The Psychology of education

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED

LONDON • BOMBAY • CALCUTTA
MELBOURNE

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY

NEW YORK • BOSTON • CHICAGO
ATLANTA • SAN FRANCISCO

THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, LTD.

TORONTO

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF
EDUCATION

J. WELTON, M.A.,

PROFESSOR OF EDUCATION IN THE UNIVERSITY OF LEEDS ;

AUTHOR OF THE ARTICLE ON EDUCATION IN THE ELEVENTH EDITION

OF THE ENCYCLOPAEDIA BRITANNICA ; THE LOGICAL BASES OF

EDUCATION ; PRINCIPLES AND METHODS OF TEACHING ;

A MANUAL OF LOGIC ; ETC. ;
JOINT AUTHOR OF PRINCIPLES AND METHODS OF MORAL TRAINING

MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED

ST. MARTIN'S STREET, LONDON

1911

TO

S. S. F. F.

! The dearest friend to me, the kindest man,
The best-condition'd and unwearied spirit
In doing courtesies."

2052694

PREFACE

THIS book is a systematic treatise neither on psychology
nor on education. It endeavours to set forth the rela-
tion between them. This relation must be found in
the actual lives of individual children, and it is to help
people engaged in education to study those lives that
I have written. I have endeavoured to keep as free
as possible from technicalities, and throughout to deal
with life as a developing whole. Though the treat-
ment is psychological, the selection of topics has been
determined by educational considerations. The end
sought is a presentation of the general form in which
efficiency of life develops through ever-extending pur-
poses. The various human faculties are regarded as
factors inter-mingled, in an indefinitely large variety of
ways, in every piece of life, and are, therefore, not
considered apart and in themselves. Similarly, little
or nothing is said of elements of experience which are
merely constituent of fuller forms of life.

That a much more extensive and exact knowledge of
facts must be attained before the course of mental
development can be set forth with scientific precision
and completeness is certain. But for the purpose here
in view this is not altogether a disadvantage. The
main lines are, I believe, sound, and the reader is, by
the very generality of the treatment, forced to recognize

viii PREFACE

that he cannot get all he wants by reading, but that
a substantial part of the work is left for him to do.
Moreover, if a detailed chart of life could be laid
down the temptation to forget that it could be only
an abstraction, and to consider it as a kind of biography
of every child would be one which many would be
unable to resist. Then the study of psychology would
tend to make educative work unpsychological. For it
is individual lives with which the educator has to deal,
not generalized averages. Still, more detailed know-
ledge is wanted. But it is knowledge of concrete
pieces of life, not of isolated facts torn from their
vital context. If, to any degree, this book should
inspire those who find it helpful to publish precise
records of careful observations on points which especi-
ally interest them it will be of some service to the
cause of psychology as well as to that of education.

J. W.

THE UNIVERSITY, LEEDS,
February, 1911.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I
EDUCATION AND PSYCHOLOGY

PAGE

Many teachers contemn psychology, i

but are good practical psychologists ; . 2

educative power is dependent on psychology ; 4
generalization of practical psychology needs guidance and

verification. 5

Current theoretical psychology is too intellectualistic : . 7

its unrecognized influence on education ; 8

the hypothesis of independent faculties ; 9

the Herbartian psychology. . . . . . 12

Psychology of the adult and of the child : . . . . 13

nature of child-experience ; 15

nature and extent of mental advance ; . . . . 15

need for understanding one's own life ; . . . 17

recognition of social character of experience. . . . 21

Education is more than applied psychology ; . . . 23

for psychology cannot decide its purpose, . . . 23

nor evaluate its means, whether of matter or method ; . 26

teaching method is both psychological and logical ; . 26

education uses psychology but is not limited by it. . 28

CHAPTER II
THE STUDY OF MENTAL LIFE

Books are helpful as guides and commentaries, ... 29

but the real material of study is experience, ... 30

which should be traced in retrospect 31

x CONTENTS

PAGE

Rational regulation of life is characteristically human ;. . 32

skill in action becomes largely automatic ; . ' . . 33

value of automatism and routine ; . ... * 35

nature of intellectual regulation of life ; . . . 36

development of purposes , . 37

Nature of impulsive actions ; 38

the inhibition of impulses 39

Nature of instincts ; 40

control of instincts ; . . . . . . . 41

the search for primary emotions. ..... 42

Function of knowledge in the direction of conduct ; . 43

the growth of knowledge ;. . . ; , . 43

personal differences in mode of learning ; ... 44

dependence of learning on interest. .... 45

Kind of introspection needed for educational psychology ; . 46

its difficulty, incompleteness, and necessity. ... 46

CHAPTER III
BODILY ENDOWMENT

Connexion between mind and body, and its educational

importance ;....... 49

hygienic conditions of mental work ; . . . . 50

bodily activity necessary for intellectual growth ; . . 51

body and mind develop together. . . . . 52

The nervous system :

its general structure ;. ...... 54

its functions ; . . . . . . . . 55

its organization through establishment of connexions. . 56

Individual variations : . . . . . . . 58

physique and intelligence are not uniformly combined ; . 59

vitality and intelligence are generally related. . . 59

Defects of sense organs : 60

colour-blindness; 6 1

tone-deafness; . . . . •/-' . . . 62

defects of other senses. . 62

CONTENTS xi

CHAPTER IV
GENERAL MENTAL ENDOWMENT

PAGE

General function of instinct 64

Instinct in the lower animals 65

Instinct is not mere behaviour, 66

but includes mental prompting. ..... 67

Human instincts are proclivities to classes of actions, . . 68

develop in experience, ...... 69

are brought under the direction of intelligence, . . 69

and may be modified by education, .... 70

but are operative throughout life. . . . . 71

Instincts show adaptation by increased range of origin, . . 71

and modification of reaction ;..... 72

and become fused 73

The number of human instincts must be determined by the

number of primary emotions ; . . . . 73

for instincts are complete mental processes. ... 74

The human instincts :

hunger and thirst ; 76

fear; 77

pugnacity ; 8 1

self-assertion and self-abasement ; . . . . . 84

tender emotion ; ....... 86

sex;. . . . • 88

gregariousness ;........ 90

curiosity; ......... 92

acquisitiveness ; . . . . . . . . 96

constructiveness ; .... 98

General innate tendencies.. 100

CHAPTER V
VARIATIONS IN MENTAL ENDOWMENT

Differences of race :

developed by heredity ; . . . . . 101

and by constancy of environment ; . . . ,102

xii CONTENTS

PAGE

Differences of race — continued :

national differences ; . . . . . . .103

English national characteristics ;. . . ;. . 105

bearing of national differences on education. . . 107

Differences of individuals. . . . . . • . 107

Classification by temperament : . . . . " -.' . no

Galen's classification ; . . . . . . . in

temperaments to some extent appear consecutively in life ; 112
modern physiology can give no certain basis for tempera-
ments ;. . . . . . . .113

the volatile, or sanguine, temperament ; . . .114
the practical, or active, temperament ; . . . . 114

the emotional, sensitive, or nervous temperament ; . 118
the contemplative, or thoughtful, temperament ; . . 120
the apathetic temperament ; . . . . .123

the classification is only suggestive. . . . . 125

Characteristic mental qualities 125

Differences of disposition 126

Differences of sex : 127

comparison of men and women ;. . . . . 128
comparison of boys and girls ; . . . . .132
bearing of sex-differences on education. . . . 135

CHAPTER VI
NATURE OF EXPERIENCE

Inadequate hypotheses to explain experience : . . . 138

that of inner development ; 139

that of outer formation 141

Experience is interaction of nature and environment. . . 143

The beginnings of experience 144

Clear and dim consciousness : 145

examination of the background of consciousness ; . . 147

cumulative influence of customary surroundings. . . 148

Surroundings and education : 150

influence of public opinion ; 151

influence of social conditions ; 152

town and country environments. . . . . . 153

CONTENTS

Xlll

Tendency to assimilation to surroundings : . . . . 155

this does not imply imitation ; . . . . .156

emotional unison ; . . . . . .157

intellectual assimilation ; . . . . . .159

suggestion of ideas ; 1 60

negative suggestibility ; 162

suggestibility and initiative. ..... 162

Imitation is intentional copying ; . . . . .163
direct imitation copies the process, indirect imitation

copies the product ; 163

imitation and suggestion ; 164

imitation and assimilation ; 165

functions of imitation in the acquirement of skill ; . 167

place of imitation in education. . . . . .167

Development of experience : . . . . . .169

implies increase in differentiation and in complexity, . 170
and involves habituation ; . . . . . .170

mechanical habits are of small and conventional importance; 1 7 1
habituation and development of skill ; . . . . 171

this illustrated by learning to write ; . . . . 172

interaction of habit and adaptation ; . . . . 176

habitudes are directive habituations ; .... 177

danger of over-habituation ; 178

purposive habitudes ; . . . . . . .178

relation of dynamic to static habitudes ; . . .180
general habits of behaviour ; . . . . 1 8 1

change of habituation ; . . . . . .182

experience is organization of life. . . . . 183

CHAPTER VII
DEVELOPMENT OF INTERESTS

Inadequacy of doctrine that bodily sensibility is the sole cause

of human actions. . . . . . .185

Nature and function of interest : ..... 186

not a quality of objects, ...... 187

but found in relation of objects to ourselves ; . . 188

a feeling of worth ; 191

felt in everything which raises emotion ; . . .191

xiv CONTENTS

PAGE

Nature and function of interest — continued :

therefore connected with desire and purpose ; . . 193

attached to everything bearing on purpose ; . . . 194

continued interest develops habitude ; . . . . 195

direct and indirect interest ; 195

importance of indirect interest ; 1 96

indirect interest and habit. . . . . . .196

Interests relate to men and to things ; and are practical, in-
tellectual, and emotional 198

Practical interests take knowledge as auxiliary to doing ; . 199

socially fixed on relations of others to the self ; . . 202

characteristic of childhood ; . . . . . 202

instrumental in learning ; . . . . . . 203

can be indirect. 205

Intellectual interests take doing as auxiliary to knowing ; . 206

not strong in childhood ; 207

develop from practical interests, 207

socially fixed on general human relations ; . . . 208

relation to practical interests. . . . . 209

Emotional interests refer to value for feeling ; . . . 210

relation to intellectual interests, 210

exemplified in the teaching of literature ; . . . 211

relation to practical interests ; 212

socially fixed on moral qualities and relations ; . . 213
development and value. . . . . . .214

Education should develop every type of interest, . . . 215

and enlarge and systematize them ; . . . . 216

need for fuller knowledge of succession of natural interests ; 217

this cannot be deduced from development of race, . . 217

nor averaged from answers to questions, . . . 218
must be sought in personal study ; . . . .219

such knowledge should influence choice of lessons. . 219

General form of interest shown by kind of activity : . . 221

infancy; . . . . . ,» . . 221

childhood; . . . . . ... 222

transition from childhood ;. . . . . .223

early boyhood and girlhood ; 225

later boyhood and girlhood ; 228

youth. . . . . . . . . 231

CONTENTS xv

CHAPTER VIII
DIRECTION OF ACTIVITY

PAGE

The school rightly assumes that attention is under control. . 23.4.

Attention is absent in proportion as the stream of ideas is

determined from without : 235

absorption and attention ; 236

growth of attention out of absorption ; . . .239

the test of attention ; 241

absorption and attention in the teaching of literature ; . 242

general results of confusing absorption and attention. . 244

In reverie and conversation : attention is sporadic, . . 244

the stream of ideas is unbroken but rambling, . . 245

and may be diverted by unnoticed impressions ; . . 249

influence of mood on suggestion of ideas. . . . 250

Attention directs trains of ideas spontaneously formed ; . . 251

such direction works by inhibition through purpose. . 252

Power of attention depends on strength of purpose and interest, 253

and on formation of habits ; ..... 254
attention and fatigue ; . . . . . .255

flow and ebb of attention ; 256

attention in children ; 256

boredom ; 258

thinking is only learnt in relation to purpose ; . . 258

attention is difficult when interest is indirect, . . 259

but it is frequently necessary, 260

and is facilitated by habituation ; .... 263

attention and distractions. ...... 264

Summary of doctrine of attention. ..... 267

Attention needs to be trained. ...... 267

The current doctrine treats attention as cognition : . . 268

this abolishes distinction between attention and inattention ; 269
objections to classification into ' involuntary,' ' non-volun-
tary ' and * voluntary ' attention ;. . . .270

educational effects of the doctrine. .... 274

xvi CONTENTS

CHAPTER IX
LEARNING BY DIRECT EXPERIENCE

PACK

Learning is constant in life, . . . . . .275

and is guided by the doings and the speech of others ; . 275
dangers of neglecting either personal experience or in-
struction ; . . . . . . . . 277

all learning should promote efficiency, . . . .277

and should, therefore, be the outcome of effort, . . 279

to which teaching prompts ; 280

teaching both follows and guides natural development. . 282

The natural process of learning is the basis of teaching : . 283
it does not build wholes out of elements, . . . 283
but analyses apprehended wholes, . . . .284
and forms habits — or organs — of knowing. . . . 285

Recognition is interpretation of signs, . . . . .286
involving implicit expectations, . . . . ,288
and taking for granted results of experience ; . . 289

organs of knowledge are effective in proportion to fullness ; 289
the test is power to use. . . « . . 290

All knowledge contains perceptual and conceptual material ; . 292
teaching helps to make the latter explicit ; . . . 293
early apprehension of causality, space, time, number ; . 294

facts are of value only as related, 295

and relations without facts are useless ; . . . . 296
relations implicit before they are explicit. . . .297

Growth of perceptual knowledge : 299

involves acquired limitation of attention ; . • • 299
pleasure of acquiring perceptual knowledge ; . . 301

clear percepts necessary to intelligent concepts ; . . 303
perceptual knowledge results from doing and is tested by

doing ; 304

examples from drawing and painting ; . . . . 304
need for training in discriminative observation. . . 305

Growth of conceptual knowledge :..... 307
relation to perceptual knowledge ; . . . . 308
function of language in conceptual thought ; . . 309

conceptual thought a mode of thinking perceptual ex-
perience; . . . . . . . .310

CONTENTS xvii

PAGE

Growth of conceptual knowledge — continued :

conception and generalization ; . . . . .310

definition inadequate to expression of meaning ; . . 311
conceptual knowledge of relations ; . . . 312

laboratory work often only perceptual ; . . .313

use of scientific apparatus. . . . . . .314

Summary of nature of learning. . . . . . .315

Retentiveness implies growth of organs of knowledge : . . 315
recall of the past largely inferential, . . . . 317

and partly imaginative ; . . . . . .317

value of past is to give power to deal with present ; . 318
definite recall may, or may not, involve mental imagery; 319
individual variations in power to recall specific experiences; 3 20

a trivial memory wastes life ; 322

importance of forgetting ; . . . . . .325

specific recall depends on interest in the past, . . 325
pertinence to the present topic, . . . . .325

and congruence with emotional tone ; . . . .326

memory only a general term for modes of recall ; . . 327
the training of memory 327

CHAPTER X
LEARNING THROUGH COMMUNICATED EXPERIENCE

Learning to talk involves learning about people and things. . 329

Direct communication extends the range of knowledge ; . 330
such communications must be assimilated. . . -33°

Selection of knowledge for communication : . , .331

the classical tradition ; . . . . . .332

the tradition of remembering facts ; . . . • 333
the-principle of promoting efficiency. .... 334.

Mental process of acquiring knowledge from others : . . 335
interpretation of actions and forms of expression ; . . 335
drama without speech ; . . . . . . 336

interpretation of pictures ; . . . . . -336

function of language ; ...... 340

acquirement of language ;...... 340

interpretation of speech ; 341

suggestions for teaching. . . . . . . 346

xviii CONTENTS

PAGB

Communication of new knowledge : . . . . . 346

suggestion of new mental constructions ; . •'•• ' . . 347

need for clearness and vividness ;. . . . . 348

function of detail ; . . . . . . . 348

appeal to experience ; . . . . 349

meaning and imagery ; . . . ;" . . 350
speech and emotion ; . . . . . . -353

use of pictures in teaching. . . . ".-'•'. . 353

Reading is the gathering of knowledge from visible lan-
guage : • • 354

how to master a book ;...... 354

reading and grasp of meaning ; i 356

understanding and anticipation ; 357

perceptual and conceptual processes in reading ; . 358

relation of reading aloud to reading. .... 359

Knowledge worth communicating : 362

geography; 362

history, involving apprehension of time-relations ; . . 364

grammar ; 365

foreign languages 366

Retention of matter learnt enriches experience : . . . 368

learning by rote ;....... 369

learning by heart with understanding ; . . . 371

verbal and real retention ; . . . . . . 372

memory, as enrichment of experience, improves with

life; ..... . 373

recollection is not wholly under control. . . • 374

CHAPTER XI
CRITICAL THOUGHT

Sound judgement means skill in living : . . , ,376
implies knowledge and intelligence ; . . 376

deliberation ; . . . . . . . -377

activity of intelligence ; ...... 378

variety of interests demands wide possibilities of learning ; 379
growth of intelligence in guiding life ; . . . . 380

increase in critical power. . . . . . .381

CONTENTS xix

PAGE

Stupidity may be cultivated : 384

by disregard of natural development, . . . .386
by the learning of unrelated facts, .... 389

by failure to call forth effort, 390

by disproportion between strength and effort demanded, 391
by too dogmatic teaching. . . . . . .392

Formal reasoning in life, . . . . . . -393

and in teaching ;....... 395

Reasoning in concrete matters in life, . . . . .396

and in teaching ; 397

critical thinking of books ; ...... 397

examples from history, . . . . . .398

recognition of defects of testimony ; 400

examples from other subjects ; 402

Training in precision of language : ..... 407
loose language and loose thought ; 407

superficial thought a mark of stupidity. . . . 409

Summary of connexion between teaching, stupidity, and

intelligence. . . . . . . .410

CHAPTER XII
IDEALS

Hope and life. . . . . . . . . .412

Imagination related to knowledge, belief, and reality. . . 412
Imagination of ideals natural to mankind, . . . .416

and should, therefore, be educated ; . . . .417

it inspires effort ; . . . . . . .419

ideals and mere imaginings : . . . . .421

The great ideals of life ; . . . . . .423

their relation to education ; . . . . .424

the contagion of ideals. . . . . . .425

Materials of ideals : . . . . . . . .425

literature ; 425

music ; 426

nature ; 427

art ; 429

influence of surroundings. ...... 429

xx CONTENTS

PAGH

Ideals of life : . . . 430

of work ; . •. ,MJ ...... 43 1

of moral relations ; . . . . . . .431

of religion; . . . . . . . .433

of practical inventiveness ; . . . . . . 434

of increase in knowledge ; . . . . . -435

artistic ideals 437

Schools should train artistic appreciation : . . . .438

drawing and painting ; . . . . , ;.,, . 440

composition ; 440

taste must be spontaneous 443

Literary appreciation : . . . . • . . 446

development from simple directness to complex sug-

gestiveness ; ....... 447

alliteration ;........ 448

rhyme; . . . .... . . 449

rhythm ; . . . . . . . . . 450

recitation and reading aloud of poetry ; . . . 45 1

metaphor and simile ; . . .... 453

antithesis 458

Humour : 458

puns; . . . ... . . -459

the ludicrous ;........ 459

parody 460

General relation of education to ideals. .... 462

CHAPTER XIII
CHARACTER

Ambiguous use of ' character ' in writings on education. . 463

' Character ' in common speech implies : . . . . 464

kind of moral value ; . . . ... . 464

extent of outlook, or practical knowledge of life, . . 465

but not amount of information ; . . . . . 465

strength and stability of purpose ; .... 467

causes of weakness of character ; . . . . . 469

gradual formation of character ; . . . . . 470

the essence of character is organization of life, . . 471

but this does not imply uniformity, . ... . 472

at which education should not aim. . . . . 472

CONTENTS xxi

PAGE

Development of character :

limited by nature and by training ; . . . . 473

possible only through purposive activity ; 474

becomes a system of habitudes, 477

which may stiffen into prejudices. . . . 478

Society and character :

influence of the individual on others ; . . . . 479

influence of society on character ; 480

some present-day tendencies. . . . . .482

CHAPTER I

EDUCATION AND PSYCHOLOGY

A SCHOOLMASTER once caustically described psychology
as ' ' putting what everybody knows in language which
nobody can understand." Although it cannot be
granted that this somewhat cynical estimate is ' ' the
truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth" yet
it must be confessed that it has a specious plausibility.
For the whole subject-matter of psychology is our own
inner experience, than which nothing can be more
familiar, and it is as natural as it is mistaken to assume
that the familiar is always understood. Yet, in truth,
most people are so engrossed in living that they find no
time to understand life.

The tyro in psychology, then, finding that the
topics discussed are old acquaintances, is apt to think
that there is nothing new except the names by which
these old friends are called. Here he finds some
familiar terms used in ways not so familiar and generally
with a stringency to which he is unaccustomed, and
some strange terms which seem to him only to express
facts about which he has been accustomed to think and
speak without their help. By each use he is more or
less repelled.

This is, no doubt, an attitude not uncommonly taken
by students who are required to read psychology as part

A *

2 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

of their training for the work of teaching. The very
fact that they approach the subject, not as one of which
their own experience has made them feel the need but
simply as one required for a certain examination, tends
to make them regard it as matter to be understood and
remembered indeed, not to be practised. As well
might one attempt to become a botanist from the study
of books alone. The result is apt to show itself in
a greater or less facility of writing and talking empty
verbosity adorned with tags of psychological nomen-
clature. In a practical mind this breeds disgust.
Doubtless, the culmination of such an experience was
marked by the heartfelt exclamation of a student at
the close of his course of training: "Thank heavens!
I've done with psychology at last."

Of course there is an obvious retort. When such
a person affirms in after life that he has never found
the psychology he studied as a student of any use to
him in his professional work, it would be both true and
pertinent — if impolite — to reply "But you never did
study psychology, and the fact that you speak of your
study as in the past proves it." Yet, to point out that
many have made a particular mistake does not prevent
others from falling into the same error.

I by no means wish to imply, however, that all teachers
who contemn psychology do so because they have never
really approached it. Some of those, indeed, of whom
we have just been speaking become good psychologists,
despite themselves and without recognizing it. Often,
no doubt, the term carries for them such unpleasant
associations, as denoting an empty and soul-deadening
verbalism, that they would repudiate with scorn and
indignation the charge of being psychologists. Psycho-

EDUCATION AND PSYCHOLOGY 3

logy to them still means analyses and tabulations of
certain abstractions, and they seldom bridge the chasm
which stretches between that pedantic erudition, as it is
to them, and the living knowledge of the children they
teach which has been attained by constant sympathetic
intercourse. Yet this is the real psychology which alone
is of worth to the practical educator.

Despite their outspoken attitude of contempt towards
theoretical psychology, probably no teachers in the world
take more personal interest in their pupils, and gain a
more real and intimate knowledge of them, than do many
in our own country. Boys and girls are to them not
merely pupils, not simply pegs to be fitted with more or
less violence into more or less wrongly shaped holes ;
they remain throughout and under all the school routine
just boys and girls. And the aim of the master or
mistress, like that of the parent, is first and foremost to
make out of those boys and girls men and women who
will live noble and useful lives in their various callings.
To secure this all kinds of influences are brought to bear ;
and many an hour does the good teacher, like the good
parent, spend in thinking how Tommy is going wrong,
and how best to lead him back to the right way ; how
Jack is falling off in enthusiasm for sport or lessons,
the reasons for this declension, and the course which
in view of those reasons it will be wise to adopt :
for what kind of occupation Harry is showing most
aptitude. Such problems as these loom at least as large
in the mind of every true educator as do those of instruc-
tion. Even in the latter the good teacher is always
seeking fresh ways to evoke the desire for knowledge, to
stimulate and encourage effort, to cultivate taste, to
direct and strengthen purpose. These are all psycho-

4 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

logical problems, for they all involve meditation on the
nature of the child's experience, and on how the teacher,
by regulating his own actions, can modify that experience.

In such ways experienced teachers often attain a very
remarkable amount of pertinent psychological know-
ledge and insight, and are, indeed, among our best
practical psychologists. They can teach the beginner
much, even though they may never have heard such
blessed words as psychosis and apperception, or have
made experiments with chronoscopes, kinetoscopes, and
ergographs. Nor can any beginner in teaching ever be
so good a child-psychologist as are these veterans, even
though he may have mastered all the text-books on the
subject that have ever been written.

Yet these experts in child life are often the very people
who assert most strongly that they find no help in the
books. To advance against their position the argument
that as psychology is the study of experience it must help
those whose work it is to mould and direct experience is
obviously beside the mark and has more than a suspicion
of begging the question. For it assumes that the
psychology which is helpful is the psychology which they
reject. Really it is not so at all. The psychology which
is useful to them they have studied — as only can it be
truly studied — by direct, sympathetic and intimate
observation of the young. True, they do not call it
psychology, but it is psychology all the same, for it is an
understanding of mental life.

When due weight is given to such considerations as
these it will, I think, be evident that no one can educate
without a real practical psychology, that is, a true
knowledge of his pupils. Teachers and parents in
so far as they lack this are nothing better than

EDUCATION AND PSYCHOLOGY 5

external forces which define more or less narrowly
the course of the child's life ; they are not, and never
can be, agents influencing that course of life from
within so as to make it richer and fuller. Such
practical psychology can be gained only through
that real sympathy with the young which involves
not only kindly feeling but power to understand,
which is an insight into the child's desires, his plans, his
thoughts — an insight which grows by successful practice
till at times it becomes almost uncanny. Some people
have such insight by natural gift, others have not ; the
majority have a little of it which can either be cherished
or smothered. The first are the heaven-born teachers ;
and they are few. The second are people — also few, but
by no means unknown — who never can become educators
nor ever learn to teach well. These ought never to
enter, or if they have unwittingly entered should leave as
quickly as possible, the profession of schoolmaster, for
no amount of training or experience can fit them to do
their work with satisfaction to themselves or with profit
to their pupils. For the great majority the primary duty
is to cherish and foster that innate divine spark of sym-
pathetic insight which alone will enable them to become
"artists in the souls of children."

We seem, then, to have come to this : that the heaven-
born teacher becomes a psychologist because he cannot
help it ; that the average teacher can only develop into
the good teacher by becoming a psychologist ; that the
person who cannot by any means become a psychologist
must always be lamentably out of place in school.

There is little doubt that the many practical psycho-
logists among our teachers will grant freely the value
here claimed for a knowledge and understanding of

6 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

children's lives. They know that all their successful
work is built up on such insight. Will they not follow
us a step further and grant that from much specific know-
ledge of individuals they draw more or less wide-reaching
generalizations ? But these are of the nature of science.
Psychology as a science must, like every other science,
rest upon careful examination of facts, and consist of
valid inductions from them. Really, each true educator
has formed his own science of child-experience ; he not
only knows his own children but he has, more or less
consciously, generalized from them. This is, however,
a slow process to most, and one attended by many mis-
takes. In teaching and in influencing and guiding
others the ordinary man or woman often goes wrong
before learning to go right. Life must have brought
home to all of us the truth which Roger Ascham long
ago pointed out : "Learning teacheth more in one yeare

than experience in twentie He hasardeth sore, that

waxeth wise by experience We know by experience

it selfe, that it is a mervelous paine, to finde oute but a
short waie, by long wandering." l

In the study of the young nothing can take the place
of experience ; but will not the individual experience
accomplish its work more perfectly and more rapidly if
it be guided and tested by the accumulated experiences of
others ? Even with such guidance every educator will
make mistakes in dealing with the young. But the
experienced man avoids, as it were by instinct, errors
which cause the beginner much trouble at the time and
much discouragement and weariness of heart. Could
the beginner avail himself of the other's experience he
might avoid many such pitfalls.

1 The Scholemaster.

EDUCATION AND PSYCHOLOGY 7

To give such guidance, then, should be the aim of
theoretical educational psychology. It should consist of
generalizations from an experience wider than that of any
individual educator, but of the same kind as those which
each real educator makes. The collation of these will
separate the usual from the exceptional, and will trace the
broad outline of normal development from childhood to
manhood. But the exceptions also will demand careful
study, for every abnormal case is an extreme develop-
ment of something which, in a lesser degree, is found in
the normal human being. The study of such a psycho-
logy cultivates a certain kind of outlook, gives some
familiarity with broad and common features of mental
life, indicates methods by which that life may be most
fruitfully studied, lays down some general canons of
interpreting the actions of others, enables us to test our
results by comparison with those of other observers, and,
perhaps more important than all, puts us on our guard
against applying to the conduct of the young the maxims
of adult life.

Such a psychology is only in the making. That in
the ordinary theoretical treatises is of a very different
character. It may, indeed, without serious exaggeration
be said to be the psychology of the adult philosopher.
The reading of such treatises leaves the impression that
intellect is the all important factor in life, and that
emotion and will are much less worthy of attention.
Now, even the adult only occasionally guides his conduct
by the light of pure reason ; the young child never. A
psychology which implies that reason is the lord of
conduct treats what is in most lives the exceptional as
if it were the general rule. Most emphatically unreal
is such a psychology when the life of the young is in

8 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

question. Nothing more unlike a child can well be
imagined than the smoothly working thinking-machine
there set before us. No wonder that few educators find
such books helpful, or that the ordinary cultivated man
prefers to pursue his studies in human conduct in the
company of such psychologists as George Meredith or
Thomas Hardy who show the actual play of forces in
real human lives.

Yet the influence of this intellectualistic adult psycho-
logy is everywhere to be seen in education, and is every-
where unfortunate. Certain psychological conceptions
are current in every society. This, indeed, must be so,
for men and women do know something of their own
lives, and do talk about them. This involves the use
of certain terms to which a general, if vague, meaning
attaches. The implications are usually accepted with
the terms, and in that way everybody is some sort of a
psychologist. There is, so to say, a psychological ele-
ment in the general intellectual atmosphere. The only
escape from being obsessed by this vague current psycho-
logy is by strenuous and persistent thought to attain a
truer conception of life, and one less liable to be full of
those inconsistencies which are the ordinary marks of
general notions unconsciously derived from current
modes of speech.

Will anyone deny, when he thinks over the idea of
education current in England, that it is dominated by
a much too exclusively intellectualistic view of mental
life ? Is not education made synonymous with schooling,
and schooling with instruction? When the numerous
orators on public platforms talk of improving education,
do they not nearly always mean the learning of some
new subject or the study of an old one in a new way ?

EDUCATION AND PSYCHOLOGY 9

Do not many people imply by 'educational teaching*
simply the training of various intellectual powers ? /

We must, indeed, go further. Not only does the*
vague current psychology of the day give a definite bias
to practical education, but the hypotheses of professed
psychologists show a great inherent vitality as maxims
of education long after they have been decently buried
by the psychologists themselves. May we say that this
is a natural result of the general neglect of theoretical
psychology by the very people who, as practical psycho-
logists, could give to it that contact with aspects of real
life which it is apt to lack ?

We still hear people talk of training various ' faculties *
by special kinds of mental work, as if these mysterious
powers were independent organs which could be trained
separately by exercise — as, for instance, the arm could
be trained apart from the rest of the body — and, once
trained, could be used to do any form of appropriate
work. We are still told that "Jack remembers his
lessons well because he has a good memory," though
the professed psychologist would smile a kindly if rather
superior smile, and point out that the supposed explana-
tion simply states the explained fact in other words.
Jack remembers well what he remembers well. True !
But there is little ground here for making Jack learn a
mass of things by heart in order that he may in future
remember other things. " But," it will be urged, " the
mind should surely be trained." Most certainly, and
an educational psychology ought to take as its topic
this — how the mind can best be trained. But then,
mind is not equivalent to intellect, nor is the exercise of
isolated powers the same thing as the training of the
mind.

io THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

The essential aim of most adult psychology has been
analysis, and through analysis a clearer comprehension
of the modes of mental action. Though this method
has many advantages for its own end, it is most mis-
leading when its abstract results are regarded as actual
mental processes. Mental life is a whole, and as a whole
education has to deal with it. It is a growing and
developing whole, and education should promote that
growth and direct that development. As we shall hope
to' show later the question to be asked of an educational
instrument is not — Will it train the observation, the
memory, the imagination, etc. ? but — How will it enlarge
and enrich the experience of children who have reached
this particular stage of development, and so help on their
advance to the next stage? To this the analysis of
mental powers or faculties can give no answer.

If, indeed, the educative aim were to train these
powers, and if the training could be given them in
isolation, then there would be obvious advantages in
studying them in the most perfect form accessible to us.
The results of our investigations into our own powers
would be checked by the testimony of those whose
powers were greater. We should regard ourselves as
imperfect in so far as we fell below the highest standard,
and the children as more imperfect still. In a word,
we should look upon them as very incomplete and even
fragmentary men and women. Such an attitude towards
them does indeed show itself continually in the treatment
f of even quite young children both by parents and by
7 teachers. The little ones are assumed to act from adult
motives, are asked why they did this or that, why they
prefer this to that, and generally are regarded as some-
what badly made reasoning-machines. In so far as this

EDUCATION AND PSYCHOLOGY n

attitude is taken the child's natural growth receives no
help. On the contrary there is cultivated in him a kind
of pose — an assumption of feelings and motives which
he never has.

This faculty-training hypothesis is evidently most
operative in teaching. Some say that the great thing is
to exercise the will, so that it does not matter what a boy
learns so long as he dislikes doing it. Others advocate
concentration in mathematics on the ground that it trains
good reasoners. Some urge the study of natural science
in order that the children may become proficient in obser-
vation and inference, others claim that learning Latin
gives the most complete exercise to all the important
intellectual faculties. In each case the belief is implicit
that a power once acquired will be operative in every
sphere of experience, and not simply in that in which it
was trained. The results do not bear out this expecta-
tion. The impotence, moreover, of the theory as a
guide to the choice of subjects to be taught was made
very plain in the great struggle between classics and
science to be the chief element in school work ; for the
advocates on each side for years based their arguments
on exactly the same psychological assumptions of faculty
training.

This old and discredited hypothesis is implicitly
accepted by many teachers who are in other ways true
educators. In matters of influence and discipline they
are not obsessed by a futile psychology, and they act on
the basis of the true psychology they have learnt from
intercourse with their pupils. But in teaching they
follow a tradition which rests on a psychology implicitly
taken for granted, but which is a mischievously false
guide. Hence, their teaching is often much weaker

12 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

than their general educative influence. Hence, too,
arises the separation of the work of the school from the
real interests of life. For, if the school concerns itself
only with the exercise of mental powers it naturally
plans its curriculum with the consideration solely of the
kind of exercise each subject can furnish, and is satisfied
when it has provided for each of the arbitrary list of
powers. The relation of those powers to the interests
and requirements of the world around is branded as
' utilitarian J and dismissed as ' uneducational.'

There is, however, offered us a psychology which
explicitly rejects the faculty hypothesis. This is associ-
ated with the honoured name of Herbart, and also dates
from the days before the theory of evolution became a
living force in men's minds. Most modern Herbartians
reject their master's metaphysical assumptions, but the
whole framework of their theory of education is based
on his conception of life. There is no need to examine
it here in detail, because as an essentially intellectualistic
psychology of adult life it is open to the same Funda-
mental objections we have already considered. The
Herbartian theory of apperception does, undoubtedly,
describe one aspect of the growth of experience. But
it assumes that organs of knowledge already exist in
the mind it is considering, and it maintains that these
intellectual organs operate by their own inherent power.
From their action both feeling and will are said to arise.
This psychology is, therefore, even more emphatically
intellectualistic than is the faculty psychology, for the
latter did regard the will as an independent faculty.

Of course it follows from this conception of mental
life that the Herbartian regards instruction as the one
essential instrument of education. "Teach a boy to

EDUCATION AND PSYCHOLOGY 13

understand morality and he will act morally" is quite
a legitimate deduction from the doctrine that will £rows
out of the connexion of thoughts. Here, again, experi-
ence fails to uphold the theory ; and psychological
theory, like all other theory, is condemned if facts
contradict it.

Once again, then, we are driven back to the child
himself as the one and only source of our facts, the one
and only birthplace of our theory. "Study the child,
for it is certain you do not understand him" said
Rousseau, and since his time something has been done.
Yet it is evident that if this study be approached with
a pre-conceived adult theory its results will be of little
worth. Too often this has been the case. The observer
has started with the categories of adult life obtained from
such analyses as we have mentioned. One of two
opposed errors results.

The one- — to which we have already referred — is to
read into the child-life an experience fuller and more
definite than it can possibly have. For example, to ^
assume that when a boy of ten does a cruel act he has
the same ill-feeling which would lead an adult to act
cruelly, or that when a child makes surreptitious use of '
his neighbour's work he is guilty of the same kind of
deliberate fraud as an adult forger, is to assume that the v
young offender looks at his relations to others from the
standpoint which only long years of intercourse have
made possible to his adult judge.

There is, however, a more insidious, and at the present
day a more fashionable, danger than this looking upon
the child as a miniature adult. This is the assumption^
that the child's mind is different in kind and constitution
from that of the adult. The higher faculties, such as

i4 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

reason, conscience, will, and the more refined sentiments,
are denied him. His mind is thus regarded as an
imperfect fragment of an adult mind, and the observer
asks such questions as — When does such and such a
power manifest itself ? that is, taking the results of the
analysis of adult consciousness — When does each of the
classes thus obtained first appear in the child's history ?
Such an error vitiated the child psychology, and through
it the general educational scheme, of Rousseau.

There is at the bottom of both these errors the same
false assumption — that analysis of adult experience gives
a classification of powers which are similarly differenti-
ated from each other in the child. The one error assumes
that they are innate ; the other that they appear serially
like the leaves and fruit on a tree, and the task of
genetic psychology is then supposed to be to find in
what order, and at about what age, they manifest them-
selves.

The results thus obtained are of little interest and of
less value. The problem is approached in a wrong
way — the question asked is in false terms. It is true
that the child will become an adult, and that when he
reaches maturity the categories of maturity will apply
to him. But it is not true that his progress is from a
mutilated and incomplete mind to one which possesses
all its organs. At every stage of his development a
child's experience is as full and satisfying to him as is
that of a philosophical psychologist to himself. That
! is, he is always in full relation to his world, he puts forth
all his powers, he is only prevented from accomplishing
all his desires by obstacles similar to those which equally
hinder the adult. The child feels no sense of incom-
pleteness different in kind from that felt by any adult

EDUCATION AND PSYCHOLOGY 15

who finds that there are limits to his knowledge and his
power.

The essential difference between the experience of the.
youngest child and that of the philosopher is that the
former is vague and undifferentiated both in its outer
reference to the world around and in its inner mode of
affecting him. The philosopher thinks, that is, he sub-
sumes his experiences under certain abstract ideas which
both individualize and connect its elements ; the young
child feels, that is, he is vaguely aware of himself and
his surroundings, but at first neither separates nor relates
them. Progress from the one stage to the other is a
gradual and continuous awareness of complexity — of at
once separating elements of experience and connecting
them in definite relations with each other. On this road
individuals advance at different rates and to various
points. The real problem of genetic psychology is to
enquire how such development is brought about. In
other words it is a causal enquiry, the object of which
is to discover what kind of influences lead most suitably
from any one stage to that which naturally grows out
of it. It is true that when a new step is clearly made
it is often possible to classify it under one of the cate-
gories of adult life. But even so the name really denotes
modes of experience of very different value and function
in the child and in the adult. The vital problems are —
How did it gradually grow out of past experience and
to what will it develop in future experience ?

Nor must it be forgotten that not only do adults differ
in the total amount of advance in mental life but that
each one of us at any one time would find himself at
many different stages of advancement, if the point were
decided by abstract conceptions of such typical activities

1 6 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

as understanding, reasoning, and so on. Are there not
some books and arguments which we can understand
perfectly ; that is, their constituent parts stand clear
before us and we appreciate fully their relations ? And
are there not others before which we find ourselves in a
mental fog which all our efforts fail to dispel? "We
cannot follow the argument " we say, and this means that
we cannot grasp the force of the distinctions made, nor
their relations to each other and to the whole discussion.
If in such a case we wish to understand we have a
feeling of unrest, but often we do not care whether we
understand or no, and at times we think we understand
when we really do not, because, perchance, some of the
elements are clear to us, or because the whole is familiar,
at any rate in name. To all these forms of adult con-
sciousness the child presents us with parallels. The
things which arouse the various states are different with
him and with us, but that does not affect the mental
character of the experience. Sometimes, even as to the
object the experiences are very similar. For example,
if an adult whose knowledge of French is small is travel-
ling in France he understands but little that is said —
a word here and there stands out as familiar. His power
of expressing his wants is equally imperfect. His know-
ledge of French increases as, little by little, words and
phrases stand out more distinctly, and as their combina-
tion and their reference to reality becomes clearer. This
means a growth not merely in knowledge but in power
of action and of enjoyment so far as these depend on
intercourse with French people. But no new power has
been born in him, nor has the number of French sounds
which fall on his ear of necessity been increased. It is
simply that his experience in this respect has resolved

EDUCATION AND PSYCHOLOGY 17

itself more and more into distinct elements, and that these
more and more hold together in relations which have a
meaning and, therefore, a value for him, in that they
make clear experiences which before were confused. Of
the same general order and character is the child's
acquirement of his mother-tongue. Further, the process
is typical of all mental advance. For it shows us how
experience is enriched by the separation and relation of
elements, how this increases at once knowledge and
power, and how the whole of the mental life is every-
where in play in every step of the advance.

The study of children must, then, be approached with
an open mind, freed from all preconceptions of adult
psychology. But an open mind need not be an empty
mind. It is no qualification for a would-be observer of
children to be unprepared by any kind of pertinent
knowledge. Now, the study of the inner life of another,
whether adult or child, is indirect. What is directly
given to the observer is conduct. Outwardly life ex-
presses itself in action and in speech, which is itself a kind
of action. The psychological observer tries to get at
the meaning of these outward manifestations. Only so
can he influence conduct by modifying motives, by
evoking purposes, and by all the other means which are
summed up in the word education.

Now, the passage from outward conduct to inner
meaning can only be mediated by a middle term which
includes them both. That middle term each one of us
can find only in himself. For each has a direct and
immediate experience both of his own inner life and of
the outward expression of that life. In that experience
inner and outer are conjoined. But their relation is
made explicit only when it is deliberately investigated.

1 8 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

One who has never been accustomed to ask why he
acts in such and such ways is generally astonished, when
he does make the enquiry, at the difficulty he finds in
giving full and satisfactory answers. As that admirable
philosopher, the late Master of Balliol eloquently tells
us: "There is a strange mixture of the conscious and
the unconscious in our mental history. Our life is not
unconscious like the plants' ; we see clearly what we are
doing from day to day. We are aware always of the
immediate interest that is occupying us, the immediate
object we have in view. But we are seldom aware of
the general current and tendency which these particular
acts are contributing to form within us. Each act, taken
by itself, does not seem of much importance. We seem
continually to be dealing with small details, and rarely,

if at all, with great and momentous issues The

little exigencies of every day — whether we shall go to
see a particular friend, or read a particular book, or
devote particular time to this object or to that — it seems
often indifferent whether we decide them in one way or
the other ; and often it is indifferent. But we are apt
to forget that life masks its great issues under the appear-
ance of a series of unimportant circumstances and events,
in each of which, however, there is some opportunity
for the exercise of courage or cowardice, truthfulness or
untruthfulness, magnanimity or meanness, justice or
injustice, charity or uncharitableness, love or hate.
Steadily, silently, the inevitable process of change goes
on, and neither the individual himself, nor any of those
nearest to him may notice how, in the one case, his
character is being strengthened and elevated, and, in the
other case, is being weakened and lowered. And then,
if a great issue does come, and he is put to a decisive

EDUCATION AND PSYCHOLOGY 19

trial, neither his friends nor he are able to comprehend
how it is that, in the one case, he rises to the occasion
and shows a strength and resource for which beforehand
no one would have given him credit ; or, in the other
case, betrays a weakness and poverty of character, which
no one, and he himself least of all, had suspected." x

The first step, then, on the road to becoming a psycho-
logist is to obey the old adage " Know thyself." Truly,
this is of little practical use in life unless it be conjoined
with the yet more important command " Govern thyself."
To know oneself weak in any point and yet to lack the
self-control to adopt the means which will strengthen
the weak place is evidently futile. Self-command, as
well as self-knowledge, is required of one who would
train others, for much of his training must work through
example. Granting this, however, let us ask what is
the kind of psychological knowledge that will be of most
direct value in the study of children.

Probably it will be agreed that the essential psycho-
logical questions are — How did such and such an
experience originate, and from what did it grow?
What value has it in the present? What is likely to
be its influence in the future ? The adult must recognize
that his experiences are not those of the child, but at
the same time he knows that there has been no breach
of continuity in his life since he was a baby. This means
that his experiences have evolved from each other in an
unbroken stream. Some had a very transitory effect,
others have been much more enduring ; some have
proved fruitful of good, others of evil ; some have
affected his life in one way, others in different ways.

Just as far as a man really understands this stream of
1 Edward Caird : Lay Sermons and Addrestet.

20 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

life which he calls himself, will he approach intelligently
the study of another stream of life of the same nature
but of different composition and at a different part of
its course. He knows that when his experience is of a
particular kind his conduct shows certain characteristic
features, and as the former changes the latter is modified.
He knows, for example, that certain modes of experience
rouse his anger, and that anger always prompts him to
various expressive acts, though he may at times restrain
them. When he sees similar acts he infers anger in
another and he looks for its origin in experiences broadly
analogous to his own. When he is interested in a pur-
suit he gives time and energy to it. So when he sees
a boy throwing himself energetically into some activity
he assumes the presence of an interest ; and, conversely
he assumes the absence of interest when these outward
signs are wanting. Such interpretations are, of course,
only the first step. The really important enquiries as
to the origin and the influence of the experience follow.
Sometimes we are told that a true educator "puts
himself in the place" of his pupils, "becomes a child
among children." This is surely a very foolish and
perverse reading of psychology, though doubtless
inspired by the best of motives. If what has been said
is true it is evident that no adult can become a child
among children or take a child's point of view. His
wider and more developed experience absolutely makes
it impossible. One can no more hark back to the mental
than to the physical life of a child. And if one could
one would, of course, in doing so, divest oneself of one's
character and office of educator. For a child does not
educate his fellows though he may influence them.
Education implies training, and that involves the action

EDUCATION AND PSYCHOLOGY 21

of the mature mind upon the immature. What is
required is that the educator can appreciate the outlook
of the child, can understand it and sympathize with it,
but that, at the same time his own wider outlook shall
enable him to use this childish experience as a stage in
the continuous progress towards manhood, so that it may
be neither wasted nor turned in a wrong direction. The
educator must know both himself and his charges if he
is to do the best educative work. That is the psycho-
logical knowledge which he needs ; without it, indeed,
he is helpless.

This leads to the consideration of a further important
point. When one simply asks what is in one's own
mind, and tries to analyse it, one is shut up, as it were,
in oneself. Here we meet another reason why the
traditional theoretical psychology has been of so little
service to education. Till quite recently it has been
essentially individualistic. From an individualistic
psychology, indeed, the eighteenth century evolved a
thoroughly individualistic theory of life and conduct,
with 'Liberty' as its watchword. The educational
deduction was made by Rousseau, who aimed at pro-
ducing a man independent of his fellows. The same
theory still survives, though often strangely mixed with
views of social relations which are quite inconsistent
with it.

When, however, one seeks to discover the origin, the
growth, and the effect, of one's experiences, one is led
at once to constant and continual relations with the
surrounding world of men and things. One finds that
experiences of similar general character differ according
as they are solitary or social ; that, for instance, the
pursuit of any purpose is fuller, stronger, more conscious,

22 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

and less likely to be checked by doubts when it is under-
taken in conjunction with a party or society organized
for that end than when it is pursued alone. Thus we
learn to look upon our experience as a relation between
ourselves and our surroundings, and to realize the
enormous influence the life around us has upon our
thoughts, feelings, desires, and actions. So we are led
to adopt a true attitude for the direction of the lives
of others. For though education is in a sense a
personal training, yet most of that training is given
through groups and classes. Such groups may be a
great help or a great hindrance to the personal influence
of the schoolmaster. If he is wise they are the
former ; just as, broadly, with wise parents a large family
v is a better educative organ than is a small one. But
J; wisdom in this case means insight into the relations of
individuals to groups — in a word, a grasp of social or
collective psychology. This, again, is quite a new
branch of investigation, and the study of its special
reference to education has hardly been begun.

Our argument has aimed at establishing that the work

of education is always in fact based on psychology,

though often implicitly ; that much of this psychology

is unsuited for the purpose in that it is too intellectual-

istic, too individualistic, and gathered from analysis of

, the adult mind ; that the psychology which is needed

I is genetic, in that it traces the gradual evolution and

enrichment of experience, and social, in that it considers

/ the common life of groups and the relations between

groups and individuals as well as the lives of individuals ;

i that such a psychology is only in the making, but that

I many experienced educators have a great deal of this kind

of knowledge which guides them in their work and is a

EDUCATION AND PSYCHOLOGY 23

main reason of their success. Could these empirical
and scattered pieces of knowledge be collected and col-
lated a sure and long step would be taken in the formation
of a body of theoretical educational psychology which
would furnish a safe and pertinent propaedeutic to the
actual study of children, and would regulate and enlighten
that study itself.

Pestalozzi's desire "to psychologize education" is
still far from being accomplished. But let us be quite
clear as to what this should mean. It implies that the
natural mental history of the child is known so that he
may never be called upon to do anything which would
hinder his growth and starve his experience, or any other
thing which would be possible to him only if he had
advanced to a further point than he has actually attained.
It involves, too, that the educator secures that the child
has all the kinds of experience necessary for his growth,
and has them in the most fruitful way. But with more
than this psychology cannot deal. It is, therefore, a
grave error to speak of education as merely 'applied
psychology.' Such exaggerated claims do not dispose
those who are already prejudiced against everything
which is called psychology to think more favourably of
its advocates.

A merely psychological education is really a contra-
diction in terms, for it would leave the child to develop
freely as a wild animal. Psychology can say nothing
as to what is good and what is bad. For it, as a natural
science, facts exist, but they are in no wise valued.
Psychology has no moral preferences. Its scientific
interest is as much excited by monstrous moral depravity
as by saintly holiness. For it they are equally forms of
experience. Not psychology but ethics condemns the

24 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

one and approves the other. Psychology, therefore, can
say nothing as to the ultimate question of education —
that of end to be sought.

Such considerations show us the futility of defining
education in psychological terms, as, for instance, ' ' the
harmonious development of all the powers of the child."
In the first place, ' harmonious ' is a vague and ambiguous
term, and, consequently, it presents no definite aim ; and,
in the second place, ' development ' is devoid of any real
meaning. For a power may be developed in a variety
of ways, and many of these we condemn as immoral.
We do not, for example, wish to develop a child's intel-
lectual powers so that he becomes a skilful forger or
a promoter of bubble companies, nor his power of self-
assertion till it appears in bullying and tyranny, and,
perhaps, finds its fruition in murder ; nor his power of
emotion so that he grows up a sentimentalist or a man
dominated by his passions. It may be objected that
none of these cases would show a ' harmonious ' develop-
ment ; but this is not obvious. The murderer may plan
his crime astutely and may be urged towards it by feelings
and emotions which are well under control. The
sensualist may have persuaded himself that in sensuality
is to be found the greatest pleasure, and that to get as
much pleasure as possible is the real aim of life ; to that
he may skilfully address both his will and his intellect.
If, then, such development be condemned as wanting
in harmony, it is because under that term there is tacitly,
and perhaps unconsciously, introduced the idea of har-
mony with established standards ; that is, of harmony
with something outside and independent of the indi-
vidual life. This is obviously a very different thing
from harmony among the several elements of that life.

EDUCATION AND PSYCHOLOGY 25

' Harmonious development ' may also be interpreted
— and often is interpreted — to refer to a kind of typical
' well-balanced ' or ' well-proportioned ' mind, in which
no power stands out prominently. That a large number
of such minds are desirable in the interests of social
stability may be granted. But it may also be urged that
nature is never likely to fail in the production of
mediocrities. Such minds, however, do little for human
progress. "A plain man is very much like a plain cook,
unable to cope successfully with anything beyond the
commonplace."1 All the great achievements of man-
kind have been due to men whose minds were in this
sense ill-proportioned. "Genius is akin to insanity"
expresses just this fact that some one power or set of
powers dominates the life, and is not tied down by other
powers. Of course there is a limit beyond which this
one-sided ruling of the life is good neither for the indi-
vidual nor for the community. But it by no means
follows that an educator is justified in attempting to
stunt the growth of some special power for fear it should
run to excess. It is not the task of education to deprive ..
the world of its geniuses, its heroes, and its saints. " A .
well-proportioned mind is one which shows no particular |
bias ; one of which we may safely say that it will never
cause its owner to be confined as a madman, tortured
as a heretic, or crucified as a blasphemer. Also, on the
other hand, that it will never cause him to be applauded
as a prophet, revered as a priest, or exalted as a king.
Its usual blessings are happiness and mediocrity. It
produces the poetry of Rogers, the paintings of West,
the statecraft of North, the spiritual guidance of Sumner;
enabling its possessors to find their way to wealth, to

1 W. J. Locke : Idols, ch. 24.

26 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

wind up well, to step with dignity off the stage, to die
comfortably in their beds, and to get the decent monu-
ment which, in many cases, they deserve. It never
would have allowed Yeobright to do such a ridiculous
thing as throw up his business to benefit his fellow-
/ /creatures."1

As psychology cannot decide the end of education it
is, of course, unable to evaluate the means. It may
show us that a child is actually interested in this or that,
or make it probable that in such and such a way his
interest will be aroused. But as to whether it is well
that he should be so interested psychology is dumb. For
guidance as to the kinds of experiences he should try
to induce in his pupils the educator must seek elsewhere.
To look to psychology leads directly back to the training
of individual faculties.

Nor can psychology dictate the method of teaching,
that is, of leading a child into an experience. It is,
indeed, fashionable to say that teaching method should
not be logical but psychological. This is pure muddle-
headedness. Every process of thought is a fact in
mental life, and is, therefore, a fact for psychology. If
the reasoning be bad the fact may, indeed, be psychologi-
cally more interesting than if it be good ; for then both
the passage of thought by which the conclusion is reached
and the origin of the error have to be investigated, and
the psychological problem is so far a richer one. But
the intellectual aim of teaching is to train in correct
thought and in the legitimate use of evidence. This,
of course, is logical. 'Logical' does not denote one
kind of thought-process and ' psychological } another and
opposed process. All thought is ' psychological ' ; the
1 Thomas Hardy : The Return of the Native, Bk. iii. ch. 2.

EDUCATION AND PSYCHOLOGY 27

aim of teaching is to give it the further quality of
'logical.' Psychology, therefore, can neither lay down
methods nor test their results. All it can do is to help
the teacher to decide what kind of logical thought he
may expect pupils of a certain age and advancement to
be capable of experiencing.

Method in teaching, then, must be in harmony with
the forms of mental activity appropriate to the particular
pupils, but it must also be an orderly process towards
a pre-determined end ; an end which must be felt to be
of worth by the pupils, or there will be no real process
on their part. Hence, the teacher cannot teach effectively
unless he can set before himself the pupils' process of
thought in each piece of learning. Here is the great
difference in attitude of pupils and teacher towards any
lesson or set of lessons — the pupils think the matter
under consideration, the teacher thinks the pupils' process
of thought in thinking that matter. This thinking of
the teacher is both psychological and logical. It is
psychological, in that he has to grasp how the pupils
think ; it is logical, in that his aim is so to direct the
pupils' activity that, out of the many ways in which they
could think the object, they do think it in one which
will lead to systematized experience. In brief, the
teacher has to plan how to incite his pupils to a logical
train of thought, and this obviously demands that the
teacher knows both the character of such a train and the
possibilities of his pupils in that respect. But it further
implies that he knows what mental processes in himself
will excite the desired process in his pupils. This also
is psychological knowledge, for it is insight into the
relation of mind to mind. The teacher, then, first thinks
the steps to be taken by the pupils and then he so adjusts

28 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

the external means of teaching, of which the chief is
himself, that the pupils actually take such steps. He
applies his psychology and his logic both in preparing
his lessons and in giving them.

Education, then, should use psychology but not be
limited by it, for the very purpose of education is to
interfere with natural development so as to secure a
richer experience and a fuller exercise of the higher
powers. Such interference should be guided by psycho-
logical knowledge, or it is likely to stunt growth instead
of promoting it. But to make education mainly a
looking on while the child follows his spontaneous
impulses is to condemn him to reach but a low stage of
development. The child's spontaneity is the beginning
of activities which it is the function of education to make
more definite and more persevering than they would be
if left undirected and uncontrolled. The difference
between a cultured man and one of the same time and
country who is uncultured is due to differences in the
amount and kind of directive influences which have
been brought to bear. Psychology is quite unable to
explain it.

CHAPTER II

STUDY OF MENTAL LIFE

IT is not in giving rules or directions for specific edu-
cative processes that psychology has its value for the
teacher. The book which sandwiches educational plati-
tudes between mental analyses, and describes the result
as specially adapted for teachers is, indeed, still with us,
and is responsible for not a little of that hostile attitude
of the practical teacher towards psychology which we
have lamented. For these commonplaces of the school-
room really owe their being about as much — and as
little — to the psychological analyses as, when they
appeared in the Didactica Magna of Comenius, they did
to the wonderful analogies, such as hatching an egg,
with which that writer connected them. If psychology
can give the educator no more than this he cannot be
blamed for pursuing more profitable studies.

But if, as I have argued, every true educator is always
making use of real psychology then the value of a
theoretical study of that subject is apparent. It will
guide the beginner and be a help to the experienced.
Of course the study of books is not enough. " Books
are only the gloss of life, they are not the text. Its
secrets must be read in the living world, with much pain
and sleeplessness and wearied eyes."1 Reading and
1 W. J. Locke : At the Gate of Samaria, ch. 9.

30 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

reflexion will no more make a psychologist than a
physician or an engineer. But as these are welcomed
as preliminaries and auxiliaries in the latter cases so they
will be, when rightly conceived, in the former. It is
true that a complete genetic psychology cannot yet be
produced, but neither can a complete treatise on medicine
or on engineering. In every department of human
knowledge and practice advance is possible and is desired.
But such advance must start from the standpoint already
reached. As the would-be physician learns what he can
from books as well as from hospital practice, so should
the would-be educator. In the one case as in the other
a few will make discoveries and push forward the
boundaries of knowledge. The many, who are not the
original minds, will apply the knowledge gained in their
daily practice, and will at least try to keep abreast of the
advances made by others.

It is true, as we have claimed, that many experienced
teachers attain much psychological knowledge with-
out any study of books. But are there not yet more
whose life-long experience in school has never given
them a glimpse into the real lives of those whom they
are claiming to educate ; who remain to the end what
they were at the beginning, external forces striving to
form the young life, and succeeding only in deforming
it?

In reading a book on psychology it is absolutely
necessary that the reader test every one of its discus-
sions by examination of his own consciousness. It is
further advisable, not only for the sake of checking
the results of his own introspection, but also as a first
step in observation of the lives of others, that he should
compare his results with those of other workers. A

STUDY OF MENTAL LIFE 31

small group of fellow-students working in this way
makes surer and quicker advance than would be possible
to their isolated efforts. From such work they should
amongst other things have made clear to themselves what
is the true force of such words as ' interest,' ' attention/
'memory,5 'desire,' 'purpose' — terms continually used
in educational writings and discussions, and too often
employed confusedly and ambiguously. They should
also have discovered the general conditions under which
such aspects of mental life show themselves, and in what
way they affect one's relation to the things around one.

When the educator wants to use the psychological
knowledge obtained by self-examination and reading to
give insight into the mental life of a child, he is obviously
dealing with a life which, in many essentials, is different
from his own. A further step in his preparation, there-
fore, is to recall as clearly and precisely as possible
remembrances of his childhood and youth, and to see
how they are related to what he has discovered of his
adult experiences and how the latter have gradually
evolved from them.

This also gives a clue which will help him when he
tries to foresee the results of certain of his efforts, though
such prediction is peculiarly liable to error. A subject
of study which attracts one boy may repel another, an
exertion of influence which in one case is thankfully
received may in another case be resented. General
psychology, even when enlightened by intimate know-
ledge of his own life, can do little more than make him
aware of these divergent possibilities. No doubt, in
dealing with groups and classes the average result can
be more frequently anticipated, for the opposed effects
may be discounted or may even counterbalance each

32 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

other. But even here we can look but a little way ahead.
For this takes us into the nearly untrodden realm of
social psychology. There the problems are evidently of
the utmost difficulty and complexity. " I need not say,"
remarks Leslie Stephen, "how shortsighted are the
ablest statesmen, and how constantly that which happens
is precisely the one thing which nobody foresaw, but
which, after the event, appears to have been just what

every one should have foreseen Will the increase

of knowledge make men content or discontented ? Will
it confirm or shake the beliefs upon which the social order
depends ? Will it simply strengthen the impulse towards
a higher culture, or will it also increase the tendency to
self-indulgence and weaken the bonds of discipline ? If
we can give some vague answer to such questions it is
clearly not such an answer as can be called scientific, or
as enables us to give any definite prediction of results." 1

Every beginner in psychology, then, must start with
an examination of his own conscious experience. This
involves analysis, but the object of the analysis is to
trace back each form of complex experience so as to
discover which are the simpler elements ; that is, which
show most distinctly in earlier forms of the process. For
the educator the main interest is in the course of mental
life. Nor need analysis be pushed into the minute detail
which is so valuable and necessary for the pure psycho-
logist. By such tracing backwards of his own life the
future educator will best fit himself to observe and under-
stand the reverse process in the lives of his charges.

What would each one of us name as the essentially
human element in human life? What raises man in
kind above the lower animals ? Certainly not the powers
1 The Science of Ethics, pp. 18-19.

STUDY OF MENTAL LIFE 33

of sight or smell or hearing or physical strength or
endurance. In all of these he is easily surpassed by
eagle, by dog, by deer, by elephant, by camel, and by
many other animals. Surely it is in the guiding of
conduct by intelligence and will. If we examine this
we find it means that we are able to set up before our-
selves in imagination a more or less distant end towards
which we feel emotionally drawn — that is, we have a
sense of its value for us — so that we are not content to
rest as we are without making effort to attain it ; and
that we have, as a result of past experience, such a
knowledge of the mode of action pertinent to the case,
and of the possibilities of pursuing such a course, having
regard to the actions of others, the nature of the physical
conditions, and our own powers, that we can plan the
means to reach our end and fulfil our purpose.

Into the actual attainment there enter other factors.
Many a course of action thus planned fails because of
want of perseverance and staying power ; or because of
inability or unwillingness to bear discomfort, to over-
come opposition, or to surmount difficulties due to the
stubbornness of the physical things we have to use or
to our own want of skill in managing them.

This last named characteristic of our actions — skill —
raises a further analytic question as to its nature and
origin. Let each reader take any acquired aptitude —
e.g. power to play the piano, to write, to skate, to dance,
to ride a bicycle — which he can plainly remember learn-
ing. Let him recall the process as clearly as he
can. He will find that at first his whole will was fixed
and his whole attention concentrated on the various
details of the required movements, and that even so
they were not successfully made. But this means that

34 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

movements other than those desired were made instead.
In other words, though the main idea of purpose was
plain, the intellectual organization of means was imper-
fect, and the physical co-ordination of movements was
more imperfect still. Now, when this is compared with
the carrying out of the process after skill is acquired it
becomes apparent that all this detail which took up so
much attention has become automatic, or nearly so. The
skilled pianist reads the notes, and his fingers strike the
keys without any definite attention being given to their
movements ; indeed, such attention will be found to
disorganize them. The bicyclist steers his course with
his eye on the road, and avoids obstacles and turns
corners without thinking of the complex and co-ordinated
movements of legs, arms, and body which cause the
machine to obey his will.

Having carried our minds backwards step by step
from the present to the very beginning of a special
acquirement, by reversing the process we set before our-
selves a picture of the mode by which every child has to
learn to do such things, and we see that it is only by
carrying out such an analysis in each case as far as we can
that we are in a position to observe intelligently the early
stages in the acquirement by the child. Certainly much
has been done in observation of the very earliest years of
childhood, and of the facts recorded we can avail our-
selves ; but we should always interpret them by what
introspective memory reveals to us of our own beginnings.
And always we should keep to the only safe rule that when-
ever the assumption of a more elementary mental process
is sufficient to explain the observed facts we are not justi-
fied in assuming a more complex process, even though
that might be the true explanation in our own adult life.

STUDY OF MENTAL LIFE 35

Though, however, we may claim that rational regula-
tion of life is the essential human characteristic, yet not
much study of our own life is required to show us that
this quality is by no means always apparent. We have
already seen that even when we are following a course
laid down by reason the executive processes have become
mechanical. I wish to refer to a book on the shelves : I
get up, walk across the room and fetch it, my thoughts
fixed all the time on the point on which I am about to
consult it, not at all on the bodily movements I make.
This is obvious, but educationally it rather needs insist-
ing on, because the reaction against unintelligent learning
has shown signs of undervaluing the automatic element
which is so important in all the executive activities of life.
One cannot easily express one's thoughts in writing, for ^ f
example, unless one can form the words automatically,^
and this involves both writing and spelling ; one cannot d-a.
develop mathematical relations if one has to attend to
the simple arithmetical processes. Often a child is
hindered in progress because he has not made the spelling
of ordinary words, or the multiplication tables, automatic.
So far from executive automatism being opposed to
intelligent regulation of life it is its indispensable L-
condition.

Only self-examination, however, will bring home to
any one how large a part of his life has become a routine
business into which intellect enters at the most to deter-
mine subordinate steps. The end is fixed, and so are the
general means. A teacher goes almost automatically to
school and passes through the arranged routine without
continually deliberating whether to do the one or the
other. Obviously, this too is good ; for it leaves free
all his powers to do well the actual work in hand. The

3 6 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

end was decided when he determined to become a teacher,
the routine when he drew out the time-table. If he is
wise he gave much earnest consideration to both these
points.

The intellectual regulation of life, therefore, is seen
not to mean the continual deciding on each particular
action. That would, indeed, be an ineffective life, partly
because it would accomplish so little as each step would
be delayed, and partly because what it did accomplish
would not be related as a systematized set of efforts. It
means the deciding of purposes — some wide as life, others
subordinate though related to these most embracing ones ;
the devising of means ; the carrying out of those means
as efficiently as possible. And when the maximum of
such efficiency is reached all that is mechanical is left to
an acquired automatism. The function of intellect is to
make use of its tools, not to be continually forging them.

It is quite possible, then, for an adult life to be as a
whole rationally directed ; but such possibility necessi-
tates that the dominant purpose, or harmonious purposes,
of life have been cordially accepted, and that there is
sufficient strength to keep broadly and generally to their
pursuit. Can it be affirmed that this is descriptive even
of the majority of adults? Have many persons the
wide and comprehensive outlook on life which is implied ?
Have many sufficient strength of purpose to keep for
long to the path they have traced out for themselves?
Each reader must apply such enquiries to himself, and
if he would make any advance in psychology he must
answer them honestly. He may find that he has such
purposes, but that they are ' castles in Spain,' and that his
actual life is determined by much more immediate con-
siderations. Or he may find that he has lived on from

STUDY OF MENTAL LIFE 37

childhood without ever having given serious thought to
what his life as a whole is to mean, content to do the task
and to seize the pleasure immediately to hand.

Whatever he may now be able to say of himself,
according to our plan he must carry his thoughts back
into the past. Starting from the present, after he has
distinguished his purposes let him go on to enquire when
and how those purposes began to take form, whence they
were derived, what vicissitudes in influencing his life
they have undergone. Has one of them grown up with
his growth unnoticed, and perhaps unsuspected, till now
this introspection has brought it to light as one of the
dominant factors in his life ? If so, can he trace it back
to the influences exerted on him by parents, relatives,
and friends? Did another spring up, as it were full-
grown and armed, as the result of an inspiration received
at some specific time from book or lesson or suggestion ?
Not that he is to expect to find the same purposes,
originating in the same way, in those whose lives he
will try to understand, but that he may appreciate the
various possibilities of the genesis of life's influences.

This enquiry will surely bring to light the fact that,
however wide and comprehensive his present purposes
may be, they were not always thus. They have been
gradually evolved, and, doubtless, he can go back in
memory to a time when he had no purposes which were
not bounded by the immediate future. Much earnest
thought and careful separation of actual remembrance
from flattering imagination is necessary before any adult
succeeds in laying before himself anything like an
accurate map, even in outline, of the purposes of his
life up to the present, tracing them back like rivers to
their sources, showing how, when, and why, they united,

3 8 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

became larger, stronger, and more absorbing, till they
have reached the present point, which itself is not the end
of their course.

In such an examination of one's past life one becomes
aware that at no time has there been a thorough-going
co-ordination and combination of purposes. Many have
referred to the present or to the very immediate future
and have, indeed, scarcely been consciously adopted at
all. The apprehension of the result and of the means
is sufficient by itself to evoke the action, provided there
be a sufficient spring of emotion behind it. Such actions
we call impulsive, and most people do many impulsive
actions to the end of their lives. Well that it is so.
For when such deeds spring from warm and kindly affec-
tions they have a geniality which is apt to evaporate
during a protracted process of intellectual deliberation.
Moreover, immediacy is often essential to the beneficent
effect of the act.

The motive power, then, in an impulsive act is an
emotion raised by some immediate perception, together
with an equally immediate apprehension of the action
which will meet the situation. For example, I see a
child in danger of being run over in the street ; im-
pulsively I rush forward to drag him back to safety.
But impulses do not always tend to deeds with happy
results. I am angered and I impulsively strike a blow
of which the effect may be the serious injury, or even
the death, of the offender. In such a case the impulsive
act is probably felt at once to be in opposition to a much
wider life-purpose, and there follows remorse. In the
future I am likely to abstain from blows when roused
to sudden anger. As we should say, I have learned my
lesson. Of course, each reader must analyse a number

STUDY OF MENTAL LIFE 39

of impulsive experiences of his own, and note carefully
the various modes in which many of them are checked.
What, then, do we find has happened in our own
lives? Surely this, that as life goes on there is a con-
tinually increasing regulation of impulses. We still feel
the emotion, we still see the direct means to express it, but
often we inhibit that expression in outward act. We shall
do well to give some time to studying the part played
by this process of inhibition in our lives, for inhibition
is nothing but self-control. Such an investigation soon
brings out that inhibition is itself an activity ; that is,
it is a putting forth of energy. We inhibit the hasty
blow in anger. How is this marked? Is it not by
clenched fists, tightly locked jaws, and a general tension
of muscles similar to what we find when we are resisting
a physical force ? If we ask ourselves why this effort
is made we find the answer to be — because there is
dominant in our minds an idea contrary to the impulse
and stronger than it. It may be a feeling of former,
or even present, affection towards the person who has
roused our anger, in which case one impulse meets and
conquers another: both are on the same plane. Such
inhibition, however, could never be more than occasional
and uncertain. The more important cases are those in
which the opposed idea is of a wider and deeper character
— that is, touches more of life — than the impulse. Such
may be an idea of duty, or of prudence, or of regard
for personal dignity.

If we then ask ourselves whence came these wider
ideas we shall discover that we owe them mainly to the
teaching and guidance of others. They were at first
imposed on us, but we have accepted them, passively
perhaps ; at any rate we have allowed them to influence

40 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

us. In other words, the regulation of impulse is mainly
due to education. Those who have been allowed to
follow their own ' spontaneity ' from infancy remain the
creatures of impulse throughout life, unless, indeed, they
are those exceptional natures in which there is an
unusually strong personality which works out its own
salvation.

Our investigation into our own experience will, how-
ever, bring to light yet a third ruler of conduct, which
we all know as instinct. Often, indeed, we use the
adjective 'instinctive' to characterize many of those
automatic executive activities of which mention has been
made, or to denote impulsive actions. We say, for
example, that we instinctively turned to the left when
riding a bicycle, or that we instinctively rushed forward
to drag a child from danger in the street. So too acts
are at times spoken of as instinctive which are mere
physical reflexes, such as winking the eyes at the near
approach of any object. In all such cases ' instinctive *
is used as synonymous with 'immediate,' and simply
implies the absence of deliberation.

TJiere is, however, a more exact use of the term to
which we shall do well to confine ourselves — a usage
which limits instincts to specific tendencies which are
part of the original nature of all men. They are born
in us in the sense that they do not owe their origin to
our experience, but certainly not in the sense that they
are in full operation at birth. In such endowment man
at first sight shows inferior to the lower animals. Their
instincts guide their conduct very soon and very com-
pletely. This is not, however, because man is inferior
to them in instinct, but because he is superior in reason.
The richness of his instinctive endowment is well

STUDY OF MENTAL LIFE 41

brought out by Wundt : "Suppose a bird were to
become interested in zoological investigation ; he might
well regard mankind as the richest of all creatures in
instincts. Man shares with the birds the instinct to live
in wedlock ; like the fox, he educates his children ; he
has the beaver's impulse to build houses, and the bee's
custom of founding states and sending forth colonies ;
while he has in common with the ant a pleasure in war,
in slave-making, and in the domesticating of useful
animals." l

Man's instincts, however, develop slowly and in con-
nexion with his powers of thought and understanding,
so that they can be held in subjection, modified, and
utilized. Instincts are thus the servants of man while
they are the masters of the lower animals. In examining
our experience we continually find an instinctive basis,
which we detect by the impossibility, so to say, of
imagining any other kind of response to the situation.
At the same time we find that this instinctive basis is
continually adapted so as to fit in with our designs and
purposes. The simpler and more immediately organic
instincts, such as hunger, we find operative in every part
of our experience, and we recognize that we can control
even an instinct so fundamental to the preservation of
life by a regard for the rights of property. That is,
instinct, like impulse, can be subordinated to wide
regulative ideas. Another fundamental instinct — that
of sex — develops at such a time of life that adults can
recall with considerable accuracy its beginnings and
development, as well as examine the mental states and
tendencies to which it gives rise — the way in which it
influences thoughts and imagination and prompts to
1 Lectures on Human and dnimal PsycAo/ogy, Eng. trans, pp. 396-397.

42 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

action for its satisfaction. Here again introspection
shows the possibility of checking the action, and even
of diverting the thoughts and imaginings, and may also
bring home the difficulty of doing so — a difficulty
undoubtedly felt more by some natures than by others.

Further, examination of such instincts will lay bare
how strong a part emotion plays in an instinct, and how
in instinctive action it is not our reason but a felt organic
need which dictates the end. We may use intelligence
in planning means for the gratification of the instinct
if such means are not immediately available. Or we
may deny it satisfaction, when our whole strength has
to be exerted to turn the energy of life into another
channel.

In an endeavour to discover which of our emotional
tendencies are instinctive we cannot be sure of absolute
success. Still, the quest is its own reward, for in that
way alone shall we reach an understanding of the causes
of special emotions, and of their relations to each other.
Those which we find composite — as, for example,
revenge, which involves both anger and desire for retalia-
tion, if not also hatred — are, of course, not instinctive.
Our aim is to reach those elements which will not yield
to further analysis. Every step in our enquiry, when
tested by our own remembered experience, shows us
that many emotions are only possible to adult life,
others to adolescence, others again to late boyhood and
girlhood. Only the simplest and most direct are possible
to early childhood. If those we reach in our analysis
are not all absolutely instinctive, yet they are, at any
rate, likely to be of so simple a nature that they may be
expected to show themselves in the lives of even the
youngest children who attend school.

STUDY OF MENTAL LIFE 43

So far we have tried to trace backwards in retro-
spection the springs of our conduct and the way in which
it is regulated, and we have made clear to ourselves that
the further we go back the less share reason and intelli-
gence have in the matter. Intelligence can only grow
through a relation of understanding with men and things
around us, and this is acquired gradually. It is the
special function of teaching to help to develop it. If
we ask how intelligence does direct our actions we may
make clear to ourselves the real nature of knowledge.
We may also bring home to our convictions that much
of what is commonly called knowledge is mere erudition
which has no bearing of any kind on life, whether
practical, intellectual, artistic, moral, or religious. I
believe it is only when a teacher recognizes by investi-
gation of his own experience that much which he has
learnt has neither enriched nor guided his life that he
will address himself seriously to eliminating from his
own teaching all such useless lumber.

Turning, then, to the real knowledge he has acquired,
it is essential that he should find out how it developed
in his own life. For, as Bacon says, the teacher's task
is to "transplant knowledge into the scholar's mind as
it grew in his own." He may take any typical pieces
of knowledge — gathered from direct observation and
thought, from books, from reasoning — and in each case
ask himself what activity of his own was concerned and
what part that activity played in the acquisition ; whether
the knowledge would have been more real and effective,
or the acquirement more rapid, had other forms of
personal activity been brought into action ; what share
was taken by his teacher. In such a determination he
should at each point consider whether a change of

44 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

emphasis or proportion would have improved the result.
He may, for example, in the case he is investigating
find that his teacher actually gave him a great deal of
help and guidance. He should then try to decide how
much of that was necessary, how much not actually
necessary but decidedly acceptable and helpful. All
the rest he may mark as mistaken zeal, and try to
avoid similar errors in his own dealings with his
pupils.

In such enquiries as these he will find comparison
with the results of others similarly engaged not so much
useful as indispensable. For we do not all learn alike,
and we are apt to think we do. To take what is certainly
one of the most commonly ignored points of difference.
Some people build up, retain, and recall much of their
knowledge in the form of vivid mental pictures. They
see the scene described, the page of the book on which
the mathematical problem is worked, the map of the
country. They are apt to believe that all other people
do the same, and to base much of their teaching on that
supposition. For example, this assumption underlies
what is known as the Gouin method of teaching foreign
languages. But the assumption is not true. Many
people can only visualize dimly, some not at all. I
generally find at least half of a class of university
students among the former, and I myself belong to
the latter. The common tendency to assume that
others are mentally like oneself was charmingly illus-
trated by the artless enquiry made of me in private, and
in all good faith, by a student after a class-discussion
in which I had confessed and tried to explain my
deficiency in this respect : " But, Professor, you can
think, can't you?" So by consultation the student will

STUDY OF MENTAL LIFE 45

find that there is individuality in learning as in other
forms of human activity, and he will endeavour to adapt
his teaching so as to catch all in his net.

If one approach the examination of mental life in
this way one is not in danger of ignoring the all-
important fact that real learning is only possible through
self -activity. And self-activity is activity directed by
purpose and prompted by desire. This general attitude
towards the subject studied is what is properly called
interest. Let the reader ask himself what he really
means when he says he is interested in this or that. Is
it pleasure? or amusement? or entertainment? When
am I interested in solving a problem ? Surely, before
I have solved it. And if I am really interested in the
thing at all, my state of mind during the solution is
one of unrest and tension, by no means one of quiescence
and enjoyment. I keep on because I value and desire
the end, not because I enjoy the means. If I do enjoy
them so much to the good, but really the matter affects
me but little.

That, the reader will agree, is interest in adult life.
Let him now look back, calling to mind the pursuits
which engrossed — that is, interested — him in earlier
years. Let him make clear their nature and their relation
to his life at the time. In a word, let him ask why he
was interested in them. Let him then consult with
others who have made similar private investigations.
There can be little doubt that he will then appreciate
the fundamental difference between making lessons
interesting to children, and making the children inter-
ested in the subjects on which the lessons are given.
Further, he will have gained some accurate, if not
adequate, idea of the kinds of pursuits into which

46 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

children at various ages throw themselves most whole-
heartedly.

I hope I have succeeded in making clear what is the
kind of introspection that is helpful to one who is about to
enter on a study of the main lines of mental develop-
ment. It must be a preliminary to such study, or the
knowledge derived from books will be mere erudition,
not a living influence in the work of education. But
it is not done once for all. The true psychologist never
ceases to look within himself for help in understanding
others. Always it is introspection into life, and conse-
quently it is mainly of the nature of retrospection over
the past. Not, however, of fixed points in the past —
' mental states ' as they are called — but always into the
living process of growing experience. One must con-
stantly bear in mind the fundamental character of mental
life. " It does not consist in the connexion of unalter-
able objects and varying conditions : in all its phases it
is process ; an active, not a passive, existence: develop-
ment^ not stagnation. The understanding of the basal
laws of this development is the final goal of psycho-
logy."1

The psychological equipment of an educator is evi-
dently a task of much difficulty. But if the reader be
convinced that such preparation will vastly contribute
towards efficiency he will surely not shrink from the
strenuous and deep thinking which it demands.
Everything which throws light on mental life will be
welcomed, whether it appear under the name of psycho-
logy or not. Indeed more real insight of the kind the
educator needs is often to be obtained from such a pro-
found study of human character and motive as The Egoist
1Wundt : Op. fit. p. 454.

STUDY OF MENTAL LIFE 47

of George Meredith than from works on abstract analytic
psychology.

Nor will the fact that, after all, the best psychological
knowledge he can gain is imperfect and full of gaps and
obscurities discourage him. As Froude puts it : "Our
knowledge of any man is always inadequate — even of
the unit which each of us calls himself ; and the first
condition under which we can know a man at all is, that
he be in essentials something like ourselves ; that our
own experience be an interpreter which shall open the
secrets of his experience ; and it often happens, even
among our contemporaries, that we are altogether baffled.
The Englishman and the Italian may understand each
other's speech, but the language of each other's ideas
has still to be learnt. Our long failures in Ireland have
risen from a radical incongruity of character which has
divided the Celt from the Saxon. And again, in the
same country, the Catholic will be a mystery to the
Protestant, and the Protestant to the Catholic. Their
intellects have been shaped in opposite moulds ; they
are like instruments which cannot be played in concert." l

The educator will recognize not only that such imper-
fection in knowledge of others is inevitable, but that we
should not desire to have so thorough an insight into
the lives of our children that nothing lay hid from us.
In every soul there are sacred recesses into which the
intrusion of even the most sympathetic friend is a pro-
fanation. Such knowledge as will make us serviceable
we do well to seek, but to that we should limit our
desires.

This raises in many minds an objection to a method

1 The Dissolution of the Monasteries in Short Studies on Great Subjects,
vol. i. p. 407.

48 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

of trying to gain general knowledge of the inner lives
of children and young people by getting a large number
of them to answer sets of questions. Great care is
certainly needed when such a procedure is followed that
the questions are such as a stranger has a right to ask,
such as can be answered without morbid introspection,
such as give no temptation to posing, and such as are
not likely to yield answers vitiated by imperfections of
memory. Great caution is also demanded in drawing
inductions from the answers to decide whether they come
from really typical young people or whether the replies
of those who are somewhat excessively emotional, if not
morbid, preponderate. Many of the researches on
adolescence which have been made by this method seem
peculiarly open to these objections.

But probably the educator to whom this book appeals
will leave such investigations to those who have more
leisure than himself. Nor is it likely that he will take a
personal part in the experiments of a psychological labora-
tory. He will welcome any fresh light which may come
to him from either of these modes of enquiry, or from any
other which psychologists may invent. But his own
energies will be directed to gaining a serviceable know-
ledge of his own charges by observation of their daily life
both as individuals and in the communities of class and
school. Were he to publish the results of such study in
educational journals or as monographs both a rapid and a
safe advance in educational psychology might confidently
be anticipated.

CHAPTER III

.

BODILY ENDOWMENT

THE most obvious thing about ourselves is that we each
have both a body and a mind or soul. Common speech,
indeed, often distinguishes further between mind and
soul, using the former term to denote our intellect —
that is, our power to think, reason, and the like, and
restricting the latter to our higher and more spiritual
selves — our ability to love and seek the good. Some-
times the division is expressed differently, and man is
divided into body, soul, and spirit, where soul seems
to correspond with 'mind', and spirit with 'soul', of
the former distinction. Psychology, however, needs no
such three-fold division. For it ' soul ' or ' mind ' is
indifferently the name of all in human nature that is not
body.

Philosophers have disputed for thousands of years as
to the ultimate nature of both soul and body, and as to
the relation of those ultimate natures to each other.
Into such metaphysical questions — profoundly interest-
ing as they are — there is no need for us to enter. We
know quite well enough for the purposes of education
what we mean by mind and what by body. We find
no practical difficulty in drawing the line between them,
and we recognize that, whatever may be the meta-
physical explanation, mind and body, as given in direct

50 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

experience, act upon each other. Our wishes are carried
out through bodily actions ; our feelings are shown in
gesture and facial expression ; sudden violent emotion
may kill ; long continued thinking makes us bodily tired
and, it may be, gives us a headache ; bodily fatigue due
to physical exertion unfits us for mental work ; the
breathing of vitiated air renders us intellectually dull as
well as physically anaemic ; illness overthrows our mental
powers ; a blow on the head may cause unconsciousness ;
various drugs produce hallucinations ; the general state
of health and of the functioning of the organs of respira-
tion, circulation, digestion, secretion, and excretion, is
reflected in the hopefulness or mournfiilness of our
outlook. We know it is better to ask a favour of a man
after a good dinner than before it, that irritation is most
readily aroused, whether in another or in oneself, during
fatigue. Some people are much affected emotionally
by states of the weather — are happy in sunshine and
more or less miserable and despondent in dull, foggy,
or rainy weather, or are made morbidly irritable by heavy
wind.

Though this kind of general connexion is commonly
recognized as a fact, yet its importance for all that con-
cerns mental life, and therefore for education, does not
seem ever to have been fully acknowledged in practice.
That severe illness incapacitates for mental effort is
not questioned ; but that every change of health and
of general bodily condition carries with it a correspond-
ing change in mental health and power has not been
given its full importance.

The schoolmaster of tradition was apt to show his
appreciation of the influence of bodily feelings on mental
life by a free use of the birch, but he was much less ready

BODILY ENDOWMENT 51

to trace stupidity to bad ventilation or to impaired
health, due, it may be, to overwork. Yet performance is
limited by capacity, and capacity is far from being a fixed
quantity. We all know that there are times when we
get through our work both quickly and efficiently, and,
withal, with enjoyment ; and that there are others when,
strive as we may, but little is accomplished, and that
generally of inferior quality. The cause of such differ-
ences may, indeed, be mental. They may be due to
some brooding trouble which hinders us from throwing
ourselves fully into our task. But much more often our
minds are at rest ; it is our bodies that are in some
way out of order.

Children, who have not attained the adult's stability
of organization, either in mind or in body, are even more
affected by external influences than we are. That their
minds may work easily and effectively their physical
surroundings must be such that the vital bodily processes
are not hindered. Happily, this is being more and more
recognized in respect to the hygienic conditions of
schools. Probably but little fault in this respect can be
found with the majority of recent buildings, but economy
still retains in use thousands of others which stand con-
demned before the most obvious requirements as to light
and air and warmth.

Similarly, the need of children for bodily activity is
being increasingly acknowledged in practice, though
slowly and somewhat grudgingly. Despite all the indi-
cations of nature, children of five years old and upwards
are still made to sit for long hours in desks, mainly look-
ing and listening. Public opinion is satisfied if a few
minutes daily be spent in the playground and if, two
or three times a week, the children be put through some

52 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

form of bodily drill. Even these deliverances from the
desks are, however, advocated purely from a physical
stand-point. Consequently, as long as bodily growth
goes on normally everything is regarded as satisfactory.
"Gymnastic for the body and culture for the mind" is
now, as in ancient Athens, the accepted distinction.
Plato pointed out that gymnastic also has an educative
effect on the soul, in the development of such excellent
qualities as courage and fortitude. Modern knowledge
enables us to go further and to affirm that the relation
between body and mind is so intimate and constant that
the intelligence is dwarfed whenever the demand for
bodily activity is not suitably met.

