 244.

shorthand, 312.

skill hi thinking, 274.

sloyd, 304. ^/

social culture, 297.

social emotions and interests,
123, 132.

social sciences, 280; purpose of
studying, 280.

sound, 15.

sowing wild oats, 162.

Index

345

space element in sensations, 19.

space senses, 32.

spelling, 290.

spiritual atmosphere, 214.

standard of emotional life, 146.

stimuli, 98, 165.

store of knowledge, 276.

stream of thought, 205.

subconscious life, chapter XXII,
p. 201; effect of, on health,
206.

subconscious motor impulses,
185.

subconscious reactions, 102.

subconsciousness, 201 ; charac-
teristics of, 202; does not
understand a negative, 207;
our control of, 206 ; pedagogi-
cal observations concerning,
218 ; repository for products of
conscious activity, 205; sum-
mary of, 216-219.

suggestions, cumulative effect of,
204; from other's thoughts,
212; protection against evil,
208; responsiveness to, 203;
should be positive, 207.

syllogism, the, 68.

symbol and concept, 56.

sympathy, 71, 133, 259.

tabu morality, 235.

teaching, old and new compared,

51.
technical habits, 154; pedagogy

of, chapter XXIX, p. 300.

telepathy, 213.

thinking, children's, 222; com-
mon, 225 ; is helped by physi-
cal culture, 301; philosophic,
225; scientific, 225.

thought contrasted with feelings,
7; original, 71.

time for the hardest work, 84.

time senses, 32.

tire pouits, 135.

tone, 15.

triangle of education, the, 8.

typewriting, 312.

unity of the human being, 5.
universal motive, 106,

visual sensations, 13.
visualizers, 256.
vividness, 268.
voluntary action, 182.
voluntary process, 184.

WARD method, 321.

WEBER'S law, 17.

will, chapter XIX, p. 182 ; func-
tion of, 182 ; training of, 187 ;
works by inhibition, 185.

willing a negative process, 185.

work, 258.

writing, 303.

youth, chapter XXIV, p. 238;
aesthetic, 247; an idealist,
246; ethics of, 248; mental
diseases of, 248; social, 246;
sphere of instruction for, 252.

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY

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DEC 1 6 1951

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