So far as many a child escapes such dwarfing it is due
to his play-time and to his holidays. But these are not
directly educative, for they give a merely haphazard
exercise to the bodily powers. A real education employs
those powers so as to train and develop bodily aptitudes
and bodily skill. It is this development which is most
closely connected with mental growth.

Of course it is possible to go to the other extreme
and to regard the cult of the body as the one true note
in education. This exaggeration must be judged worse
than the other by all who regard man's spiritual nature
as higher than his animal nature. To forget to train
the mind is far worse than to neglect to train the body.
For mind directs life, and body carries out its decrees.
Moreover, as has been said, body does generally take
some care of itself out of school, but mind left to itself
usually makes but little advance towards the full stature
of a man.

It must be remembered that mind and body start in
human life on an equally low scale. Though the new-

BODILY ENDOWMENT 53

born babe shows no signs of mental life yet the potenti-
alities of such life are there. And can more be said of
the bodily life? True, the existence of the body is
obvious to sight, to touch, and, it may be, to hearing.
Yet what is obvious is just that and nothing more. The
baby has no more human bodily powers than it has
human mental powers. Each is potential ; neither is
real. Each will be ; neither is. The babe can no more
walk or talk or use its hands skilfully than it can form
the purposes and plan the conduct which would require
such bodily manifestations. The physiologist tells us,
too, that bones and muscles, and, above all, nerves and
brain are in a rudimentary stage. The child will mature
as a whole human being, mind and body developing in
close relation. Education to do its true work must
always be guided by this knowledge. " 'Tis not a soul,
'tis not a body, that we are training up, but a man ; and
we ought not to divide him into two parts." l

We are all familiar with the fact that there is a close
connexion between the brain and the mind. Indeed,
we are often not careful to discriminate between the two
terms. We say a boy or a man has a good brain when
we wish to praise his intelligence. It is often assumed,
too, that mental capacity is indicated by weight of brain
and this by size of skull, so that a person with an
unusually large head is expected to show more than
ordinary mental powers, though this, if it be a rule at
all, is one honoured by many exceptions.

No clearer proof of the connexion between brain and
mind could be conceived than the fact that injuries to
the brain have mental effects which vary with the part
of the brain affected. For example, a severe blow on

1 Montaigne : Essay on the Education of Children.

54 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

the back of the head may produce blindness ; damage
to the lower part of the temple may result in loss of
control over the organs of speech ; an injury to the top
of the head has been known to produce such general
disorders of consciousness that the victim has quite lost
his personality — his attitude towards his surroundings
is changed, so that what before he liked now he shuns,
while he seeks that which he has hitherto avoided.

Such facts make it clear that the brain can exert
influence over the whole body. It is the central organ
of the nervous system and its essential function is to
establish connexions between various parts of that sys-
tem. Into the structure of the system this is not the
place to enter. The reader, however, who is not fairly
familiar with it will be well advised to study it in one
of the many excellent modern books which treat of the
subject. Suffice it here to note that the nerves form a
network throughout the body. They are not, however,
continuous like telegraph wires, nor is the surface or
cortex — which is the operative part — of the brain, a kind
of plate of homogeneous and continuous matter like the
skin of an apple. On the contrary, throughout the body
the nervous system consists of a number of nerve-cells
or neurones, which, though they vary a good deal in
size, are all in form like thin pieces of thread, frayed
at each end and at intervals along their length. These
do not grow out of each other, but the ravelled threads
of one lie very close to those of others, and mixed up
with them. The connexions between them are those of
proximity not of structure.

The special marks of neurones, as distinguished from
the other cells of which the body is composed, are three :
they are specially sensitive to excitation ; they transmit

BODILY ENDOWMENT 55

or conduct this excitation though always in one and the
same direction ; they are modified by their own activity
so that when two sets of neurones have once acted
together they are more ready to act together again, and
this tendency is increased with every repetition. These
characteristics show at once that the nervous system is
not a ready-made mechanism but a living community of
cells which by its own life, and by that alone, grows into
an organism.

The impressions in any neurone are, we have said,
transmitted in only one direction. There are those
which pass inwards and carry messages regarding the
state and experiences of the body. An important mass
of these run from the great internal organs, and their
combined reports are represented in consciousness by
that vague yet very real feeling of well-being or its
opposite which is the main constituent of our moods
and a chief ingredient in our cheerfulness or gloom.
Others go from the various organs of sense, each of
which is constituted so as to react to one kind of impres-
sions from the external world. All this group, because
of the direction in which they transmit are called
afferent, and because of the kind of message they
convey, sensory. Those which conduct in the other
direction are named efferent, and because of their
effects, motor, for they connect with the muscles and
excite them to contract or to relax. Hence they mediate
both movement and the inhibition of movement. From
the muscles also run sensory nerves which convey the
message that the movement has been made or inhibited.

The activity of the motor neurones is dependent on
that of the sensory : action is in response to impression.
There is thus needed a third set of neurones whose

56 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

function is to connect motor with sensory groups. This
is the essential work of the neurones which compose the
cortex of the brain, but there are other connecting
neurones, especially in the spinal bulb and the spinal
cord. When the connexion is made in the cortex of
the brain we are conscious both of the stimulus and of
the reaction ; when it is made in the cord it is immediate
and independent of consciousness. Here we reach the
physiological side of the process of making executive
actions automatic. The connexion between a certain
group of sensory neurones and a certain system of motor
neurones has been made so often that the motor group
is set in action in the lowest of the connecting neurones
which lie near them both.

The development of the nervous system is, then,
emphatically an organizing of reactions, so that the
various situations of life may be met by appropriate
conduct. Very few definite connexions are innate, and
these are made through the lowest centres. A sharp
impression on a limb leads to its withdrawal, a sudden
loud sound induces a start or a cry, a whiff of pepper is
followed by a sneeze whether we will or no, the eye
automatically adapts itself to distance, heart and lungs
respond by quickened or diminished action to various
impressions. These reflex reactions involve only a
simple response to a simple stimulus. They have been
formed in countless generations of our ancestors, and
the origin of each may be found in some form of
immediate protection against threatened injury.

Far more important are the instincts, which through-
out life play so Fundamental a part in determining
conduct. These also are due to ancestral experience and
make for the preservation and advantage of the indi-

BODILY ENDOWMENT 57

vidual. But they are both less fixed and more complex
than are the reflexes. They are represented in the
nervous system less by definite connexions than by
strong predispositions to connexions between groups of
sensory and motor neurones, and the whole circuit always
involves connecting neurones in the cortex of the brain
as well as in the lower centres. Hence it is that con-
sciousness is an integral part of every instinctive act.
For example, the enjoyment a baby manifests when
absorbing nourishment shows that sucking is not a mere
reflex action but is the expression of an instinct. In a
true reflex if consciousness be present at all it is as an
accidental addition which in no wise modifies the act.
I may be conscious that I have sneezed, but the sneeze
was not the outcome of a desire, nor can a desire not to
sneeze usually inhibit the explosion, certainly not if the
stimulus be at all strong. Of many small reflex acts we
are quite unconscious. Many people, for example, are
quite unaware, till their attention is drawn to the fact,
that they are continually blinking their eyelids.

The instinctive reactions, being as a rule complex,
have to be organized out of movements which at first
are purely random. These 'spontaneous' or 'impul-
sive' movements, as they are called, attain no definite
end. They are simply the outlet for the activity of a
nervous system as yet unorganized. Whether any of
them are outside the sphere of instinct is doubtful. In
any case they are the raw material out of which purposive
action has to be built.

By far the largest number of our deeds, then, are
made possible only by the education of the nervous
system. In life we have circuits of sensory — connecting
— motor neurones of all degrees of complexity, from

58 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

a simple act such as raising the hat, to the carrying out
of wide and far-reaching purposes, such as making a
fortune or writing a book, where, indeed, a whole
multitude of smaller circuits are united in a regular
hierarchy under one dominant regulative idea.

We need neither fear nor hope that the organization
of any individual nervous system will ever reach its
theoretical limits. The possibilities of connexions in
the brain are far greater than any one life can realize.
"Even if we knew the exact arrangement of each
neurone in a man's brain it would take a model as large
as St. Paul's Cathedral to make them visible to the naked
eye, a model with whose details only years of study
would familiarize us. Consider that counting at the
rate of fifty a minute it would take a man working twelve
hours a day over two hundred years merely to count the
nerve-cells of one man." 1

In general plan such a nervous system is common to
all. But only in general plan. Individuals have no
more the same possibilities of nerve and brain develop-
ment than of muscular and osseous development. Con-
jointly with such differences will be found differences
in mental qualities. We are, therefore, interested to
enquire whether any general relation can be established
between physical and mental attributes. Certainly we
are all more or less influenced in forming our first opinion
of another's intelligence and disposition by his physical
appearance, though we should generally be at a loss to
say exactly what signs had influenced us, and in what
way they had done so. Facial expression and brightness
or dullness of eye have, no doubt, much to do with an
estimate.

1 Thorndyke : The Elements ofPsyehology, p. 151.

BODILY ENDOWMENT 59

Can we then find a bodily measure of intelligence?
The idea is a tempting one, for bodily qualities can be
measured and reduced to scale. Roger Ascham ap-
parently thought that only boys of "a cumlie counte-
nance, with a goodlie stature" were worthy to receive
learning, and the old aphorism " a sound mind in a sound
body" expresses the desired relation more generally.

Yet when we pass in review our acquaintances we are
bound to admit that the bodily side of the relation is not
to be found in height or girth or muscular development.
We all know instances of children and of adults whose
physical size is by no means in accord with their mental
powers. "Great men have been small, and small men
great " is no paradox if the adjectives be rightly appor-
tioned. Researches on normal children support this result
of general experience, and give no ground for expecting
any connexion between size of body and power of mind.

When, however, small size of body is conjoined with
general feebleness of vital functions we may expect
to find it combined with some mental deficiency. Such
feebleness and under-growth are all too frequently due
to the physical surroundings in which the child lives —
to insufficient or improper nourishment ; to inadequate
clothing ; to want of cleanliness, of fresh air, and of
health-giving play. Then it is quite the general rule
that the unhappy little victim shows an arrested mental
development. Both in body and in mind he is frequently
two or three years behind the standard of his age. Nor,
while the same unfavourable physical conditions continue
to exert their maleficent influence, does he ever make up
the lost ground. On the contrary, the retardation
increases.

When, then, a child generally shows less mental power

60 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

than do most children of his age, of similar social rank,
and attending the same kind of school, the cause should
be sought first in physical conditions. Too often a child
is simply classed by his teacher as ' dull ' or ' inattentive '
or ' a dunce,' and it is left at that. This is to take far
too fatalistic a view of the immutability of what is
assumed to be an inborn defect, and far too pessimistic
an estimate of the possibilities of education. The first
step is surely to discover the cause of the mental back-
wardness. Is it physical, or moral, or mental? Does
the child suffer from some unsuspected physical defect,
such as imperfect vision or hearing, adenoid growths, a
general state of physical weakness, or the presence of some
congenital disease ? Or, is he wanting in perseverance
and honesty of effort, and in constancy of purpose ? Or
lastly, is he really of poor natural intelligence, and, if
so, is the defect general or particular? Many a child
shows poorly at lessons which require even simple
abstract thought or sympathetic imagination who is
nevertheless exceptionally good in all practical occupa-
tions. It is to be feared that the school estimates of
children which are based on lessons are always in grave
danger of being one-sided and of doing little justice to
individuals who will yet play a successful part in life.
That, however, as far as it goes, condemns the school, not
the child. It is only when such questions are asked and
answered that the real education which that particular
child needs can be effectively given.

Of these enquiries, those into physical states should
be made first. Happily, the medical examination of
school children will bring to light most of the physical
defects. It remains for the teachers to recognize practi-
cally their mental bearings. Nor need teachers wait for

BODILY ENDOWMENT 61

the doctor's visit to test sight and hearing, the most
frequent causes of apparent dullness in children really
of normal intelligence. Indeed, the medical tests are
often not directly relative to the conditions of the class-
room. What the teacher needs to know specifically is
whether each child can read his writing on the blackboard
and can distinctly hear his words when he is teaching.
These points are easily — if not very exactly — tested by
placing each child at the back of the class-room and
requiring him to read from the blackboard, and to write
from dictation, a number of disconnected words which
do not suggest each other. Of course, the teacher
should be careful to write in his ordinary style and size,
and to speak in as even a tone as possible, and with no
more distinctness than marks his customary speech. The
children who fail in the test should be brought forwards
until they reach a part of the class-room in which they
can hear and see clearly and without strain. Such a
test may further have the often desirable result of leading
the teacher to write more legibly on the blackboard, and
to speak more distinctly, and with a more ' thrown-
forward' voice, than he has been accustomed to do.
There is no doubt that these defects in hearing and seeing
must be discovered in such a way as this. The children
will not announce them. Often, indeed, they are
unaware of them, but even when they know them they
usually try to hide them.

Other defects of sense organs also have an effect on
the mental life. Quite a considerable number of people
are colour-blind ; to them red and green are indis-
tinguishable, and in extreme cases all colour appears as
a dull lifeless grey. When we consider how much of
our enjoyment is due to appreciation of colour we

62 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

recognize how much such unfortunate persons lose. Of
course, this defect is immediately made manifest in a
class in which the children are taught to draw in coloured
crayons and to paint in water-colours, and are allowed —
as they always should be — to select their own colours.

An analogous defect on the side of hearing is tone-
deafness. Just as those who are colour-blind may have
excellent vision for all but colour, so the tone-deaf may
be quite sharp of hearing. They are deaf not to sounds
but only to differences in pitch. For them the charm
of melody and the majesty of harmony do not exist. I
once knew a very worthy clergyman who could not
distinguish between the Dead March in Saul and
Mendelssohn's Wedding March. This was doubtless
an extreme case, but between it and the sensitive ear of
the born musician are many gradations, all of which are
represented in human lives. Obviously it is mere waste
of time to attempt to teach music to a child with this
congenital defect at all strongly marked.

Defects of taste and smell have little educational sig-
nificance, and defects of sensations of movement are not
usually of a very serious character. Still it should be
borne in mind that individuals do differ in this as in
other bodily endowments. Manual dexterity which is
delightfully easy to one child remains always impossible
to another. ' ' His fingers are all thumbs " as we say,
and though practice and training will do much they
will never give him the deftness which comes natural to
another.

It is evident that unless a teacher takes note of such
bodily peculiarities of his individual pupils he may, quite
unintentionally and unknowingly, do some of them very
serious injustice, and he may in some cases waste some

BODILY ENDOWMENT 63

of his own time and much of theirs in trying to do what
nature has made for ever impossible. The decision
whether a defect may be decreased by suitable exercises
or is unalterable is evidently one which demands serious
consideration, and at times medical advice. Broadly
speaking, defects of hearing and sight are less amenable
to remedial treatment than are motor defects, which,
indeed, can in nearly all cases be lessened.

CHAPTER IV
GENERAL MENTAL ENDOWMENT

MAN, like all other animals, is the outcome of a long
line of ancestry, and his nature, to some indetermined
extent, has been modified by the lives and experiences
of his forefathers. In the history of any race of animals
natural selection has been at work, so that those most
adapted to their conditions of life have had the best
chance of surviving, and the kinds of reactions which
most effectively meet the requirements of life have, in
the course of time, become embodied in the nervous
system.

The more simple the life to be led the fewer are the
reactions needed. If such reactions be not made the
animal perishes. The more complex the life the greater
necessity is there for the adaptation of reactions, the same
in kind, to circumstances more or less different. Again,
if the animal fail to make the adaptation he will suffer
or die, according to the importance of the reaction.

Here we have the respective functions of instinct, or
the innate adaptation due to ancestral experience, and of
intelligence, or the personal power of adapting action to
more or less new conditions. Obviously, as man, even
in the savage state, leads a far more complex life than do
any of the lower animals, intelligence must play a larger
proportionate part in the determination of his conduct

GENERAL MENTAL ENDOWMENT 65

than in that of any other being. Similarly, instinct is
less exhaustive of the life of a monkey or of a dog than
of that of an insect. Generally, the period of imma-
turity of any animal, relatively to its whole life, is a
rough measure of the respective shares of instinct and
intelligence in determining his conduct. In that period
of preparation man learns by experience to undertake
that guidance of life which in the animal that matures
nearly at birth rests in the sphere of instinct.

Instinct appears in its most undiluted form among the
insects, and some instructive and interesting studies of
the instincts of insects have been contributed to com-
parative psychology. Many of the lines of action ob-
served would demand a very advanced degree of intel-
ligence and reasoning were they planned by the insect;
but this supposition is negatived by the fact that no such
intelligence is shown in any other acts of its life. Yet
instinct is by no means as unerring as has frequently
been assumed. For instance, "The larvae of our
common oil-beetle (Melo'e} are parasitic on the bee,
Anthophora. It deposits its ten thousand eggs without
observable discrimination ; but the active young larva
instinctively seizes and attaches itself to any hairy object.
Thousands must go astray. They have been found on
hairy beetles, flies, and bees of the wrong genus. Some,
however, become thus attached to the one suitable
species, and are conveyed by the Anthophora to her nest,
where they promptly eat the egg she lays."1 Even
when instinct seems most perfect the ' survival of the
fittest' is secured at a heavy cost.

When we pass to the vertebrate animals we still find
instinct playing a great part in the control of life, though
1 Lloyd Morgan: Animal Behaviour, pp. 81-82.

66 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

the traditional assumptions that instinct and intelligence
are incompatible, and that while man is ruled by the
latter all other animals are left to the former, are shown
by careful observation to be untenable. More than a
century ago that great naturalist Gilbert White remarked
that "the maxim that defines instinct to be that secret
influence by which every species is compelled naturally
to pursue at all times the same way or track without any
teaching or example, must be taken in a qualified sense,
for there are instances in which instinct does vary and
conform to the circumstances of place and convenience,"1
and the more numerous, though not more careful, obser-
vations of later years have established the point. Darwin
noted that "a little dose of judgement or reason . . . often
comes into play, even with animals low in the scale of
nature." 2 And Dr. Wallace wrote : " Much of the
mystery of instinct arises from the persistent refusal to
recognize the agency of imitation, memory, observation,
and reason as often forming part of it. Yet there is
ample evidence that such agency must be taken into
account. Both Wilson and Leroy state that young birds
build inferior nests to old ones, and the latter author
observes that the best nests are made by birds whose
young remain longest in the nest. So, migration is now
well ascertained to be effected by means of vision, long
flights being made on bright moonlight nights when the
birds fly very high, while on cloudy nights they fly low,
and then often lose their way. Thousands annually fly
out to sea and perish, showing that the instinct to migrate
is imperfect, and is not a good substitute for reason and
observation." 3

These conclusions of modern naturalists have a very

^Letter 56. 2 Origin of Species, ch. 8. * 'Darwinism, ch. 14.

GENERAL MENTAL ENDOWMENT 67

direct bearing on the only instincts which concern us —
those of man. Biologists have naturally studied instinct
where they have found it most free in its operations and
least liable to modification by any possible interference
of intelligence. This has, however, resulted in concen-
trating attention on the outward action or series of
actions. What mental process accompanies such actions
in an insect it is impossible to say : one cannot enter into
the mind of a caterpillar. The practical result has been
that determined activity has been made the one essential
characteristic of instinct. In a word, instinct has been
confined to instinctive behaviour ; mode of conscious-
ness has been ignored. It is true that none now go so
far in banishing mind as the Elizabethan writer Owen,
who spoke of "a naturalle Instincte engrafted in the
stones or lyme . . . against any wett weather to sweate
with great dropps of water." But the limitation of view
does lead to an undue insistence on the blindness of
instinct, as, for example, when Hamilton spoke of in-
stinct as "an agent which performs blindly and ignorantly
a work of intelligence and knowledge." An insect
which does an instinctive act once, and then dies, cer-
tainly does not learn from experience, but a dog, though
guided mainly by instincts, yet learns to follow their
promptings in many different ways adapted to various
circumstances. And, as we saw in the quotation from
Dr. Wallace, practice improves the nest-building of
birds.

Now, improvement and adaptation clearly imply the
striving of a conscious being to improve its condition.
Thus, the higher the animal the more important in the
instinct is the mental prompting which finds expression
in the instinctive act. The neglect of this element of

68 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

instinct accounts for the common opinion that man has
few instincts, the lower animals many. What is really
meant is that man has few instinctive actions which are
nearly or wholly reflex in their nature, and which, con-
sequently, show little or no improvement through
practice. This, of course, is true ; and it is well for us
that it is so, as, evidently, the more of mechanical
organization is inherited the less possibility is there of
improvement. Civilization was born and has grown
just because man does not come into the world a perfected
mechanism.

The ordinary literary use of the word ' instinct', how-
ever, refers primarily to the mental tendency, and only
secondarily to the act in which it finds expression. It
was not at all a bad definition given by Paley over a
century ago that "an instinct is a propensity prior to
experience, and independent of instruction." The pro-
pensity is the essential point, and that springs up in
appropriate circumstances without help from experience
or from instruction. But whether the propensity can
find one outlet or many depends on the complexity of
the nervous system. The simpler such system the more
the nerve-circuit may be expected to be limited, so that
one definite motor reaction which, though it may be
complex is always the same, follows on one definite kind
of sensory impression. This is what we find in insects.

With man there is, as we have seen, an indefinite
number of possibilities of motor reaction on any particular
sensory impression, and though the existence of an
instinct means that there is a predisposition towards
certain classes of motor response to certain forms of
sensory impressions yet these innate tendencies to re-
sponse are not fixed and definite reflexes. They are

GENERAL MENTAL ENDOWMENT 69

classes of activities rather than determined single actions
or series of actions.

Further, man's instincts are not mature at birth.
The undeveloped character of his brain would make this
manifest if the baby's behaviour did not do so. It is as
the nervous system matures that, one by one, impulses
and propensities begin to manifest themselves for which
nothing in the child's experience can account, and which
are further proved to be the outcome of human nature
by the fact that they appear in all normal children.
Throughout childhood quite up to adolescence new
instincts appear at intervals and old instincts take a new
and more leading part in life. This means that when an
instinct ripens there are many organized lines of action
through which it can find expression. Moreover, it
ripens when intelligence is already active in directing
conduct. The instinct gives the propulsive force, the
intelligence may add the directive ruling.

This is by no means to confuse instinct and intelli-
gence. On the contrary it is to distinguish them more
clearly by finding the difference in their mental nature
instead of in their outer manifestations. Many an
instinctive action of a lower animal attains its purpose
better than an intelligent act of a child, or even of a
man. A beaver builds its house and a bee constructs its
comb with much greater success than would be attained
by a child even after much practice. Yet the child is
more intelligent than bee or beaver. And it is intelli-
gence which counts.

Now, instinct as a proclivity is more or less blind : it
does not foresee consequences. But such an impulse,
first arising in a life under the control of intelligence
and in which many lines of action are already established

70 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

while others are barred, does not issue in a blind action,
but in one determined by habit or by planning. The
control of intelligence may grow gradually. The innate
proclivity may find satisfaction only in an end which is
beyond the present and which can be reached only
through a series of intermediate steps. To these it
prompts, and intelligence may at first see but a short
way ahead. "To the evolutionist, the youth courting
the maid is merely obeying an impulse cunningly con-
trived by Nature for the preservation of the species." l
Yet "we may say that the youth's consciousness, when
he first goes courting, is to be expressed, not in the
form, ' I want a wife and family ', but in the words, ' I
must just see her to-day'."2 But, as the appropriate
lines of conduct are more and more followed, the view
ahead becomes longer and wider, till at length the whole
meaning of the behaviour and of its emotional spring is
seen. So intelligence arises in the sphere of instinct, and
plays its true part of direction.

It is well to draw attention to the fact that an instinc-
tive propensity becomes a powerful force in life only on
condition that it is given frequent and appropriate outlet
in action. Here we have the possibility of education.
For, when vent is refused to an instinctive impulse it
gradually dies of inanition, or at least becomes atrophied.
On the other hand, by calling forth an instinct frequently
and strongly we increase its power. The decision as to
which instincts in any individual case the educator should
wish to cultivate, and which to discourage and repress,
cannot be given by psychology. The considerations
operative in such questions belong to ethics and
sociology.

1Hobhouse : Mind in Evolution, p. 76. *lbid. p. 78, note.

GENERAL MENTAL ENDOWMENT 71

Another point has a similar educational bearing. It
is that instincts are stronger at one period than at another,
and if they do not lead to action when they are in the
nascent and growing stages any later attempt to evoke
them is likely to fail. A child who has never been called
on to let his altruistic instincts find expression in deeds
of kindness is likely when a man to experience no sym-
pathetic emotions strong enough to call forth much effort
for the good of others.

Unless in the various circumstances of life inner
impulses were felt, life could not even begin. And
unless each of those impulses had a specific, though not
a particular, direction, energy would be frittered away in
ineffective outputs of activity, for we cannot act in
general. Thus, instinct is fundamental and permeates
all life. It is instinct which supplies the motive power ;
it is intelligence which more or less directs that power
into effective channels. Especially is this manifest with
a child, in whose conduct intelligence counts but little in
comparison with impulse. But even with the wise adult
instinct has sway, though it may be overlooked because
reason guides the conduct to which it impels. Always
there is something more than reason in the attraction we
feel towards particular lines of action. "Speaking
generally, man is only in part conscious of his own pur-
poses in their real meaning and value. It is his own
nature — of which, after all, he only knows the surface —
which sets him his purpose, and impels him to carry it
out." l

Every instinct is more or less specific. It is a special
method of meeting particular situations, or calls for
action. The adaptation due to intelligence takes the

1 Hobhouse : Of. cit. p. 75.

72 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

two-fold form of increasing the range of origin and of
modifying the mode of reaction.

Events do not happen in life in isolation, nor do they
disappear and leave no trace behind. Thus, our experi-
ences get bound together, and a recurrence of one may
recall to mind others which in some points resemble it,
or which formerly occurred with it. Nor is this result
merely intellectual. If the original experience moved
us, we are moved similarly, though generally less
strongly, by its recall. In this way an instinct may be
aroused by some thing or event or even remembrance
which did not originally awaken it. A picture of a loved
friend will, for example, immediately evoke the instinct
of tenderness, while something which reminds us of an
enemy may arouse anger. The remembrance of an occa-
sion when one made oneself conspicuously ridiculous
gives one a very effective repetition of the feeling of
shame which attended the original mistake. A horse
shies at a coat by the side of the road : the original
instinct was to avoid a crouching animal, but it has
acquired a sufficiently wide reference to be called into
play by anything which has the same general appearance.
Such extensions greatly enrich our lives. The original
reference of our instincts was, doubtless, in every case to
something which affected our bodily welfare. By exten-
sion to associated and analogous experiences they are
made responsive to what may be called moral, as distinct
from physical, occasions.

The corresponding increase on the side of expression
has been more generally recognized. It is, of course,
limited by structure. In fleeing from a pursuing dog a
rabbit does not take to the water nor attempt to climb a
tree. But within such limits the more intelligent the

GENERAL MENTAL ENDOWMENT 73

animal the greater is the variety of instinctive response. A
dog when threatened with a whip will make a great many
different movements, all expressive of the instinctive fear
which animates him. With man the forms of instinctive
reactions are often determined by social customs. When
the instinct to fight seeks to find expression in act, an
Englishman raises his fists, an Irishman flourishes his
shillelagh, an American draws his revolver, an Italian flies
to his knife, a Frenchman arranges a duel with swords or
pistols. In more sedate circles the same instinct may
find expression in a law suit, while among the saints of
the earth it may take the negative form of ' ' heaping
coals of fire on the enemy's head."

Thus, in the ever-changing life of man, while the
emotional nucleus of an instinct remains broadly con-
stant, both the means of arousing the instinctive feeling
and the forms in which it finds expression are very varied
and are much generalized. This is important in the
development of human experience, for it may happen
that several instincts are evoked by a given set of circum-
stances, and then tend to become compounded or fused.
Thus arise more and more complex emotions influencing
conduct in more and more complex ways, sometimes,
indeed, impelling one in incompatible directions. It is,
then, to the emotional impulses we must look if we
would understand the instincts of man.

Perhaps the time may come when these instincts may
be thought as worthy of careful and systematic study as
those of spiders or of ants. At present the amount of
scientific observation which has been devoted to the
human instincts is much smaller than has been lavished
on those of the lower animals. So much, indeed, is this
the case that there is no thorough-going agreement as

74 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

to what instincts man has. Darwin, taking instinctive
behaviour as the test, thought that ' ' man, perhaps, has
somewhat fewer instincts than those possessed by the
animals which come next to him in the series."1 On
the other hand, the late William James, holding that
every innate tendency is an instinct, wrote "no other
mammal, not even the monkey, shows so large an
array."2

Certainly, taking account of the adaptations of which
we have just spoken, man's modes of instinctive be-
haviour are very varied, but, as has been said, this does
not carry with it an equal diversity in the emotional
propensities which are the central and constant parts of
instincts. Failure to connect instinctive actions with
primary emotions has led both to disagreement as to the
number of human instincts and to the frequent reduction
of the psychology of the emotions to little more than
hortatory description. M.Ribot3 and Mr. McDougall4
have done good service in insisting that the emotion
and the instinctive act are always parts of one and the
same life-process, and to their writings this part of our
discussion owes much. The attempt to classify instinc-
tive acts is, then, subsumed under that of trying to
distinguish the elementary emotions, that is, those which
cannot be reduced to simpler forms. The number of
these is certainly limited.

We see in every original human instinct a full mental
process which develops with experience and repetition till
it is easy to find within it the aspects of knowing, feeling,
and willing, which at first are obscure and confused.
Even in adult life these are not separable in fact but only

1 'Descent of Man, chap. 3. 2 "Principles ofPsychology, vol. ii. p. 441 .
3 La TsyMogif des Sentiments. 4 An Introduction to Social Tsychology.

GENERAL MENTAL ENDOWMENT 75

distinguishable in thought. We cannot feel emotion
without being prompted to act, and we can neither feel
nor desire except in reference to something of which we
are cognisant. One factor, no doubt, may be tem-
porarily dominant. A burst of emotion may sweep
away all considerations of prudence and cause one to
depart altogether from the line of conduct one has deter-
mined to follow. Or a feeling which has become the
ruling passion in life may bind both will and intelligence
to its chariot wheels so that they are used mainly, if not
exclusively, in its service. Yet though intelligence and
will then play less than their normal parts, in neither
case are they absent. They put the brake on the violent
emotion, and they keep the passion within more or less
legitimate bounds. Similarly, a student at work may
be mainly putting forth an activity essentially intellec-
tual, yet his impulse to do this work remains throughout
an undercurrent which really determines the course of his
thoughts. And that impulse is both emotional and
volitional. Or lastly, a person may be fully engrossed
in carrying out a purpose, say, in winning a race. Yet
intelligence is there as a quiet guide, leading him to
avoid obstacles and to make the required turns ; and
unless he were impelled by such feelings as desire to win,
to surpass his competitors, or to test or exhibit his speed
and endurance, he would not have engaged in the race
at all.

In every act, then, all three fundamental aspects may
be distinguished. But they are not independent elements
entering in various proportions into different combina-
tions. Each is dependent on the others and interpene-
trated by them, and in themselves they are nothing
but the abstract results of our analysis of concrete mental

76 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

life Often, indeed, we cannot make the distinction
with any certainty or definiteness. Take one's attitude
towards a beautiful work of art. Can one separate the
emotional from the intellectual elements in one's admira-
tion, or say how the whole is permeated by volition ?

As life develops the connexion between intelligence
and instinct becomes closer. The instinctive propulsion
towards certain modes of acting remains, but experience
and intelligence act upon it till blind craving becomes
deliberate purpose and impulsive act is absorbed in
planned conduct. "So that human life is permeated
through and through with instinctive action, determined
in part, however, by intelligence and volition."1

The most elementary instincts are those directly con-
nected with the preservation of life, and these are the
first to show their presence in the life of the infant. The
earliest of all is the instinctive seeking for food prompted
by the feeling of hunger. It may be objected that
hunger is not an emotion but an appetite. The distinc-
tion implied is that emotion is mental and appetite
bodily. It has, of course, long been recognized that
when an emotion is experienced there are bodily mani-
festations, either in outward act and gesture or in some
kind of disturbance of the vital processes. But these
were held to be the results of the emotion, and to follow
it. A recent theory — associated with the names of
Lange and James — exactly reverses the traditional order.
According to this theory the outward event or inward
thought which occasions the emotion first leads to bodily
disturbance, and the emotion is the echo of this in con-
sciousness. Each theory seems to set the mental and the
bodily too far apart. It would seem a truer view that
1 Wundt : Lectures on Human and Animal Psychology, p. 397.

GENERAL MENTAL ENDOWMENT 77

the mental and the bodily disturbances arise together,
and that each is one half of the total reaction of the whole
man on the circumstances. Adopting this view the
distinction between appetite and emotion becomes
merely one of origin. An appetite is due to a certain
state of some of the vital organs : an emotion arises on
the presence to consciousness of something in the
external world, or of the memory of such an external
stimulus. Each is a disturbance both of mental calm
and of regular vital functioning.

Further, it may be remarked that such an appetite as
hunger and thirst develops in the course of life to what
is undoubtedly emotion. As experience widens the
impulse to seek food for oneself enlarges, by union with
other instincts, into all those wide-reaching desires and
purposes which are connected with the support and
advancement of one's family. Of course, the primordial
appetite remains, but it is only the nucleus of a broad
set of tendencies.

The second instinct surely seen in the infant is that of
fear. This manifests itself in a shrinking from the
feared object and in a cry which the mother can dis-
tinguish from those of anger and of bodily discomfort.
As soon as the child can run the shrinking develops into
flight and concealment. There is thus a double bodily
reaction ; for while fear by itself tends to paralyse activity
and is~ marked by lessened heart-beat and respiration,
flight needs increased activity which causes accelerated
respiration and circulation. Yet this increase is not
normal. The heart throbs painfully and the breath is
short and hurried — the child running away in fear pants
rather than breathes. This shows that both the stimu-
lating influence of rapid movement and the inhibition

78 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

which attends the fear are operative and are inter-
fering with each other. When the fear is intense, the
inhibition may prevail. Birds are said to be ' fascinated '
by certain snakes, which means that fear has entirely
inhibited flight. So a man stands appalled before a
great and irretrievable disaster. If the heart be weak
great fear may cause death, and even with normal lives
the same extreme case of inhibition is not unknown.

Fear is provoked by what seems to threaten, but it
is proportioned not only to the amount of danger appre-
hended but to the extent of loss the feared act would
bring if it were accomplished. For example, a man is
apt to fear robbery more than usual when he has a con-
siderable sum of money in his possession, even though
the real danger is no greater than at other times. Simi-
larly, ' ' whether the height on which we stand be elevated
only a few feet, or have beneath it a precipitous abyss
of a thousand fathoms, our footing, if all other circum-
stances be the same, is in itself equally sure. Yet,
though we look down without any fear on the gentle
slope in the one case, we shrink back in the other case
with painful dismay." l

Fear has played an important part in the history of
the race. In our admiration of courage we are apt to
lose sight of the fact that at times "discretion is the
better part of valour," and that to avoid dangers is
sometimes the only way to escape them. If this be so in
civilized society it was obviously yet more so in those
early days when each man carried his life in his hand,
threatened not only by his fellows but by beasts and by
forces of nature of the powers of which he was ignorant
and behind which he imagined spirits generally malig-
1 Brown : Thilosophy of the Human Mind, lecture 65.

GENERAL MENTAL ENDOWMENT 79

nant. Hence arose that instinctive dread of the un-
known which still shows itself plainly in children, which
ever predisposed mankind to superstition, and which still
to some extent haunts the minds of most of us. Many an
adult who really disbelieves in ghosts would yet shrink
instinctively — no matter what his intelligence might say
— from passing a night alone in a room in which a foul
murder is known to have been committed and in which
the victim is reported to appear at a certain hour. The
fear of ignorance is often apparent in the vague antici-
pation of hardships and dangers which many a timorous
woman feels on behalf of a relative or friend who is about
to go into a distant land.

As fear is an original part of our nature it is impossible,
even were it desirable, to eradicate it. The educational
task is to attach it to those things, and to those only,
that are worthy of being feared. Thus from physical
shrinking it may be developed into moral sensitiveness.
Intelligence, exercised on increased knowledge and
prompted by example and suggestion, is the one instru-
ment for effecting the transformation.

This leads us to the social value of fear. Had man
not known fear, society would have been impossible,
for society involves the enforcement of obedience to laws
and rules. It has been said that all society rests ulti-
mately on force. Certainly with all promiscuous societies
the world has yet seen this is the case. Some members
are restrained — if restrained at all — from violence and
lawlessness only by fear of imprisonment or of execution.
Only in more select and smaller communities is the
moral fear of social disapproval of wrong-doing a
sufficient curb, while only the choicest spirits are inde-
pendent even of this, and feel fear only at the wrong-

8o THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

doing itself. In most minds these two forms of moral
fear are combined in varying proportions. Whether or
no the fear of physical force be present, this moral fear
is essential to every society. In primitive communities
it is connected with the dread of the unknown, "that
awe of the Divine Nemesis which was felt by religious
pagans, and, though it took a more positive form under
Christianity, is still felt by the mass of mankind simply
as a vague fear at anything which is called wrong-doing.
Such terror of the unseen is so far above mere sensual
cowardice that it will annihilate that cowardice : it is
the initial recognition of a moral law restraining desire,
and checks the hard bold scrutiny of imperfect thought
into obligations which can never be proved to have any
sanctity in the absence of feeling. ' It is good ', sing
the old Eumenides, in Aeschylus, 'that fear should sit
as the guardian of the soul, forcing it into wisdom —
good that men should carry a threatening shadow in their
hearts under the full sunshine ; else, how should they
learn to revere the right?' That guardianship may
become needless ; but only when all outward law has
become needless — only when duty and love have united
in one stream and made a common force." 1

Fear has its place, then, in school as in other com-
munities. But it should be fear of wrong-doing, not
mere fear of personal suffering. It should rather be
an unconscious factor in the determination of conduct
guarding from wrong acts, than a dominant and insistent
motive prompting to right acts. For we have seen that
fear tends to inhibit activity, and that is even more true
of the mental than of the bodily forms of activity.
A child terrorized by threat of punishment — which all
1 George Eliot : Romola, ch. 1 1.

GENERAL MENTAL ENDOWMENT 81

too frequent experience assures him may be confidently
expected to be carried into execution — is simply inhibited
from thinking or remembering. His brain is numbed.
And it must be borne in mind that there are weak as well
as strong natures, and that defect of physical tone predis-
poses to all the emotions characteristic of weakness.
"In a weakened organism fear is always in a nascent
condition." l On the other hand, on some children such
threats may have no other effect than to arouse resent-
ment. These are the matter-of-fact little people who
do not bother their heads with representations of the
future. Always they despise every danger which is not
immediately present, for they really do not see the risks.
Much of what is commonly called physical courage, as
distinguished from moral courage, is rooted in such
insensibility. "In many persons the absence of fear
only amounts to the absence of imagination." 2

Lastly it may be noted how an attitude of fear towards
parent or teacher shuts out the child from that intimate
personal communication without which there is no real
training of character. In . other words, a parent or
teacher who inspires real personal fear has little or no
true influence over his child. Dickens has well re-
marked : ' ' Few people know what secrecy there is in the
young under terror. No matter how unreasonable the
terror, so that it be terror." 3

What threatens does not, however, always arouse fear
or prompt to flight. If the danger seem small, or if
the individual threatened be bold and energetic, he feels
anger, and is prompted to express that feeling in some
form of aggressive action. This pugnacity is much

^ibot : Psychology of the Emotions, Eng. trans, p. 212. *lbld.

3 Great Expectations, ch. 2.
w. F

82 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

more marked in some races than in others — in the Sikhs,
for example, much more than in the Bengali. Nor do
individuals of the same race differ less among themselves.
Thus, what provokes fear in one may arouse anger and
resistance in another.

The organic concomitants of anger are the opposite
to those of fear. There is acceleration of respiration and
heart-beat, the face generally flushes, the muscles are
braced, often the teeth and the fists are clenched. A
general appearance of restrained tenseness marks the
emotion so long as it does not find vent in violent speech
or action. Yet the innervation is spasmodic, as is shown
by the raucous voice, by the abortive movements of the
hands and arms, and sometimes by the pallor of the face
following upon, or taking the place of, the usual flush-
ing. Tracing these back to their origin in the history
of the race Spencer says: "What we call the natural
language of anger is due to a partial contraction of
those muscles which actual combat would call into play ;
and all marks of irritation down to that passing shade
over the brow which accompanies slight annoyance, are
incipient stages of these same contractions." l

No emotion is so liable to get beyond control as that
of anger. The reference to the self is extremely inti-
mate, and the instinct of self-assertion, with which we
shall deal presently, is likely to be awakened with it and
to add a cumulative force. Nor can anger be directly
and immediately controlled by reason. True, its mode
of expression may be changed, but in the change the
two instincts together are likely to develop into such
complex and more permanent emotions as hatred or
envy, and the impulse to aggression to be transmuted

^•Principles of Psychology, part ix. ch. 7.

GENERAL MENTAL ENDOWMENT 83

into the purpose of revenge. The only effective way
to check anger is to arouse another and opposed instinct,
such as the general one of tender regard for others or
the more specific one of love for an individual, each of
which finds expression in acts of kindness instead of in
those of hostility. The struggle of anger and love in
a passionate soul is powerfully exemplified in Othello :

" Ay, let her rot, and perish, and be damned to-night ; for
she shall not live : no, my heart is turned to stone ; I strike
it, and it hurts my hand. O the world hath not a sweeter
creature." l

And again, when he kisses Desdemona immediately
before he smothers her:

" Ah, balmy breath, that dost almost persuade
Justice to break her sword ! One more, one more :
Be thus when thou art dead, and I will kill thee,
And love thee after : one more, and this the last :
So sweet was ne'er so fatal. I must weep,
But they are cruel tears : this sorrow's heavenly ;
It strikes where it doth love." 2

When restrained within due limits, however, anger
plays an important part both in the individual life and
in social relationships. As self-control is developed, the
emotion, when excited by non-personal obstacles, be-
comes a source of energy and an impulse towards the
overcoming of difficulties. In common parlance we
should not speak of it then as anger ; indeed we have
no special name for it. But the action to which it
prompts is aggressive, and the feeling towards what
hinders us is always of the same general nature, whether
the hindrance be due to the action of another or to the
obstinacy of things.

1 Act iv. sc. I. 8 Act v. sc. 2.

84 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

The extension of anger to acts which do not affect
oneself is commonly called indignation. At the root this
is anger compounded with tenderness for the sufferer.
"If it were in our power to trace back our emotions
through the whole long period of our life, to our boy-
hood and our infancy, we should find, probably, that
our most vivid feelings of early resentment, if I may
use that term in such a case, were not so much what is
commonly termed anger, as what is more commonly
termed indignation. Our deep and lasting wrath in our
nursery is not against any one who exists around us,
but against the cruel tyrant, or the wicked fairy, or the
robber, or the murderer, in some tale or ballad. Little
generosity in after-life can be expected from him who,
on first hearing, as he leans on his mother's knee, the
story of the Babes in the Wood, has felt no swell of
anger, almost to bursting of the heart, against the
'guardian uncle fierce', and who does not exult in the
punishment which afterwards falls on that treacherous
murderer, with a triumph more delightful than is felt
by the most vindictive in the complete gratification of
their own personal revenge." x

When it is considered further that similar feelings
may be excited in all, or most, members of a community
when a cruel crime is committed, and that what we feel
in common with others we feel most strongly, we see
how this generalized anger takes the form of social
punishment, or retributive justice.

The existence of the next two instincts was first recog-
nized by M. Ribot, who called them positive and
negative self-feeling. They play, however, a very
important part in the development of life. We get

1 Brown : Op. cit. lecture 63.

GENERAL MENTAL ENDOWMENT 85

nearer to ordinary speech if we term them self-assertion
and self-abasement. They are somewhat akin to anger
and fear respectively, and are often excited with them.
But they are by no means the same ; for while anger and
fear are centred in others these are essentially concerned
with the self. The former has for its organic concomi-
tants a general heightening of vital functions, and
expresses itself in an expansion of the whole body which
" swells with pride ". The latter has exactly the opposite
characteristics. Each is excited by comparison of oneself
with some other person or thing. In the one case we
feel ourselves superior, in the other case inferior. The
cock strutting in the farm-yard and the child calling
upon all and sundry to "see me do this" are examples
of simple forms of self-assertion. The same child
shrinking under reproof and the shame of detec-
tion in a forbidden deed manifests the opposite
instinct.

The former is obviously the root from which may
spring pride and vanity as well as true self-respect.
United with the energy of pugnacity it brings man into
rivalry with his fellows. Then we have emulation, or
the impulse to try to excel, which is so important an
incentive to effort. The boy learns to delight in his
superior strength and skill, as does the man in his
eminent intellect or in his conspicuous worldly success.
Unmodified by kindly feeling towards others emulation
may easily degenerate into envy and malice, but kept
within legitimate bounds it is a spur which is needed
by the vast majority of mankind.

Self-abasement has its part to play as a corrective to
excess of self-assertion. To esteem oneself at one's
real worth — neither over-estimating in pride nor under-

86 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

estimating in unreal humility — is the true wisdom of
life.

Individuals differ in the strength of these two
instincts. The well-balanced mind which estimates both
self and others at their real relative values is rare.
Education should try to reduce undue self-confidence
and to mitigate undue self-depreciation. In each case
the means is obviously such comparison with the work
of others as will bring home to the child the true worth
of his efforts. For a morbid self-assertiveness renders
a man anti-social. Too high an esteem for self easily
passes into contempt for others which is akin to hatred.
On the other hand, no energetic service is to be expected
from an individual who hesitates constantly in self-
distrust, shivering on the brink of every enterprise. He
also, in his negative way, is an " enemy to the republic."

As at times each one of us is brought into relation
both with our superiors and with our inferiors it is
certain that in every life there is occasion for the activity
of both these instincts. It is evil, however, when the
one takes the form of bullying the weak and the other
that of cringing to the strong. Few people are more
contemptible than the Uriah Heeps of this world.

The primary emotions we have so far considered are
egoistic. They make for the good of the self but do
not prompt to action for the good of others. The latter
tendency is, however, as innate as the former, and shows
itself very early in the baby's smile of recognition of
its mother and in the caressing touch. The child then
gives the first sign that it is beginning to distinguish
between itself and its surroundings. Hitherto its
experience has not made even this primary differentia-
tion.

GENERAL MENTAL ENDOWMENT 87

In the history of the race, and in comparison with
the lower animals, the original form of a tender regard
for others is found in maternal love. That this, in its
primitive form, is still a strong impulse in girls is proved
by their delight in 'mothering' children younger than
themselves and in playing with dolls.

The first extension of this maternal instinct probably
made it parental. Little paternal love exists among the
lower animals, and in the primitive races of mankind the
tie is very weak. It would thus seem to be an extension
of the primary instinct of maternal love, originating
through the establishment of permanent family relations.
Similarly, extension to other members of society could
only be made when mankind began to live in peaceful
communities bound together by relations of mutual
help.

Many attempts have been made to deny that altruism
is a true spring of conduct, and to reduce every act to
one of self-love. "Self-love is the spring of all our
actions and determinations" said Voltaire, and this was
the favourite doctrine of those eighteenth century philo-
sophers who proudly called themselves the 'Enlightened.'
The same doctrine has been advanced many times since.
"Tender feeling is as purely self-seeking as any other
pleasure, and makes no enquiry as to the feelings of
the beloved personality," wrote Dr. Bain.1 Of course,
as it is a primary emotion, it can only be known by being
felt. If any individual can truly affirm that he has never
felt any tenderness towards others, obviously no one can
confute him. But if he imagine that he has thus estab-
lished a general truth it is as if a man born blind were
to deny the existence of light and colour and all that
1 The Emotions and the Will, p. 80.

88 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

sight gives the normal man. Human nature would,
indeed, be a poor thing were altruism not an original
ingredient in it. Out of so simple an emotion develops,
in various circumstances, sympathy, gratitude, pity,
benevolence : indeed, all that really binds man to man
and makes life worth living.

The close connexion of tender feeling with pugnacity
must be noted. When the chicks are attacked the
mother-hen, timid as she usually is, will show fight.
The same holds throughout. Anger and indignation
are as surely moved by an injury to one we love as by
an attack on ourselves. If, in addition to love, there
is also a protective feeling due to the weakness of the
loved one as compared with ourselves the anger is even
more easily aroused and is less easily abated. Do not
our hearts burn within us when we hear of cruel treat-
ment of a child ? Indeed, do we not so overflow with
tender emotion and anger that we are indignant with
any cruelty, whether its object be one of ourselves or
one of the lower animals ? Who has not seen the little
child weep in compassion over an injured toy? Was
such weeping due to self-love? we would ask the
advocates of universal egoism.

We have, then, in the union of anger and tenderness
those outpourings of indignation which we have already
considered. Anger guards what tender feeling cherishes.

The last of the instincts to be developed is that of
sex. This, like hunger, has its basis in an organic
appetite, and with many of the lower animals it has not
advanced beyond that stage. In the higher vertebrates,
however, there is conjoined with it that attraction of
individuals of opposite sex for each other which among
men has always been one of the most powerful motive-

GENERAL MENTAL ENDOWMENT 89

forces of conduct, and one of the greatest and most
frequent causes of individual happiness and misery.

The connexion with pugnacity is even more obvious
than in the case of the tender emotion. For sexual love
has an element of self-feeling which is powerful in
proportion as the appetite enters into it. Thus, rivalry
rouses anger against a personal injury and not merely
because of a conviction that the happiness of the loved
one is threatened, though this, well or ill founded, is
regularly present. The jealous man or woman is, of
necessity, an egoist, though the egoism may be mixed
with regard for another, and even concealed by it.

The appearance of this, the most powerful of the
instincts, at the comparatively late age of puberty enables
its manifestations to be studied with greater ease than
those of instincts which are developed earlier. The
child is quite devoid of the instinct ; in the young boy
or girl it is nearly inoperative. At puberty it begins
to show itself by a vague emotional unrest, of the nature
and object of which the boy or girl is naturally unaware.
There is some disturbance relatively to the other sex.
The boy, when not in the presence of girls, is full of
self-assertion in his imagined intercourse with them : in
their presence this commonly gives place to confusion
and bashfulness. The girl generally becomes coy and
self-conscious. In the case of each sex there are occa-
sional lapses into the attitude opposite to the prevalent
one.

Emotionally sex is the richest of the instincts. Con-
sequently, its emergence into activity carries with it a
deepening of the emotional life, a tendency to self-
analysis, a longing for wider and deeper realms of feeling.
So adolescence is the age for enthusiasms ; and, amusing

9o THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

as the enthusiasms of youth may be to the cold-blooded
cynic, ill is it with the soul in which they are not felt.
For enthusiasm supplies a vent for the overflowing
emotions and thus hinders them from being turned back
on themselves and developing that morbid self-con-
sciousness which is the characteristic danger of the years
when the new force within is too great to find issue in
the accustomed channels. If only the enthusiasms be
healthy and be concerned mainly with others they are
good.

An important safeguard, too, is a healthy interest in
bodily exercise, especially in organized co-operative
games. Nor should the effect of giving the elder boys
authority and responsibility in the school community,
and thus supplying a continual outlet for their exuberant
energy, be overlooked.

The instincts of maternal love and of sex are the
foundation on which the whole structure of the family
has been built. In the family the tenderness for others
which first appears as the love of the mother for her
offspring finds its most natural extension.

The union of the two instincts of tender emotion
and anger is increased in strength and force by that innate
tendency of animals of the same kind to live together,
which is found not only in man but in many of the lower
animals, and which, for want of a more beautiful name,
we must perforce call gregariousness. The herrings
swim in schools, the bisons roam in herds, the British
workman foregathers at Margate or at Blackpool, society
has its crushes, and generally, people go where others
go, often for no better reason than that the others do
go. Few can enjoy a solitary country walk, no matter
how beautiful the scenery, and many cannot endure theii

GENERAL MENTAL ENDOWMENT 91

own company even for an hour. Even without conver-
sation the presence of others is felt to be 'company'.
Of the ordinary man it is true that "to be alone is one
of the greatest of evils for him. Solitary confinement
is by many regarded as a mode of torture too cruel and
unnatural for civilized countries to adopt. For one long
pent up on a desert island, the sight of a human foot-
print or a human form in the distance would be the
most tumultuously exciting of experiences." l The
hermit has always been so much the exception among
men that he who avoids the crowd is looked upon with
suspicion and dubbed misanthrope, even though his
heart may overflow with the milk of human kindness
and his good deeds be many if secret.

This instinct of attraction of like for like does not
imply sociability or sympathy, though it is the basis on
which both those complex emotions must be built. The
masses of people that in the evening crowd certain streets
in every large town are not drawn together by kindly
feeling for each other: they are, indeed, a herd of
strangers. Nor are they there because of a common
attraction, such as rows of well-lighted shops, for they
are most in evidence after the shops are closed. It is
simply the same primary impulse which leads sheep to
crowd together in a field. Mr. McDougall pertinently
asks "What proportion of the ten thousand witnesses
of a football match would stand for an hour or more in
the wind and rain, if each man were isolated from the
rest of the crowd and saw only the players ? " 2

We all know, too, the difference it makes to a body
of actors whether the house be full or empty, to a

1 James : Principles of Psychology, vol. ii. p. 430.

2 An Introduction to Social Psychology, p. 86.

92 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

preacher whether a crowded congregation or an array of
empty benches be before him, to a speaker whether he
address a large body of his fellows or have before him
two or three small boys and a dog. It is not that in the
unfavourable cases there is a deliberate choice not to
play or speak well. It is that in the favourable cases
one's powers are really greater. And further, each of
the hearers is affected in a similar way. Men appreciate
best what they hear or see in company. So there is
unconscious emotional interaction, and, as we say, the
general atmosphere is favourable or unfavourable to an
effective result.

The instincts hitherto considered are concerned with
the personal life and with relations to other human
beings. Those we have now to glance at are primarily
operative in dealings with things rather than with people.
The earliest to appear, and the most wide-reaching in
its scope, is curiosity. It may be excited by anything
strange in a familiar setting, and it prompts to a near
and thorough examination of the novelty. Of course,
the new element must not appear to threaten, or fear
will be aroused. Indeed, in the behaviour of a young
child in presence of an unfamiliar person or thing an
alternation of curiosity and fear is often shown. Curiosity
prompts approach ; fear induces withdrawal : we see the
child drawing near and shrinking back as the one or
the other instinct comes to the front.

The essential mental attitude in curiosity is interroga-
tion. The instinct, therefore, prompts to the activity
of discovery. It is the spring of all desire to know,
the origin of all science. For all science is an attempt
to answer the two fundamental questions : What is it ?
What is its use? To foster, guide, and originate

GENERAL MENTAL ENDOWMENT 93

curiosity is the essential work of teaching. Left to
itself, curiosity will fritter away time and energy in
dealing with the new and the trivial. As is admirably
said in an article in The Times l on * Vulgar Curiosity ' :
' ' Curiosity is neither a virtue nor a vice, but one of
the chief forces in human nature, to be praised or blamed
entirely according to the use that is made of it. Like
fire, it is a good servant but a very bad master. It
is a powerful aid to wisdom in those who have a serious
purpose in life ; for without it they are not enriched by
experience or disinterested observation. They make up
their minds too quickly about everything and are apt
to become fanatics. They grow mannered in their
thought, as artists who do not study nature grow man-
nered in their execution. But curiosity is a no less
powerful aid to folly in the frivolous. For in them it
is wandering and uncontrolled. They rely on it to
preserve them from the boredom that is always threaten-
ing them. Provided they are amused by it, they make
no distinction in its object. All they ask is continually
to see some new thing that will divert them, without
calling upon their minds to make any effort. There is
no system in their curiosity, and no connexion between
their experiences. They will turn from one to another,
as monkeys will turn from a nut to a piece of glass, and
from a piece of glass to scratching themselves. All they
ask is that the new stimulus shall be stronger than the
old ; and to each stimulus they present passive minds,
making nothing of any experience. Thus their taste in
experiences grows continually coarser, like the taste of
drunkards in alcohol ; and, like drunkards, they must
satisfy it at all costs. Curiosity, in a mind altogether

1Sept. 2nd, 1910.

94 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

mastered by it, is cruel as the grave, cruel without

passion or pretext

We cannot, nowadays, look on at bodily torture ;
but there is a large public that will go to any trouble to
witness mental torture, and that cares nothing how much

it may increase that torture by its curiosity Thus

they are as cruel as children that pelt a frog, and for
the same reason — namely, that they put their own
pleasure before everything else. This kind of cruelty
comes mainly from want of imagination, and it is a
signal proof that curiosity does not quicken the imagina-
tion unless properly controlled and directed. Yet some
degree of imagination is needed before curiosity can
exist at all. The heartless curiosity of a crowd is
altogether different from the heartless indifference of
animals or idiots. They flock to see a murderer because
murder is a crime that appals them, because they have
a human interest in the extremes of human nature. But
their imagination, like their curiosity, is passive, not
active. It will make no effort on its own account, but
can be quickened only by external excitements ; and so
the noblest of human faculties is perverted into a kind
of intellectual prurience more repulsive than the indiffer-
ence of animals, as ' lilies that fester smell far worse than
weeds.'

"Vulgar curiosity is a besetting sin of our time,
because now we hear so much about everything that
happens. Where a hundred years ago people gossiped
only about their own village, they can now gossip about
the whole world. Village gossip may often be cruel;
but at least it is gossip about people well known to the
gossipers ; and the curiosity that is satisfied by it must
be to some extent humanized and controlled by sympathy

GENERAL MENTAL ENDOWMENT 95

and friendliness. But, when we gossip about people
whom we have never seen, it is very easy for us to forget
that they are human beings and to regard them as mere
spectacles for our amusement."

It is, therefore, a mistake, as serious as it is common,
to believe that the only function of the educator with
regard to children's curiosity is to stimulate it. The
effect of the encouragement of childish curiosity without
any attempt to direct and prune it is shown in the prying
and impertinent questions asked by badly brought-up
boys and girls who are old enough to have learnt that
every personal matter is not common property. Some-
times it takes the more objectionable forms of reading
private letters, of listening at doors, of peeping through
keyholes. Here, as elsewhere, education has to use
the innate impulse, but in using it to prune and
direct it. It is an organ of intelligent knowledge which
is needed, not a mere instrument of sensational enter-
tainment.

Closely united to curiosity are surprise and wonder.
The former has no characteristic emotional tone and no
endurance. It is a mere shock in the presence of the
unexpected. Wonder is often regarded as identical with
curiosity, and the word is at times used to imply that
questioning attitude which marks the full instinct.
Sometimes, however, the questioning is either absent
altogether or very vague and undefined, and this seems
to be the mental attitude to which we most commonly
apply the term 'wonder' as a noun rather than as a
verb. 'I wonder how that is made' at least suggests
some impulse to find out ; but ' The peasants were full
of wonder at the eclipse ' does not imply that they sought
an explanation. Wonder in this sense is content to

96 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

accept the unknown as the inexplicable. From it is
easily developed the emotion of awe, which arises when
the unknown and not-understood impresses by its power.
From curiosity, on the other hand, develops admiration,
which implies appreciation of beauty or skill. There
is thus in admiration an intellectual element which is
not present in awe. In other words, admiration is made
possible by enquiry, awe is content to accept without
question.

Of course, surprise and wonder may be preliminary
stages in the development of curiosity. The skilful
teacher often thus uses them with young children. He
introduces unexpectedly that about which he wishes
them to learn, and awakens surprise. By a question or
two he shows them that they do not understand the
matter. All that is easy. The real educative work is
in the next step — the transmutation of the static wonder
into the dynamic curiosity. When this is not done in
the case of any child the knowledge conveyed to him
belongs to him in the sense in which an adhesive stamp
belongs to the envelope to which it is affixed, not in
the sense in which the new wood belongs to the tree
which makes it.

Very early in life the baby shows an impulse to retain
things which attract him. He cries when the watch
with which he has been playing is taken from him. Of
course, he soon forgets the deprivation, as he will equally
soon ignore the restitution if the object be given back
to him. That is because his mental life is in so formless
a stage ; in the ordinary sense of the word he has no
memory, but is altogether held by the present. In this
acquisitive instinct, however, we have the root of that
desire to obtain and to hold from which has arisen all

GENERAL MENTAL ENDOWMENT 97

man's economic advance. There is no need to teach a
child the idea of personal property ; education has only
to guide it and to bound it by regard for the rights of
others.

The most elementary mode in which personal property
can be acquired is to gather what is valued wherever
it may be found. This tendency is strongly shown in
nearly all boys. In girls it is less frequent and less
permanent. When it does appear in a girl it is often,
perhaps usually, not so much due to an instinct as to
imitation of her brothers. This, presumably, is the
result of evolution. The man has for ages acquired the
family property, while the woman has mainly been
engaged in applying it to the family needs.

The collections which boys make when they are left
to themselves are generally quite worthless ; for even
if the objects themselves be of any value for knowledge,
there is little or no attempt to use them as material to
be studied. The work of education is not to discourage
the instinct to collect, but to unite it with that of
curiosity. Almost any collection can be made of some
use in this way. Even the stamp album may suggest
many questions about the peoples of other lands ; an
arrangement in order of time may yield historical
suggestions, a comparison of face-values may lead to
enquiries as to the postal relations between different
countries.

The collecting form of acquisition when dominant in
adult life becomes a kind of mania. It is an abnormal
and pathological continuation of a youthful form of the
expression of the instinct. The blue china monomaniac,
or the man who spends most of his time and substance
on the acquisition of old Italian violins, is as far removed

98 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

from sane mental development as is the miser who denies
himself the comforts and even the necessaries of life
in order to hoard money. In him the instinct of acquisi-
tion has been diverted from its end to its means ; for
the end is provision for self -conservation.

United with strong self-assertiveness and unchecked
by altruism acquisitiveness leads to inroads on the pro-
perty of others, either directly, as with the thief or the
burglar, or indirectly, as with the promoter of bubble
companies or the fraudulent tradesman. Combined with
the primary appetite for food, with the tender and sexual
emotions, and with self-assertion and pugnacity, it is
evident that it spreads far into life ; it enters strongly
into the desire 'to found a family' and to leave one's
descendants well provided with this world's goods.

Man's instinctive dealings with the world are not
exhausted by the desires to know and to possess. He
is further impelled to turn to use. It is evident that
without this instinct civilization could never have begun.
The savage scoops out a cave, then he builds a hut, he
digs out a boat, he makes tools and weapons. That was
the beginning. The fruition is seen in architecture, in
mighty ships, in wonderful machinery. The instinct to
construct has made possible a development and a satis-
faction of the desire to possess which would have been
otherwise impossible.

In studying the stages of the advance of constructive-
ness we have one of the most easily followed charts of
the way in which an instinctive mode of activity is
modified and extended by the growth of intelligence.
We see further that the growth of knowledge has been
made possible only by the advance of constructive ability.
What is the scientific investigator without his instru-

GENERAL MENTAL ENDOWMENT 99

ments ? Slow and halting was the advance of knowledge
before man's powers of intelligence were applied to the
construction of telescopes, microscopes, and balances.

It would seem, then, that the instinct of construction
is of the very first importance in the life of man ; that
without it man could have advanced but a very little
way in knowledge or in wealth. How strange a com-
mentary on this truth — proved abundantly not only by
psychology but by history — is the traditional practice of
schools. They appeal simply to mental activity, ignor-
ing the child's instinct to deal actively and constructively
with things and in so dealing to satisfy and excite his
curiosity at one and the same time. This has for cen-
turies been the common scholastic practice, and because of
it most of the real education of man has been attained
outside the schools. When boys after leaving school
went, as a rule, to learn some more or less skilled handi-
craft, and girls were trained in household work by their
mothers, the constructive instinct was not without an
educative outlet. Now, when so many lads become
errand boys and girls learn to despise housewifery, this
provision for the activity of the instinct is withdrawn
from many, especially of those who live in towns. The
country child is called on out of school to do many
things about farm or garden which bring the instinct
into play, and if he remain in the country after his school
days are ended he is much more likely to learn some real
constructive work than is the town boy. During school-
days the latter roams the streets when not in school ;
after school-days he too often drifts by insensible degrees
towards the unemployable. The application of psycho-
logy could not take a more fruitful form than the
recognition in practice that intellectual activity divorced

ioo THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

from physical dealing with things loses half its strength
and more than half its utility.

All the above innate impulses seem to be certainly
instincts, as each of them fulfils the conditions of show-
ing a definite emotional state as its nucleus and of having
specific, though in some cases wide, modes of excitement
and of expression. Other innate tendencies which are
sometimes classed as instincts are wanting in this specific
quality. Such are play, imitation, and sympathy. So,
too, joy and sadness are not specific emotions, but are
rather qualities which attach to any and every emotion.
There may be a sad curiosity, as when one asks about
the death of a friend, or a joyful curiosity, as when one
enquires into the particulars of some unexpected good
fortune. A youth in love is sad or gay according to
the demeanour of the fair one. Certainly, few people
can easily imagine a joyous hunger, yet, I suppose, such
a condition would not be strange to many a fasting
ascetic. A kind of delicious fear is also by no means
an unknown state of feeling, as when one reads or hears
a thrilling story

" of most disastrous chances,
Of moving accidents by flood and field,
Of hair-breadth 'scapes i' the imminent deadly breach,
Of being taken by the imo'ent foe,
And sold to slavery." l

In discussing instincts, then, we have not exhausted
inborn tendencies, but only those of which the special
character indicates physiologically a predisposition to a
specific nerve-circuit, and psychologically a tendency
to meet certain kinds of situations in certain broadly
definite ways.

1 Othello, act i. sc. 3.

CHAPTER V
VARIATIONS IN MENTAL ENDOWMENT

THAT all the instincts and general tendencies discussed
in the last chapter are common to normal men is in no
way inconsistent with the patent fact that mankind pre-
sents much diversity. Indeed, the explanation of natural
endowment by heredity accounts for such differences.
For an individual inherits his qualities from the whole
line of his ancestry. Only brothers and sisters have
the same ancestral line, and in each case this is crossed
with another line for their children. Nor does heredity
mean that a child reproduces one of its parents, or presents
a combination of both. It may show some qualities of
one remote ancestor, some of another, always in a fresh
combination. The transmission of qualities and pro-
pensities should be thought rather under the figure of
continually new chemical combinations than under that
of a series of mechanical mixtures in which units of
endowment are united into various totalities. Hence,
we may be confident that no two persons will be exactly
alike.

On the other hand, it follows that people descended
from ancestries that have much in common will exhibit
certain general characteristics. Here we have the ex-
planation of the marked distinctions between races and
nations. A people living in a limited area, intermarry-

102 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

ing much among themselves and little with the outside
world, would of necessity find a good deal in common
if the ancestral trees of all its members could be traced
back for several centuries. Take the case of our own
country. For eight and a half centuries England has
suffered no foreign invasion, and peaceful foreign immi-
grations have been few and local. The present population,
then, must be descended from ancestors whose number
would form but a very small percentage of its own.
The smallness of this number cannot be estimated from
the totality of population at any former period, for from
that would have to be deducted all those whose lines
of descent have died out. Although, then, it is not
possible to draw out such a plan of the ancestry of any
Englishman of to-day as would trace back his descent in
every possible ramification, yet it is obvious that such
a scheme would meet and intermingle with those of other
Englishmen in an indefinitely large number of points.

We may go further and explain in the same way the
general resemblances which mark the inhabitants of one
part of the country and separate them from those of
another — the men of Yorkshire from those of Devon.
Till recent years interchange of inhabitants between
different parts of the country was rare, and still is com-
paratively infrequent in rural districts. So, while the
inhabitants of our great towns, drawn as they are from
all quarters, show many common characteristics and
continually fewer peculiarities, the peasantry still offer
examples of the old local colour.

Further, during centuries a nation lives under the
same human conditions. Each generation enters into the
whole systems of ideas, beliefs, interests, and sentiments,
accepts them, and passes them on. Thus in course

VARIATIONS IN MENTAL ENDOWMENT 103

of time is built up the soul or mind of the nation, as
distinct from the minds of its individual citizens — that
national way of viewing life, which more or less orients
each individual outlook. Here, then, is another way
in which heredity works. Each individual inherits not
only his personal qualities and impulses but the spiritual
air in which they will be exercised, the intellectual and
moral nutriment they will receive, the ideas with which
they will be clothed.

How great in fact is the conjoint result of these inter-
acting forces is seen at once when we call to mind the
very essential and fundamental differences between the
Eastern and the Western worlds. We are friendly allies
of the Japanese, but anyone who has studied Bushido
must realize — without at all prejudicing the question of
better or worse — how different are the Japanese concep-
tions of life and of duty from our own.

When we come nearer home we recognize that each
nation of Western Europe has specific characteristics,
each lives its life in a different spirit. This determines
the genius of the national languages, and explains how
it is that a translation can never give the essence of
literature which expresses not facts but aspirations, not
reasonings but ideals and longings. Not the speech of
the mouth only but the very hopes of the heart are
different by just those impalpable shades which refuse to
be conveyed in any idiom but their own.

How far national mental and moral tendencies, as
distinguished from the forms in which they find expres-
sion, are transmitted by heredity, and how far they are
simply absorbed afresh by each new generation, is a
matter of doubt and dispute. Dr. Archdall Reid says :
"If the child of refined and educated English parents

io4 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

were reared from birth by African cannibals, then in body,
when grown, he would resemble his progenitors more
than his trainers. Does anyone believe that the same
would be true of his mind ? . . . The English child we
imagined as reared by African savages would certainly
display no hint of the language and general knowledge
of his parents, no tincture of their moral, social, religious,
and political ideals and aspirations. He would ruth-
lessly murder and enjoyingly eat the stranger. He
would harry the stranger's property and annex the
stranger's wives by the wool of their heads whenever
practical. He would treat his own wives as beasts of
burden, and perhaps thrash them as a matter of routine.
His aesthetic ideals would be satisfied by a little paint,
some beads, and plenty of grease ; his moral ideas by a
homicidal devotion to the tribal chief. His god would
be the tribal fetish, to whom he would offer human
sacrifices. He would go naked and unashamed." J
This may largely be granted, for it specifies modes and
fashions of outward conduct. There can be no doubt
that the hypothetical individual would be a savage, with
savage ideas and customs. Yet the question seems to
remain whether there would be no difference between
him and the other savages, whether he would not be an
English savage after all. Would he, for example, be
more easily and thoroughly converted from his savagery
than his companions who were descended from genera-
tions of savage ancestry? I do not pretend to answer
the question, and yet it seems that by analogy such an
expectation would not be in any way absurd. A French
child, born and brought up in England does not become
an English child. It indeed speaks English, and may
1 The Laws of Heredity, p. 420.

VARIATIONS IN MENTAL ENDOWMENT 105

be English in all that it has received from without. But
it has received all in a French mind, and there remains a
subtle differentiating shade which we recognize as the
French spirit. An intensely interesting field of enquiry
is here open to competent observers. Moreover it is a
most important field ; for no adequate understanding of
the individual is possible unless his development can be
examined in both its factors — the inherited nature and
the inherited society with all its traditions, its views of
life, its aspirations. It is, however, a region into which
very few such enquirers have as yet ventured.

Even were I able, it would not be necessary to try to
set forth the mental qualities even of the chief nations of
Western Europe. Our aim is to gain such an under-
standing of English children as will enable us to educate
them as well as in us lies. This purpose is here met if
we have some working knowledge of the general mental
characteristics of Englishmen ; that is, of the general mind
which is so potent in moulding each individual mind.

Burns' aspiration was

" Oh wad some power the gifcie gie us
To see oursels as ithers see us ! "

We can have that advantage, for that pioneer of social
psychology, Dr. Gustave Le Bon, has given a sketch of
what appear to him to be our national characteristics.
He says : " The dominant notes of this mental constitu-
tion from the point of view of character are : a mass of
will which very few peoples, save perhaps the ancient
Romans, have possessed, an indomitable energy, a very
strong initiative, an absolute self-mastery, a sentiment
of independence pushed even to the verge of excessive
unsociability, a forceful activity, very active religious

106 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

feelings, a very stable morality, a very precise idea of
duty.

From the intellectual point of view, no special char-
acteristics can be given, no peculiar elements indicated
which cannot be found in other civilized peoples.
One can scarcely note more than a sound judgement
which seizes on the practical and positive side of things
and does not lose itself in chimerical researches, a very
lively interest in facts and but a moderate taste for
general ideas, a certain narrowness of mind which makes
it difficult to see the weak sides of religious beliefs, and
so removes those beliefs beyond the range of discussion.

"To these general characteristics must be added that
complete optimism of the man whose path in life is
clear, and who never imagines he could choose a better,
who always knows what his country, his family, and his
gods expect of him. This optimism is pushed to the
point of regarding as well worthy of contempt all that is
foreign This contempt for the foreigner is doubt-
less, from a philosophical point of view, a sentiment of
a very low order: but from the point of view of the
prosperity of a people it is of the greatest value

"All the qualities which have just been enumerated
are found in the most diverse social classes ; no element
of the English civilization can be discovered on which
their solid impress has not been stamped." l

Perhaps we may add to this, as one of the elements of
national character of which we are most proud, that love
of ' fair play ' which we like to think flourishes among us
more strongly than elsewhere — an idea which certainly
derives some support from the fact that no other language
has an exactly equivalent term.

1 Lois psychologists de Ftvolution det feufles, pp. 107-109.

VARIATIONS IN MENTAL ENDOWMENT 107

The educational bearings are two-fold. In the first
place, having decided how far this picture of ourselves
is a true one, we are at least conscious of the points of
national character all would wish to see strengthened,
and of those which it would be well to try to soften.
In the second place, the recognition that other peoples
have equally well-marked national characteristics should
make plain to us the futility of trying to transplant in
their entirety foreign educational ideas and methods to
our own land. We may get suggestions from Germany
or from France, but the application must be determined
by our own national needs and our own national char-
acter. ' ' The education of one people evidently cannot
be adapted in all its details to another, but one may
always learn much by studying those details." l

The distinctions of race are generic. We know that
within them there is infinite individual variety. "Not
only one man is unlike another, but every man is essen-
tially different from every other, so that no training, no
forming, nor informing, will ever make two persons alike
in thought or in power." 2

No one, probably, is less liable than a teacher to be
led away by sentiment to accept that most fantastic of
all the eighteenth century philosophical fables — that all
men are equal. He has constant experience that the
children before him are unequal in all bodily and mental
qualities, and that as they grow older these inequalities,
far from disappearing, accentuate themselves. But
personal differences cannot be separated from life. The
boy who is healthy and able, of strong will and of per-
severing character, earns more of the good things of the

1 Le Bon : Psychologie de I' Education, pp. 116-1 17.
- Ruskin : Stones of Venice, vol. iii. ap. 7.

io8 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

school than does his weaker school-fellow. The same
qualities will mean greater success for him in the world.
While the weak and vacillating man is waiting for
"something to turn up", the strong man bends the
present to his will, and presses forward to his object.
As Bacon said, "A wise man will make more oppor-
tunities than he finds." So nothing can make men
equal either in their nature or in their opportunities ;
for what is opportunity to one is impassable barrier to
another. Nor can the output of their lives be
equalized except through the suppression of all
those activities which do the most for the world's
welfare.

It is no more true of individuals than of nations
that the differences simply result from surroundings.
We do not grow up alike because we are not born
alike. No one would deny this with respect to the
body, and the more complete becomes our knowledge
the more it is established that bodily functional differ-
ences imply mental differences. That one boy becomes
strong and active while his brother grows up weak and
sluggish is not attributed to differences of physical care.
Yet nothing is more common than the doctrine that what a
child becomes mentally and morally depends entirely on
the training he receives. That is as false as would be
a similar statement about the body. Children come into
the world with some tendencies much stronger than
others ; with some, perhaps, unduly weak. In extreme
cases the weakness is so marked that for practical pur-
poses the tendency scarcely exists. Thus we have
hereditary geniuses and hereditary fools ; hereditary
criminals as well as hereditary saints, and perhaps in
greater numbers. " Moral insensibility is usually innate,

VARIATIONS IN MENTAL ENDOWMENT 109

and coincident with other symptoms of degeneracy.
Among several children of the same family, brought up
in the same surroundings, having received the same care,
a single one may differ from all the rest, be amenable
neither to gentleness nor to force, and manifest a pre-
cocious depravity, which will only strengthen as he grows
older."1

Certainly, as we said, it is impossible to set out such
a chart of the ancestry of any one as would account for
all his personal characteristics. Nor is it claimed that
one can lay all one's sins and shortcomings on one's fore-
fathers. Surroundings do count for much, and they can
and do modify in many ways the inborn nature. Yet
the modification is in detail rather than in essence. As
Ruskin eloquently says : ' ' The greatness or smallness
of a man is, in the most conclusive sense, determined
for him at his birth, as strictly as it is determined for a
fruit whether it is to be a currant or an apricot. Educa-
tion, favourable circumstances, resolution, and industry
can do much ; in a certain sense they do everything ;
that is to say, they determine whether the poor apricot
shall fall in the form of a green bead, blighted by the
east wind, and be trodden under foot, or whether it shall
expand into tender pride, and sweet brightness of golden
velvet. But apricot out of currant, — great man out of
small, — did never yet art or effort make ; and, in a
general way, men have their excellence nearly fixed for
them when they are born ; a little cramped and frost-
bitten on one side, a little sun-burnt and fortune-spotted
on the other, they reach, between good and evil chances,
such size and taste as generally belong to men of their
calibre, and, the small in their serviceable bunches, the
1 Ribot : Psychology of the Emotions, Eng. trans, p. 302.

no THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

great in their golden isolation, have, these no cause for
regret, nor those for disdain." 1

Zoologists and botanists, however, find it possible to
establish intermediate classes between the individual
and the wide genus of which it is a member. If this
can be done, even roughly, with human beings, it will
tend to give a similar clearness to our thoughts and
a similar guidance to our observations of children as the
doctrine of species gives in the study of animals and
plants.

I suppose we all do roughly classify people
round a few more or less explicit types. "We
pass instantaneous judgements on strangers every
day. Here's a gull, and here a fox, here a sulky
brute, and here a right good fellow ; here a man

with a will of his own, and here a man without one

Women whose faces are an index of meanness, weakness,
vanity, spite ; women whose faces tell you at a glance that
they have spent their lives in the love of home and
children."2 The teacher sorts his pupils in his own
mind according to their mental qualities. These are the
1 good ' boys in a class, those the ' average ', and those
others the l dullards '. Often, as I have already hinted,
the judgement is fallacious, for the test of school lessons
is too narrow and too arbitrary. Nor is such a classifica-
tion— even were it true in every detail — of real practical
help outside the school walls. It is to be hoped that the
scholars will find something better to do in after life than
to learn lessons, and it is safe to prophesy that if
they do not they will discard the lessons all the
same.

1 Modem Paintent vol. iii. p. 47.

2D. Christie Murray : The Brangwyn Mystfty, ch. 17.

VARIATIONS IN MENTAL ENDOWMENT 1 1 1

Education should, at least, find out broadly what each
child is fit for, so that some, at least, of the deplorable
waste of ability due to putting boys to callings for which
they have no aptitude may be avoided. At present a
boy's career is often determined by the kind of opening
which chances to present itself, entirely regardless of its
possibilities, and with no question as to its relation to the
boy's powers. When not pressed to an extreme point
there is truth in M. Binet's contention : "I believe that
the determination of children's aptitudes is the most
important business of instruction and of education ;
according to their aptitudes they should both be taught
and be directed towards an occupation."1 Any such
determination must result from the careful and systematic
study of individuals ; to this the first step is the con-
sideration of leading characteristics, and this resolves
itself into a grouping round types.

Such a classification was attempted by Galen nearly
two thousand years ago, and was based on current physio-
logical theories. He assumed that four humours were
present in different proportions in each person, and that
they gave a certain colour and form to the mental consti-
tution. Thus there were four temperaments. When
the blood was dominant there resulted the sanguine
temperament, marked by brightness, optimism and
instability. Did the gall — or black bile — rule, the result
was the melancholic temperament, with the qualities of
depression, proneness to brooding, suspicion, irritability,
and obstinacy. When the bile was the most powerful
the temperament was choleric, and the individual showed
energy, impatience of opposition, and strong will power.
Lastly, if the lymph was the determining humour the

1 Let Idees modernes sur les enfantf, p. 1 1 .

ii2 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

lymphatic or phlegmatic temperament, with its
characteristics of tranquillity, lassitude, and inertia,
appeared.

The physiological basis has long been abandoned, but
the distinctions drawn — which indeed were based on
observation of well marked modes of behaviour — have
remained, and the names of the temperaments have
passed as descriptive terms into common speech.

It may be noted, however, not only that the classifica-
tion refers to adults, but that the normal person passes
to some extent through all the temperaments in turn.
The child is naturally sanguine, the youth melancholic
in so far as he is inclined to introspection and emotion-
alism, the mature man energetic or choleric, and the old
man who has lost the fire of youth shows the leading
qualities of the phlegmatic temperament. Such an
evolution was, indeed, traced by Aristotle long before
Galen set forth his doctrine of temperaments. The
same idea is involved in Shakespeare's well known Seven
Ages of Man.1 Omitting

" the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms,"

and the two last stages, which are those of incipient and
developed senile decay, we have

" the whining school-boy, with his satchel
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school,"

a picture which, indeed, does not flatter the Elizabethan
school, but which shows the cheerfulness and suggests
the versatility of the boy.

1 As you like it, act ii. sc. 7.

VARIATIONS IN MENTAL ENDOWMENT 113
Then we have the stage of strong emotion in

" the lover,

Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
Made to his mistress' eyebrow."

In early manhood there is overflowing energy in the

" soldier,

Full of strange oaths, and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the cannon's mouth."

Then comes the age of sage counsel pictured in

"the justice,

In fair round belly with good capon lined,
With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws and modern instances."

Nevertheless, throughout each life this sequence is shown
in ways characteristic of one or other temperament. The
difference of nature is innate, and can be traced under-
lying the variations due to age. Some people retain
throughout life the vivacity and inconsequence of child-
hood ; some children show much of the sedateness of
maturity. These are the more extreme cases, but such
differences are always apparent in some degree. As we
pass through life we show in turn some of the character-
istics of each temperament, but always in terms of that
temperament in which our nature is moulded.

When we seek to base a classification of tempera-
ments on modern physiological knowledge we are met
by difficulties at present unconquered. That differences
in temperament depend on differences in bodily organi-
zation may be taken as established, but what exactly

n4 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

those differences are is an extremely difficult and obscure
question : various hypotheses have been suggested, but
all have been met by serious objections. We are, there-
fore, driven back on empirical observation and generaliza-
tion. Here the divisions of the traditional scheme will
serve as a basis, though we shall not adhere closely to
them. The traditional temperaments do distinguish the
modes in which various people meet the calls of life.
The sanguine or volatile react rapidly but without any
continuing force, the phlegmatic slowly and feebly, the
choleric rapidly and strongly, the melancholic slowly and
strongly. The beginnings of such differences are seen
among children at quite an early age, and they become
accentuated as life advances.

We all know the child of quick apprehension but
feeble retentiveness, him who is forward to perform
immediate service but who soon tires, him of quick but
shallow sympathies. In a word, the sanguine person is
responsive and fickle. There must be a good deal of
this in every child just because everything is so new to
him, and experience has not taught him which things are
of most worth. But in an adult the predominance of these
characteristics is a sign of some arrest of mental develop-
ment, whether it be due to innate defect or to defective
training or to both. The mind is a childish mind, no
matter what the age may be.

Quick and strong reaction implies that the individual
is always ready to be up and doing — to meet the situa-
tions of life with energy. To see an evil is to long to do
something to remedy it. The impulse to act is strong
enough to induce action without much previous time
given to deciding whether to act or not. This is the
basis of the practical man. He must act, but mere action

VARIATIONS IN MENTAL ENDOWMENT 115

does not satisfy him. He requires further that it be
successful action.

Of course, this active nature may be united with all
degrees of intelligence, as well as with considerable
strength of the more outward-looking emotions. The
instinct of pugnacity is strongly developed in it ; and,
as we have seen, this instinct is often found in close
relation with those of altruism and love. But the intel-
ligence is dominated by the practical outlook. Thought
for its own sake no more appeals than does emotional
dreaming. The essential characteristic is that the man
or boy wants to be up and doing. These are the boys
who delight in all forms of bodily skill, whether in games
or in manual work. In school lessons they often do not
delight, just because the fundamental spring of their
natures finds little in those lessons to which it can
respond.

The practical temperament, then, is marked not only
by the predominance of will but also by the direction of
will. There is concentration of energy in great strength,
but it is centred on some practical result, not on the
solution of a theoretical problem. In pursuit of its
purpose it may become hard and callous. When the
altruistic emotions are not operative and the instinct of
self-assertion is united with that of pugnacity, the prac-
tical person is apt to press forward to his own ends,
trampling down on his way the feelings and the rights of
others.

Further, when this strong and practical temperament
is of only low intelligence the will often shows as
obstinacy. A path once entered on is pursued just
because it has been entered on, even though experience
shows it to be an unwise one. Here, it is evident, self-

n6 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

assertion dominates pugnacity. Obstacles are attacked,
not because they are in the way of the external
purpose, but because they are in the way of the will.

A similar obstinacy is often shown without any marked
strength of purpose, especially by children who in their
earliest years have not been subjected to a judicious
discipline. The attainment of anything on which such
a child sets its capricious desires is to him a personal
matter, in the sense that a feeling of deliberate and inten-
tional personal injury arises if the attainment be hindered
by the act of another. Here again is apparent an un-
desirable strength in the instinct of self-assertion.

When this kind of self-will appears in the sanguine or
volatile child it can usually be much modified by a kindly
but firm discipline. But when it is united with strength
and persistence the product is the sullen child whom
it is impossible to drive and very difficult to lead. The
natural defect is primarily emotional but often secondarily
intellectual. The line of treatment is thus indicated,
though the carrying it out in any case is not likely to be
at all easy.

The ' contrary ' boy is a rather extreme, but by no
means very uncommon, type of the self-willed. He is
one of those people whom nature seems to have designed
to be in permanent opposition. There may be con-
siderable intelligence, though it is generally of a narrow
type. But the peculiarity is that the line taken by such
a person is largely determined by his surroundings,
though determined negatively. The surest way to
secure that he does something is to command him not
to do it. Great care is obviously needed in dealing with
such natures to suggest rather than to command when-
ever it is possible, and when it is not to see that the

VARIATIONS IN MENTAL ENDOWMENT 117

command be reasonable and be made as little private in
its application as possible. For, it may be noted, certain
people have a way of issuing commands, and even of
giving advice, that would induce a worm to turn. If a
parent or a teacher finds that his suggestions to children
generally produce opposition, he had better seek "the
fountain and origin of the evil" in himself.

The traditional school provides little opportunity for
the essentially practical child to show what is in him.
If he be intelligent as well as practical he does pretty
well at lessons, and is probably sent when school is over
to some sedentary occupation which suits him not at all,
and which really mars his life. If he be only practical —
clever only with his hands — he is condemned as a dunce.
Yet there may be in him the potentiality of a fine crafts-
man. For there is no real test in school lessons as to
whether the practical child's apparent want of intelligence
is a real deficiency, or only a limitation of range. He
may be dull at lessons and yet capable of a very high
order of intelligence in practical work.

Is there not a call that schools of all grades should
make adequate provision for the practical natures among
their scholars ? Not on the ground that they are inferior
to those who learn the traditional lessons more readily,
but on the ground that they are different. Have they
not a right to the training that will develop their
capacities, and is it not a waste in every sense of the word
to insist on confining them to one which does not, and
cannot, make the most and the best of their powers?
It surely would be possible in most places, and easy in
large towns, to have either special ' sides ' for all children
above eleven or twelve years of age, or special schools
in which the practical children, while not neglecting

n8 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION .

studies which call forth the emotions and the imagi-
nation, should yet spend a large proportion of their time
in various forms of practical pursuits, and should do their
thinking with their hands as well as with their heads.

When the response to impressions is slow and yet
strong there is implied a considerable amount of internal
elaboration, which may, indeed, be itself the chief element
in the reaction. This may be either emotional or intel-
lectual. In the former case we have a temperament
which may be styled emotional or sensitive, in the latter
one which is appropriately named contemplative.

When impulses from without do not lead to definite
activity, but spend themselves in the inner life itself, we
have the nature which lives essentially in its emotions.
This mental type is usually conjoined with a highly
strung nervous system, so that it is generally spoken of
by doctors as the nervous temperament. It would seem
probable that the sensory excitations discharge into those
parts of the brain-cortex which are closely connected with
the organic life of the body rather than with the motor
areas.

It is evident that such a life as this is more moulded by
its surroundings than is the practical nature. It may,
indeed, show bursts of energy, but they seldom last long.
The key-note of the temperament is that perseverance —
which means disregard of present impressions — is want-
ing. The emotional person is easily roused to fury, and
in the first impulse of that passion may take up some
course of action with great vigour, but it soon dies down.
The emotions are sincere enough, but they do not find
their true outlet in action.

The operations of intelligence in an emotional tem-
perament are given a certain form by the prevailing caste

VARIATIONS IN MENTAL ENDOWMENT 119

of mind. Things and persons are esteemed chiefly
according to their value for the feelings. This is apt to
affect the view as to their worth as elements of know-
ledge. We all know how facts are distorted by the pre-
judices and preferences of even the most level-headed.
Much more is it so when feeling is the very core of life.
When the intelligence is great and original in type this
working within the realm of feeling gives the artistic
temperament. The artist or the poet sees things
differently from other men because, though he also looks
at them from a practical or a theoretical standpoint, yet
he sees into their relations to the innermost sanctuary
of the heart. So he often reveals to us what otherwise
we should never see.

" For, don't you mark ? we're made so that we love
First when we see them painted, things we have passed
Perhaps a hundred times nor cared to see ;
And so they are better, painted — better to us,
Which is the same thing. Art was given for that ;
God uses us to help each other so,
Lending our minds out."1

When the intelligence is small, either absolutely or
relatively to the strength of the emotional tendency, we
have sentimentalism, which is near or over the verge
which separates the healthy from the pathological in
mental life. Then we have dreamy sentiment and
morbid self-consciousness — a brooding over imaginary
joys and sorrows, a heart which feeds on itself, and is so
satisfied with unrealities that life becomes a mere world
of shadows. In the sphere of conduct this shows itself
in a weak power of self-control, in a constant yielding to
the solicitations of the moment.

1 Browning : Fra Lippo Lippi.

120 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

It is evident that in trying to prune the excrescences
and exuberances of an emotional temperament great care
is needed lest the delicate bloom of fancy and the fine
flower of sensitive feeling be also lopped off. It is not
the depth and delicacy of feeling that education should
seek to lessen. On the contrary, it should aim at
making these more real by bringing them into actual and
close contact with the joys and sorrows of life. En-
couragement of action so as to avoid unhealthy intro-
spection and dreaming is the true path. Especially
needful is this in the years of adolescence when the
emotional nature is generally more insistent than at other
periods.

As it seems advisable that the practical natures should
receive a good deal of their training through their
practical activities, so the children who show signs of
artistic or literary talent should be given abundant means
and opportunities for its development.

When the response to suggestions from without takes
the general form of intellectual enquiry we have the con-
templative nature. There is no lack of activity, but it
is mental rather than bodily. The feelings and emotions
are calm, but they may be intense ; they do not easily
interrupt the train of thought, but they may determine
its course.

The cold intellectual person is certainly somewhat
unattractive in youth or in age, yet he may do much for
the world by enriching it with thoughts of the utmost
value. He is better for the community in general and
for posterity than for those of his contemporaries who
have to live with him. But though the contemplative
temperament is never gushing it is quite compatible with
warmth of heart and a genuine regard for others — a

VARIATIONS IN MENTAL ENDOWMENT 121

regard, moreover, which is likely to live on unchanged
through all the vicissitudes of intercourse, for it is
founded on the rock of conviction of worth not on the
shifting sand of transitory feeling.

The thoughtful child is apt to reply to questions and to
arrive at conclusions much less quickly than his sanguine
companion, but his results are generally sounder, and
are based on reasons satisfactory and clear to his own
mind : they are not mere guesses at truth or hasty
intuitions. So when a child of this temperament gives
a mistaken explanation or reaches an invalid conclusion,
it is always worth the teacher's while to trace back the
train of thought till the initial error is laid bare. But
the unconsidered answers of the quick and superficial
child of sanguine temperament seldom repay investiga-
tion. This was excellently put by Roger Ascham — an
illustration, by the way, that the application of real prac-
tical psychology to education is not so modern as many
worthy people believe. He wrote : ' ' Quicke wittes
commonlie be apte to take, unapte to keepe : soone hote
and desirous of this and that : as colde and sone wery of
the same againe : more quicke to enter spedelie, than
hable to pearse farre : even like over sharpe tooles, whose
edges be verie soone turned. Soch wittes delite them
selves in easie and pleasant studies, and never passe farre

forward in hie and hard sciences Also, for maners

and life, quicke wittes commonlie be, in desire, new-
fangle, in purpose, unconstant, light to promise any
thing, readie to forget every thing : both benefite and
injurie : and thereby neither fast to frend, nor fearefull
to foe : inquisitive of every trifle, not secret in greatest
affaires : bolde, with any person : busie, in every
matter : sothing, soch as be present : nipping any that is

122 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

absent : of nature also, alwaies, flattering their betters,
envying their equals, despising their inferiors : and, by
quicknes of witte, verie quicke and readie, to like none

so well as them selves They be like trees, that shewe

forth faire blossoms and broad leaves in spring time, but
bring out small and not long lasting fruite in harvest
time : and that onelie soch, as fall, and rotte, before they
be ripe, and so, never, or seldome, cum to any good at
all" l

The child who at first view appears by his brightness
and quickness in response the most intelligent is on
further acquaintance more likely to show the inconstant
sanguine temperament which Ascham so scathingly
described than to be really thoughtful and intellectually
capable. But not always. The distribution of marks is
not always slow and deep against quick and shallow.
There are intellects, and those of the very first order,
which are both quick and deep. These are the penetrat-
ing minds that see at once into the hearts of things.
True, they are rare ; but one would be mistaken who
should suppose that by measuring the time two children
take to reach a result he has an inverse measure of the
solidity of their intellects. The slow and shallow child
is not unknown — nor is the slow and shallow man.
"Still waters run deep", but a very shallow pool
may also be still.

Extreme cases of mental incapacity are recognized as
abnormal and are provided for in special schools. Ought
not suitable provision to be made also for those who are
abnormal in the other direction — those children of excep-
tional ability who now gain so little from our schools?
True, they are at the head of their forms, but they are
1 The Scholtmaster.

VARIATIONS IN MENTAL ENDOWMENT 123

there without serious effort. Thus the school does not
call forth their capacity. Nor is the plan of promoting
them more rapidly than usual satisfactory, any more than
the analogous plan of slower promotion would meet the
case of the abnormally dull. They need a mental diet
which would cause chronic mental dyspepsia in their
class-mates. Without this they not only do not gain
the knowledge they should, but, what is of infinitely
more importance, they are learning the worst of all lessons
— that real work is not needful. So they are trained
to become vain and idle. Thus it may very well be that
the school spoils its best material, and yet rests satisfied
because the very material it is spoiling makes at present
its fairest show. The idea of the provision in all our
large towns of special schools for the specially gifted as
well as for the specially deficient is worthy of considera-
tion. It seems deplorable that while money and care are
lavished on those who can never do much in the world,
nothing more is done for those who are capable of the
highest and best service than is done for the ordinary
capacities which will always do hodman's work. No
one, of course, can suppose that our present system of
promotion to secondary schools at all meets the case : the
standard of ability for admission is far too low. Indeed,
it is true to say that, speaking generally, the average
capacity in a school is not a function of its rank. It is
interesting to note that M. Binet in his recent work
Les Idles modernes sur les enfants advocates such pro-
vision. As he pertinently says, "A child of superior
intelligence is a force which should not be wasted." 1

We now turn to consider the saddest and most hope-
less cases with which the educator has to deal — the
!p. 109.

i24 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

apathetic. The old classification included under the
'phlegmatic' both this and the contemplative nature.
Yet there is a great inner difference between them,
though outwardly they may agree in showing a certain
bodily inertia. With the intellectual person that inertia
co-exists with a very intense vitality of thought. But
the apathetic child shows a general sluggishness of mind.
Frequently this is conjoined with a general lowness of
physical tone. There is a want of vital vigour, express-
ing itself in both mental and bodily inertia. Here we
have not a normal nature at all, but one defective in life.
Sometimes the weakness is innate ; then in the strict sense
of the words we have the apathetic temperament. More
often the temperament is less the original nature than that
' second nature ' which comes from constant habit. It is
due to unfavourable conditions of life and is modified
when those conditions are changed, though it is plain
that the longer the change is delayed the less modification
in the child's nature will follow.

This is all plain sailing. But we hear of apathetic
children whose bodily health and strength leave nothing
to be desired. That some children in vigorous health
are apathetic over their school lessons is certain, and it
may be suspected that this is what is meant. One wants
to know whether the same apathy is shown outside
school. If not there is clear proof that the school is
doing that particular child little or no good. For a child
profits by his school work just in proportion as it calls out
some form of energy. But if the apathy extend both
to games and to other forms of outdoor pursuits as well
as to lessons, then it is surely time to consult a medical
man. Muscles and flesh may look robust to the un-
skilled observer, and yet there may be organic defect.

VARIATIONS IN MENTAL ENDOWMENT 125

To healthy children activity is natural. Even the con-
templative child should love to play as well as to think.
' ' In the early period of life ... to suspend the mental
cheerfulness, for any length of time, is as difficult as to
keep fixed, for any length of time, those muscles to
which exercise is almost a species of repose, and repose
itself fatigue."1

It is evident that such a survey of types as we have just
made is of worth only as suggestive. Nor is tempera-
ment in one sense unalterable. It is probably true that
the form cannot be changed : that both the absolute and
the relative strength of will, emotion, and thought, are
immutable. But the direction and the nourishment of
the inborn nature are given from without. It is here
that the power of the school for good or for evil comes
in. Temperament is the basis of character, but on that
basis many a superstructure may be raised. Tempera-
ment also fixes the limit of possible development for the
individual; but education is responsible for his reach-
ing that limit, or at least drawing near to it.

In considering temperaments we are occupied with the
relative strengths of the fundamental factors of mental
life. But will, feeling, and thought vary not only
in their absolute and relative strengths but also in their
mode of dealing with the things of life. It may, then,
be profitable to note some of the most important formal
marks of activity under each head. We will give the
characteristics in pairs, but it must be clearly understood
that the first member of any pair can be joined with the
second member of any other pair which is not incom-
patible with it ; that any number of the qualities under
each head may be conjoined, and that in any strength ;
1 Brown : Philosophy of the Human Mind, Lect. 5 2.

126 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

and that similar combinations of qualities under the
separate heads are to be found. Indeed, every permuta-
tion and combination of the qualities given which is
not self -contradictory is not only possible but actual.

Under will we may enquire whether the child is docile
or stubborn, active or inert, persevering or unstable ; or,
combining these three pairs in one, industrious or idle ;
lastly whether he is directive or executive, that is,
whether his energy sets its own ends or accepts the ends
set by others. When origination is combined with
industry we have the finest type of the practical will.

Under feeling it may be asked whether the individual
has sympathy and kindliness or is selfish and self-centred,
whether his feelings are easily raised or are dull and
stagnant, whether he meets situations boldly or is kept
back by timidity, whether his temper is equable or
irascible and variable, perhaps even violent, whether
he is generally cheerful or sullen, whether he is idealistic
or materialistic in choice of objects on which to lavish
his affections.

Under intellect the most pertinent questions seem to be
whether the intelligence is deep and thoughtful or shallow
and superficial, whether it is quick or slow, whether it is
retentive or elusive. Again combining these three pairs
we get on the one hand the person of superior mental
ability and on the other the stupid person. Lastly, in
harmony with the last pair under each of the other heads,
we have the distinction between the inventive and
originative intellect and that which is merely receptive,
interpretative, and reproductive.

Temperament refers to the mode in which the indi-
vidual reacts on his surroundings. From this must be
distinguished disposition, which is the general product

VARIATIONS IN MENTAL ENDOWMENT 127

of his emotional tendencies. Thus we speak of a cheer-
ful or a gloomy disposition, but not of a cheerful or a
gloomy temperament ; of an active or emotional tempera-
ment, but not of an active or emotional disposition.
Disposition is the resultant of the composition of
instincts regarded as modes of feeling : temperament the
resultant of them regarded as types of reaction.

Disposition does much to shape life. Whether a
person has a kindly or a morose disposition, whether he
views events and people through smoked glasses,
through rose-coloured spectacles, or in the clear light of
reality, not only affects his inner life, but does much to
decide the form and the amount of his activity, both
mental and physical. Our feelings cannot be separated
from our thoughts and our actions. So, throughout life
disposition as well as temperament is operative. Nor
can innate disposition be absolutely changed, though
doubtless it can be modified by the firm exercise of the
personal will. We can inhibit the impulses in which one
emotion manifests itself and give free play to those
which spring from an emotion of opposite character.
Whatever is refused expression becomes atrophied ;
whatever is encouraged increases in strength. Thus a
great change can, by perseverance, be wrought in our
outward behaviour, and, through that, a less though
very real change in the inner disposition itself. But the
natural pessimist never becomes a real optimist, nor can
continuous disappointment destroy the buoyant disposi-
tion of the born optimist.

Underlying differences of temperament and disposi-
tion is the yet more fundamental distinction of sex. It
is not so much that the various temperaments and
dispositions are found in different proportions in the two

128 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

sexes, as that the same temperament or disposition shows
important variations in men and women. Tempera-
ment and disposition are imbedded in sex and developed
in sex.

The profound physiological differences which distin-
guish the sexes are the correlates of equally important
mental differences. Nor is the one unlikeness any more
than the other merely the result of unlike training and
education. The functions of men and women in the
world are, and always have been, essentially distinct.
Now, the whole course of evolution makes clear that
progress involves increasing differentiation of function,
and consequent increasing divergencies of organization.
So that the higher the level reached, either by indi-
viduals or by societies, the more strongly marked become
essential differences. Neither the obscuring nor the
attrition of differences due to sex can, then, be expected,
unless the future retrograde from civilization towards
savagery. Among savages the distinctions are less
marked than among peoples which have advanced far on
the road of civilization, and among the lower animals
they are still less emphatic. It is not the identification
of sex qualities to which evolution points the way, but to
their more perfect mutual adaptation. Equality in
value of complementary functions, not the obscuring of
differences already established, is what the whole course
of man's evolution leads us to expect.

Speaking generally, woman's outlook on the world is
more determined by feeling than is that of man. She
approximates the emotional temperament even when she
does not show it in all its fullness. It follows that she
regards things and events as wholes which have a value
for feeling. She is more sensitive to their beauty and to

VARIATIONS IN MENTAL ENDOWMENT 129

their harmony with their surroundings than is man. On
the other hand, she does not care for abstract thought.
It is not that she does not generalize, but that she
generalizes without preparatory analysis, and, conse-
quently, often wildly. This dislike for the exact logical
analysis by which man reaches science is one of the most
characteristic intellectual differences between the sexes.
Even so able a woman as Mme. de Sevigne acknow-
ledged that ' ' abstract reasonings were repugnant to
her." l Here is the root of the difference between the
reasoning of man and of woman. Man analyses and
applies principles deductively ; woman takes the special
case and its value for feeling. Hence she is less judicial
than man in the sense of a rigid application of law. Yet
she may reach substantial justice when man fails to do so,
for general principles can never exhaust a concrete case.
So, man's justice often seems unjust to woman, and
woman's justice appears to man as mere caprice, because
he cannot reduce it to rule.

These intellectual differences between the sexes have
been well and picturesquely put by the late Mr. F. Marion
Crawford : ' ' There must be some original reason why
all boys call girls silly, and all girls think boys stupid.
It must be part of the first manifestation of that
enormous difference which exists between the point of
view of men and women in after life.

' ' Women are, in a sense, the embodiment of practice,
while men are the representatives of theory. In prac-
tice, in a race for life, the runner who jumps everything
in his way is always right, unless he breaks his neck. In
theory, he is as likely to break his neck at the first jump
as at the second, and the chances of his coming to grief
1 Quoted by Fouillee : Temperament et Caractere, p. 237.

1 30 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

increase quickly, always in theory, as he grows tired. So
theory says it is safer never to jump at all but to go round
through the gates, or wade ignominiously through the
water. Women jump ; men go round. The difference
is everything. Women believe in what often succeeds
in practice, and they take all risks and sometimes come
down with a crash. Men theorize about danger, make
elaborate calcuktions to avoid it, and occasionally stick
in the mud. When women fall at a stone wall they
scream, when men are stuck in a bog they swear. The
difference is fundamental."1

The characteristic concrete outlook of woman causes
her estimate of truth to be different from that of man.
The true is to woman the harmonious — to man the
actual. In other words, woman sees things and events
differently from man, and consequently both thinks and
reports them differently. She cares more for the look of
things, less for their intrinsic nature. This is shown in
small matters by her liking for sham jewellery, and for
imitations generally, when the real is not easily obtainable.
The point with her is that their effect harmonizes with
their setting. So, too, the tendency to tell ' white lies '
which represent her conduct as more harmonious and
more consonant with the wishes or ideas of her hearer
than it really has been ; often, no doubt, more consonant
also with her general idea of herself.

From the general greater impressionability of woman
by her surroundings it follows that she has less initiative
than man. It is not that she necessarily has a weaker
will, but that her strength of will is rather passive than
active. She may be strong in resistance, but she is
seldom strong as a leader. This is, doubtless, related to

1 The Heart of Rome, ch. 5.

VARIATIONS IN MENTAL ENDOWMENT 131

her inferior muscular strength and to her superior
physical power of enduring long continued pain and
privation. Woman makes a good executant, but she
has produced scarcely any original work of the first rank,
especially in science and mechanical invention, where the
abstract analysis which is so foreign to her is indis-
pensable. Woman, indeed, accepts the customary
without question. The continually recurring events in
nature do not come before her mind as problems but as
agreeable or disagreeable experiences.

In the union of impressionability and power of endur-
ance may be found the source of that devoted patience
and that tender sympathy which combine to make woman
so generally superior to man as nurse in sickness and
comforter in sorrow.

Many other consequences could be instanced of the
fundamental differences between the outlooks of the two
sexes, but enough has probably been said to bring home
the point that in every relation of life there is a diverg-
ence between the attitude of man and woman.

The differences, however, are in kind, not in rank. As
M. Fouillee says: "The intellectual instinct of woman
does not result from the inferiority of her evolution, but
from the meaning and the normal direction of that
evolution itself. Woman has not 'remained behind',
she has advanced, but in the direction which her nature
imposes on her." l

To measure woman's intellect by that of man, and to
deduce mental inferiority from woman's inaptitude for
abstract thought is to apply a false standard and to reach
a wrong conclusion. To value general principles and
to value concrete wholes are different, but neither is

1 Of. cit. p. 238 note.

i32 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

inferior to the other. Each is essential in life, and in
this difference of attitude, as in all that follows from it,
man and woman are complementary. There is no ques-
tion of superiority or inferiority, and any course of action
based on the assumption that woman should try to
become intellectually like man rests on a very insecure
psychological foundation.

Like all differences between human beings, those due
to sex become accentuated as childhood passes into
maturity. Between young infants there are few differ-
ences of any kind, and those vague and indecisive, and
the younger the babe the more it is like other babies.
Quite early in life, however, the fundamental character-
istics which distinguish the sexes begin to appear. A
little girl of four is essentially a little girl ; a little boy
is a little boy. Nor could any but the most casual
observer confuse them, even though the results of the
differences lack that precision which increasingly marks
them as the years pass on. The girl is usually more
precocious in speech than the boy, and is less often
troubled with stammering. The neural connexions
which govern speech are matured in her earlier than in
her brother. She already plays differently from the boy
when playing by herself or with other girls. Her
play lacks the force and the expansion of movement
which characterizes the boy's ; it is quieter, and sooner
shows a definite meaning. The girl reaches the stage
of imitative play earlier than the boy and persists in it
longer. She delights in dolls' parties, in nursing ' baby '
and putting him to bed, in keeping school. Here the
susceptibility to outside influences shows itself in the
most spontaneous form. Afterwards it will lead her to
dress according to the fashion in all its possible vagaries

VARIATIONS IN MENTAL ENDOWMENT 133

of ugliness as well as in its occasional deviations into
beauty.

It is noticeable that this same susceptibility shows
itself in greater demonstrativeness on the part of the
girl. From an early age she cries and laughs more than
the boy, and, generally, gives more violent outward
expression to her feelings. Any one who has remarked
the conduct of adolescent girls who have not been
trained to self-control will have been impressed by their
apparent inability to inhibit nearly all modes of muscular
movement when they are amused. They laugh with
the whole body and with intermittent shrieks and
squeaks.

The differences in the expression of will are also
plain in childhood. The boy becomes violent when
opposed ; the girl sulks. That is the tendency, though,
of course, in neither case is it always actualized. Passive
resistance is the refuge of the girl ; active aggression the
solace of the boy.

In their mutual relations, too, girls differ from boys.
Boys fight ; girls nag. The sequel to a fight is a hearty
hand-shake and a re-established friendship. But with
girls the tendency to inwardness of life expresses itself
in brooding over the offence, and this at times develops
into a seeking for revenge by ways which a boy would
stigmatize as mean and sneaking. Emulation among
girls is more likely to be coloured with envy and to
lead to dishonourable forms of competition, and more
apt to grow into a long continuing hatred, than with
boys. Even quite little girls frequently show ill-feeling
towards other children who attract notice which they
desire to be lavished on themselves.

When we turn to the intellectual distinctions we find

i34 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

that they colour the learning of the two sexes as soon
as the matter studied gives opportunity for the two
modes of apprehension. Girls do well in all that
demands neither originality of thought nor abstraction.
Thus, they quite keep pace with boys, or even surpass
them, in the earlier school studies, which deal essentially
with concrete wholes. They learn by heart with ease,
they delight in neatness and in the embellishment of their
written exercises, they work out with accuracy of detail
processes with the general form of which they are familiar
or which they can imitate from an example. They
appreciate beauty of feeling and of form, and so they
can enter with advantage on the study of literature at
an earlier age than is beneficial to boys. Their earlier
attempts at composition are superior to those of boys,
because they are more imitative of what they have read
in books, whereas the boy gives direct expression, in
the briefest and baldest way and in the ordinary colloquial
language of his life, to what he has to say. He does
not embroider ; girls do. This particularly shows itself
when the matter in hand is the production of an account
of an imaginary event. The boy's story will probably
lack conviction, and will not improbably be incoherent,
if not inherently contradictory. The girl will produce
a much better constructed plot, and it is seldom that
any striking inconsistency will be found in it. Un-
happily, she is apt to carry this power of romancing
into real life ; and, when occasion seems to her to demand
it, to substitute what should have been for what really
was. Boys lie, but as a rule they lie clumsily ; girls
lie artistically. And much experience and observation
seem to show that girls lie more frequently than boys,
and from more personal impulses. A girl appears

VARIATIONS IN MENTAL ENDOWMENT 135

seldom to lie to save another, a boy often does. Indeed,
that is almost the only occasion on which a decent boy will
lie. The very want of skill and assurance with which
boys usually lie, as compared with the ease and grace
with which girls tell their well-invented fables, is an
early illustration of that difference between man's and
woman' s estimate of truth to which reference has already
been made.

It is doubtful whether sufficient attention has been
paid to such considerations as these by the advocates
and promoters of joint schools for the sexes. That boys
and girls may be taught together in the earliest stage —
say, up to ten years of age — may be granted. The
matter put before them gives little scope for their char-
acteristically different modes of apprehension. But the
further that early stage is passed, the more do the intel-
lectual differences of the sexes become operative. Soon
boys and girls begin to retard each other's progress —
the girls being held back for the slower boys in some
subjects, and, in their turn, hindering the advance of
the boys in other subjects. Of course, this could be
met by separating the sexes for all subjects in which
collective advance is desired. In small schools that may
be the only alternative to teaching them together. But
in towns the traditional distinction of schools according
to sex would seem to give the best intellectual results.
Certainly, that is very markedly the outcome of my own
somewhat extended observations.

There seems, however, to be a yet more serious defect
in the mixed school as a place of education for all but
quite young children. It is that, as the psychological
differences between man and woman are so intimate, so
deep, and so all-pervading, the real training in character

136 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

and in outlook on life of the one sex cannot be given
by the other. This consideration is especially important
when the age of adolescence is reached, but it has much
force years before that. A man cannot be a really
sympathetic guide to a girl, nor a woman to a boy, no
matter how kindly disposed, simply because the man
has never himself been a girl nor the woman a boy.
Neither can find in personal experience the thread which
leads into the labyrinth, neither has the key to the living
puzzle. In short, the mixed school seems in this respect
deliberately to dispense with the most essential of all
educative instruments. Doubtless, if both men and
women be employed on the staff, and if each class have
a fair alternation of men and women teachers, the evil
may be lessened though not removed. But, as a matter
of fact, mixed schools become increasingly officered by
women. In the United States of America, where such
schools are nearly universal, considerably over ninety
per cent, of the teachers are women, and the few men
are generally principals of large schools. So that, even
in the high schools, which are attended wholly or mainly
by adolescents, the majority of the teachers are women.
The argument that as nature has made the two sexes
to live together therefore boys and girls should attend
the same school, though specious at first sight, has no
real force. It ignores the important fact that boys and
girls need to be trained for very different functions in
life, and that in fulfilling those functions as men and
women they will surely not be always together. Thus,
it may be retorted, not only that single sex schools by
no means negate the natural association of boys and
girls in the family circle and among friends, but that
they train boys to work and compete with boys, and

VARIATIONS IN MENTAL ENDOWMENT 137

girls with girls, without the interference of the other
sex ; and that this, too, is part of the training for life.
Really, at the bottom of the advocacy of mixed schools
lies the idea which, for the reasons I have given, I believe
to be profoundly mistaken, that true evolution means
the gradual elimination of the differences of sex. When
we consider what those differences are, and rid ourselves
of the suspicion that, intellectually, woman is an imper-
fectly developed man, and when we remember further
that women teachers cannot enter into the life of sport
and games which is so important to the boy and the
youth, it becomes clear that if mixed schools are to
be justified it must be on grounds other than psycho-
logical, and that those grounds must be overwhelmingly
strong to justify the ignoring of the by no means weak
psychological objections.

CHAPTER VI

NATURE OF EXPERIENCE

"EVERYTHING is in the child and education has only
to draw it out" is as true — and as false — as "Everything
is outside the child and education has only to put it in."
Each is true in what it explicitly affirms, and false in
what it implicitly denies. Each by itself is one of those
half truths which when they masquerade as whole truths
are most mischievously false. The former would mean
that one's surroundings have no influence on one's real
self or on the essentials of one's life and character ; the
latter that one's inborn nature is not a determining factor
in one's life, but is absolutely plastic to all its surround-
ings. Rigid adherence to the one would lead to the
abolition of education altogether, on the ground that it
could do nothing ; strict application of the other would
attempt to make its work co-extensive with life. In
education, however, as in other matters, people do not,
as a rule, attempt to carry their theories into practice
with logical implacability. Happy is it for mankind
that they do not. For a general principle is an abstrac-
tion, and, as such, omits much in the reality of life.
Unless practice take account of the omitted elements its
effects are likely to be disastrous.

Although this is so, yet these one-sided theories do

NATURE OF EXPERIENCE 139

influence both thought and practice. The doctrine that
human nature develops from within is urged as the
justification for that fashionable distrust of authority
which encourages the child as far as possible to follow
his own inclinations, and tries to bribe him to learn by
various forms of sugar plums. The hypothesis that man
is formed by his surroundings leads to an exaggerated
estimate of what the school can do, and to the traditional
practice of regarding the scholar's attitude as one of
passive receptivity. "I have no conception of educa-
tion without instruction" wrote Herbart,1 and the
schoolmaster, with a natural tendency to magnify his
office, has been only too ready to interpret this narrowly,
and further to agree with Helvetius that ' ' education
makes us what we are." 2 Education in accordance with
each of these hypotheses fails in giving systematic
training of the will ; the former by denial of discipline,
the latter by limitation of liberty.

If education is to deal with actual life it must come
to some clear conclusion as to the parts played in it by
the inborn nature and by surroundings. To lean now
to the one extreme theory, now to the other, according
to the convenience of the moment, is one of those
practical compromises which may be aptly described as
a combination of the evil elements in two opposed plans.
The child, now indulged, now subjected to unaccustomed
restrictions, is trained neither in self-control nor in
strength of will, while his temper is spoilt and his respect
for authority destroyed.

The doctrine that surroundings have no essential

1 Science of Education, Eng. trans, p. 84.

2 De rJiomme, de sesfacultes, et de son education, sect. ix. ch. I.

140 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

influence on life does not, of course, deny that they enter
into it. But, for it

" The mind is its own place, and in itself
Can make a Heav'n of Hell, a Hell of Heav'n." *

So far we can but feel that there is a noble stoicism in
the view, an ideal of independence of circumstances
towards which we can, and should, approach. But the
theory goes much beyond this. It denies that man's
relations with his fellows are essential, or, in other words,
that his nature is social. It regards each as an inde-
pendent unit which can enter into many forms of
combination with other units without internal change.
Such a person we cannot really imagine, because the
concept does violence to the human nature in which we
all share. We see that our own lives are linked in
innumerable ways with those of our fellows, that our
thoughts and hopes are bounded by our associations with
men and things :

" Man is all symmetric,
Full of proportions, one limbe to another,
And all to all the world besides :
Each part may call the farthest, brother :
For head with foot hath private amitie,

And both with moons and tides." 2

We cannot cut ourselves off, even in our minds, from
all our surroundings, simply because no thought, no
feeling, no desire, would then be left. To be inde-
pendent of circumstances in the sense of having our
course unaffected by the allurements and undeterred by
the hindrances they may offer us is not the same thing

1 Milton : Paradise Lost, bk. i. 11. 254-255.

2 George Herbert : Poem on Man.

NATURE OF EXPERIENCE 141

as to be independent of them in the sense that we should
be what we are had they been other than they have been.
Nor is the former independence the result of unhelped
inner growth. The child deprived of external control
neither resists the allurements of pleasure nor despises
the obstacles of pain. Each turns him aside, so that his
life is really developing as a series of reflexes to his
surroundings. Thus it is that negation of authority in
early life cultivates subjection to capricious impulse in
maturity. The basis of the educational mistake is an
inadequate psychology.

The opposite theory — that man is formed by his
surroundings — has never been stated with greater
lucidity than by Helvetius : " Everything that we have,
and everything that we are, we owe to the external
world ; nor is man himself aught else but what he is
made by the objects which surround him." 1

The external world enters our life most obviously by
the gates of the senses. In all our relations with external
things — whether direct or indirect — there is either sen-
sation or reminiscence of sensation. The task was so
to analyse the whole of our conscious life into these
sense-elements as to show that it contains nothing else.
Much ingenuity and great acuteness in analysis have
been devoted to this ; for this hypothesis of the nature
of mental life was dominant, especially in England and
France, for more than a century.

If that analysis could account for all the facts we might
be driven to accept the hypothesis, however much we
might feel that it makes man a very poor creature.
Certainly we could not affirm its falsity. That, how-
ever, is not the case. It fails most signally to account
1 De r esprit, vol. ii. p. 306.

1 42 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

for the most characteristic features of all experience —
the power of holding persistently to a deliberately
adopted purpose. Our own consciousness — and that is
the ultimate court of appeal — tells us that this is the very
essence of life. But no permutations and combinations
of sensations, no matter how ingenious and complicated,
can yield on analysis either the feeling of initiative
power, or the persistent disregard of sensations for the
sake of an anticipated future or in accordance with a
past resolve. The theory reduces man to a reflex auto-
maton, responding with every appearance of spontaneous
activity to his surroundings, but really passive all the
time. What we take for will is, it says, simply the
victory of one set of impressions, or the memory of
such a set, over all others. To put it quite frankly, all
that is to us of the essence of life is a delusion. "We
are such stuff as dreams are made of" in very sooth.
But, ingenious theorizing as this may be, it is not psycho-
logy. Psychology, like other sciences, must adapt its
hypotheses to the facts, not the facts to its theories. And
no facts are more stubborn than those we class under
will — resolve, disregard of obstacles, persistence, forti-
tude, struggle.

Of course the theory can find no place for the native
proclivities and inherited differences we discussed in the
last chapter. It demands a mind like a wax tablet —
to use Locke's simile — on which surroundings will trace
the inscription we call life. This is, of course, to assume
that all men are born mentally equal. So, with his usual
consistency, Helvetius wrote : " I shall conclude that the
superiority of the understanding is not the produce of
the temperament nor of the greater or less perfection
of the senses, nor of an occult quality, but of that well-

NATURE OF EXPERIENCE 143

known cause, education ... in which I comprehend the
situations in which chance has placed them."1 This,
as was argued in the last chapter, is irreconcilable with
the actual facts of life. So, by every test known to
science, the hypothesis that man is merely the creature
of his circumstances falls to the ground.

In seeking the true nature of human life we must,
therefore, accept each of the two aspects as true determin-
ants. Inborn nature, as we have described it, is a reality.
The influence upon us of the external world of men
and things is equally a reality. But the reality of each
is found only in combination with the other. The
former alone is mere capacity and proclivity — the promise
of life, but not life itself. The latter gives occasion
for activity, but cannot give it birth. Life is through-
out that interaction between the individual and his
surroundings which we call experience. The springs of
action are from within, whether they be the spontaneous
promptings of instinct or the impulsion of matured
purpose ; the opportunities for action are given by sur-
roundings. True, we may seek opportunities ; there is
our free initiative. But unless we find them we cannot
act ; there is external limitation. We may speak of acts
of thought or of will, of choice and determination, and
the like, apart from their objects. But these are abstrac-
tions. If we decide to act, it is in a certain definite
way, in certain determinate circumstances. If we think,
it is about some definite element in our experience.
Everywhere and always we find the filling of the thought
or of the determination is given from without. From
within comes the mode in which we deal with the situa-

1 Dt Fhomme, de set facultes et de son education, sect. ii. ch. i and
Recapitulation.

i44 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

tion. May I so far put it technically as to say that the
form of experience is from within, the content from
without ? Of course, the two cannot be separated. We
know no activity apart from surroundings, and we know
no surroundings apart from our activity. They may
be distinguished in thought, and the error of each of
the two theories we have rejected lies in supposing that
this distinction implies separation in reality.

It is with such experience that the educator has to
deal. He is part of the outer factor for each of his
pupils, and as such, he must try to influence the mode
in which the inner factor of the child's nature interacts
with other elements in the outer factor of his surround-
ings.

Certainly, in the constant interaction between nature
and surroundings the part played by each in determining
the actual life varies with individuals. That we have
already seen. The strong nature bends his surroundings
to his will ; the weak is more or less at their mercy.
But strength of purpose is itself a product of life. We
may start with the possibility of developing it, but not
with its actual development. For purpose implies
experience and the power of using experience in fore-
sight. So we may say that dominance over surroundings
comes only with life.

The relative part in experience of the outer factor
is, then, greatest in childhood. Yet, even in its earliest
days, the baby is not a mere passive recipient of impres-
sions. He puts forth activity to receive them, and by
activity he responds to them. It is true that such
activity is at first quite independent of previous experi-
ence. It is, however, the activity of his inborn nature,
and the groundwork of experience. When random

NATURE OF EXPERIENCE 145

movements are followed by satisfaction of instinct they
tend to be repeated. When such movements fail to
satisfy the vague longings of instinct, or lead to positive
discomfort, they tend to be inhibited. Each experience
leaves a trace behind it in the nervous system in which
the reaction has initiated a circuit, and in the mental
system in vague reminiscence.

We cannot, indeed, put ourselves in imagination at
a baby's mental outlook. We can only judge what it
is by his acts. Not by isolated movements, for they
may easily give an accidental appearance of meaning
which they do not possess, but by the extent to which
his acts are organized into series with distinguishable
aims. When we thus study the baby, the mental
characteristic which stands out most clearly is that,
far from recognizing separate sensations and then build-
ing them up into more and more complex combinations,
his whole consciousness is a vague sentience. In it are
at first no distinctions at all, either of things or even
of himself from his surroundings. The whole course
of life is a progressive analysis of that primary experience.
This process goes on throughout by activity. The child
finds that certain acts bring certain satisfactory results —
that looking, grasping, carrying to the mouth and suck-
ing, result in pleasant tasting. The whole set of actions
adheres together by repetition into a recognition, say
of sugar, of which afterwards the name is both a con-
venient label and a permanent bond. Thus, from the
first, experience develops as the result of personal activity.

But the baby's consciousness is not limited to the
parts of his experience which are gradually beginning
to stand out as distinct. These are only little cmiverini
points of light in a great plain of misty obscurity. And
w. i

146 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

n it is the whole^£lain_ which is the child's life. Though
its elements are not separated from each other yet he
feels pain or pleasure, vague impulses and aversions,
all the reactions of his nascent but as yet indefinite
instincts on the totality of his surroundings. They are
part of his conscious life, though only as a vague
undifferentiated mass. Out of this obscure totality
arise, slowly but surely, the definite explorations which
lead to knowledge. A great step is taken when he
learns by the results of his actions to distinguish himself
from his surroundings. That, as it were, cuts the whole
of his experience into two parts, and makes possible an
apprehension of the effects of his own efforts.

To enter in detail into the psychology of the baby
is outside our scope. But it is obvious that this process
of sorting out the elements of his surroundings and of
learning their relations to himself is a slow one. It is
much accelerated when he learns to talk and to under-
stand the speech of others, as he can then profit more
fully by their experience. Then, too, he soon becomes
capable of noting some of the relations of things to
other things as well as to himself. But if the reader
will ask himself how much there still is in his daily
surroundings of which his knowledge is only of a very
superficial kind he will grant that the process of clearing
up experience is one which life is not likely to see com-
pleted. This means, however, that there is always a
great deal in our experience on which we are but
imperfectly informed. Only to the extent to which we
do know anything can we make definite use of it.

That which is present in experience in the mass is
part of life as well as that which has been made explicit
and clear. This we are apt to ignore both in planning

NATURE OF EXPERIENCE 147

our own lives and in trying to influence the lives of
others. We think only of the comparatively narrow
field of explicit attention and definite purpose. So we
determine to do something which, when the time comes
we do not do because we no longer feel the same about
it. So, too, we expect to regulate the conduct of
children by appeals to understanding and clear thinking.
Of course, we are continually disappointed, just because
with them, even more than with us, that which is clear
in consciousness now does not long remain so, and even
while it does is not always the final determinant of
action.

Let us examine what this vague background of con-
sciousness contains. My attention may be strictly
concentrated on writing this chapter, or my reader's on
reading it. Yet there is a vast mass of other life-process
going on as well. Impressions of all kinds from the
body itself and, through the sense organs, from the
surroundings, though not individually strong enough to
force themselves into notice, are collectively giving a
colour and a tone to the whole life of the present moment.
If all the bodily functions be going on well, and the
surroundings be inoffensive, then I write with a sense
of ease and freedom very different from the heaviness
and dullness which mark intellectual effort when the
bodily organism is deranged or the surroundings uncom-
fortable, as when, for instance, one feels too cold or too
warm. Usually the emotional life is thus only dimly
conscious. Even when a particular emotion fixes itself
on a perfectly definite object its strength lies largely in
this mass of undiscriminated experience.

Further, when we have deliberately made up our
minds to a course of action we do not keep on thinking

i48 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

and remembering that we have done so. We simply
go on to do it, and we direct our energies towards its
accomplishment. The successive steps we take ' fill our
minds ' as we say. Yet it is not really so. They fill only
the region of clear awareness : behind, in the dim back-
ground, is the purpose. Though it is not continuously
in our thoughts yet it guides and determines those
thoughts and the actions to which they lead. This
retirement of the purpose into the background explains
why it is not always operative after an interval. The
new situation may call into play other springs of activity
to which, deliberately or implicitly, we entrust the
direction of our conduct.

Both purpose and emotion, then, — the two great
springs of action, the higher development of inborn pro-
pensities— lurk in the background of consciousness.
They are, as common parlance very well has it, ' at the
back of our minds.'

This vague background is the representation in con-
sciousness of those parts of our surroundings to which
we are not definitely attending. We must not, how-
ever, confine this to present impressions. Day after day
the same general scheme of things is about us. Now
and then we notice one or other element in it. But,
as a rule, the vast mass of our daily environment draws
our attention only when there is some change. If a
picture gets awry, for instance, we remark it, though
it is by no means sure that we pass on from putting it
straight to considering its artistic merit. And to most
of the pictures in our house we may very seldom give
more than a casual and non-seeing glance. So it may
be said generally that most of our habitual surroundings
enter our life only in the dim way of which we are

NATURE OF EXPERIENCE 149

speaking. That they do thus enter it makes them pretty
constant constituents of that dim background which is
our mood at the moment and, in its prevailing customary
tone, our disposition. Their effect is, of course, cumu-
lative ; for no impression can be made without modifying
at once the nervous system and the consciousness that
corresponds to it.

Further, in receiving these experiences we are much
more passive than in those of which we are clearly
conscious. I cannot, for example, make the aesthetic
effect of my surroundings different from what it is so
long as I remain amid those surroundings, and other
considerations may render that imperative. Evidently
some environments are much more favourable to the
growth of a full and rich experience than are others,
though all give at least some occasion for the exercise
of all the powers with which the individual is endowed.

It follows that no man is the same as he would have
been had he been brought up amid totally different
surroundings. Take an English baby and let him grow
up in a Hottentot kraal, and his ideas of life, his modes
of thinking and of acting, will be very different from
what they would have been had he lived in England.
Or take him from the class in which he is born and let
him be brought up in a family of quite another social
rank, and again the difference will be real though not
so marked as in the former case. Surroundings are
always affecting the dim background of consciousness,
and so influencing mood and disposition, and instilling
through the influence of habituation certain standards
of taste in reference to all the customary things of life.
A person who grows up and lives amid squalid surround-
ings and rude manners becomes accustomed to them.

150 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

They fix his standard without conscious thought, and
that standard governs his own mode of life and behaviour.
One, on the other hand, who has had the happiness to
be born and to live in a refined circle, gets with equal
absence of effort a standard of good breeding.

Surroundings, then, come as influences into our lives
both with and without our full knowledge. As giving
scope for our conscious activity of body and of mind,
and at the same time limiting it, they enter the fully
conscious life. As moulding our moods, our disposi-
tion, and our taste, they enter the sub-conscious life. As
constituents of the latter they are a powerful factor in
determining the former.

In trying to understand the experience, then, of any
individual, account must be taken not only of his inborn
nature and of the deliberate attempts made to shape
it to which we usually restrict the term ' education ', but
also of everything which in any way comes into his life.
The man is the concrete being who has become what
he is because of the continuous interaction between his
inherited nature and the whole of his surroundings.
Some, indeed, have preferred to include this whole
environment under education. Thus, Rousseau wrote,
"Education is given by nature, by man, and by things.
The internal development of our powers and of our
organs is the education of nature ; the use we are taught
to make of this development is the education of man ;
the gaining of our individual experiences of the objects
which affect us is the education of things." l John
Stuart Mill expands the same idea — "Not only does
education include whatever we do for ourselves, and
whatever is done for us by others, for the express purpose
1 Emile, livre i.

NATURE OF EXPERIENCE 151

of bringing us somewhat nearer to the perfection of our
nature ; it does more : in its largest acceptation, it
comprehends even the indirect effects produced on char-
acter and on the human faculties, by things of which
the direct purposes are quite different ; by laws, by
forms of government, by the industrial arts, by modes
of social life ; nay, even by physical facts not dependent
on human will ; by climate, soil, and local position.
Whatever helps to shape the human being ; to make
the individual what he is, or hinder him from being
what he is not — is part of his education." x

Obviously, in this wide application 'education'
includes elements which tend to deform as well as those
which make for improvement. As Mill adds: "And
a very bad education it often is ; requiring all that can
be done by cultivated intelligence and will to counteract
its tendencies."

It is, I think, generally convenient to use ' education '
in its more customary and restricted sense, because it is
impossible to give any practical rules to govern the wider
and vaguer influences on life which are so largely outside
human control. But in doing so it is vital to remember
that we are excluding from the term a great deal that
is formative. In so far as an educator can modify or
determine any of those factors of experience which are
not part of education in the narrower sense, to that
extent his efforts are indirectly educative.

By far the most important of the formative influences
which mould us more or less without our knowledge
and independently of our will is the general view of
life, or the public opinion, of the people among whom
we live. " In every age it has constituted an important
1 Inaugural Address at St. Andrews.

152 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

element of the social life of modern Europe. Who can
say whence it arises, or how it is formed? We may
regard it as the especial product of that community of
interests and feelings which binds together societies ; as
the clearest expression of their inward movements and
revolutions. It derives its origin and its nutriment
from hidden sources, and, requiring little support from
reason or from evidence, takes possession of the minds
of men by involuntary conviction. Yet its apparent
uniformity is in fact confined to the most general out-
lines ; for in the innumerable circles, wide and narrow,
of which human society is composed, it reappears under
forms the most various and peculiar. New observations
and new experiments are constantly flowing into it ;
original minds are ever arising, which, affected by its
course, but not borne along by its stream, react forcibly
upon it ; and thus it is in a state of incessant flux and
metamorphosis. It is sometimes more, sometimes less,
in accordance with truth and justice ; being rather a
tendency of social life and an impulse of the moment,
than a fixed system."1

The minds which are at once original and powerful
are few. Consequently, most adults and all children and
youths owe to their human environment much more
than they give to it. Within the broad general limits
of accepted custom they may shape their own lives, but
they never escape the moulding restraint of the com-
munity.

When we turn to more specific classes of surroundings
we have as the chief differences those of social class and
of locality. Neither can, as a rule, be changed by the
individual educator. Yet it is well that he should

1 Ranke : History of the Popes, tr. by S. Austin, vol. i. p. 88.

NATURE OF EXPERIENCE 153

recognize the kinds of modification of development
which naturally result from such differences in environ-
ment.

Of the former mention has already been made. It
affects the bodily health and development, the general
outlook on life, and the conception of the relation of
the individual to his fellows. Careful measurements
show that children in elementary schools are appreciably
less in height, in weight, and in general vital power, V /
than those of similar age in schools which draw their - */
pupils from the wealthier classes ; and that children in *,/
the country are in these points superior to those in the '
towns, though in a less degree.

Obviously, in very poor homes the town child is at
a disadvantage as compared with the young countryman.
The latter at least gets fresh air, one of the necessaries
of a healthy life, in much greater quantity and of much
purer quality than does the former.

It is, however, a common opinion that the town is
at least as much superior for mental life as is the country
for physical life. All considerations of mental develop-
ment lead me to the opposite conclusion. For, putting on
one side the close relation between physical vigour and
mental vitality, it may be pointed out that the country
is more favourable to manifold activity than is the town.
Through the varied dealings with things which fill much
of the life of a country child while the town child is
idling round street corners or playing in the gutter, the
former learns much. Again, the wide vistas of the
country are more favourable to the cultivation of good
eyesight than are the cramped spaces of the town. Like
every other organ the eye develops by exercise, and when
practically the only long outlook available is up into

154 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

the sky, the natural result is some degree of near-
sightedness. Doubtless the country school does as
much as the town school to injure eyesight. In each
children are too exclusively engaged in reading and
writing, and in each there is far too little insistence that
the eye shall be kept at a distance from the page which
minimizes the evil. But the country offers compensa-
tions which the town does not. Whoever will consider
how much of our knowledge of the external world comes
to us through sight will at once see that this limita-
tion of vision is a mental loss as well as a physical
injury.

If it be considered further how the life of intelligence
and purpose develops by the gradual sorting-out of the
items of experience, it will be apparent that a smaller
number of impressions continually repeated is more
desirable than a larger number constantly changing.
Here, again, the country or small quiet town has an
.advantage over the large town. The town child is
{acquainted with mor£_persons and things, but he knows
lless about them. So grows up that superficiality and
shallowness, leading often, even as early as adolescence,
to the feeling that nothing is worth much trouble and
that all has been experienced, which increasingly char-
acterizes our town youth. "Children whose first
remembrances are full of new impressions grow old
quickly, while those to whose perceptions little is offered
grow up more slowly and more naturally. Other con-
ditions being the same, these latter will be calmer,
healthier, and more reasonable." 1

The quickness of the town child is more than compen-
sated by the greater solidity of the country boy or girl.
1 F. Marion Crawford : Greifensteiny ch. 2.

NATURE OF EXPERIENCE 15-5

It is a case of Ascham's "quicke and hard wittes",
artificially induced by surroundings.

Morally, as well as intellectually and physically, the
country is preferable for a child. He knows few people,
but he knows all he meets and he learns to sympathize
with them. The town child, though he lives amid the
citizen crowd, yet knows and cares for few. In the
country the young boy or girl is not an unregarded unit
to the great majority of the people he meets, but to
the town child it has never been matter of surprise

" how men lived

Even next-door neighbours, as we say, yet still
Strangers, not knowing each the other's name." 1

The village child grows up in some consciousness of the
brotherhood of man ; on the town child is much more
impressed a selfish ignoring of others.

Doubtless country life is open to the danger of stag-
nation and narrowness of interest. But these are evils
for the adult rather than for the child. Life needs to
be deep before it is broad, or its breadth is but shallow-
ness.

All such arguments as these are in favour of the
position that the bustle of a large city is the worst
environment in which a child can be brought up.
Probably a small town is best of all, as it widens experi-
ence without scattering it.

It is now evident that surroundings count for much
in life. Were it not so man could learn little from his
fellows. They do not count for all, because human
nature is essentially active. In addition to the instinc-
tive proclivities discussed in an earlier chapter, we are

1 Wordsworth : The Prelude, bk. vii. 11. 1 16-1 18.

156 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

all born with an innate tendency to become like our
fellows. This has of late years been called by some the
instinct of imitation, and the application of the term
has been stretched so widely that practically the whole
of mental life is included in it. But the very generality
of the tendency removes it from the class of true instincts,
all of which have a definite emotional centre, as well
as more or less defined modes of reception and reaction.
In contrast with this, the assimilative tendency appears
in activities of all kinds, and is devoid of characteristic
emotional tone. It is preferable, then, to regard it as an
innate tendency and not an instinct.

The wide extension of the term ' imitation ' is open
to more serious objections both psychological and edu-
cational. Imitation thus used, is essentially a judgement
of the observer passed on actions because of their
resemblance to actions previously perceived by the actor.
From this external standpoint it is evident that at least
an element of imitation can be found in all we do. But
when we turn from this external character of the acts
to their meaning in the life of the actor we find that the
similarity has disappeared. Except, perhaps, in early
life, to make a copy is seldom the object in view, and
only in so far as it is can the act be classed as imitative
in intention. Psychologically what is needed is an
examination of the internal springs of action, not an
obscuring of their differences because of an entirely
external and, it may be, accidental resemblance. Nor is
it convenient to depart so far from the ordinary use of
words as to speak of imitating the thoughts, desires,
and resolutions of another ; or to say that each successive
time we do an action we imitate our previous efforts.
Still further is it removed from the language of the plain

NATURE OF EXPERIENCE 157

man to call the formulation of a scientific law an imitation
in thought of the workings of nature.

Educationally also the wide and loose use of the term
is unfortunate. For one of the most important and
difficult tasks education has to perform is to decide how
far a child shall act on its own initiative and how far on
the lines laid down by another ; to determine the respec-
tive parts of originality and copying. To lump both
the processes under one term can only obscure the issue.

The general tendency of man to assimilate his mental
life to that of his fellows shows itself not only in act
but in feeling and thought. The gregarious instinct
prompts human beings to gather together. Each feels
a satisfaction in being with his fellows, even though they
are all strangers to him and there is no common purpose.
Now if there be added anything in the nature of such
a purpose — anything which in any way binds the col-
lected units into a group — there appears this assimilative
tendency. A crowd hearing an impassioned orator
becomes swayed by emotion much more violent than
any one individual in it would have felt had the same
oration been addressed to him privately. Moved by
such emotion the crowd will often commit deeds which
the majority at any rate of its constituents would not
have done had they not been part of the crowd, but in
which, it may be, they take an active share. This
induction of feeling through a group of people is well
named by M. Ribot ' emotional unison.' In the etymo-
logical meaning of the word it is ' sympathy ' ; that is,
agreement in feeling. But ordinary usage has restricted
' sympathy ' to a much more advanced and complex
sentiment, implying in addition to this foundation of
emotional unison some tenderness towards the individual

158 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

with whom we sympathize and some power of intellectual
representation of his condition.

The importance of the tendency to unison of feeling
is obvious when it is borne in mind that emotion prompts
to action. Many actions really owe their external
resemblance not to imitation but to such a common
emotional origin. Let us take a school example. Every
teacher knows the difference between a class in which
there is a general spirit of work and one in which the
prevailing sentiment is towards 'rotting'. Each boy
is infected with the general spirit, so that in the one
case the naturally idle puts forth effort, and in the other
the naturally industrious relapses into frivolity. It is
not that individual boys set themselves to imitate their
fellows in these matters, but that, being in the class
they have this innate tendency to assimilate themselves
to its standards. The same thing is true in that wider
sense in which it is customary to speak of the ' tone '
of a school or class. Here again the fundamental factor
is the assimilation of the individual to the common life.
It may be noted in passing that the teacher is subjected
to this influence as well as the pupils, and if he be a
weak person or one who is aiming at popularity or at
cultivating a kind of artificial sympathy his efforts to
" take the boys' point of view" as to the value of work
may lead in time to his adoption of it as his own.

The more society is divided into groups with little
contact with each other the more each group tends to
have a marked class-feeling. Separation of classes means
that each is ignorant of the ways in which the others
look at matters common to the whole community.
Hence is very likely to arise some amount, at any rate,
of class-suspicion and even of class-antagonism. Here

NATURE OF EXPERIENCE 159

again becomes apparent an evil of large towns in which
the working classes are segregated from the more wealthy
classes to which the employers of labour belong. In
the country social ranks are brought much more into
contact with each other, and from their intercourse
springs at least some mutual understanding with its
natural outcome of mutual esteem and respect. When
many individuals live wholly among their own class their
outlook and sympathies tend to be narrowed down to
that class. Both sympathy with other classes and regard
for the wider interests of the nation as a whole are
gradually atrophied.

It may be said, and justly, that in such cases there is
not only emotional but intellectual assimilation — the
acceptance of ideas as well as the sharing of the common
emotional relation to conduct and things, and, conse-
quently, an assimilation of purpose. Certainly it is so,
for life is a whole and the distinction between its various
aspects is only a convenience of discussion. It is,
indeed, in this general assimilation that we find the
explanation of much, if not most, of what from the
outside standpoint would be called imitation.

It would be strange indeed if a child did not assimilate
his thoughts to those of the people around him. From
them he learns his language, and that acquisition is not
merely ,of words but of ideas and of ways of thinking.
A boy who hears his family circle discuss theft as a matter
of course will regard it in that light unless, or until,
other surroundings impress the opposed view upon him
with sufficient strength to oust the original doctrine.
So, too, the boys in the classes we have supposed will
assimilate to each other in their estimate of the worth
of lessons in general and of their class lessons in par-

160 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

ticular as well as in their feeling towards them. And
the two together involve the participated tendency which
manifests itself in their actions.

The whole mental attitude may modestly remain in
the background of consciousness where it always origin-
ates, but it is not the less effective for that. If the
tendency be an undesirable one, as in the case of the
' slack ' class, the only effective cure must begin by
dragging it from its lurking-place. When people realize
the nature of their behaviour it challenges their approval
or condemnation. Only when it is condemned will any
effective change be made. But most boys are decent
fellows and quite fair-minded enough to acknowledge
that 'rotting' is hardly worthy of them.

In addition to this kind of general absorption of the
opinions of those around us, there are innumerable cases
in which ideas are definitely and explicitly suggested to
us by others. Now the characteristic mark of sugges-
tion is the omission of proof or reason, as is seen most
clearly in cases of hypnotism. But we are all liable to
such suggestion, especially when it comes to us saturated
with emotion ; though the suggestibility of individuals
varies, as does that of the same individual at different
times. Generally we may say that everything which
decreases the dominance of clear purpose, or which
increases the influence of the background of conscious-
ness relatively to the clear centre of attention, increases
suggestibility. So, as we might expect, sensitive
emotional temperaments are the most apt to absorb
their thoughts from others. In our individual lives
fatigue increases our liability to accept suggestion. So,
too, does limitation of knowledge. In a subject
with which I am familiar I naturally require proof

NATURE OF EXPERIENCE 161

before accepting a new proposition. But in one in
which my knowledge is vague I shall be likely to receive
without demur ideas suggested to me, especially if the
suggestion comes from a person whom I respect, and
more especially still if I believe him to be an authority
on the subject.

The bearing of this on teaching is not difficult to
see. Despite the ardent advocates of the view that
every child should find out every thing for himself the
practical teacher knows that he must tell his pupils many
things, not only some which they cannot find out, but
some of which the proof would be unintelligible to them.
He acts on their suggestibility. So, indeed, do the
preachers of the new doctrine act on the suggestibility
of the general public. With teachers, practical experi-
ence forbids the reception of the suggestion ; so, of
course, practical teachers are condemned by these
enthusiasts as fools or knaves or both.

The effect of suggestion is not a mere shaping of a
passive and inert mass of information. Real ideas are
parts of life — tendencies, direct or indirect, to action.
Most obviously is this the case when the idea suggested
is closely connected with conduct. One suggests to a
child that something is worth doing or worth learning.
If the suggestion works he proceeds to do or to learn
it. Or- one suggests that such and such is the best way
of accomplishing his purpose ; if the suggestion is
adopted he tries that way. A suggestion differs from a
command in the kind of appeal it makes. The ensuing
behaviour may be identical in the two cases ; the char-
acter of the act is entirely different. One displaces the
child's initiative ; the other prompts it. Certainly there
are occasions, especially in early life, when definite

1 62 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

command alone is adequate to meet the situation.
Equally certain is it that suggestion should be increas-
ingly the rule, command more and more the exception,
as the child increases in intelligence, foresight, and
self-control. Command means control from without ;
suggestion cultivates control from within.

Some individuals, as we have already seen, receive
most suggestions negatively. They are the contrary
people whose delight it is to be different from others.
A good many children go through a temporary period
of contrariness — often about ten or eleven years of age —
and grow out of it again. It is due, probably, to the
vague consciousness of increased power which seems to
mark this period. Others, however, are born so, and
continue so till the end of the chapter, to the combined
amusement and annoyance of their friends and acquaint-
ances. This opposition to the suggestions of others is
not strength of will, as the individual fondly believes
it to be. Indeed, the more cantankerous he is the more
suggestible he is. The only peculiarity about him is his
mode of reaction. Those who know his foible find it
quite easy to manage him. They simply urge him not
to do what they wish him to do.

It is evident that suggestibility has a legitimate part
to play in every life : it is further obvious that a life
governed by suggestion would be a pale shadow of its
surroundings. Self-confidence and self-initiative are
needed. Of course, it is arguable that in the most
original thoughts of men there is always something due
to others. It is a matter of degree. But it is better
to restrict ' suggestion ' to the offering for acceptance of
definite ideas without proof. This grows out of the
general influence of the intellectual life of the community

NATURE OF EXPERIENCE 163

upon the individual intellectual life, but should not be
identified with it. And it is from the general intellectual
heritage that the original thinker has drawn some of his
material much more than from definite suggestions of
others.

Suggestibility implies the activity of the instinct of
self-abasement ; self-confidence springs from that of
self-assertion. The due union of the two gives the
sane mental life of him who is prepared to listen to all
sides, but who himself pronounces judgement.

It is plain that the origin of many actions which out-
wardly appear as imitative has already been found. It
will add to clearness if we use the term ' imitation ' very
strictly. What do we mean when we say we will imitate
something ? Surely, this — that we will make a copy of
it. In other words, from the standpoint of the doer
imitation is intentional. In so far as our copy departs
from the original, it fails as an imitation. If I employed
an artist to paint a copy of Raphael's ' Madonna del
Granduca' I should be little pleased were he to show
his originality by making alterations. No doubt there
would be differences due to want of skill, but the artist
would deliberately set himself to imitate the original,
and would make those differences as few and as small
as he could. Let us take another case. Suppose I do
a conjuring trick before an appreciative group of small
boys. I shall be besieged with requests to "show us
how to do it ". I show them, and they all try to perform
the trick. They fail at first because their imitation is
not close enough, but, when their copying of my actions
becomes exact they succeed.

Here we have two typical cases of imitation. In the
one the product, in the other the process, is copied. The

1 64 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

latter imitation is direct ; the former is indirect, for to
produce the copy a similar use of paints and brushes
must be made as Raphael himself made. The actual
painting of the master is not available as a model, and
the requisite skill has to be otherwise acquired. Taking
the whole process, it is apparent that in the copying of
a product, as distinct from the imitation of a mode of
action, there is a considerable element which is sugges-
tion and not imitation at all. The picture to be copied
suggested the actual process of painting, yet it suggested
it within most explicitly marked limits and on most
definitely laid down lines. The result was determined in
detail, not simply as a whole.

In the copying of the conjuring trick, however, we
have imitation pure and simple. Both result and process
are to be reproduced as nearly as possible. Any varia-
tions that may actually occur are involuntary. They
are not at all due to an intention to be original. On
the contrary, the whole wish is to do the trick correctly.

Now suppose two corresponding but different cases.
An art student at Florence is very likely to copy the
Granduca Madonna among others of Raphael's pictures
for the purpose of acquiring the master's general style,
or his skill in colouring. Afterwards he uses this skill
in painting pictures of his own devising, and in using
it he modifies both the style and the colour-texture.
Imitation has been to him a means through which he
has attained power to express himself in his art. But
to call his own pictures imitations would be a misuse of
terms. One may find much in them that is reminiscent
of Raphael, but the correct explanation of that is found
in the powerful suggestive power Raphael exercises over
him.

NATURE OF EXPERIENCE 165

In the second case let us imagine that one of our
young friends is of an ingenious turn of mind, and that
on the basis of the trick he learnt by imitation he invents
another trick. Here again we have suggestion, not
imitation, and here again the strength or weakness of
the suggestion will appear in the less or greater divergence
of the new trick from the old.

Process necessarily precedes result. Consequently,
imitation of process is earlier than imitation of result.
The latter is impossible without skill already acquired,
the former helps the acquisition of that skill. But even
imitation of process is impossible unless the kinds of
movements and co-ordinations of movements in the action
are already under control. In the acquirement of these
what is often called ' unconscious imitation ' plays an
important part. Now, 'unconscious imitation' is a
description in which only the adjective refers to the mind
of the actor, while the reference of the noun is to the mind
of the onlooker. This is both confused and confusing.
When both adjective and noun are referred to the mental
origin of the action their combination is a contradiction
in terms. When both are referred to the external
appearance of the action the adjective is devoid of mean-
ing, for the suggested distinction between conscious and
unconscious imitation does not appear in the character
of the act looked at from without. If a baby, or an
adult for the matter of that, unconsciously does an action
which another has just done, it is a contradiction in terms
to speak of him as unconsciously imitating. We all
know how contagious is a cough in church, and, to a less
degree, a sneeze. Is it not an abuse of language to say
that all who cough or sneeze are imitating the first
cougher or sneezer ? Do we not try, on the contrary, to

1 66 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

resist the impulse, though it is often too strong for
us?

That a baby does make movements which it sees
others make is certain. But at first it assuredly has no
intention to copy, nor even a recognition of the resem-
blance which is apparent to the onlooker. Until it does
make the movements as intentional copies there is no
imitation. As soon as it does so make them, we have a
proof that its purposive life has begun. To take another
case of what is often called unconscious imitation. Each
person learns not only to speak the language of those
around him, but to adopt their mode of pronunciation.
Remove a child, say of ten years old, to another district,
and after a few months his speech will be a quaint com-
bination of the two dialects, old habit contending with
new influences and gradually yielding to them. Yet he
has never set himself to acquire the fresh pronunciation,
as, for example, a schoolmaster who learnt Latin with the
traditional English pronunciation may deliberately set
himself to produce the sounds at present judged ortho-
dox. Similarly, the general modes of behaviour which
we embrace under the head of ' manners ' result from
our surroundings, but are not gathered by imitation.
The difference between assimilation and imitation
becomes very apparent to any one who deliberately sets
himself to acquire the conventions of a higher class of
society than that to which he has been accustomed.

The child's first movements are in part purely random,
and in part due to that unconscious assimilation of one-
self to one's surroundings which underlies all conscious
attempts to enter into the feelings, thoughts, and pur-
poses, of those around us. Such unconscious assimila-
tion, as has been pointed out with respect to feeling and

NATURE OF EXPERIENCE 167

thinking, can only be modified by changing the sur-
roundings or by awakening a definite desire for change —
such as is aroused when a youth deliberately tries to
improve his manners.

The function of real imitation in life is now laid bare.
It is to help in the acquirement of skill. Combined
with suggestion it may give an object of pursuit. In
the former case it works immediately ; in the latter it
really gives an ideal to which the nearest possible approxi-
mation is desired. Throughout it is purposive. Long
ago, indeed, it was classed by Plato under ' ' productive or
creative art." 1 Of course, one's purpose may be to do
something one has seen another do, and in doing it one
may copy his mode of action. Then the imitation is
intentional though the main purpose is not to imitate.
One imitates as a means to the desired end, but every
such end carries with it the definite intention to follow
out the necessary means. For example, a boy moulds
himself on his favourite batsman. But his real purpose
is to become a good batsman himself — if possible better
than his model. He uses that batsman's style as a
foundation for his own, and, the more skilful he becomes
the more does imitation fade into suggestion in the
regulation of his own style by that which inspires it. But
throughout, the purpose was the development of power
for himself.

The place of imitation in education follows. So far
as imitation helps in the acquirement of any form of skill
it is good ; so far as it checks initiative it is bad. In
any case it is preferable to compelled uniformity of action.
One of the chief educational objections to the external
test of imitation is that under one term are massed

1 Sop fast, 219.

1 68 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

together such outwardly determined uniformities and
the uniformities which spring from the inner desire to do
what somebody else has done. It is excess of the com-
pelled uniformities in school which is to be regretted and
combated. True imitation is the expression of a felt
need, and will be resorted to no more when the need is
satisfied. It is always a tool, never an end in itself.

Children, like adults, differ in the extent to which
they imitate. That is a matter of temperament, and
is only one special aspect of the general tendency to be
more or less formed by surroundings which meets us in
every department of life. A wise educator tries to
reduce excess on the one side or the other in this as in
other forms in which the general assimilative tendency
shows itself. The fundamental mistake possible in the
matter is an assumption that imitation and originality
are essentially opposed to each other in practical life.
No doubt they are from the point of view of the
observer ; by no means so from that of the child. In
each case he has a purpose to fulfil, and that originates
his action. Whether the result has been achieved before
is, psychologically, a small point. Most of us never do
achieve a result that is quite novel. Even with the most
imitative child the purpose is generally to achieve or to
become something, and that something is not yet in his
life. He may imitate in reaching his purpose, but the
imitation is only a subordinate intention. The whole
activity is directed to the ideal suggested from without,
as all our ideals more or less are. Imitation of imita-
tions, however, can only develop executive skill, and is
thus ancillary to the free use of imitation in the pursuit of
purpose. The method of teaching drawing recently
current in England failed because it ignored this.

NATURE OF EXPERIENCE 169

To forbid a child to imitate is to prevent him from
getting help from others of which he feels the need,
and which his own being prompts him to seek just in
that way. The often expressed objection to imitation
always assumes that in an imitative act the child is
passive, and that imitation and origination are incom-
patible. I trust that on each count I have shown that
the objection springs from the unfortunate custom of
deciding the nature of imitation by the appearance of
the act or result, instead of by an analysis of the con-
sciousness in which the act originates.

All development of life implies that living is a cumula-
tive process,

" That men may rise on stepping stones
Of their dead selves to higher things." l

This, indeed, is of the very essence of growth as com-
pared with mere succession. Did events in life simply
succeed each other and leave no trace behind, then " it is
evident that even life itself, in its worst and most
miserable state, could not be supported ; since, though
oppressed with thirst and hunger, and within reach of
the most delicious fruits and the most plentiful spring-
water, we should still suffer, without any knowledge of
the means by which the suffering could be remedied." 2

The point needs no labouring. We all know that
each of our activities, whether of thought or of action,
is based on simpler activities of a similar kind. One
must be able to walk on the ground before one can learn
to traverse Niagara on a tight-rope ; a mastery of more
elementary mathematics is an essential preliminary to a

1 Tennyson : In Memoriam, i.

2 Brown : Philosophy of the Human Mind, Lect. 34.

170 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

successful study of the calculus ; an affection for those
nearest to us is the only root from which can grow a far-
reaching benevolence.

In every case there is in development an increase both
in differentiation and in complexity. This is most easily
seen in the examination of a piece of bodily skill. In
learning to draw, the child can at first make but few and
simple strokes. The niceties of form escape both his
observation and his executive power ; if they be pointed
out to him he cannot represent them. So with learning
to play the piano. The movements possible at first are
simple, slow and awkward in execution, often mistaken.
Increase of skill in each case is the gradual but continuous
expression of fresh differences, and the equally constant
combination of movements into more elaborate wholes.
Such activities are at once intellectual and physical, and
the elaboration and growing perfection are in apprehen-
sion as well as in manual dexterity. Activities in which
bodily movement is unessential follow the same law of
progress. A child must learn to use the simple opera-
tions of arithmetic before he can attack problems which
involve them. He must know, for example, the product
of seven and each of the first nine numbers before he can
multiply a longer number by seven.

In every case there is involved both habituation result-
ing from past experience and accommodation to meet the
demands of the new situation. Behind both, as the very
origin of the whole, is developing purpose. It is because
the child wishes to meet the new situation that he calls
into use the skill he has already acquired and uses his
intelligence to modify it to suit the present case. The
keynote of all development is purpose. As soon as
purpose fails to expand, life ceases to become richer or

NATURE OF EXPERIENCE 171

more effective. Then habituation is dominant ; the
adaptations made are of small importance. They are
only to conditions of like scope ; there has ceased to be
accommodation to wider and more complex demands.
Habituation is thus seen to be a good servant but a bad
master.

There is no need to enter at length into the origin of
habits. Everyone knows that they result from repeti-
tion, and from nothing else.

Any reaction on impression makes a circuit in the
nervous system ; every repetition of the same reaction
strengthens it. The circuit may involve a cortical centre,
in which case we are conscious of the reaction ; or it may
pass through a lower centre, when we are at the most
very dimly aware of the act. This is the case with those
many habitual mannerisms which mark the behaviour of
every person, but of which there is little or no conscious-
ness, unless attention be drawn to them by another. In
such a case the reaction is as nearly automatic as human
life ever becomes. It has probably originated without
deliberate intention, and is one of those reflexions of the
acts of another which are due to unconscious assimilation.
Such habits are plainly not of vital importance in life. A
man may be both a valuable and an able member of
society, though his every-day manners do not satisfy the
conventional demands of the most refined circles. They
are, however, among the most difficult habits to break,
just because of their petty nature. The circuit is so
simple that nerves and muscles act mechanically, and it
requires much patience and watchfulness to rid oneself
of any of these peculiarities.

These, if the simplest, are the least important
examples of human automatism. The habits which

172 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

really matter are those which are organized into acts of
increasing complexity and form the very substance of
skill. These either originate in such an instinct as
curiosity or constructiveness and use imitation of
another's acts as a guide, or begin immediately in an
impulse to copy what another does. In each case the
form of the activity is given by imitation.

Now, the essential point to notice about these habitua-

tions is that they are continually undergoing modification.

j, »/Take a child learning to write. He twists his whole

\body, holds his head in many unsuitable positions, very
likely protrudes his tongue, frowns fiercely, and clutches
his pen with a desperate grip. The motor reactions are
many more than are needed, and include some that posi-
tively hinder the desired action. No doubt, if left to
himself the child will in time get the circuit pretty clear,
by gradually discovering and discarding the movements
which are the most inconvenient. But he will do it all
the more quickly if in the process he is helped by example
and direction. Imitation here plays an important part,
not only in initiating the complex reaction but in guiding
its improvement. The total activity is from the first a
synthesis of many movements, each of which can be made
separately. Indeed, when a child performs one part of
the process worse than other parts the teacher often picks
it out, shows the child how to do that act by itself, and
calls on him to practise it — that is, by repetition to bring
it up to the level of the other links of the chain.

When the child can write from a copy the first stage
of the acquirement is accomplished. He now makes
only the required movements, and he makes them more
or less continuously. He has not to attend specially
either to how he sits or how he holds his pen, or to the

NATURE OF EXPERIENCE 173

hand and finger movements required to produce each
separate stroke and curve, though, probably the teacher's
voice will at times remind him that perfection has not
been reached in one or more of these matters. Let it be
noted, however, that invariability is confined to details.
The activity as a whole results in a line of writing, and
has to be adjusted afresh for each different line. The
power to produce so variable a whole is a gradual acquire-
ment, and involves throughout the production of simpler
elements and their appropriate combination. Analysis
may easily lead a teacher anxious to simplify to think
only of the elements and to try to build up writing from
the foundation of various forms of strokes. No doubt
the child learns to write when he is set to write, but when
that time comes there is neither psychological nor
physiological ground for believing that the preliminary
exercises had any other effect than to rouse his dislike of
the process by depriving its earliest stages of meaning.
The unit of understanding to the child is the word,
and the earliest writing exercises should deal with
words, united nearly, if not quite, from the beginning
into simple sentences. Any preliminary training in
using a pencil and producing simple forms should be
incidental in his drawing, not put before him as
drill preparatory to writing. A fundamental error
which vitiates much teaching of many subjects lurks in
this method of beginning with abstract elements. It is
that purpose is eliminated. The object the teacher has
in view is that the child may acquire the skilled craft of
writing. But that is not a purpose to the child so long
as it is locked up in the teacher's breast. Nor, indeed,
even if it be announced in that general form. For the
child young enough to be beginning to learn to write

174 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

cannot work for a purpose to him an illimitable distance
ahead. To write immediately the name of his friend
Tom is a purpose he can feel. To make his first writing
lesson an attempt to produce this interesting word will
call forth an energy which will disregard obstacles, come
up smiling after failure, and persevere till the desired
result is produced. Till teaching shakes itself free from
the educationally deadly theory that life is directed from
without it will always lose the greater part of its possible
effectiveness, just because of this same want of faith in
the child's fund of energy ready to rush forward to any
end which seems to him worth attaining.

The later stages of the process of learning to write
develop in the same way. More and more of the execu-
tive part of the activity becomes automatic ; more and
more the adaptation to new requirements is freely at
the disposal of the intelligence. The second step is
obviously writing from memory a phrase containing
only words which have often been written by imitation.
Here the form of each word — which we call spelling
— has to be produced without a copy. It is evident
that much repetition is a necessary preliminary to that.
Nor need that repetition have been only with the pen.
Many minds form habits of utterance, and to such the
oral spelling of a word letter by letter, whether aloud or
silently, is a considerable help in forming the habit of
writing it correctly. Children, like adults, differ in the
way in which they naturally learn such things, and the
wise teacher will allow each to follow his bent. Many,
perhaps most, say the separate letters as they write them.
That is, they name them. Why not encourage them to
say the letters as they look at them after they have written
them if they find it helps them ? If the purpose to learn

NATURE OF EXPERIENCE 175

to spell the words has been roused in the child's mind
he may safely be left to do it in his own way. Doubtless
the old scholastic tradition of hearing a child say lessons
he had learnt had its disadvantages, but it did, at any
rate, leave each free to learn them as he would, and it
certainly gave him a reason for learning them, though
not of the best kind. The newer methods tend to take
this freedom from the children, to make the learning of
all an imitation of the same method, and thus to keep
the intelligence in leading-strings. By deadening
initiative such a course deadens effort. So the learners
have to be stimulated by an external appeal no better, if
more agreeable, than the old one, for pleasure and pain
stand on the same moral level. In short, many modern
methods of teaching, in attempting to make learning
easy to the child, give so minute a guidance of action
that they eliminate all virility from the learning by
banishing purpose, effort, and originality. But without
the cultivation of these the habit of expecting by one's
own efforts to reach better things than those of the
present cannot be formed.

The third and last stage in the acquirement of the art
of writing rests on automatism of formation both of
letter and of word. The purpose is now to express ideas.
This leads into all the possible developments of com-
position. Into this it is not necessary to enter at length.
The process is the same throughout — each step secured
is only the starting-point for a further advance. The
bald, awkward sentences of the beginner advance little
by little to the grace and force of style of which each is
capable. Here, again, the neglect of the appeal to pur-
pose is too frequently seen in the very early stage of
development at which the advance of many a school

i y6 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

boy or girl stops. They have no desire to write well :
they only produce their ' composition ' because the
teacher tells them to do so. But to them a composition
is a composition, and one is as good as another so far as
form goes. Only in the subject-matter, and that not
always by any means, is their interest aroused. Again,
I think, the teaching is vitiated by an inadequate psycho-
logy ; by a want of recognition of the relative parts of
purpose and habit in human life.

Such an analysis as we have here made of writing
would apply to all forms of executive habituation. In
some the combination in definite series is more important
than in others. The multiplication table, for example,
is not a series operatively. Consequently, it should not
be established as a habitual series by the writing or
repetition of 'tables'. That results in a child being
unable to give the product of seven and nine without
saying the whole of the seven times table, if not all those
which precede it in the books from " twice one is two".
Similarly, a boy who has learnt the paradigms of the
Latin declensions as a preliminary to the use of any
Latin words will begin with the nominative singular
and say through the whole list of cases till he comes to
the one he needs, it may be the ablative plural. In other
cases, as in learning poetry, the correct series is all im-
portant. The mode of actual future use should always
determine the mode of learning by heart — that is, of
forming a habit of doing and saying.

The value of the development of such automatism as

(we have described is apparent. The adaptation it makes

possible means that intelligence can get to grips with the

new, and leave habit to deal with the old. As the new is

I conquered it also becomes old, and is transferred to the

NATURE OF EXPERIENCE 177

province of the executive. Of course, the new and the
old are not separate, standing side by side. They are
combined in all sorts of ways in reality. Consequently,
our activity which deals with them is one activity, not
two. It is impossible to cut off the automatic from the
originative. The two interpenetrate each other, as will
be plain to any one who has mastered such an example
as that of writing. We may say, indeed, that the whole
activity uses its automatism intelligently. It follows
that individual habits are not developed by any one of us
beyond the stage at which that kind of automatism is
useful in our lives. So that if ever habit comes to play a
part at all analogous to that of instinct in the lives of the
lower animals there is arrested mental development, for
progress is then no longer held to be desirable.

This leads us to consider those wide trends of mental
life which are directive rather than executive, yet are
habitual in their constant recurrence. To distinguish,
these from the habits of executive dexterity already
considered it is well to name them ' habitudes.'

Most of the habitudes of the majority of folk, and
many of those of all, originate in the cumulative in-
fluence upon the individual of his surroundings. The
general modes of belief, of aspiration, of attitude
towards others, of estimates of worth, are really habits
of the community, passed on from generation to genera-
tion, and forming the social tradition. We have seen
how we draw these in with our earliest breath. They
are expressed constantly both in the actions and in the
speech of those about us. We learn that speech, we
imitate those actions. That is, we talk of the things of
life as we understand them from the point of view
current in our social circle, we feel and act towards others

178 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

as we see is customary. The influence of such habitudes
in enabling us to enter into the life of the community,
and to draw spiritual sustenance from it, needs only to
be mentioned to be obvious. But it carries with it a
danger. As life goes on these habitudes grow stronger.
As intelligence develops they may become narrower,
unless an impulse of feeling lead us to see that our duties
and relations are not cabined and confined within the
strait limits of our immediate circle. Such narrow but
intense habitudes, accepted without individual thought
from without and operative only in the realm of the
familiar, into the mould of which they persist in forcing
everything new and strange, we know as prejudices.
Each of us is convinced that at the most one person in
the world is free from prejudice, and no two agree as to
who that person is.

It is evidently here that the vital danger of habit
comes in. The mere arrest of the development of
executive habituation may make a man less efficient in
some walk of active life than he might have become, but
that may be compensated by greater mental productive-
ness. The excess of mental habituation means the much
more serious stifling of mental initiative, of originality.
Such a mind uses executive automatism always in the
same round of activities. A nation obsessed by mental
habituation would be stationary in civilization, because
the sterility of the national mind of necessity carries with
it stagnation both of the applied arts and of all forms of
spiritual culture.

How shall mental stagnation be avoided? A habi-
tude is a trend of life determined by the past. But life
is also determined by anticipation of the future, for " the
future has generally much more to do with our present

NATURE OF EXPERIENCE 179

moods than the past."1 So again the answer is — by
development of purpose. Our purposes, as incentives
to effort, are affiliated to the propulsive force of our
instincts. And that propulsion is essentially emotional.
The instinct is stimulated by something in the situation
and tends to deal with it in a particular manner. Full-
grown purpose is a development of this complex process.
With growth of experience the crude primary emotions
become combined in various ways, and produce states of
greater complexity according to our relations to different
elements in our surroundings. They, therefore, demand
more complex activities to satisfy them. At the same
time, growing intelligence is gradually making clear the
relation of things to ourselves and to each other. Thus,
" instinct supplies an outline sketch of behaviour, to
which experience adds colour and shading."2 This
colour and shading give rise to purpose — the resolution
to attempt to attain that which seems to be of worth.

We have seen that imitation originates activities which
by repetition become at once habitual and adaptive.
Throughout we have urged the presence of purpose.
But the purposes which direct any one class of habits are
all of the same general kind. They are feelings of the
worth of one type of experiences sufficiently powerful
to induce effort to realize them. Thus, such a series of
purposes is a habitude. It is a trend of mental life
growing little by little as the purposes widen, but marked
at every stage by a characteristic form of expression —
the habit of action with which in origin it was connected,
by which it grows, and to which it adds growth. For,
like every other form of life, a habitude grows by acting,

1 W. J. Locke : At the Gate of Samaria, ch. 24.
a Lloyd Morgan : Animal Behaviour, p. 1 06.

i8o THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

and its activity exercises and develops the corresponding
habit. So we see the force of Plato's enquiry: "Did
you never observe how imitations, beginning in early
youth and continuing far into life, at length grow into
habits and become a second nature, affecting body, voice,
and mind?"1

^ \ There are, then, two main classes of habitudes, or life-
\tendencies, in each one of us. The one makes for
f sterility and increasing narrowness : it is a force of mental
\ inertia. The other leads to fertility, increased breadth
/ of outlook and of sympathy, a wider range of activities :
it is essentially dynamic, urging us on to better things.
These latter habitudes do not tend to keep things as they
are, but they are habitual trends of mind nevertheless.
Habitudes may pass from the one class to the other.
A purpose which has been pursued long enough to form
a habitude may be dropped. The habitude still remains,
but it acts more and more blindly. On the other hand,
when intelligence tests and tries, by its effects on life, a
habitude which has grown up from intercourse with
others and without definite intention, it may adopt it as a
general line in which purpose shall work. Then the
habitude loses its inert character because it is infused
with the dynamic power of purpose. It is not the
origin, but the present condition, of a habitude which
decides its present effect on life ; though it is plain that
habitudes which grew up in us unnoticed, and which owe
both origin and support to the customs amid which we
live, are less likely to be followed with full intention
than those which grew round purpose from the begin-
ning. Yet so many of the most important things of
life — our religion, our morality, our opinions on all social
lRep., Jowett's trans., Bk. iii, p. 395.

NATURE OF EXPERIENCE 181

and political questions — do originate in this involuntary
way, that when life advances to the stage in which we are
not occupied solely with the individual things of the very
near present, but are able to take an increasingly wide
outlook on life and see at least some of its meaning, it
is surely necessary that each one of us should try to
justify to himself his beliefs on these most essential
matters, and if they cannot be approved, to modify or to
reject them as may seem necessary. The result will be
at once a principle of conduct and a sphere in which new
or modified habitudes may grow.

The formation of ' general habits ', such as tidiness,
accuracy, punctuality, and the like, depends on the rela-
tion between habitude and habit as found in purpose. If
a parent or a teacher try to form such habits from with-
out, success will naturally be limited to the particular
matter in which they are formed. The whole process is
made a mechanical reaction to certain circumstances, and
the reaction will be called forth only by just that kind of
circumstances. If, on the other hand, a purpose be
inspired, and by needful reminders kept clearly in view,
then a habitude grows up which finds expression in the
desired acts. But such a purpose, like all purposes,
implies not only an emotional spring of individual action
— such as desire to please parent, or fear of punish-
ment— but an intellectual grasp of the value of the
required habit. Certainly children differ in these
matters, as in others. Especially the differences between
the active and the emotional temperaments are likely to
give variation both in the rapidity and in the perfection
with which the habit is formed. So, when no general
habit is formed it may be suspected that the training has
been directed immediately to the outward act, and has

1 82 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

failed to attach adequate importance to the determination
of conduct by purpose. It is habitude that is wanted ;
then habit can be left to take care of itself. To
regard habit as merely regulative of action is to fall
into a similar mistake as to assume acts to be imitative
simply because they look to us like other acts. Outward
habit may be either a mechanical reaction or the deliberate
use of executive automatism.

The question of changing any form of habituation is
one of much practical importance ; for there is no human
being but has both habitudes and habits which it would
be well to modify or to replace. It must be noted that
there can be no such thing as simply breaking a habit.
All habituation is a determination of the direction of
some part of life. We cannot cut out a piece of life ;
we can only change its form. In every case, great and
small, the first essential is to evoke — in ourselves or in
others as the case may be — the purpose to adopt the
opposed mode of thinking, feeling, or acting. This is
least difficult in processes that have always demanded
thought for their execution, that is, in those already
determined by conscious purpose. For then we have
only to substitute purpose for purpose. But when the
habituation has become automatic in its whole operation,
as in tricks of manner and in prejudices, a conscious
purpose has to be introduced into a process from which
it is absent. In the one class of activities we have always
used the habituations for our own clearly conceived ends,
and to these they have been essentially subordinate. In
the other class the habituations have, each in its own
sphere, obtained the mastery of life, and we have to
awaken and originate purpose, not merely to change it.

Purpose having been evoked, the new habituation can

NATURE OF EXPERIENCE 183

only grow in the ordinary way — by practice. The sooner
occasion is sought for such exercise the better ; for unful-
filled purpose grows cold and weak. Every repetition
of acts which tend towards the new habituation, it must
be remembered, gives to the new purpose all the cumula-
tive force of the growing habitude. So, too, any hark-
ing back to the old mode of behaviour must be avoided,
or the old habituation is revived in all its force, and the
work has to be begun over again.

Experience, then, is not simply the course of life ; it
is the organization of life. Throughout we have as the
two essential elements, purpose and habituation, but not
unrelated to each other. Purposes, beginning in per-
sistent imitation, are at first small and isolated. Habitua-
tion is at the same time weak and vague. As intelli-
gence and interest in the surroundings grow, purposes
draw together, become more related to each other and
extend more remotely from the present. At the same
time their realization requires increased executive
habituation. But the persistent following of lines of
purpose is creating habitudes, our relations with our sur-
roundings are developing others. Here is possibility of
mental arrest, due to a petrification of mere custom and
a consequent narrowing of initiation. This, however,
is not necessary. We can, by concentration of purpose,
change or modify a habituation which, for any reason, is
repugnant to us. Such modification still keeps the
habituation in relation to the life around, but it may, to
a greater or less extent, modify even the general social
habit. At any rate, it will so modify it for any one who
is brought within the sphere of our personal influence.
So we are responsible not only for our own lives but for
the kind of impulses we give to the lives of others.

1 84 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

The life process, as we have sketched it, is never com-
pleted. Whenever development ceases there is mental
arrest. To some it comes in early childhood, to others
with the senility of advanced old age. In each case there
is organic defect beyond the power of the will. But
in normal life the matter is within our own control.
There is much both of stimulus and of encouragement in
the words of George Eliot : ' ' Our lives make a moral
tradition for our individual selves, as the life of mankind
at large makes a moral tradition for the race ; and to have
once acted nobly seems a reason why we should always
be noble."1

1 Romola, ch. 39.

CHAPTER VII
DEVELOPMENT OF INTERESTS

' ' BODILY pains and pleasures are the unknown principles
of all human actions." 1 In these words did Helvetius,
with his usual clearness and consistency, state the out-
come of the theory that human life is built up of the
sensations received from the surroundings. Both the
ultimate hypothesis and this practical deduction from it
still influence education. Formerly the rule of conduct
was applied in the assumption that only by bodily pain,
or the threat of it, could a boy be induced to learn his
lessons. In these humanitarian days the appeal to
pleasure is more fashionable. School is to be essentially
a place of enjoyment ; the dull and the difficult are to
be banished, and a pleasant excitement is to mark every
lesson. School work is to be made ' interesting ', then
children will 'like' it.

Old fashioned people recoil from all this. They urge
that to make everything enjoyable, and to call for the
doing of no disagreeable tasks, is but a sorry preparation
for that later life in which everyone often has to do things
he detests doing. As is usual with those who recoil
from a new doctrine, they often go, at any rate in theory,
to the other extreme, and practically assert that the dis-
1 De rhomme, de ses facultes, et de son education, sect, ii, ch. 6.

1 86 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

tastefulness of lessons is an excellent measure of their
educational value.

It may be urged that each view rests on two mistakes :
one common to both ; the others complementary. That
common to both is that children's activity is only deter-
mined from without : the one theory relies on allure-
ment, the other on compulsion. The complementary
errors are that the one fixes its view exclusively on the
present life of the child, the other only on its life in the
years of maturity. The discussion in the last chapter
leads to the rejection of all these assumptions. Of the
first because it fails to find the real spring of activity in
the child itself ; of the last two because they do not
recognize that experience is a continuous development.

If one ask another — ' ' Why do you study psycho-
logy ? " the answer will probably refer to some form of
interest, it may be in mental life itself, it may be in an
examination in which questions are set on mental life.
Evidently we can call the one interest direct or immediate,
the other indirect or mediate. The connexion of the
latter with our real purpose is an artificial one. In each
case, however, interest is given as the explanation of why
the activity takes that direction rather than another.

Further, if the interest be indirect, it will not lead to
the study of psychology when once the examination is
passed ; if it be direct it may influence reading and
thought for many years. A teacher who is interested in
his pupils as children to be trained, and not simply as
phonographs to be furnished with records, will always
find interest in everything that throws light on their lives.

We know, however, that the students of psychology
are far outnumbered by people who take no interest in
that subject, and who would find such a book as this

DEVELOPMENT OF INTERESTS 187

extremely boring. This is a fair example, and it brings
out that "what is one man's meat is another man's
poison " in intellectual as well as in physical matters. In
what interests me most I may, indeed, be quite alone.
It is my own most intimate personal concern. Each one
of us has such private interests, and they are his dearest
possessions.

It is evident then, that neither interest nor its opposite,
tedium, is a quality of the external object. Often,
indeed, we speak of a book as interesting or of a lecture
as tedious. But in doing so we are only transferring
our own feeling to the object. Another person may,
with equal justification, reverse our adjectives. Even
if every reader of a book agreed that it was wearisome,
there would still be one person who esteemed it interest-
ing— the author. With real qualities of things it is
different. Everyone with normal senses asserts a
shilling to be white, circular, and flat. But the judge-
ment of interest is not thus dependent merely on the
presence of what may be called the appropriate intel-
lectual organ. It is true that to find a book interesting
we must have sufficient knowledge to understand it ; but
it is not true that we find interesting everything we have
sufficient knowledge to understand. If we lose our
interest in a subject — and we all have had experience of
doing that — we do not then and there lose the knowledge
we have of it. I may know now all I ever knew about
kite-flying, and yet no longer desire to fly a kite : my
interest in that pursuit is dead.

It follows that the idea that lessons can be in them-
selves interesting or wearisome rests on an inadequate
analysis. Of course, a heavy manner, a dull mode of
speaking, a muffled enunciation, are favourable to the

1 88 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

development of tedium, as their opposites promote alert-
ness. They act on the dim background of consciousness,
and help or hinder in inverse proportion to the strength
of the interest. If that be strong these are ignored.
But if a teacher trust to a bright manner and amusing
illustrations he is likely to find that the substance of the
lesson has led to no thought, that is, has aroused no
intellectual interest. Certainly a teacher may be able to
choose lessons that are likely to rouse interest in all the
members of his class. That comes from knowledge of
them. So that when this is the case it is not the lesson
that is made interesting but the class that is interested.
And when children say they have had an interesting
lesson they of course mean that it interested them.

If interest is not a quality of the object, neither is it
an attribute of our own minds. It can only be found
in a relation between the two. Everything which in
any way comes into our consciousness is part of our
environment, but we are not interested in it all. The
test of interest is that we dwell on the object ; and we
neither do nor could dwell on everything. Is, then, this
relation to be found in the pleasure or pain the objects
give us? Are we interested only in what immediately
pleases? If so, the teacher who tries to arouse interest
through pleasure is right.

Let us look at the case of a boy trying to make a toy
air-ship. Every step in the construction is of interest
to him because it leads to the fulfilment of his desire,
the accomplishment of his purpose. He nails and pastes,
not because nailing and pasting are in themselves delight-
ful, but because without nailing and pasting the air-ship
cannot be made. Does he desist because he bruises his
fingers with the hammer or cuts them with knife or saw ?

DEVELOPMENT OF INTERESTS 189

Does a first failure daunt him, or does he start again to
repair his mistake? Does he, in fact, bother his head
about the quality of the sensations he is experiencing ?
Or take a boy who is interested in the collection of certain
water-plants. Does he object to getting wet and muddy ?
Yet these are in themselves unpleasant ; he enjoys them,
not because of what they are when estimated alone, but
because they are parts of a whole experience which he
does not split up in his mind any more than in his
actions. Do scratched fingers stop the gathering of
blackberries? Yet not the most hardy boy would say
that he really likes scratches, or would spend his time in
deliberately and in cold blood inflicting scratches on
himself.

Examples could be multiplied indefinitely. But we
need not elaborate the matter. We all know that in the
pursuits each chooses for himself it is the purpose which
not only directs but supplies the energy. It may be in
the background of consciousness, but it governs the line
of conduct, and the sense that it is being gradually
attained spurs on to further and continued efforts, which
give joy in proportion as they are successful with refer-
ence to just that end. Whether this or that portion of
what has to be done is in itself pleasant or unpleasant
matters not at all. It is not considered by itself because
it does not exist for us except as part of the whole pro-
cess. It is in that, as an expression of the self doing what
it desires to do, that we delight. Remove the hard parts,
indeed, and you often take away most of the zest, as
when a boy is interested in climbing a clifF to gather sea-
gulls' eggs. One of the real joys of his life is to conquer
difficulties, and the more pain the conquest costs the more
he rejoices in it. No one who knows children could so

1 90 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

libel them as to maintain that they are wholly, or even
mainly, determined in their actions by the physical pain or
pleasure those actions bring. Indeed, it takes many years
of consistent practice to produce a well-developed egoist.

I suppose everyone would say that a child is interested
in such pursuits as have been mentioned. It follows
that this interest has no necessary connexion with
pleasure. Its relation is to purpose, and when that is
strong the child is interested in all that relates to it and
helps to its attainment. The test of his interest is his
readiness to put forth effort. If this be the case the
evoking of interest, so far from being antagonistic to
the development of the power to do the distasteful is
actually the only way in which that power can be
developed in the child's own soul. Mere outward com-
pulsion to do the unpleasant does not arouse any purpose,
unless it be the purpose to avoid it as much as possible.
To awaken interest in something which can only be
attained by doing the unpleasant is the only way to
inspire subordination of pleasure and pain to the higher
needs of life. And the subordination is more easily
made because the sense of conquest over difficulties is
itself a higher pleasure than any derived from the senses.
"Work while work pleases you. Love it for its own
sake. Set a great end before you ; but the attaining
it is the delight, not the ultimate attainment. If you
think of nothing but the end, the reaching of it is all
feverish unrest and toil." l

This conception of the absence of necessary connexion

between interest and pleasure is borne out by the uses

of the word in ordinary life. To take a few examples —

"It is to his interest to keep on good terms with his

1 W. J. Locke : At the Gate of Samaria, ch. 7.

DEVELOPMENT OF INTERESTS 191

employer, though he hate him." " Pitt had the interests
of his country at heart." "The monied interest is at
times opposed to the landed interest." "Compared
with discipline, details of curriculum are matters of
subordinate interest." " He is much interested in social
reform." "To love one's native country ... to be
interessed in its concerns is natural to all men." l " I
should be glad ... to see you take a little more interest in
duties which you may be called upon to discharge."2
"The mother awaited with breathless interest the
doctor's report on her sick child."

The shades of meaning are very various, but through
them all runs the original force of the Latin word —
that which concerns us or is of importance to us in some
way. But the idea of pleasure is either absent altogether,
or present only incidentally and in a subordinate degree.
This is bound to be so, for the ways in which things and
events concern us are by no means always pleasant. If
I met a tiger prowling along a country lane I should be
interested in his movements, but the interest would not
be that of calm enjoyment. No doubt a spy about to
be shot is interested in the proceedings of the soldiers
who are preparing to carry out the sentence. A man
who suspects that he is suffering from ptomaine poison-
ing is interested in his symptoms and in the doctor's
report on them. In neither case would any but a lunatic
assume pleasure as the basis of the interest.

We really come to this — that things and events may
concern us in every aspect of our possible relations to
them ; and so may be of any and every emotional value
to us. So it may be said that we are interested in what-
ever raises in us any emotion. Of course, the emotion
1 Dryden. 2 Lytton : My Novel.

192 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

is not the interest. I am interested in a case of mis-
fortune which rouses my sympathetic pity, or in a lawsuit
in which my anger at another's conduct towards me is
finding expression. But the emotional value the object
has for me leads me to think about it and to act in
relation to it. Similarly a boy is interested in the temper
of a teacher whom he fears, and his interest may lead
him to learn a distasteful lesson.

In all such cases it is plain that there is an intellectual
element in the interest. If the emotion be so strong as
to carry us away — as in a violent burst of angry passion,
or of despairing grief — the whole consciousness of the
relation is absorbed into the emotion. Then the value
of the experience is not recognized, for there is no room
for judgement. A man, for example, often declares quite
honestly that he is not angry, when it is obvious to the
onlooker that he is in a bitter rage ; and deep grief may
for the time blot out all surroundings. Then thought
is in abeyance, or rather is overshadowed by emotion.

All emotion prompts to action of some definite kind.
Thus it follows that when we are interested we act, and
that the kind of action depends not on the mere fact of
interest but on the kind of emotional value the thing
in which we are interested has for us. Vague objectless
activity implies indifference, which is the absence of any
one interest. To be interested, therefore, means to be
urged from within to some course of action with reference
to the object which interests us. If the interest be one
of fear, as when one meets a tiger, the activity is flight ;
if that be out of the question, as with the boy and his
stern teacher, the activity is preventive ; if it be one of
pity, the activity is benevolent ; if it be one of curiosity,
the activity is enquiry. In every case, the conduct is

DEVELOPMENT OF INTERESTS 193

determined by the emotion in relation to the circum-
stances in which the act must take place.

The prompting of emotion takes shape in desire. To
desire is to want — to recognize a need and to imagine
a means of satisfying it. Desire grows out of instinct
and appetite, and is at first quite indefinite in its outlook.
The baby feels the need and seeks about for the means
of satisfaction with no guidance except the experience
of past satisfactions. It is only, then, as experience
becomes definite, and understanding of the relations of
our surroundings to ourselves is attained, that desires
become clear as to their objects. Now, desire is neces-
sarily an intensely personal feeling ; consequently, the
natural outcome is for us to identify ourselves with it
by resolving to act upon it. Sometimes we do not act
because several desires, incompatible with each other,
are at one and the same time urging us in different ways,
as when a boy at once desires to play a game of cricket
and to finish his home lessons. Till one or the other
receives his adherence he loiters about doing neither.
Some people have so many incompatible desires of
practically equal strength — or weakness — that they
seldom do do anything. They spend their lives in
making up their minds, and when they have come to a
decision it is usually too late to act upon it.

To -desire anything is evidently to be interested in it,
for we only desire what we believe to be of value to
us. The emotion of anger, for instance, may prompt
one to desire to do a certain injury to the person against
whom the anger is felt. The desire to keep out of a
quarrel and to live a peaceful life, which may arise from
simple self-love or from remnants of affection towards
the offender, may oppose the first desire. Then comes

i94 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

deliberation or vacillation till one decides to follow one
desire and to reject the other. The attainment of the
object of the desire chosen is now made a purpose, that
is, it becomes the aim of endeavour.

It is seen, then, that purpose, desire, and interest are
connected. We desire only what we esteem good, and
we take as purpose only what we desire. When the
purpose is formed, everything connected with it is
interesting to us, just because only through knowing it
can our purpose be amply gained and our desire suffici-
ently satisfied. Let us examine an example. I desire
to go to live in Italy. It may be because I believe the
climate will be more agreeable to me than that of
England, or because the artistic and historical associations
of Italy attract me. For a long time the desire may
be ineffective, for circumstances may make it impossible
to give effect to it. Yet it is a real desire if its
accomplishment only await the removal of those ex-
traneous hindrances. If really there be no intention to
go when occasion does offer there is no true desire but
only a kind of day-dream, intended to find such satis-
faction in itself as one may find in living through a
romance. All the time the purpose is in abeyance,
everything which concerns Italy is of the greatest
interest to . me. I shall read eagerly books which
deal with the country, its people, its art treasures,
its archaeology ; indeed, all that belongs to it. All this
has a personal tone quite different from what the same
matters would have if I were not proposing to go to
live in the country. In that case the whole interest
would be intellectual and impersonal, and the purpose
simply to increase knowledge ; in this it is practical and
personal as well, and the purpose affects my whole life.

DEVELOPMENT OF INTERESTS 195

Evidently, too, in the latter case many things will be
of interest to me to which in the former case I should
be quite indifferent.

The consideration of an instance of this kind brings
out the relation of interest to habitude. When a purpose
affects a wide stretch of our lives, and especially when
its fulfilment is possible only in the future, our thoughts
often dwell upon it. This develops a habitude of think-
ing on that subject. When the purpose, though it can
only be accomplished in the future, is yet being gradually
fulfilled in the present, as in writing a book, evidently
the habitude is more quickly formed and more frequently
dominant when it is formed. Everything then is looked
at from the point of view of the work in hand, and
interest often finds relations between it and pieces of
experience that at first sight would seem far removed
from it.

In our first example we saw that the connexion of
interest with purpose may be direct or indirect. It is
the former when the means in which interest is taken
are of the same nature as the purpose, so that the fulfil-
ment of the purpose is the natural outcome of the means.
If one's purpose is to understand children the natural
means to adopt is to study them, and anything which
is helpful in such study is directly interesting. If one
is going to live in Italy all that bears on Italian life is
directly connected with the purpose. If a boy desires
to make a successful air-ship the parts of physics that
help him are directly interesting to him.

On the other hand, if one reads a book on physics in
order to pass an examination the interest is indirect.
The examination might with equal facility have induced
a study of geology or of old English literature. There

196 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION .

is no desire to learn the subject because it will throw
light on a part of experience. The real purpose is
to pass the examination, and the student will do the
least which he believes sufficient. Of course, it often
happens that a subject taken up for such an extraneous
motive shows itself of value. Then interest in it
awakens ; the direct purpose is born, and exists side by
side with the indirect till the examination. Afterwards,
if it be of any strength, and worth calling a purpose at
all, it still guides reading and thought.

Now it is certain that in life we have to do a good
many things in which our interest is only of this indirect
kind. When a man works to earn a living the purpose
of securing remuneration for his work is artificially con-
nected with the work itself. The art of the shoemaker
aims at producing shoes, that of the doctor at curing or
preventing sickness, that of the schoolmaster at develop-
ing worthy citizens. When this direct purpose is
present, well and good : there is direct interest in the
work as well as indirect interest in it as a means to
securing an income. But if the latter only be present
there is no joy in the work itself, and it is degraded to
mere drudgery.

Even when the immediate interest in the work is
strong there are sure to be many portions of the day's
task which are not naturally connected with it, and yet
which have to be done. The doctor has to listen with
sympathy to the querulous complaints of a wealthy
patient who imagines himself ill ; the schoolmaster has
to go through routine duties which have no bearing on
the education of his pupils. In all such cases we are
much helped by the general habitude of doing what
comes in the day's work without too much enquiry as

DEVELOPMENT OF INTERESTS 197

to how we like it. Naturally these extraneous tasks do
not furnish occupation for our leisure time: if, for
instance, a schoolmaster marks exercises out of school-
hours he will doubtless agree that the hours devoted to
that work, whatever they may be in scholastic theory,
are not in fact leisure hours.

Now, suppose we apply these considerations to the
young. Evidently the habitude of taking calmly all that
comes in the day's work is not so strong with them as
with us. Yet it should be forming, and school should
help to form it. It is clear that if a direct interest can
be aroused in a subject the teacher need not be careful
to remove difficulties, though he must see that they are
proportioned to the strength which is to deal with them.
Nor need he try to add adventitious attraction to the
dull places : an increase of vividness in the purpose is
much more effective. Further, direct interest should be
aimed at in all school work. "For getting a fine
flourishing growth of stupidity there is nothing like
pouring out on a mind a good amount of subjects in
which it feels no interest."1 But any subject may fail
to arouse direct interest in some of the pupils, and some
subjects, which yet for good reasons should be studied,
may not rouse such interest in any. The children must
not therefore be allowed to neglect them. In these cases
appeal must be made to the indirect interest of Fulfilling
such purposes as doing one's best, pleasing one's parents
or teacher, winning distinction, not hindering one's class,
and even avoiding punishment. The more real and
positive such indirect purposes are the better. So,
merely to avoid punishment is much the least desirable
of them all. Even when direct interest exists some of
George Eliot : The Mill on the Floss, Book v, ch. 2.

198 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

these indirect interests are a great help, and the younger
the child the more he needs them. Can any one of us
dispense with them altogether?

To be interested is to feel that some object or class
of objects has a value for us, and on that account to be
prompted to act in accordance with that feeling. Interest
does not create activity but direct it ; it decides which
parts of our surroundings shall occupy our lives, and
which parts shall be relegated to obscurity. Conse-
quently, in seeking the chief types of interests we must
not only examine the form of activity to which each
prompts but the kind of objects with which each deals.
The former consideration is primary, for in it we find the
value of the interest to our own lives ; but the latter is also
important, as it controls the actual filling of those lives.

The broadest division of our environment is into men
and things, and that will be sufficient for our purpose.
Our relations with both men and things are always such
that we know something of the object, it has a certain
value for us, and, in consequence, we act — or refrain
from acting — in reference to it. One or other of these
aspects may be prominent in any one action ; and one
or other of them may dominate any one life. Hence
we get the distinction of practical, intellectual, and
emotional temperaments. Hence also we may divide
interests into practical, intellectual, and emotional. A
life in which one or other of them predominates shows
by that fact that it belongs to the corresponding tempera-
ment. Indeed, there is no other way of determining
temperament than by reference to prevalent interests.
Because of the inborn temperament the interests are felt ;
because the interests lead to certain types of acts we
know the temperament.

DEVELOPMENT OF INTERESTS 199

A practical interest asks — What is the use of it? an
intellectual interest — What does it mean ? an emotional
interest — What is its worth in itself ? So, with relation
to things, the first leads to all forms of invention and
useful contrivances ; the second to the increase of know-
ledge ; the third to the development of all forms of
art. In relation to people the practical interest is con-
cerned with their relations to oneself ; the theoretical
or intellectual interest with their relations among them-
selves as seen in laws, institutions, customs ; the
emotional interest with the intrinsic nature of their moral
and social state. The religious interest includes all the
others. In its highest form its centre is emotional and
shows itself in love and awe, while the intellectual interest
of understanding the divine mysteries, and the practical
interest of one's own individual salvation or damnation
are subordinate.

In the practical interest knowledge is not sought for
its own sake, but for the use which can be made of it.
It is not at all that knowledge is despised. On the
contrary it is highly valued — but always as a means to
something else. Without increase of knowledge practi-
cal interests are confined to the repetition of the past.
So, till some two centuries ago men had made little
advance in two thousand years in the adaptation of
material things to their needs. While the search for
knowledge was confined to the world of thoughts and
beliefs its results were of no avail for dealing with the
things of sense. With the growth of knowledge of the
physical constitution of things the practical mind has
been able to invent means of utilizing natural forces.
These could only be used when they were known, and
every machine is simply a contrivance for combining

200 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

natural forces which all work in their own way. Man's
power to do depends on his knowledge. Further, every
new mechanical contrivance starts with knowledge of its
predecessor. Invention is built on invention, which
means that the starting-point for every new machine is
the less perfect machine. Even the first machine of a
kind grew out of knowledge of contrivances more or
less similar in function and in construction. Anyone
who will compare an early type-writer with a type-writer
of to-day will see the advance made in a very few decades.
The following example is as typical as it is striking —
' ' All the world knows by this time that the great
Cunard liner Mauretania left Liverpool for New York
on Saturday evening with the hope and intention, if
human skill and labour can achieve the feat and are not
baffled by the uncontrollable vicissitudes of weather,
wind, and sea — as it now seems not unlikely that they
will be — not only of reaching New York to-night, but
of reaching Fishguard on the return voyage on Thursday,
December 22 — that is, on the twelfth day after her
departure from Liverpool. . . .

"She will carry 1,100 passengers out to New York
and i, 800 back to England. As her normal ship's com-
pany consists of over 800 persons and she has shipped
an extra number of firemen, it follows that she will carry
some 2,000 persons in all on her outward trip and nearly
3,000 on her return. In order to accomplish her task
she will have to steam across the Atlantic and back at
an average speed of 26 knots, or to travel between 600
and 700 nautical miles a day, and her coal consumption
will be about 1,000 tons per day, probably rather more
than less. The earliest steam Cunarder to cross the
Atlantic was the Britannia, built in 1840. She was a

DEVELOPMENT OF INTERESTS 201

wooden paddle steamer 207 feet long, which is less than
two and a half times the width of the Mauretania, with
a gross tonnage of 1,154 tons, as compared with the
Mauretania' s 31,938 tons, and an indicated horse-power
of 740, not much more than a hundredth part of that
of the Mauretania. Her cargo capacity was 225 tons,
and she carried 1 1 5 cabin passengers. Her average sea
speed was 8.5 knots, and her coal consumption was 38
tons per day. The evolution of less than 70 years is
here very vividly exhibited." l

The essence of the practical interest is, therefore, not
that it does not seek knowledge, but that it seeks it
for ends beyond itself. The purpose is to do some-
thing ; to that everything is a means. It may be only
an indirect means, for we may be unable to alter that
of which we have knowledge, but only to determine
our own action. For example, we seek knowledge of
the weather in order that we may regulate our goings
out and comings in, or if that be not in our power, that
we may at least make suitable provision against rain or
snow. Thus, within a practical interest there may be
an intellectual interest to know. Really the knowledge
is needed for the practical purpose, but it may be seen
to be so essential to that purpose that its attainment
becomes a subordinate end in itself. Then the practical
purpose is put aside for the time, and energy is thrown
into the theoretical interest. Often, perhaps generally,
both practical and intellectual interests are excited by the
same object, though either may be so dominant, either
always or at any one time, that it obscures the other.

Practical interest in its most exaggerated form is seen
in the desire to use the results obtained by the intel-
lThe Times, Dec. 15th, 1910.

202 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

lectual work of others as mere formulas, without any
real understanding of them. This, indeed, defeats its
own object, as there is no flexibility about such borrowed
summaries, and for all original practical work adaptability
is essential. So this kind of practical person is the man
of prejudices and rules of thumb, the convinced lover
of ' red-tape ', the fine flower of bureaucracy.

In social life the practical interest is concerned with
our relations to others and with their relations to our-
selves. It has, thus, an element of egoism. But it is
not necessarily selfish in the narrow sense. It is founded
both in the instincts of self and in those which relate to
others. The interest may be that others should think
well of one, should love one, should trust one. Such
practical interests are, we hope and believe, more
common and more powerful among children than the
narrowly selfish interests of gaining reward or avoiding
punishment. In these, indeed, the reference is not only
to persons but subordinately to things.

We have considered the working of practical interest
in adult life where its effects are most obvious. Its
nature is the same in children, though the objects to
which it is attached, and the productions to which it
gives birth, are different. We have seen that it prompts
to the doing of something with the hands as well as with
the head ; that it learns in connexion with such bodily
activity ; that learning seems of worth just because it
leads to making. I do not anticipate any contradiction
when I state that this is the characteristic attitude of
childhood. But if that be granted the conclusion to
which it leads is that children will learn best when their
learning is part of a practical activity. It is true they
have the instinct of curiosity which prompts them to

DEVELOPMENT OF INTERESTS 203

ask questions and makes them ready to hear about things
outside their experience. Even these they delight to
act, and within their immediate experience curiosity
works hand in hand with constructiveness. That which
satisfies both instincts is of more educational worth than
that which gratifies only one. The influence of an
exaggeratedly intellectualistic adult psychology on the
training of the young could hardly be more plainly
shown than in the practical assumption that the interests
of children are predominantly theoretical.

Not only psychology but physiology teaches this same
lesson. Youth is the time for the organization of
nervous circuits, and if they are not formed then they
either cannot be formed at all or they are imperfectly
formed and that with much difficulty. Further, it is
established that the large regions of the cortex which
are primarily concerned with the control and movements
of the limbs are intimately connected with those which
specially subserve intellectual operations. If either be
inadequately cultivated the other also suffers. So that
exclusive devotion in school to intellectual pursuits
defeats its own ends, not only directly as failing to arouse
the most characteristic interests, but indirectly as arresting
that elaboration of cortical connexions from which intel-
lectual development cannot be separated. That this is
not mere theorizing has been proved by definite experi-
ment. In an address to the Scottish Sloyd Association,1
Sir Harry Reichel gives the following —

"Cheetham's Hospital is an old endowed Bluecoat

School of the higher elementary type. Mr. Mather,

who was on the Governing Body, paid a visit to the

United States, and was greatly impressed with the

JMay 28th, 1909.

204 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

manual work carried on in the common schools. On
his return he proposed that something of the same kind
should be attempted in Cheetham's Hospital. To this
both Governors and staff presented a united front of
opposition. The former regarded it as a fad. Boys
went to school to read books and become clever men,
not to waste their time whittling wood. The latter pro-
tested that the school time-table was as full as it could
hold, that they had to satisfy H.M.'s Inspector, and
that if anything further were introduced, they would not
be answerable for the consequences. The position
seemed hopeless enough. Mr. Mather, however, did
not lose heart. He asked that an experiment should be
made for one year, of which he would bear the whole
cost himself. He would build the necessary workrooms.
Let half the boys go on as before, and the other half
spend four hours a week taken from the ordinary school
hours in systematic Handwork. At the end of the
school year let all be examined in the book subjects ;
then if it should appear that those who had done the
Handwork were seriously behind their companions in
the book subjects, he would admit that Governors and
staff were right, and would clear away the workrooms
and plant at his own expense. So fair and public-spirited
an offer it was difficult to refuse. The workrooms were
built, and the dual curriculum was carried on for a year.
At the close came the test examination, and then it
appeared not only that the boys who had devoted four
hours less a week to book study were not behind the
others in any of the book subjects, but that in the
Mathematical part they were markedly in front of them,
more particularly in Geometry. The experiment was
crucial and decisive. Handwork has ever since been an

DEVELOPMENT OF INTERESTS 205

integral part of the curriculum of Cheetham's Hospital.
A year or two later I visited the school, and was shown
round by one of the masters, who enthusiastically con-
firmed the account I had received. 'We masters,' he
said, ' were entirely opposed to it at first ; but now we
regard it as our best friend.' We were passing through
the woodwork room at the moment ; he picked up a
piece of wood which had been cut to the shape of a
triangle. 'You see, sir,' he remarked, 'a boy who is
constantly making shapes like this gets a much clearer
idea of what is meant by an angle and a triangle than
one who merely looks at figures in a book.' ' In short,'
I said, ' it may be regarded as a kind of laboratory
practice in Euclid.' ' Indeed, sir, that's just about what
it is.'"

It may be noted next that the only interests which
can be indirectly connected with purpose are practical.
Of course, if the purpose be to make a box or to cultivate
a garden successfully, the interest in all the activities
that lead to the desired result is direct, and the interest
in the pertinent knowledge is so extremely closely con-
nected with it that only theoretically can it be looked
upon as indirect. But unless a direct intellectual interest
can be aroused in ordinary lessons the purpose itself is
external, and the interest even in it is only indirect, and
takes the practical form of avoiding reproof or securing
the approbation either of another or of one's own con-
science. It has already been granted that such interests
cannot be banished either from school or from life.
That, however, is quite another thing from consenting
that they should be given an artificial dominance. More-
over, let it not be forgotten that a school which cordially
welcomes a child's real interests will secure his good will

206 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

in those tasks in which such natural interest is not felt
much more than will the school which ignores them.
Nor is this a small gain.

Interest is intellectual when the purpose is to know
all we can about that part of reality. The interesting
object will be studied both in its qualities and in its
relations to other objects. As knowledge increases the
interest is more and more in wide and abstract relations,
and it is then that it is most appropriately termed
theoretical. This is a distinction due only to the kind
of object to which the interest is attached. From the
standpoint of the mind which feels the interest
there is no such difference. The aim is to reach the
truth.

Theoretical interest differs from practical interest not
in its objects but in its purposes. Questions of utility,
whether wide or narrow, do not concern it. That some
practical inventor may make use of his discoveries is
neither here nor there to the man whose interest is
essentially intellectual. As men are never merely pure
intellect, however, they cannot be confined to really
theoretical interests. Just as the practical person must
have enough interest in knowledge to obtain that which
is instrumental to him, so the lover of abstract truth
must have regard to mundane considerations. In most
cases his interests are probably somewhat mixed. He
may desire to advance knowledge, but he may at the
same time be by no means oblivious of the fame or
wealth it may bring him. If the latter be really domi-
nant, then his interest is essentially practical, though at
first it looks as if it were theoretical. His intellectual
pursuits are means to an end ; they are not followed for
their own sakes. Few men in any age are like Brown-

DEVELOPMENT OF INTERESTS 207

ing's typical Renaissance scholar who "decided not to
Live but Know " —

" Let me know all ! Prate not of most or least,
Painful or easy ! " l

If this be so with adults, what can be expected with
children ? The argument is not that they are incapable
of purely intellectual interests, but that it is very
exceptional, if not quite unknown, that such interests
should be the chief things in their lives. So the common
scholastic experience is that extraneous incentives are
needed in most lessons, and that even then the result
is no very startling exhibition of zestful energy.

Let it be noted, too, that intellectual interest can be
but scant till it has a fair amount of knowledge already
acquired on which to work. It concerns itself with the
more hidden qualities of things and with their systematic
relations. It is consequently an interest that we should
expect to grow with the child's growth. But it must
grow out of the true seed. That is where schools so
often go psychologically wrong. They are apt to assume
that if you want a mental process to be operative in
youth or manhood you should begin practising just that
form of process in childhood. That implies that the
child starts with fully competent faculties only needing
exercise, whereas he starts with a few indefinite instincts
which in practice branch out into many more complex
and more mature forms. The surest way to secure
intellectual interest in later years is to let it be the flower
from the root of practical interest.

The different modes in which the theoretical and
practical interests regard the same object may be illus-

1 A Grammarian's Funeral.

208 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

trated by the following problem culled from the mathe-
matical columns of The Educational Times 1 — " Two men
wish to buy a grindstone, 42 inches in diameter, and
i foot thick at the centre. To what thickness at the
outer edge should the stone uniformly taper from the
centre, that each man may grind off 18 inches of the
diameter and both have equal shares, the central 6 inches
of the diameter being waste ?" It may safely be assumed
that no two workmen could be found on earth who
would desire to perform the suggested operation. The
interest is purely theoretical. Such an example may
bring home to teachers the truth that the mere clothing
of a mathematical problem in concrete terms does not
make it a concrete — that is, a practical — problem.

That the intellectual interest develops gradually in
life is evident when we consider its reference to people.
It begins in the child's interest in his mother and others
closely connected with him — an interest springing from
love. Here it is inextricably combined with the practical
interest in the effect of their actions on himself. Still
it is there, and will imperceptibly blossom into interest
in wider circles as the more complex forms of sympathy
develop from the simpler kindly emotions. In its
developed or theoretical form the object of the interest
is essentially the relations of men to each other as shown
in institutions, customs, laws, wars, treaties. It is the
root of all taste for history and geography.

The severely theoretical interest in institutions of the
most scientific historian or publicist, then, originates in
personal interest in those in close relation to us. The
development from the one to the other is gradual and
continuous, and is both the child and the parent of
1 April, 1910.

DEVELOPMENT OF INTERESTS 209

advanced knowledge. A small boy entering a boarding
school, and finding the rules and regulations of unex-
pected strictness, will probably infer that the head master
is a "grumpy old beast". His interest in institutions
still concentrates itself in a person, and is still bound
up with his practical interest in the way those institutions
are likely to affect himself. So, too, a boy or girl is
much more likely to obey rules when the weak academic
interest in them is strengthened by a more powerful
personal interest in the teacher. In that case the personal
interest in the consequences of infringement is much less
brought into play, and development towards breadth of
social outlook is so far helped.

We see, then, that both practical and intellectual
interests lead directly to activity. In the former case
the activity is primarily bodily but is guided by intelli-
gence, which must attain the knowledge necessary for
the purpose, and which in the course of the activity itself
increases that knowledge. For it is impossible to have
dealings with any part of our surroundings, human or
material, without learning something about it which we
did not know before. Such knowledge whets curiosity
and so prompts to further activity for its satisfaction,
and this further activity, though it may involve dealing
with material things, is essentially intellectual. This
is by far the most usual origin of the intellectual interests.
We may not be able to trace some particular intellectual
interest to union with a practical interest, but that is
because it goes back to very early life. The baby's theo-
retical interests are all bound up with practical interests.

The most highly developed theoretical interest
also involves incidentally some bodily activity. The
scientific discoverer works in his laboratory, the

210 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

student of humanity in his library. But these prac-
tical activities are altogether subordinate and ancillary.
Conversely, in the life of the narrowly utilitarian the
intellectual activity is incidental. That, above all,
education should strive to prevent by the cultivation of
real intellectual interests. It is because we esteem such
interests highly, not because we fail to appreciate their
importance, that we urge that practical interests should
also find scope in school, in order that the intellectual
interests themselves may be developed naturally, and so
be more likely to attain their full strength than if they
be prematurely cultivated in a barren soil.

By emotional interests we mean those which induce
absorption in the object itself without directly prompting
to any practical or intellectual activity. The term is not
a happy one because, as has been seen, there is a funda-
mental element of emotion in all interest. The most
typical form of this interest is the artistic, though it is
not the only one. In contemplating a work of art one
gives oneself up to it, and its beauty fills one's whole
being. The mind is not passive ; but its activity is
receptive and responsive, not originative or directive,
as in the other forms of interest. The tendency of such
a preponderance of emotion is to inhibit as far as possible
the working both of intelligence and of activity. We
do not think beauty, we feel it. No doubt, a love of
pictures may prompt us to study art. Then we have
a practical interest working through intellectual means
towards the related purpose of a fuller appreciation of
pictures. The result may justify the effort. The art-
interest may be increased by the additional knowledge
so long as this latter be kept in the background. Sup-
pose, however, that the artistic study develops an

DEVELOPMENT OF INTERESTS 211

intellectual interest in pictures. Then, in looking at a
picture the two interests may clash. For in so far as the
intellectual interest is present it prompts to analysis and
criticism, and this attitude is incompatible with that full
giving up of ourselves to its value for us as a whole
which is the true form of artistic interest.

Similarly with music. A knowledge of the structure
of a symphony may increase a musician's aesthetic
enjoyment. But if in hearing it the mind spends itself
in analysis there will be little artistic interest.

In literature, intellectual interest can never be entirely
absent, though artistic interest may be quite wanting.
To have some understanding of a passage is a necessary
condition of appreciating its beauty, but enjoyment of
beauty need not accompany intellectual comprehension.
Indeed, much literature appeals mainly if not quite
wholly to the intelligence. When, however, as in poetry
and reflective prose, an appeal is made to emotion and
imagination, the two interests are more or less in conflict.
In reading a romance, for instance, a person whose intel-
lectual interests predominate is inclined to omit the reflec-
tive and descriptive passages — in which, probably, the
author most fully poured out his soul — in order the more
rapidly to satisfy his intellectual interest in the develop-
ment of the plot. When very strong such interest
suggests looking at the last pages of a book ' ' to see
how it ends." People thus inclined seldom have any
great love for poetry or for any prose which does not
deal with facts and events, real or fictional. On the
other hand, emotional interest would linger over just
those passages, and delight most in those books, which
in the former case were treated as negligible. This, too,
is why it is that one enjoys such literature more and

212 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

more as one becomes more and more familiar with it.
A passage committed to memory no longer rouses intel-
lectual interest, so the emotional interest has full liberty.
We give ourselves up to the pure enjoyment, without
effort to understand because now we understand auto-
matically, in the same way as we may yield ourselves
to a glorious picture or a noble piece of music.

The emotional interest, indeed, is very jealous. To
be fully felt it must reign for the time alone. The mind
must be able to rest content in the presence of the object
as a whole without enquiry as to its composition.

It is evident that such an interest is quite individual.
Two friends may enjoy the same work of art and may
converse about their enjoyment. But the pleasure of
each is unshareable with the other. The conversation
expresses rather an intellectual than an emotional interest
though emotional interest may have dominated their
contemplation.

As an emotional interest may lead to intellectual
activity in its own service so it may in the same indirect
way prompt to practical activity. While we are enjoy-
ing a work of art the only practical interest is the
inhibition of disturbance and distraction. We would
resist all that would intervene between us and our
enjoyment. But if the object excite not admiration by
its beauty but repulsion by its ugliness, the emotional
interest prompts to active measures for its removal.
And, of course, it is the same general kind of interest
in each case, though the one is the antithesis of the other.
This furnishes another illustration of the truth that
interest is not a quality of the object ; for nothing
is more proverbial than differences in estimates of
beauty.

DEVELOPMENT OF INTERESTS 213

In many cases emotional interest prompts to effort to
produce like objects of emotional value. Thus delight in
some form of art stimulates a child to learn to draw
and to paint, to mould figures in plastic clay, to sing
or to play on some musical instrument, to read or recite
with elocutionary power. If the effort promise to yield
but little fruit this derived practical interest soon decays
— though the emotional interest may remain strong —
and vain indeed is the attempt to galvanize it into
artificial life.

A further way in which an emotional interest may
prompt to practical activity is in incitements to search
for the desired objects. A love of pictures may lead
to a resolution to visit Italy, an interest in ecclesiastical
architecture may give a sufficient reason for a long
walking-tour. That, again, is a practical interest having
as its purpose the satisfaction of aesthetic interest. The
latter can only be experienced in the presence of the
pictures or the churches, or in dwelling on them in
imagination.

In relation to persons the emotional interest attaches
to moral qualities. These excite admiration or abhor-
rence, which are the characteristic colourings of the
aesthetic interest. At first such qualities are known only
as found in persons. Later they may become detached
and idealized. Of course, an interest which leads to
justification or criticism of moral principles is not
emotional but intellectual. The emotional interest
spends itself in its attraction or repulsion towards the
quality or the principle as it is. So it is the very core
of the religious interest, though in that case it is not this
or that quality or principle, but goodness and beauty and
intelligence combined in a Divine Person, that is the

2i4 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

object of that interest. Its fall development is seen in
the rapt contemplation of the religious mystic — a con-
templation conscious neither of will nor of thought, but
only of an ecstatic absorption of the whole being into
the Divine being.

The emotional interest in things appears in early
childhood in the delight of the child in striking colours,
pleasant sounds, bright lights, sweet tastes, and so on ;
while his emotional interest in persons is shown in
his fits of abandonment to his love for his mother.
From these humble beginnings some can advance further
than others. That is essentially a matter of original
endowment. Some men never become capable of a
higher emotional interest than the appreciation of a
good dinner ; some women cannot rise above the latest
fashion in dress. How much of such defects are due
to original lack and how much to defective training it
is impossible to say. Certainly an education which
limited itself to the intellectual and practical interests
would be lamentably incomplete.

Their importance in life make the practical and theo-
retical interests essentially those of work, while, as
subserving our enjoyment, the emotional interests may
be looked on as those of play, or of the leisure time of
life. Of course, in the hands of creative artists the
artistic interest finds vent in real productive activity.
The interest in the activity itself is practical, the end is
the realization of an ideal the contemplation of which
will give the highest pleasure. But it is in relation with
the development of appreciation that the ordinary school
sets itself to supply scope for artistic interests. It can
do little more than supply material, and by suggestion
draw attention to it. The bond of union between the

DEVELOPMENT OF INTERESTS 215

soul and the beautiful object must be formed spon-
taneously ; there is no forging it from without.

We are led, then, to this : that an education worthy
of the name must call forth every class of interest, and
must provide suitable material for its exercise. The
neglect of any one means a defective life. To emphasize
one class of interests because they are the strongest in
the life is justifiable, provided that the others are pro-
vided for according to their strength. To do more —
to concentrate in boyhood and youth on some one special
field in which one class of interests may work — is utterly
indefensible. The premature specialization to which the
great division of labour in all branches of learning is
leading is nothing short of disastrous. Certainly we
need culture in relation to surroundings, for only in
relation to surroundings can interests grow. But this
does not mean exclusive, or nearly exclusive, devotion
to the pursuits of the neighbourhood. Wherever a
person lives, he is related by direct and indirect ties to
all the world. Any part of it may enter into his environ-
ment through the gate of imagination. This enlarge-
ment of the realm of interest, which is especially the
work of the school, is a necessary means to the thorough
understanding and appreciation of the home surround-
ings themselves. We know nothing by itself, but only
in relation to other things. As the home knowledge
is the foundation on which knowledge of what is outside
that range must be built, so knowledge of the latter
gives fullness and meaning, and so adds interest, to the
former. Every one who has travelled in foreign
countries will appreciate the force of these considerations.
Those who cannot travel in the body must do so in the
spirit.

2i6 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

The educational problem, indeed, is the enlargement
and systematization of interests. To the extent to which
inner connexion is attained the outer life shows as dis-
tinctly purposeful. An extreme instance of thorough
unification of interests is Dr Conan Doyle's well-known
creation, Mr Sherlock Holmes. The whole of life is
there represented as dominated by the interest of solving
problems of human conduct, especially those connected
with crime. Every kind of information which had no
connexion with that was dismissed from the mind. So
we have a list of Mr Holmes' acquirements which
without the knowledge supplied by his purpose appears
motiveless in its eccentricity. "Philosophy, astronomy,

and politics were marked at zero Botany variable,

geology profound as regards the mud stains from any
region within fifty miles of town, chemistry eccentric,
anatomy unsystematic, sensational literature and crime
records unique, violin player, boxer, swordsman, lawyer,
and self-poisoner by cocaine and tobacco." 1 This main
interest operated by its general determination of conduct,
and found expression in the special interests of particular
cases. Each of these in turn absorbed the whole mental
energy, to be dismissed when the solution had been
reached.

Similarly, the interest of a barrister or of a doctor in
particular cases is a special manifestation of the general
professional interest in law and medicine. Certainly the
whole of life should not be governed by one professional
interest. Even Sherlock Holmes sought relaxation in
his violin and in cocaine injections. On the other hand,
unless the various classes of operative interests be con-
nected together in this typical way life will be desultory
and ineffective.

1 The Five Orange Pips.

DEVELOPMENT OF INTERESTS 217

Interests can only grow in the environment, so that if
when they ripen a child's natural activities do not find
appropriate and varied opportunities to give them full
scope, development will be arrested or narrowed. It is,
therefore, of the first importance to know the kinds of
interests a child instinctively feels at successive periods,
and the key to this knowledge must be sought in his
actions.

The doctrine of evolution seemed to open an attractive
prospect of studying the development of the child on
a wide and extended scale. May not each child's life be
assumed to recapitulate in brief the mental history of
the race ? Certainly our instincts are inherited from our
forefathers. But they mature in our own lives, in our
own surroundings, and express our own needs. By
fixing on some of a child's activities and ways of looking
at things a superficial resemblance may be found to some
of the actions of savages or backward races. The vast
majority, however, of the acts and thoughts both of the
child and of the savage are perforce omitted from the
comparison, for it is evident that the child, simply because
he is a child with some of his most powerful instincts
as yet undeveloped, cannot in all points resemble an
adult savage. A child's playful forages bear no essential
resemblance to the hunting expeditions on which the
sustenance of the savage and his family depends.
Throughout, the resemblance is in one aspect of an outer
act, not in motive, nor in interest, nor in the social
setting in which the activity is exercised.

To make the theory work it has been necessary to
construct a primitive man. This Mr Herbert Spencer
did by an ingenious combination of records gathered
impartially from prehistoric times and from contemporary

2i 8 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

savage life. But, as M. Ribot remarks, "nothing
' proves that this picture will suit all classes ; there have
existed not one primitive man, but primitive men
differing considerably, according to race and environ-
ment." 1 No further comment seems needed on that
pedantic German invention known as 'culture epochs'.
These begin with this mythical personage and come down
to the present day, claiming to lead the child by the age
of fourteen through all the supposed successive stages
of human development.

Nothing but careful and wide observation will give
the required knowledge in any detail, and the records of
such observations are by no means adequate. Many
merely give single anecdotes detached from the life and
circumstances of the child, and recording only age and
sex. Others are gathered from children's own answers
to questions, from which an attempt is made to reach
a kind of average result. All such records are sus-
ceptible of various hypothetical interpretations. The
child's estimate of his likes and dislikes will be coloured
by the recency or remoteness of the pleasant or unpleasant
experiences ; and his desire to pose or to give the answer
he believes to be desired or expected will often distort his
statements without any deliberate intention to deceive.
If answering the questions be voluntary there can be
no assurance that the combined result is typical, for
children of practical temperament will be likely to appear
in a much smaller proportion than they are in actual
life ; if it be not voluntary the probability of vitiation
by deliberate obscuring of the inner life, or by careless-
ness or forgetfulness, is increased. All results obtained
by this method must, therefore, be used with the utmost
^Psychology of the Emotions (Eng. trans.), p. 288.

DEVELOPMENT OF INTERESTS 219

caution. At the best they give suggestions which may
be of use in our own observations.

We are left, then, with actual personal study of
children as the one means of gaining a real knowledge
of their interests in relation to their lessons. Of course,
each educator does, with more or less success, gather some
knowledge of his children's interests. But the teacher
is so bound by tradition, often existing in the form of
pedantic 'Regulations' of some Education Authority,
that his observations on the point are apt to be " cabined,
cribbed, confined." What is especially needed is careful
and judicious investigation of what subjects and what
parts of subjects are found to be most interesting to
children in general during the successive years of school
life. This interest must be judged solely by its effects
on mental and practical activity. It is no use asking
the children. They will in most cases tell you what
amuses them most, or has entertained them most recently.
The only way to get at the truth is to watch their work.
If a child give time to a subject out of school hours his
interest in it is thereby proved to be alive. In schools,
and especially boarding schools, in which various leisure-
hour pursuits — such as some branch of natural history,
photography, manual work, study of architecture or of
archaeology — are encouraged, the general tendency of an
individual's interests are easily seen, and also the possible
changes they may undergo as he increases in years.

If teachers in large numbers would collect and publish
the results of such observations we should be able to
make some approach to a knowledge much more precise
than we have now as to the constitution of a really
educative Time-table. No doubt there would be varia-
tions in the results observed, according to the skill and

220 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

enthusiasm of various teachers. But with a large
number these would tend to eliminate each other, the
specially good results in the excitement of interest due
to the genius in teaching being balanced by the specially
bad ones obtained in the same subject with similar
children by less capable teachers. There would remain
guidance for the teachers who want it most, if only
because they are the most numerous — the worthy but
somewhat commonplace folk who form the majority
in every walk of life. To be of value such reports must
be definite. They should state explicitly the age and
sex of the pupils, the kind of matter selected, the method
in which it is taught, the proofs of interest shown, and
also the situation of the school, especially with regard
to town or country and to the social class of its scholars.
With such real material to guide us we should find,
I venture to prophesy, that modifications of considerable
extent, though, perhaps, mainly in matters of detail and
of emphasis, would be needed to fit schemes of study
to schools differing much in these respects.

When we know what the results of the present schemes
of instruction are, both the need and the direction of
more fundamental changes will become evident. If it
be found quite general that certain kinds of lessons fail
to inspire to any degree the children who have to learn
them, then those lessons are at least open to grave sus-
picion. They may not only waste time ; they may
hinder the formation of some other interest. Very
strong extraneous reasons would be needed to justify
their retention. Possible substitutes should be tested
and judged in the same way. So I urge that before
teachers condemn educational psychology as failing to
give them all the detailed guidance they wish, they

DEVELOPMENT OF INTERESTS 221

should contribute to such psychology the matter which
they only are in a position to give in the necessary detail
and with the necessary exactness, and on which alone it
can work. Of abstract assumptions and deductions from
them there have been enough and more than enough.
Until more exact knowledge, gathered by careful obser-
vation over a wide area, is available, the exposition of
the order of the development of children's interests can
only be an outline sketch wanting both in precision and
in definiteness of contents.

A child's interests at any time express the degree to
which he is able to co-ordinate himself with his environ-
ment. This is a continually developing process, marked
on the one side by growing power of dealing with
objects, and on the other by increase in the variety and
complexity of the objects dealt with as they appear to
the child. Throughout, the interest advances through
effort ; that which simply determines movement from
without awakens no interest, because the movement so
determined is outside the sphere of desire and purpose.
The stages of the development are, therefore, marked
by the characteristic activity of each. To speak of
' stages ' implies no precise limits nor any exact uni-
formity in development among children. Each child,
indeed, may be said to have three ages — the physio-
logical, the mental, and that attested by the registrar of
births — and these three do not always coincide. Still,
there are periods marked by characteristic activities, if
not by exact age boundaries, whose names are embedded
in common thought and speech.

The age of infancy, up to some two or two and a half
years, falls outside our province. The baby's life is
essentially responsive to outside stimuli. It is learning

222 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

to distinguish between itself and objects about it, and
is busy getting into relation through language with other
minds. But purpose is not separated from impulse, and
education, as distinguished from nurture and as meaning
control through influence on will, can hardly be said to
begin. Those specially interested in this time of life
will find several careful monographs dealing with it.

The stage of childhood, which lasts till somewhere
between five and a half and seven, is one in which the
interests centre essentially in personal activity. This is
proved by the most spontaneous activity of all — play.
At first the play is the mere outpouring of surplus
energy ; it has no meaning beyond movement. Then
it begins to be symbolic. A little boy of four will
prance round a room on a walking-stick calling it a horse,
not because he fancies any resemblance to a horse but
because the idea of the object is of no importance at all.
The activity is all that counts, and the whole value of the
stick is that the child can put a leg on each side of it and
still move with perfect freedom. Similarly, the interest
in a rocking horse is in its rocking capabilities, not in
its greater or less resemblance to a living horse. In so
far as the latter intrudes into the child's consciousness
it prevents the full absorption in activity which is what
the child instinctively wants. The uneducative effect
of elaborate toys is obvious.

The child chiefly plays alone. He may use other
persons as objects to call out his own activity, but his
play is essentially just that activity. When he begins
to seek the approval and admiration of his elders he is
beginning to take the next step in his progress.

This aspect of valuing things as occasions of activity
is found throughout this period, of which play is the

DEVELOPMENT OF INTERESTS 223

characteristic form of expression. Each thing is dealt
with as a whole and in large and broad movements. The
nerve co-ordinations formed are those which govern the
larger muscles. The child is not interested in details
and is not capable of dealing effectively with them.

Though the interest is predominantly in the activity,
and things are valued as they enter into that activity,
yet this awakens of necessity the instinct of curiosity.
The child soon begins to ask questions, though at first
many of them evince no real intellectual activity. Any
answer suffices, yet the question is often repeated several
times. Part, at any rate, of early questioning may be
regarded as only one of the forms of responsive activity
to which objects stimulate the child. The question is
often asked more for its own sake than for the sake of
an answer.

The transition from childhood to the next stage may
be regarded as begun when a child shows any sign of
wanting to be able to connect things in some sort of
explanation. The questioning becomes definite and per-
sistent, and the same tendency to connexion is seen in
the growing purposiveness of the child's activity. He
loves stories whch bring together things in his experi-
ence, and is content to accept the marvellous. The
essence of his enjoyment is that the tales show some sort
of coherence, and bring out strongly simple and appro-
priate consequences of actions which he esteems good or
bad.

It is now that the child desires to work as well as to
play — a desire which should assuredly be gratified. This
is very well illustrated in a short conversation between
a professor of education and a little boy of barely six years
old who attended a kinder-garten. "Well, Harry, do

224 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

you like going to the kinder-garten ? " " No, I don't."
"Why, isn't the teacher kind to you?" "Oh, yes;
she's all right ; but I want to go to school to learn to do
sums." As is characteristic of his age he stated sym-
bolically his wish to work, using a form of school work
doubtless made familiar to him by his elder brother's
home lessons. This wish to work — to act with regard to
something to be accomplished — may easily be choked.
In some homes and in some schools it never flourishes ;
the whole activity finds vent in amusement and play.
The product is not usually either a useful or a happy
citizen.

On the other hand, the premature inuring to adult
work from which many of the children of the poor are
not yet immune can only result in the narrowing of
interests and a consequent decrease in the joy and value
of life. The work itself is not that to which their natural
interests would lead them, but is forced upon them
entirely regardless of the springs of their own energy.
A little street arab will fend for himself in a way impos-
sible to the public school boy of twice his age. But his
life is narrowed to that : in all that makes for nobility and,
in the best sense of the word, culture — the flowering of
all his capacities — he is woefully deficient. Of the possi-
bility of these he has been despoiled.

The tendency towards purposive activity is seen
in the games. These are now more played in com-
mon, and are often of a dramatic character. The
children imitate the occupations of their elders. An
element of reality is demanded; things and persons
are still partly symbolic, but the symbolism must
have some resemblance to the reality. Thus, a little
girl likes a doll's house, a set of toy tea-things ; a

DEVELOPMENT OF INTERESTS 225

boy delights in a Noah's Ark. But the dramatizing
must come from within, otherwise it is not an expression
of living interest which will lead beyond itself. It is
here that kinder-garten games may fall short by being
made mere external exercises. Then they secure the
shell but fail to reach the kernel. These imitative games
are more popular with girls than with boys, and persist
longer in their lives. With boys over six they soon
begin to lose their zest.

From about six to seven is usually a time of exception-
ally rapid bodily growth, but not of corresponding mental
expansion. It is, indeed, a transition stage, when things
as well as actions are beginning to press themselves on
the child's interest, and he has not yet learnt to accom-
modate himself to this new point of view.

During the next few years — those of early boyhood
and girlhood — physical development goes on more
slowly, but it would seem that much nervous and
muscular co-ordination is being effected. This is shown
by an increasing interest in things and in what can be
done with things rather than in the doing as mere action.
The boy more and more admires skill and the success in
doing to which it leads. This he feels he has not got,
so he sets himself to imitate in order that he too may be
able to do what others do. These are the years in which
deliberate imitation, not for its own sake but for the
results to which it leads, is most common. Skill shows
its growth in power to work with smaller and smaller
details. Always it deals with single things of no great
size. The child's interest is so concentrated in them
that a great whole, such as a landscape, has no meaning
for him.

The child, then, is still physically active, but his

226 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

activity is more and more referred to ends external to
himself. He acts to accomplish something ; he is not
satisfied unless he accomplish it well ; therefore his
intellectual interests are awakened in the service of his
practical ends. So he learns eagerly about the objects
which he can bring into his own acts.

The same kind of interest, in an extended form, finds
satisfaction in stories of adventure of all kinds and in
accounts of how peoples in strange lands do things
analogous to those he does himself or sees others do
around him. At first, when the interest is still chiefly
in the action, he is not concerned with the truth of the
stories. But as he more and more esteems his activity
on account of the actual results it brings to pass he
wants to know whether what he is told be true. It is
not that he banishes fiction from his interests, but that
he wants to put it in its proper place as play ministering
to emotional interest, not as work nourishing directly
intellectual interest and indirectly practical interest and
having a real meaning in life.

The games characteristic of this period show the same
features. They develop muscular co-ordinations and
judgement of sense impressions, and they are expressive
of the growing feeling of the self as producing more or
less successful results. So there is a great development
of competitive and emulative games, especially among
boys. They delight to play together, but not for a
common end. The association is one of place and time,
not one of purpose. They pit themselves against each
other in running, leaping, throwing. They dare each
other to feats of derring-do. This is charmingly ex-
pressed in John Heywood's Play of the Wether. The
gods under the presidency of Jupiter are met to decide

DEVELOPMENT OF INTERESTS 227

the kind of weather which is best for mankind. Typical
people are called to give evidence, and at the end comes
a school-boy who testifies —

" All my pleasure is in catchynge of byrdes,
And makynge of snow-ballys, and throwynge the same ;
For the whyche purpose to have set in frame,
With my godfather god I wolde fayne have spoken,
Desyrynge hym to have sent me by some token
Where I myghte have had great frost for my pytfallys,
And plente of snow to make my snow-ballys.
This onys had, boyes lyvis be such as no man leddys.
O, to se my snow-ballys light on my felowes heddys,
And to here the byrdes how they flycker theyr wynges
In the pytfale ! I say yt passeth all thynges."

Such trials of strength and skill bring home to a boy
his superiority to others. His inferiority he is usually
less willing to grant. There is always some extenuating
circumstance. He cannot, indeed, bear to think of
himself as incapable, and so strong and general is the
feeling that he quite often receives the comfort of
acquiescence from his companions when he is on good
terms with them. When he does not he is apt to try
at once to prove that at any rate he is superior in the
noble art of self-defence.

The same emulative spirit shows itself in school work,
and it is quite permissible to make use of it. In its
purely personal form it is characteristic only of this stage.
As it takes on a more social form in the next stage the
momentary quarrels to which it here leads are put away
with other childish things. With girls individual emu-
lation is apt to take a more bitter form and to be more
prolonged than with boys. Exceptional care and caution
in appealing to it are needed.

228 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

By about ten years old the child has acquired a fairly
good control of his bodily movements ; in other words,
he has the mechanism of skill. His interest is now more
and more in the relations of things. He delights in
constructive work in which he can put his skill to
practical account and see the successful output of his
efforts. At first he is satisfied that this should be imita-
tive, for at the beginning of a new mode of acting the
child of about ten still feels his inefficiency. But soon
confidence grows, and as it does so his nature more and
more cries out for freedom of initiative. His interest
is enormously increased when the result of his labours
is designed, as well as executed, by himself. As it is
a capable human being we want to turn out from our
schools, and not a number of well-made joints or boxes
or meat-hooks, considerations that he may spoil some
material in his experiments should not count. What a
vastly poorer place this world would be had inventors
feared to spoil material!

Planning a construction is general thought expressed
in concrete terms. The boy or girl is, then, capable of
such thought. But to be capable of it is to have an
inherent need for it. The same developing power of
systematizing experience is seen in all departments of
activity. The boy begins to make collections of stamps,
of butterflies, of birds' eggs, or of something else which
he values, and he makes some attempt to classify them.
True, the attempts are elementary, and, especially at first,
apt to be based on resemblances of shape and colour and
size. Yet this is an advance. Collections made in
earlier years are heterogeneous both in matter and in
arrangement. Naturally the first generalizing bonds
which appeal to a boy or girl are those of obvious resemb-

DEVELOPMENT OF INTERESTS 229

lance. Doubtless that leads to thinking some relations
which are not justified by the facts, but further experience
— which the school may well arrange and expedite —
leads to criticism and revision.

Early in this period the same love of mental inquisi-
tiveness is shown in a very general liking for puzzles —
at first mechanical, afterwards more purely intellectual.
Such geometrical constructions as cutting a square in a
certain way so as to form another figure, or arithmetical
enquiries like ' ' When Jack was asked how much money
he had he replied, ' If I had as much again, half as much
again and four pence halfpenny I should have a shilling'.
How much had Jack?" are eagerly solved. Boys of
about thirteen have been known to take delight in such
ingenious manipulations of figures as arranging the nine
digits in a square of three lines with three figures in
each, so that every possible line — perpendicular, hori-
zontal, or diagonal — adds up to fifteen; or in interpreting
such involved statements of family relation as "If your
father's father is my father's son what relation am I to
you?" Many, too, feel a keen interest in games of
draughts or in the solving of acrostics.

Nothing shows more clearly the growing interest in
relations than the development, soon after ten, of
co-operative games among boys. In the earlier stage
when children play together it is for their own glory.
Even when they join in such a game as cricket or foot-
ball there is a tendency for each to play for his own hand.
That tendency bit by bit dies out, and the true co-opera-
tive spirit takes its place. This, too, means that the end
is sought outside the personal self. Victory is desired
for the side, in which only the social self is gratified.
As this spirit grows stronger the individual becomes

230 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

quite willing to sacrifice his own glory — to omit a display
of his own skill — if the doing so is to the advantage
of the side. Nowhere but in such games is there free
scope for the growth of this most desirable interest.
Free gymnastics cannot give it. Indeed, their effect
on the development of social interest is at the best to
arrest it at the competitive stage. Still less can any
form of physical drill give it. Such exercises cannot
affect the development of interest beyond the point of
desiring aptitude in free movements, that is, the interest
of childhood. Beyond that their benefits are physical.

This is the age, too, in which the growing social
interest begins to show itself in joining, or even in found-
ing, societies. Such movements as school clubs, scout
patrols, boys' brigades, furnish healthy outlets for this
interest, which otherwise has been known to take the
form of organizing gangs with various undesirable
objects. Girls commonly show no great interest in
either clubs or co-operative games. Their divergencies
from boys become continually more marked, especially
in all that affects social relations.

The demand for a clear distinction of truth from fiction
persists. Interest is excited by persons and events ; that
is, more connexion is appreciated than in the earlier
stage. This develops towards the end of the period
into a deeper searching into relations of events, corre-
sponding with the attempts to establish causal relations
among things. But till the following stage both the
knowledge and the insight stop short of a point which
can be truly called scientific. The general remains as
yet tied to the concrete.

The greater development of sympathy and under-
standing of others which is shown among other things

DEVELOPMENT OF INTERESTS 231

by the co-operative nature of play is accompanied by
a dawning power to appreciate beauty. Pictures and
poetry may begin to mean something more than records
of incidents, and music more than a mode of giving
vent to exuberance of feeling. It is not suggested for
a moment that such things as pictures, poetry, and music,
should now first make their appearance in the child's
life. They should long have been familiar. Only so
is there much likelihood of the aesthetic value now
arising. Familiarity as fact normally precedes apprecia-
tion as beautiful. The emotional interest has never
been absent. The child began with it, and, throughout,
things as wholes have had a value for him. This recog-
nition now takes the definite form of artistic feeling.

The last stage on which a few words should be said
is that of youth. The beginning of this is well marked,
though it cannot be assigned to any particular age, and
is usually earlier with girls than with boys. It is
essentially the age of secondary schooling and the time
when the mixing of the sexes in school is most open
to question. For the differences between them now
extend throughout the activities of life ; the girls
developing the feminine characteristics mentioned in an
earlier chapter and the boys the virile marks of manhood.

Physically the earlier years are marked by a great
acceleration of growth as well as by the ripening of the
new powers and functions of sex. When the intimate
relation between bodily functions and the emotions is
remembered it is not surprising that this should be a
time of some emotional instability. Injudicious treat-
ment may do irreparable mischief, and may force the
soul into morbid introspection or into antagonism to
all constituted authority. But the educator who under-

23 2 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

stands his business does not find it of excessive difficulty
to replace command more and more by advice and
suggestion. He ignores, it may be, sporadic outbursts
of temper or despondency or extravagant joy, knowing
that they are symptomatic only of a passing stage, and
that mental balance will return with the re-establishment
of bodily equilibrium.

The deepening of the emotional life, including a
higher evaluation of all social relationships, is the most
important characteristic of the period. It has its
dangers, for it may run wild in riotous imaginations or
in unhealthy sentimentality. A sane and cheerful
environment, but one which does not stimulate the
tendency to self-concentration, provides the best con-
ditions. There is needed, too, abundant scope for the
outlet in healthy games of the abundant energy of the
boy at this period. Probably the public school with its
well organized games and its absence of sentimentality
of tone is, provided the moral atmosphere be pure, as
good an environment as an adolescent boy can have.

The idea that mental work should be much lightened
at the beginning of adolescence seems to be quite as
unjustified by observation as by theory. It is one sound
outlet for energy, and, especially among girls, an antidote
to emotional absorption in the self. Moreover, the
adolescent's intellectual interests have by no means lost
their activity. On the contrary they show a rapid
extension and an attraction towards inner relations and
meanings of things which is quite consonant with the
other notes of the period and which makes possible
studies which can truly be called scientific.

Lastly, it may be noted that adolescence is emphatically
the time when a deliberate decision is most often taken

DEVELOPMENT OF INTERESTS 233

as to the kind of character the youth or maiden intends
to be. There have been heroes in earlier years, but
now the hero is consciously identified with the self as
the ideal towards which the self is to strive. It may
be a composite hero formed from many sources, and its
construction may not be deliberate. But however
formed the ideal has to stand the test of criticism till
it satisfies the aspirations of the soul. Then, in the
inmost recesses of the spirit it rests in holy privacy ; to
expose it to the world is unthinkable. All the more
surely does it inspire and shape the life.

CHAPTER VIII
DIRECTION OF ACTIVITY

I SUPPOSE the teacher who has never had an inattentive
pupil has yet to be discovered. Admonitions of the
type "Now, Smith, you're not working; pay attention !"
or " I wish you would pay more attention, Brown " are
more or less frequent in all classes. On the face of
them they assume that attention is a voluntary act —
that not only its direction but its amount is within the
control of the pupil.

Let us ask whether these assumptions are justified
by an examination of our personal experience. Any
example will serve, so we will take the reading of the
present chapter. Why does the reader read it? The
answer can only take us back to the reason which
appeared under interest. He has a purpose in view
which may be either naturally or artificially connected
with the subject-matter. Whichever it is, this purpose
decides that the reading shall take place. This neces-
sarily involves attention, which is thus seen to be
connected both with purpose and with interest. These
are the characteristic notes of our personal activity ; they
give the value of the activity for ourselves. So long
as the purpose persists, attention will be fixed on the
chapter ; in other words, that interest will be dominant
in consciousness. If the purpose be changed, or simply

DIRECTION OF ACTIVITY 235

fail to operate, attention will come to an end. Of
course, such flagging and ceasing will occur if the reader
feel that the chapter brings him no nearer the accomplish-
ment of his purpose. This summary examination
consequently justifies the scholastic estimate of attention
as a voluntary activity. It also suggests that such
exercise of effort must be related both to purpose and
to interest.

Probably everybody will grant without demur that
attention is not a constant feature of his mental life.
There are times when he delivers himself up to simple
enjoyment of the present, and his interest in the objects
which fill his consciousness is emotional. He does not
think about them ; he simply accepts them without
question — with responsive heart rather than with under-
standing head.

" Oh ! how I love, on a fair summer's eve,

When streams of light pour down the golden west,
And on the balmy zephyrs tranquil rest
The silver clouds, far — far away to leave
All meaner thoughts, and take a sweet reprieve
From little cares ; to find, with easy quest,
A fragrant wild, with Nature's beauty drest,
And there into delight my soul deceive."1

That is the true holiday mood — the rest for jaded mind,
repose as absolute as that of the body stretched on
the fragrant heather. The spirit is dissolved in calm
content. The very awareness of the objects around us
is at such times vague ; together they form the whole
which wraps us round ; separately they do not exist for
us. Of course, attention may be awakened in such a
state. The lively manoeuvres of a wasp may rouse us
1 Keats : Sonnets.

23 6 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

to both mental and physical activity ; the arrival of a
friend may wake us from our mental somnolence. Then
we have a change of state — passivity has passed into
activity ; attention has been aroused, for the activity
called forth has a purpose and expresses an interest.

In such a case of repose none of the outward marks
of attention are present, and if we were asked to what
we were attending the question would seem futile to
us : we could only reply that we were attending to
nothing ; that we were not attending at all.

There are, however, other cases in which we are
absorbed in the object, look at it intently, and show
the general outward signs of attention, yet in which
there is no attitude of enquiry and no directive activity
of mind. The only way in which we can be said to be
attentive is that we give up our minds to the influence
from without. All cases of emotional interest are of
this kind. The mental activity involved is receptive
and responsive. It has no object to attain beyond what
is already present. No effort to understand or to develop
meaning takes place, or, if it do, it must be practi-
cally unconscious, or it is antithetical to the emotional
interest. The mind is held by the object rather than
holds it. It is not that there is pure passivity, for that
is incompatible with mental life. In the interaction
between the self and the environment which forms
experience neither is ever passive. Each holds the
other, as both a screw and the inverse groove in which
it is inserted contribute to the binding power. But in
such mutual gripping the emphasis of force and strength
may be in any degree on either side. In pure emotional
interest the object grips us : in concentrated attention
we grip the object : but in neither case is the reciprocal

DIRECTION OF ACTIVITY 237

grip absent. The stronger grip determines the result.
As when two boys wrestle one may so hold the other
that he cannot escape while the tension is unrelaxed,
and yet the one held is not passive but responsive and
alert to every change in the position, so with the relation
between inner activity and outer impression. The
stronger grip decides the situation, but decides it in
relation to the situation itself.

When we allow the current of our thoughts to be
determined by the objects around us we ought not to
speak of ourselves as attentive. There is no purpose
working in a line of intellectual or practical interest.
We make no effort to determine what we shall hear or
see next ; we accept whatever comes. As an instance
let us imagine ourselves present at a cinematograph
show. The pictures may be excellent, and may succeed
each other without breaks and yet without any suggestive
connexion. Our interest may be intense ; our whole
consciousness may be filled by the show ; we are so
absorbed that we notice nothing else. We are full of
enjoyment. But we are not full of thought. It is quite
correct to say we are absorbed : it is confusing and mis-
leading to say we are attentive. Of course, attention
may be present. If the pictures raise in our minds an
attitude of enquiry ; if they form a story-series which
we try to follow and grasp as a whole, then, so far, the
direction of our thoughts is determined by the desire
to understand, and we are attentive. Even then, how-
ever, the attention is quite subordinate to the emotional
interest. But this need not take place at all: indeed,
the more usual attitude is one of amused contentment
and gratified receptive recognition, in which the only
control of consciousness we exercise is to inhibit

238 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

tendencies to wanderings of thought, and these are so
feeble when we are really strongly held by the show that
the inhibition is unconscious.

To bring this home more clearly — for educationally
it is a point of first rate importance — let us imagine that
one of the pictures suggests to us either a practical or
a theoretical problem on which we have recently been
engaged but which we have not yet solved. Then,
unless we deliberately inhibit it, our thoughts begin to
work towards the solution of the problem. Attention
has arisen, but it has broken the state of absorption.
It may even have taken the mind away from the pictures
altogether. The difference between the two states is
marked. In the one the mind is filled by a succession
of pictures of scenes immediately recognized and de-
manding no further effort ; in the other the mind
arranges its own series of ideas in reference to a set
purpose. One course is accepted from without, the
other is originated from within. In the one we look ;
in the other we think. In this latter we stretch forth
in attention towards a desired end ; in the former we
give up our consciousness to the attraction of our sur-
roundings.

This determination of mental life by the attractions
of things around is the only possibility to a baby. With
the thoughtful adult it is comparatively rare, and is
allowed as a holiday from the serious business of life.
With many men and women, however, it plays a very
large part in life, dominating attention rather than
dominated by it. People who can find no better employ-
ment for their leisure time than some form of trivial
amusement show by their behaviour that in relation to
their surroundings it is not they who have the master

DIRECTION OF ACTIVITY 239

grip. Consider what a vast number of the youths who
leave school never read a book that demands thought,
never take up any intellectual pursuit. Their stage of
mental development is evident. Perhaps parents and
teachers could do worse than ask themselves the reason.
What is evidently wanting is the effective combination
of purpose and interest. Has either home or school
done all that was possible to cultivate it? Have they,
perchance, done, all unintentionally, the very opposite,
under the obsession of the superstition that interest and
pleasure are synonymous — that absorption means atten-
tion ?

Even, however, were the best possible means being
taken to develop purpose and interest, it is clear that
the younger the child the more he is held by the things
about him. His attention, indeed, begins at first with
his own actions. Probably the first sign of dawning
attention a baby shows is when it begins to follow with
its eyes a bright light or some other object which attracts
it. Its interest in the object is emotional ; the impres-
sion is simply pleasant. The child shows signs of satis-
faction when the object comes into the field of vision,
and of dissatisfaction when it is withdrawn. When it
discovers that its own action can retain the pleasure it
has made a tiny but distinct step towards control of the
contents of its own consciousness.

WTe saw in the last chapter that the concentration of
interest in personal movements is characteristic of the
first few years of life. The child learns to guide his
activities so that they bring about the relations he desires
between himself and different parts of his surroundings.
Objects are still things to like or dislike, not things to
understand. But actions are things to master. To

24o THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

them his attention is directed with this practical end in
view. So it is that a child wanders from thing to thing.
Except as guides or occasions for action they do not
interest him, and the actions to which each prompts are
isolated and soon exhausted. The thing he simply
accepts. His interests are essentially emotional and
practical, but the germs of intellectual interest are bound
up with them. The awakening of this intellectual
interest is shown when a child begins to want to know
something more about things. Then first he really
attends to them as things. One of my own earliest
remembrances is, when three or four years old, cutting
open a toy drum "to see where the noise came from."
That certainly marked by an act of attention the libera-
tion of an intellectual interest. Such manifestations at
first are rare.

Throughout early boyhood and girlhood interest is
still felt less in things as they exist than in them as they
enter into some form of personal activity. It is easier,
for example, to secure the attention of a child to an
account of a tiger as a beast of prey, at one time hunter,
at another hunted, than to a description, no matter how
graphic or how brilliantly illustrated by pictures, of
his appearance and structure. These latter the child
will be keen on just so far as they are brought into the
animal's mode of life. Doubtless he will look at the
pictures without this relation, and may even be absorbed
in them. But he will not think them, he will only
receive them. There will be absorption, not attention.
To think them is to relate them to a train of ideas the
purpose of which is to understand how a tiger lives.
This continues after the picture is removed. But when
the interest excited in the picture is exhausted by the

DIRECTION OF ACTIVITY 241

picture it is merely emotional. It has given pleasure
or furnished entertainment, but it has not contributed
to the building up of a structure of knowledge. That
there is not attention is shown by the child's indifference
to all but the picture.

The inference is obvious. The attention of young
boys and girls is closely connected with actual or
imagined activity. If, therefore, that be not appealed
to, there may be emotional interest, but there will not
be intellectual interest. I should be the last to assert
that emotional interest is not worth having. Attached
to suitable objects it is the beginning of all artistic
culture. But emotional interest attached to objects
which are introduced into the teaching with the express
purpose of arousing thought, is, from the point of view
of learning, utterly out of place.

Here comes in the importance of going beyond the
actual moment for the test. Absorption and attention
are much alike in outward manifestation. In each there
is concentration of gaze, intentness of attitude. The
real test comes after. The younger the child the sooner
the absorption is over, and always nothing remains
behind but a reaction of lassitude. Has not many a
teacher found his pupils very intent on his pictures or
his scientific practical demonstrations, but at least equally
slack in the other parts of the lesson ? It shows confusion
between the two states we are considering to say that
they were attentive to the things in which they showed
alertness. Had they been, a train of purposive thought
would have been started even if it had not been already
in existence ; for the meaning of those things is found
only in a train of thought. The very fact that the spark
of life died out as soon as the entertainment was over

w. Q

242 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

proves that the interest was only emotional, and not the
intellectual interest from which attention is born. There
may even be this absorption in a whole lesson with little
or no true attention, if the pictures, lantern-slides,
' experiments,' or anecdotes, be numerous and striking.
The intellectual value of such lessons is no greater than
that of a cinematograph show. Unhappily, however,
the former claim to give intellectual culture, which the
latter frankly does not. That children should be amused
and entertained is right enough in its way : only let us
not think it the same as being taught or trained.

It was seen in the last chapter that both emotional
and intellectual interest may be excited by literature.
It is essential to good teaching that the teacher should
be quite clear to which he wishes to appeal in any one
lesson. If the passage demand thought for its elucida-
tion, then a lesson appealing to the intellectual interest
should precede one in which the aim is to awaken the
emotional interest. In the former lesson the teacher's
purpose is to arouse in the pupils a desire to under-
stand. This implies that attention must be directed to
a line of enquiry similar in general character to one which
seeks to understand the nature of any concrete object
and its immediate relations to other things. Here the
object to be analysed is a thought-construction, in which
the thought-elements hold certain relations, and the
whole, by poetic figure or allusion, is connected with
much outside itself. The quest is a quest of thought,
and the interest is intellectual. It is sometimes said
that apprehending the meaning of a passage is a passive
process. This is seen to be erroneous when it is recog-
nized that the meaning of another's expression of his
thought must be sought as surely as the meaning of

DIRECTION OF ACTIVITY 243

physical occurrences. Whoever has tried to master such
a poem as Browning's The Ring and the Book, or such a
philosophical work as Hegel's Logik will grant that the
quest may be as difficult as the discovery of the habits
of wasps or even of the nature of radium. The mistake
arises from confusion between seeking the meaning and
contemplating it when found. In each case the mind
accepts the discovered fact ; but also in each case the
fact has first to be discovered.

One may hope that in a lesson dealing with the intel-
lectual grasp of a poem there may be an undercurrent of
emotional interest at the bottom of many of the pupils'
minds. A consideration, however, of the opposition
between intellectual and emotional interest will lead us
to the decision that in that lesson it had better rest there.
A later reading, when no talk of meaning need be intro-
duced, should be devoted to stirring this interest strongly
and making it predominant. In such a reading we aim
not at attention but at absorption, and attention should
play the very subordinate part of so following the piece
that the object of emotional interest is formed in the
mind. Evidently the introduction of questions, which
always provokes the intellectual attitude, is fatal to
success.

Further, the antithesis between emotional and intel-
lectual interest suggests that with younger boys and
girls the passages of literature intended to rouse an
emotional interest should be simple in idea and expres-
sion, so as to require no extended activity of the
intellectual interest. For this is likely to remain attached
to the poem and to be fatal to any real emotional effect.
A silent reading to get the drift of the passage ; a
question or two to make sure that it has been grasped ;

244 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

then an impressive reading by the teacher is the most
probable road to success. Again it is absorption not
attention that is required.

When the distinction has been thoroughly grasped it
will be found to solve more than one scholastic puzzle.
Children have been absorbed in a lesson or a series of
lessons, and have shown at the end knowledge neither
of the facts nor of their relations : the interest excited
has been more emotional than intellectual ; there has
been little or no attention. Boys and girls who have
shown a liking for school lessons drop them all directly
they leave school : again the failure to excite real intel-
lectual interest is the cause. School children, it is too
often justly lamented, do not develop persistence and
perseverance under difficulties : this, too, because absorp-
tion has taken the rightful place of attention in their
lives.

Even when the course of ideas is determined from
within it is not always guided by purpose or controlled
by attention. The most typical case is when in a reverie
or day-dream we let our thoughts wander where they
will. Then it is not the present surroundings which
hold us, but images derived from the past, now in
familiar form, now in new and ever varying combina-
tions. To all around us we may be quite oblivious.
To the onlooker we may seem to be intent on a train of
thought. Yet we are exercising no mastery over the
sequence of our ideas, we are seeking no purpose, we
are putting forth no directive energy. As before, at any
moment the condition of things may be changed. Some
idea in the train of musing may rouse a dormant interest,
and immediately we may begin to direct our thoughts
by attention towards a special object.

DIRECTION OF ACTIVITY 245

" Imaginings will hover

Round my fire-side, and haply there discover
Vistas of solemn beauty, where I'd wander
In happy silence, like the clear Meander
Through its lone vales ; and where I found a spot
Of awfuller shade, or an enchanted grot,
Or a green hill o'erspread with chequer'd dress
Of flowers, and fearful from its loveliness,
Write on my tablets all that was permitted,
All that was for our human senses fitted.
Then the events of this wide world I'd seize
Like a strong giant, and my spirit tease,
Till at its shoulders it should proudly see
Wings to find out an immortality."1

Until attention "like a strong giant" does seize the
direction the state is one of mental play ; the mind is
held by the attraction of its own images.

If, after a time of musing, one succeeds in recalling
the mental wanderings in any completeness one is amazed
to find how extensive and, at first sight, disconnected
they have been. Yet there has been no break in the
chain. In all the divergencies every point of new
departure has belonged in some way both to the preced-
ing and to the succeeding topic. Both Edgar Allan Poe
and Conan Doyle have made their ideal reasoners amaze
their companions by recalling a train of musing which
observation had enabled them to trace. That we may
all have the same definite sequence before us I will quote
Mr Sherlock Holmes' reproduction of Dr Watson's
reverie, as containing more familiar topics than the more
ingenious and elaborate train imagined by Poe:

" * After throwing down your paper, which was the action which
drew my attention to you, you sat for half a minute with a vacant

1 Keats : Sleep and Poetry.

246 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

expression. Then your eyes fixed themselves upon your newly
framed picture of General Gordon, and I saw by the alteration in
your face that a train of thought had been started. But it did not lead
very far. Your eyes turned across to the unframed portrait of Henry
Ward Beecher which stands upon the top of your books. You then
glanced up at the wall, and of course your meaning was obvious.
You were thinking that if the portrait were framed, it would just
cover that bare space and correspond with Gordon's picture over there.'

' You have followed me wonderfully ! ' I exclaimed.

' So far 1 could hardly have gone astray. But now your thoughts
went back to Beecher, and you looked hard across as if you were
studying the character in his features. Then your eyes ceased to
pucker, but you continued to look across, and your face was thought-
ful. You were recalling the incidents of Beecher's career. I was
well aware that you could not do this without thinking of the
mission which he undertook on behalf of the North at the time of
the Civil War, for I remember you expressing your passionate
indignation at the way in which he was received by the more
turbulent of our people. You felt so strongly about it, that I knew
you could not think of Beecher without thinking of that also.
When a moment later I saw your eyes wander away from the picture,
I suspected that your mind had now turned to the Civil War, and
when I observed that your lips set, your eyes sparkled, and your
hands clenched, I was positive that you were indeed thinking of the
gallantry which was shown by both sides in that desperate struggle.
But then, again, your face grew sadder ; you shook your head. You
were dwelling upon the sadness and horror and useless waste of life.
Your hand stole towards your own old wound and a smile quivered
on your lips, which showed me that the ridiculous side of this
method of settling international questions had forced itself upon your
mind. At this point I agreed with you that is was preposterous, and
was glad to find that all my deductions had been correct.' " l

An examination of this train brings out very clearly
the purposeless character of the whole. There are little
trains of sequent ideas, which "did not lead very far".
Attention, when present at all, was too feeble to keep

1 The Resident Patient.

DIRECTION OF ACTIVITY 247

hold of any topic. Some attention certainly did come
incidentally into the Beecher series, for there was
deliberate recall of connected events, but there was no
purpose to reach a definite result, to solve a particular
problem, or to answer a specific question. Thus the
train of musing as a whole shows no attention to any
one matter. It is not fruitful and deliberate thought ;
it leads nowhere in particular, and were it not interrupted
it might go on indefinitely with continual changes of
subject.

The points of new departure in this train are easy to
explain. A newly framed picture suggests another and
unframed picture ; that leads to the ideas of framing and
hanging. Here this small train naturally ended ; it had
exhausted itself. So the mind reverted to the previous
point of departure and from it set off on a new series.
In this, the picture of Beecher suggested the man, which
naturally raised in succession the chief events of his life.
None was dwelt on till the Civil War was reached. This
by its emotional interest held the mind. But now the
general topic war took the thoughts to that other war
in which Dr Watson had himself been wounded. This
brought back the memory of the wound, and the un-
pleasant character of that experience raised images of
the suffering inseparable from war, and doubts as to the
general wisdom of international appeals to arms.

If we consider these junction-points we see that they
may be of any character, but that each contains an
element common to the two experiences it unites.
'Picture' is a common class with many particular
instances, so that any one instance may suggest any other
through this common agreement. It is as if we had
once suffered ship-wreck. Not only that steamer or that

248 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

cape would recall the incident, but any steamer and any
cape, or indeed any vessel and any coast, might do so
without any further likeness between them. The
thought of picture leads to framing, and that to hanging
because such connexions are common in experience.
That a photograph recalls its original is due, of course,
to its resemblance to him ; that is its one reason for
existence. To muse on a man is to bring to mind what
we know of him, especially if he is not a personal
acquaintance ; for, indeed, what we know of his life is
to us the man. When from one war the thoughts
diverged to another war we have again a similar bond
to that which connected the two pictures, but here deter-
mined by personal interest. This striking life-experience
recalled the wound which was its most intimate personal
feature, and that led to a logical generalization which
obviously expressed an opinion already formed.

Nor is it only in private reverie that our thoughts
are thus discursive. Consider the conversations of
every-day life. How many topics are touched on in half
an hour ? What is their connexion with each other ?
Attention is continually losing control and yielding the
reins to chance. How difficult, too, it is for many
people to keep to the point in an argument ! They are
always going off at a tangent, till the end of their remarks
has nothing to do with the purpose with which they
started.

The train we have examined is, of course, an extremely
simple example. Each reader can find more complex
ones within his personal experience. That present
experiences bring to the mind ideas of other things and
events is the most common fact known to every one of
us. It is but seldom that we attempt to discover why

DIRECTION OF ACTIVITY 249

just this thought was raised. When we do we often
cannot succeed. For it is not always the most prominent
thought that suggests the next idea. We have all
known occasions when a train of thought or a conver-
sation has been broken in upon by the sudden rush into
consciousness of the idea of something quite different.
It may, or it may not, be possible to trace the origin of
such an interruption. If in a conversation with Jones
I suddenly catch sight of Brown and remember that I
have forgotten to post a letter I promised to post for
him, my talk with Jones will be likely to be interrupted,
and certainly my attention will be disturbed. But in
many cases it is impossible to find a cause for the new
thoughts. It may be something which only enters into
marginal consciousness.

" Music, when sweet voices die,
Vibrates in the memory —
Odours, when sweet violets sicken,
Live within the sense they quicken." l

Few can recall the scents of flowers as separate and dis-
tinct remembrances. But that they do linger in the
memory is proved by our power to recognize them.
Nor do we as often pay specific attention to such impres-
sions as receive them as part of the whole mental
state at the moment. In the dim background of con-
sciousness they exercise their influence, and if they enter
there afresh they may bring back to our minds some
remembrance of the past into which they had also
entered. ' 'A warm draught of air in midwinter, fanning
the face suddenly and for an instant, charged with some
exotic scent, may call up a person, incident, or locality,
connected with a period of one's life passed years ago
1 Shelley.

250 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

in the South, or it may only create a mood corresponding
to the sadness or joy of those days." 1

The last consideration is very important. We have
seen that the emotional side of life is closely connected
with the mass of dim impressions in the background of
consciousness. Some here, some there, of these have
been similarly present in other moods of like tone. So
it is inevitable that the thoughts and remembrances
which come most readily to our minds when we are sad
should have a mournful tone, while those which occur
in cheerful moods should themselves be gay and bright.
How spontaneously this comes about is illustrated by
the sudden darkening of the present by the sight of a
funeral ; by the cessation of fun on entering a church ;
by the sobriety of mind the well-trained child feels on
coming into school.

Such suggestion of ideas by ideas, or of ideas by
some dim present experience, is not an incidental thing
in life. It is the texture of life itself. What is
incidental is the control of the stream by deliberate pur-
pose. It is only occasionally that we follow such a
purpose in thought for any length of time. More
commonly we intermix little spurts of attention with a
good deal of mental drifting. Life is like a river.
Now in narrow bed it rushes on, calm and deep, in the
irresistible current of inflexible purpose. Now it
spreads out in shallows, with no perceptible onward
motion though stirred by breaths of wind to gentle
surface currents, flecked with the shifting light and shade
of trivial and transient joys and griefs, here perchance
bearing on its bosom dead leaves of regret, there broken
twigs of abandoned ambitions.

1 Waldstein : The Subconscious Self, p. 10.

DIRECTION OF ACTIVITY 251

This fact of suggestion is of the utmost importance in
teaching, as in every other form of mental activity.
Every part of a lesson is apt to start divergent trains
of ideas in the pupils' minds. Often this becomes very
apparent when they take part in an oral lesson by
questions, remarks, or even answers. Absolutely to
bar all such digressions checks thought altogether ; to
follow them may end nobody knows where. The only
alternative is to remember that as a divergent train
started from the original train so it can be bent back to
it again, and that without discouraging initiative by a
blank prohibition.

If we examine an attentive train of thought of our
own we shall find that such a process is continuously
going on. Connexion of ideas due to past experience
is all we have to work with. If it fails our train of
thought is brought to a standstill. Even the most suc-
cessful thinker can recall many instances. The con-
nexion he needs, the indispensable formula, the pertinent
illustration, will not come. All his seeking is but
"calling spirits from the vasty deep". The inter-
connexions which have been formed in his experience,
mainly without either effort on his part to form them
or consciousness that they were formed, for some reason
temporarily fail him. We all know how fatigue thus
makes thought difficult or even impossible ; how deep
sorrow not only prevents us from remembering past joys
but hinders the calm intellectual dealing with subjects
we are studying ; and how a joyous excitement exercises
the opposite emotional effect but is an equally serious
hindrance to thought.

Systematic thought is, then, the controlling of a train
of ideas which would flow on in some course if not

252 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

controlled, but would not tend towards a predetermined
end. It is this control which is properly called attention.
Attention fulfils an executive function. We are inter-
ested in some branch of knowledge or line of activity,
and we desire to increase the knowledge or to attain
some result through the activity. An opportunity
presents itself for doing so, and we resolve to avail
ourselves of it. But to fulfil the purpose we must work
out the appropriate means ; that is, we must secure that
they occupy our minds to the exclusion of divergent
thoughts and suggestions. This concentration on the
means, step by step, from the beginning of the process
to the accomplishment, is the work of attention.

But attention can only deal with the material brought
to mind by that interconnexion of experiences which we
have been considering. The presence of the interest
gives a tone to the whole consciousness, and operates in
determining the kind of recall in a similar way to the
emotional tone. Thus the ideas recalled are to a much
greater extent than would otherwise be the case pertinent
to the matter in hand. So long as psychological interests
are dominant I am not likely in writing this chapter,
nor is the reader in reading it, to be troubled with mathe-
matical or historical ideas. If the reader is keeping an
eye on his own mind he will be conscious that those
two words did immediately arouse such trains. It is to
be hoped that he at once inhibited them ; that is, turned
his attention from them. I made it easier for him to
do so by prompting two incompatible trains. Had I
mentioned only one of them the inhibition would have
been more difficult in a mind in which there is a strong
interest in mathematics or in history.

But let us suppose the extraneous suggestions nega-

DIRECTION OF ACTIVITY 253

tived, and ask why it was possible to negative them. I
can hardly flatter myself that in every case the explanation
would be that the reader is generally more interested in
my exposition of psychology than in mathematics or
history. No, the reason cannot be found in comparative
strength of general interests. It must be sought in
present purpose. It is purpose which guides attention
in its rejections and in its acceptances of the ideas
offered to it by the automatic workings of conscious
connexions. Purpose itself in the background is the
touchstone by which every suggestion must be tested.
It gives a general direction which must be followed
though it does not immediately dictate each step. As
the bark of thought glides down the stream of interest
purpose holds the helm while attention plies the oars.

Without purpose, therefore, we have no guide to
attention. Here we doubtless have an explanation of
much ineffectiveness in teaching. A class too often is
not inspired by a purpose to master the matter put
before it. Sometimes it starts with only the vaguest
idea as to what the lesson is intended to teach. Then
the only possible purpose is the abstract one of attending
to the teacher, and this is quite other than attending to
the subject. It may, and often does, only succeed in
obtaining that spurious attention which satisfies itself in
recognizing the ideas the teacher sets forth. The real
state is that external determination of the course of
thought without even an intelligent reconstruction of it
in the mind of the hearers which has already been con-
sidered. One cannot have real attention without its
two essential conditions — interest and clear purpose.

It plainly follows that attention is most effective and
most easy when both interest and purpose are strongest.

254 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

Take as an example the writing of an important letter
on a subject very near to one, and intended to bring
about an object one has much at heart. One is not easily
distracted ; one's thoughts do not wander discursively
but keep to the point, one selects and rejects expressions,
all with the object of accomplishing the purpose. That
is a simple case in which the act of attention is complete
in itself.

When a wider purpose is considered, as, for example,
the writing of a book, which may extend over many
months or even years, of necessity there is not such
exclusive filling of the mind. Here the idea of the
subject of the book is always in the background of
consciousness and is ready to seize on anything, even in
other trains of attention, which helps its development.
If one reads history or poetry or fiction, passages which
bear on one's subject will at once recall it and emphasize
their relation to it. Further, the purpose also is never
really out of mind. It leads to certain lines of reading
and of thought, to certain planning of time, to certain
general arrangements of life to facilitate its accomplish-
ment. To all these attention has to be given. Of
course, they are only means, and the interest in them is
indirect so far as the purpose of writing the book is
concerned. In the actual periods of writing, interest
and purpose dominate the train of ideas as in the case of
writing the letter. The train itself is largely formed from
the reading and thought which have previously been
done under the dominance of the same purpose, but as
it flows new connexions and relations occur which atten-
tion judges by the test of purpose, and accepts, modifies,
or rejects.

To one who writes much there come times when the

DIRECTION OF ACTIVITY 255

impulsive strength of the purpose is but weakly felt.
It may be that the work has been pursued so strenuously
that there is some physical exhaustion, or it may be that
new and conflicting interests and purposes have come
into one's life. Then the habit of working at the book
at certain hours does much to supply the impetus and
to set one down at one's desk. Professional writers
usually find that the only possible plan of securing the
continuity of their work is to make a habit of writing
between certain hours each day.

In these cases the difficulty is in beginning. Soon
after the start is made the interest and purpose which had
grown faint revive and the work goes on energetically.
Yet, as we know, it cannot go on indefinitely. After
a time the power is felt to be diminishing, and if work
be persisted in it is very unlikely to pass the test of our
own criticism the next day. There is no need to enlarge
on this. Everybody knows that real work induces
fatigue, and that fatigue first spoils work, then inhibits
it. Yet we do not become really conscious of fatigue
just anywhere in our work, but only when we come in
it to a natural halting-place. Then the fact that we are
tired may suddenly overpower us. The explanation is
not far to seek. Fatigue is a constituent in conscious-
ness, and while our minds are full of the topic we are
working out, the fatigue, like emotional states in general,
is thrust into the background. It does not belong to
the main stream of consciousness, and in intensive atten-
tion that is all we notice. But when the subordinate
topic on which we have been engaged is finished there
is a relaxation of mental tension ; attention is over for
the time, and the character of consciousness as a whole
is forced upon us.

256 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

All these points are exemplified in working an
examination paper. The examination is interesting
because it is the means to a distinction which it is one's
purpose to win. To write the appointed paper therefore
becomes a subordinate purpose. Very likely if we were
guided by present inclination that subordinate purpose
would not be energetic enough to set us down at the
desk in the examination hall at the time appointed. We
accept that determination as part of the purpose to pass
the examination, and we accept it so fully that we do
present ourselves even if somewhat unfit physically. At
the end of each paper there is a cessation of attention
to that subject, and possibly a feeling of fatigue. For
the next paper the whole mental process has to start
afresh. Further, there are subordinate lapses of atten-
tion at the end of each answer, for again a special topic
has been dealt with as far as we propose then to deal with
it. But at the earlier of these breaks, at any rate if we
are in good health, we do not feel fatigue ; though
towards the end of a long examination fatigue is felt
earlier in each paper than it was at the beginning.

When one considers how one answers a question one
finds that it takes a little time to call up the desired ideas
and to send the attention along on the new track. Our
experience, therefore, tells us that the effectiveness of an
attentive process rapidly increases at the start, then goes
on with undiminished vigour for a time, then falls off
rapidly as fatigue comes on ; and that a well-formed
habit is of the utmost service both in taking up an accus-
tomed task and in keeping to it for the allotted time.

All these characteristics of attention are, of course,
found in children. The school habit makes it easy or
difficult for them to be attentive. In schools one often

DIRECTION OF ACTIVITY 257

finds a class attentive and industrious with one teacher
and quite otherwise with another teacher. The children
are the same ; both teacher and subject are different.
In them one must seek the explanation, and it would
be wise to look first at the teacher. For children,
especially young children, are not very fastidious as to
what they attend to, and easily catch an enthusiasm from
a strong and sympathetic teacher. They become
interested by contagion. With at least equal facility
are they infected by a teacher's slackness. The older
they get the less this is operative, but it always has some
effect in youth, and frequently in adult life.

The natural cessation of attention at the end of a topic
should always be regarded in the planning of lessons.
Lessons which simply leave off anywhere when the clock
strikes ignore an unalterable law of mental life. A little
elasticity in time-tables is consequently a great aid to
effective teaching. The oncoming of fatigue should be
•carefully watched. But at present the tendency is rather
the other way. Lessons are so short that the scholars
are not called upon to concentrate their attention for the
greatest length of time possible to them without over-
pressure. That is to say, they are not trained in per-
sistence and perseverance. The inordinate number of
short lessons which most classes receive every day is a
bad intellectual training both positively and negatively.
It is bad positively, as it cultivates that volatile super-
ficiality which is a sign of an unregulated and undis-
ciplined mind ; it is bad negatively, as it makes impossible
the self -discipline without which strength of purpose is
impossible. Concentration in successive periods on
different groups of subjects would assuredly give a better
training of capacity.

W. R

258 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

In anxiety to guard against undue fatigue, however,
one must not mistake boredom for it. Boredom is a
state in which healthy children should not naturally be,
but it is a very common one in schools nevertheless. The
chief reason is that the scholars do not see the value of
their lessons, and that this is not compensated by
enthusiasm in their teacher. Indeed, it would be almost
a miracle if an intelligent teacher did become enthusiastic
over much that it is customary to teach in school. Bore-
dom is the natural attendant of having to do light work
without interest. If the work be heavy we have not
boredom but drudgery, soon leading to fatigue. This
English boys, at any rate, may usually be trusted to
avoid in their lessons.

Boredom may also arise in other ways. A scholar
may be interested in the subject and have the purpose
of attending to the lesson, but this purpose may be
balked by the teaching. It may be too quick, so that
he is called upon to pass on to a new idea before he has
clearly grasped the present one ; or it may be too slow,
so that his mind is continually left unoccupied ; or it
may be confused and obscure. In each case the result
is either boredom while the pupil is still following, or
the dropping of the purpose and a mental rambling to
more interesting subjects. Most people who have
listened to lectures or to sermons, or who have read
books, will be able to find examples in personal experi-
ence of all these varieties of effects on mental activity of
faulty presentation of matter which is itself of interest.

Perhaps nothing is more fatal to the cultivation of a
ha'bit of attention among children than the well-meant
but mistaken custom of many teachers of incessant
talking. How far the idea that their scholars should

DIRECTION OF ACTIVITY 259

attend to them, instead of attend to the subject with
them, is at the bottom of this practice it is impossible to
say. But a false conception of the nature of attention
is certainly operative as well. However it originates
its results are disastrous. The pupils are never set to
work out a train of thought — to govern and direct their
own ideas in reference to a determined end. The teacher
fixes the end, and often keeps it an inviolable secret
locked up in his own breast. That is the first fatal error,
and it leads to all the others. The scholars having
nothing to work towards are simply taken on inch by
inch by questions just looking forward that inch. They
may begin at last to guess the direction in which they are
going, but few take the trouble to do so. Why should
they? That is the teacher's affair, as every lesson im-
presses on them. The result is that if any child learns
to think it is in spite of his school work. The essence
of thought is self-direction of ideas. That cannot be
cultivated by carefully preventing the children from ever
having the direction of a train of thinking in their own
hands. No doubt, teachers are afraid that they would
not cover so much ground unless they thus kept their
scholars in leading-strings. They do not ask themselves
the very pertinent question — What does that matter?
Surely a boy or girl who can think, and who has learnt
by thinking all that has been learnt, is better than one
who has been personally conducted through wider tracts
of knowledge, but who has sought and found nothing on
the way.

The case when attention is working in the realm of
a direct purpose which grows out of the means, and in
which the interest is immediate, is the normal one. Then
the energy of the whole self goes out on a path which

260 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

directly leads to a fuller and better self. The whole
activity rather makes us more than brings us more ; so
that every step in advance is itself a personal advantage.
Throughout there is a feeling of self-satisfaction and
enlargement of power. Then indeed the will and the
desires are unified, and the greatest energy of which we
are capable is thrown into the whole process. It is
different when the purpose is only artificially connected
with the means by which it must be attained. Then
each advance is valued only as an advance ; it has no
worth in itself. If we stopped before reaching the end
we should be none the better, whereas in the former case
no matter where we stopped we should have gained part,
though not all, of what we were seeking. Take as an
example the learning of a foreign language. If our
purpose be really to know the language every advance
partly fulfils that purpose. But if it be only to pass an
examination in the language then if we cease to study it
at a stage obviously beneath that required by the exami-
nation we can but judge our labour as lost and our time
as thrown away. By ignoring the language in the future
we bring our minds as soon as possible to the state they
would have been in with respect to it had we never
started learning it.

It has already been said that we cannot get through
life without many such indirect purposes. Happy
indeed are they whose main occupation is not one of
them. According to their strength such purposes
prompt attention. Many boys and girls will work
devotedly to win a prize, although the subject worked
at has no special interest for them. Many a man has
made a fortune by assiduous attention to an occupation
to which in his heart he has a strong aversion. All of

DIRECTION OF ACTIVITY 261

us have duties of which the fulfilment calls for the
putting on one side of direct interests.

That we can and do give attention to parts of our
work which in themselves have no attraction for us no
teacher is likely to deny. The marking of examination
papers is not a very delightful occupation even when we
have the interest of discovering the effect of our own
teaching, and when the papers are those of strangers
even this bond of direct interest is absent. True, there
are occasional bright spots when a particularly engaging
' howler ' appears — as when a small boy once translated
for me ' humanum est errare ' by ' Humanity is a mis-
take.' But such reliefs are rare, and no one would
undertake to mark several hundred papers for the joy of
finding a few. Still less possibility is there of direct
interest in filling up the numerous 'Forms' which
delight the official soul. These take one away from
one's real work of education, and therefore interfere with
one's greatest legitimate interest. Nor is there usually
the consolation of believing that the records called for
either are or ever can be of the smallest service to educa-
tion. Yet one does such work, and one does it care-
fully. That is, one really attends to it, simply because
it is part of the routine work which is inseparable from
the general work of teaching. We like teaching, and
we take the rough with the smooth, convinced that every
calling has its own collateral drawbacks.

In such matters it is not adequate to say that we do
violence to our interests. Life is never so simple that
only one interest at a time is alive in it. Continually we
have to inhibit desires and tendencies because a wider
purpose calls us. In these cases we certainly inhibit
actions which, taken by themselves, we should find agree-

262 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

able. But we do so because a stronger interest calls us
another way. True, this interest is indirect, but it is
none the less real. Without it the purpose cannot be
attained, and with that attainment we have identified our
whole being. We may wish that the available means
were different, but we recognize that they are not, and
so we throw ourselves into them. No doubt, when the
purpose is weak or of small importance our energy in
attending to the means is less. That is only an example
of the general rule that we put forth the strength we
deem necessary, but no more, whether that strength be
bodily or mental. But when the purpose is strong our
indirect interest in the means is also strong, and our
attention is then fully concentrated. Ranke incidentally
gives an admirable example. After describing the devo-
tion to State affairs of Queen Christina of Sweden he
remarks: "It was not inclination for business which
precipitated her into it with such ardour ; she was urged
on by ambition and by a sense of her sovereign power
and dignity — but she found no pleasure in it." *

No doubt when the means give pleasure, or pain, in
themselves, when they yield a subordinate emotional
interest, it is easier to maintain attention. Then our
mental grip of the subject is reinforced by the subject's
grip of us. But then there is usually a direct intellectual
interest as well as an indirect. Then the subject is studied
for its own sake as well as for the external purpose.

The only means of developing true attention to a
pursuit not in itself interesting is to make it a means to a
purpose felt to be of value. The more toil is required
the greater that felt value must be. But to try to deck
the undesired means with fruits and flowers to make
1 History oj the Popes, trans, by S. Austin, vol. ii. p. 214.

DIRECTION OF ACTIVITY 263

them attractive is quite ineffectual. The fruits and
flowers are seized, that which they decked is rejected.

In this matter of indirect interest the force of habitua-
tion is of particular worth. That a child should think
of certain subjects in school, that he should try to direct
his thoughts in certain well-marked paths, that all his
surroundings suggest work by their constant association
with work, that the presence and acts of the teacher
strengthen the suggestion, that the parents desire him to
work, that all his class-mates are similarly affected and
all adopt the attitude proper to school — all these and
many similar small influences, not thought but felt, put
the child's mind in the proper attitude of preparedness
and readiness to attend to what the lessons may put
before him. The manner in which he is required or
encouraged to learn influences, as has been said, the kind
and amount of attention he puts forth. That also is habit.

Among habits helpful to attention in school is cer-
tainly that of general bodily quiescence. A pupil con-
stantly moving about is a distraction to his class-mates
if not to himself. Too often, however, this outward
help is taken by teachers as the essential mark of atten-
tion, and much insistence is placed on perfect immobility.
The result is that inhibition of spontaneous movements
becomes the children's purpose. So attention is to some
extent withdrawn from the lesson. Learning ceases to
be the main object. Moreover, the concentration of
attention on the machinery of movement so innervates
that machinery that the tendency to movement is in-
creased. " In illustration ... we may compare the atten-
tion repeated from time to time in holding a glass of
water in the hands for a short period : if we pay a
moderate amount of attention we can hold the glass when

264 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

it is almost full, but if we pay too much attention to our
hands the tone of the muscles becomes altered, and the
water runs over. None feel so restless as those who try
to stand still."1 Many children are naturally restless,
and their movements by no means imply idleness or
wandering of attention. Nor is immobility in the case
of children, especially those naturally phlegmatic, incom-
patible with absolute absence of attention : the mind
may be wandering far in the realms of fancy, or may be as
near perfect immobility as is the body. A wise teacher
will judge the attention of his pupils by very different
signs — by their mental alertness, not by their bodily
repose. The absence of the latter is to be regretted only
when its opposite becomes a hindrance to the former.

Attention is made difficult to all not only by poor
health or temporary bodily derangement but by outside
distractions. Young children taken into an unaccus-
tomed room to be taught are attracted by the surround-
ings because of their novelty. They have little power
of concentrating attention, and until they have satisfied
their curiosity it is not of much use to expect the exercise
of even that power. As age increases the distraction has
to be more pronounced to draw our minds away from
the line of interest. Of course, every such case is a
struggle between attraction from without and attention
from within. The issue depends partly on strength of
present interest, but a great deal more on cultivated
power of inhibition. One who has formed the habit can
work amid surroundings that would render concentration
impossible to another who might yet be able to attend
equally well were he free from distractions. The differ-
ence, however, is in the nervous organization as well as

1R. Verdon, Article on ' Forget fulness* in Mind, vol. ii. p. 450.

DIRECTION OF ACTIVITY 265

in past experiences : some can cultivate the habit more
successfully than others.

Let us ask what happens when a distraction breaks in.
Suppose one is answering an examination paper — a case
in which the limitation of time makes it especially impor-
tant that all of it should be devoted to the work in hand.
The insistent sound of a gramophone in the street breaks
on the ear. There are surely three possibilities. One
may yield oneself to the distraction, and lose one's grip
of the examination work. Attention to the one thing
has been succeeded by absorption in the other without
any attempt to inhibit the change. This may involve so
much attention to the gramophone as is needed to follow
the tune, but that is only ancillary to the enjoyment. In
the second place, the gramophone may raise a new train
of ideas, as, for instance, the idea of a friend who delights
in such strains, and who has some business relations with
one ; then one may begin thinking about that business.
In this case attention to the examination has been suc-
ceeded by attention to another subject suggested by the
distraction : again the change has taken place without
inhibition. Thirdly, one may keep in mind the import-
ance of the examination, remember the limitation of
time, and thus strengthen the original purpose, so that
one is able to inhibit the giving of the mind to the
disturbance. Then attention is kept on the original
subject. One cannot exclude the sound, but one arrests
every incipient trend of the thoughts in that direction.
One puts all the more effort into answering the questions,
and as one concentrates one's thoughts, more and more
ideas cognate to the work in hand rush into consciousness
and make the task easier. This is shown to be so by the
fact of common experience that the more we are engrossed

266 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

in an answer the easier is this inhibition. If we feel that
we are really writing round the subject, and that the
ideas we are expressing are of little worth, or if we are
between two answers or just beginning a new one, then
inhibition is more difficult.

But distractions come not only from without. We
all know what it is to wander in thought. Sometimes
when reading a book one only discovers that one has
reached the bottom of a page by the nearly automatic
action of turning over, and one wonders what the page
has been about. Though one's eyes have followed the
words one's thoughts have gone off on another track.
The fact that attention always works with connexions of
experiences already formed, and largely outside our con-
trol, makes it easy to understand this. Of course, it
only occurs when the purpose has for the time but little
strength. Yet that is likely to happen, because, as we
have seen, the purpose which directs a train of thought
is always in the background. It is, I believe, common
experience that we are more liable thus to lose our way in
following another's thoughts than in working out our
own ; and least likely of all to do so when the working
out of our own thoughts is attended by some bodily
activity, such as noting down our ideas as they come to
us. Great, too, is the influence of habit. A person
who drills and disciplines himself can do much to form
and strengthen the habit of concentration. If he find
that reading without note-taking means wandering
thoughts he will be wise to take notes. If he can keep
his own thoughts fixed best when he jots them down he
will be foolish to omit that help. It is, after all, a matter
of self-control. If we cannot become perfect we can at
least improve.

DIRECTION OF ACTIVITY 267

To sum up our results. Attention is occasional, not
constant, in life. With some men and women it plays
an important part ; with others a comparatively small
one. It is indispensable to the carrying out of purpose,
immediate or remote. A purpose which remains in idea,
but to the attainment of which attention is never bent,
is a mere delusion and dream. Attention guides all
reasoned conduct. It is essentially intellectual in its
working, but it takes for its objects not only thoughts
and lines of reasoning but things and modes of dealing
with them. Thought deals primarily with the world
and only secondarily with itself. Attention cannot be
separated from interest or from purpose. But the
interest may be indirect, and then greater strength of
purpose is needed to make possible as thorough a con-
centration of attention as when the interest is direct.
The effectiveness of attention and the power of concen-
tration are decreased by ill health and by outward
distractions. Attention to a topic fails when the topic
is exhausted, when fatigue becomes pronounced, when
boredom results from the mode of presentation.

When attention is thus looked at it becomes plain
that power of attention is a matter of gradual growth,
and that it grows within the development of purpose.
It is further obvious that such development must be
helped by guidance and discipline if it is to attain its full
stature. Though some children are naturally of stronger
will than others yet all are dominated by their surround-
ings, and, without training and restraint their strength
of will is likely to show itself only in asserting a right
to the most pleasant things immediately at hand. Every
child needs help in the passage from absorption to atten-
tion. Of course, it is not meant that absorption ceases

268 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

Ir is operative throughout life, for life is not all work
and struggle. But some of it is ; and he who cannot
disregard at need the attractions of his surroundings
will make a poor thing of life. The transition is made
through the incitement of purposes — by suggestion, by
example, by habitude — adapted to the stage of mental
development the child has reached.

It may, then, fairly be said that the essential task of
education is to promote the purposive element in life.
The baby has it not at all. The young child shows its
beginnings. It has desires which prompt action, but it
has no persistence. It is drawn away continually from
one element in its surroundings to another. It has no
plans beyond the immediate present. As intelligence
develops, knowledge increases, and desires widen, the
future is more and more constructed in imagination. In
such construction the educator can play an important
part. So actions are related to each other in a chain
reaching to a foreseen and wished-for end. The process
is continuous. Its outward expression is in the relation
of acts to each other ; in other words, in the organization
of life round purpose : its inward force is the increasing
meaning life is felt to possess.

Though the exposition of attention in the preceding
pages appears to me to be in harmony with the facts of
mental life and in accordance with ordinary thought and
speech, yet I must confess that it differs somewhat widely
from that current in most present-day writings on psycho-
logy. It, therefore, seems advisable to state briefly my
reasons for rejecting the latter view. The most funda-
mental is that the doctrine treats attention as a form of
cognition instead of as volition. It is affiliated with
the hypothesis that all mental life is built up from sensa-

DIRECTION OF ACTIVITY 269

tions. From this it logically follows that sensation and
attention are but different names for the same thing.
This was explicitly stated by Condillac, probably the
most philosophical thinker of that school : " As soon as
I fix my eyes upon an object the mass of sensations which
I receive from it is the very attention which I give to
it." l Though such an identification is not usual now,
yet when attention is regarded as the reflex of conscious-
ness on whatever is presented to it, it is made just as
much the slave of its surroundings as in Condillac's more
direct statement.

It necessarily follows that whenever we are aware of
anything we are held to be attentive to it in some degree.
This usage, therefore, extends the application of the
term attention " so as to include what we ordinarily call
inattention." 2 This is obviously inconvenient. There
is no need for another term to designate what we already
know as awareness or consciousness. But there is need
for a distinction in terminology between awareness due
to our own efforts and awareness in the sense of passive
reception and recognition of what comes into our minds
without any controlling effort on our part. The use of
'attention* in common speech does broadly recognize
that distinction, in that it regards attention as self-
directed thought.

That concentration of attention on any object of
thought does make it more distinct and prominent is
certain. But to regard vividness in consciousness as a
proof of attention is just as much to confuse result with
origin as is the inclusion under imitation of all acts which

1 Tra'tte des sensations, p. 16.

2 Ward : article on ' Psychology ' in Encyclopaedia Britannica*
qth ed. p. 41 (b).

27o THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

resemble those of other people, without consideration
of the motive which led to them. "All attention in-
creases vividness " cannot be converted to " All vividness
is due to attention." Anyone who has suffered from a
tooth-ache when writing an examination paper is aware
that the tooth-ache was vivid enough all the time his
attention was engaged with his answers. The difference
between the two mental attitudes is surely clear, and it
is equally evident which application of the term ' atten-
tion' agrees with ordinary usage.

It is because the common meaning of attention will
remain in mind that the popular classification of ' ' kinds
of attention " into Involuntary, Non-voluntary or Spon-
taneous, and Voluntary or Volitional, strikes one as so
remarkable. If in each case we substitute ' awareness '
for ' attention ' we see what is meant. For we can be made
aware of things against our will — as of a tooth-ache.
Or we may be aware of pleasant things which are present
to our senses, or of agreeable thoughts which come into
our minds without any effort on our part — that we have
seen in absorption and in reverie. Or, lastly, we may
have to put forth effort to get clear and vivid in our minds
something of which we desire to be more fully conscious.
In ordinary speech only the last of these would be called
attention. To speak of ' involuntary attention » seems a
contradiction in terms, and, indeed, is so if * attention '
mean anything more than awareness.

We have already examined, in the example of the
distraction of a gramophone, what may happen to the
course of thought when something is presented to
consciousness against our will. There may be attention
from the distraction, or there may be absorption in it with
subordinate attention to it, or there may be attention to

DIRECTION OF ACTIVITY 271

something suggested by it. But none of these is un-
willing attention to it. If we attend at all to it, or to
something suggested by it, we do so willingly ; if we
inhibit attention from it we evidently do not attend to it.
Under ' non-voluntary attention ' is included not only
absorption, in which attention is absent or is at its mini-
mum and then only instrumental, but also that full and
perfect attention in which the whole energy goes out in
accomplishment of purpose through means in themselves
directly interesting because each step partly fulfils the
purpose. To speak of this most complete and powerful
outpouring of our personal energy as ' non- voluntary '
is a strange and misleading use of terms. When our
whole will is engaged in bringing before us certain ideas,
how can it be said that the appearance of those ideas in
consciousness is independent of our will ? Interest, we
are told, explains the mystery : when we are interested
mental activity is spontaneous. That is an ambiguous
term. It may mean that the activity is an instinctive
impulse not controlled by purpose ; or it may mean that
it arises and flows on without our recognizing how, when
it may be due to habitude or to unnoticed impressions ;
or it may mean that it is an activity which causes pleasure
or is not checked by pain. In one or other of these
senses the flow of ideas which is constant in mind may,
if it be so desired, be called spontaneous. But if that
be made equivalent to attention then it would seem that
consciousness of such uncontrolled streams of ideas as
pass before us in reverie is attention, for to introduce
direction of the stream is surely to make it voluntary.
This makes ' non- voluntary attention' include inatten-
tion in the usual acceptation of that term, and so classes
together two states essentially antithetical.

272 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

Indeed, this view of attention divorces it from pur-
pose. It seems to imply that the will is a power external
to the act of attention and independent of it, so that it
can bring pressure to bear upon it. This comes out very
clearly in the current exposition of what is called
'voluntary' or 'volitional' attention, which means
bringing an obscure thought or impression to greater
clearness in consciousness by our own action. Then we
are told we exercise a direct act of will to attend. Doubt-
less we can decide to attend to a definite topic. Doubt-
less also, it is difficult at times to do so ; that is matter of
universal experience and has already been considered.
Our energy is not a constant quantity, and all things do
not attract us equally. So it is harder to concentrate our
thoughts at one time than at another, and that for a
variety of reasons, some in ourselves, some in the objects
to which we attend, and some in the conditions under
which the attention is given. Doubtless, too, this is a
voluntary activity. But it differs from that willing
attention which is classed under ' non- voluntary ',
not by the presence or absence of will, but by the pre-
sence or absence of obstacles to be overcome. We are
more conscious of the effort we make, because it is but
imperfectly successful, and meets with obstacles, and
always the overcoming of an obstacle makes very plain
the effort we are putting forth — indeed, often demands
an increase in that effort — because it seems to meet and
overcome an effort exerted in opposition to us. Still,
no one would say that if a door sticks when we go to
open it the opening is a voluntary act but if it yields
easily we open it non-voluntarily. In each case the act
is voluntary because it is done deliberately to accomplish
a set purpose. It is exactly the same with the mental

DIRECTION OF ACTIVITY 273

activity of attending. The opposition makes our effort
more explicit, but does not change that relation to pur-
pose which distinguishes the voluntary from that which
is not voluntary. It is not that we put forth two efforts :
one to make ourselves attend, the other in the actual
attending. All the effort is in the latter. We are aware
of it, but the awareness is not a second effort. We
do not — even if we could — divide our effort into two
streams, one of which compels the other.

We are further told, and that with emphasis, that
" there is no such thing as voluntary attention sustained
for more than a few seconds at a time. What is called
sustained voluntary attention is a repetition of successive
efforts which bring back the topic to the mind." l I can
only say that if it be so, in my own case I am not generally
conscious of these very ineffective efforts. One can
work at a distasteful task for a long time without any
such continual use of the mental lash. The habitude of
doing what has to be done keeps many a clerk attentive
for hours to an occupation which in itself can hardly be of
engrossing interest. If his attention ebbs and flows
every second or two it does not affect his work, and he is
not conscious of it. Attention regarded as the putting
forth of effort may, of course, not always be the same
amount of effort. But that is so whatever the topic or
work attended to may be. That experiment may show
rhythm of ebb and flow in clearness of cognition is not
to the point when we are considering the question of the
possible duration of sustained effort at a disagreeable
task.

The classification thus seems open to attack even when
interpreted as referring to modes of becoming aware,

1 James : Principles of Psychology, vol. i. p. 420.

274 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

for several such modes are included under one head. To
regard it as a classification of modes of voluntary mental
activity leads to inextricable confusion. The educational
applications made of the doctrine certainly show such
confusion. The chief is that as 'voluntary attention *
is only possible to adults for a few seconds at a time it is
practically impossible to children altogether. Therefore
the teacher's aim is to secure ' non- voluntary attention '.
That, as has been said, includes both real attention and
absorption. But, as the emphasis is placed on present
interest, in practice it is too often identified with the
latter. So entertainment and amusement take the place
of purpose in lessons. Indeed, appeal cannot consistently
be made to purpose, for to seek a purpose can never be a
non-voluntary proceeding. Thus children are trained to
live for the gratification of the moment, but they are not
trained to strenuous and persevering effort. The doc-
trine which interprets attention as mode of becoming
aware is transferred to the self-directed activity which
ordinary speech calls attention. So, because the doctrine
says 'voluntary' attention is a very infrequent thing in
life, effort is made a very infrequent thing in education.
Education to be real must work with a doctrine of
attention which takes account of the most characteristic
of all human activities — the subordination of the present
to an esteemed good in the future.

CHAPTER IX
LEARNING BY DIRECT EXPERIENCE

'* LIVE and learn" says the proverb, expressing with the
greatest possible brevity a truth which has been abun-
dantly manifest throughout the foregoing discussions.
Living is learning, and we are assured that even fools
profit by the lessons of experience. In the most funda-
mental matters of life a man devoid of knowledge is an
impossibility, and when we speak of ' an unlearned man '
we do so in an artificial and a conventional sense.

All informal learning by experience is, in the fullest
sense, real. It is absorbed into the very texture of life
and has the most direct bearing on its needs, out of
which, indeed, it arises. One aspect of the life of every
one is

"Getting increase of knowledge, since he learns
Because he lives, which is to be a man,
Set to instruct himself by his past self:
First, like the brute, obliged by facts to learn,
Next, as man may, obliged by his own mind,
Bent, habit, nature, knowledge turned to law." l

This informal learning which goes on throughout life

is not acquired by the unaided efforts of the individual.

Those efforts are guided and helped by the instinctive

assimilation and deliberate imitation of the doings of

1 Browning : A Death In the Desert.

276 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

those around us. Further, learning to talk is not only
a new form of physical activity, or even of expression of
thought or wish ; it is also of necessity a means of gather-
ing both information and guidance from others. The
whole forms one stream of experience continually being
enriched by new activities, new enjoyments, new desires,
new thoughts.

From the speech of others a child learns in two chief
ways. That speech may direct and guide his activities
so that what he does leads him to new experiences, or it
may give him information about what he does not him-
self experience. It thus enters into the two ultimate
modes of acquiring knowledge. It will make for clear-
ness if we consider these separately.

It will be obvious to all that the former is primordial,
for no words can convey information except in so far as
they are filled with meaning derived from direct personal
experience. The neglect of this truth has long been the
besetting sin of schools. Too often they have adopted
the position of Mephistopheles —

"MEPH. Hear, therefore, one alone, for that is best, in sooth

And simply take your master's words for truth.

On words let your attention centre !

Then through the safest gate you'll enter

The temple-halls of Certainty.
STUD. Yet in the word must some idea be.
MEPH. Of course ! But only shun too over-sharp a tension,

For just where fails the comprehension,

A word steps promptly in as deputy.

With words 'tis excellent disputing ;

Systems to words 'tis easy suiting ;

On words 'tis excellent believing ;

No word can ever lose a jot from thieving." l

1 Goethe : Faust, trans, by Bayard Taylor, Pt. i. sc. 4.

LEARNING BY DIRECT EXPERIENCE 277

On the other hand such a reaction as would lead to
neglect of communication as a means of knowledge, and
so would limit, as far as it is possible, each individual to
his own experience, and even in that minimize the help
given by the guidance of others, is equally to be depre-
cated. All human advance is a co-operative movement
in which the discoveries of each are available for all. To
attempt to put back each child into the position as
regards learning he must of necessity have occupied had
human knowledge never grown to what it is, is to fly in
the face of nature, not to take it for a guide. Nature
itself prompts us to make use of others, for human
nature is essentially social.

The fine art of instruction is to attain the due balance
between direct personal experience and communication
of the knowledge attained by others, to secure that these
not only balance but amalgamate, and to provide that
the resultant knowledge is as copious and effective as
possible.

With the advance of civilization the demand for
wisely determined learning becomes more and more
pressing. The more complex is the life to be led the
greater need is there for knowledge to meet its various
calls effectively. Not that knowledge alone is demanded.
Efficient life is a matter of purpose and perseverance as
well as of knowledge and intelligence. Yet these are
not isolated in life and cannot be isolated in a true educa-
tion. Our purposes and desires are limited by our
knowledge, and our perseverance is largely the outcome
of the manner of our learning. Because, then, educa-
tion seeks efficiency in life as a whole, one of its most
difficult practical problems is always the determination
of what the young shall be required to learn. Nor is it

278 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

one to which a general answer can be given. So long as
we keep to the abstract, and really, though perhaps un-
consciously, have in view the community as a whole, a
good deal may be said for almost any subject. For
evidently in a civilized community there is a place for
every kind of knowledge which mankind has yet
attained. Yet it is obvious that no one can learn every-
thing that is known.

The question must, indeed, be approached quite
differently — from the point of view of the pupils really
concerned, whose efficiency or inefficiency will be largely
determined by the answer. Only by a careful considera-
tion of the relative claims of various forms of experience
to emphasis in the training of particular classes can
even an approximately correct practical solution be
attained.

Nor does a valid answer long remain valid. The
needs of each generation differ from those of its pre-
decessors, and its own will not be identical with those of
its successors. Were there not continual evolution of
knowledge and of conditions of life this would make the
task of education a hopeless one. As it is, the two
opposite mistakes of a slavish adherence to tradition and
a revolutionary disregard of the work of the past have
to be avoided. The former is most often made by the
school, the latter by enthusiastic and theoretical advocates
of change.

The real problem for education is so to arrange those
experiences of each child which are under its direction,
and so to select the knowledge which shall be imparted by
communication, that the individual life may be made as
efficient as possible. Time and human energy are both
too valuable to be wasted in learning what certainly, or

LEARNING BY DIRECT EXPERIENCE 279

even probably, can add neither to the joy nor to the
usefulness of life.

Efficiency, it need hardly be said, should not be inter-
preted narrowly. Too often this error has been made,
and men have shown a lamentable tendency to limit
capacity to one special sphere. At one time the effici-
ency sought was confined to facility and ingenuity in
empty disquisitions of formal logic, at another to mastery
of the Latin language, at another to dialectical skill in
controversial theology, and often in our own materialistic
times to commercial or industrial efficiency. None of
these is adequate, because none takes account of the chief
occupation of each one of us — to be a man or a woman.
Efficiency is co-extensive with living, and in the normal
life it grows in width as well as in depth. This is to say
that efficiency is not something we possess but something
we are. It is the product of our original capacities and
of the whole of our experience. It is continually de-
veloping, for it is continually being nourished. But
only when acquirement is taken up into capacity does it
develop efficiency. Learning which does not increase
the power to deal with some of the calls of life — whether
moral, mental, aesthetic, physical, or what not — does not
add to efficiency, and is, therefore, worthless.

It is evident, then, that the method of learning is as
important a factor in true education as is the matter
which is learnt.

" What good of giving knowledge if, because
O' the manner of the gift, its profit fail ? " l

The fact that learning is guided by teaching tends to
obscure in practice the truth that it is a living, assimila-

1 Browning : A Death in the Desert.

280 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

tive, process on the part of the taught, and one in which
the teacher can only provide nutriment and inducement.
The power the young have of learning by rote state-
ments they do not realize or understand still further
obscures the fact that from many of their lessons they
gain no real knowledge. The true learning which is
increase of efficiency is always the result of real seeking
— the satisfaction of an inner desire, not the imposition
from without of an obnoxious burden. True teaching
stimulates such seeking in ways adapted to the require-
ments of the pupils.

" So, minds at first must be spoon-fed with truth :
When they can eat, babe's nurture is withdrawn.
I fed the babe whether it would or no :
I bid the boy or feed himself or starve." l

Prompting is necessary because we are naturally
satisfied to know our experience just so far as it serves
our present needs. A child's knowledge looks to us
very fragmentary, trivial, and ineffective. As a whole it
by no means so appears to him : did it do so his life must
be one of unsatisfied longing, and this is certainly not
the characteristic of childhood. We may bring the
need for external stimulus home to ourselves yet
more directly by considering how very incomplete
and imperfect — probably also inaccurate — is our own
knowledge of many things with which we are quite
familiar. My own knowledge of the mode in which the
electric current moves a tram-car is assuredly of this
nature. Yet I use the cars constantly without the
slightest feeling of regret for the inadequacy of my
knowledge or of desire to extend it. All of us can find

1 Browning : A Death in the Detert.

LEARNING BY DIRECT EXPERIENCE 281

an indefinitely large number of such cases. We feel our
defects only when in some way we are called upon to do
something which those defects hinder us from doing.
The call may be mental or it may be physical. When it
comes and is accepted it leads to effort to increase know-
ledge in that respect. But many of the calls made upon
each one of us by our surroundings are disregarded.
Indeed, this must be so, as they do not always come singly.
The call of the tram-car to me to understand it is ignored
because other and incompatible calls seem more impera-
tive. I am more interested in my fellows than in tram-
cars, and they challenge me abundantly to mental
activity.

The calls to which we respond are those which interest
us ; that is, they come from things which we regard as
of value for us. The world of knowledge we make for
ourselves is not a kind of picture on which we placidly
fix our gaze, but is a system of values — a mass of calls to
which we find satisfaction in responding. So each one
of us makes his world by his own activity : it is he who
gives relative value to this or that kind of experience^
and the mass of experiences, direct and indirect, are his
world, and, in a sense, are himself, for the world of each
one of us is the whole system of his own known and
evaluated experience.

Looked at in this way it is seen that teaching is
stimulus and direction, and that learning is enrichment
of life which can only be attained by response to calls
which are felt to be worth meeting. The function of
teaching is to increase the number of these calls and to
systematize them, and that in such a way that they may
appear in life as a demand of the inner spirit and not
only or mainly as a requirement of an outer authority.

282 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

In this way teaching both follows and guides the
pupil's natural development. It follows it, because it is
quite hopeless to attempt to make a child feel a call to
learn which does not arise easily within his range of
interests. It guides it, because by its provision of such
calls it causes those interests to expand and to deepen
in a way they would not do if left to themselves.

One of the most important, and surely not the least
frequent, of a teacher's tasks is to awaken a child from
the complacency of ignorance — an awakening made pos-
sible because the child is endowed with curiosity. We
all know how our own interest has often been aroused by
the suggestion to us by another of a problem of which
we had never thought, and, very possibly, never would
have thought. To make such provocation to enquiry
regular and systematic is a teacher's most delicate and
most important task. Curiosity easily gets into a groove
of habit as do all our other activities, and without dis-
turbing stimulus from without it would become narrow
in its scope, and the individual would slowly petrify into
the prejudiced pedant.

But merely to propound a problem is not of necessity
to make it a felt and accepted call to enquiry ; it must be
so propounded that it arouses desire and stimulates
activity, and this it can only do if the desire and the
activity are, as it were, the next step in the direct line
of growth from the intellectual position already attained.
If that be secured it depends on the teacher's personality,
tact, and manner, whether the call be felt so feebly that
no response, or a very anaemic response, takes place, or
so strongly that it becomes an impulse to strenuous and
persevering effort. So it is that teaching can never
become a mere mechanical adherence to rules of method.

LEARNING BY DIRECT EXPERIENCE 283

It is throughout a living intercourse of mind with mind,
and the vital essence of its success is found, not in
technical skill, but in the contagion of enthusiasm.

Successful teaching, then, must be based on knowledge
of the natural mode of learning. One cannot stimulate
a mind to an activity which is foreign to it. So it is
that the successful teacher is always one who has a true
insight into the workings of his pupils' minds. Doubt-
less these all differ, but they differ in detail only ; the
general mode of mental activity is common to us all,
just as are the general modes of walking, breathing, and
digesting. A clear apprehension of this general form of
learning by experience should safeguard a teacher against
fundamental mistakes ; a misapprehension of it will
surely lead him into error. One must have some idea of
how one's pupils learn or one cannoj: set out to teach
them at all. In other words, every person who tries to
teach has a theory of teaching. He may never have
made it the object of explicit consideration, and so may
be unable to expound it. But it reveals itself in the
actual teaching of which it is implicitly determinative.
Without clear thought on the nature of knowledge and
learning, however, we are very apt to make false assump-
tions which may go far to vitiate our teaching.

The most common, and, perhaps, the most natural of
such mistakes is that our thoughts are copies of the
things we think about. Then it is easily assumed that
such thoughts are built up little by little out of the
elements into which at a later stage we can analyse them.
The inference that teaching should begin with such
elements and gradually combine them seemed obvious.
So we had the maxim "Proceed from the simple to the
complex" interpreted to mean that the starting-point in

284 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

teaching should be such elements studied in isolation,
and the goal the concrete and complex whole. In har-
mony with this, reading in the mother-tongue began
with letters, then proceeded through syllables to words
and thence to sentences ; a foreign language was started
by a study of its structure as set forth in its grammar ;
drawing by making simple straight lines, then curves ;
writing by practising separately the elements into which
a perverted ingenuity could resolve each letter, and even
by the dictation of these elements.

It would be difficult to find a more striking example
of the evils of a false theory. And the theory was false
because it was not the outcome of a searching examina-
tion of what exactly does go on in our experience when
we learn something. It implied in its essence the
confusion into which the uncritical mind so easily falls
between its own thoughts and the things to which those
thoughts refer. Its practical results were to divorce the
teaching in school from the natural learning of the
children, and thus to reduce school culture to the parrot-
like memorizing of words very imperfectly understood,
and to delay the acquisition of all such arts as reading and
drawing. Reading the child really had to learn in despite
of his teacher's method ; drawing, as a mode of express-
ing ideas and of representing visible things, he very
seldom learnt at all. Moreover, the separation of school
lessons from actual life put the former into the class of
things that do not really matter, and so they failed to
evoke interest and energy.

We may easily see how learning naturally goes on by
examining how we make more precise and more complete
our knowledge in some direction in which we are con-
scious that it is defective. We find that the process is

LEARNING BY DIRECT EXPERIENCE 285

not a putting together of elements each of which is first
clearly grasped, but that it is the successive unfolding of
the contents of a whole apprehended as such from the
beginning. Suppose one knows little about a flower,
and one sets to work to learn more, it may be by oneself,
it may be under guidance. One's very first apprehen-
sion takes the flower as a whole, but a whole in many
ways obscure and confused. Its general shape and colour
are clear ; its composition is obscure. In other words,
not the elements but the whole as such is clearly appre-
hended first of all, and the aim of learning is to find more
and more elements in the whole, and to discover the
relations they hold to each other. As the object studied
remains a whole, so our thought of it always holds it as
a whole, and as we distinguish element after element we
yet think them together as well as apart ; not as separate
things but as separated constituents of one thing.

Learning is, however, not a set of single acts without
bearing on each other, but a continuous life-activity. In
considering such examples as the above we are apt to
forget this, and so to lose sight of the most important
factor of all — habit, which is just as operative in mental
as in physical acquisitions. Indeed, the latter are at the
same time also the former, and the former always involve
the organization of nerve-circuits even when they do not
also carry with them series of muscular activities. We
acquire skill in learning as truly as we do in acting, and
in the same general way. Continued experiences of the
same things do not succeed each other like reflexions in
a mirror, each leaving no trace of itself. On the con-
trary, each remains as a contribution to a gradually
growing organ of knowledge. It is usually quite impos-
sible to recall to mind the separate experiences, and so

286 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

we do not in ordinary speech speak of them as remem-
bered. But really they are retained in the most effective
way. Had I to run through a long series of recalled
meetings, and then compare the actor in each with the
individual before me, before I could recognize a friend,
the friendships I could form in life would be very few.
And as the same process would be needed before I could
recognize any object it is evident that my life could not
go on.

What does happen when we recognize a friend? I
may safely defy any one of my readers to write down all
the evidence. We see a person, it may be only his back,
and immediately a thought of our friend prompts our
actions : we go up to him and greet him. We do this
without any deliberation, and at times we find that our
interpretation of what we saw was wrong. But the
question now is — What caused the recognition? A
whole set of visual impressions related to each other in
a certain way and in their combination making a char-
acteristic whole, but by far the greater part of which we
are unable to indicate explicitly. So with all recogni-
tion : it is the whole, as such a whole, which is recognized,
and the recognition is immediate. If we find the char-
acteristic marks at all it is afterwards, and that we
generally do only when we have made a mistake, and
seek to discover what led us wrong. The following
anecdote will bring out the point : " There is in Bristol
a church which has a clock without any figures : in the
places where the figures should be there is, in each case,
a single line ; in fact, it looks as if the maker had put
twelve ones, instead of the proper figures. I have asked
a good many Bristol residents if they had noticed any-
thing peculiar about the figures of the aforesaid clock,

LEARNING BY DIRECT EXPERIENCE 287

and they have all with one accord replied, ' No ; they
are just the same as any other clock.' " x

Experiments on the recognition of letters and words,
whose constituent elements can be separated out with
absolute certainty, have added explicit proof. It is
found that familiar words are recognized as quickly as
single letters when exposed to sight for so small a fraction
of a second that only one momentary act of perception is
possible, and that longer and more unfamiliar words take
but little longer. It is found further that when certain
letters only of a word are shown, they are seen as the
whole word ; that is, they are not seen to be an incom-
plete group, but actually the missing letters are perceived.
Examination of our recognition of more complex
objects, as a friend, bears out the suggestion here made
that salient features act as the cue which starts the act of
recognition, and that they are not regarded or valued for
themselves. Their whole function is that of suggestion
or stimulus.

But the signs must be arranged in a certain way.
' Ch r ct r ' shown in this form would probably be read
as ' character '. But if the order of the letters were wholly
changed no such recognition would take place. The
same, of course, is true if all the letters of a word are
printed, but in a wrong order. If the right order be but
little changed we may in a rapid glance fail to notice the
deviation from the ordinary form, which as a whole is so
little altered that the word is recognized, even as we might
recognize a friend though some change in his appearance,
such as the removal of a beard, had been made. But
if the order depart widely from the correct one recogni-
tion is only possible after the letters have been sorted out

1 Edridge-Green : Memory and its Cultivation, p. 1 50.

288 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

and re-arranged. Puzzles which have for their aim the
formation of as many words as possible from a given set
of letters illustrate the point. The ease with which in
reading proofs one overlooks printers' errors shows that
the unit of recognition with a practised reader is not
even the word but the phrase or sentence. In such a
case deviations of words are analogous to deviations of
letters in the recognition of single words. The bearing
of all this on that perceptual aspect of reading which
consists in the recognition of printed symbols is obvious.

Recognition is not always by sight. We hear a voice,
and we know that a friend is near though we do not see
him. All that is explicit in consciousness is the sound
of his speech. But there is implicit a great deal more —
a knowledge of his appearance, manner, and customary
mode of behaviour. These things are not clearly in
mind ; in no adequate or definite sense can they ever be
so with those who cannot visualize the appearance to
sight. They are there as expectations more or less clearly
felt, and their presence is most easily detected indirectly
by the surprise we feel when they are not fulfilled. If,
for example, the occasion leads us to expect to see our
friend in evening dress or in academical costume, though
we have not had explicit thought of him as so attired we
yet feel a shock of surprise if the unformulated expecta-
tion is disappointed.

Whatever the expectation may involve implicitly,
explicitly it is that we shall see a certain person if we
turn in the right direction. The heard voice, then,
means to us the friend, because it revives the effect of
past experiences as expectations which take a more or less
specific form, not according to former experiences but
according to the present situation. To hear a clergy-

LEARNING BY DIRECT EXPERIENCE 289

man's voice at one time may mean to us the preaching
of a sermon, at another the delivery of a lecture, at
another a friendly chat.

But there is a good deal behind all this, which has
resulted from experience but which is not part of the
expectation of the present moment, and, therefore,
cannot be said to be even implicit in the present thought.
Our friend means a good deal more to us than we expect
to verify at any one time. We have built up our idea
of him as a man ; of his character, his disposition, his
oddities, his pursuits, his likings and dislikings, and so
on. These are all latent in our knowledge of him ; that
is, they enter into the substance of that mental habit
which relates us to him. But any of them may be absent
from our thought of him on any one occasion, though,
of course, on other occasions just those things may be
the most prominent.

Our mental habits or organs of knowledge, then, adapt
themselves to the occasions which call them forth. In a
way my idea or knowledge of my friend is always one
and the same ; that is when it is withdrawn in thought
from real life and looked at as an abstraction. In
another way — and this is the only way in which it is
actual and concrete — it is always changing, for the
emphasis is now here, now there, as the reference is now
to this situation, now to that.

It is evident, however, that the extent of this adapta-
tion is determined by the number of elements to which
at one time or another attention has been explicitly
directed. For adaptation means that a certain aspect is
prominent, and that the relative clearness or obscurity
of all others is determined by that. So we see that the
total process of learning is to make explicit what is at

29o THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

first implicit in thought, and then by familiarization to
convert that explicit object of attention into latent know-
ledge— a part of what we 'take for granted', to use
Professor Mitchell's happy expression — whenever we
use our knowledge in actual life. It is the recognition
of the importance of this last element which led Dr Le
Bon to say that "education is the art of converting the
conscious into the unconscious." Much of the ordinary
talk about school teaching fails to grasp this and keeps its
attention fixed on the conscious contents of the children's
minds, judging those contents by the expression of
what is at the time uppermost. This leads to super-
ficiality. In their reaction from the abuse of learning
by rote schools have shown a lamentable tendency
to substitute intelligent inaccuracy for unintelligent
thoroughness. What is wanted is intelligent thorough-
ness.

Let us look at it in this way. Knowledge is a part of
life, and is shown most truly in action. To be able to
talk of anything is to know about it : to be able to do it,
or to use it in our thoughts and acts, is to know it. It
is the latter at which real learning aims, and the former
is of value only as far as it testifies to the existence of the
latter. The natural tendency of the school is to rely on
the former, and to be satisfied when that is more or less
completely secured. That is only an instance of the
proneness to deal with words rather than with actualities,
and is consequently always to be suspected. Efficiency,
however, is a matter of doing, not of talking. To be
unable to describe is not of necessity a proof of inability
to do. This is evident in all cases of bodily skill, but it
is scarcely less true in cases of mental dexterity. A
good bowler could not tell another person exactly how

LEARNING BY DIRECT EXPERIENCE 291

he sends down the balls which are the despair of the
batsmen. No matter how much he "bowls with his
head," he uses his intelligence to decide the kind of ball
he shall send down, not to determine the various
muscular movements by which he delivers just that kind
of ball and no other. It would be a gross misuse of
language to say that he does not know how to bowl
such balls because he cannot describe the process in
words, and probably has never in thought sorted out the
elements of muscular movement involved and made
them separately explicit to himself. As combinations of
movements and result, distinguished by very slight
differences of sensation, he has made them explicit in his
practice. Only so could he adapt his movements so
nicely to the attainment of the result he desires. His
knowledge is the result of a long experience, and by that
experience it continually becomes more precise, more
sure, and more adaptable. He shows his knowledge in
his act, and that act takes a vast amount for granted.

Much of our knowledge remains always in this execu-
tive shape, in which the interest is essentially practical : so
we may call it practical knowledge. It should be noted that
it includes all regulation of conduct, and not simply that
kind of controlled action which is commonly termed skill.
It is a practical judgement which tells us what to do in
certain circumstances, and if the judgement be right and
the action good it matters not at all whether it was the
implicit adaptation to the situation of an organ of know-
ledge of such a line of conduct, or the result of a
theoretical deliberation ; unless, indeed, the call were for
immediate action, in which case it is obvious that the
need for the latter alternative is to be regretted.

Generally it may be said that in actual life the practical

292 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

judgement is continually called into play ; theoretical
deliberation only when the situation is beyond the
immediate grasp of our pertinent knowledge, and that
shows some defect in that knowledge. The time for
action is not the time for theoretical consideration, and
the function of the latter is to enable the former to take
more for granted than it otherwise could.

Our knowledge, then, of anything whatever is never
confined to what we have explicit in consciousness at the
moment, or even to what is implicit. A great deal we
take for granted, and that is not directly under the control
of will. We cannot remember it at the time, yet that
it was not forgotten is often proved by its explicit recur-
rence to consciousness at a later time. Most people
who have answered examination papers can verify this
from their own experience. The process of passing in
review all we know of a certain subject, and that of
using such knowledge implicitly either in practical life
or in thinking, are quite distinct, and it is remarkable
that the power to do the former should be regarded as
an infallible test of ability to do the latter. To expound
the various compositions of forces which are employed
in a game of billiards and to be a good billiard player
are quite different things. Yet in examinations we con-
tinually test only the former kind of power, and so
encourage the common but erroneous idea that know-
ledge is a possession and not a capacity.

I have assumed, what is indeed the truth, that in actual
learning attention may be given at will either to things
as wholes or to separate qualities and relations of them.
It is a common error, but a most mischievous one, to
assume that a child does not use general ideas. The
mere fact that he has a large number of experiences of

LEARNING BY DIRECT EXPERIENCE 293

the same person or thing, and that these all become
absorbed in his knowledge, means that that knowledge
is sufficiently general to cover not only all the divergencies
already experienced but others which are not too widely
different from them. He sees his mother doing now
this, now that ; he hears her in affection, in direc-
tion, in prohibition, in reproof, or talking to someone
not himself. His idea of his mother includes all this :
this is all either explicit or implicit or taken for granted
in his thought of her at any moment. In other words,
his idea of his mother is a general idea though referred
to a particular person.

Of course, immediately he learns to speak he finds
different objects combined under one name, but not
arbitrarily. The name helps him, indeed, but it helps
him only along the line of the advance he is already
making. The similarities of things which have the same
name have been operative in his growing thought, not
because he has said to himself ' ' This is like that ", but
because the fact of likeness has caused him to take
"this" as something which can be substituted for

that " for certain practical purposes.

Logically, the recognition of things and the practical
dealing with them is precedent to general notions of
them. But in the actual life of the soul the two are
ever present — at any rate after the first few months of
life — one being explicitly attended to, the other being
implicitly thought or assumed.

Now, the natural interests of the child cause him to
value things for their practical uses. Their qualities and
relations to each other are thought only in their bearing
on the activity in hand. It is essentially the function
of the school to intervene in the natural learning-process

294 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

in such a way that these qualities and relations may be
felt to be worth considering in themselves. This means
that the instinct of curiosity should be made independent
of that of constructive activity. But the new interest
must grow out of the old, or it will be but a sickly plant,
if, indeed, it be not a mere artificial parody of the reality.

In the earlier years, as has been seen, the child's interests
centre in his own actions. To him the really important
question about anything is — "What can I do with it?"
But this question shows that the most fundamental general
idea which he will need in reaching a knowledge of the
reality which surrounds him and of which he forms a part,
is already nascent. For he regards himself as an efficient
cause, able by his actions to exercise power over some-
thing not himself, and so to make such change in it as
seems to him good. His frequent failures bring home
to him the intractability of matter as well as its tracta-
bility, and so develop the idea of things as existing
independently of himself, but as opposing his efforts
by their own. This idea develops, as we may say, within
the implicit apprehension of causality, and in its develop-
ment it little by little clarifies that apprehension.

Similarly his dealings with things causes the idea of
space to grow implicitly as part of his thought of his
own actions. He can move some things from one place
to another, he can approach others or withdraw further
from them. As these acts are done the visual impres-
sions he receives change. So all these experiences grow
together into his thought of actions, and any one of
them may act as a cue to him to do this or that, in the
doing of which he takes for granted more and more of
the relations of space as his knowledge grows.

In an analogous way he begins to distinguish past,

LEARNING BY DIRECT EXPERIENCE 295

present, and future, and that very early. All expecta-
tion, no matter how vague, points to the future ; all
recall, no matter how hazy, refers to the past. Satis-
faction, and yet more disappointment, make the expec-
tation definite. What was looked for in the future is
now in the present regretted as an unfulfilled longing
of the past.

Lastly, long before he learns to count — that is, to
attend explicitly to number as such — he has learnt to
distinguish as wholes groups which differ in number up
to four or five.

Thus, all the fundamental ideas which articulate a
general conception of reality are very early operative in
the child's thought. They are known implicitly, and
that they are so known is shown by the fact that they
guide actions. Like the bowler in bowling, so the boy
in flying a kite or in whipping a top, shows a working
knowledge of certain laws of physics which he acts upon
though he does not, and perhaps can not, separately
think of them.

To ignore in teaching this very obvious and very
important fact is positively to hinder mental develop-
ment. Constant attention to the insignificant is not the
true method of teaching or of learning. Observation
of details is carried too far immediately the knowledge
of those details is made an end in itself. It never is
such an end in the natural and informal learning of the
child : he wants to use everything he learns so as to
satisfy some impulse or to attain some purpose. Nor
is it, according to any rational conception of knowledge.
For knowledge means apprehension of meaning, and
meaning is found in relation. This, we have seen, is
implicit with the child. But it will not be made

296 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

sufficiently explicit without the prompting of the teacher.
Real advance in learning is the increased ability to think
reality as a systematic unity in which every part holds
its true place and fulfils its true function. This means
explicit apprehension of relations, but not encyclopaedic
apprehension of facts. A fact is of worth for knowledge
just to the extent to which it has a meaning ; and mean-
ing is, as has been seen, what past experience has enabled
us to take for granted. Into a really systematic thought
of reality new facts are easily absorbed. And this is
true of partial as well as of complete thoughts. Consider
the ease with which a zoologist sees the function and
place of a new species of animal, whether now living
or long since extinct.

On the other hand, an undue haste to think relations
as such leads to emptiness of knowledge. Too often
it has produced systems of supposed reality constructed
out of the inner consciousness of some philosopher, and
having little affinity with the actual nature of the world.
To teach children general ideas as such is to train their
minds to be sounding brass and tinkling cymbals.

The illustration supplied by the method of teaching
geometry, first by learning statements of the most general
truths and afterwards certain applications of those truths
will occur to every reader. The empirical modern
methods seem in danger of falling into Charybdis in their
avoidance of Scylla, and of setting forth a geometry
devoid both of precision of idea and of rigidity of proof.

"Proceed from the concrete to the abstract" says the
old tag, giving advice incompatible with the other direc-
tion to "proceed from the simple to the complex", so
far as each is understood in the same reference. For the
' abstract ' of the former is the ' simple ' of the latter if

LEARNING BY DIRECT EXPERIENCE 297

the reference be to the matter to be studied. But in
truth, no matter how it is interpreted, it is difficult to give
this maxim a true meaning. For though attention may
be explicitly fixed on a relation or a quality yet the rest of
the concrete must be implicitly thought at the same
time. On the other hand, when the concrete whole is
explicitly attended to its qualities and relations are
implicitly held in thought. In each case the whole of
knowledge — which is both abstract and concrete — must
be thought. The real progress is from a concrete
vaguely apprehended to the same concrete more com-
pletely known and more exactly thought. True, the
means is by a successive study of qualities and relations ;
but always as qualities and relations of the whole in
question, not as independent existences. In a word,
knowledge is always of the concrete, for it is always of
reality or of a part of reality, and all reality is concrete.
But the concrete is a system of relations, each of which
may be separately attended to while explicit thought is
abstracted from the rest. Thus, every abstract is a
partial view of a concrete, and every concrete is a syste-
matic whole in which it is possible to take many such
views.

Life, however, is always concrete. It is the doing
of real things by a real person amidst real surroundings.
And true knowledge is a constituent of life. Know-
ledge of relation can, then, be nothing more than the
explicit attending to relations which are already implicitly
known or have already been taken for granted and acted
upon. Teaching does not change the nature of the
evolution of thought, but only stimulates and accelerates
it. It follows that no true teaching of abstract ideas
can be given to children who have not a sufficiently wide

298 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

and copious practical experience embodying those
ideas.

The first function of a school as a teaching institution
is, then, to secure that the child's practical knowledge is
exact and full. Of course, much of it is acquired out
of school, and can only be acquired there. But the
school can both systematize that knowledge and make it
more definite in its reference.

If our knowledge of things were a set of copies of
them and a mere composition of sensations, then the
presence of any object to our senses would ensure that
we had knowledge of it. That this is not so everyone
is well aware. Many things are present to the sight of
each one of us daily and yet we get no knowledge of
them. Only when we make definite acts of attention
do we get knowledge, and acts of attention imply some
purpose more or less clearly felt which limits the range
of what we notice. Thus, ' the training of the obser-
vation' which it is so fashionable now-a-days to recom-
mend to teachers is a very mischievous thing if it mean,
as very often it seems to do, an encouragement of indis-
criminate looking at all and sundry. From that, indeed,
the school has to start, for that kind of scatter-brained
observation is natural to young children. But the
school's starting-point is not the end of its endeavour.
Nor is that end found by simply increasing the range of
the child's observations, but rather by developing their
character in intensity and accuracy. Truly we have to
learn to perceive, and that seems to be one of the most
difficult ideas to get into people's minds. "If it was
there I must have seen it " men often say, and yet hourly
hundreds of things are " there " and we do not see them.
Even what we do see we often see wrongly. Every

LEARNING BY DIRECT EXPERIENCE 299

mistake in recognition is a case in point, and conflict of
testimony between two quite truthful eye-witnesses of
an event is quite a normal occurrence.

Learning to perceive is learning to concentrate atten-
tion on certain things and to ignore everything else.
The power of such selection does not come by nature.
It has to be laboriously learnt just like any other form
of skill. Attention seeks its objects and at first often
errs. Gradually more and more signs are absorbed in
the growing aptitude, more and more is taken for
granted, till the selection of the pertinent is immediate
and largely automatic. This is most admirably put by
Mr S. E. White in a chapter "On seeing Deer" in his
book The Mountain —

' ' In the elimination of the obvious rests the whole
secret of seeing deer in the woods.

"In travelling the trail you will notice two things:
that a tenderfoot will habitually contemplate the horn
of his saddle or the trail a few yards ahead of his horse's
nose, with occasionally a look about at the landscape ;
and the old-timer will be constantly searching the pros-
pect with keen understanding eyes. Now in the
occasional glances the tenderfoot takes, his perceptions
have room for just so many impressions. When the
number is filled out he sees nothing more. Naturally
the obvious features of the landscape supply the basis for
these impressions. He sees the configuration of the
mountains, the nature of their covering, the course of
their ravines, first of all. Then if he looks more closely,
there catches his eye an odd-shaped rock, a burned black
stub, a flowering bush, or some such matter. Anything
less striking in its appeal to the attention actually has
not room for its recognition. In other words, suppos-

300 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

ing that a man has the natural ability to receive x visual
impressions, the tenderfoot fills out his full capacity with
the striking features of his surroundings. To be able
to see anything more obscure in form or colour, he must
naturally put aside from his attention some one or another
of these obvious features. He can, for example, look
for a particular kind of flower on a side hill only by
refusing to see other kinds.

' ' If this is plain, then, go one step further in the logic
of that reasoning. Put yourself in the mental attitude
of a man looking for deer. His eye sweeps rapidly over
a side hill ; so rapidly that you cannot understand how
he can have gathered the main features of that hill, let
alone concentrate and refine his attention to the seeing
of an animal under a bush. As a matter of fact he pays
no attention to the main features. He has trained his
eye, not so much to see things, as to leave things out.
The odd-shaped rock, the charred stub, the bright flower-
ing bush do not exist for him. His eye passes over
them as unseeing as yours over the patch of brown or
gray that represents his quarry. His attention stops on
the unusual, just as does yours ; only in his case the
unusual is not the obvious. He has succeeded by long
training in eliminating that. Therefore he sees deer
where you do not. As soon as you can forget the natur-
ally obvious and construct an artificially obvious, then
you too will see deer.

" These animals are strangely invisible to the untrained
eye even when they are standing ' in plain sight.' You
can look straight at them, and not see them at all. Then
some old woodman lets you sight over his finger exactly
to the spot. At once the figure of the deer fairly leaps
into vision. I know of no more perfect example of the

LEARNING BY DIRECT EXPERIENCE 301

instantaneous than this. You are filled with astonish-
ment that you could for a moment have avoided seeing
it. And yet next time you will in all probability repeat
just this ' puzzle picture ' experience

" To enjoy the finer savour of seeing deer, you should
start out definitely with that object in view. Thus you
have opportunity for the display of a certain finer wood-
craft. You must know where the objects of your search
are likely to be found, and that depends on the time of
year, the time of day, their age, their sex, a hundred
little things."

Here we have the whole theory of perception described
in a case in which it is impossible to avoid recognizing
that the power is only attained as the result of much
learning through practice. The essence of that power
is the ability to ignore and omit by far the greater part
of what is present. The perceptive activity is dominated
throughout by the purpose in hand, and under that
guidance the organ of knowledge adapts itself with great
nicety and nearly automatically to the demands of the
occasion. The observation is good in proportion as it
is not diffuse. When this is grasped — and the reader
will do well to examine examples from his own experience
of successful and unsuccessful looking for things — the
futility of cultivating gaping under the cloak of training
the observation becomes evident. That process, so far
from developing a faculty of fruitful, that is, purposive,
observation, forms and strengthens its very antithesis
— the habit of glancing at everything and really seeing
nothing. It is plain, too, that nobody can train the
observation even of a child in matters of which his own
knowledge is essentially superficial.

In these practical matters one feels the growth of

302 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

one's knowledge and capacity because one can do better
what one wishes to do. This consciousness of increasing
power is itself one of the greatest and most spontaneous
delights of life — a delight especially felt by the young
— and is itself a sufficient motive to action independently
of the result the action actually attains. This we see
in every boy engaged in manual construction, practising
at the nets, or, indeed, engaged in any occupation which
demands skill. He finds delight in the activity and not
only in the result. This again is well illustrated by
Mr White in the chapter from which I have already
quoted —

"Suppose you've been climbing a mountain late in
the afternoon when the sun is on the other side of it.
It is a mountain of big boulders, loose little stones,
thorny bushes. The slightest misstep would send
pebbles rattling, brush rustling ; but you have gone all
the way without making that misstep. This is quite
a feat. It means that you've known all about every
footstep you've taken. That would be business enough
for most people, wouldn't it? But in addition you've
managed to see everything on that side of the mountain
— especially patches of brown. You've seen lots of
patches of brown, and you've examined each one of
them. Besides that, you've heard lots of little rustlings,
and you've identified each one of them. To do all these
things well keys your nerves to a high tension, doesn't
it ? And then near the top you look up from your last
noiseless step to see in the brush a very dim patch of
brown. If you hadn't been looking so hard, you surely
wouldn't have made it out. Perhaps, if you're not
humble-minded, you may reflect that most people
wouldn't have seen it at all. You whistle once sharply.

LEARNING BY DIRECT EXPERIENCE 303

The patch of brown defines itself. Your heart gives
one big jump. You know that you have but the briefest
moment, the tiniest fraction of time, to hold the white
bead of your rifle motionless and to press the trigger.
It has to be done very steadily, at that distance, — and
you out of breath, with your nerves keyed high in the

tension of such caution The reason I can bear to

kill deer is because, to kill deer, you must accomplish a
skilful elimination of the obvious."

Only by careful practice does our perceptual know-
ledge attain clearness and precision — a clearness and pre-
cision shown in our practical use of it, not in our talking
about it. Evidently only from such clear and precise
knowledge can we develop clear and precise thought of
qualities and relations. Our concepts or general ideas
cannot be more accurate than the perceptual knowledge
in which they are studied.

Apply this to certain traditional methods of teaching.
A short time ago I was showing a party of some score
of boys of eleven to thirteen years old over an old abbey,
and I asked them to estimate the length of the ruined
church. Only one was approximately right, the others
without exception estimated it at less than half its actual
length. These boys could work all sorts of sums involv-
ing questions of length and area. What relation can
such exercises have to their real life when the numbers
are so devoid of real and true meaning for them ? The
general and abstract relations of numbers which we call
Arithmetic are significant to a child exactly in the degree
to which they can be referred to real experiences of
movement. From such experiences they must, there-
fore, be developed if the teaching of arithmetic is to be
more than a drill in the more or less skilful manipulation

304 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

of the elements of an artificial world of empty names
and symbols.

So it is with geometry. The aim is to examine certain
relations of space, and to do this the relations must be
attended to by themselves and apart from things in which
they are embodied. But they must be implicitly known
as embodied before even a beginning can be made with
considering them apart. The mind which is to consider
them must be the mind to find them where alone they
can be found — in the real world of experience.

Perceptual knowledge is the result of doing, and its
test is in doing. Let us apply that to the study of form
and colour. There is a doing by the eye in both cases.
So there is in such a series of perceptual acts as was
described in the last extract from Mr White. But that
series was made real by being experienced not only by
sight but by climbing. Similarly, the visual perception
of form is made more exact and explicit by modelling
and drawing, and that of colour by painting. I am not
speaking now of these exercises as developing artistic
taste, but simply as helping and expressing visual per-
ceptions. I have seen two sets of drawings from two
neighbouring schools produced by children of six or
seven years of age, who had been given similar amounts
of instruction in drawing. The one class had from the
first drawn the objects they were attending to by sight,
and had been led to look for inaccuracies in representa-
tion and to correct them. The other poor little souls
had been put through the weary and soul-killing drill
of lines straight and curved, representing nothing in
heaven or in earth. In each case a lady teacher was
asked to stand before the class, and the children were
told to draw a picture of their teacher. The former

LEARNING BY DIRECT EXPERIENCE 305

produced quite respectable sketches showing the char-
acteristic features of dress and attitude. The latter sent
in nothing but the outline skeletons which are character-
istic of the untrained drawings of young children and
of savages. In other words the lessons they had under-
gone in drawing had not advanced them one single step
in the power of representing by the pencil the appearance
an object present to sight. Translate this into the
language of our present subject and there can remain
no doubt that the former children had learnt to see more
and to see better than the latter. In no way can we
avoid the conclusion except by assuming that to see is
only to use the eyes and not yet more to exercise the
intellectual power of noticing distinctive marks.

Similar remarks apply to the assistance given by
painting to the discrimination of colours. This is by
no means a mere matter of sight. No young child, no
matter how excellent his eyes, can discriminate all the
shades which to an adult are quite distinct. The effort
to match the colours of the paints with those of the
object to be copied means the very definite fixing of
attention on that point, and concentration of attention is
the one and only mode of securing increased accuracy
and precision.

All ideas of natural objects and phenomena must
similarly be founded in accurate observation. Often the
children have already made some observations of the
facts required ; it is for the school to make those obser-
vations more purposeful, more exact, more systematic.
"Few [young children] have not seen at least a small
brook ; but many vague and often erroneous notions
have probably found their way into their minds through
lack of guidance in observing. They have probably an

306 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

exaggerated notion of the permanence, not only of its
general form, but even of details, such as the pebbles in
its course and the soil on its banks. They assume
uniformity where there is really diversity, as, for instance,
they imagine its course to be normally straight, whereas
bends are the rule, and straightness the exception ; they
suppose the rate of flow to be uniform, both as regards
various parts of its course, and as regards the cross-
section at any point ; and they project the width and
depth of the point at which they are most familiar with
it, both to its higher and its lower reaches. These
wrong impressions concerning the local stream will
naturally be transferred to their idea of the larger rivers
of which they hear in the Geography lesson. The work
of [teaching] will be devoted to correcting these false
impressions by sight of the actual facts, and by such
guidance in their observations as will lead them to notice
what might otherwise pass unnoticed." 1

The points to which explicit attention is directed will
necessarily vary with the psychological age of the children,
and with the amount of cognate knowledge they already
possess. Every real challenge to enquiry is in the form
of an unexpected difference. Thus discrimination pro-
ceeds step by step. A child who cannot distinguish red
from yellow certainly cannot perceive orange as different
from both and intermediate between them. So such
observations on a stream as are suggested in the passage
quoted would at first be purely qualitative. Only, for
example, when it is seen that speed does vary will the
problem of measuring the different rates arise.

If the doctrine of the preceding pages be accepted it

1 Archer, Lewis, and Chapman : The Teaching of Geography in
Elementary Schools, 121-122

LEARNING BY DIRECT EXPERIENCE 307

will, like other doctrines, be seen in practice. Schools are
too bookish, and in that they are so they defeat their own
object. Granted that that object is to give their pupils
systematic knowledge, and that systematic knowledge of
necessity involves the study of abstract relations, yet it
is now clear that the best progress will be made by
following the natural order by which such relations are
developed in concrete experience. Then from the very
first they are full of meaning, and meaning really implies
some form of usefulness. The knowledge of them thus
gained is real, because it results from the normal working
of the intelligence in solving the problems life presents
to it. Of course, without the school many of these
problems would never have been presented in such a
way as to evoke desire and effort for their solution.
That gives the teacher the fundamental criterion of the
value both of the subject-matter and of the form of his
teaching. But to insist on the study of abstractions
which are presented to the minds of the pupils as arising
in a vacuum, and which suggest no problem felt as an
intellectual need, is to strangle curiosity, to starve the
desire for knowledge, and to turn the ordinary healthy
mind from such skeletons to the real interests of life.
Thus it has come to pass that the out-of-school interests
have often been a boy's only salvation from intellectual
atrophy, and that many of those men who have made
the greatest advances in human knowledge have had no
connexion with the orthodox places of instruction.
School and life must be in the closest contact if school
is to do its true work.

The direct study of things is, then, needful from two
points of view — as bearing on those practical activities
which make up so much of life ; and as providing occa-

3o8 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

sions for the development of theoretical interest, or the
desire to know because to know is itself a human good.
This conceptual knowledge begins to arise whenever in
thought we set ourselves to examine the qualities of an
object separately. In perceptual knowledge each thing
is taken as a whole, and what we so unify depends on
the object in view. A ' thing,' for example, may be a
school, a class, a boy, or a boy's arm or hand or finger,
according as the practical activity is concerned with one
or other of these groups. For always a ' thing ' is a
group in the sense that from it we can get a variety of
impressions. In practical activity the group is the unit,
and it is as a whole that it prompts to further action. So
in climbing a mountain-side a stone is a thing on which
one can place one's foot, and its relation to the rest of
the slope suggests the next movement. We are not
then interested in the composition or origin of the stone,
but only in its function as a support. When, however,
there is no such practical end in view, or when its accom-
plishment is not pressing, the interest may be drawn
to the stone itself. A geologist's attention, for instance,
may be awakened by such a stone, so that for the time
his practical purpose of getting up the mountain falls
into abeyance, and the theoretical purpose of finding out
the stone's nature and origin takes its place.

In every case such a theoretical purpose involves a
different attitude of mind from that in a practical pur-
pose. The object is no longer a unit amid other units
and related to them in terms of the practical activity of
the moment. It is now a system in itself, and the
question is as to the composition of this system. This
means that we hold apart in thought what is not separ-
ated in space or in time. In perception each object is

LEARNING BY DIRECT EXPERIENCE 309

seen as separate in space from every other, and as in some
definite relation to it. So the objects come into the
practical experience successively in time. But when we
separate in thought the colour from the form of an object
we hold apart as objects of attention what in reality are
never apart. Nor is the separation absolute. While
form is explicit colour is implicit, though, it may be,
only in the vaguest and faintest way. So, although
we may attend to form and to colour successively,
yet we are aware that they co-exist in time as well as
in space.

Such concentration of attention on an element which
cannot be detached in space or time from the system of
which it forms a part is much aided by the use of
language, if, indeed, it would be possible without such
help. A sign of some sort to give a kind of artificial
independence to each element seems necessary, and such
signs are given, most conveniently to most of us, by
words. If I can mark the colour of the grass by the
word ' green ' and the colour of an ivy-leaf by the same
word I am greatly helped in relating the two colours,
irrespective of the great differences in general appearance
of grass and ivy. Generally it may be said that com-
parison and the noting of difference is the mode in which
the general ideas connoted by words become precise and
explicit.

There is, however, a danger in this use of words.
Words are themselves separate objects of perception ;
as such we see them printed or hear them uttered. So
we are apt to attribute a similar independence to the
qualities they name. The step from this to imagining
things as built up of their qualities, as a wall is built up
of bricks, is an easy one. The results of taking it are,

3io THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

as has already been said, fatal to any true idea of know-
ledge.

A farther result is yet more disastrous. General
terms are looked upon as signs not only of the existence
of certain qualities in things, but as implying some other
kind of existence of which each is the name in the same
way as ' Queen Elizabeth ' was the name of an actual
person. So duty and virtue are regarded as existing
in this world of shadows instead of being found — and
found only — in definite concrete acts. But, so far as we
can ever know, the only existence corresponding to a
general term is the presence of a certain quality or set of
qualities, relation or set of relations, in the real things of
the world, all of which are objects of concrete perceptual
knowledge. The world of conceptions is the mode in
which we think the real world of experience, not another,
a higher and sublimated world, whose relations to the real
world of things and deeds is shadowy if not unknown.
If this be grasped it will surely be impossible to try to
teach abstractions apart from perceptual reality and out
of connexion with it.

All theoretical knowledge, then, begins with analysis
of a thing into its qualities, and the result is an idea
which is potentially general. It is used in a general
way — that is, as applicable to other things of the same
kind — long before it is consciously thought as general.
A child will, indeed, generalize his terms too widely, and
will call every man ' papa J or every flower a ' rose ',
certainly not because he has analysed and found general
qualities, but simply because he has no appreciation of
the differences which exclude things from the range of
a term which applies to other things in some way similar.
When this stage is passed a very little similarity will

LEARNING BY DIRECT EXPERIENCE 311

still lead a child to use a term generally. But it is only
when the similarity has been definitely attended to that
this extension of the application of the term is conscious.
To think the term as general, apart from any immediate
call for its application, is to take the further step of
making explicit the generality which before was implicit.
It is the same mental process as we have already traced
in perception, but it is now exercised on objects separated
by thought and not by mode of existence.

This further step grows out of comparison, or the
noting of similarities. It must be remembered that
similarity is implicitly operative long before it is itself
made the object of explicit thought. Throughout life
this is so. We often class things together on account
of a felt similarity without asking ourselves in what the
similarity consists. Indeed, this is nearly always so in
class recognition as distinguished from individual recog-
nition. We feel no hesitation in saying of an object
we have never seen before that it is a church or a watch,
and in such cases we do not set before ourselves its
qualities side by side with those remembered as belong-
ing to other churches or watches. Similarly, if we
see a box which we wish to open we assume it to be like
other boxes in that respect. It is only when we are
balked that we set ourselves to examine this special box
to see in what way its resemblance to other boxes fails.
The discovery of the difference does not destroy our
general idea of a box, nor does it limit it. On the
contrary it enriches it, as we now include in it a new
possibility of mode of opening in addition to those we
already knew.

Here again we are brought face to face with a danger
arising from the use of language. We find it con-

3i2 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

venient to express the most essential marks of a general
idea in words, and we call the statement a 'definition'.
Then we are apt to think the definition is a statement
of the meaning. But a definition can only state qualities
which are found in every instance of the general term,
and that in the same general form. So any quality in
which a variation is found must be excluded. For
example, as not all tables are square, ' square ' cannot be
part of the definition of table. Nor, for the same reason,
can any other shape ; and yet every table must have
shape, and some shapes would be felt to be excluded.
It follows that the more variations we know the more
meagre becomes our definition. But at the same time
the fuller becomes the implicit meaning of the term,
and the more knowledge we take for granted in using
it. A definition, then, is a purely artificial skeleton of
meaning, not the real living tissue of meaning which
alone can function in the life of the soul.

The bearing of this on much common teaching is
obvious. The teacher too often confuses definition with
meaning, and as a result teaches mere empty words.
Meaning comes only from experience ; definition may
be taught to a parrot, and it would be little more difficult
to teach young children definitions in Greek or in Chinese
than to teach them in English when the definitions are
not the outcome of their own thought on their own lives,
and the result would be nearly, if not quite, as valuable.
Almost every ' howler ' in an examination paper is an indi-
cation that the child has tried to learn symbols which to
him symbolized no living reality.

No examination into the nature of objects goes far
without bringing into prominence some relations to
other objects. These, as has been seen, are all implicit

LEARNING BY DIRECT EXPERIENCE 313

in practical knowledge. The most important of them
is causation, and this is very early the object of interest,
because it lies at the root of success in every thing the
child attempts to do. Yet there are writers who tell us
that a child cannot grasp the causal relation. That he
is unable to understand it as a metaphysical conception
we gladly grant. So, to say the least, is the vast majority
of adults. But as a practical idea it is clear enough to
him, and nothing delights him more than to discover
the causal bond in any particular case in which he is
interested.

The natural appetite for effective knowledge of cause
should be fed and encouraged in every possible way.
But it cannot be satisfied with words ; they only drug
it. If a boy desire to know the cause of any event it
is because he already knows something of the nature
of that event and wants to know more. This more he
should discover for himself. The utmost a wise teacher
will do will be to suggest lines of enquiry. Unless the
boy conduct the enquiry the whole process is worthless
as a development of efficiency in thought. It is in
this regard that so much ' science teaching ' fails to be
scientific teaching. Boys work indeed in laboratories,
but they commonly work under so minute direc-
tion that they never feel the spur of an unsolved
problem. Consequently they never exercise analytic
thought in an attempt to solve such a problem. They
manipulate apparatus, which often embodies a whole
system of knowledge of which they are ignorant and
which consequently they could not have invented for
themselves, and they watch results. The whole process
is purely perceptual, and as a perceptual process it is
open to the charge that it concentrates attention on the

3 14 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

insignificant, and does so with the greatest possible waste
of time. Laboratory work is only profitable when it
is a definite and conscious seeking by each individual
pupil of the answer to a problem which he himself has
felt as such, though probably he would not have so felt
it without his teacher's suggestions. If a pupil is not
old enough to work in this way he is not old enough
to work in a laboratory at all ; there is much more
profitable work which he can do outside.

The use of complicated apparatus in a school laboratory
is to be deprecated whenever the pupils are too young
to grasp the systems of knowledge embodied in them.
A great difficulty in scientific advance is always the
invention of apparatus fitted to test a hypothesis. The
great discoverers have always at first used apparatus
which, as compared with later developments, was simple
and rough. Scientific advance means increased perfec-
tion of apparatus as well as of thought. With rough
apparatus no doubt the results are rough. But the educa-
tive aim is not a precise result in the demonstration, but
improvement in the capacity of the pupil. To advance
along the actual lines on which knowledge of science
has advanced, to follow in the footsteps of the great
pioneers, gives, moreover, a human stimulus which is
otherwise wanting. If a student feel that he is con-
fronted with a problem with which Faraday was con-
fronted the character of his work as an advance into new
fields of knowledge is much more apparent to him.
Yea, and his failure to succeed where Faraday did succeed
will be a wholesome curb to the spirit which is apt to
be developed by exhortations — too often given — to
believe only on the evidence of his own experience. Let
him learn that

LEARNING BY DIRECT EXPERIENCE 315

" knowledge means
Ever-renewed assurance by defeat
That victory is somehow still to reach."1

Nowhere, perhaps, do we see the evils of seeking the
effect of instruction on the side of the matter so plainly as
in much of the teaching of science. The visible ' result '
which can be directly appreciated is accepted as a substi-
tute for, or at least as a measure of, the educative result
in the development of mental efficiency which it seems
so hard to gauge. Yet really it is not so. Increased
efficiency shows itself in increased power to do appropri-
ate things. A boy's real advance in any course of
lessons, whether in ' science ' or in any other subject, is
exactly measured by his power to work independently
of guidance in that subject.

All knowledge, then, is one. Whether we look at it
perceptually or consider it conceptually it is the under-
standing of our own experience. Separated from that
it is nothing. If it enter not into our lives it is of no
effect. Its explicit forms alternate according to the
needs of the moment — now we dwell on the actual doing,
now on the theoretical considerations. But whichever
is foremost in thought the other aspect is in the back-
ground. Moreover, we have seen that growth in
knowledge does not mean the amassing of an increasing
heap of facts, but a richer, more vigorous, and more
powerful organ of knowledge — of matter which we take
for granted and which operates immediately and efficiently
in giving meaning and direction to our lives.

It is in this undiscriminated manner that most of our
personal experiences are retained and recalled. The
explicit setting before consciousness of a memory of
1 Browning : A Pillar at Sebzevar.

3i6 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

some definite past act or event is exceptional. Only a
very small proportion of our doings and sufferings are
thus individualized. Let the reader test this by trying
to recall the sequence of his acts and thoughts during
the last week. He will find that comparatively few of
them can be made explicit. He may be able to say
generally what he did on a certain day, but much of this
is inference from the habitual ordering of his life. He
went to school and taught, and he will remember in
general outline what he taught. Even this he finds him-
self unable to do if he take for consideration a day in a
more remote past. He may possibly know that on a
definite day ten years ago he went to school and taught,
but he knows it, not because he recalls the event as such,
but because he knows the routine of his life at the time
and does not remember any deviation from it. We
remember deviations from routine because, being excep-
tional, they arrest more attention to themselves, and thus
add a vividness and intensity to the experience. ' ' Per-
versely enough the times when you did not see deer are
more apt to remain vivid in your memory than the times
when you did", says Mr White in the chapter from
which I have already quoted. This is only an example
of the general rule that what impresses us most at the
time is most easily recalled. Disappointment by its
emotional shock adds enormously to the impression made
by the event. It is the unnatural and unexpected out-
come of a process of activity intended to secure quite
another end. So the even flow of mental life is broken
and checked, and such arrest makes a deep impression.
Similarly, a person will remember vividly an occasion
on which he made himself conspicuous by some breach
of the conventionalities, while he will forget innumerable

LEARNING BY DIRECT EXPERIENCE 317

instances in which he fell into no such unpleasant
mistake.

Much of our definite recall of our past is, then, a
construction, in which a few really recalled events are
built into a framework of general knowledge of the
habitual ordering of life. So it is that the older we get
the less we remember the ordinary every-day events as
such. They have become matters of routine and of
habit, and so no special call on the attention has been
required to secure that they were done. We remember
an illness because it broke such routine as well as because
its value for our emotional life caused it to make a deep
impression on us. But we do not remember the common
round of duties done and tasks fulfilled except as a
pervading feeling of self-satisfaction.

Such schematic recall is obviously subject to inac-
curacy. If a variation was not important or striking it
may be forgotten, and we may believe that no deviation
from routine took place. Here we have one cause of
the mistakes of memory. What happened is not re-
called, but assumed as an inference from a general rule
which in this case did not wholly apply. Or, on the
other hand, the exceptional is assumed to have been the
normal. Thus are explained the beliefs of many old
people that in their childhood all English winters were
full of snow and frost, and all summers warm and sunny
— a belief in no way borne out by meteorological records.

A yet more serious source of error is that, quite
unconsciously to ourselves, we may colour the events of
the past and fill in details from imagination, or even
substitute imaginations for the actual. This may be,
and often is, also done deliberately. Every case of lying
about one's experiences is such a falsification in the

3i8 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

communication of the products of memory. And
repetition of the false may in time become so familiar
that it is even mistaken for the true. To deceive others
is a first step towards deceiving ourselves. But so long
as we know we are falsifying it cannot be said that our
memory is at fault. Frequently, however, this is really
the case ; and what is imagined is, quite unintentionally,
substituted for what should be remembered. Many of
the false statements of children originate in this way.
Their imaginations are vivid, and the distinction between
their images and the real world is not so clear-cut as is
ours. So they romance in good faith. Of course, habit
counts here as elsewhere, and the educator is evidently
called upon to bring home the inaccuracy whenever he
detects it, and to insist on precision of statement in all
narratives and descriptions. Such an evil habit as
exaggeration, to which untrained minds are peculiarly
liable, should be checked ; for it leads to a failure to
realize exactly what truth is, and strengthens the tendency
to make loose statements, which itself reacts on the inner
life and cultivates loose and inaccurate thinking.

The belief that a child must surely and easily recall
anything it has done is, therefore, for all these several
reasons, devoid of foundation. The ordinary mode in
which memory works with our past is quite otherwise.
It is by strengthening and developing appropriate organs
of knowledge, or habits of thought. In such organs
the individuality of the acts is lost. Each is absorbed
in the whole and plays its part in that whole. Repetition
of an act promotes not the ability to recall the separate
acts but the power to do the act easily and well. Repeti-
tion forms habits, and habits are organs of knowledge
which operate as wholes and in which attention is no

LEARNING BY DIRECT EXPERIENCE 319

longer paid to the detailed doing. And this is well.
Effective life does not consist in re-living the past but
in grappling with the present. The value to us of our
past is to make this grappling more successful. So the
proof of learning is increased ability to do.

Again, then, we see that facts and separate experiences
are of value to us not in themselves and as individual
possessions but as nutriment. Personal experiences may
be forgotten in the sense that we cannot recall them
individually. They are never forgotten in the sense that
they leave no trace behind.

When definite personal experiences are recalled the
recall is in its essence a bringing to mind of certain rela-
tions between ourselves and some part of our surround-
ings. This may, or may not, be accompanied by a
visual image of the event. One person will see a mental
picture of himself missing the deer and of the animal
fleeing away. Another will remember his failure just as
vividly, and yet have no such mental picture or only a
very vague and blurred one. The event, as an event,
is remembered with equal clearness in each case. But
in the former the recall of the scene is undoubtedly more
particular. The setting of the event stands out dis-
tinctly, while in the other case this setting is remembered
only in the kind of schematic way which can be expressed
in words. It may be noted that the former mode of recall
gives much the greater scope for the confusion of real
memory with imaginative substitutions. So long as the
picture as a whole satisfies by its familiarity the details
are largely accepted as equally certain. Very detailed
recall is not the same thing as very accurate recall.

So with the other senses. One musician may recall
a piece of music as he heard it, and, indeed, hear it again

320 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

in imagination. Another may recall it more as an intel-
lectual construction than as an emotional reception,
though this seems to be less common.

When a class of children is set to reproduce from
memory a drawing of something they have already drawn
in the presence of the object, one child may see the object
visually and copy his visual picture ; another may repro-
duce mainly by remembrance of the movements of the
hand, and a kind of geometrical grasp of the space
relations involved. The latter will be unlikely to pro-
duce as convincing a drawing as the former, because the
result of his efforts will probably be little more than a
general schematic sketch of that kind of object. The
former will present an individual object even though
some of the details are different from those in the model.
So this looks more true to reality, especially when the
original is not available for comparison. Such an example
makes it clear why we tend to be impressed by the apparent
truth of a statement of past happenings which is marked
by much consistent detail. Yet some of that detail is
practically certain to be the product of conscious or
unconscious imagination. Often even the narrator is
unable to distinguish between these details and those
which are really remembered. Practically it is much
safer to trust to our memory that a certain event did
happen than to trust to our present impression of exactly
how it happened.

The motor memory just spoken of may be trained to
considerable accuracy within its own general limits. I
myself, for example, can draw from memory a very fair
sketch map of almost any part of the world, though I
cannot see a mental picture of any kind. This, how-
ever, has only resulted from much practice in map-

LEARNING BY DIRECT EXPERIENCE 321

drawing in earlier years. If I set myself to draw such
a common object as a hen or a horse, I immediately
become aware how schematic is my memory of such
familiar forms and how unable I am to indicate with any
accuracy their particular features. From my own ex-
perience I should judge that defect in the power to
visualize is correlative with a tendency to general rather
than specific observation. So it comes about that the
organs of knowledge which enable one to recognize
one's surroundings are very general, and one has great
difficulty in recognizing particular persons or things,
unless one sees them very frequently, and sometimes
even then. Dr Edridge-Green records the case of "a
professional man of exceptional ability" who " fails most
lamentably to remember names or forms. So great is
his deficiency . . . that he is unable to recognize his best
friends (until they speak). He has got into an omnibus
and sat opposite his mother, and thought to himself that
he seemed to know her face. He has met his brother or
sister in the street, looked them straight in the face, and
failed to recognize them. He says that he should not
like to have to identify his wife in a court of law (if he
had to judge of her by her features), and thinks it

incredible how a witness can swear to another person

He has the same difficulty in remembering names, and
finds the greatest trouble in recollecting them, until they
become associated with a definite idea or fact." 1 This
extreme case has been a source of comfort to me ever
since I first read of it.

It is evident, then, that the cultivation of distinct
memories is limited by innate capacity. But it is essenti-
ally the recall of particulars as such which is affected.

1 Memory and its Cultivation, pp. 97-98.
W. x

322 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

The formation of the all-important organs of knowledge
is not, I believe, hindered by such defects as inability to
visualize. But the power of definite recall of personal
experiences cannot be cultivated equally in all individuals.

Nor is such a power by itself an unmixed blessing.
Like a highly developed habit of observing as many
items as possible in the surroundings, a highly cultivated
power of recalling the items of the past may positively
encumber the path of effective thought. As has been
seen, it is in the pertinence of knowledge to the present
situation that its value lies. A memory very tenacious
of details is apt to bring up before the mind events
trivial and important, pertinent and impertinent, just as
they occurred. Such a perceptual memory is happily
illustrated in Miss Bates, a character in Jane Austen's
Emma. As a fair specimen of her conversation we may
take the following :

' ' I was so astonished when she first told me
what she had been saying to Mrs Elton, and when
Mrs Elton at the same moment came congratulating
me upon it! It was before tea — stay — no, it could
not be before tea, because we were just going to cards —
and yet it was before tea, because I remember thinking —
Oh, no, now I recollect, now I have it : something
happened before tea, but not that. Mr Elton was called
out of the room before tea, old John Abdy's son wanted
to speak with him. Poor old John — I have a great
regard for him ; he was clerk to my poor father twenty-
seven years ; and, now, poor old man, he is bedridden,
and very poorly with the rheumatic gout in his joints —
I must go and see him to-day ; and so will Jane, I am
sure, if she gets out at all. And poor John's son came
to talk to Mr Elton about relief from the parish : he is

LEARNING BY DIRECT EXPERIENCE 323

very well-to-do himself, you know, being head man at
the Crown — ostler, and everything of that sort — but still
he cannot keep his father without some help ; and so,
when Mr Elton came back, he told us what John ostler
had been telling him, and then it came out about the
chaise having been sent to Randalls to take Mr Frank
Churchill to Richmond. That was what happened
before tea. It was after tea that Jane spoke to Mrs
Elton." l

Still worse is the discursive memory which, equally
trivial in its contents, has not even the merit of keeping
to the attempt to recollect a definite event. Such recall
is as unguided by any intelligent purpose as is the most
vagrant of reveries. It is, indeed, spoken reverie. Per-
haps the best example of this in fiction is Mrs Nickleby.
Thus she meanders on :

' ' Kate, my dear,' said Mrs Nickleby ; ' I don't know
how it is, but a fine warm summer day like this, with
the birds singing in every direction, always puts me in
mind of roast pig, with sage and onion sauce, and made
gravy.'

' That's a curious association of ideas, is it not, mama ?»

' Upon my word, my dear, I don't know,' replied Mrs
Nickleby. ' Roast pig ; let me see. On the day five
weeks after you were christened, we had a roast — no,
that couldn't have been a pig, either, because I recollect
there were a pair of them to carve, and your poor papa
and I could never have thought of sitting down to two
pigs — they must have been partridges. Roast pig! I
hardly think we ever could have had one, now I come
to remember, for your papa could never bear the sight
of them in the shops, and used to say that they always
1 Chap. 44.

324 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

put him in mind of very little babies, only the pigs had
much fairer complexions ; and he had a horror of little
babies, too, because he couldn't very well afford any
increase to his family, and had a natural dislike to the
subject. It's very odd now, what can have put that in
my head! I recollect dining once at Mrs Bevan's, in
that broad street round the corner by the coachmaker's,
where the tipsy man fell through the cellar-flap of an
empty house nearly a week before the quarter-day, and
wasn't found till the new tenant went in — and we had
roast pig there. It must be that, I think, that reminds
me of it, especially as there was a little bird in the room
that would keep on singing all the time of dinner — at
least, not a little bird, for it was a parrot, and he didn't
sinp- exactly, for he talked and swore dreadfully ; but I
think it must be that. Indeed I am sure it must.' " l

Such memories are by no means uncommon. Indeed,
when one hears an uneducated person, especially a
woman, relating a conversation, one notes how frequently
come the 'said he' 'I said' 'she said.' There is no
power to give the gist of what was said, but only to go
through it in all its pettiness, and that seldom or never
without conscious or unconscious distortion.

When one considers such memories one sees that they
simply waste life. The trivialities recalled are not of
sufficient worth to justify their occupying two spaces of
time. The first occasion cannot, perhaps, be avoided ;
the second can. Doubtless, too, the indulgence in this
kind of reminiscence strengthens the tendency to be
interested in the infmitesimally unimportant and to
neglect any meaning of things which does not lie on the
surface.

Sickens : Nicholas Nickleby, ch. 41.

LEARNING BY DIRECT EXPERIENCE 325

The great truth which such considerations bring home
to us is, it seems to me, the value and the blessedness of
forgetting. Very few of our past experiences are worth
recalling as such ; their true legacy is in our increased
power.

Yet forgetting is not wholly in our power. That
fact, too, has a value for life. For the things which we
find it quite impossible to forget are generally those
which stand as warnings and sign-posts to direct us on
our way. They are the experiences which had a strong
emotional effect upon us at the time, and this usually
means that they had an important bearing on our lives.

The one common characteristic of the personal experi-
ences which each one of us remembers is seen here. They
are all experiences which intensely interested us in some
way — often a very unpleasant way. This is, of course,
only a special case of the rule which finds its most general
application in the fact that we advance best in the know-
ledge of what interests us. The general experiences in
an interesting activity grow together into the strong
common tendency or aptitude ; the exceptionally vivid
ones not only affect this but gain a kind of more or less
permanent independence of their own. What one is
interested in one observes and attends to ; consequently
one remembers it more or less distinctly for a longer or
shorter time.

In the course of life we have many interesting experi-
ences, and they are not all of one type. Naturally we
recall at any moment those which agree most closely with
the dominant note of our intellectual life at the present.
If I am talking or thinking about art I shall recall
some of my experiences of picture and sculpture galleries,
and the longer the topic engrosses my mind the more of

326 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

such reminiscences will stand more or less explicitly and
clearly before me. This means that the mental life is so
far organized that experiences relating to the same kind
of topic have become connected together. The more
perfect the organization, therefore, the more fruitful will
be the effort to recall. Such organization can, however,
only come from attentive study of the relations which
exist between the cognate items of experience. So we
see again that power of pertinent recall is not only atten-
tion working in a definite sphere at the present, but that
it also implies a previous synthesis of the contents of
that sphere in the past.

Specially important is the influence of emotional tone
in determining the kind of experiences recalled. If I
am joyous I naturally dwell on reminiscences of past
happiness ; if I am sad I with equal facility revive my
former sorrows. In either case it would be practically
impossible to recall the other class of experiences : their
emotional nature is incompatible with the present
emotional tone, and they can enter consciousness only if
that tone be changed. True, when I am sorrowful I
may remember that at former times I have been glad,
but this is not recalled as gladness, but rather by contrast
to deepen the present grief. So, too, events in them-
selves indifferent may be given a very definite emotional
colour if they be recalled in a state of violent passion,
such as jealousy, anger, or love.

It follows that my power of recalling my past experi-
ences depends on my mental preoccupation and on my
emotional tone. What I can recall at one time I cannot
recall at another. " The memory has as many moods as
the temper, and shifts its scenery like a diorama." l
1 George Eliot : Middlemarch, ch. 53.

LEARNING BY DIRECT EXPERIENCE 327

Moreover, as my interests differ from those of others,
so the kinds of things I naturally remember are those
another will equally naturally forget. "Let four men
make a tour in Europe. One will bring home only
picturesque impressions — costumes and colours, parks
and views and works of architecture, pictures and
statues. To another all this will be non-existent ; and
distances and prices, populations and drainage-arrange-
ments, door- and window-fastenings, and other useful
statistics will take their place. A third will give a rich
account of the theatres, restaurants, and public balls, and
naught beside ; whilst the fourth will perhaps have been
so wrapped in his own subjective broodings as to tell
little more than a few names of places through which he
passed. Each has selected, out of the same mass of
presented objects, those which suited his private interest
and has made his experience thereby." l

It is now plain how much it obscures the facts to speak
of memory as if it were an independent power, able
to deal equally well and quite mechanically with any-
thing entrusted to it, and only needing to be exer-
cised in any one department of learning to grow strong
for all. We all have many memories, even in reference
to our own personal lives, and some of these are stronger
than others : we all remember some kinds of experience
better than others. But memory is nothing mysterious.
It is simply attention directed to the past, and, like atten-
tion directed to the present, it works in the sphere of
interest and under the guidance of purpose.

It is evident, then, that to deepen interest is to improve
memory for that in which the interest is felt. Further,
it has been seen that the mere memory of facts, with no
1 James : Principles of Psychology, vol. i., pp. 286-287.

328 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

selection on grounds of importance or pertinence, and
with no systematization according to their bearing on
each other and on the occasion which calls them forth, is
of very small value at any time, and far more often is a
positive hindrance to effective thought or action.

The training of the memory is, therefore, essentially
a training in power of synthesis and of seeing relations of
worth and pertinence. To practise children in giving
detailed relations of their experiences — as in the ridicul-
ous proposal I once saw that every day they should be
asked to enumerate in detailed sequence the things and
persons they had passed on their way to school — is to
take a very certain way of equipping them with the
worst possible mental habits both of attention to the
present and of making use of the past. On the con-
trary, everything which exercises them in judicious
selection, rejection, and arrangement of their remem-
bered experiences round certain topics, is of value ; for
it really trains the mind in that critical power of dealing
with its thoughts which is the very essence of good
judgement and which, like other mental powers, with
wise practice becomes largely automatic.

At the same time it should be borne in mind by every
teacher that only so far as a past experience is helpful for
the present situation is it worth recalling, and that the
great majority of such experiences do their appropriate
service without enjoying an individual immortality.

CHAPTER X
LEARNING THROUGH COMMUNICATED EXPERIENCE

THE very meaning of education is that the young should
profit by the wisdom, knowledge, and experience of
their elders, and the chief function of schools is to make
that profit as great as possible. The fact that we are by
nature social and are all born into a social environment
would by itself ensure that we are helped by others in
the guidance of our lives. Our innate sociability
prompts us to assimilate our conduct to theirs, to accept
their views, and generally to mould ourselves upon
them.

The very learning to speak is at the same time a
learning of the thoughts of those around us. Even
words imply classifications of the objects of experience,
and we learn speech not in words but in statements,
commands, directions, and expressions of approval and
disapproval. So the child accepts the judgements of
value on things and acts which are current in his little
circle, and learns to regulate his doings not only by
explicit directions and prohibitions but through the
description of acts as right or wrong, good or naughty.
He learns too, with equal unconsciousness, many of the
more common relations of familiar things to each other
and to himself. He is warned that fire burns, and that

330 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

he must not simply avoid touching it but must refrain
from putting many things in close neighbourhood to it ;
that clothes may be torn and spoilt by spilling ink upon
them ; that porcelain is breakable. No doubt personal
experience would bring most or all of these home to him
in particular cases, but the instructions and prohibitions
of his elders accelerate such learning as well as make it
more definite.

There is, then, much informal learning from others
going on from almost the beginning of life, just as there
is much informal learning by personal experience. The
two often unite, as when a direction to do, or to refrain
from doing, both regulates personal experience and adds
to it a reason based on the knowledge of others of some
relation that has not yet come into that experience.

Such communicated knowledge, however, deals with
the child's immediate environment, and, consequently
rather deepens the knowledge given by personal experi-
ence than extends its scope. Yet the direct surroundings
of every one are so limited, while the assumptions of
knowledge in ordinary civilized life are so extended,
that the young can only be fitted to take their part in
such a life if the range of their knowledge be extended.
To live effectively we must profit by the experiences of
our forefathers and by the wisdom of our contem-
poraries. Life is not merely here and now. For each
one of us is a fuller life of the spirit, and unless to some
extent we enter into that we cannot share the best the
world can offer us, nor can we realize our own possibilities.

This wider experience, however, must be made our
own, or it profits nothing. Merely to learn statements
of what has been done or thought in the world, and
never so to take them into our own thought and feelings

LEARNING FROM COMMUNICATION 331

and aspirations that they help us to judge more justly
and more correctly in the situations of actual life is
worthless. The accumulation of a mass of such dead
bones of information may be erudition but, though it is
commonly called 'knowledge', it is not knowledge in
the true sense of a living factor in the guidance of life.
Its outcome is pedantry, not wisdom. Communicated
experience and knowledge must be made our own
experience as fully as it is possible so to assimilate it. It
becomes ours only when in imagination and thought we
ourselves live through the experience, or reconstruct the
edifice of knowledge. It shows its value, just as does
direct experience, in an increased power to deal with
actual situations of life of whatever character they may
be, not in the ability to repeat in words an account of it.
We learn — or we should learn — in order to increase our
wisdom in the conduct of our lives and in the taking
of our proper share in the social life around us, not that
we may lay out in order the skeletons of the past. "Can
these dead bones live?" must be answerable in the
affirmative if the "dead bones" are to justify their
inclusion in what is taught to the young. "Best of
all is he," said Hesiod, "who is wise by his own wit ;
next best is he who is wise by the wit of others ; but
whoso is neither able to see, nor willing to hear, he is a
good-for-nothing fellow."

' ' Studies serve for delight, for ornament, and for
ability". So does Bacon begin his well-known essay.
For the purposes of education we may omit the second
heading. The time of youth is too short and too valu-
able to be spent in acquiring that which adds to neither
the joy nor the usefulness of life. But each of the two
other considerations should be remembered, or the

332 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

education will deform and narrow the expanding life.
Together they demand the inclusion of as much as time
permits to be attempted ; they leave no leisure for
learning the worthless.

This has always been one of the chief stumbling-blocks
of schools. We have already seen that in giving oppor-
tunity for guided personal experience schools have often
not done all that it is reasonable to demand of them.
Too often, indeed, they have done nothing, but have
confined themselves to communicating statements of the
knowledge of others. The selection has been deter-
mined by custom and tradition, and supported by argu-
ments directed to a pre-determined end and not to an
investigation of what that end should be. Historically
the concentration of schools upon the teaching of Latin
was due to the simple fact that Latin was the common
language of cultivated Europe, so that in teaching it
the schools trained a capacity which was of immediate
and first-rate importance in the lives of all who to any
degree would engage in scholarly pursuits or retain
scholarly interests. Under those conditions the teaching
of Latin was abundantly justified, and its obvious bear-
ing on life seems to have secured that a large number
of school-boys really attained a fair mastery of the
language. But the classical curriculum was maintained
long after Latin as the language of culture had been
supplanted by the various modern languages. At first
this was merely the inertia of school tradition, but when
it was challenged arguments in its favour were sought
from the faculty hypothesis of psychology, and it was
urged that the classical languages were unrivalled instru-
ments for training the intellectual powers. Yet it could
not be denied that this hypothetical value was invisible

LEARNING FROM COMMUNICATION 333

to the vast majority of boys, and that, with the exception
of those who had a special aptitude for such studies, or
who saw in them the road to academical distinction —
and these two incentives generally coincided — they
studied Latin with so little enthusiasm that they certainly
did not derive the expected benefits. It was impossible
to deny the truth of the picture Huxley drew some forty
years ago : " It means. . . that after a dozen years spent
at this kind of work, the sufferer shall be incompetent
to interpret a passage in an author he has not already
got up ; that he shall loathe the sight of a Greek or
Latin book ; and that he shall never open, or think of,
a classical writer again, until, wonderful to relate, he
insists upon submitting his sons to the same process." ]
The knowledge the schools attempted to communicate
did not enter into the intellectual life-blood of most of
their pupils, among whom there consequently arose the
idea not only that the school life outside the class-room
was very important but that it was practically the only
important part of the school. Indeed, for a great many
of them this was absolutely true, simply because the work
of the class-room did not enter their real lives at all, for it
aroused neither interest nor desire.

It is not merely a matter of subject however. Schools
innocent of classics may equally fail to lead their pupils
into wisdom through the gate of knowledge. The root
of the mischief is always the same. It is that "in this
world the gift is valued according to the standard of the
receiver — not according to the standard of the giver ;
men judge us not by effort, but by result. It is not
what a thing has cost, but what a thing will fetch, that
decides its market-price ; it is the scored success, and

1 Essay on A Liberal Education and Where to Find it.

334 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

not the secret struggle, that wins the crown." 1 In
harmony with this general method of estimation, we
seek the results of teaching in the wrong place and
in the wrong way. The school loves examinations, and
examinations mainly appeal to memory of verbal state-
ments. If what has been told is reproduced as nearly
as possible in the same form, then the actual — if
unavowed — scholastic aim is too often attained. The
greater the mass of such reproductions the more dis-
tinguished the scholar. Still in our own days the
complaint of Montaigne is too often justified: "We
only toil and labour to stuff the memory and in the mean
time leave the conscience and the understanding unfur-
nished and void." 2 Yet it is only so far as learning does
enter into the conscience and the understanding that it
becomes part of the experience of the scholar, and so
is of value to him in life.

Happily an improvement is everywhere visible, but
reform has to struggle against the scholastic conscien-
tiousness which rightly desires thorough work and which
is unable to cut itself adrift from the traditional tests of
thoroughness.

No one can pretend that the test of value for efficiency
in life is an easy one to apply in selecting matter for
instruction or in determining the method of teaching.
On the other hand, no one can doubt that if it be con-
scientiously applied the result will be a wiser and better
one than if subjects or facts are taught as a matter of
course, simply because they have hitherto been taught.
So, too, if the same test be applied to method of learning,
and if it be kept in mind that it is the learning which

1 Ellen Thorneycroft Fowler : Kate of Kate Hall, ch. 18.
? Essay on Pedantry.

LEARNING FROM COMMUNICATION 335

is of primary importance, and that the teaching is
important only so far as it determines the learning, then
there is greater hope that the test of success may be
placed in the increase of aptitude, not in the amassing
of intellectual lumber.

A study of the mental process involved in assimilating
knowledge communicated by others should be helpful
to the teacher who desires that the learning of his pupils
shall be real and fruitful. It will not by itself decide
what they shall be set to learn : that involves considera-
tion of their interests in relation to the requirements of
their lives. But it will throw light on how they must
learn if the learning is to result in true spiritual growth.

In understanding the possibility of one entering into
the experiences of another we may, perhaps, find a
starting-point in the fact that quite instinctively a child
implicitly assumes the existence of familiar people and
things when they are removed from direct experience.
He may picture his mother as doing this or that though
he does not see her : he assumes that his toys will still
be found where he left them. These implicit assump-
tions are made because only by assimilating the existence
of others to his own continuous conscious existence can
he understand it. Without conscious thought, then,
personal experience is from the first a key to the experi-
ence of others. So, too, a child learns to read approval
or disapproval, joy or sorrow, encouragement or anger,
in his mother's face, partly because he himself instinc-
tively shows such emotions by similar modes of expres-
sion, but mainly because those signs of her attitude
towards him do not stand alone, but are always parts
of fuller dealings with him which as a whole make the
situation quite clear. The former factor is implicit : the

336 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

latter is more or less explicit, but with a tendency to
become implicit and immediate. As experience of
emotional attitudes grows the child more and more takes
for granted the meaning of the earliest signs say of
displeasure or disapproval, and he shows his under-
standing by the regulation of his behaviour.

An excellent example of how accurate and complex
such interpretation of the outward actions of others may
be without the intervention of speech is found in those
plays in dumb show — such as L 'enfant prodigue — which
a few years ago were generally popular. By clever acting
the whole story was made plain without a single word
being spoken, and that not only as a series of events but
as an emotional drama. A well-acted charade provides
a simpler example of a somewhat similar character.

Such a drama would be unintelligible to a savage from
Western Africa, simply because it depicts a life out of
relation with his own experience, and emotional values
to which he is a stranger. Similarly, a religious dance
of savages appeals to those among whom it is one of
the highest forms of emotional expression in a very
different way from that in which it appeals to a European.
Even if speech be added, no matter how frank and
straightforward it may be, the difficulty still remains.
We cannot enter into the feelings and thoughts of the
savage, nor he into ours, simply because our whole lives
have been different from his. And because he and we
cannot enter into each other's feelings we cannot interpret
each other's mimetic art.

Probably the next step in the representation of ex-
perience is found in pictorial art. It needs no words
to prove that the same picture means very different
things to different minds. This implies that different

LEARNING FROM COMMUNICATION 337

minds bring to its apprehension very different systems of
evaluated knowledge ; for the mere sense impressions
are the same for all who can perceive them. It is needful
to add this saving clause, for the very seeing is a matter
of understanding and insight. A simple example of
this is any ' puzzle picture'. When we have found the
hidden object it stands out clearly, but we may have
looked long before we found it at all. So on a higher
plane, there are often parts and details of a picture which
take a very new and often a very suggestive significance
as the meaning of the composition guides our study. In
truth, we come to see what before we did not see. The
lines and colours combine into previously unseen rela-
tions, giving a wider and deeper value to the whole.

True as this is even of what appeals directly to sight
it is yet more true of all that the seen means to us
emotionally and spiritually. According to the wealth
and depth of our experience are we able to use the picture
as a bridge of communication between our own soul
and that of the artist. Show a child of six such a picture
as Millet's ' Angelus* and he will see in it a man and a
woman, a wheelbarrow, a basket and a fork. Probably
he will enumerate all these : perhaps only the man, the
woman, and the wheel-barrow. That is all the picture
means to him. A child of twelve will give a fuller
description of the visible features represented. He will
see the field, will note the dress, attitudes, and relative
positions of the figures ; he may remark that it is sunset.
He may possibly notice the colour-tone of the whole.
Further than this the ordinary child will not go : further
than this many an adult cannot advance. But to the
seeing eye the picture means much more than this ;
indeed, it does not mean this at all. It means simple-
w. Y

338 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

hearted devotion sweetening arduous and humble toil ;
it means all the glorious spiritual richness of Christianity.

If we consider examples of less obvious art, such as
Watts' ' Love and Death', or still more, his ' Hope', we
see even more clearly how much the meaning they have
for us depends on the spiritual experience, the living in-
sight, we bring to the contemplation of them. It may
be that the language of the artist is unfamiliar to us ; then
we misinterpret. Many people, for instance, can find
nothing but bad drawing and worse anatomy in mediaeval
pictures or painted windows, not understanding that the
figures were not intended to be copies of nature but
symbols of spiritual qualities. Once that key is really
seized the richness of spiritual experience suggested
becomes more and more evident.

The greatness of a picture consists above all in its
wealth of spiritual suggestion. But only when the
meaning conveyed is the direct expression of the spiritual
life of the artist does it appeal to the soul of another.
When it is merely the setting forth of a conventional
idea, or the representation of a borrowed thought, it
leaves us cold and untouched, no matter how great a
technical skill it may display. It cannot connect soul
with soul because it did not originate in soul. When
the thought burns for expression it finds it in the most
direct and simple means. If one compares, for example,
the ' Death of St Francis ' of Giotto with the treatment
of the same subject by Domenico Ghirlandaio one sees
how simply and directly, yet how powerfully, Giotto
brings home to one the emotional value of the scene —
the sorrow, not devoid of hope, of the disciples, the
calm trust of the dying saint. The later painter,
obviously taking his inspiration at second-hand from the

LEARNING FROM COMMUNICATION 339

earlier — for the general composition of the picture is the
same — has no such clear and direct spiritual meaning to
convey. One feels that he paints his fresco for adorn-
ment, and so he overloads it with ornamental accessories
so incompatible with the scene that they not only distract
the attention but positively hinder, if they do not render
impossible, any such emotional effect as Giotto so surely
attains.

A picture may, of course, give simple sensuous
enjoyment by its beauty of line and colour, but if it
mean no more than this to us it is on the level of a sweet
smell or an exquisite wine. Great art does mean more
to the artist : it expresses his soul. So it means more
to him who has the seeing eye and the understanding
heart. This is not to say that art is necessarily didactic.
That implies the suggestion of a message more or less
foreign to itself. It degrades art from being the direct
expression and interpretation of life to being a mere
channel for another's dogmas.

When we consider how little there is in a picture
looked at merely as a coloured surface, and how much of
spiritual meaning it may have for him who can read it,
the great and fundamental principle of all learning from
others is made abundantly manifest — that such learning
is proportioned to our power to find an interpretative
meaning within ourselves, a meaning which will ever
after be richer for this experience.

It is evident that children and boys and girls cannot
enter far into the meaning of art. As contemplative
poetry bores and repels them so they turn away from
all but obvious pictures. Yet unless they begin with
simple works of art which are easily grasped and inter-
preted they can never develop that insight and power of

340 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

interpretation which will open to them the more hidden
recesses. Certainly, the mere study of pictures will not
do this, but only life in all its fullness. As no one can
become a great artist who has lived a starved life, so no
one can feel the depth of meaning of great art whose
outlook and experience have been narrow or sordid.

It is of no use to tell another what to admire. Yet
children may be tactfully led to feel art by a teacher who
has the real spirit within him. Always largely true,
here it seems to me to be wholly true, that " one's power
of teaching increases not by teaching but by learning." l
All will not feel art equally : many, perhaps, but slightly.
Yet to awaken even a glimmer of inner light is worth
doing : without it one great realm of spiritual life is for
ever unexplored.

Art, however, because of its very intimateness is
strikingly personal in its appeal. It adds to the joy and
beauty of life ; it extends the sympathies by making us
capable of truer and fuller feeling ; it ennobles and vivifies
the springs of conduct. In a way it makes us understand
more truly both our fellows and the world of nature,
because understanding is always as much of the heart
as of the head. But it does not directly give knowledge
in the ordinary intellectual sense of that word. That is
the function of language, which is, before all else, a
means of communication. On that the school must
always largely rely, though it will not educate well unless
it avoid that exaggeration of the function of language
of which mention was made in the last chapter.

Into the earliest development of language in childhood
I do not propose to enter. It has been traced with great
care in several monographs on the psychology of infancy,

1E. F. Benson: The Challoners, ch. 5.

LEARNING FROM COMMUNICATION 341

and it is not necessary to recapitulate the results.
Details are of value to us only as indicating and throwing
light upon the general form of the process of learning
both to understand and to use speech. Of course, that
form is the same throughout life : it is the filling which
grows in richness and fullness.

It should first be noted that speech is not only a means
of communicating a knowledge of the experiences of
one to another, but it is also a direct experience of the
latter. When a child hears words he has a perceptual
experience ; when he tries to utter words he is attempt-
ing to do what he hears others do. Psychologically,
then, there is nothing exceptional about language.
Advance in the understanding of it is only one form in
which perceptual knowledge grows. That form has
been seen to be a gradual accumulation of meaning
which leads us not only to recognize but to understand
the perceived object. We saw also that this meaning
does not appear in consciousness separate from the thing
recognized, but is a latent expectation of what, by
appropriate acts, we could bring into direct perception.
Further, it was pointed out that perceptual activity deals
not with single things in isolation, but with chains of
acts dealing with many things successively. The separa-
tion of things and the recognition of each as having
an existence of its own is an act of perceptual analysis.
Lastly, we saw that when these perceptual objects are
examined in themselves and in the relations to other
things which make them what they are, our thought
becomes conceptual ; but that this is only making explicit
the meaning which was hitherto implicit, and without
which no recognition or naming of objects would have
been possible.

342 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

Every word of this applies to the learning of speech.
Little by little the child separates out words from con-
tinuous speech. The same sound, with the same general
reference, occurs again and again, and so gradually gets
an independent existence of its own — that is, a meaning
of its own, though that meaning is not thought by itself
but only enters with other similar elements to form the
general meaning which the whole speech has for him.
He thus learns to recognize before he can produce, just
as in all other modes of knowing and doing. For the
former involves only one form of growing skill ; the
latter adds to that a further and more difficult form, in
that to recognize is always easier than to produce. We
see the same throughout life and in every department
of activity : our ideas are in advance of our doings, or
our doings themselves are poor stuff. "Do as I say,
not as I do " is usually excellent advice, for we can all
see, at any rate in imagination, something better than
our own performances. In language in particular we
know that the vocabulary we use in speech or writing
is always less extensive than the vocabulary we can
understand. Perhaps this is brought home to us most
clearly when we apply the test to a foreign language.
We find that we can read it much better than we can
speak it.

At first the name is no more separated from the thing
in the child's mind than are such qualities as taste, colour,
or texture. So the first words a child speaks are names
of things, then follow verbs or names of actions. Often,
indeed, his single-word utterances express more than
mere recognition. With the child, as with the adult,
words are but a part of vocal expression, and ought not
to be separated from the tone of voice and general

LEARNING FROM COMMUNICATION 343

manner of utterance, or from the actual circumstances
which call them forth. A single word may express a
variety of mental attitudes towards the thing named.
This is also true of interpretation of the speech of others.
The mother's tone of voice expresses approval or dis-
approval, encouragement or prohibition, as surely as do
her words ; yea, more surely, for a very young child
knows when his mother is pretending to be fierce towards
him in play, no matter what may be her words. The
beautifully natural modulations of the speech of a young
boy or girl show what a large part mode of utterance
plays in the expression through speech of thought, of
emotion, of wish.

Words are, however, general in their reference, and
as experience of things widens this generality comes
more and more to the front. With the use of such
qualifying words as adjectives and adverbs we have
evidence of the beginnings of conceptual thought, for
they indicate that a quality can be given a meaning apart
from that of which it is a quality. The more difficult
words expressive of relation are naturally the last a child
acquires, because relations of thing to thing are not
directly given to sense observation, but are interpreta-
tions of what is so given. The child, for example, sees
a ball lying under a chair. The use of a preposition
implies that this spatial relation has itself been made the
object of attention.

More and more as speech is acquired the reference is
freed from the immediate surroundings of the child.
He can ask for what he desires, though he sees it not.
Here is a distinct step in advance of asking for it when
he sees it, for it involves a recall in memory of the desired
object, a recall which both centres round, and finds expres-

344 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

sion in, its name. But he can also understand statements
about things which are not present to him. What goes
on in his mind when this happens ? We will say that a
child is told that his dog has been out for a walk. He
hears the words one by one, yet the meaning is not a
combination of as many separate meanings as there are
words. The first words raise in his mind his idea of
the dog with an expectation more or less vague which
the other words fill out and make definite. At each step
the initial idea grows in explicitness of meaning. The
child has no need to wait till he has separately got ideas
of dog, going out, and walk, and then to fasten them
together. It is the dog-idea taking a specific form under
the guidance of the communication. Now, evidently
this is possible only so long as the descriptive words have
meaning for the child. If he were told that the dog is
a quadruped of the genus cants, the expectation raised
by ' dog ' would be balked ; the words would convey
nothing to him except that something was said about
his friend the dog.

We have, then, two points : that the meanings of
words in speech do not arise separately in the hearer's
mind, and that only words which have gained meaning
from past experience can evoke response.

The latter of these two points is easily granted ; the
former is obscured by the fact that we are so used to the
separation of words on the printed page that we think
of them as separate constituents of speech. Yet histori-
cally speech ante-dated words, and even in writing
separation into words was at first unknown. There was
no such separation, for instance, in early Greek manu-
scripts. Further, earlier languages expressed by what
were written as single words many ideas which a modern

LEARNING FROM COMMUNICATION 345

language uses several words to express. All the
inflexions of Greek and Latin are cases in point.

So it is not true that the word is the unit of speech.
Speech means the expression of thought, and that as a
rule requires several words even when the thought is a
simple one. We saw that in analysing an object of
perception the object is yet held in the mind as a whole :
whatever quality or relation is attended to, there is
implicit in the thought the unity of the object. More-
over, though no analysis exhausts it, yet we do not lose
any of the object, no matter how inadequate our analysis
may be.

Exactly the converse is true of constructing a meaning.
The enumeration of elements is never complete, and yet
the idea raised is of a complete object, because the words
used do not stand simply each for one naked element,
but each is a suggestion of the meaning of a whole, to
which every added qualification gives precision. If, for
example, I hear or read the words * The king raised in
his hand a heavy golden cup richly set with jewels ', the
meaning starts with ' king ' and an expectation which is
given definiteness by the word 'raised', a definiteness
increasing with each added word. My idea grows in
clearness little by little : it is not built up at the end.
Indeed, it is evident that ' heavy ', ' golden », ' richly set
with jewels' cannot be thought apart from something
of which they are the qualities.

This is the process in all interpretation of speech —
the giving increasing precision to an indefinite whole.
All that has been said gives meaning to what is being
said, and at the end we have a systematic whole of mean-
ing, not a series of meanings like beads on a string.
The proof that we have assimilated the earlier steps is

346 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

our increased power of assimilating the latter. Then,
indeed, we have made the communicated knowledge part
of our own thought-experience, for we use it to interpret
other presented ideas.

Several suggestions as to teaching here offer them-
selves. The first is that the presentation of the matter
the pupils are to learn should be systematic in arrange-
ment, and given at such a rate as to keep intellectual
effort on the stretch, and yet allow time for each new
element to be received into the growing whole of mean-
ing. Another is that to require pupils to repeat in a
series the various ideas or facts which have been told
them is to take to pieces again the mental construction
which the whole teaching should aim at securing.
Worse still, evidently, is the common plan of the teacher
taking it to pieces himself and asking various pupils to
pick up a stone here and a balk there, with the result
that all which remains is a heap of mental dtbm. The
true test of successful teaching is the increased power
to deal with similar matter, and that should be tested
by the amount of intelligent anticipation during the
exposition itself and by giving similar matter to be dealt
with. Learning should develop intelligence, and to this
remembering is auxiliary. But remembering here, as
in the case of personal experience, by no means neces-
sarily implies recall of individual items.

We must now face the fundamental question of
communication — how is it possible to give new know-
ledge though we are understood only when our speech
raises in our hearers' minds meaning derived from their
own experience? The answer is to be found in a con-
sideration of that very generality of words which has
been signalled as the chief characteristic of the acquire-

LEARNING FROM COMMUNICATION 347

ment of speech. A child may never have seen a king
or a golden jewelled cup. Yet he has heard of kings,
and has doubtless seen pictures of them. Probably
while he is young he imagines them as always wearing
a crown and clothed in gorgeous, if inconvenient, robes.
As he grows older that meaning will be rectified. For
our present purpose it does not matter whether the king
is so thought or no, except that with a young child any-
thing which makes the idea vivid is to be welcomed.
So, too, the child has had experience of raising things
in general and cups in particular : he knows gold, and
he has probably seen jewels. If he has not, that part
of the meaning will remain dim to him till he does see
some gems. Every element, then, is familiar to him,
and as he has learnt that ' golden ' may be a quality of
many things he is ready to imagine a golden cup, even
though he has never seen one. From familiar elements
a new compound has been formed. Here again it
should be noted that we have no new form of mental
process. It is only a special case of the general rule
that new knowledge grows out of old acquisitions.

The most elaborate new mental constructions we can
make are subject to exactly the same conditions. Unless
the elements are known the combination cannot be made.
Of course, this also is a progressive achievement. Every
new combination is a possible element in a further com-
pound. Just as in the acquisition of some form of
bodily skill the mastery of one simple combination of
movements makes possible the acquisition of a more
complex combination, so it is with that increasing skill
in knowing which we call intelligence. Intelligence is
the functioning of past acquirement in the presence of
a new situation, that past acquirement being, of course,

348 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

the present form of an individual human capacity and
not a piece of lifeless mechanism.

We all know from our experience both as teachers
and as learners that the great drawback to knowledge
received at second-hand is that it is too often wanting in
vividness and clearness. There are many reasons for
this, of which the two most important are want of interest
in the subject and poverty in the meanings attached to
the speech. The want of interest may be in the teacher ;
then assuredly it will be reflected in the class. We are
too apt to forget that teaching is the contact of mind
with mind, and that all such contact which is alive and
enlivening is emotional as well as intellectual. A mere
cold and bloodless presentation of almost any matter will
make it dry and repellent to children. Even adults have
been known to condemn sermon or lecture as tedious,
although its matter if differently presented might have
roused them almost, if not quite, to enthusiasm. With
young boys and girls, lack of enthusiasm on the part of
the teacher is the most frequent cause of intellectual
inertness on the side of the scholars. Older boys and
girls, no doubt, require, in addition to stimulating teach-
ing, to see some value in what they are asked to learn
before they will throw themselves into it with energy.

Closely connected with want of interest is poverty of
meaning. This also is often due to a faulty presentation,
especially in oral teaching. Words are abstract, and in
teaching we want them to suggest concretes. Evidently
if the teacher's exposition be couched in general terms
the concretes called up will be sketchy and thin in mean-
ing. If a scene or an event is being described the more
particular the words used the more definite the meanings
they evoke. 'The king raised a cup', for instance,

LEARNING FROM COMMUNICATION 349

cannot mean as much as ' The king raised a heavy golden
cup richly set with jewels'. It is detail which makes a
mental construction clear and precise. And to give
appropriate and effective detail presupposes very con-
siderable knowledge of the subject on the part of the
teacher. But this does not mean verbosity. It is quite
easy to bury the whole under a mass of detail, like the
fresco of Ghirlandaio to which reference has already been
made. How simple yet how adequate is Tennyson's
description —

"a chapel nigh the field,
A broken chancel with a broken cross,
That stood on a dark strait of barren land :
On one side lay the Ocean, and on one
Lay a great water, and the moon was full." l

Yet the clearest and most precise exposition will fail
if the experiences of the children, including all they have
really learnt and thought through the instruction of
others, do not supply full and accurate meanings. This
shows that neglect of the guidance of direct active experi-
ence by schools is a misfortune not only on account of its
limitation of the children's lives but even in relation to
that very intellectual culture for the sake of which it is
put out of court. To name a cornfield to a child who
has never been in the country, or a storm at sea to one
who has never seen the sea, is to utter words which
raise in the minds of the hearers but vague ghosts of
meanings. Even with the most vivid verbal descriptions
assisted by good pictures the significance of the words
must fall far short of a remembrance of the actual
experience. Perhaps the greatest difficulty in teaching
young children is that teacher and taught almost speak
1 The Passing of Arthur.

350 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

different languages, for though they use the same words
the meanings implied are far from being the same.
One can never give good oral teaching till one has
mastered with approximate accuracy the real speech of
one's pupils, so that one knows what kinds of meanings
one's words will call up in their minds. Then only can
one set oneself deliberately to develop those meanings by-
inducing in the children either direct experiences or a
living in imagination through the experiences needed.

To live in imagination often carries with it the seeing
in a series of mental pictures of the things or events
described. In this case greater vividness is secured
than when such visual pictures are absent or are obscure
and blurred. It is probable that the young have usually
some power of visualizing, though it is by no means as
general as is sometimes assumed that the pictures are
sufficiently clear and definite to be of much value. Of
course, those who visualize their memories of their own
past experiences will also visualize the scenes they con-
struct mentally under the guidance of descriptions,
whether heard or read. In such visualizing there is the
same general process that has been already discussed
under meaning. The picture, like the meaning, begins
by being vague, and gradually gains in definiteness and
clearness as the description proceeds. It is like a land-
scape coming into view as the sun dissolves the morning
mist. There are not imaged in succession a number of
qualities which are afterwards fitted together like the
pieces of a Chinese puzzle. Whatever results in our
minds from hearing a description, then, is from the first a
form of apprehending the whole, which is filled out, and
it may be modified, as the guiding speech goes on.

Pictures add vividness to meaning, but they are not

LEARNING FROM COMMUNICATION 351

themselves meaning. They play in communicated ex-
perience a part analogous to that which direct presenta-
tion to sight plays in personal experience. To be familiar
by sight with an object does not guarantee that we know
much about it, and even when it enters into some
perceptual activity it does so in its meaning for that
activity. In climbing, for instance, the sight of a ledge
or a projecting stone suggests to us that it will, or will
not, support our weight, and on that meaning we act.
The seen qualities are not attended to in themselves, but
simply as indicating firmness or looseness. On the other
hand, when we come to conceptual analysis the seen object
is regarded primarily as a bundle of examples of general
qualities and laws ; that is, each seen quality is a cue to
a line of thought and a suggestion of a general and far-
reaching meaning.

Everybody seems ready to grant that objects of per-
ception are not our thoughts of them. Yet many con-
fuse visual images, which are only copies of objects as
seen, with thoughts or meanings. In truth, like their
originals, such images are merely pegs round which
meanings cluster, and cues which prompt us to think
those meanings. Some people, it appears, cannot get
the meanings clear without the images. George Mere-
dith depicts a common type of mind, especially among
women, when he says of Cecilia Halkett : "A political
exposition devoid of imagery was given to her next
day . . . when it was only by mentally translating it into
imagery that she could advance a step beside her intel-
lectual guide."1 But it is obvious that unless the
abstract words had suggested a meaning the translation
into imagery could not have been made. The imagery
1 Beauchamp's Career, ch. 28.

352 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

did not make the meaning, but was born from it and
vivified it. So long as it only does this, well and good.
But vivid imagery may so concentrate the meaning in
itself that that meaning is distorted. For all images are
particular, while the meaning is often general. If the
whole discourse is meant to give knowledge of a par-
ticular thing, then any important distortion due to
imagery arises from faulty or inadequate description.
But if the whole thought to be conveyed is a general
one then if it be limited by the force of the image the
distortion may be extremely serious. Here we see the
danger attending the use of concrete illustrations to
make clear general truths — the danger that the similitude
may be mentally extended beyond its proper range, which
is usually a narrow and special one.

Still more insidious is the danger of allowing trains
of imagery to be substitutes for thought. To look is
much easier than to think. But we may look at many
things without deriving the slightest benefit, as witness
the mode in which a large number of people pass through
a picture gallery or a museum. Only when we look
for a purpose, and when what we see prompts thought
and effort to find meaning, do we profit intellectually.
The mere amusement of looking is quite other than the
true interest of thinking. This distinction is often over-
looked in lessons based on observation ; it is equally
often neglected in lessons of narrative and description.
Children absorbed in a series of mental pictures may
enjoy such a lesson without putting forth any energy of
thought. There is emotional interest, but little or no
intellectual interest. Such teaching is no more a train-
ing of the mind than basking in the sun is a training of
the body. Each is recreation, not work. In order that

LEARNING FROM COMMUNICATION 353

teaching which communicates knowledge should be
educative it must evoke thinking and not simply
encourage gazing at a mental panorama. How far it
does so is tested by the amount of intellectual appre-
hension and anticipation shown by the pupils. The
teacher should have his finger on the pulse of meaning,
and not be satisfied with the rapt attitude which may
indicate mere sensuous enjoyment.

It may be noted that description leads only to visual
imagery. " I should not acquire any real knowledge of
the Scotch air ' There's nae luck ' by being told it was
like ' Auld lang syne,' or ' Robin Gray ;' and if I said
that Mozart's melodies were as a summer's sky or as the
breath of Zephyr, I should be better understood by those
who knew Mozart than by those who did not." 1

Nor can speech directly communicate emotion. It can
only raise in the hearer's mind ideas favourable to the
appearance of the emotion, but the latter can only be
directly communicated from one mind to another by con-
tagion. If a teacher desire his pupils to feel that a deed
he is describing is hateful and despicable, it is useless for
him to present that view merely as an intellectual judge-
ment which awakens no corresponding feelings in his
own breast. As well might he hope to inspire admiration
of a work of art by casually remarking that it is beautiful,
and then immediately turning away.

The use of pictures to illustrate descriptive and narra-
tive teaching is evidently of most value to the pupils
who visualize badly. But when historical accuracy in
the way in which places and things are thought is
important they may be regarded as necessary to all.
When, on the other hand, the scene is imaginary they

1 J. H. Newman : The Grammar of Assent, p. 26.
W. z

354 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

should be used so as not to limit the pupils' freedom of
interpretation. This is probably best secured by exhibit-
ing them after the description has been given. Even
then, though they help the unimaginative they not
infrequently decrease the interest of the imaginative.
Great tact and insight into the particular pupils concerned
are needed to use illustrative pictures with a really educa-
tive effect.

The whole of the preceding discussion of the com-
munication of knowledge by speech applies to its
communication through books, which are only speech
made visible. Words read act just as do words heard.
Indeed, with many people they are faintly heard in
imagination ; and with all, probably, reading is attended
by some incipient utterance. The meaning is appre-
hended with growing clearness. Each new chapter is
taken up into the growing whole of meaning, and so
the understanding becomes fuller and richer as we go on.
Often, indeed, our grasp of the whole meaning is made
evident to us by our correct anticipation of parts we
have not yet read. One can frequently see what the
end of a novel will be long before reaching the last page.
This intelligent anticipation is due not only to the part
already read, but also to experience of the ordinary
course of events in novels. The more novels one reads
the less novelty one finds in them. This varied experi-
ence gives us not a definite knowledge of the exact course
of the particular novel in hand, but an expectation which,
though undetermined, is fairly definite in general form.

When we wish to read and to master more difficult
matter we shall do well to take a hint from this experience
of novel reading. If we read through the treatment
of the whole subject first, with attention indeed, but

LEARNING FROM COMMUNICATION 355

without stopping to master the details, we provide our-
selves with a general idea of the whole meaning which
will help us to assimilate the matter on a second and
more detailed study, in a similar way to that in which
the novel reader is aided by his past readings of
novels. The second reading should master the details,
and their relation to each other and to the whole. To
master them severally and fail to grasp the part each
plays in the whole is a most worthless form of cram.
Unhappily, it is too much cultivated by the scholastic
habit of questioning much on separate details and little
or not at all on relations and wholes. Yet only as a
whole can the matter be thought, and if it be not thought
the labour has produced nothing but a memory of empty
phrases, which will soon be partly forgotten and partly
confused. A third reading is most valuable if during
it the attention be engaged with these relations ; most
valueless if it only attempt to fix more firmly the memory
of disconnected details. The wrong way of reading is
as common now as it was two centuries ago when Locke
wrote : " The mistake here is, that it is usually supposed
that, by reading, the author's knowledge is transfused
into the reader's understanding ; and so it is, but not
by bare reading, but by reading and understanding what
he writ."1 Or, as he says in another place, "Reading
furnishes the mind only with materials of knowledge ; it
is thinking makes what we read ours." 2

In reading we have to struggle, and to teach our pupils
to struggle, against ineffective work. Every mind has
a good deal of mental sloth, and we all know how easy
it is to run over page after page without bothering our-
selves much about what it all means. Much reading of

1 Conduct of the Human Understanding, sect. 24. 2 Ibid., sect. 20.

356 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

light literature cultivates this habit of mental surface-
scratching. Its best result is a certain amount of super-
ficial inaccurate information ; its worst a state of mental
stupor. Just as an oral lesson which to the pupils is
only a succession of visual pictures is of no educative
worth, so such reading, in which there is perception of
the words attended only by faint adumbrations of mean-
ing, and it may be by some visual imagery, is little but
a waste of time. As students we can cure ourselves by
watchfulness and self-examination on what we have read.
As teachers we can at any rate help to cure our pupils
by applying similar remedies to them.

The earnest student, however, has to struggle rather
against a wrong direction of energy than against a failure
to put it forth. He feels that there is much to do and
that the time is short. So he believes he has not time
to stop to think : he must simply try to remember. One
of the most valid and most serious charges against the
custom of regarding preparation for examinations as the
chief work of school and university is just this sense
of want of time, and the consequent intellectually breath-
less study. Certainly it is true that in the long run
the method of learning by thinking is the more rapid.
But it is apparently slower at first, and the earnest
student is afraid to trust to the long run lest it should
be too long for him. He has to keep up with his class
now at the beginning, and the teacher of the class has
too often not arranged the work so that progress, though
beginning slow, is gradually but surely accelerated.

Whatever the reason, the prevalence of such a mode
of learning in any place and at any time is absolutely
incompatible with true intellectual education. For such
knowledge only makes the pedant, who can, perhaps,

LEARNING FROM COMMUNICATION 357

talk about many things, but whose mind has not been
trained to deal with the real concerns of life, whose
so-called knowledge is mere lumber which has not
increased his efficiency because it has not been taken up
into original capacity and, by feeding it, developed
aptitude. "The judgement is little better, and the
stock of knowledge not increased, by being able to repeat
what others have said or produce the arguments we
have found in them." l

Whether, then, knowledge be presented by reading
or by hearing, it is assimilated only when it is actively
thought, and not passively received by the senses and
the understanding. Such active thought shows itself
in intelligent anticipation. Doubtless, the relative parts
played by thinking under direction of what is said and
by intelligent inference as to what will be said will vary
in different subjects as well as in different minds. When
the record is of facts, as in history or in the description
of a people, the latter will be relatively small. Still the
former is also an active process, just as is a physical
activity guided by imitation. Thought is directed in
its activity, but it must be active nevertheless, or there
is no entering into the spirit of the new matter, no
making it part of one's own life experience. That this
activity may never cease, the teacher, especially of young
children, will do well to encourage every possible out-
ward expression of it. When children are simply asked
to listen there is always the danger that visual imagery
may supplant thought instead of being auxiliary to it.

When, however, the communicated knowledge is less
of fact than of relations, the activity required is the
grasping of a demonstration. Here the aim should be

1 Locke : Ibid., sect. 20.

358 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

to make originative suggestion play as large a part as
possible. Direct guidance of thought should be
subordinate to intelligent anticipation, whereas in the
former case the opposite relation holds good.

In speaking of reading I have, of course, meant the
gaining of the thought of another through the printed
or written page. In this process the whole function of
the printed words is to suggest meaning. That is to
say, the explicit direction of attention is conceptual,
while the perceptive process of recognizing the printed
symbols is implicit. We are at once aware of this if
an unknown word suddenly wrenches attention from
meaning to visible form. The fact that the meaning
raised in our minds may be of a concrete thing or event,
and that we try to think it in a way which approaches
perception as nearly as possible, is not at all inconsistent
with the statement that attention to meaning is con-
ceptual. For the percepts in reading are of letters and
words, and when the meaning suggested is concrete it
is because the reading calls up the thought of a concrete
fact or event, not because it makes us think of the letters
or words.

Reading to oneself for meaning has all the character-
istics of a process in which the percepts are only cues
to meaning. The practised reader when he is running
over matter very easy to him by no means says all the
words to himself, or, indeed, sees all the words as
separate things. He reads in phrases or in sentences
or even in longer divisions. A few salient words stand
out, as we saw salient letters do in the recognition of a
familiar word, and they are sufficient as indications of
the general meaning of the passage. If the meaning
be at all obscure more detailed examination is necessary ;

LEARNING FROM COMMUNICATION 359

each word may be read, the relation of clause to clause
may be definitely attended to, reference may even be
made to an earlier passage, until the whole meaning
stands clear. But the perception is still purely instru-
mental, and its extent is still determined by the facility
and completeness of the appreciation of the meaning.

Very different from this process is that of reading
aloud. Here there are two perceptual processes. The
one is that of recognition of printed symbols : the other
is the utterance of sounds corresponding to those sym-
bols. It is this latter process that sets the purpose, and
to it effort must be given. True, apprehension of mean-
ing must be present if the reading is to be really intelli-
gent, for, as has been already pointed out, not the words
only but the way they are uttered compose expressive
speech. Yet a general grasp of meaning is often
sufficient to enable a practised oral reader to phrase, to
modulate his voice, and to mark relative emphasis in a
broadly intelligent way ; though he will only read ex-
quisitely if the full force of the passage determine his
utterance. But this possibility shows that reading aloud
is no real test of the power of getting intellectual nutri-
ment from books. I once asked a university student
who had just read aloud a passage with considerable
expression his opinion of its truth. His reply was
instructive : " Let me glance through it first to see what
it is about."

Reading aloud is a form of practical skill, and its per-
fection depends even more on the organs of speech than
on the intelligence. A good elocutionist is not of neces-
sity a very intelligent reader, and, on the other hand, a
reader who profits much by what he reads may be unable
to read it aloud so as to give pleasure to his hearers.

360 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

Indeed, when we realize the different ends in view in
the two cases we shall see that much practice in reading
aloud, especially when not preceded by reading for
meaning, is likely to form a habit which will interfere
with that full and explicit attention to meaning which
is of the very essence of true reading.

It is really unfortunate that because these two forms
of activity are classed together under one name they are
commonly regarded as identical. It is easy for a teacher
to judge how well his pupils read aloud ; not nearly so
easy to test their skill in understanding what they read.
Too often he confuses the one exercise with the other,
and regards good elocution as evidence of power of
reading, though in the latter meaning is the centre of
interest, in the former it is ancillary to utterance. An
analysis of the processes involved indicates that there
is no such necessary connexion as is commonly assumed,
and experience supplies examples of the evil effects of
the confusion. Sir W. H. Broadbent has recorded the
following case — -

"I was informed that a boy of fourteen, of superior
intelligence, was kept in a lower class at school because
he could not read aloud, and that his prospects in life
were likely to be injured by his not reaching the proper
standard.

"I found him to be remarkably alert intellectually,
fond of reading, particularly adventures and travels, full
of information, ready and apt in conversation, and
altogether a very interesting boy. He could not explain
his difficulty in reading aloud. I gave him two long
and rather complicated paragraphs from the Times to
read, and asked him to tell me what they were about.
This he did readily and clearly. I then asked him to

LEARNING FROM COMMUNICATION 361

read them aloud. His face at once took on an expression
of anxious effort. He did not read even short words
fluently, but uttered two or three with the slight hesi-
tancy and uncertainty of a beginner, and was then
brought to a standstill for a moment by some longer
word, not because it was difficult or unfamiliar, but
apparently as if he had to grasp its meaning and pass it
through his mind for utterance. Sometimes it seemed as
if he were on the point of substituting another word

"There was clearly no word-blindness in the true
sense of the term, since that is a purely sensory defect,
and this was a motor failure, not a sensory defect. Words
printed or written reached his mind with normal readi-
ness, and were perfectly understood. There was no
fault in the mechanism of speech or intellectual expres-
sion The afferent and efferent paths, and the

sensory and motor centres concerned in language as an
intellectual process, were intact. It was utterance in one
particular respect which was interfered with — the trans-
lation of visual characters into the articulate sounds
which they represented.

This boy ultimately gained the faculty of reading
aloud fairly well, but with great effort, and when he read
aloud the attention was so concentrated on the task that
he did not understand what he read." 1

The practical conclusion is obvious. Reading aloud
is an agreeable accomplishment, a form of bodily skill in
which different individuals are capable of advancing to
very different levels of excellence. But reading for
meaning is the only key which opens the way into all
the treasures of thought, knowledge, and wisdom, gar-

1 Remarks on Some Affections of Speech : British Medical Journal,
June 1 5th, 1907.

362 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

nered in books. It, too, has to be learnt, for it also is
skill. It must therefore be practised, for only by practice
is any form of skill, be it physical or be it intellectual,
attained.

The rule that communicated knowledge should make
for efficiency, and that this is possible only so far as the
information can be taken up into personal experience
by thought, makes it clear that it is useless to require
the learning of facts which are simply facts. Only so
far as facts can be related to each other can they be
thought ; only so far as that relation can be extended
to ourselves can they be used. Whatever increases
understanding of the world around has value, whether
it throw light on material things or on human societies.
Whatever is mere fact may have an incidental use as
detail to add vividness to a general meaning, but is not
worthy of retention. I remember being told, when a
small boy, by one of my teachers that Everest was 29,002
feet high. I asked whether that included the snow,
and was told that it did. I then enquired whether
melting at one time and a prolonged fall at another would
not cause this height to vary. My teacher's reply was
more forcible than satisfactory to my thirst for under-
standing ; for the question had been asked in all good
faith. Whether it was the emphasis of the answer or
the absurdity of the statement I know not, but I have
never forgotten it. Nor has it been useless to me, as
it has supplied me with a good illustration both of what
not to teach and of how not to teach.

This anecdote illustrates the complaint humorously
put by Mr Arnold Golsworthy : "The great fault about
geography is that the details don't seem to lead any-
where when you've got them. I could not, for instance,

LEARNING FROM COMMUNICATION 363

say at this moment, without reference to the encyclo-
paedia, how many feet Snowdon rises above the sea,
but I can still follow the ordinary run of commer-
cial and political life, and my digestion and general
health seem in no way affected by the want of these
figures

On the other hand, I know that the river Thames rises
in the neighbourhood of the Cotswold hills, but I am
not disguising the truth when I unhesitatingly assert
that the possession of this knowledge, acquired at great
pains in my boyhood, has never been of the slightest
use to me. I cannot look to it to heighten my happiness
in hours of sunshine, nor can I turn to it for sympathy
and consolation in times of depression and liver trouble.
It is nothing more than a bald, empty fact, that I could
have acquired at any moment by referring to my table
atlas, and I have given it house room for years in my
mental fit-up, and have looked in vain to see anything
grow on it or out of it. It has always seemed a little
strange to me that the average school-boy should be
inflated with jetsam of this kind, and yet never have so
much as hinted to him a few of the peculiarities of the
law of his country, or the scope of his future duties as
a man and a citizen." l

Geography should induce in the pupils an interest in
the common natural phenomena around them, and an
ability to apply such knowledge to the understanding
of natural phenomena similar, and yet different, else-
where. Above all, it should extend the range of their
human sympathies, and this it can only do on condition
that it represents vividly the life of other lands. Names
should always mean much more than marks on a map :
lDr. Bunderby's Boys, ch. 3.

364 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

those to which it is not necessary to give any further
meaning should be rigorously excluded.

Similarly, history should aim at increasing the under-
standing of life, and to do this it must lay bare the way
people lived, felt, and thought in earlier days. To teach
the young that happy and useful lives were lived under
conditions very different from those of to-day is to do
them no small service. That this may be real to them
it must be so presented that the conditions of life are
within their comprehension. Thus, the presentation
will necessarily be different at one age from what it is
at another. The essential thing is that it be alive. A
host of dates accompanied by bald statements of ' import-
ant events' is mere worthless lumber which buries
thought under a dust-heap. Whether in history or in
geography the pupils must live in imagination in con-
ditions different from their own, and must think out how
those conditions would affect life.

The teaching of history raises of necessity the question
of the apprehension of time. Personal experience gives
us at the best but a small grasp of time-relations. We
all know how untrustworthy our personal estimation of
time often proves when tested by the clock. Memory of
our past is not much more definite. We may remember
the sequence of important events pretty accurately, yet
there seems no subjective distinction between how an
event of thirty years ago appears in memory and how
one of twenty-five years ago does so. We fix our past
largely by associating events with the dates of the years,
sometimes directly, sometimes indirectly. " I remember
that in 1887 I did such a thing, because I did it in the
same year as I did something else, and that was in the
year of Queen Victoria's first jubilee" is the kind of

LEARNING FROM COMMUNICATION 365

combination we often find helpful. If we went by
vividness, indeed, many an event of childhood would
seem more recent than the doings of a year ago.

We may say, then, that our time arrangement of our
own past is essentially conceptual. Our grasp of the
time-series of history is only an extension of this. We
cannot get a vivid and perceptual grasp of those rela-
tions : in that sense we certainly cannot realize them.
But we can think them conceptually as separated by
greater or less intervals and as less or more remote from
our own days. True, our generalizing habit leads us
to class under single ideas long periods which we happen
to have marked by a single name. But such classing
was induced by some real similarity, and so long as we
bear in mind that this similarity yet showed itself in
successive diversities no harm is done.

Evidently, then, a history without dates would be a
history not articulated into a whole. Dates must be
learned, but every date should be full of meaning ; that
is, should be the cue to thought and imagination to
traverse a well-known country.

Conceptual thought on any kind of matter means
examining the forms and relations of the objects of per-
ception. In language, grammar has this function. The
learning of it should, therefore, follow the general lines
of conceptual investigation. Now, conceptual thought
is only prompted in matter which is already familiar in
perception, not only as objects which can be recognized
but still more as means which can be used ; for the per-
ceptual interest is always practical. It is in opposition,
then, to natural mental development to teach grammar
to children who have not attained a good working
mastery over language. In the next place, it is to be

366 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

noted that the relations of words are abstract, and will
appear devoid both of interest and of real meaning if
the apprehension of them is not seen to be of value in
interpreting the language of others or in the personal
use of language. ' ' Why is this passage obscure although
its words are all familiar ? " That, with a carefully chosen
passage, will give a prompting to a study which will
clear up such obscurities and explain their origin. Only
if in some such way the desire to examine the relations
of words — which express relations of thought — is
aroused, will children take up the study in the spirit
which alone can make it educationally profitable. This
would point to having very few set grammar lessons but
to investigating problems of speech-construction when-
ever they occur. Nor should the grammatical investiga-
tions be pushed beyond the point at which they elucidate
thought and the expression of thought in language.

It is the failure to keep to such lines as these which
has made grammar so much disliked in schools. There
hangs round it a tradition of being both worthless and
repulsive, which is passed on from generation to genera-
tion of pupils, and which induces a prejudice at the very
first which is seldom overcome, and which, indeed, the
teaching too often is by no means calculated to overcome.
If a teacher would succeed he must adopt the line of
stimulating a felt need, and he will perhaps be wise to
drop the name 'grammar' altogether though he retain
the thing.

When a foreign language is learnt it should certainly
be learnt as a language, that is, as a means of vocal
communication of thought. When this is not done
there is, psychologically speaking, no learning of a
language at all. Much of the traditional teaching of

LEARNING FROM COMMUNICATION 367

Latin taught what had been a language in such a way
that it never became a language to the learners. Take
a boy trying to puzzle out the meaning of a Latin page
before him, on which the majority of the words are
unknown. What goes on in his mind ? He perceives
each word as a word. It would probably be impossible
to find in human life a nearer approach to pure percep-
tion, for these words which he can pronounce with more
or less accuracy raise in his mind no ideas. One by one
he seeks equivalent words in a Latin-English dictionary.
Often he writes them down without any apparent idea
that their combination is meant to convey a meaning.
I remember once asking a class of boys in a school I
was examining whether they supposed that boys had ever
used such words in their play, their quarrels, or their
lessons. They evidently thought me either insane to
imagine such a thing or a grim humorist who was trying
to see how foolish they could be. Anyway they were
not to be caught, and greeted the suggestion with
derision. Of course, in the same school the following
year I received a different answer ; but that was because
I had converted not the boys but the teacher. Probably
this was an extreme case ; the boys were young and had
never heard of Roman history. But it illustrates my
point that it is possible to teach what is technically a
language in such a way that it is not accepted as a
language by the learners.

If the guiding principle of teaching a language as a
language be borne in mind the method will be one that
will carry that language into the pupils' actual lives. It
will, therefore, take advantage of all they know in their
mother-tongue so far as it helps the mastery of the new
language. If they have studied English grammar it is

368 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

absurd to refuse to refer to grammatical relations ; if
they read English well so much the earlier can they with
profit begin to read French or German or Latin.

Further, the teaching will recognize that in internal
speech the constant and most important element is
incipient utterance of words, and that the memory of
language is essentially the acquisition of a motor habit.
Whether this be accompanied by a mental hearing of
the words, a mental image of them as written, or a visual
picture of something which exemplifies their meaning,
is accidental, in the sense that none of these things either
takes place in all minds or is necessary in any. Speech,
in short, should be taught as essentially spoken, not as
more or less artificially connected with a mental picture
gallery.

Nothing is worth learning which is not in some sense
worthy to be a permanent possession. In considering
this in connexion with personal experiences we saw that
the most important mode of retention is absorption in
a growing intellectual or physical aptitude. The experi-
ence does not retain an individuality for memory, but
we are richer than we should have been without it ; able
to act or to think more successfully. It is exactly the
same with those communicated experiences which we are
now considering. They enrich our lives if they are
really made part of our lives by imagination and thought,
warmed with that emotion without which they must
remain really outside us. Again, just as the individual
personal experiences which can be separately recalled
are those which for some reason had an exceptional
emotional value for us, so we best remember what we
were most interested in learning. If that interest be
very strong, one hearing or reading may be sufficient

LEARNING FROM COMMUNICATION 369

to enable us to recall an idea or a narrative. A child
really interested in an account of some heroic deed will
remember that deed probably for life, certainly for years.

Of course, items of knowledge which are thus retained
are not isolated. They are parts of organs of knowledge
in which many other less striking items have been more
or less completely absorbed. They are characteristic
features of such organs, and they have their value for us
in proportion as the systems of thought and feeling of
which they form parts are strong and active. In these
organs they are united with personal experiences to form
determining factors in our present and future lives.

Too often, however, learning at school has meant the
getting by rote of that which has in no way been taken
up into the life. Here, as we know well, much repeti-
tion is necessary, and even then the possession in neither
sure nor permanent. The explanation is very simple.
Learning by rote is little or nothing more than the for-
mation of a mechanical habit of utterance or of visualiz-
ing or of both combined, when the matter learnt is read
off from the mental picture. Like all such habits much
practice is needed to perfect it. Think how many times
one must throw a ball before one can send it unerringly
through a ring but little larger than itself, suspended a
couple of yards in front of one. This practice we should
not undertake unless for some reason we desired to attain
the skill. In much school learning such an incentive
is wanting. Many a boy, for instance, does not desire
to know the intricacies of Latin grammar, and he is only
induced to give the requisite practice in repeating
declensions and conjugations by quite extraneous
appeals. So, too, it is with lists of kings and queens
and dates, with statistics of population, heights of moun-
w. 2 A

370 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

tains, lengths of rivers, and all such scholastic rubbish.
These things are incapable of provoking interest because
by themselves they are devoid of meaning, and the child
has not within him the intellectual setting which alone
can give them life. Such learning is, then, a mechanical
process. It forms a habit which gradually dies away as
soon as the activity ceases to be practised. The decay
is obvious from the first, for every error is apparent
more clearly than it is in a similarly acquired activity
of movement only visible to sight. In a letter to The
Times1 objecting to compulsory Greek at Oxford, Mr
A. C. Benson incidentally gives a striking instance of
how far such mechanical acquirement may be, and
actually has been, carried: "The other night a parent
was telling me what his boy did to pass the Cambridge
Little-go. He was a boy with a gift for mechanical
science and a strong visualizing faculty. He learnt a
crib by heart, and he learnt the Greek interlined with the
crib, not as language at all, but as a series of meaningless
pictures or friezes. His careful tutor first eliminated
from his crib all pieces set in the two previous years, and
thus nearly upset the affair, because a piece was set of
which the first two lines were the last two lines of a
piece that had recently been set; so that when the boy
looked at the piece to his horror he could not recognize
the frieze ! However, after a moment he saw the well-
known forms a line or two further down, and at once
rolled off his lesson."

From the standpoint of efficiency such learning is

absolutely worthless. "To know by rote is not to

know" truly said Montaigne. Nor do observation and

experiment give any sure ground for believing that

1 Nov. z6th, 1910.

LEARNING FROM COMMUNICATION 371

such exercise strengthens even the power of learning by
rote. Certainly I myself was compelled to learn many
hundreds of dates in English history when I was a boy.
Equally certainly my power of recalling dates is abnorm-
ally small, and to the best of my remembrance it has
been so always ; assuredly ever since I reached man-
hood.

In rejecting such mechanical learning, however, I by
no means declare against all learning by heart. Two
conditions may be laid down — that what is so learnt is
needed and that it is understood. Under the former
head come all such things as the multiplication table,
spelling, and, generally, the merely executive elements in
our knowledge. Unless these are perfectly at command
thought is continually baffled. They are, indeed,
mechanical in their nature and should be made automatic
in their operation. But even they should be practised
in matter which has value and in ways which by their
variety evoke interest in the results they are the means
towards attaining.

Under ' need ' I would assuredly include beautiful
passages which, in Bacon's words, "serve for delight."
They are learnt with avidity if they give delight
now, and a wise teacher will choose no others. Real
poetry and beautiful prose-sayings do not lose either
their force or their savour as we grow older. On the
contrary we find in them ever more and more as experi-
ence gives them ever a wider setting. To them, too,
may be applied Emerson's words: "Nature and books
belong to the eyes that see them. It depends on the
mood of the man, whether he shall see the sunset or the
fine poem."1

1 Essay on Experience.

372 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

So we reach the negative rule that nothing should
be learnt by heart without justification. This means
more than that the teacher should not set such tasks
unnecessarily. It implies that he should be on his guard
lest his pupils learn by heart instead of thinking and
understanding. For, in early life at any rate, perceptual
activity is naturally preferred to conceptual. So boys
and girls find it easier to learn words by rote than to grasp
thoroughly the meaning those words should convey.
They will often, then, rest satisfied with that vague
apprehension of meaning which attends perceptual read-
ing, and which is all they get even when they read to
themselves unless they are taught and trained to think
what they read. They will repeat phrases and state-
ments, and even believe they understand them, just
because they have not critically examined their own
thought, and so do not know how superficial and imper-
fect it is. If, then, they are told to prepare a chapter
in a book they will, if not trained to do otherwise,
commit to memory as many of the striking phrases as
they can. The attempt at reproduction often shows
fantastic blunders.

" But though they wrote it all by rote,
They did not write it right." 1

Really, though in a sense it is natural to man to think,
yet it is only through much training that he deliberately
sets himself to think when he sees some easier way of
getting a simulacrum of knowledge. But of course,
without the awakening of thought there is no real
interest, just as without interest it is impossible to pro-
voke real thought. Thought is the means by which the

1 A. C. Hilton : The Vulture and the Husbandman.

LEARNING FROM COMMUNICATION 373

intellectual purpose given by interest strives to attain its
end.

Very little of what is learnt from books needs to be
verbally retained. Consequently it is a mistake to
encourage reproductions of the expressions of the book
or even of the order in which topics are there treated.
A reproduction in the pupil's own words, and centred
round a given thought, is the most valuable.

Thoughts by their very nature enter into relations
with other thoughts, for thinking is essentially a seeking
for relations. The more completely this is accomplished
in any mind the more fully is that mind able to bring out
of its treasury things new and old which are pertinent
to the actual situation. It follows that memory improves
with life. The common belief that it is strongest in
childhood is based on the restriction of ' memory ' to
the recall of specific items, especially of some definite
form of words. It is in the essential sense that memory
improves — the sense which sees in it the whole process
of the storing of experience, and the slow gathering of
wisdom and understanding. The power of memory in
life is shown much more in ripeness of judgement than
in facility of remembering items either of personal
experience or of knowledge derived from others. The
latter may be copious and yet the man be far from wise.
His acquired information has not entered into the life-
blood of his experience, which is his true memory.

Yet there are times when we do require to recall some
particular item, and, as we all know, we often are unable
to do so. Left to itself our train of ideas flows on in
reverie, unguided by any specific purpose and not limited
to any one topic. We cannot tell beforehand what line
our musings will follow. "The first line of a poem, if

374 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

I have previously read the poem, may suggest to me
the second line, by its relation of former contiguity ; it
may suggest, by resemblance of thought or language,
some similar line of another author ; it may suggest, by
contrast, some of those ludicrous images which constitute
parody ; or it may suggest some image in harmony with
its own subject, and some appropriate language with
which to invest it, as when it suggested to its author
the second line, and all the following lines of his poem." *

The extent to which we can determine these sugges-
tions is the extent to which we can command our
remembrances. It is an analogous case to solving
a new problem. The thoughts in our mind give us
many suggestions, and we choose among them one on
which we concentrate attention. This in turn raises
other suggestions from among which choice is again
made. Now, whether we are trying to solve a problem
or to remember something, we are able thus to select,
because the absence of the solution or of the remem-
brance is not a bare absence. It is an expectation, so
vague that we cannot see the solution, or recall what
we wish, and yet sufficiently definite in its general form
to negate suggestions which do not satisfy it. We all
know the strange elusiveness of the thought which we
cannot recall, but which, as we say, " is on the tip of our
tongue."

All we can do, then, when we try to recollect some-
thing we wish to recall is to select among our thoughts
that which this vague expectation best accepts, and to
dwell on it in the hope that, directly or indirectly, it
may mediate the recall we desire. When the recall
made we sometimes can, but more often cannot, specify

1 Brown : Philosophy of the Human A//W, lect. 42.

LEARNING FROM COMMUNICATION 375

all the successful suggestions. Especially do we fail to
do this when the recalled thought comes suddenly into
mind long after we have ceased to search for it and have
turned our minds to something else. If we could make
such an analysis of the process of recall as would lay bare
every detail of its working, we should have taken
a great step towards putting recollection in our own
power ; for to know exactly how suggestion has operated
would indicate to us how to set to work to secure such
operation in the future. Such a task is hopeless, for the
mode of connexion is different in every special case.
Our psychology can never cope with the rich complexity
of our mental lives.

However, inability to recall a separate item is seldom
of serious import. It may, indeed, be a temporary
inconvenience, as when one meets a person and cannot
recollect his name. But in the essential matters of life
it is not recall of particulars but organized and meditated
experience which counts.

CHAPTER XI
CRITICAL THOUGHT

EFFICIENCY of life means power to deal with the various
situations of life as they arise — to see what each requires
and how such requirements may best be met, to dis-
tinguish what is essential in it from what may be disre-
garded. In short, life is a continual solving of problems
of all degrees of difficulty in all spheres of human
activity, moral, practical, and intellectual. Nor, especi-
ally in moral and practical matters, can time always, or
even generally, be spared for pondering over various
possibilities. We must often act at once, or action will
be of no use. Yet, unless that action be guided by
knowledge and insight into the circumstances it is more
than possible that it will be disastrous. Soundness of
judgement, or practical intelligence, must be an immediate
perception of the nature of the call made upon us, carry-
ing with it the expectation of how acts of our own will
modify the situation. This is a work of skill, for skill
is trained capacity to do the right thing in the right way
at the right time, whether the doing be bodily or mental.
In this aspect of life we find the justification of the old
Greek view that living is a fine art.

When we examine skill in living more closely we see
that it is at once knowledge and active intelligence.
Intelligence faces the present with the guidance derived

CRITICAL THOUGHT 377

from the stored experience of the past. The more nearly
that experience corresponds to the present position the
more immediately can the nature of the action required
be discerned. So a boy finds no difficulty in solving a
mathematical problem of the same general kind as many
others which he has already solved. So, too, we act
almost automatically in the customary affairs of life. It
is when there is something new and strange in the
occasion which calls for our action that we have to
deliberate and weigh possible alternative courses against
each other.

Even here it is plain that the suggestion of courses
is altogether determined by our experience of possi-
bilities. We seek some analogy in the past to guide us
in the present. Not that we stickle for a precedent in
the same strict sense as is demanded in constitutional and
legal matters, for our decision will not form a general
rule for the future guidance of others. Yet it is only
in our past experience that we can find anything to throw
light on our present needs.

The pondering on what we are to do causes suggestion
after suggestion to come before us. It is not a mere
matter of memory, for then we recognize at once which
suggestions fit the case. Here we have to look forward
into circumstances which are not yet real, to see in
imagination the result of an action, to harmonize it
with principles which we accept as true. In a word, we
have to weigh and compare various suggestions, reject-
ing at last all but one. This we may do on several
grounds. We may be swayed by the emotions and
passions of the moment, by our own present wishes,, or
by the persuasions of others. Or we may try to estimate
critically the alternative courses and to come to a decision.

378 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

on more permanent grounds than those of present feeling
and impulse. This is, of course, the only safe course
to take in cases which are really difficult. I do not mean
at all that in such deliberation intellectual considerations
should be regarded as the only determinants of rational
conduct. Due weight should be given to such factors
as sense of duty, social solidarity, emotional bonds.
Man is not mere intellect, and all attempts to regulate
his life by purely intellectual principles are doomed to
ultimate failure, and during the time they are accepted
yield an abundant crop of human trouble and sorrow.
The abstract economic theory which dominated much of
English economic and political life in the first half of the
nineteenth century furnishes a case in point. Looking
only at the economic side of life it assumed individual
material self-interest as the one motive-power of men.
So long as one keeps to its abstractions its conclusions
follow as certainly as do those of mathematics. But
they have even less relation to actual life, in which the
motives to action are very various and in which men do
not exist as independent competitive units.

Sound judgement in human affairs, then, means an
active intelligence which, as far as it can see them, tries
to take account of all the factors, and to allow each its
due weight. Such mental alertness is a habit, and grows
in efficiency by practice. Like other habits also, it decays
if not in constant activity, and in its place we have a
slavish following of precedent, or acting blindly accord-
ing to rule without regard to changes in the conditions
under which the act is to be done. The efficient mind
is avid of new experiences which will bring new know-
ledge. To learn is as essential to it as to breathe, to
act on its learning as necessary as bodily movement.

CRITICAL THOUGHT 379

This mental activity is shown in various forms. We
do not all seek fresh knowledge in the same direction.
Our search is governed by our interests, which are them-
selves the outcome of our experiences acting on our
original capacities. Some there are, indeed, whose
original capacity is so strong that it breaks through even
the most incompatible surroundings, and, disregarding
the experiences intended for it, seeks others that will
satisfy the crying needs of the inborn genius. But in
the majority of persons the dominant interests of life
are not so inexorably decided by nature. There is,
doubtless, in every individual a bias towards one class
of experiences rather than another, but the development
of the personal aptitude depends much upon whether
occasions for its exercise be provided for it. It takes
them, but it does not imperatively demand them.

Further, however strong may be one's special bent,
the satisfaction of it cannot fill the whole of life. If,
indeed, it fill too large a proportion of our thoughts,
and govern too exclusively our actions, we become
narrow specialists, whose special work itself will suffer
from its isolation from the rest of the field of experience.
In the conduct of life we need wide and varied knowledge
both of men and of things, or many are the practical
mistakes we shall make.

It follows that as education seeks to prepare for life
it should secure a wide range of knowledge, both for
its direct bearing on life's problems and because only so
can occasion be given for calling out the special interests
of a number of pupils taught together. But it follows
with equal truth that this knowledge must really enter
into experience so as to form organs adapted to meet
and deal with a variety of calls. We may try to give

380 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

knowledge and intellectual skill apart from each other,
and to some extent we may succeed. But neither is real
and fruitful. Knowledge which does not light our path
gives us no help in difficulty ; it is at best a source of
delight in times of ease : skill which has no material of
knowledge to work upon is only a kind of conjuror's
adroitness applied to ideas specially made for its purposes.

Mind does not grow by its own activity, nor by what
it absorbs, but by its own working ; and working implies
both activity and material. Its growth is gradual and
continuous, nor can we lay the whole process bare. We
judge the stage it has reached by the kind of problems
it attacks and by the kind of solutions it suggests.

A young child often asks ' ' Why ? " but it is satisfied
with any kind of answer, for its brief and meagre
experience does not enable it to test the answer critically
by other and pertinent knowledge. So, too, its very
lack of knowledge allows its interest to be satisfied
almost as soon as it is awakened, and it turns its enquiries
towards the next thing that arrests it. Indeed, in early
years there is no true seeking for knowledge, but only
a preliminary glance at what there is to know.

So, too, there is no power to determine conduct except
in customary circumstances, where adherence to simple
rule or the following of impulse enables the child to act
without seeking special guidance. Often he finds he has
made a mistake, and that what he has done is condemned.
By such experiences he gradually builds up a greater
skill in acting so as to win the approval of those he loves.
This means that he is becoming more critical of his
impulses, and is learning to try them at the bar of con-
science by the regulations laid down by authority. A
further advance is marked by a growing power of

CRITICAL THOUGHT 381

adapting the interpretation and application of the rules
to more varied cases, and consequently an increasing
insight into both the motives and the consequences of
various modes of behaviour. A much later stage is the
explicit study of the rules and maxims he has hitherto
received, so as to determine their real meaning and scope.
This can hardly be effectively entered upon much prior
to adolescence. The ultimate stage of criticism of the
rules themselves — trying them by some more ultimate
standard and affirming, modifying, or rejecting, them —
requires for its profitable undertaking a fullness of
experience, a ripeness of judgement, and a control of
passion, which are not to be attained before manhood.

Growth in judgement, then, is marked by increasing
depth of comprehension. This can result only from
increasing power to keep the same topic before the mind ;
so that, perhaps, the most obvious sign of mental growth
is extension of the period during which the attention is
concentrated in one line of interest, and the frequency
with which it returns to it after any distraction. For
strength of interest is not to be gauged merely by the
concentration of attention at the moment, but yet more
by its recurrent power.

Increase in the duration of attention implies that the
object attended to becomes more and more full of
challenge to the mind. For when there is no question
to answer there is nothing to which to attend. Thus
there is increasing richness in suggestion from past
experience ; more analogies occur to the mind, more
meaning is in the thought. It is this, indeed, which
leads to the fuller comprehension, for every such sugges-
tion is an expectation prompting to its own realization.
But some of them prove unacceptable, impossible, or

382 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

inconsistent with what is already known. So grows that
power of discrimination and choice of suggestions as
deserving further trial in which the child is so deficient
and which in the skilled worker in any department has
become almost automatic. An expert student of science
seeking an explanation of an observed phenomenon
rejects many suggestions before they have really taken
form in his thought. Their unsuitability is felt, and so
need not be thought. But the immediacy of the rejec-
tion is the effect of skill, perfected by long practice, and
involving both abundant pertinent knowledge which is
taken for granted and the trained intelligence which
can act on this knowledge without making it explicit,
or, indeed, in many cases, implicit.

This power of critical discrimination can only act in
the material in which it has grown ; for its very essence
is the immediate feeling of incompatibility or compati-
bility with knowledge which is taken for granted or is, at
most, implicit. If that knowledge be small, the judge-
ment has no guarantee of soundness. No matter how
perfectly one has been trained in mathematics, in the
grammar of the classical languages, or in some branch
of physical science, yet that training can not fit one to
decide justly in matters in which one is devoid of this
organ of knowledge. It is because this concrete nature
of mental criticism has not been recognized that it has
been believed that the judgement is a faculty independent
of knowledge.

In so far as education is the training of sound judge-
ment it obviously continues throughout life. After our
days of formal education by others we must take up the
task ourselves. For it is very evident that compara-
tively little progress can have been made by the time

CRITICAL THOUGHT 383

the days of formal education are over, even when they
are extended to the university stage ; while for the vast
numbers of children, whose real training by others ceases
at thirteen or fourteen, only the first steps can have been
taken. So we must not say that it is the duty of the
school to form a sound judgement, but only to begin that
formation in such a way that it may be continued on
right lines. Children of school age have but little know-
ledge and but little intellectual skill. The question
whether that knowledge and skill are to atrophy after
school days are over or are to continue to grow in a sane
and healthy way is of the utmost importance. Growth
there will certainly be, but it may be distorted, and in
consequence lead to a useless or, possibly, a mischievous
life.

Evidently the direction growth will take is a matter
of interest and habitude. A teaching which ensures that
the learning shall be the real work of the mind which
learns, that the learner shall test his own advances, and
that he shall be accustomed to detecting and rejecting
the errors to which the human intelligence is most prone,
will gradually develop a cautious and critical attitude,
and cultivate an interest in really seeing the bearings of
things.

Without the guidance of teaching, such learning could
make, at the best, but a very small advance. It is only
when a challenge from without is felt that mind turns
its activity in that special direction. Such a challenge
appears as something novel and strange. But mind has
an almost unlimited power of becoming accustomed to
its own surroundings. These are full of matters not
understood, though every one of them is a possible
problem. They do not become actual problems till in

384 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

some way they interfere with our activity. Intelligence
first develops within the scope of instinct when an
instinctive movement is in some way hindered, or an
instinctive impulse disappointed. And afterwards in-
telligence works only when automatism fails. If we
were left throughout life to such accidental spurs to
curiosity our enquiries would go but a little way.
Indeed, the very superficial character of our understand-
ing of most of our material surroundings is sufficient
proof of this. The most familiar is often the most
imperfectly known. How many of us, for example, can
say off-hand how many steps there are in the flight of
stairs up and down which we pass many times a day ?

Most of the challenges to enquiry come to us from
others, and come in many ways. Imitation, from our
present point of view, is an enquiry into the reason and
the value of an act we have seen done by another. The
ordering of our lives while we are young is full of such
implicit challenges to us to understand why we are so
ruled. These, however, are desultory and unsystematic,
and the mental alertness which they awaken is easily
satisfied. The very essence of definite teaching is con-
tinually to challenge the mind of the learner by showing
him problems which it is worth his while, and within
his power, to solve. In this way instruction fulfils its
educative task of accelerating and improving that
development and growth of intelligence, which without
it would be arrested at a much earlier stage than that
which it may reach with this external stimulus.

Instruction, then, fulfils its true task only when its
pupils grow in real intelligence; that is, both in the desire
and in the power to solve increasingly difficult problems
of conduct and of knowledge. That this has not always

CRITICAL THOUGHT 385

been the outcome of school instruction is but too certain.
Instruction which does not develop intelligence must,
in one way or another, hinder its growth, simply
because the school occupies so much of a child's time
and determines so largely the mental habits he forms.
An instruction which takes no account of its pupils' felt
needs, which compels instead of inciting, develops
stupidity instead of intelligence. For stupidity is the
opposite of intelligence. It is the lack of both the wish
and the ability to solve problems whether of life or of
thought. The stupid person fails very often even to
see that there is a problem, for his mind is not alert and
so it does not notice how this situation differs from
previous ones. In practical matters he acts on rule or
on impulse. In intellectual matters he cannot be con-
vinced, because he cannot see the force of arguments
which make against his own wishes or preconceptions.
Or he is frivolous and flippant, and can interest himself
in nothing which demands real thought. In any case
there is an absence of critical power, and this absence is
exactly proportioned to the degree of stupidity.

No doubt stupidity may be innate, and, in some
degree, it frequently is. But when we meet a stupid
person it is impossible to say how the responsibility for
his dullness should be shared between nature and nurture.
"There is abundant evidence that a child of normal
capacity may be trained to a degree of stupidity resemb-
ling innate feeble-mindedness, or to a degree of wrong-
headedness resembling insanity, or, on the other hand,
to a degree of intelligence which, relatively speaking,
resembles genius." ]

The normal child is the material with which the
1 Archdall Reid : The Laws of Heredity, p. 477.

3 86 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

educator has most commonly to deal. Of course, there
are an indefinitely large number of gradations within
the range of normal capacity, and it is impossible to lay
down the precise boundaries which, on the one hand,
mark off the genius, and, on the other, the fool. A
school failure, then, is a far more important matter than
a paucity of remembered facts. It is an unfitting for
life. Nor is there then any remedy. A school must
cultivate either intelligence or stupidity : in so far as it
fails to do the one it assuredly does the other.

Though teaching accelerates development it does not
change its course. This is where the unintentional
cultivation of stupidity so often comes in. Lessons fail
to evoke desire, either because they present matter out-
side the range of natural — that is, possible — interest, or
because they either confuse learning by rote with think-
ing, or actually regard the former as the right mode of
acquisition. This is only to say that teaching is mis-
chievous when it is not the application of psychological
knowledge. The application may be implicit, or the
teacher may be so familiar with the working of his pupils'
minds that the psychology can be taken for granted.
That, indeed, is when it is most effective. Skill
in teaching does not differ from other forms of skill in
its practically automatic use of the knowledge most
essential to it.

There is no need to repeat the analysis of the mode
in which knowledge which is also intelligence grows.
Suffice it to recall its essential features. It is throughout
an individual work. A teacher can make his pupil say
the same words as he says, but he cannot in the same
way make him think the same thoughts. The test of
that cannot be found in the pupil's words ; it must be

CRITICAL THOUGHT 387

looked for in his deeds, mental or physical. So, too,
it is throughout a process in which everything that can
be made the explicit object of attention must first be
implicit in some whole which is explicitly attended to.
Thus, all advance in understanding is an advance towards
systematic knowledge. Relations between objects of
perception are at first implicit, and are next explicitly
thought as holding in the case or cases studied, then
generalized and thought as holding between all such
objects. For instance, a child strikes a match to get a
light long before he explicitly thinks of the striking as
an efficient cause of the lighting. That may become
explicit to him if he want to strike a match but can find
no suitable rough surface handy. If left to himself he will
probably generalize that all matches will light by striking
on a rough surface, but only implicitly and practically ;
that is, he will so proceed whenever he wishes to light a
match. But if a definite question be put to him as to
how to light a match he will at once explicitly state his
generalization. So far there has been no critical thought.
If now he try to strike a safety match on a rough
surface which has not been suitably prepared he fails to
achieve the desired result. What happens ? If left to
himself, and if he cannot light it after several trials, he
probably assumes that the match has something wrong
with it, and throws it away. If, however, someone ask
him why the match did not light, then a problem is
placed before him which to some extent he can solve.
It may be assumed that he cannot make a chemical
analysis either of the match or of various surfaces, and
that, moreover, he has not the preparatory chemical
knowledge of the constituents required to secure lighting
without which such analysis would be meaningless and

388 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

unguided. But he can suggest certain reasons on the
level of his knowledge and intelligence, such as — the
match might be wet, or there must be something peculiar
in a surface on which striking it produces a light. He
can also test these suppositions ; the former one fully,
the latter one sufficiently to attain practical certainty.
For he can ensure that the match is dry, and finding that
still it will not light on ordinary rough surfaces he rejects
the first suggested explanation of his previous failure.
Then, by trying many rough surfaces, including that
provided by the match-box, he is satisfied by the evidence
that there is some peculiarity in that surface. Comparison
with the striking of an ordinary match will lead him to
the further conclusion that there is also a peculiarity in
the safety match itself, and that the two peculiarities
work together and are related to each other. Another
problem may thus be presented by the difference between
the striking of a safety match and that ot an ordinary
match, and he may infer, reasonably enough, that in
some way these two peculiarities are combined in the
ordinary match.

So far we keep close to the perceptual and practical
level. Though we are dealing with general relations
we are presenting them in one concrete case. That
further problems are left unsolved is evident, for the
nature of the peculiarities has not been investigated.
Nor could a child at the early age assumed profitably
investigate them. That this is so is shown, indeed, by
the fact that though he may recognize that this further
enquiry might be made he has no desire to make it. He
has carried explanation as far as he is capable of using it.
His general knowledge and his general idea of explana-
tion must be much more fully developed before he tries

CRITICAL THOUGHT 389

to go further. In this special case, as in many others,
the great majority of people never do attempt to attain
a more perfect explanation.

Only so far as a mind is set to test its own suggestions,
either by comparison with what it already knows or
by a comparison of its own results with independent
facts, is it trained in critical thought, or learning to
estimate evidence. Here is a fruitful source of scholastic
error. For a young man it is certain that physical
science is a most valuable mental discipline. In study-
ing it he not only acquires knowledge which plays an
increasingly important part in modern life, but his learn-
ing can, and should, be throughout a solving of problems,
and a testing of his own suggestions. To assume that
the subject will have the same value for mere boys is to
ignore the essential differences between the stages of
development reached by the two classes of pupils.

A boy's suggestions are mere guesses at truth,
flowing naturally from the tendency of the undeveloped
mind to generalize every one of its experiences — a ten-
dency due to the fact that differences have not been
thought explicitly. To allow such guessing is to train
in uncritical thought, that is, in the acceptance of any
evidence which first comes to hand, without enquiry
into its relevancy or adequacy. Yet, if the guessing be
not permitted, the generalizations must be given by the
teacher simply as statements of fact. If it be urged that
generalizations should be excluded altogether, the answer
is that this is hardly possible, and, if it were, the root of
the objection would not be met. For such exclusion
would reduce the aim of the teaching to the formal one
of making the observations of the children more exhaus-
tive and more precise. This is to secure the learning of

390 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

mere facts, and it must be insisted that unrelated facts
are equally valueless whether learnt from observation or
gathered from the speech of another. Facts, as facts,
are only mental lumber, no matter whence the knowledge
of them is derived. Only as they can be thought into
a growing system of knowledge are they of any worth.

It is because it is hard to teach thinking and easy
to teach facts that schools have often cultivated stupidity
instead of intelligence. "The best of all teachers is one
who does not merely state, nor even explain, the relations
between facts, thereby doing little more than adding new
facts to the rest, but who so guides his pupils that they
are led to do their own thinking and make their own
discoveries." l It is true that all teachers cannot become
"the best," but all can teach on the lines which lead to
that pre-eminence.

Stupidity may, then, be directly cultivated by making
a full memory of facts the one thing needful in school.
It may be cultivated nearly as readily by calling for no
real effort on the part of the pupils. This is a very
prominent danger in the present day. The popular con-
fusion between interest and recreative amusement,
combined with an unduly low estimate of children's
powers and a kindly desire to avoid intellectual over-
pressure, is responsible for much wasting of time and
strength, and for much failure to train both character and
intelligence. Intellectual over-pressure doubtless is
possible, either because the memory of too many facts
or the second-hand acquirement of too many demonstra-
tions is demanded. But when the work is the solving
of problems felt as such by the mind of the learner, intel-
lectual over-pressure is scarcely possible with the young,
1 Archdall Reid : op. cit., 481.

CRITICAL THOUGHT 391

who are over-pressed from without, not from within.
It is bad learning, not too much learning, which causes
over-pressure ; and the over-pressure is then itself a sign
of relative stupidity : it means that the mind fails to deal
with what is presented to it. It is over-loaded because
it is not nourished and exercised.

The calling for effort, however, must be for effort
which is possible. Nothing develops stupidity more
readily than a conviction of stupidity, and this soon arises
when the problems set are outside the range of the child's
powers. Unhappily it is not superfluous to remark that
for the teacher ever to express a judgement of stupidity
is often unjust and always unwise. The apparent
stupidity may be the result of bad teaching — bad in not
being adapted to that individual capacity, if for no other
reason. Moreover, it may be only apparent, and in any
case its one possible cure is hopeful effort. To assure a
boy that he is dull discourages and impedes his efforts.
If the assurance is believed the child is injured for life,
for the very spring of effective action is weakened in him.

Educative effort is, therefore, proportioned to the
pupil's strength. On the one hand, the requirements of
learning should not be so small that he can master his
lessons without real work, nor, on the other, so large
that he stands confused and helpless before them. Here
is one of the chief practical difficulties of teaching. It
is easy enough to lay down an abstract rule of graduation
according to strength, but the virtue of such a rule — as
of all educational maxims — lies in its application. No
matter how well a teacher knows his pupils, it is not an
easy task to arrange that while one is not left to the
frivolity of what to him is mere intellectual child's play,
another is not asked for efforts beyond his powers and

392 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

which, therefore, he cannot put forth. To set always
the same intellectual problems to a whole class, or to
expect the same type of solutions from all its members,
is to secure one, if not both, of these evils.

All teaching which does not stimulate real and careful
thinking makes for stupidity. It may be the stupidity
which in later life shows itself in obstinate prejudice.
Often this euphemistically disguises itself under the
name of conscience, or of party loyalty. Its essence is
that the mind is closed against all considerations which
oppose its belief. Even facts must give way before it,
or at any rate the record of unpalatable facts is not
accepted. "The testimony is, in the receiver's mind,
of a low order ; the proposer is a radical, and the receiver
is of opinion that a radical would pick a pocket ; or else,
perhaps, the proposer is a tory, and the receiver is of the
belief that a tory must have picked a pocket."1

Such an attitude of mind takes conviction as a test of
truth, ignoring the fact that others hold exactly the
opposite view with equally firm assurance. This form
of stupidity is the natural outcome of too dogmatic a
teaching. It is not merely that the teacher sets forth
what he believes to be true, but that he encourages no
investigation into the evidence on which that conviction
rests. Such investigation is not a questioning of the
truth itself. When a child who has learnt by various
measurements certain geometrical relations is led to seek
for the evidence on which he may safely believe that those
relations hold universally, he is not questioning their
truth. Owing to the immaturity of the young and their
little knowledge and experience their questionings must
usually take this form. The attitude which is critical
1 De Morgan : Formal Logic, p. 263.

CRITICAL THOUGHT 393

not only towards evidence but towards generally accepted
truths comes later, when it comes at all.

Yet it is good for even boys and girls to know that
in many matters there is much to be said on both sides :
in other words, that all opinions are not guaranteed
truths. Immersed as they are in a definite social
atmosphere, in which certain views of life and conduct
are accepted as matters of course, they are, of necessity,
growing a fine crop of prejudices. It is of no use to
trust that the study of some rigidly demonstrative sub-
ject, such as mathematics, will cultivate a suspicion of
ungrounded assumptions in matters of life and conduct.
It is just because mathematics is so rigid that the form
of reasoning cultivated by it is not easy to apply to the
affairs of life, and when it is applied is more likely to
lead us wrong than right. In this it is like formal logic.
Life is too full and complex to be expressed in syllogisms
So it is that quite reasonable people feel a distrust of
such logic. They recognize that inevitable as its con-
clusions may be on the assumption of the truth and
adequacy of its premises, yet that truth and adequacy
generally cannot be granted. For example, setting forth
with the assumption that cheapness is the greatest
economic good, the advocates of Free Trade argue that
competition open to the whole world will secure the
greatest cheapness ; that, therefore, there should be no
hindering custom duties. On the other hand, those who
advocate the imposition of import duties urge that abun-
dance of regular employment is the greatest economic
good, that such duties would encourage home produc-
tion and so would necessarily increase employment ;
therefore, that such duties should be levied. Each
syllogism seems irresistible when taken alone and in

394 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

detachment from the actual conditions of life. Yet we
know that each conclusion is rejected by many of those
who have really studied the subject. Of course, those
who merely shout on the one side or the other because
these matters have been made party cries simply
exemplify the evil influence of prejudice. They count
not at all at the bar of reason ; only at that of the polls.

When we ask why either of these syllogisms fails to
convince an opponent we find the first answer to be that
its assumptions are not granted. The two major pre-
mises are obviously incompatible, and each of the minors
may be disputed. The advocates of duties may urge that
cheapness ultimately results from supply being in some
excess of demand, and that if the imposition of import
duties increase production at home it is quite possible
that this increase may more than compensate for the
foreign goods excluded. Or, on the other hand, the
free traders may argue that duties by decreasing import
trade would necessarily decrease the export trade which
pays for it, that it is the export trade which gives most
employment to our manufactures, and, therefore, that
such duties would decrease employment. This is not
the place to work out all the possible ramifications even
of the economic arguments, and even if we did so the
matter would still be unsettled, for no account would
have been taken of national or imperial sentiment.

In such a case we feel that abstract arguments are
mainly of worth for overthrowing an adversary, and that
in this they are most effective when we first provide him
hypothetically with the arguments we then proceed to
refute. So it is in all that concerns the real affairs of
life. Strictly logical argument is always abstract ; life
is always concrete.

CRITICAL THOUGHT 395

It does not follow that the rigid reasoning rightly
called logical should be omitted from teaching ; only
that it should be confined to matter to which it is really
applicable, and that its abstract and hypothetical character
should be made plain. It is abstract in that it takes no
account of any conditions which may interfere in reality
with the aspect or relation it is examining. It is hypo-
thetical in that its whole validity rests on certain assump-
tions. To be clearly conscious of all we assume is neither
usual nor easy. For example, the recognition that any
assumptions have been made is often a real difficulty
with children in solving geometrical problems or estab-
lishing geometrical theorems. Good teaching makes a
point of laying bare every assumption and of enquiring
into its justification.

So, too, the abstract character both of a strictly logical
process and of its conclusions should be made quite
explicit. The laws of motion, for example, are never
really proved directly. Friction and the resistance of
the air always interfere. But it can be seen that the
more these are reduced the nearer the actual concrete
results approach the hypothetical results of the abstract
laws. Further, that from the assumption of the truth of
these laws consequences can be deduced to which again
experiment yields approximation in proportion as inter-
fering agents are excluded. Thus it may be made plain
that real concrete cases only approach the theoretical
result, and that the degree of nearness could be calculated
if we could measure the influence of all the interfering
conditions. Then the use of delicate instruments
becomes more apparent.

In such a process of learning the pupil criticizes first his
theoretical result, then his experiments, then the actual

396 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

result they yield. Throughout he is trying to seek
explanation, not in the loose sense of a broad and un-
tested generalization, but in the application of such
a generalization to facts. He does not doubt the law,
but he examines critically the evidence which supports it.
When, before working an experiment he predicts the
result, not in general terms but with precision, he recog-
nizes that his prediction is only probable, and that the
degree of its probability depends on the accuracy with
which he has gauged all the operative forces.

Now, reasoning in concrete affairs is always of this
probable character, and when the matter includes men
and women as factors the task of setting forth all the
conditions and estimating each at its true value is one
which cannot be performed with precision. True, the
mathematical theory of probability can deal with cases
where all the possible alternatives can be known, as in
the tossing of a coin or the casting of a die. But we
cannot express human motives and deeds in fractions.
All we can say as evidence accumulates in support of a
certain proposition is that it becomes increasingly prob-
able, till a degree of likelihood is reached which we
commonly speak of as practical certainty, because it is
universally regarded as a sufficient ground for action.
"It is by the strength, variety, or multiplicity of pre-
mises, which are only probable, not by well-connected
syllogisms, — by objections overcome, by adverse theories
neutralized, by difficulties gradually clearing up, by
exceptions proving the rule, by unlooked-for correlations
found for received truths, by suspense and delay in the
process issuing in triumphant reactions, — by all these
ways, and many others, the practised and experienced
mind is able to make a sure divination that a conclusion is

CRITICAL THOUGHT 397

inevitable, of which his lines of reasoning do not actually-
put him in possession. This is what is meant by a pro-
position being 'as good as proved5, a conclusion as
undeniable ' as if it were proved ', and the reasons for it
'amounting to a proof1, for a proof is the limit of
probabilities." l

In what way do schools begin to train the young in
the estimation of such evidence as this? Generally, it
is to be feared, the answer would be discouraging. Yet
I do not doubt that, even in primary schools, very valuable
work can be done, mainly in connexion with the reading
of books. The general mental attitude of the unprac-
tised reader towards a book is one of receptive successive
understanding ; the efforts of the learner are directed
towards remembering the whole as fully as possible.
This attitude becomes habitual unless some stimulus
awaken the mind to the recognition that "some books
are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few
to be chewed and digested ; that is, some books are to be
read only in parts ; others to be read, but not curiously ;
and some few to be read wholly, and with diligence and
attention." 2

Such stimulus it is the teacher's function to supply.
When a passage in a book of Bacon's last class is to be
studied it should not simply be given out for reading
but the reading should be made a search for the answers
to questions set by the teacher — questions which cannot
be answered by merely copying a sentence or two from
the book. The search for such answers trains the pupil
to have a definite object in reading and so to put forth a
more complete activity, to distinguish between what is

1 J. H. Newman : The Grammar of Assent, p. 314.

2 Bacon : Essay on Studies.

398 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

important for the purpose in hand and what is unessential,
and so to get an idea of what constitutes evidence. The
answering is a far surer test of what has really been learnt
than is a reproduction of the whole, which may result
from an activity little more than perceptual.

In his very suggestive book, Studies in the Teaching
of History, Mr. Keatinge has given a number of
examples of this kind of exercise applied to extracts from
original historical documents, and in several places he
has reproduced the actual answers written by pupils of
thirteen years of age and upwards. The variety of
problems that may be suggested is very great. After the
pupils have learnt to find an answer to a direct question
they may be set to estimate the worth of a piece of
evidence by considering whether the writer shows party
bias. For example, it is an easy matter, and one within
the power of children of twelve or thirteen, to discover
the nationality and the profession of the writer from the
following extract from Roger of Wendover's Flowers of
History, of course given to the pupils anonymously :

"Very grievous indeed was the downfall of our dear country
England. ... As aforetime on the inroads of the Danes, so now on
the expulsion of the English by the Normans, the destruction of the
people of the land was for the punishment of their sins ; for the
nobles, becoming enslaved to extravagance and the luxuries of the
table, did not according to Christian custom seek the church of a
morning. . . . The clergy too, and others in orders, were so wanting
in learning that one who had learnt grammar was an object of
wonder to all the rest ; all classes were alike given to drinking, and
in this pursuit they spent days as well as nights. . . . However, these
bad reports are not to be understood as referring to everybody." J

A direct problem suited for somewhat older pupils would
be to find the purpose and the mode of the constitution

1 From Illustrative History : Mediaeval Period, p. i .

CRITICAL THOUGHT 399

of the parliament of 1265 from the following translation
of an extract from Stubbs' Select Charters :

" Henry, by the grace of God king of England, lord of Ireland,
and duke of Aquitaine, to the venerable father in Christ, Robert, by
the same grace bishop of Durham, greeting. Since after the grave
occurrences of disturbance which have long prevailed in our realm,
our dearest first-born son Edward has been given as a hostage for
securing and confirming peace in our dominions, and as the said
disturbance, blessed be God, is abated — for providing deliverance in
a healthful manner for the same and confirming and thoroughly
completing full security of tranquillity and peace to the honour of
God and the profit of our whole kingdom, as well as concerning
divers other matters which we are unwilling to decide without your
counsel and that of the other prelates and magnates of our realm,
it is needful that we have speech with them. We command you,
desiring you by the faith and love by which you are bound to us
that, putting aside all excuse and other business, you will be with
us in London on the octave of St. Hilary next, to treat and to give
your advice on the said matters with the prelates and barons whom
we shall summon thither. . . .

Also it is commanded all the sheriffs of England that they cause
two knights from the loyal, honest, and discreet knights of each shire
to come to the King at London as said above. Also in the same
form it is written to the citizens of York, the citizens of Lincoln, and
to other towns of England, that they should send in the said form
two of the discreet, loyal, and honest citizens and burgesses." *

Other problems would be to sketch the plan of a battle
from one account, or from a comparison of several
accounts. Mr. Keatinge gives instances, too long to
quote, in which the pupils were set to determine the plans
of the battles of Bannockburn and Poitiers from several
divergent accounts, thus receiving a direct training in
estimating the value of evidence.2

1 Ibid., pp. 102-103.

2 See Studies in the Teaching of History, pp. 67-78.

400 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

Exercises in comparison of evidence should not be
given till some degree of expertness has been attained
in more direct work. They should, however, never be
omitted. The tendency to believe everything which
appears in print, combined with the bias which keeps a
man from reading anything which is opposed to his
party views, is the foundation of the pernicious
influence of party hacks of the baser sort, and accen-
tuates the evils which a general power to read should
mitigate.

That even eye-witnesses may in all honesty give
accounts of the same scene which differ a good deal even
on important points can often be illustrated from school
life. A simple exercise will, however, bring home the
treachery of memory quite definitely. Let the teacher
read in private to one pupil a fairly long anecdote, and
then request him to write it out as accurately as possible,
and desire him not to communicate with any of his class-
mates on the subject. Let his written account be then
read privately to the next boy and the same instructions
be given to him, and so on till every boy has written
what he remembers of what was read to him, each exer-
cise being numbered according to its place in the series.
We then have a series of versions, each of which was de-
rived only from the preceding one and was the sole source
of that which follows it. The reading to the whole class
of the original story and of the last reproduction will bring
home to its members with irresistible force that despite
their efforts to be exact, much alteration has been actually
made in the story. This will help them to conceive a
very healthy distrust of rumour and common report. If
it be desired, the gradual rise of the error can be traced
by comparing the exercises in order, but if this be done

CRITICAL THOUGHT 401

great care must be taken not to throw suspicion on the
good faith of any individual.

Let it not be thought that this would be a waste of
time. The lesson in the need of a critical attitude
towards testimony is invaluable. From many careful
examinations of depositions made upon oath M. Binet
concludes that " it is established that when the deposition
is made in good faith it is never entirely false, but only
contains false details ; neither is it ever entirely exact from
beginning to end. There is always a mixture of truth
and error ; and if the amount of error may become very
small in many cases yet it hardly ever falls to zero ; and
all the witnesses who have been tested are found to have
affirmed upon oath false facts, in a proportion which may
be approximately put at twenty-five per cent."1 To
bring home to our pupils that the most perfect good faith
cannot be taken as absolute proof of accuracy of state-
ment is an admirable corrective to the natural feeling
that to doubt a piece of evidence in any one point is to
reject it as a whole, and to throw a doubt on the honesty
of its author.

To lead them by further comparison to see that bias
will colour statements — whether consciously or uncon-
sciously need not be determined, for that is a matter of
indifference in estimating the value of evidence — is still
more to put their minds in that alert attitude which alone
even attempts to sift the reports and current statements
which play so large a part in our lives. A simple exercise
of this kind would be to seek probable truth from a
comparison of the two following extracts, the pupils
knowing that the first is from a letter of one of the
most zealous of English bishops to the Pope, and the
1 Les idles modemes sur let enfants, p. 189.

XV. -,

402 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

second from a satirical poem written about a century later
and intended rather to expose abuses than to paint a
scrupulously fair and accurate picture —

A. From a letter of Bishop Grosseteste to Pope Gregory IX.
" Your Holiness may know of a surety that inestimable service hath
been done in my diocese by the aforesaid brethren \t.e. the Friars],
For they enlighten our whole land with the bright light of preaching
and doctrine. . . . O that your Holiness could see how devotedly
and humbly the people run to hear the word of life, to confess their
sins, to be instructed in the rules for daily life, how much profit the
clergy and the monks take from the imitation of them ; you would
immediately declare that to them that dwell in the shadow of death
hath the light shined."

B. From Langland's Piston of Piers Plowmen;.
" I found there Friars all the four orders,
Who preached to the people for profit of themselves,
And glozed the gospel as seemed good to them,
And for covetousness of copes construed it as they wished.
Many of these Master-Friars may clothe themselves as they please,
For their money and their merchandise march together."1

It is not only in history that material for training
in the critical consideration of evidence may be found.
Travellers' tales furnish similar problems, especially when
an earlier is compared with a later writer, and the question
arises how far the differences may be due to the lapse of
time. In solving such problems the pupils should always
be encouraged to bring to bear all of their knowledge
which seems to them in any way pertinent, and not to hold
themselves confined to the limits of the passages before
them. That would be to fall into the same kind of
narrow limitation of reference which causes formal logic
to be so suspect in reference to the actual affairs of life.
1 From Illustrative History : Mediaeval Period, p. 99.

CRITICAL THOUGHT 403

Professor A. C. Bradley's Lectures in Shakespearean
Tragedy are full of literary problems arising out of
Shakespeare's four greatest tragedies, many of which
could profitably be studied by the older pupils in
secondary schools, and a few by the younger boys and
girls. As an example of the simpler we may take the
discussion of the question whether Othello was black or
brown —

"Now I will not say that Shakespeare imagined him
as a Negro and not as a Moor, for that might imply that
he distinguished Negroes and Moors precisely as we
do ; but what appears to me nearly certain is that he
imagined Othello as a black man, and not as a light-
brown one.

" In the first place, we must remember that the brown
or bronze to which we are now accustomed in the Othellos
of our theatres is a recent innovation. Down to
Edmund Kean's time, so far as is known, Othello was
always quite black. This stage-tradition goes back to
the Restoration, and it almost settles our question. For
it is impossible that the colour of the original Othello
should have been forgotten so soon after Shakespeare's
time, and most improbable that it should have been
changed from brown to black.

" If we turn to the play itself, we find many references
to Othello's colour and appearance. Most of these are
indecisive ; for the word ' black ' was of course used
then where we should speak of a 'dark* complexion
now ; and even the nick-name ' thick-lips ', appealed to
as proof that Othello was a Negro, might have been
applied by an enemy to what we call a Moor. On the
other hand, it is hard to believe that, if Othello had
been light-brown, Brabantio would have taunted him

4o4 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

with having a ' sooty bosom ', or that ... he himself
would have used the words,

"her name, that was as fresh
As Dian's visage, is now begrimed and black
As mine own face."

These arguments cannot be met by pointing out that
Othello was of royal blood, is not called an Ethiopian,
is called a Barbary horse, and is said to be going to
Mauritania. All this would be of importance if we had
reason to believe that Shakespeare shared our ideas,
knowledge and terms. Otherwise it proves nothing.
And we know that sixteenth-century writers called any
dark North-African a Moor, or a black Moor, or a
blackamoor. Sir Thomas Elyot, according to Hunter,
calls Ethiopians Moors ; and the following are the first
two illustrations of < Blackamoor ' in the Oxford English
Dictionary: 1547, 'I am a blake More borne in Bar-
bary'; 1548, * Ethiopo, a blake More, or a man of
Ethiope.' Thus geographical names can tell us nothing
about the question how Shakespeare imagined Othello

" Titus Andronicus appeared in the Folio among Shake-
speare's works. It is believed by some good critics to
be his : hardly anyone doubts that he had a hand in it :
it is certain that he knew it, for reminiscences of it are
scattered through his plays. Now no one who reads
Titus Andronicus with an open mind can doubt that
Aaron was, in our sense, black ; and he appears to have

been a Negro Yet he is ' Aaron the Moor ', just

as Othello is ' Othello the Moor' Shakespeare him-
self in a single line uses ' negro ' and ' Moor ' of the
same person (Merchant of Venice, in. v. 42).

" The horror of most American critics ... at the idea of

CRITICAL THOUGHT 405

a black Othello is very amusing, and their arguments are
highly instructive. But they were anticipated, I regret
to say, by Coleridge, and we will hear him. ' No doubt
Desdemona saw Othello's visage in his mind ; yet, as
we are constituted, and most surely as an English
audience was disposed in the beginning of the seven-
teenth century, it would be something monstrous to
conceive this beautiful Venetian girl falling in love with
a veritable negro. It would argue a disproportionate-
ness, a want of balance, in Desdemona, which Shake-
speare does not appear to have in the least contemplated.'
Could any argument be more self-destructive? It
actually did appear to Brabantio ' something monstrous
to conceive ' his daughter falling in love with Othello, —
so monstrous that he could account for her love only by
drugs and foul charms. And the suggestion that such
love would argue ' disproportionateness J is precisely the
suggestion that lago did make in Desdemona's case :

" Foh ! one may smell in such a will most rank,
Foul disproportion, thoughts unnatural."

. . . Thus the argument of Coleridge and others points
straight to the conclusion against which they argue." l

The greatest benefit from such a passage will not
result from its direct study. To the teacher it will be
invaluable as a guide, but with this help he should
endeavour to lead his pupils to attempt to do the work
of collecting, comparing and weighing the evidence as
far as possible by themselves. The point to be decided
can be set as a problem. The references to it in the play
should then be hunted out and set forth as arguments on
the one side or the other. The teacher can then add to
1 Shakespearean Tragedy, pp. 198-201.

406 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

the evidence by giving the illustrative passages from
Elyot and the English Dictionary. Each pupil will by
this time lean to one side or the other. The teacher then
states the evidence about the custom of the theatre, but
leaves his pupils to estimate its bearing on their pro-
visional conclusion. If as a result all do not draw the
same conclusion as probable, the position of the minority
may be discussed. At the end it may be well to sum-
marize the arguments somewhat as Mr Bradley has done.
But it is not at all the teacher's place to insist dogmati-
cally on the acceptance of his own conclusions: that
would be to hinder, not to aid, the growth of critical
power.

The attempt to decide literary questions largely on
grounds of literary taste is, of course, only possible with
pupils old enough and artistic enough to feel the con-
sonance or incongruity of passage with passage. Again
to take an example from Professor Bradley. Is the
Fool's prophecy in rhyme at the end of King Lear, Act HI.
sc. ii., genuine or spurious — an addition made by the
' players ' ? Professor Bradley holds it to be spurious on
the following grounds, in addition to the fact that "the
speaker remains behind alone to utter the words after the
other persons have gone off" —

"(i) The scene ends characteristically without the
lines. (2) They are addressed directly to the audience.
(3) They destroy the pathetic and beautiful effect of the
immediately preceding words of the Fool, and also of
Lear's solicitude for him. (4) They involve the ab-
surdity that the shivering timid Fool would allow his
master and protector, Lear and Kent, to go away into
the storm and darkness, leaving him alone. (5) It is
also somewhat against them that they do not appear in

CRITICAL THOUGHT 40?

the Quartos. At the same time I do not think one
would hesitate to accept them if they occurred at any
natural place within the dialogue." l

Such an instance of reasoning which is felt by a com-
petent critic to be conclusive admirably illustrates the
impossibility of expressing all the factors which influence
our judgement in the explicit terms demanded by formal
logic.

Another advantage which results from such a critical
thinking of books is a nicer perception of the exact force
of words. The enormous increase in the output of
printed matter during the last century has led to a very
considerable lowering of the standard of precise expres-
sion among public writers. This has naturally reacted
on the readers, till many words are commonly so general-
ized that they cease to mean anything in particular.
What sense can a rational mind attach to a statement
that something is ' ' awfully nice " ? While writing this
chapter I saw a newspaper placard announcing an article
on ' ' State Organization the Secret of Germany's Pros-
perity," where, presumably, ' ' cause " was meant, for
certainly the State Organization of Germany has never
been, nor could possibly be, a " secret".

It is difficult to say how far a loose use of language
reacts on thought, but it is certain that it does so react,
and that it tends to form a habit of slovenly thinking
and of being satisfied with a grasp of meaning which
is more often than not distorted as well as superficial.
A minute examination of isolated words by way of
definition helps but little to correct the fault. As has
been already pointed out, a definition is quite a special
and technical abstract of meaning. "No one from the

1 O*. cit., pp. 451 and 452.

4o8 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

sight of a horse or a dog would be able to anticipate its
zoological definition, nor from a knowledge of its defini-
tion to draw such a picture as would direct another to the
living specimen."1 The attempt to express the real
meaning of a passage by a synthesis of definitions of the
words employed is in essence the same as dealing with
thought on concrete subjects by formal logic alone.
Indeed, formal logic actually makes the demand that each
term shall be used in an unvarying and abstract sense.
But real thought uses language rather than words ; and
in language the sense is found as a whole in the whole.
It is not an artificial building up of separate stones of
meaning each with its own unvarying shape. In any
fine expression of thought the change of a single word
affects the whole sense, and the whole sense colours the
meaning of each single word. The artistic use of
language, therefore, does not depend on a clear appre-
hension of definitions but on a sense of the appropriate-
ness of each word in some particular context. In this
connexion I cannot refrain from quoting an admirable
passage from Guizot's History of Civilization in Europe :
' ' There is almost always in the usual acceptation of the
most general terms more accuracy than in the definitions,
apparently more strict, more precise, of science. It is
common sense which gives to words their ordinary sig-
nification, and common sense is the characteristic of
humanity. The ordinary signification of a word is
formed by gradual progress, and in the constant presence
of facts ; so that when a fact presents itself which seems
to come within the meaning of a known term, it is
received into it, as it were, naturally ; the signification
of the term extends itself, expands, and by degrees, the

1 J. H. Newman : The Grammar of Assent, p. 32.

CRITICAL THOUGHT 409

various facts, the various ideas which from the nature
of the things themselves men should include under this
word, are included.

' ' When the meaning of a word, on the other hand,
is determined by science, this determination, the work of
one individual, or of a small number of individuals, takes
place under the influence of some particular fact which
has struck upon the mind. Thus scientific definitions
are, in general, much more narrow, and, hence, much less
accurate, much less true, at bottom, than the popular
meanings of the terms. In studying as a fact the mean-
ings of the word civilization, in investigating all the
ideas which are comprised within it, according to the
common sense of mankind, we shall make a much greater
progress towards a knowledge of the fact itself, than by
attempting to give it ourselves a scientific definition,
however more clear and precise the latter might appear
at first." l

The very exercise, then, of finding an exact meaning
in a given passage and of expressing it tersely and
accurately ensures that care is taken to use language with
some precision. The teacher in criticizing the pupils'
answers should always be on the watch to detect looseness
and ambiguity, and should lead the writer to enquire and
to discover how the words he has used have distorted or
misrepresented his meaning.

The loose use of words to which we are unfortunately
so much accustomed is a sure sign of the wide diffusion
of loose and superficial thought. People who have no
clear meaning to convey do not feel the need for a delicate
instrument of expression. One does not require a
scientific balance to weigh a pound of sugar or a ton of
1 Hazlitt's translation, Lect. I .

4io THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

coals. This superficiality is a mark of stupidity just as
surely as is narrow prejudice and the vitiation of thought
by strong party bias. For stupidity is always inability
to deal with problems. The prejudiced man cannot see
the force of arguments which make against his convic-
tions ; the superficial man cannot see the force of any
arguments at all which go beneath the surface of things.
The prejudiced man can only draw conclusions in his
own mind from premises in harmony with his preposses-
sions : the superficial man cannot really reason at all ; he
either accepts the opinions and adopts the conclusions
of those immediately about him, or is drifted hither and
thither by his moods and whims. He is a veritable
mental chameleon.

Whether a teaching which does not call forth thought
produces the narrow or the shallow type of stupidity
depends upon its character. Dogmatic teaching which
bases every statement on authority and allows no investi-
gation of evidence tends to develop the former. Teach-
ing which aims at outward brightness — interest, falsely
so called — and at removing all difficulties and calls for
effort, with equal certainty cultivates the latter. In each,
the nutriment offered to the mind consists of facts ; in
the one case stated, in the other observed. But as in
neither case are the facts made into problems the solution
of which is to be sought by the personal investigation
of the pupils, so in neither case is intelligence cultivated.
Each in place thereof cultivates stupidity in an appropri-
ate form ; though, doubtless, some individuals subjected
to the one form of teaching may show in later life mainly
the other form of stupidity. That simply means that
inborn nature has been too strong for artificial training,
and that, consequently, that training has rather passed
over the mind than entered into it.

CRITICAL THOUGHT 41 1

Inborn stupidity shows itself in a marked mental
inertia. When this is really general ordinary education
can do very little. But more often it appears only in
certain directions, and these not infrequently coincide
with the traditional school studies. The remedy is to
find in what ways natural interest shows itself, and to
make those the fulcrum of efforts to move the mass. It
cannot be too strongly urged that to neglect this is to
develop general stupidity instead of what is, at the worst,
partial stupidity. Practical intelligence is often found
united with theoretical obtuseness, just as a keen intel-
lect is not infrequently accompanied by practical inepti-
tude. A sane judgement despises neither. Nor is it
reasonable that scholastic opinion should confine its
admiration to intellectual acuteness and should brand as
stupidity all failure in that, quite regardless of the possi-
bility of an equally important excellence on the practical
and constructive side. A real study of psychology
should help teachers to see that the traditional intel-
lectualism of the schools is narrowly one-sided, and so
is itself a sign of stupidity. And perhaps no stupidity
is so hard to overcome as that intellectual stupidity which
takes intellect as the one measure of life. This pedantry
of the schools must be overthrown before a really syste-
matic attempt will be made to check the cultivation of
stupidity among the people.

CHAPTER XII
IDEALS

MAN is not bound down to the hard reality of the
present. Amid much that is petty, even it may be
sordid, in the daily task, much that dulls by its mono-
tony, and much that depresses by its failure, he yet looks
forward with hope and aspiration to brighter visions.
Whatever his present condition

"Man partly is and wholly hopes to be."1

Even the dullest clod has his fairy vision. It may be a
narrow, even a degrading, one ; yet it is to him the
light which brightens his path, for it shows him a picture
which to his mind is better than the reality of his life.
He may limit his hopes to sensuous pleasure, to increase
of wealth, to ignoble revenge ; but the hope inspires him
whatever it may be. On the other hand, one's aspira-
tions may soar to heaven and inspire the earnest struggle
of the saint, or seek in highest art the realization of
supremest beauty, or in social service the noblest per-
fection of human life.

Hope, then, is a reaching forward in spirit to some-
thing which is different from the actual, yet which we
can see in imagination. We can imagine absent scenes
and things when they are vividly described to us. Then

1 Browning : A Death in the Desert.

IDEALS 413

the imagination works under direction ; it, as it were,
imitates the description given. The scene we imagine,
however, exists for us not only in imagination but in
belief. We picture it, and on the evidence of others we
pronounce it real either in the present or in the past.

This, too, is the nature of the imaginings of young
children. They picture in fancy all kinds of objects
and events, to us incongruous and incredible, but by no
means impossible to them, nor, indeed, to our fore-
fathers. The thirteenth and fourteenth centuries found
no difficulty in believing as well as imagining such
descriptions as — "The griffin is a beast with wings, and
is four footed : and breedeth in the mountains Hyper-
borean, and is like to the lion in all the parts of the body,
and to the eagle only in the head and wings. And
griffins keep the mountains in which be gems and
precious stones, and suffer them not to be taken from
thence."1 The twentieth century smiles in tolerant
pity at the ignorance and credulity of the middle ages,
which could accept such tales. But really the only
foundation for our own want of faith is increased know-
ledge of the earth and its inhabitants. Despite that,
an immense number of people a few years ago accepted
without demur the ' ' flying wombats " of that inventive
author of travellers' tales " M. de Rougemont."

The mental process of constructing in imagination
such a picture is the same whether it represent a reality
or a fancy. Indeed, it would be impossible to decide
which it did represent unless it could be constructed ; for
till that has been done we have not the object present to
our criticism.

1 From Bartholomew Anglicus— about 1 260 ; see Mediaeval Lore,
p. 152.

4H THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

Such a mental construction is essentially a combination
of meanings. Whether it take the form of a visual
image is, as has already been pointed out, a matter of
individual idiosyncrasy.

Our belief in our constructions is, then, limited by
our knowledge, or, perhaps it would be more accurate
to say, by our other beliefs. For, indeed, most of us
would have to use ' knowledge ' very loosely to say that
it is knowledge which prevents us individually from
believing in the existence of the griffin.

It is a different question, however, as to how the
fiction of a griffin first arose. Was it deliberate inven-
tion? Did some poetical traveller or writer of travels
imagine it by putting together qualities and attributes
of known beasts? That seems certainly to have been
the genesis of the flying wombats. If so, probably the
origin was a desire to amaze the credulous, or to give a
touch of life to a picture of strange lands, unchecked by
adequate knowledge of the actualities of nature. Or did
the griffin result from an imperfect perception — a per-
ception, it may be, obscured by terror? We all know
how terror, especially of the unknown, makes people see
the non-existent, and changes the most harmless objects
into the most fearsome portents. Historically we cannot
answer the question as to the griffin, or in any other
particular case. But when one reads the travellers' tales
of a few hundred years ago one is inclined to adopt as
the most plausible hypothesis that both mistaken per-
ception and deliberate enrichment of reality had been
at work.

The point is this. Whatever origin we may think
most probable for such imaginings, we must note that
the creature imagined was never outside nature in any

IDEALS 415

of its qualities, but only in their combination. Assum-
ing, as we must surely assume in some cases, the
deliberate fabrication of monsters, and remembering that
the ignorance of geography in the middle ages, the
traditional belief in magic, the absence of scientific
explanation of the most ordinary natural phenomena,
all made people eager for marvels, we may regard it as
certain that the constructed creatures were made as
terrible and fantastic as possible. The conclusion that
all human imagination is bound to reality is irresistible.
t It may, indeed, see reality transfigured with a glory not
its own — a glory which the divine light of hope sheds on
our path. Has not each one of us imagined a coming
event — a holiday, it may be, or the making of a speech —
and seen it in colours much more roseate than the actual
event justified? Have we not, on the other hand,
anticipated evil which has never come, or which coming
has proved to be by no means unbearable ? ' ' Coming
events cast their shadows before ", but the shadow is not
always of the same colour as the event.

It is by no means implied that increase of knowledge
checks imagination. As the raw material of every
imagined product is simply the known, it follows that
the greater the knowledge the wider the possibilities of
imagination. So, for the crude suggestions of the savage
are substituted the wide hypotheses of modern science,
and the simple expressions of primitive emotions of
early writers are replaced by the complex analyses of
character of the modern poet and novelist. " The great
dramatist makes none of his characters out of nothing.
If they live, they must all be based upon what he knows
of other men and what he knows of himself. And his
knowledge of other men is, in turn, based upon his

4i 6 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

knowledge of himself. For that is the only complete
knowledge of human nature that he can attain to. He
observes, and divines the meaning of what he observes,
by a scientific process, for in other men he sees only out-
ward symptoms. In himself he can connect these
outward symptoms with the inward operations of his
mind ; and so he comes to understand the inward opera-
tions of other men's minds by supposing the same
connexion. Thus his experience helps his observation,
and his observation helps him to understand the signifi-
cance of tendencies in his own mind that are perhaps
constantly suppressed. Out of those suppressed ten-
dencies he will make many of his characters, imagining
them not suppressed but favoured by circumstances
different from his own and free from his own inhibitions.
. . . For imagination is encouraged and enriched by
knowledge of all kinds, and flags for the want of it.
Knowledge is, as it were, the soil by which the flower
of imagination is nourished ; and, the greater the writer,
the greater his passion for knowledge and the more use
he can make of all that he knows." 1

The play of imagination round the circumstances of
our life is as natural as is the perception of the objects
actually present to us. Certainly, as with every other
human power, there are personal variations both in its
strength and in its form, but absent it never is. It is
impossible to limit life to reality and to banish all imagi-
nation. To do so would, indeed, even if it were possible,
be the most cruel blow that could be inflicted on man-
kind. Take away all we hope and long for, hide from
our spiritual gaze all that is nobler, better, and more
beautiful than the common things of our work-a-day
1 Article on Fiction and Knowledge in The Times, Aug. 23rd, 1910.

IDEALS 417

life, and we are reduced in all essentials to the level of
the beasts. For us, as for them, this life is all, and this
life is confined to the sensuous experiences of the
moment. The most distinctively human gift of
humanity is the power to conceive a good not yet
attained ; perhaps never to be attained. So for each one
of us it is a "great truth that it is our best moments —
not our worst — that reveal our real selves : that if we
would judge righteous judgement, we must appraise a
man according to the good that he would and did not,
rather than according to the evil that he would not and
yet did."1 Indeed, the whole progress of the human
race has been due to its imaginings of better things, and
its efforts to make those imaginings real. The treasures
left us by the past — whether it be art or literature or
music or law or social organization or morality or religion
— are all embodiments of imagination. Without imagi-
nation man can conceive nothing higher than himself.
To him God Himself could not reveal Himself, for
the revelation could neither be received nor under-
stood.

If, then, imagination be an integral part of human
nature, and so valuable an one withal, if it can work only
with what it knows, if its direction be determined by the
desires and interests of life, then education fails woefully
if it neglect to deal with it. For, like all our powers,
it may be exercised on unworthy matter.

"Give to imagination some pure light
In human form to fix it, or you shame
The devils with that hideous human game : —
Imagination urging appetite !

1 Ellen Thorneycroft Fowler : Kate of Kate Hal/, ch. 22.

W. 2D

4i 8 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

Thus fallen have earth's greatest Gogmagogs,
Who dazzle us, whom we can not revere :
Imagination is the charioteer
That, in default of better, drives the hogs." l

A sadly inadequate apprehension of human nature
and its needs underlay the so-called ' practical ' conception
of education which was so prevalent in the middle of the
last century, and which in its spirit and essence was not
exaggerated by Charles Dickens when he made Mr
Gradgrind expound his views on the subject —

" Now, what I want is, Facts. Teach these boys and
girls nothing but Facts. Facts alone are wanted in
life. Plant nothing else, and root out everything else.
You can only form the minds of reasoning animals upon
Facts : nothing else will ever be of any service to them. . . .

" You are to be in all things regulated and governed . . .
by fact You must discard the word Fancy alto-
gether. You have nothing to do with it. You are not
to have, in any object of use or ornament, what would
be a contradiction in fact. You don't walk upon flowers
in fact ; you cannot be allowed to walk upon flowers in
carpets. You don't find that foreign birds and butter-
flies come and perch upon your crockery ; you cannot
be permitted to paint foreign birds and butterflies upon
your crockery. You never meet with quadrupeds going
up and down walls ; you must not have quadrupeds
represented upon walls. You must use . . . for all these
purposes, combinations and modifications (in primary
colours) of mathematical figures which are susceptible
of proof and demonstration. This is the new discovery.
This is fact. This is taste."2

1 George Meredith : Modern Love, xxxviii.
8 Hard Times : chs. i and 2.

IDEALS 419

We smile now at the philistinism of it all. But it
was a very real thing to millions of children whose
mental food was, in deference to the prevailing material-
istic utilitarianism, restricted to the "three Rs", and
even what they read confined as closely as possible to
bald statements of fact. What could be the result but
a lowering of the love of all that is bright and beautiful,
and an increased tolerance of all that is ugly and dismal ?
One does not find many traces of " merrie England" in
the slums of a big manufacturing town, and too often
one sees the imagination acting, in one way or another,
as the "charioteer that drives the hogs."

Amid the squalor and hideousness which surround
thousands of lives it is hard indeed for the divine spark of
imagination to fly upwards. Imagination can only work
with materials gathered from experience, and so for many
a child it is confined to the sordid and the base, except so
far as the school supplies the deficiencies of the life outside
its walls. For in life what is the present but an incentive ?

" Man never is, but always to be blest ; " l

and the form of the blessing he desires and esteems is
moulded by his daily experiences. To seize the best
elements in the present and to make them the stepping-
stones to the future is the true secret of life.

"He fixed thee mid this dance

Of plastic circumstance,
This Present, thou, forsooth, wouldst fain arrest :

Machinery just meant

To give thy soul its bent,
Try thee and turn thee forth, sufficiently impressed."2

1 Pope : Essay on Man ; Ep. i., 1. 92.

2 Browning : Rabbi ben Ezra, xxviii.

420 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

Yet how seldom does the future fulfil our anticipations.
Are we then to despair? Many do, and forget that
what was future is now present, and, like the former
present, infused with promise of a further future.

"Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp,
Or what's a heaven for ? " l

is true at every moment.

"Then life is — to wake not sleep,

Rise and not rest, but press
From earth's level where blindly creep

Things perfected, more or less,
To the heaven's height, far and steep." 2

All despair, all turning aside from the narrow way of
the struggle towards perfection, means a failure in imagi-
nation— a losing hold of what we have hitherto regarded
as for us the ideal of life. To put it in another way : it
is the strength of our ideals which is transfused into our
efforts. So that, while an ideal is imaginative in its
transcendence of reality yet it is at the same time inspira-
tion. We may, indeed, say that every ideal is a purpose
embedded in feeling and transmuted by imagination into
something higher and better than experience has given
us. Of course, the ideal of one may be the realized
present of another, and the ideals of a child are neces-
sarily below the accomplishments of mankind. But to
him whose ideal it is, an ideal is always beyond the reality
of his experience. So it is the spur of his efforts.

The loss of ideals is, then, the loss of power and,
what is worse, the loss of desire for power. This is the
very essence of degradation of life.

1 Browning : Andrea del Sarto, 2 Ibid. : Asolando: Reverie.

IDEALS 421

"Let a man contend to the uttermost
For his life's set prize, be it what it will !

And the sin I impute to each frustrate ghost
Is — the unlit lamp and the ungirt loin."1

Yes, "the unlit lamp" of imagination means "the
ungirt loin " of noble effort.

Yet there is a temptation to those of emotional and
sensitive temperament and in whom the spring of action
is weak to rest content with beautiful imaginings. Their
souls are satisfied with unreality ; they love to be specta-
tors at a beauteous phantasmagoria, not combatants in
the fierce turmoil of life. Such persons often find it
easy to take a cheerful view of life, because they instinc-
tively turn from what is painful and distressing to them.
Not because they have faith in the ultimate triumph of
good over the actual evil of the present, but because
they ignore that evil, they are able to say

*' I find earth not grey but rosy,

Heaven not grim but fair of hue.
Do I stoop ? I pick a posy.

Do I stand and stare? All's blue."2

A far saner optimism may be felt by him who yet
weeps over the actual evil, but whose soul is sustained
by the living faith that

"God's in his heaven —
All's right with the world ! " 3

The mere fact of optimism is not a proof of any
such living faith. But that alone it is which drives to

1 Browning : The Statue and the Bust.

2 Browning : At the " Mermaid", xii.

3 Browning : Pippa Passes, Pt. i.

422 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

effort to help to accomplish the Divine purpose to right
the wrong.

The difference, then, between an imaginative painting
of life and an ideal is of the utmost importance. The
former refuses to see things as they are and rests un-
moved amid evil and misery, because, real though they
are, they are excluded from the fancy picture. Such
imagination inspires to no effort, because it does not
represent something different from the actual and more
desirable than it, but, on the contrary, pretends to show
the actual as it is. On the other hand, a true ideal knows
itself as unreal in the present, but sees itself as a goal
which by effort may be approached, if not actually reached,
by setting out from the present, and in no other way.

Keeping this quite clearly in mind let us now return
to the sensitive temperament, indisposed to active inter-
position in the hard facts of life. Without doing despite
to its nature it may yet be of much service to mankind ;
in inspired souls, indeed, of more service than the active
brother. For such souls are the poets and the prophets of
humanity. They, more truly than others, see the ideal
and the way towards it ; their eyes pierce more deeply
into the mystery of existence, and more effectively do
they hold a light to guide men's steps. The practical
man works here and now ; the poet also works, but he
works for all time and for every place.

"'Tis one thing to know, and another to practise.
And thence I conclude that the real God-function
Is to furnish a motive and injunction
For practising what we know already." l

So it is that the poets have formed men's lives much

1 Browning : Christmas-Eve and Easter-Day, xvii.

IDEALS 423

more than the philosophers. Their appeal has been
universal, to all that is in men, while that of the philo-
sophers has been almost entirely addressed to the intellect.
The poet, too, has the insight that comes by divine gift
to see into the heart of things. And what he sees he
utters, regardless of whether he can give a logical
demonstration of it. But philosophy must be proved, or
it is put out of court. So it is only when a philosopher
is also a poet, as was Plato, that he has exercised much
permanent influence over the mass of mankind.

Nor is the poetic soul confined to those whose power
of tuneful expression of the thoughts and imaginings
within them has won general attention and earned the
name of poet. All emotional temperaments are in their
degree poetic. All can sing —

"Thoughts hardly to be packed

Into a narrow act,
Fancies that broke through language and escaped ;

All I could never be,

All, men ignored in me,
This, I was worth to God, whose wheel the pitcher shaped." l

Yet day-dreaming is a real danger, for it may lead to the
sentimentality of which we spoke above. The educator
must, therefore, try in every possible way to prompt
children of such a temperament to find some outward
means of expressing their visions which shall bless others
as well as themselves.

There is no limit to the actual formation of ideals, and
they are of all degrees of worth and importance. Any-
thing we imagine as worthy to be done is to us an ideal.
There is, indeed, a more restricted use of the term which
limits it to the great thoughts of life — the ideals of

1 Browning : Rabbi ben Ezra, xxv.

424 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

goodness, of beauty, and of truth. These we think as
unattainable but not unapproachable, and the essential
work of humanity is to draw gradually nearer to them.
Such approach is step by step through smaller ideals.
Ultimately to the eye of faith they are one, though in
actual human experience they have hitherto failed to
coincide. Nay more, these ultimate goods must in some
way be of a nature identical with the actual worldr
with all its imperfections plain to immediate experience.
Nor need this stagger us. It is the very essence of an
ideal to be better than the real to which it is related, and
to be better by abolishing its imperfections. So, faith
in the ultimate goodness, truth, and beauty, of the uni-
verse is in no way inconsistent with a full recognition of
present evils. It is, indeed, the origin of all striving
to remove them ; for it gives a spring of action which
is absolutely inexhaustible.

" O world, as God has made it ! All is beauty :
And knowing this, is love, and love is duty.

What further may be sought for or declared ? " l

Though we have here passed far beyond the ideals of
a child we have not left our proper subject. For the higher
ideals may be those of every adult, and should emphati-
cally be those of every educator, whether parent or teacher.
For surely it is the essential function of education

"To have to do with nothing but the true,
The good, the eternal — and these, not alone
In the main current of the general life,
But small experiences of every day,
Concerns of the particular hearth and home."2

1 Browning : The Guardian- Angel.

2 Browning : The Ring and the Book, vi., 2089-2093.

IDEALS 425

To look thus on one's work, to be surrounded by such
an atmosphere, to strive towards such ideals is to be a
true educator and a true inspirer. For the ideals which
shape the life of parent or teacher are daily more and
more evident to the child, and help to mould his life for
good or evil. As like tends to like, the good within
him feels the attraction of fine ideals ; the evil draws
into itself strength from low and mean ideals.

So it is that the teacher's lofty ideals are the most
powerful influences the school can bring to bear to
counteract the evil of sordid and degraded surroundings.
If these be absent all others must be of no effect.

Most obvious and most true is this in all ideals of
conduct and of thought — in all those which represent the
good and the true. In what concerns the beautiful the
teacher's own enthusiasms will be wasted unless life
supply the pupil with materials with which to work.
He cannot make bricks without both straw and clay.

In all that enters through the ear — beauty of thought
and expression — the teacher can act. The choice of
what he reads to the pupils, or allows them to read in
school, depends on him ; if he will he can unobtrusively
but largely direct their choice of recreative reading out
of school. This is a vast influence, for from their
favourite books many boys and girls gather ideals of
conduct more potent than from their personal acquaint-
ances. For imagination has a freer play round the
beings of literature ; they can be combined and changed
in a manner impracticable with actual men and women.
They can more easily be made embodiments of single
qualities, which thus stand out in all possible impressive-
ness, and become objects of ardent devotion or of hearty
detestation. Many children have as many and as well-

426 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

known friends in the realm of fancy as in that of fact ;
friends quite as influential on their outlook on life.

The influence of music is much less definite than that
of literature. On some, however, its emotional effect
is very great ; it soothes in trouble, it inspires to effort,
it fills the heart with vague longings. Such an effect
cannot be analysed, for it belongs to that half-conscious
life in which emotion has its seat. On the other hand,
vulgar, trivial, and insipid music attunes the soul to
itself.

The tendency of teachers is to ignore all those in-
definite effects which cannot be directly estimated. Yet
it needs but little knowledge of our own lives to assure
us that we are by no means exclusively guided by what
is most prominent in our thoughts. Whence comes the
strength of our impulses ? Often we cannot say. They
are rooted in our nature and have gathered force in our
lives, and with the cumulative strength of many for-
gotten indulgences they sweep away the barriers of
caution and raze the dam of new resolve. We cannot
analyse the influence of music, nor of other forms of art,
on this underground life of ours — this reservoir of possi-
bilities which at times bursts forth with volcanic violence,
at others sends out the steady irresistible overflow of the
lava stream of firm purpose. But on artistic tempera-
ments in general, and on those that are musical in
particular, it is great, while on all not insensible to music
it counts for something.

In music, as in more appropriate spheres, schools have
generally confined themselves to results which can be
directly appraised. The children are usually taught to
sing ; often still more attention is paid to practising them
in reading music. So far this is well, provided that the

IDEALS 427

music chosen be good. But would it not also be well
that, whenever means are available, opportunity should
be made for the direct influence through the ear of music
much beyond the children's executive skill? Some
suggestiveness may be found in Milton's proposal that
the intervals of school life "may both with profit and
delight be taken up in recreating and composing their
travail'd spirits with the solemn and divine harmonies of
Musick heard or learnt ; either while the skilful Organist
plies his grave and fancied descant, in lofty fugues, or
the whole Symphony with artful and unimaginable
touches adorn and grace the well studied chords of some
choice Composer, sometimes the Lute, or soft Organ
stop waiting on elegant Voices either to Religious,
martial, or civil Ditties ; which if wise men and Prophets
be not extreamly out, have a great power over dispositions
and manners, to smooth and make them gentle from
rustick harshness and distemper'd passions." l

In all that instils beauty through the eye the town
child is generally at a disadvantage as compared with the
country child, and the child from a town slum most
emphatically so. It is true that before adolescence most
children have little conscious appreciation of beauty, and
that they will call a picture of a landscape " pretty " when
they will pass by the landscape itself without observation
or comment. Their power of seeing wholes is limited.
The picture is small and within their grasp, the landscape
is too large for them ; they appreciate only small pieces
of it, and the younger they are the smaller are the pieces.
Still there are small beauties in nature as well as large
ones. No doubt a town child who seldom sees a flower
can more easily be roused to explicit admiration of a

1 Tractate on Education.

428 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

primrose or a daisy than can a country child. That is
largely the result of novelty awakening surprise and
wonder, and not mainly the expression of a feeling of
appreciation of beauty. Even waiving this, the import-
ant thing seems to me to be not the explicit and transient
impression but the implicit toning of the mind by sur-
roundings. Again it is the effect which cannot be
measured that is most to be desired. As boyhood and
girlhood give way to adolescence it is especially desirable
that the growing soul be surrounded by the calm in-
fluences of nature.

"From Nature doth emotion come, and moods
Of calmness equally are Nature's gift." l

Modern life tends to obscure that influence of sur-
roundings to which the opinion of ancient times attached
so great an importance. Probably, indeed, it tends to
decrease it. We are all so busy that from moment to
moment the present claims us, and the placid influences
of nature have little opportunity to work in us. Yet
surely there is truth in Mr Fotheringham's words :
"Those of us who have scarcely ever seen the dawn,,
or felt the freshness of the morning, who have scarcely
ever stood under the open sky and seen some wide land-
scape full of light and air, who have never felt the loneli-
ness and peace of nature in quiet places, who have never
in some still hour stood under the arch of the midnight
sky alone — such, and there are not a few of them in our
towns to-day, miss not only precious knowledge of the
great world, but knowledge of themselves — of the heart,,
and the high powers of emotion and thought." 2

1 Wordsworth : The Prelude, Bk. xiii. 1-2.

2 Wordsworth'* Prelude as a Study of Education, p. 4.8.

IDEALS 429

The more a child is removed from nature the more
important it is that he should be open to a similarly
constant influence of art. The responsibility here thrown
upon the town school for the children of the poor is
obvious, especially if the town be of the manufacturing
type. To live in Oxford is to be surrounded by archi-
tectural beauty ; to live in a town full of factories, forges,
and mean streets, is to be hemmed in by artificial ugliness.
Even the beauty of sky and fleecy cloud is shut out by
murky smoke. Often the country is miles away, and
when reached is scarred by mines if not sterilized by
noisome Rimes. The only spot of beauty is, perhaps,
a public park.

The school in such circumstances has a most uphill
task if it attempt to give its pupils some material on
which imagination may work in constructing ideals of
beauty of form and colour. At least there should be
well-proportioned and well-lighted buildings, cheerful
and artistic, though simple, in their decorations. Plants
and flowers tended by the children, and a few good
pictures and casts within the reach of their appreciation —
to which more specific attention may be drawn at times by
informal chats in which taste may be subtly influenced —
are probably within the reach of all schools. Certainly
all can banish from the walls grisly anatomical diagrams,
whether of man or beast, and hideous vulgar daubs, and
all can insist on neatness in everything within the school
buildings.

These are, of course, only hints and suggestions. But
evidently it is perfectly useless to consider how an ideal
may develop if there be no material in experience on
which the imagination can seize, and which it can trans-
form according to its desire. It is from this point of

430 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

view that surroundings are seen to be so vitally important.
"We would not", said Plato of old, "have our
guardians grow up amid images of moral deformity, as
in some noxious pasture, and there browse and feed upon
many a baneful herb and flower day by day, little by
little, until they silently gather a festering mass of cor-
ruption in their own soul. Let our artists rather be
those who are gifted to discern the true nature of the
beautiful and graceful ; then will our youth dwell in a
land of health, amid fair sights and sounds, and receive
the good in everything ; and beauty, the effluence of
fair works, shall flow into the eye and ear, like a health-
giving breeze from a purer region, and insensibly draw
the soul from earliest years into likeness and sympathy
with the beauty of reason." 1

That all ideals are connected primarily with doing,
with feeling, or with thinking, is a necessary result from
these being the essential factors in all human activity.
Which weighs most with any individual is a matter of
temperament. We all have them all in some degree.
For we must not think only of the ideals of perfect
goodness of activity, of perfect truth, of perfect beauty,
of which we have already spoken. Those are, indeed,
ideals to but few, and they the noblest souls. If these
alone could be called ideals, education would have
nothing directly to say to them, for obviously the young
are incapable of the highest possibilities of human life in
any form. The ideals of the work-a-day world may be
very small and even very low. They may refer to a very
little piece of life, or they may set its whole tone and
colour all its effects. Pursued for a long time an ideal
purpose becomes habitual, and may even drive a man

.y Jowett's translation, iii. 401.

IDEALS 43i

on in the accustomed line after he has ceased to value
it as an ideal at all.

Without ideals, small and large, effort would want
most of its vitality. A boy, in whatever pursuit he is
interested, has an ideal of excellence which he sets before
himself and which sustains him through monotonous
practice. The same boy when set to a task for which
he does not care has quite another ideal — to get it done,
not as well but as quickly as possible. In the former case
the ideal refers to the object the activity is to accomplish ;
in the latter case the accomplishment has no ideal value.
So it is throughout life. Good work always results from
an attempt to realize an ideal. Remove that spur and
the product deteriorates. Decrease the responsibility of
the workman for the outcome of his labours and such a
lowering of idealism necessarily follows. The pride of
the workman in his work is the most valuable asset not
only of him who enjoys the product but of the work-
man himself. In its absence work becomes drudgery,
for it is brightened by none of the triumphant joy of
seeing one's own thoughts taking shape in one's hands.
There is much in the modern conditions of industry,
especially manufacturing industry, which necessarily
tends to this degradation of work. This makes it all
the more desirable that the young should be enabled to
feel in all possible ways in their school exercises and
lessons the ideal of worthy performance, and that other
ideals should be assiduously cultivated to fill as far as
may be the empty place in after-life.

Good product may be called the ideal of morality in
work. With an extension of the application of 'pro-
duct ' it may further be said to be the ideal of all conduct.
The primary spring of good work is the instinct of

432 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

constructiveness, and the root of all conduct which affects
others is found in the personal instincts, especially those
of altruism and of self-respect. As intelligence de-
velops the relations of self to others become clearer, so
that they are no longer approved or disapproved by the
gratification or dissatisfaction they produce in ourselves.
The rights of self are transferred by analogy and sym-
pathy to others, and hence arises an ideal of justice. Of
course such a development could not take place out of
society. As in all other forms of spiritual growth the
opinions and the actions of those around us guide our
modes of thinking, feeling, and willing.

The ideal is at first involved in the actual events to
which it is applied. The boy judges such an act just,
and such another unjust, without having a formula
expressive of the nature of justice ready to produce on
demand. With many people such moral ideals remain in
this intuitive stage throughout life. Especially, as we
have seen, is this so with women, who, it has been well
said, "are moralists, from the best to the worst of
them."1 But they do not, as a rule, express their
morality in abstract propositions, nor judge actions by the
extent of their coincidence with such axioms. Rather
they base their judgements on their impression of the
suitability of each act as a whole to the circumstances
which called it forth.

The first step in the disentanglement of such an ideal
as that of justice is its personification in a typical hero.
Such embodiment is a characteristic of early adolescence,
especially among boys. Later the ideal becomes more
detached, and at least reaches the stage of current moral
principles. The final step to critical thought exercised

1 Anthony Hope : The Intrusions of Peggy, ch. i.

IDEALS 433

on such principles is taken but by few ; indeed, only few
are sufficiently endowed to take it effectively or profit-
ably. An attempt to secure a premature detachment of
principles from concrete conduct leads of necessity to
unreality, or to that ethical precocity we know — and
dislike — as priggishness.

It will be seen from what has been said that the ideals
sought at any time are in the realms of interests.
Interests develop out of instincts, purposes are related
to interests, and ideals to purposes, so that the springs of
life are gathered into one continuous stream.

The religious ideal is both more personal and higher
than any social ideal of the relation of man to man.
Many writers speak of a religious instinct, but that
seems a loose use of the term. Though the religious
feeling is universal among the races of mankind, yet it
is a compound in which the instincts of fear, love, and
self are associated. The form which the religious ideal
takes is, of course, determined for a child by the religion
of those around him, especially by his home and his
church. It is at first purely personal — either a loving
Father or a harsh taskmaster according to the religious
atmosphere in which the child lives and the teaching on
religion which he receives. Later, it expands into a
recognition of the brotherhood of others in that Father's
family. As intelligence develops the ideal representa-
tion of the Godhead becomes more and more spiritual.
At adolescence personal religious feelings are often
stirred, but except in cases more or less abnormal, there
seems no evidence that religious unrest and disbelief are
common among those whose religion has from the first
been associated with the corporate life of a religious
body, and not made a purely personal matter.

W. 2E

434 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

The school into which religion enters does more by a
spirit of reverence, by common worship, by the unosten-
tatious religion of the teachers, than by set lessons, to
cultivate a religious attitude of mind. Not that exposi-
tions of belief adapted to the pupils' understandings are
not needed to give form to the ideal conceptions. Un-
happily, 'religious instruction' is too often only an
euphemism for the geography and history of Palestine,
which in themselves have no special spiritual significance.

When we turn to ideals primarily intellectual we find
two main classes — the practical and the theoretical.

The former show their presence and power in life by
their reference to use. From the simple contrivances of
the child to the invention of the most delicate, or the
most powerful, machinery, or of the most elaborate
instruments for aiding advance in science, each is the
realization in appropriate material of an ideal plan adapted
to an ideally conceived end. For such inventions the
mind must not only be stored with all pertinent know-
ledge but must have a particular bent. Perhaps in no
realm of activity can the natural differences between men
be more clearly seen. We all make our little inventions
in daily life, but those who first imagine, then produce —
it may be in many successive stages, each more perfect
than the last — instruments that change profoundly the
conditions of men's lives or knowledge are few. No-
where can we better learn the lesson that ideals cannot
be taught. Material, and, it may be, inspiration and
encouragement, may be given, but the inventive mind
can only work when free and untrammelled. Again
the course of the school is obvious. In all constructive
work it should leave as free a hand as possible in the
planning ; should welcome originality, even if it spoil

IDEALS 435

material ; and should give to those who show that they
can imagine new constructions generous opportunity to
carry out their practical ideals.

The theoretical ideal of the intellect is the attainment
of absolute truth. This also we can and should all feel
in so far as the truth relates to our concerns. Again it is
plain that the imagination will act only in the domain of
interest. Whatever branch of knowledge be a subject
of interest, in that matter the ideal of truth will most
seek to find realization. This love of truth for its own
sake is the fine flower which springs from the root of
curiosity. Its growth is of necessity gradual. First,
it shows as a regard for exactness of statement, then
as a thirst for explanation, in which possible reasons
for what is experienced are imagined. This slowly but
continuously widens till it may try to embrace the
universe in one ideal systematic whole.

" God's gift was that man should conceive of truth
And yearn to gain it, catching at mistake,
As midway help till he reach fact indeed.
The statuary ere he mould a shape
Boasts a like gift, the shape's idea, and next
The aspiration to produce the same ;
So, taking clay, he calls his shape thereout,
Cries ever 'Now I have the thing I see':
Yet all the while goes changing what was wrought,
From falsehood like the truth, to truth itself."1

Always the knowledge is desired for its own sake, as
we say. That is, explanation is sought without any
necessary reference to whether or not it will be useful to
us in any other way than in increasing our knowledge
and understanding of things.

1 Browning : A Death in the Desert.

436 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

Doubtless, the theoretical and practical ideals of truth
may be conjoined in any one case, or generally in any
one person. Then each is of medium strength. When
either is very strong it dominates the mind. Then we
may say that one or the other is supreme, because the
mind is of practical temperament yet well endowed with
intelligence, or of intellectual temperament with little
proclivity towards the actual and practical.

The dominance of an intellectual ideal in life is neces-
sarily marked by calmness. Yet feeling is by no means
absent. There is both the joy of search and the joy of
accomplishment, or, it may be, the sorrow of failure.
Of the two joys that of search is the immediate effulgence
of the ideal. When accomplishment is reached the ideal
has been realized and inspires to no further effort. Yet
out of it may grow another ideal prompting to fresh
striving. Every one who has intellectual ideals feels the
force of Lessing's saying : " If I were offered the choice
between already ascertained truth and the pleasure of
finding it out, I would choose the second."

It is the severely practical person, whose ideal is to get
something done, and to whom knowledge is of value
exactly to the degree to which it helps towards this, who
prefers his knowledge ready-made. Such narrow utili-
tarian minds are very rare indeed, if not quite unknown,
among children. True, some have marked leanings that
way, and feel much more strongly the value of know-
ledge which can be put to material use than of that which
can only be made available in attaining more knowledge.
But they have curiosity too, and it is not difficult to keep
that instinct alive independently, so that knowledge is
sought both when it bears on every-day pursuits and
when it only enlarges the sweep of fancy. Unhappily

IDEALS 437

the assumption that the amount of information gained is
the chief test of school work has obscured the truth that a
mere giving of information not only fails to stimulate
the intellect to frame ideals for itself but actually
atrophies that power by giving no opportunity for its
exercise. Certainly information is the necessary material
with which imagination works. But unless the power
to form ideals be exercised in youth it will be likely to
show itself but a weakly cripple in maturity.

The word 'ideal' is probably more often applied to
the various aspirations of art than to those of thought
which we have just considered. In them, too, it has
become proverbial that the true artist must be born. He
needs to be trained to acquire the mechanism through
which his art works, but the power of imagining the
beauty he represents can in no way be given him. This,
indeed, is the case not only in art but in all imaginative
constructions. Each mind makes its own ideals, and
most truly do they reflect its character. The difference
is in degree, not in kind ; but that difference sets the real
artists of the world in a class apart.

The origin of all art is in the innate tendency to play.
It is, indeed, the play of the intellect making construc-
tions for no ulterior purpose but simply for the joy
given by their mere existence. "Supreme art," said
Schiller, ' ' is that in which play reaches its highest point,
when we play, so to speak, from the depths of our
being."

All ideals are in a sense creative, for all inspire activity
to do something which the doer has not done before.
By creative art, however, we mean the setting forth of
something new to the world. In the same way we speak
of a new discovery or invention or a new theory of life

438 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

as *' original ". These are all realizations of the ideals of
the few. Those of the many are more modest. They
lead to enrichment of the experience of the individual,
not necessarily or usually of that of the world. The
intellectual ideal of the many is simply to understand
clearly what has already been added to the knowledge
of the world ; the moral ideal is to live a life which con-
forms to rules of conduct generally accepted. So in art
the ideal of the many can only be to appreciate with some
fullness the creations of others. It should be noted that
this is a real ideal : it imagines an attitude of mind and
a power of insight and feeling not yet possessed ; it holds
this vision to be worthy of attainment, and so it forms the
purpose of endeavouring to get as near its realization as
possible. Truly it is a lower ideal than that of the
creative artist, but it is the only one possible to ordinary
minds, and without it art is altogether banished from
many lives.

Such appreciation is often made truer and keener by
cultivation of a power of imitative production, and to
this, most can attain in some modest degree. Indeed,
in literature the vast majority of people do take the first
steps, though many stop very near the starting-point.
Fewer learn to produce with brush and pencil copies
even of simple pictures and of natural objects. Yet
those who have learned either to represent a spray of
flowers with the brush, or to express a body of ideas
clearly and forcibly with the pen, have done something
of no little importance in improving their power of
appreciation of painting or of literature.

Everyone will agree that ideals of conduct and thought
concern the school. They belong to the serious business
of life, whether that business be to earn a livelihood or

IDEALS 439

simply to live as a worthy human being. According to
the favourite doctrine of the Gradgrinds who are still
with us, that is sufficient for the school. On the other
hand, Aristotle — whom it is, perchance, permissible to
hold wiser than any Gradgrind of them all — insisted on
the Greek view that we should " choose business for the
sake of leisure, what is useful and necessary for the sake of
what is fine." Both business and leisure are necessary in
life, ' ' but leisure is more worth having and more of an end
than business, so we must find out how we are to employ
our leisure. Not, surely, in playing games; for that
would imply that amusement is the end of life. ... It
is clear, then, that there are subjects which ought to form
part of education solely with a view to the right employ-
ment of leisure, and that this education and those studies
exist for their own sake, while those that have business in
view are studied as being necessary and for the sake of
something else." l These subjects form the domain of
the muses, summed up by the Greeks in the generic term
'Music'.

We may justify their inclusion in our modern schools
even more surely than could Aristotle in the schools of
Athens. For it is allowable, if not always judicious, to
omit from school elements which are abundantly fur-
nished by life ; it is not sufferable that those of which
life is otherwise destitute should be excluded. Art in
all its forms pervaded ancient Athens ; no one could
escape its influence. It is not nearly so prominent in
modern life. This reacts on the school, and accentuates
its inherent tendency to be matter-of-fact and even
commonplace in outlook.

The school, however, must direct its efforts essentially

1 Politics (Burnet's Translation) vii, 14 ; viii, 3.

440 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

to the training of appreciation. It cannot cater for the
possible immortal poet or painter or sculptor among its
scholars. It could not help him if it found him ; though,
indeed, it might lessen the spontaneity of his utterance.
For him, as for others, it could only directly teach the
alphabet of the process of expression.

We have already seen that power of imitative pro-
duction develops power of appreciation. Happily,
schools are more and more giving their scholars oppor-
tunity to copy in water-colours simple natural objects,
such as sprays of leaves and flowers. Fewer seem to
encourage them to paint, from imagination playing on
past experience, ideal sprays. Sometimes, of course, a
child can only reproduce baldly and schematically ; but
often a pretty fancy is displayed. Criticism of such
efforts should be the child's own, and should first correct
anything which is essentially false to nature, and secondly
deal with the general grouping and effect of the whole.
In producing such a sketch the child uses past experience,
but in no wise slavishly. A distinct set of flowers
formerly seen does not start up in his mind, but he com-
bines into an imagined whole, without conscious analysis,
elements which are yet due to analysis. It need hardly
be pointed out that minds which do not visualize can
scarcely be expected to distinguish themselves in this.

Original composition is always a case of ideal con-
struction. Let the reader examine his own experience.
There is a topic to be discussed and a desire to discuss it
well and clearly. As this purpose is dominant in mind
we find ideas connected with it coming into conscious-
ness, we know not whence. Some we reject without
consideration ; they are felt to be incompatible. Others
we reject or modify after critical consideration. So at

IDEALS 441

last the theme in outline stands in idea. Then comes
the expression, which is really the artistic part of the
whole. Words and phrases come readily enough, but
without critical selection they are apt to be awkward, if
not obscure. In time, no doubt, practice may make
the art of expression nearly, if not quite, as automatic
as the expert painter's strokes with the brush. The
beginner has to give care to both.

Now, if school children be trained to aim at an artistic
expression of their ideas whenever they write a com-
position exercise, they will be learning in the surest
possible way a little of what style means, when and why
one style is good, another bad. Of course the style
cultivated must be natural to the child. Some are
matter-of-fact in everything. They state an event just
as it happened, without comment or reflexions ; they
describe a thing as it is in its bald obvious qualities.
Others are, as we say, more imaginative. They see
likenesses and analogies ; they personify things and
forces, they reflect and comment, they love metaphors
and similes. The difference is well illustrated in the
productions of two girls, of fourteen and thirteen years
of age respectively, recorded by M. Binet.1 To take
one quite characteristic example. The girls were asked

to write a short passage beginning "The star ".

The elder wrote "The Pole Star is a part of the Little
Bear"; the younger, "The star was shining and seemed
to lead me ; when I felt disheartened I looked up at it
and once again pursued my lonely path."

Nothing could be more matter-of-fact than the former
production. Probably an attempt to develop in such
a mind appreciation for any literary qualities beyond

1 Etude experimental de £ intelligence.

442 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

methodical clearness and precision would be hopeless.
That then — perfect lucidity of arrangement and expres-
sion— is the true ideal for such a child.

But many children who write thus baldly are capable
of better things. The school too often makes no
attempt to cultivate style, and anything which soars
above the ground is discouraged by the ridicule of
scholars, and at times of teachers. If only this negative
influence be removed, style often bursts out spon-
taneously. Needless to say that with help and encourage-
ment it becomes more common. And, surely, to use
one's mother-tongue effectively is no small gain. To
illustrate my point I venture to reproduce a little essay
written in the ordinary course of the work of a primary
school by a boy of ten, which I know to have been his
own production, entirely unaided and unprompted. It
has its faults, and truly childish ones they are, and we
can easily trace the source of his general idea and see
the use of imitation made by originality. But it does
show the germ of a true literary feeling, and is in every
way superior to much similar work.

A WINDY DAY.

"On, On, On, never ceasing in mortal's eyes, I, Boreas, rushed,
and the people of the world said as they felt my breath, * Ugh, the
north wind,' and shivered as they muffled themselves up. But on I
went whistling and howling among the trees of a mighty forest,
tearing up young green saplings like straws, and hurling them
defiantly at the mighty oak, who groaned in his branches like a
wounded man. Then I betook myself to the highway, and tossed
the thatch off the wayside inn, for I feared no man. Suddenly when
I was off my guard, the south wind, my eternal enemy, appeared. A
battle ensued, and the people of earth called it a hurricane, but
spirits knew it to be a battle of the winds.

I came off victor, and feeling mischievous, sped away to a distant

IDEALS 443

town to give vent to my feelings. When I arrived there a carnival
was being held, and I whisked people's hats all over the field. I spied
a tent at the farthest end of the field, and puckering up my lips I
blew a blast which sent tent and all, hurry, scurry over an ice-cream
cart headlong into a ditch, and I laughed long and merrily, for that
was indeed a carnival to me.

But I was growing tired now (for even Boreas grows tired) and
my cousin the east wind wished to take a journey over the sun-
scorched deserts of Arabia, so I returned to my home at the North
Pole.

Such early efforts are likely at times to show exaggera-
tion, straining after effect, incongruity of style and
matter, and, of course, inequality in execution. It
should be remembered, however, that the children who
naturally write in this style are the sensitives, that they
are easily discouraged and their self-respect readily
wounded. After all, they are only trying their wings.
We do not ridicule or discourage exuberance of move-
ment when a child is learning to ride a bicycle ; we know
that this — like youth — is a fault time will cure. Surely
the same sympathetic attitude should be taken in the
matter of composition. Kindly suggestion when meta-
phor or treatment is out of keeping with the subject will
be welcomed, but mere exuberances of style may be left
to cure themselves, unless, indeed, they show a tendency
to develop into artificiality. Above all, it should be
borne in mind that what seems redundant ornament to
one appears apt and charming to another. The teacher
of matter-of-fact practical temperament should be especi-
ally suspicious of his judgements on imaginative literary
productions of his pupils.

This leads us, indeed, to a very real difficulty in all
exercise of influence on children's appreciation. Taste
must be the spontaneous outcome of the soul or it is a

444 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

mere sham. It would be impossible to say how much
of the general taste of any period is mere following of
fashion. And fashion itself is often the outcome of
certain intellectual ideas rather than of artistic feeling.
This is admirably put in an article in The Times : 1
" Weed is only a bad name we give to a plant when we
do not want it. If there were no gardens there would
be no weeds. In fact, it is the law that makes so hand-
some a plant as the dandelion a sinner, the law that
dandelions are wild flowers and have no right in the
garden. A dandelion in a flower border looks positively
ugly to a gardener, and the sight of it makes his fingers
itch to pull it up. He has his idea, a purely conventional
idea, of what flowers ought to be in a border ; and this
idea is so strong that it even controls his sense of sight,
making him see ugliness where there is beauty, just
because that beauty is not part of his own design.

This fact about the dandelion might be turned into
a fable for art critics, to warn them that their taste and
the taste of their time is not absolute, that their sense
of beauty is likely to be affected by circumstances to an
extent which they cannot realize. There was a time,
and not so long ago, when Gothic buildings were
regarded by the man of culture much as dandelions are
regarded by the gardener. The very name Gothic, like
weed, was a term of reproach, and it explains why Gothic
buildings were thought ugly. They were supposed to
be the work of a barbarous age, which, because it was
barbarous, could do nothing good ; and every character-
istic of the Gothic was regarded as a mark of barbarism.
It was an argument in a circle no doubt, but such argu-
ments seem most convincing when once a prejudice is

1 March 28, 1910.

IDEALS 445

thoroughly established. First the eye is influenced by
the mind, and then the mind reasons from what the eye,
thus influenced by it, reveals to it.

"The contempt of Gothic is only one instance out
of many of the same kind of prejudice. It acted in the
other direction in the case of Graeco-Roman art. That
was supposed to be the product of a great age of civiliza-
tion, and was therefore assumed to be beautiful. In-
deed, the Graeco-Roman sculptors were held to have been
masters of an absolute canon of beauty. The Venus de
Medici was an ideal, and so was the Apollo Belvedere.
In so far as any sculpture departed from this ideal, it
was ugly and barbarous ; and the best the modern artist
could do was to imitate these masterpieces as closely
as possible. Hence Canova and the classical pictures
of David and innumerable other works of art, which
now seem about as interesting as illustrations to the
classical dictionary."

Canons of taste which find acceptance in one age are
rejected in another. Is it, then, to be held that after all
there is no real difference between good and bad art ;
that beautiful and ugly are words whose real meaning
is prejudice ? Such scepticism would strike its roots far,
and would contradict the constant faith of mankind.
The lesson rather is that taste cannot be directly taught.
Such teaching makes us see things through a more or
less powerful disturbing medium, brings in

" The instinctive theorizing whence a fact
Looks to the eye as the eye likes the look." l

It is not from ideas but from things that taste must
spring ; for it is things that are beautiful or ugly while

1 Browning : The Ring and the Book, i. 863-4.

446 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

ideas may spring from any source, and have no necessary
connexion with aesthetic principles. As The Times says
in concluding the article from which I have quoted : " In
fact, the sense of beauty seems untrustworthy because it
is seldom trusted. We talk of bad taste when we mean
no taste. If we could analyse all the ugliness of art,
we should find probably that it was the result, not of a
perverted sense of beauty, but of ideas interfering with
the sense of beauty ; and that the pleasure it gives is
not aesthetic at all. The difficulty is, not to take pleasure
in the right things, but to take the right kind of pleasure
in them. If only we could judge our feelings about
works of art instead of judging the works of art them-
selves, we should be much less liable to error."

Taste is often communicated by contagion of enthusi-
asm ; never by didactic directions to note the beauty of
this or of that. Nor is it well to ask for expressions
of taste. If they come spontaneously, well and good.
But to demand them is a sure way to cultivate that
insincerity which leads many men and women to talk
of art less to express appreciation than to conceal its
absence. The scholastic mania for putting everything
into words has strangled many a promising ideal at its
birth.

It is, however, quite essential that the material pro-
vided should be so graduated that each psychological
age has put before it literature in which it can appreciate
both the ideas and the form. Art differs from nature,
real literature from mere narrative or description, in that
it presents to us not merely facts, but the facts interpreted
by the imagination of the artist. The true artist-soul
sees deeply into the inner meaning of things, and detects
likenesses and relations which the common mind cannot

IDEALS 447

see unaided, which the prosaic mind often cannot see at
all. These last are they who dismiss all poetry as " silly
stuff." Probably they are the victims of a 'practical
education' as well as the possessors of minds originally
commonplace. To advance in power of appreciating
literature, especially poetic literature, is to gain increased
insight into such analogies. This is possible only if the
amount and kind of insight demanded at any time be
such as is spontaneously active.

In all ordinary minds the similarities recognized are
first those of sense, later those of emotional tone. We
may see the progress writ large in the development of
poetry. The imagery of the earliest poets is simple and
somewhat infrequent ; its appeal to sense is direct. On
the other hand, the most characteristic and the most
valued modern poetry makes its appeal to the deeper
spiritual life, and evokes emotional response by its power
of filling the soul with living images, all adapted to
deepen and strengthen that tone. Compare, for instance,
the simple and direct imagery of Homer — his "Zeus
the cloud-gatherer", "the silver eddies of Teneios",
" the stream which floweth on over him like unto oil" —
with such poetry as

"All he had loved, and moulded into thought,
From shape, and hue, and odour, and sweet sound,
Lamented Adonais. Morning sought
Her eastern watch-tower, and her hair unbound,
Wet with the tears which should adorn the ground,
Dimmed the aerial eyes that kindle day ;
Afar the melancholy thunder moaned,
Pale Ocean in unquiet slumber lay,
And the wild winds flew round, sobbing in their dismay." *

1 Shelley : Adonais, xiv.

448 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

A like development may be traced in poetical form.
In early English poetry such a mechanical similarity as
alliteration played an important part. The lines ran in
couples, and usually two chief words in the first line, and
one in the second began with the same consonants, as

" wudu wyrtum fzest
waster oferhelmath."1

Some eight centuries later the same form was still
retained. In Piers Plowman the alliterative rule is very
generally followed —

" There preched a Pardonere

As he a prest were,
Broughte forth a bulle
With bishopes seles."8

Though alliteration is still used with considerable
effect it is no longer subject to definite rules of occur-
rence. Tennyson often employs it happily, as in

" The splendour falls on castle walls

And snowy summits old in story:
The long light shakes across the lakes
And the wild cataract leaps in glory."8

The formal recurrence of the same consonantal sound
which marked old verse seems to us artificial, just because
we demand that the effect of alliteration shall be to make
the verse harmonize subtly with the ' feeling ' of the
passage. In the example just given, for instance, the
consonance of the alliterative effect with the general
atmosphere of repose is perfect.

1 " a wood fast of roots (i.e. a firmly rooted wood),
the water over-canopies." — Beowulf, 2727-2728.
* 1 36-1 39. 8 The Princess : Introd. to iv.

IDEALS 449

Now-a-days, we should find nothing to please our
taste in efforts of perverted ingenuity which in former
ages won admiration. We read of a Latin poem of
some hundred hexameters in which every word began
with P, and of another set of verses in which C was the
only initial letter — a compliment to Charles the Bold
to whom they were addressed. Among other recorded
examples was an Iliad^ from each successive book of
which a corresponding letter of the Greek alphabet was
omitted. "The same species of laborious trifling by
the report of the traveller Chardin, appears to have pre-
vailed in Persia. One of the poets of that country had
the honour of reading to his sovereign a poem, in which
no admission had been allowed to the letter A. The
king, who was tired of listening, and whose weariness
had probably too good a cause, returned the poet thanks,
and expressed his very great approbation of his omission
of the letter A ; but added, that in his opinion, the poem
might, perhaps, have been better still, if he had only
taken the trouble to omit, at the same time, all the other
letters of the alphabet." l

Rhyme in modern verse corresponds broadly in its
effect to alliteration, for it also appeals to audible con-
sonance. Like alliteration, rhyme may become weari-
some if continued through a long poem. In each case
the mechanism of the verse is too insistent for modern
ears. Doubtless also it is often a bondage to the poet
himself, though not many are as frank as was Butler in
lamenting it —

"But those that write in rhyme, still make
The one verse for the other's sake ;

1 Brown : Philosophy of the Human Mind, lect. 36.

W. 2F

450 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

For one for sense, and one for rhyme,
I think's sufficient at one time." l

But that even the greatest poets at times feel themselves
cramped is evident by such bad rhymes as that of
Milton —

"That we on Earth with undiscording voice
May rightly answer that melodious noise."8

In rhyme, as in alliteration, literature supplies some
curious specimens of ingenuity, as, for example, George
Herbert's short poem Paradise which consists of five
three-lined rhyming stanzas, in each of which the word
ending the first line is shortened by omitting its initial
letter to give the ending of the second line, and the same
process is repeated for the third time. For instance, the
second stanza reads —

"What open force, or hidden charm
Can blast my fruit, or bring me harm
While the inclosure is thine arm ? "

The essential element in poetic form is, however,
neither alliteration nor rhyme, but rhythm. Here also
fashion changes. Early English poetry with its rhythm
determined by the number of accents rather than value
of syllables sounds uncouth to a modern ear, which is
only satisfied with syllabic regularity as well as regularity
of stress.

Rhythm is analogous with ' time ' in music. In each
case certain forms are congruous with some emotions,
repugnant to others. If this be neglected neither true
poetry nor true music results. Blank verse suits
Paradise Lost, but it is impossible to imagine Shelley's

lHudibras, Part ii. Canto i., 27-30. * At a Solemn Music, 17-18.

IDEALS 45 r

Ode to a Skylark written in that form. Perhaps as good
an example of incongruity as can easily be found among
really great writers is the metre in which Scott wrote
Marmion. The form would suit a brief lyric, but in
so long a poem as that to which it is here applied it
becomes wearisome and trivial.

In reading aloud or reciting, both rhythm and rhyme
should be duly marked. ' ' Many reciters seem to be
ignorant of the fact that rhythm, in all poetry that is worth
reciting, is a means of expression ; indeed, that rhythm
and sense are so closely connected that the one cannot be
understood without the other. Spoil the rhythm and
you spoil the sense ; misunderstand the sense and you
will mar the rhythm. In fact, good verse is said wrongly
if it is not said rhythmically ; and any dramatic airs and
graces which break the rhythm, or even distract the
hearer's attention from it, are not merely superfluous but
mischievous. A reciter of poetry ought no more to
gesticulate than a violinist ought to wave his bow about
in the middle of his performance. Music, in the one
case, and words, in the other, are the only proper means
of expression ; and in good poetry there is even less
occasion for displays of virtuosity than in good music.
A reciter's first aim should be to understand thoroughly
the poem which he proposes to recite ; not merely the
sense of it, but also the quality of its emotion ; for he
cannot understand the one without understanding the
other. And he cannot understand either unless he is
aware of the expressive function of metre and rhythm.

" We say metre and rhythm, because rhythm is neces-
sary to preserve metre from mere sing-song. It is the
peculiar character of each line, expressive of its peculiar
sense and emotion, which is imposed upon the general

452 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

pattern of the metre. A familiar instance is to be found
in the line —

" Of man's first disobedience and the fruit — "

Here a reader who does not give careful attention to the
sense will adhere to the strict metrical pattern, lay no
stress on the word first k, and spoil both the rhythm and
the meaning of the verse. In all good poetry there are
such delicate varieties of rhythm ; and the reader or
reciter, if he searches for these and uses them as means
of expression, will find that there is no room in his art
for dramatic effects. He must know how to manage his
voice, of course, so that his audience may not be troubled
by its defects. But when he can do that he has nothing
to think about but the phrasing of his poetry, which
should be musical rather than dramatic, and expressive

as the phrasing of music is expressive

"The treatment of rhyme is one of the most difficult
problems in the delivery of poetry. Reciters often say
rhymed verse as if they were trying to conceal the fact
that it is rhymed. But poets would scarcely use rhymes
if they did not mean them to be heard ; and it is said
that many good poets, in reading their own poetry, are
apt to lay great stress on the rhymes, as on the rhythm.
Certainly a reciter should not be afraid of rhymes.
Where a rhyming word is important in sound or sense
he should sound it boldly ; and even when the sense
runs over without a break into the next line he should
not be too anxious to insist upon its continuity. For
in poetry lines are facts that are not meant to be ignored.
Indeed, rhymes are there to emphasize them. But the
good poet usually shows, by the use of strong or weak
rhymes, how far he means them to be stressed. In the

IDEALS 453

Ancient Mariner for instance, which is a model in
all the formal excellences of poetry, it is quite clear that
the rhymes are meant to be stressed in the verse —

"The fair breeze blew, the white foam flew,

The furrow followed free ;
We were the first that ever burst
Into that silent sea."

For here the rhyme-words are both important in sense
and strong in sound. On the other hand, the rhymes
should be softly sounded in the verse —

" Sometimes a-dropping from the sky

I heard the skylark sing ;
Sometimes all little birds that are,
How they seem'd to fill the earth and air
With their sweet jargoning ! "

For, apart from the weakness and imperfection of the
rhyme sounds, the rhythm would be spoilt by any
emphasis on the last words of the lines. In fact, rhyme
is a part of metre and, with metre, is always subject to
rhythm. Understand the rhythm of a poem and you
will know how to treat its rhymes. The more expres-
sive a poem is, the more it is swayed by rhythm ; and
the good reciter will allow his voice to be swayed by
rhythm as if he were thinking aloud and rhythm were
the natural expression of his own thought"1

In all the formal elements of poetry the direct appeal
is sensuous. In metaphor and simile the suggestion
rests in emotional congruity or immediate apprehension
of relations. Things of sense are made vehicles for
things of spirit. The metaphor is spontaneous ; it
springs from an immediate feeling or emotion ; it is

1 Article on The Reading ofToetry in The Times, Sept. igth, 1910.

454 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

essentially the outcome of passion. Hence the ease with
which metaphors are mixed in an oratorical outburst,
as when in a debate in the House of Commons a promi-
nent politician accused the Government of desiring
"to kill one Assembly by a blow, and to destroy the
other Assembly by the slow poison of the guillotine."
The simile, on the other hand, is a deliberate comparison,
often of some length. It is a vehicle of description
intended to induce a quiet appreciation and so to bring
out some special emotional value. While, then, the
appeal of metaphor is directly emotional that of simile
is primarily intellectual. By metaphor we are stirred,
but on simile we love to dwell.

To illustrate metaphor and simile adequately would
be an endless task. Two metaphors that have always
seemed to me very beautiful and expressive are in a
Fragment on Music by Shelley. He invokes Music —

" Silver key of the fountain of tears,

Where the spirit drinks till the brain is wild ;
Softest grave of a thousand fears,

Where their mother, Care, like a drowsy child,
Is laid asleep in flowers."

The simile in the last two lines is equally satisfying.

Of all the metaphors in In Memoriam none seems to
me more expressive than where Tennyson calls the
4 ' brief lays " which compose that poem

" Short swallow-flights of song, that dip
Their wings in tears, and skim away."1

Many boys and girls can feel the beauty and effect
of such metaphors as these. The teacher must not

lln Memoriam, xlviii.

IDEALS 455

attempt to interfere. The whole spiritual exaltation
evaporates in talk.

Metaphors are also to be found in prose. Bacon made
very frequent use both of them and of similes, often
quaintly humorous.

" A king ... is the fountain of honour, which should not run
with a waste pipe, lest the courtiers sell the water." 1

Far excelling this in elaboration are the metaphors of
Lyly. His Euphues and his England ends with a long
eulogy to Elizabeth in which, in one paragraph, we have :

" This is that Ctesar that first bound the Crocodile to the Palme
tree, bridling those, that sought to raine hir : This is that good Pelican
that to feede hir people spareth not to rend hir owne personne : This
is that mightie Eagle, that hath throwne dust into the eyes of the
Hart, that went about to worke destruction to hir subiectes, into
whose winges although the blinde Beetle would haue crept, and so
being carryed into hir nest, destroyed hir young ones, yet hath she
with the vertue of hir fethers, consumed that flye in his owne fraud."

Such writing is as far removed from the true use of
metaphor as it can very well be. It is as laboured, as
strained, and as artificial, as the ingenious tricks with the
alphabet already noticed.

Of similes I will cite but a very few arranged roughly
in order of appeal to successive stages of emotional
development.

"There is sweet music here that sorter falls
Than petals from blown roses on the grass,

Or night-dews on still waters between walls
Of shadowy granite, in a gleaming pass ;

Music that gentlier on the spirit lies,

Than tir'd eyelids upon tir'd eyes."2

1 Of a King 2 Tennyson, The Lotus Eaters.

456 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

The pictures raised are simple and clear, and there is no
appeal to deep or complex emotion.

But little more difficult, though less immediate and
intimate to experience, is Keats'

" Then felt I like some watcher of the skies
When a new planet swims into his ken."1

Wordsworth's

" Thy soul was like a star, and dwelt apart :
Thou hadst a voice whose sound was like the sea."2

demands a wider scope of imagination, and its force can
only be felt by one who has heard much of Milton's
poetry well read. The comparison in the first line,
moreover, has only one of its terms in the realm of sense.
Shakespeare's

"I have ventured,

Like little wanton boys that swim on bladders,
This many summers in a sea of glory,
But far beyond my depth."3

is picturesque, and the simile comes straight home to
personal experience. But its full force is only felt after
some experience of wide ambition which o'erleaps itself,
and that children can have but in a small degree.
Lander's beautiful simile

" The noble mansion is most distinguished by the beautiful images
it retains of beings passed away ; and so is the noble mind." *

is simple but appeals directly and forcibly only to those
who have lost some who were dear to them. The

1 On First Looking into Chapman's Homer.

2 Sonnet on Milton. 8 Henry fill., act iii. sc. 2.
4 The Pentameron and Pentalogia.

IDEALS 457

appreciation of boy or girl is, therefore, likely to be
purely intellectual.

The following somewhat laboured simile will probably
appeal to teachers rather than to their pupils :

" As sickly plants betray a niggard earth,
Whose barren bosom starves her generous birth,
Nor genial warmth, nor genial juice retains,
Their roots to feed, and fill their verdant veins :
And as in climes, where winter holds his reign,
The soil, though fertile, will not teem in vain,
Forbids her gems to swell, her shades to rise,
Nor trusts her blossoms to the churlish skies :
So draw mankind in vain the vital airs,
Unform'd, unfriended, by those kindly cares,
That health and vigour to the soul impart,
Spread the young thought, and warm the opening heart :
So fond instruction on the growing powers
Of nature idly lavishes her stores,
If equal justice with unclouded face
Smile not indulgent on the rising race,
And scatter with a free, though frugal hand,
Light golden showers of plenty o'er the land :
But tyranny has fix'd her empire there,
To check their tender hopes with chilling fear,
And blast the blooming promise of the year." l

The last example I shall give, exquisite as it is, I
should not expect many young people to enter into very
fully. Yet I would encourage all who were caught by
the beauty of the words to commit it to memory. Years
will give it a meaning, and such a verbal gem deserves
to be treasured. It is Shelley's

" Life, like a dome of many-coloured glass,
Stains the white radiance of Eternity,
Until Death tramples it to fragments."2

1 Gray : The Alliance of Education and Government. 2 Adonait, Hi.

458 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

The educational point is this. Power of appreciation
will grow if suitable material be given and judiciously
used, not as a text on which to examine, but as an
influence which works mainly in the dark. Of course,
as the apprehension of relations in a simile is intellectual,
to that extent help may be given by suggestion or even
by direct explanation. The error is to dwell on this, and
so hinder the aesthetic and emotional effect to which
intellectual grasp is only the hand-maiden.

Before leaving the subject of literature a few words
may be said on the use of contrast in making a point
clear and vivid. Pithy epigrams are fixed in the mind by
their sharp angles of expression as we may, perhaps,
call them. Take for example Rochefoucault's

"Passion often makes a fool of a man of sense : sometimes it makes
a man of sense of a fool."1

Like every other marked peculiarity of style antithesis
becomes wearisome if frequently used in continuous
writing. The mind is made continually to hop and
skip instead of quietly plodding along. Moreover
constant contrast of phrases soon loses its effect, and so
the one justification for its use vanishes. Macaulay's
prose is certainly open to the criticism of being too
antithetical.

The subject of artistic and literary appreciation leads
us naturally to say a few words on humour. It is a
perilously small step from the sublime to the ridiculous,
and that step is not at the same point for all minds.
Especially is it placed differently for a child and for a
cultured adult. Art grows out of play ; so the younger
the child the more his sense of humour is limited to
1 Maxim 327.

IDEALS 459

practical jokes. The next stage is when it embraces
verbal descriptions of such events. The first sign of
humour with a really literary basis is often the enjoyment
of puns, and they are only a kind of practical joking
with words. Nevertheless, the power to see a pun is
a sign that language is beginning to attract attention by
itself and apart from the meaning it conveys. Young
children cannot see puns because their minds are wholly
occupied by the general meaning. The same holds true
of many worthy, but rather dull and prosaic, adults. On
the other hand, a constant indulgence in punning —
especially when youth has been left behind — indicates a
frivolous cast of mind. Nevertheless, puns are at times
effective, particularly as a form of gentle ridicule. I
cannot refrain from quoting a happy instance of this,
related of the late J. K. Stephen :

" On a certain occasion a Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge,
had been discoursing to an Essay Society on various theories of
immortality, and had concluded a desultory speech by a quotation
from Wordsworth's famous poem. No sooner had he uttered the
line 'Heaven lies about us in our infancy' than J. K. S. broke in
with, ' Perfectly true, D. ; but that's no reason why you should lie
about Heaven when you're grown up.' " l

Doubtless there are children who early see humour in
many situations which involve no practical joking, and
soon after get some appreciation of humour in expres-
sion. But this is exceptional before adolescence. Quite
commonly the humour of Pickwick fails to appeal to
children in later boyhood and girlhood.

Many things, however, excite the laughter of a child.
The most general condition of the ludicrous seems to
be the unexpected introduction of an incongruous
Article in The Daily News, Feb. n, 1901.

460 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

element of relatively small importance. For instance, if
a fierce dog rushed on to a stage during a comedy, sprang
at the throat of the leading actor and severely injured
him, it would be quite incongruous with the spirit of
the scene, but it would by no means be ludicrous. If
one began laughing, in the belief that the dog's attack was
feigned and was part of the run, he would change his
attitude immediately he grasped the true situation. But
if a small terrier ran on to the stage during one of the
ghost scenes in Hamlet, and began yelping at the ghost,
most people would find it ludicrous.

It takes but a very trivial occurrence of this kind
to move children to laughter, and not much more to-
excite the risibility of adults. This presents a certain
element of danger in trying to arouse literary apprecia-
tion in children. For too often, if the desired feeling
be not stirred, the inclination to laughter is aroused,
though decorum may induce its suppression. I have
known a teacher excite a class of boys of about fourteen
to laughter by a really effective reading of a poem, simply
because he was a stranger and, therefore, not bound to
them by bonds of sympathy, and because at that critical
age they were inclined to look upon all unaccustomed
expression of emotion with contempt. Obviously, such
a result hinders the growth of literary appreciation.

A good parody is an excellent instance of humorous
incongruity. With adolescents, such efforts may be
effectively used to aid in the formation of a critical taste
if they be not introduced too frequently. A parody
ridicules the weaknesses of the author on whose works
it is based, but does so indirectly. A judicious use of
parodies, therefore, cultivates a habit of reflective com-
parison, and militates against the indiscriminate enthusi-

IDEALS 461

asm which, by holding to be good all that is written by
a confessedly great author, makes real discriminative
taste practically impossible. Take, for instance, the
following extract from a parody of Marmion. Of this
Scott himself is reported to have said to one of the two
authors "I certainly must have written this myself,
although I forget upon what occasion!"

"Still o'er his head, while Fate he braved,
His whizzing water-pipe he waved ;
'Whitford and Mitford, ply your pumps,
You, Clutterbuck, come, stir your stumps,
Why are you in such doleful dumps I
A fireman, and afraid of bumps ! —
What are they fear'd on ? fools ! *od rot 'em ! '
Were the last words of Higginbottom." l

How happily, too, is the mirror held up to " the other
Wordsworth " in the same famous set of parodies —

"Aunt Hannah heard the window break,
And cried, * O naughty Nancy Lake,

Thus to distress your aunt :
No Drury Lane for you to-day ! '
And while papa said, * Pooh, she may ! *
Mamma said, * No, she sha'n't ! '

Well, after many a sad reproach,
They got into a hackney coach,

And trotted down the street,
I saw them go : one horse was blind,
The tails of both hung down behind,

Their shoes were on their feet."2

Here the humour, which was unhappily quite uncon-
scious in so much of Wordsworth's ostentatiously simple

1 James and Horace Smith : Rejected Addretset. 2 Ibid.

462 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

verse, is made conscious, and the real poetic worth of
such writing becomes manifest.

Ideals, then, appear very early in life. At first they
are aspirations to acquire the power to do things which
others are seen to do. Then, as emulation and critical
power grow, they become more and more detached from
actual models. In other words, the individual begins
to be self-directing — to set before himself things he
would like to do and to be. Without a luxuriant growth
of ideals in the soul the life is thin and starved. The
school cannot plant them, but it can secure that the soil
is well prepared so that when a seed of inspiration falls,
it matters not whence, the plant may spring up and bear
fruit an hundred-fold. At the same time a kindly watch-
fulness is needed to uproot and destroy, if it be possible,
evil aspirations. But it is the positive culture that is
all important, and that demands both insight and tact.

Action towards ideals is the one unchanging condition
of a fruitful life. For such action the school should
provide opportunity and give encouragement in all the
great spheres of life. So only may its pupils escape the
unavailing regrets of age, when

" Suns rise and set and rise, and all is nought,
The coast of boyhood farther still recedes,
Age can but marvel why no dreams were brought
By manhood into deeds.*' l

1 James Williams : Thomas of Kempen.

CHAPTER XIII
CHARACTER

THAT it should train character is one of the very few
general statements about education which meet with
universal assent. I am not sure, however, that it is
more than one of those platitudes, the oracular enuncia-
tion of which is, according to Mr. Birrell, "the best
way of introducing any subject" because "they arouse
attention, without exhausting it, and afford the pleasant
sensation of thinking, without any of the trouble of
thought." l For, when some examination is given as to
what is meant by ' character ' one finds much want of pre-
cision and much lack of agreement. From the same want
of clearness of conception it comes to pass that but seldom
does either home or school make any systematic attempt
to train towards a definite ideal of character. It results
that what training is given is not only desultory but
incoherent, dependent on considerations of the moment
rather than on fixed principles.

All discussion of what makes a character morally good
or bad belongs to ethics. The function of psychology
is limited to enquiry into the constituents of character
and their relation to each other, and into the part character
plays in life. This is, nevertheless, a necessary pre-
liminary to any practical attempt to influence character.

1 Obiter Dicta : On the Alleged Obscurity of Mr. Brownings Poetry.

464 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

An educator must know its nature or he cannot deal with
it effectively. To desire to train to goodness, and even
to have a clear idea of how goodness is to be shown in
act, are in no sense sufficient. Desire here, as elsewhere,
is a blind and blundering guide unless intelligence trace
the way. And the way lies through the child's character,
in which also is to be found the true end. For only in
so far as action expresses character does good outward
conduct show that this end has been reached.

We will, then, first try to get a working idea of what
should be included in character, and then ask how far
that idea applies to the young. Here, as elsewhere, I
wish to avoid all unusual or technical use of terms. Let
us, therefore, approach our analysis from the side of
common speech, and take as our guide typical current
expressions about character.

In the first place we are forced to the position that
character is not necessarily connected with goodness, as
is implied in the educational commonplace with which
this chapter begins. We accept as rational and con-
sistent such statements as that ' X is a notoriously bad
character', 'Robespierre had a character terrible in its
inflexibility', 'The character of Tiberius has attracted
general execration'; and Keightley wrote "thorough
selfishness formed the basis of Henry's character."1
Similarly, we speak of the 'characters' of a play, and
include under the term both the good and the bad. This
comprehensive use of the word will cause no surprise
when it is remembered that the distinction between good
and bad is ethical, while the matter named is psycho-
logical, and that psychology has no moral categories.

Let us now examine some further expressions. We

1 History of England, vol. ii. p. 74.

CHARACTER 465

may fairly speak of a noble character or of an ignoble
character ; a spiritual character or a mundane character.
Washington Irving wrote of ' ' the softness and
effeminacy which characterize the man of rank in most
countries," and we may say that the Romans of the
early Republic were men of hard and warlike character.
Such expressions imply a particular general attitude to
people and things, a certain emotional evaluation of
experiences, definite aspirations and wide-reaching pur-
poses. Our judgement of the goodness or badness of
characters largely depends on the nature of such ideals
of life and conduct as are embodied in them.

In the next pkce ' character ' seems always to include
some reference to the extent of the intellectual outlook,
as well as to the nature of the purposes and aspirations.
We speak of some as men of magnanimous character,
and of others as showing a petty character. So, too, we
distinguish between characters as unselfish or selfish, just
or unjust, where in every case the reference includes
breadth of outlook as well as emotional relation.

Width of outlook, however, is rather a matter of the
relation of the self to its surroundings than of extent
or kind of information. Amount of learning and kind
of occupation are properly excluded from character. We
speak of a learned or ignorant man but not of a learned
or ignorant character. For ' learned ' and ' ignorant '
colloquially refer to certain somewhat arbitrarily selected
parts of human experience. A ploughman whose appre-
hension of his relations to his fellows and of his rights
in comparison with theirs is perfectly clear and just may
be profoundly ignorant of the sciences and the arts, yet
deeply learned in what is essential to the conduct of his
own life. This practical knowledge of life we do include
w. 20

466 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

in character, but we do not commonly call it knowledge.
So we may find equally admirable, or equally despicable,
characters in all walks of life. Rank and culture give
no presumption for or against excellence of character.
A bricklayer may have as fine a character as a bishop,
and a duke be as admirable as a docker.

I no more share the expectation that increased ' know-
ledge ' will, of itself, improve character, than the exactly
opposite opinion of Mandeville, who two hundred years
ago asserted that " Vice in general is no where more
predominant than where Arts and Sciences flourish . . .
and it is certain that we shall find Innocence and Honesty
no where more general than among the most illiterate,
the poor silly Country People." l

It is important to be clear on this point, for on it much
confusion seems to prevail. Increase of knowledge does
not necessarily mean increase of worth measured by
ethical or social standards. It is not through the im-
parting of information but through the moulding of
character that general education makes for the good of
the community. There is no necessary connexion
between the two. The knowledge which is acquired
may in no sense enlarge that width of outlook which
does enter into character, but may simply be an increased
power of seeing where personal advantage lies, and of
planning to secure that, regardless of the rights and
claims of others. Nevertheless, it is true that a usual
defect of ignorance is narrowness, and this always means
that personal opinions are exalted into universal truths.

Intensely, thoroughly ignorant people attain to a height
of self-esteem that the man who has spent a lifetime in
amassing knowledge, only to find that all he knows is

1 An Essay on Chanty and Charity Schools.

CHARACTER 467

but a drop in the full cup of knowledge, can never hope
to reach." 1 So knowledge which throws light upon the
individual's place in the world and upon his relations to
his fellows does help him to distinguish between personal
prejudice and generally received principle. But it is
evident that much of the information given in school
does not satisfy this test. So it may be said generally
that if advance in what is commonly called knowledge
does make for improvement in character, it does so
indirectly and because the general trend of the education
gives it its true position and perspective.

So far we have considered what may be called the
wider sense in which 'character' is used. There is
certainly a narrower sense implied in such expressions
as ' A is a man of much character ', ' B is wanting in
character ', or in Pope's libellous assertion that

"Most women have no characters at all."2

When we examine the context of such judgements we
invariably find that the reference is to strength and per-
sistence of purpose. Sometimes this is explicitly stated.
The face which character wears to me is self-sufficing-
ness Character is centrality, the impossibility of being

displaced or overset" wrote Emerson.3 Simikrly in
J. S. Mill's Essay On Liberty we read : " A person whose
desires and impulses are his own — are the expression of
his own nature, as it has been developed and modified
by his own culture — is said to have a character. One
whose desires and impulses are not his own has no
character, no more than a steam-engine has a character."
That eminent psychologist M. Ribot adopts the same

1 Helen Mather : Comin' thro' the Rye, pt. i. ch. 13.
2£>. to a Lady. * Essay on Character.

468 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

limitation: "In order to constitute a character, two
conditions are necessary and sufficient : unity and sta-
bility. Unity consists in a manner of acting and reacting
which is always consistent with itself. . . . Stability is
merely unity continued in time." 1

Of course, if this be interpreted literally it results in
the denial of character to the great majority of adults and
to practically all children. M. Ribot does, indeed, deny
that any but the minority have any true character. ' ' It
is clear that among the innumerable individuals of the
human species, there must be some, and these by far the
greater number, who have neither unity nor stability,
nor personal characteristics peculiar to themselves."2

But though this sense of the word 'character' is one
of those sanctioned by usage yet it seems to be elliptical.
When we speak of a man of intellect we mean a man of
unusually fine intellect, but we do not intend to deny
intellect to the rest of mankind. So when we speak of
a man of character we mean a man of unusually definite
character. That this does not implicitly class the
majority of people as characterless seems to be shown
by the fact that "a weak character" is an accepted
expression.

It becomes evident that strength is the especial
mark of character when we remember that character is
shown in conduct, and that we judge another's char-
acter by his conduct, and by that alone. A man of
developed character is essentially one whose life is unified
by a consistent purpose and who does not change that
main purpose according to the surroundings in which he
finds himself, though he may modify the mode in which

^•Psychology of the Emotions, Eng. trans., pp. 384-385.
2 /&</., pp. 385-386.

CHARACTER 469

he strives for its attainment. When a man ignores cir-
cumstances and pushes on indifferent to them we do not
call him a strong, but an obstinate, character. Strength
means making use of obstacles, neither refusing to recog-
nize them nor being dominated by them. The man of
strong character develops not by adaptation to environ-
ment but by adaptation of environment to himself.
The weak character develops by adaptation to environ-
ment. The obstinate character refuses to acknowledge
the existence of environment in so far as it is distasteful
to him and can in any way be ignored.

Consistent striving for purpose — that is, strength of
character — however, implies not only power to make use
of circumstances but internal self-mastery. As Emerson
finely says : " Character is the moral order seen through
the medium of an individual nature."1 External
matters excite within us various instinctive impulses ;
and as the external situation changes so do the impulses
it excites. There are thus two sets of forces always
acting on a persistent purpose to turn it aside. One is
the opposition of the external world — the difficulties put
in our way by people or circumstances, difficulties often
unforeseen. To overcome them involves struggle, often
painful and, it may be, attended by frequent failure and
disappointment. The other is the treachery of our own
passions and appetites, which incite us to seize the enjoy-
ment of the moment, regardless both of the present
neglect of purpose and of the danger of forming a habit
which can but weaken character.

Weakness of character may, then, be shown in two
ways. There is first the individual who has no real
personality ; who is moulded by his surroundings, who
1 Essay on Character.

470 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

takes his opinions and his aims from others, who is
dominated by the external. This is the moral and social
weathercock, who shifts from moment to moment, blown
this way and that by every breath of public opinion.
He is weak because he has no resisting power and no
initiative. Such a character is an unhealthy and morbid
development of an emotional temperament blessed with
neither much will nor much intelligence.

Then there is the person of volatile temperament who
has never learned to curb his impulses. He also
responds continually to his environment, but he does so,
not in the passive kind of way of the formless character
we have just outlined, but in the excitable and spasmodic
activity to which gratification of every impulse leads.
He may take up a purpose, but he soon drops it. He,
like Dryden's Achitophel, is "Everything by turns, and
nothing long." He is the slave not of his external sur-
roundings but of his internal impulses. To gratify
them he will often exhibit feverish bursts of effort to
change his circumstances. As the former type is want-
ing in energy, this latter is defective in the control of
energy.

This leads us to another important point. Suppose
the life to be generally ruled by purpose. Are we then
to stigmatize the character as weak if the individual
follows the present incitement ? It would often, I think,
be more correct to say that the character is imperfectly
formed. As the bearing of various purposes on conduct
is more clearly seen, the character may prove to be of
considerable strength. The present defect may be one
of intelligence and experience, rather than of desire or
will. For it seems to me that it is not the whole of life
which can be included in character, but only that part

CHARACTER 471

which is known to ourselves. We say sometimes that
a particular action is quite opposed to a man's character.
Yet it may be certain that he did it. No doubt we
require unquestionable proof when we believe the char-
acter a strong one ; but we acknowledge the possibility.
Can we not also in our own experience find times when
we acted in opposition to our general plan of life, and,
it may be, repented bitterly afterwards? So it would
seem to be allowable to say that the character may be
intrinsically strong and yet that the life may show some
want of harmony. Of course, the older the individual
the less would this be true, for with extended experience
and developed intelligence the bearings of actions are
more and more made manifest. But in dealing with
the young it is a very important consideration. Not
every vagary of behaviour is to be taken as a proof that
there is no sound core of character.

If we now gather up the threads of our discussion we
shall say that the dominant note of character is organiza-
tion. By a person's character we understand the extent
to which his life is directed towards a definite end, and
ruled by definite principle. We mark our sense of the
value of that end by adjectives which imply that it may be
admirable or contemptible, or of any intermediate shade.

In a perfect character the whole life would be so
organized ; the aim would be the highest, the outlook
the most inclusive, the will the most persistent.

" How happy is he born and taught
That serveth not another's will ;
Whose armour is his honest thought,
And simple truth his utmost skill."1

1 Sir Henry Wotton.

472 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

Certainly this would not mean that all such characters
would be alike. Each would be relative to the life it
has to live, and each would in addition have its own
personal idiosyncrasies. The various temperaments if
perfectly developed throughout life would give different
types of character, yet each perfect of its own kind.
There would be the character whose ideals are essentially
practical but who would seek those ideals in the best
and most worthy way. There would be that whose
predominant note would be fine feeling, but in which
that feeling found expression in noble and beautiful
deeds. There would also be the character organized, so
to say, round the intellect, with a keen sense of right
and truth and duty.

Nor can our ideals of perfect womanliness coincide
with those of perfect manliness. Neither a mannish
woman nor an effeminate man satisfies the aspirations of
mankind.

So, not only is there no uniformity in the actual
characters around us, but there is no such thing as one
ideal of a good character to which all should try to
approach, and all deviation from which is a mark of
inferiority. Our custom of speaking in general abstract
terms obscures this. Nor is the result simply theo-
retical. How many a child has been morally ruined
because those who brought him up did not understand
him, did not see what must be his only true line
of development, and so tried — with the best intentions
in the world it may be — to force him into a mould
absolutely foreign to his nature? The first thing it is
essential to recognize in bringing up a child is that there
is one, and only one, general way in which he can attain
his perfect stature, and that that way is determined by

CHARACTER 473

his inner nature, not by the prepossessions of those under
whose charge and control he lives.

The actual characters of men, women, and children,
are never perfect. They therefore differ, not only as
temperament and disposition would cause them to differ,
but also in the stage of development they have reached.
We may go further and say that they are unlike in the
stage of development they are capable of reaching. It
would be to shut one's eyes to facts to deny that some
children are born with weak wills, with shallow feelings,
with dull and obtuse intellects. Soon any or all of these
defects become apparent. They can no more be removed
than a physical organic defect can be cured. In this
sense it is true that "no change of circumstances can
repair a defect of character." l Yet it is quite possible to
mistake what is the result of bad training for an inherent
defect. Who would venture to say of a vacillating adult
whom he has not known most intimately from early
childhood that he was born weak? As an originally
good bodily constitution is sometimes ruined by riotous
and irregular bodily living so an originally good moral
constitution may be ruined by riotous and irregular
moral and mental living.

Moreover, although it is doubtless true that the
original nature of everyone imposes a limitation on the
possibilities of his development, yet this by no means
enables us to determine in any case what that limitation
is. For each one of us the possibilities of development
both for himself and for those whom he tries to educate
must be regarded as boundless. Of course, develop-
ment will be more rapid in some cases than in others.
Yet even here it is easy to be deceived. Development
1 Emerson : Essay on Character.

474 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

is seldom, if ever, uniform in any aspect of life. So the
apparently slow development of one as compared with
another at any one time may be compensated, or more
than compensated, by a more rapid development at
another time. " Nature never rhymes her children, nor
makes two men alike."1 And this is as true of their
mode and rate of growth as it is of the kind of character
that growth is slowly evolving.

It follows that in estimating the character of a child
we must not apply the standard of an adult. That
would be as absurd and unjust as to test his intellectual
or physical powers in a similar way. According to his
psychological age we must judge him. And his psycho-
logical age, or stage of mental advancement, does not
always agree with his physical age. A child may be
either more or less advanced in all that concerns the inner
life than most children of its age and sex. For all
educational purposes, it is the psychological age that
counts.

It is certain, then, that " character is not ready-made,
but is created bit by bit and day by day " 2. But how is
it created ? We are often told that the work of educa-
tion is to build up character, and the parent and teacher
are exhorted to form the characters of their children.
All such suggestions of the passivity and plasticity of
the child are the outcome of the false psychological
hypothesis that our being is wholly determined from
without which we have already rejected as untrue to the
facts of life. It would be much more true to say that
each person builds or forms his own character, for char-
acter develops only in the conscious voluntary life in
which we deliberately set up ideals and purposes, and

1 Emerson : Essay on Character. 2 Edna Lyall : In the Golden Days.

CHARACTER 475

plan means to realize them. For, as has already been
said, character is that within us of which we are conscious
as emphatically ourselves. It cannot begin to develop
out of original natural endowment till the child learns
to distinguish between himself and the things around
him from which he receives impressions. This, how-
ever, is very early in infancy. It may seem strained
and far-fetched to speak of the character of a baby. But
I do so only in the same sense in which one could speak
of the intelligence of the same baby. Neither character
nor intelligence deserves the name when judged from
the standard of later life, but in each case there is the
seed from which alone the fruit can spring.

From such seed character can develop only in one
way — through the determinate activity of the child
itself. But, be it noted, the activity is one of will. Of
course, the will shows itself in bodily action, but it is
the will, and not the action, which is the essential thing.
Will is moreover, as has been shown, opposed both from
without and from within. The former opposition has
either to be taken up into the will itself or to be removed.
The latter cannot be removed : it can only be overcome.

Here we have an absolutely fundamental distinction.
If the hindrances from within are not conquered and
brought into subjection the child becomes a slave to his
passions ; he grows up vacillating, untrustworthy, and
ineffective, unable to secure any result worth attaining
because he has no self-control, no persistence. In a
word, his character is in a stage of arrested development.

Among the outer hindrances, however, are those
which are due to the nature of things, and to these he
must learn to accommodate his actions if he would carry
out his will. " All our strength and success in the work

4y6 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

of our hands depend on our borrowing the aid of the
elements. You have seen a carpenter on a ladder with
a broad-axe chopping upward chips from a beam. How
awkward! at what disadvantage he works! But see
him on the ground, dressing his timber under him.
Now, not his feeble muscles, but the force of gravity,
brings down the axe ; that is to say, the planet itself
splits his stick."1

Yet more important and more directly pertinent to the
development of character is the recognition that there
are laws and elements in the human world which can be
made hindrances and helps to the execution of purpose
as can those in the physical world. Here is seen the
psychological explanation of the supposed paradox
that a child is trained to freedom through discipline.
Effective discipline works on the core of character. If
compulsion be appealed to, it is merely to bring home
to the understanding that human law cannot be violated
with impunity. That is only the first stage. The
second is to inspire in the child the desire to be his own
master. Nor is this difficult if it be done through con-
crete experiences as they arise. For instance, children
do make up their minds to work steadily at their lessons
and yet yield to solicitations to amusement which defeat
that purpose. A boy is quite capable of recognizing
that in this he has not been what he meant to be, or done
what he meant to do. In other words he grasps that his
action was antagonistic to the character he is forming and
which expressed itself in the neglected purpose. I have
little faith in the influence on the development of the
character of a child of set courses of lessons about
morality. In the influence of the recognition that he

1 Emerson : Society and Solitude, ii.

CHARACTER 477

has, in such and such a particular instance, fallen below
himself, I have much. The teaching of morality, if it is
to be successful, must be as concrete |ts is morality itself,
and that it can be only when it touches immediately an
actual piece of child life. Even with adults there are
few who are really moved to action by abstract ideas and
principles, and when they are, the action is commonly
wanting in vigour. With children the moving-force is
always dyed with emotion. In the formation of char-
acter the emotion of self-respect plays an indispensable
part.

A child's character, therefore, is not trained by leaving
him to do as he likes, but by evoking in him by sym-
pathetic suggestion the desire to obtain thorough self-
mastery. And, let me add, the stronger the character
of the suggestor, providing it be not lacking in the
magnetism of personal sympathy and be kept under wise
constraint, the more effective will be such attempt to
evoke the will. Such evoking is the one and only
condition on which character can be trained.

In these considerations, too, we reach the sense in
which it is true to say that character is a system of habits.
Evidently the habits which enter into character are those
established tendencies of will and feeling which we have
called habitudes ; not the various acquired forms of
automatism of bodily movement. The evil practical
influence of the false hypothesis of the absolute plasticity
of the child has nowhere been more amply shown than
here. Mere drill in matters of outward behaviour has
been believed to be efficacious in forming character,
because it induces uniformity of action. The surprise
has been as real as it has been painful when, over and
over again, the youth has shown a character quite

478 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

antithetical to that which his parents or masters
had fondly believed they were forming. From our
point of view this is no matter for amazement.
Whatever fails to affect the will remains outside the
formation of character. In the cases we are considering
the influences which are really operative on will are feel-
ings of resentment and of antagonism to the restraint,
and these are easily and naturally transferred to the laws
and principles which the restraints are intended to
implant. The mistaken regulation of action has an
influence on will, but it is an influence exactly opposite
to that intended and desired.

The development of real habitudes of harmonious
will, feeling, and thought, is, on the other hand, the
formation of the chief element of strength of character.
With every exercise they increase in power, in pro-
pulsive force, and in width of reference. So they are
brought more and more into harmonious relation with
each other, and collect into a systematic hierarchy. In a
mental life thus organized the incidental impulses of the
moment have but little chance of turning aside the main
current of purpose. Certainly it must be granted that
organization may degenerate into mechanism, and so the
spiritual life be made too automatic. "The multitude
stands by the formulas that profess to solve the eternal
problem. It follows them blindly, like the schoolboy
who cares not whether they are right or wrong, or
whether the answer is conclusive. So long as there is
an answer of some sort its mind is easy." l This results
from too narrow a purpose and too restricted an outlook.
Not intellectual principles but uninformed prejudices
are embedded in the habitudes of such a life. Real
1 W. J. Locke : At the Gate of Samaria, ch. 2.

CHARACTER 479

living habitudes are trends of life ; they are not the
cerements of past life. Thus they carry in themselves
the power of adaptation, and meet new occasions in
fresh ways.

It is further true that a character may be admirable in
its unity and stability and yet far from admirable in its
totality. That is because its outlook and aim do not
commend themselves to the moral judgement. Many
a miser has shown the extreme of self-control and the
most marked persistence in amassing gold. But such
an aim has not in it those marks of humanity, that power
of satisfying human aspirations, which alone can win
general human approval.

Character is, then, the true self. It is that which we
love, or which we dislike, in another. It is that which
wins love or attracts antipathy to ourselves. For high
intellect, for artistic genius, for mighty power of com-
mand, for great oratorical gifts, for wonderful inventive
ability, for charming manners, we feel admiration. But
we love and reverence only those whose gifts are em-
bedded in a noble character. And our reverence and
love are in proportion to the beauty of character, not
to the greatness of the gifts. So it is that the great
changes in the world have been due to men of strong
character. " It is indisputable that the great movements
which stir society from its very foundations, are invari-
ably produced by the workings of the living spirit of
man. The sense of moral and intellectual want which
disposes men to seize on new opinions often lies for
centuries fermenting in the fathomless depths of the
heart of society. At length, in the fullness of time,
arises one of those master spirits, endowed with the
genius, energy, and confidence, which fit a man to wield

480 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

these moral forces ; to reveal to his age the wants of
which it had but a dim and perplexed consciousness ; to
interpret to it its own confused and half-formed opinions,
and to give them shape, compactness, and strength." l

Yet more pertinent to our subject is the consideration
that such an influence is personal, and is most strong
over those who are brought into direct contact with it.
In other words, it is character which counts in influencing
others, so that men or women of weak character can never
be really effective influences on the lives of the children
entrusted to them. On the other hand, the insistent
dominating character, when through loving sympathy it
avoids raising opposition, must be always on guard lest
it also, by blocking the way of all initiative and by culti-
vating a habit of relying on another instead of on self,
prove antagonistic to the desired growth of the young.

Necessary as it is to insist that character is essentially
formed from within, so that each one of us is responsible
for the character he is, that is, for himself, yet it would
be a mischievous one-sided misrepresentation to ignore
the constant moulding forces from without. I have not
so much in mind now the personal influence of indi-
viduals, often as powerful as it is direct, as the general all-
pervading tone of society in which each has to live. For
that determines in a general way the more direct in-
fluences brought to bear on the child in family and in
school. They are certainly more operative in the family,
for the sphere of the school, and consequently its forma-
tive influence, are more limited than those of the family.
In the latter, life is lived in all its aspects ; in the former,
only in some of its relations. The school is an artificial
group, the family a natural one. While, therefore, both

1Ranke : History of the Popes, trans, by S. Austen, vol. ii., p. i.

CHARACTER 481

reflect the tone of the community, the family does so
more fully and more freely than the school. Moreover,
in the school that influence is often modified by the
conservatism of tradition which secures the survival of
ideas and ideals of the past which, outside the school,
may have become mere pale ghosts, or specimens of
social or moral archaeology.

The mind and character of the nation, then, affect the
individual child chiefly through the family. But as he
grows older he enters more and more into direct contact
with wider circles. From the carefully tended garden
of the school he goes forth into the open field of life,
and though he will meet with great variety of opinions
yet he will find a general tendency to view life in one
fundamental aspect. The many opinions, though diver-
gent in innumerable ways, nearly all express the general
attitude of the community towards life.

We have seen that character is self-development and
implies self-knowledge and self-control. We have seen,
further, that hindrances to the true growth of character
are all antagonistic to fixity of purpose and consistency of
aim. It follows that communities which offer many
inducements to deviation from purpose, and which furnish
few opportunities for self-communion, are unfavourable
to the development of strong unified characters. An
abnormally strong natural will holds on its way with little
or no regard to continual solicitations to wander. But
the ordinary person is much affected by his surroundings.
If conditions be favourable his will may grow strong ; if
they be antagonistic the development of his character
will be arrested. In any case there will be imperfection
which in more favourable circumstances would have
been avoided. A weak will under favourable conditions

482 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

may learn to stand alone ; amid adverse influences it is
bound to suffer moral shipwreck and to grow into one of
those defective forms of character which we have already
considered.

After such general considerations I would ask the
reader to recall the estimate of our national character
which I quoted from a most competent French observer.1
May I then beg him to consider the question whether
there are not in our present public life many influences
antagonistic to the preservation of that self-control and
determination which stand out so clearly in Dr. Le Bon's
picture ? The following extract from an article on
Reactions in The Times2 certainly deserves serious
consideration :

"The Greeks, perhaps, had a peculiar need of the
doctrine of the golden mean because of the richness and
instability of their natures. In conduct, in politics, and
in all kinds of theory, they seem to have been subject to
violent enthusiasms and reactions. A new idea spread
among them like fire through stubble ; and the very
eagerness with which they welcomed it made them
equally ready to forget an old one. They were, for the
most part, a people of towns and subject to the contagion
of crowds, that mysterious contagion which seems to act,
as it were, physically on the mind and to pervert the
reason so that it turns traitor against itself. In the past
we have been inclined to despise both the Greeks and
the modern French for their instability while wondering
at their intelligence. We might be slow, but we were
not infirm of purpose. We did not worship a popular
idol one day and break it in pieces the next. We could
boast thus of ourselves in the past, but can we in the
1 See pp. 105-106. 2Nov. loth, 1910.

CHARACTER 4«3

present ? We have to remember that in the last hundred
years or more we have been changing from a country
into a town people, that we are now subject to a contagion
of the crowd which is new in our history. We know
how the Romans changed their nature when they too
changed from a country to a town people ; how they
acquired the Greek instability without much of the
Greek intelligence, how the mob of Rome became incap-
able of governing either the world or themselves. That
is the fate that threatens us also unless we can by an
effort of will preserve the ancient firmness of our char-
acter. In particular we need to be on our guard against
the swift and incessant reactions that more and more tend
to waste and distract our energies. We cannot flatter
ourselves that these reactions affect only the passions of
the ignorant. They are just as violent and common
among people of culture, and produce the same incessant
change in our ideas and tastes as in our popular songs
and catch-words. Indeed, as the ignorant mob turns
year by year from one mechanical joke to another, so the
cultivated mob turns from one set of ideas and from one
jargon to another. The contagion of the crowd works
with equal power in both cases and with equal unreason.
It is not spread by popular assemblies, but by books and
newspapers ; and the superior people who despise the
mob are themselves a mob of readers and talkers at the
mercy of mob reactions.

" The worst evil of these reactions in morals, in ideas,
and in art is that they waste the experience of ages. Just
as the individual who is at the mercy of reactions never
profits by his own experience, but, as it were, is born
again a fool with each new infatuation that masters him,
so it is with a mob that runs after every new fashion of

484 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

thought. Every fresh theory for them cancels all old
ones. When Nietzsche is the fashionable prophet he
sweeps away the Commandments, the Gospels, and Kant.
It is as if no one had ever learned anything about life
before him. His philosophy is welcomed for the mere
pleasure of the shock which it gives ; and when that
shock has spent itself the philosophy will be dropped, as
a monkey drops one nut to clutch at another. The
wisest men know that in all things there is an orthodoxy
of the ages, which should be modified and strengthened
by the experience of each new generation. They react
only against the errors of the past, and they are careful
not to react too far. But the cultivated mob is tired of
all orthodoxy, and it reacts against it for the mere pleasure
of reaction. Thus it falls a prey to the oldest of heresies,
even the heresies of Thrasymachus, if only it has never
heard of them before. And by its absurdities it confirms
dull men in their dullness and brings all speculation into
disrepute. Nowadays there is in England a solid mass
of Philistines who profess that they have no interest in
discovering the truth about anything, because ideas
about the truth are incessantly changing. Their
scepticism is not philosophic, but lazy ; yet it is the
intellectuals who provide them with their excuse. Truth
is, indeed, undiscoverable by those who grow tired of it
if it is not new ; for they do not even look for it, and
do not know it if they find it by accident."

Happily it seems established that the fundamentals
of national character do not change so rapidly that a new
kind of nature is at once transmitted to succeeding
generations. But if the national life in the present culti-
vate qualities antagonistic to those inherited from the
past the formative effect on each new rising generation

CHARACTER 485

will be cumulative. The disease may first attack the
surface of the national character, but if it be unchecked
it will surely eat into its heart.

I believe nobody will deny that our age is marked by
hurry and bustle, by love of novelty and of excitement
by constant occupation with the outer things of life.

" The world is too much with us ; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers : " l

wrote Wordsworth, and it is certain that the century
which has since elapsed has not diminished the ground
of his lament.

It would be futile to gird at the actual course of things.
One should, however, try to recognize what is harmful
in influence and in tendency, so that amid the gains which
time brings we may not lose the treasure passed on from
the past.

The one constant determining feature in all the
developments of the life of our time is the continuous
increase in the demands made by external affairs on our
time and energy. It is true that there are powerful and
successful movements for reducing the hours of manual
labour. But from the standpoint of the development of
character the allurements of pleasure are more dangerous
than the demands of work. Of course, all must recog-
nize that there is need for recreation. That surely goes
without saying. All that is here urged is that the tendency
of modern life, particularly in large towns, is towards
supplying incentives to occupy all the time and energy
in ways in which the sole determination of experience
is from without. It may be a concert, it may be a
theatre, it may be a music-hall, it may be a football match,

1 Wordsworth : Sonneti.

486 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

it may be a political meeting. All these, and their like,
good as they are in due proportion, so crowd upon each
other that many people live on from day to day, never
thinking except about the immediate concerns of their
families, their business, or their pleasure ; never, that is
to say, deliberately setting up before themselves an ideal
of life, never asking themselves what is the value to them
of those things in which they spend their energies so
profusely.

If we apply the analysis of this chapter to such a state
of mind we see that it means that life is determined from
without not from within. Either the character has that
excessive plasticity which makes the man a mere echo of
the opinions, and a mere copy of the actions, of those
with whom he associates ; or it has the instability and
the self-indulgence — which of necessity involves the
crudest selfishness — of the man whose impulses and
passions rule his life.

The signs that these elements of weakness are widely
diffused in our day seem to me both numerous and insis-
tent. The entertainments which are most popular are
becoming increasingly frivolous and meaningless. They
attract through an obvious kind of trivial prettiness
when they do not appeal through a vulgar suggestive-
ness. Nor is there force in the contention that the
audiences have so exhausted their minds in thought that
they are too tired for any but the lightest stimulation.
Without want of charity it may be suggested that an
equally tenable hypothesis is that their minds are numbed
and atrophied from want of exercise in anything out-
side the immediate demands of their material lives.
" Machines have not yet come to life among us, but they
are beginning to exercise a tyranny which is the more

CHARACTER 487

oppressive in that it is mechanical and blind. There is
no tyranny so hard and intimate as that which controls
amusements, and this mechanical tyranny is changing
the nature of our amusements in every direction. If a
tyrant of flesh and blood tried to do this we should
instantly rebel ; but we submit to the tyranny of
machinery without a murmur ; indeed, we seem scarcely
to be aware of it. The reason is that it appeals to all the

lazy and negative part of our minds

The growth of mechanical amusements is only a
natural development from the purely passive enjoyment
of art. There was once a time when the artist was not
specialized in England, when most people, both high and
low, rich and poor, were trained to amuse each other
and themselves. Music and dancing and acting in the
age of Elizabeth were arts practised by the people, not
by professionals for the people. Shakespeare laughs in
A Midsummer Night's Dream at the amateur players
of the time, just as amateurs are laughed at in the amus-
ing Pantomime Rehearsal. But there is this striking
difference between the two plays, that in the one the
amateurs are of the people, and in the other they are of
the aristocracy. Bottom would be an impossibility in
a modern burlesque because his original does not exist
now, or is only a romantic rarity in some out-of-the-way
villages. Indeed, some wise and excellent people are
trying to revive Bottom as they are trying to revive
morris dances and folksong. But they have many
difficulties to contend with. Every class in this country
has lost the habit of amusing itself artistically. The
poor as well as the rich look to professionals to amuse
them, and have a profound distrust of their own artistic
powers and a false shame in exercising them. The

488 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

artist, whether actor, musician, or dancer, is regarded as
a peculiar person, half admired and half despised. He
is not, as he once was, merely a man who can do what
every one does, only better. He is a professional enter-
tainer with mysterious powers of his own, which ordinary
people do not share and cannot understand ; and they
would think it indecent presumption to attempt to com-
pete with him. This has gone so far that they would
rather hear a professional singer on a gramophone than
an amateur in the flesh ; and now in our villages the
gramophone on summer evenings pours out trash from
the music-halls to an audience that has forgotten the
very names of the old songs and the steps of the old
dances. Perhaps in another generation, where cricket
is now played on the village greens there will be cine-
matograph pictures of matches at Lord's or the Oval." 1
The same inertia of the life of thought and activity of
the life of the senses are shown in a love of excitement
which is often so artificial as to appear neurotic. For
example, consider the popular daily press with its
hysterical comments on passing events and its exagger-
ated headlines. Consider also the kind of appeal so
often made to popular gatherings by politicians seeking
parliamentary honours. Think of the garbled state-
ments of fact, the suggestion of the false, the suppression
of the true, the sound and fury of the empty bombast
and the frothy inflated rhetoric, the violence of personal
invective, the ludicrous poverty of argument, which con-
stitute such displays. By partisan journals on the same
side these effusions are lauded as ' great,' ' strong ' and
'historic', in sublime disregard of their want of basis
in fact and yet more striking defects in reasoning. Not
1 Article on Mechanical Amusements, in The Times, Sept. yth, 1910.

CHARACTER 489

seldom to the dispassionate observer the greatness seems
to consist in pettiness of outlook and the strength in
weakness of logic veiled by audacity of assertion. When
speeches are made on popular platforms which the orator
would not venture to repeat in the House of Commons,
the inference is irresistible that he is trading on the im-
perfect knowledge, the deficiency in critical power, the
appetite for excitement, and the susceptibility to the
moulding influence of mere blind party-spirit, in his
hearers. In other words, he is taking advantage of the
weakness of character in those he addresses, as well as
exhibiting unlovely traits of his own character. That
he is also helping to accentuate those deficiencies is very
unlikely to have occurred to him. He, too, looks only
to the present effect.

These have only been adduced as signs fairly easy to
read of a want of stability which the present condi-
tions of our national life tend to cultivate. Another
such sign is the feverish haste to get the last new thing,
or to adopt the last new fashion whether of dress, of art,
of speech, or of any other mode of activity. Even in
education there is a dangerous tendency to forget that
' new ' and ' true ' are neither synonymous in meaning
nor identical in application.

Some, with the optimism natural to youth, may think
that the picture just drawn is too darkly coloured. To
this I would reply that it is not presented as a picture of
the whole of the community, but only as a setting-forth
of features which can surely be found by any one who
looks for them. I do not contend that the evil is as yet
deep-seated, though I fear it is wide-spread and still
spreading. When one believes that one sees a wrong
which can be remedied, or at least lessened, one's duty

490 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION

is to point it out. The remedy for this social disease is
plain to see if not easy to apply. Not easy, because it
can only be applied by the people themselves, and they
do not recognize that they are spiritually sick, just
because the very nature of the disease keeps them from
pondering such topics.

Education, especially school education, can do little
directly. But it must do what it can, and here under
' education ', I include all personal agencies for the moral
improvement and elevation of the people. Everything
which strengthens self-respect and develops strength of
purpose, which increases knowledge pertinent to life
and cultivates critical thought, which broadens the social
outlook and deepens charity, has an influence in develop-
ing individual capacity and, through that development,
in reducing the faults and in strengthening the virtues
of that soul of the people on which alone the destinies
of our country depend.

INDEX

Ability : frequent waste of, 1 1 1
Abnormal intelligences, 122-123
Absorption : compared with at-
tention, 236-239 ; 241-242
Acquirement of language, 340-

344

Acquisitiveness, 96-98

Action : springs of in background

of consciousness, 147-148
Activity: need for physical, 51-

52
Adolescence : emotional features

of, 89-90
„ : interests in, 231-

233

Afferent nerves, 55
Alliteration, 448-449
Allurement and compulsion in

lessons, 185-186
Altruism, 86-88
Amusements, popular: character

of, 486-488
1 Ancient Mariner* : weak and

strong rhymes in, 453
Anger: control of, 82-83
., : manifestations of, 82
„ : objects of, 84
„ : relation to love, 88 ;

89

„ : value of, 83-84
Antithesis in literature, 458
Apathetic temperament, 123-

125
Apparatus : use of in teaching,

3»4

Appetite and emotion, 76-77

Applied psychology and educa-
tion, 23-28

Appreciation : power of, 438 ;
440; 443-447 ; 457-458

Archer, Lewis, and Chapman: on
training of observation, 305-
306

Aristotle : on business and leisure,

439

Art in schools, 429 ; 438-440
„ : origin of, 437
Artistic ideals, 437-447

„ temperament, 119
Ascham : on learning and experi-
ence, 6
„ : on "quicke and hard

wittes", 1 21-122
Assimilation and imitation, 155-

156 ; 163 ; 166
Assimilative tendency, 155-160
Associations of ideas, 72 ; 247-

248 ; 249-250
' As you like it ' : Seven Ages of

Man, 112-113
Attention and distractions, 264-

266

„ : connexion in child-
hood with activity,
240-241

„ : connexion with pur-
pose, 234-235

„ : contrasted with ab-
sorption, 236-239 ;
241-242

,, : current doctrine criti-
cized, 268-274

492

INDEX

Attention : development of, 239-

242

„ : effects of, 269-270
„ : executive function of,

«5V 254

„ : function of educa-
tion, 268

„ : in childhood, 240-
241 ; 256-257 ;
258-259

„ : incidental in life,

. 235

„ : involuntary, 270-271
: material on which it
works, 251-252

„ : objections to common
classification, 270-
274

„ : relation to bodily
stillness, 263-264

„ : relation to habitude,
254-255 ; 263-264

„ : relation to interest,
252-254

„ : relation to purpose,
252-254; 259-263

„ : spontaneous or non-
voluntary, 271

„ : summary of doctrine,
267-268

„ : test of, 241

„ : volitional or volun-
tary, 272-273

„ : voluntary nature of,
234; 268-269

„ : with immediate inter-
est, 259-260

,, : with mediate interest,

260-263
Attentive process: natural end

of, 255 ; 257
Attitude to learning of teacher

and pupil, 27-28
Austen, Jane: exampleof discursive

memory, 322-323
Authority : distrust of, 1 39
Automatism and origination, 1 77

Automatism in life, 35-36
Awareness without attention, 235-
236

Baby : beginnings of experience,

144-146

Background of consciousness :
contents of, 146-149
„ of consciousness :

influence of, 149-150
Bacon: example of metaphor, 455
„ : on opportunities, 1 08
„ : on transmission of know-
ledge, 43

„ : on value of studies, 331
„ : on varieties of books, 397
Bain : on self-love, 87
Bartholomew Anglicus : description

of griffin, 413
' Bates, Miss' : discursive memory

of, 322-323
Benson, A, C. : exampleof learning

by imagery, 370
Benson, E. F. ; on increase of

teaching power, 340
'Beowulf : example ofalliteration,

448
Bias : influence on testimony,

401-402
Binet: examples of children's

compositions, 441
„ : on education and aptitude,

1 1 1

„ : on inaccuracies in testi-
mony, 401

„ : on waste of intelligence, i 23
Birrell, A. : on use of platitudes,

463 .
Bodily activity : need of children

for, 51-52
Bodily development and social

class, 153

„ ,, : town and coun-

try, 153-154

Bodily size and mental power, 59
Bodily stillnessand attention, 263-
264

INDEX

493

Body and mind : development

of, 52-53
„ „ : relation of,

49-5 1
Books : value of in study of

psychology, 7 ; 29-31
Boredom, 258
Boyhood, early : interests in, 225-

227
„ , later : interests in, 228-

231

Boys and girls compared, 1 32-135

Bradley, A. C. : on colour of

Othello, 403-405

„ : discussion of

passage in * Lear,' 406-407

Brain: close connexion with mind,

53-54
Broadbent, Sir PT. H. : example of

defective reading aloud, 360-

361
Brown : exampleofliterarytrifling,

449.
„ : on childish indignation,

84

„ : on necessity for retentive-
ness, 169
„ : on relation of danger,

fear, and loss, 78
„ : on youthful cheerfulness,

125
Browning, R. : on bright view of

life, 421
„ : on essence of noble

life, 424

„ : on gradual attain-

ment of truth,

435

„ : on harmony of

beauty, love, and
duty, 424

„ : on hope and re-

ality, 420

„ : on inner worth,

423

„ : on knowing and

doing, 422

Browning, R. : on learning by

defeat, 3 1 5
„ : on life as struggle

upwards, 420
„ : on method of

teaching, 279 ;

280
„ : on natural impulse

to learn, 275
„ : on perversion of

fact by idea, 445
„ : on relation of

imagination to

effort, 421
„ : on revelation

through art, 1 19
„ : on thirst for

knowledge, 207
„ : on trust in God,

421
„ : on universality of

hope, 412
„ : on use of the

present, 419
Burns : on value of opinion of

others, 105

Butler, S. : on writing in rhyme,
449-450

Caird, E. : on self-knowledge, 1 8-

r9
Calls to thought : need of, 280-

281
Causation : early apprehension of,

294; 3'3

Character and habit, 477-479
„ and self-hood, 479 ; 480
„ and self-mastery, 476-

477
„ : common uses of term,

464-465 ; 467
„ : constituents of, 465-

469
„ : education of, 474-479;

490
„ : English, 105-106 ;

482-490

494

INDEX

Character : essence of, 471

„ : formed by self-activity,

474-475
„ : gradual formation of,

470-471
„ : imperfections of, 473-

474
„ : influence of society on,

480-482
„ : influence on others,

479-480

„ , national : symptoms of
decadence, 482-489
„ : obstacles to develop-
ment of, 475-477
„ : psychology of, 463-

464
„ : relation to knowledge,

465-467

„ : strength of, 4^7~469
„ : varieties of, 472-474
„ : weakness of, 469-470
Cheetham's Hospital : handwork

at, 203-205

Child experience and adult ex-
perience, 15-17
„ „ : nature of, 14-

15

Childhood : interests in, 222-225
Children and adult motives, 10-

ii
„ : power to use general

ideas, 292-295

Child-study : mistakes in, 13-14
Circuits, nervous : organization

of, 55-58

Class-feeling, 158-159
Classical curriculum, 332-333
Co-education of the sexes, 135-

137
Coleridge : on colour of Othello,

405
„ : rhymes in 'Ancient

Mariner •,' 453

Collections made by adults, 97-98
„ „ children, 97

Colour-blindness, 61-62

Comenius : derivation of axioms
of method, 29

Command and suggestion, 161-
162

Communicated knowledge : func-
tion of, 330

Communication and experience,

349-35°

Composition: 175-176 ; 440-443
Compulsion and allurement in

lessons, 185-186

Conception : relation to percep-
tion, 292-293 ; 296-297 ;
308-309
Condillac : on nature of attention,

269

Conduct : ideal of, 431-433
Confusion of absorption with
attention : evils of, 238-
239; 241-242
Consciousness : background of,

146-149
„ : marginal, 146-

14.9

„ : without atten-

tion, 235-236

Constructive instinct, 98-100

Constructiveness : neglected in

schools, 99-100

„ : relation to

knowledge, 98-99

Contemplative temperament :

education of, 122-123

„ temperament :

nature of, 120-122

Content and form of experience :

143-144
* Contrary ' individuals, 116-117;

162
Conversations : discursive nature

of, 248
Co-operation in study of mental

life, 30-31 ; 44-45
Country life and town life, 153-

155 ; 427-428

Crawford, F. M. : on differences
of sex, 129-130

INDEX

495

Crawford, F. M. : on influence of

early environment, 154
Curiosity: education of, 95
„ : function of, 92-93
„ : relation to surprise

and wonder, 96
: vulgar, 93-95

Curriculum : determination of,
277-279

Darwin : on instinct and reason, 66
„ : on number of human

instincts, 74

Day-dreaming : danger of, 423
Declensions, Latin : 176
Defects in mental power : causes

of, 59-60

Definition, 311-312 ; 407-409
Deliberation and action, 292

„ : nature of, 377-378

De Morgan : on effects of pre-
judice, 392
Descriptions and imagery, 350-

351 ; 353

„ : force of, 348-349

Desire: relation to emotion, 193
„ : relation to interest, 193-

r95

Desires : conflict of, 193-194
Development of experience :

general form of, 145-146
Development : two factors of,

138-144
Dickens : example of rambling

memory, 323-324
„ j on education through

facts, 418

„ : on fear in children, 8 1
Disposition, 126-127
Distractions and attention, 264-

266
Divergent ideas : inhibition of,

252-253

Doyle, Conan : acquirements of
Sherlock Holmes, 216
,, : reproduction of

reverie, 245-246

Dryden : use of word * interest ',

191
Dumb dramas : 336

Eastern and Western races, 103
Edridge-Green : example of feeble
visual memory, 321
„ . : example of in-
terpreted percep-
tion, 286-287
' E due ational Time f : mathematical

problem from, 208
Education and national character,

49°
,, : appeal to ideals, 424

426
„ : currently limited to

instruction, 8-9
„ : function of in relation

to interests, 215-216
„ : more than applied

psychology, 23-28
„ : necessity of psycho-
logy for, 4-5 ; 22-

23 ; 28
„ : scope of term, 150-

J51
„ : should train attention,

268

Efferent nerves, 55
Efficiency : interpretation of, 279
„ of life, 376; 379-380
Efficient knowledge, 290-292
Effort : educative, 391-392
Egoism as determinant of life,

87-88
Eliot, George : on cultivation of

stupidity, 197

„ : on cumulative

force of conduct,
184

„ : on fear of the un-

known, 80
„ : on moods of the

memory, 326

Emerson : on defects of character,
473

496

INDEX

Emerson : on nature and books,

371

„ : on nature of charac-
ter, 467 ; 469
„ : on use of natural forces,

475-476

„ : on varieties or char-
acter, 474

Emotional interests : function in

life, 214-215

„ „ : nature of,

210

„ „ : relation to

intellectual, 210-212

„ „ : relation to

practical, 213

Emotional temperament : educa-
tion of, 1 20

„ „ : nature

of, 118-119

Emotional unison, 157-159
Emotion : expression of, 76-77
„ : relation to action, 192-

193
„ : relation to appetite,

76-77

„ : relation to desire, 193
„ : relation to intelli-
gence, 192
„ : relation to interest,

191-194
Emulation, 85
English character, 105-106; 482-

49°
' Enlightened ' philosophers, the,

87

Enthusiasm : value of, 89-90
Environment as determinant of
life, 138-139 ;
141-144
„ : influence of, 103-

105; 149-150
Equality of men, 107-108
Erudition, 43; 330-331 ; 333-3 34
Evidence : comparison of, 400
„ : critical evaluation of,
397-407

Evolution : not a key to child

life, 217-218
Examination paper : attention in

answering, 256 ; 265-266
Excitement : desire for, 488-489
Executive knowledge, 291-292
Existence corresponding to gene-
ral terms, 310
Expectation in recognition, 288-

289
Experience : as organization of

life, 183-184
„ : continuity of, 19
„ : general form of de-
velopment, 145-
146

„ : growth of, 15
„ : of child and of
adult, 7 ; 10- 1 1 ;
14-15

„ : problems of, 19
„ : the basis of psycho-
logy, 6
„ : two factors in, 138-

144

Expression : interpretation of,
335-336

Facts : as spiritual food, 418-419
„ : value for knowledge, 295-
296 ; 362-363

Faculties : training of, 9-13

Family : foundation of, 90

Fatigue, 255-256

Fear : manifestations of, 77-78
„ : moral and physical, 79-80
„ : of unknown, 78-80
„ : origin of, 78
„ : place in school, 80-8 1
„ : value of, 78-80

Fictional beings : origin of, 414-

4»5
Foreign educational ideals and

methods, 107
Foreign languages : learning of,

366-368
Forgetting, 325

INDEX

497

Form and content of experience,

143-144
Fotheringham : on influence of

nature, 428
Fouillee : on intellectual advance

of woman, 131
Fowler, Ellen T. : on judgement of

others, 417

„ : on judging by

results, 333-334

Froude, A.\ on imperfection of
knowledge of others, 47

Galen : classification of tempera-
ments, I II-II2
General ideas : existence implied

by, 310
„ „ : used by children,

292-295
Generalization in childhood, 310-

3n

Generalizations from psycho-
logical experience, 6-7
Genetic psychology : problem of,

15

Geography : learning of, 362-

364

Giotto and Ghirlandaio, 338-339
Girlhood, early : interests in,

225-227
„ , later : interests in,

228-231

Girls and boys compared, 132-135
Goethe : on faith in words, 276
Galsworthy, A.: on school geo-
graphy, 362-363

' Gouin ' method of teaching lan-
guages, 44
'GraJgriiuC : views on education,

418

Grammar, learning of, 365-366
Gray : simile from, 457
Gregarious instinct, 90-92
Griffin : mediaeval idea of, 413

„ : origin of, 414-415
Grosseteste : passage from letter of,
402

Growth of experience : character
of, 15

Guizot : on meaning and defini-
tion, 408-409

Habit: petrification of, 178-181
„ : relation to learning, 285-

286; 289

Habits : adaptive, 171-177
„ : breaking, 182-183
„ : general, 181-182
„ : mechanical, 171
Habituation and accommodation,

170-171
„ and purpose, 1 7 9- 1 8 o ;

182-183

„ and skill, 169-171
„ : change of, 180 ; 182-

183
„ : dynamic and static,

177-183

„ : nature or, 109-171
„ : origin of, 171
Habitudes : nature of, 177-181
„ : relation to attention,
254-255; 263-264
„ : relation to character,

477-479
„ : relation to interest,

'95

Hardy, Tho$. : on well-proportion-
ed minds, 25-26
Harmonious development as aim

of education, 24-26
Helvetius : on dependence on en-
vironment, 141
„ : on power of education,

139; 142-143
„ : on principles of human

actions, 185
Herbarf. on education through

instruction, 139
„ : psychology of, 12-13
Herbert,George\ exampleof quaint

rhyming, 450
„ : on man's relations

to world, 140

498

INDEX

Heredity : effects of, 101-103

„ : nature of, 101
Heywood : interests of boyhood,

227
Hilton, A. C. : on writing by rote,

372
History : critical problems in,

401-402

„ : learning of, 364-365
Hobhouse : on instinct and intelli-
gence, 70
„ : on nature and purpose,

7i

Hope : nature of, 412-413
Hope, Anthony : on women as

moralists, 432
Human characteristic of life, 32-

Humour, 458-461
Hunger and thirst, 76-77
Huxley : on common results of
classical teaching, 333

Ideals and education, 424-425
artistic, 437-447
growth of, 461-462
intellectual, 434-437
of conduct, 431-433
of justice, 432-433
of truth, 435-436
of work, 431
practical, 434-435 ; 436-

437
relation to effort, 430-

43.i ; 437
religious, 433
ultimate, 423-424
wide and narrow, 423-

424

Ideas : growth of, 283-285
* Illustrative History ' : passages

from, 398, 399, 402
Imagery and descriptions, 350-

35 V 353

„ and thought, 351-353
„ in literature : develop-
ment of, 447

Imagination and sentimentalism,
421-423

„ : bounded by belief,
413-414

„ : developed by know-
ledge, 415-416

„ : falsifies memory,

imitative, 412-413

limited by experi-
ence, 419

need for training,
417-418

place in life, 416-

417

poetic, 422-423
transcends the
actual, 412-421

Imitation and assimilation, 155-

156 ; 163 ; 166

„ „ origination, 164-

167

Imitation : forms of, 163-165
„ : function of, 167
„ : in education, 167-

169

„ : unconscious, 165-166
Immobility and attention, 263-

264

Implicit thought, 288
Impulses : regulation of, 39-

40

Impulsive acts, 38-39
Indignation, 84 ; 88
Individualistic psychology, 21
Inequality of man, 107-108
Infancy : interests in, 221-222
Influence of physical conditions

on mental states, 50-51
Inhibition of divergent ideas,

Innate general tendencies, 100
Inner development as determinant

of education, 138-141
Instinct among insects, 65 ; 67
„ among vertebrate ani-
mals, 65-66

INDEX

499

Instinct and intelligence, 64-5 ;

67-70; 76
„ not limited to behaviour,

67
Instinctive : loose use of term,

40

Instinctive reactions : nerve cir-
cuits in, 56-7

Instincts : development of, 69-71
„ : fundamental in life,

71
„ : increase in range of

origin, 72
„ : increase in range of

reaction, 72-73
„ : involve feeling, know-
ing, willing, 74-75
„ : nature of, 40-42 ; 67-

76

Instruction : confused with edu-
cation, 8-9

„ : fine art of, 277-279

Intellectual assimilation, 159-160

Intellectual ideals, 434-437

Intellectual interests : dependence

on knowledge, 207

„ „ : relation to

emotional, 210-212

„ „ : relation to

practical, 199-201 ;

206; 207-210
„ „ : social form

of, 208-209
Intellectualistic psychology, 7-13

Interest

disregard of discomfort,

188-190

in learning, 45-46
mediate and immediate,

186; 195-198; 259-

263
not a quality of objects,

187-188

relation to activity, 1 98
relation to attention,

252-254
relation to desire, 193-

195

Interest relation to emotion,

191-194
relation to habitude,

'95

relation

to pleasure,

Interests

190-191
relation to purpose,

190; 195-198
test of, 2 1 9 ; 221
uses of word in common
life, 191
: classification of, 198-

199

: emotional, 210-215
in boyhood and girl-
hood, 225-231
in childhood, 222-225
in infancy, 221-222
intellectual, 206-210;

214

in youth, 231-233
practical, 199-206 ;

214
related to men and to

things, 198
relation to education,

215-216
relation to environ-

ment, 217; 379
Interpretation of acts of another,

I7-2I; 335-336
Introspection : objects of, 30-46
Invention and ideals, 434-435 ;

436
Involuntary attention, 270-271

James, W. : on dependence of mem-
ory on interest, 327
,, : on dislike of solitude,

91
„ : on number of human

instincts, 74
„ : theory of emotions,

76

Japanese ideals, 103
Judgement, sound : growth of,
380-382

Soo

INDEX

Judgement, sound : nature of,
376-378

„ „ : training of,

382-384;
389
Justice : ideal of, 432-433

Keatinge : on critical study in

history, 398, 399
Keats', on repose, 235
„ : on reverie, 245
„ : simile from, 456
' Knowing' and 'knowing about,'

290-291
Knowledge and erudition, 43 ;

330-33M 333-334

„ , communicated : func-
tion of, 330

„ : essential to efficient
life, 277-279

„ : general form of
growth, 16-17

„ : need for wide, 379-

380

„ , practical : delight of,

30i-303

„ : real and false, 42
„ : selection of for in-
struction, 331-335
„ : summary of mode
of growth, 386-389
„ : test of, 290
: unity of, 315

Laboratory work in school, 313-

3H .

Landor : similes from, 456
Lange : theory of Emotions, 76
Langland : passages from, 402 ; 448
Language : acquirement of, 340-

344
„ : and precision of

thought, 407-410
„ : dangers in the use of,

3°9-3IJ; 3"-3i2
„ : force of, 348-349
„ : functions of, 340

Language: interpretation of, 345-

. 35°

Latin, learning of, 176 ; 366-367
Life: efficiency of, 376; 379-

380

„ : nature of, 250 ; 297
Life of another : interpretation

of, 17-21
Literary form : development of,

448-451
Literary imagery : development

of, 447
Literary taste in determination of

judgement, 406-7
Literature : and imagination,

425-426

„ : educative, 446-447
„ : emotional and intel-
lectual interest in,
211-212 ; 242-244
Living : impossible without learn-
ing, 275

„ : skill in, 376-377
Locke, J. : on reading and think-
ing, 355 ; 357
Locke, W. /. : on books and life,

29
„ : on delight of work,

190

„ : on influence of

future, 178-179

„ : on influence of

prejudice, 478
„ : on the 'plain man,'

25

Logic and life, 393-394
„ and teaching, 395
Ludicrous: conditions of, 459-

460
Lyall, Edna : on development of

character, 474
Lying amongst boys and girls,

134
Lyly : examples of metaphor,

455

Lytton : use of word ' interest,'
191

INDEX

501

Le Bon : on English character,

105-106
„ : on foreign influences

in education, 107
' Lear ' : genuineness of passage

in, 406-407

Learning andhabit,285-286; 289
by heart, 371-372
by rote: 369-371 ;

372

continuity of, 285-286
dependent on human
environment, 329-330
dependent on prompt-
ing, 383-384
individual differences

in, 44-45
informal ; 275-276 ;

320-330

inseparable from liv-
ing, 275
„ to perceive, 299 ; 303-

307
Lessons: interesting, 187-188

„ : length of, 257
Levels of comprehension in adult
life, 15-16

Mandeville : on virtue and ignor-
ance, 466

Marginal consciousness, 146-149

Maternal love : 87

Mather, Helen : on ignorance and
conceit, 467

* Mauretania ' : description of,
200-20 i

McDougall : on attraction of
crowds, 91

Meaning : construction of from

speech, 345~346
„ of words and defini-

tion, 407-409

Mediate interests, 1 86 ; 195-
198

Mediocrity : cultivation of, 25-26

Memory of knowledge : improve-
ment of, 373

Memory of knowledge : nature

of, 368-369

: recall of

items, 373-375

„ personal : and imagery,

319-320

„ „ : depends on

interests, 327

„ „ : discursive,

322-324

„ „ : and imagina-

tion, 317-318

„ ,, : general nature

of, 315-317

,, „ : influence of

present, 325-326

„ „ : limited by

capacity, 321-322

„ „ : schematic,

316-317

„ „ : training of,

327-328
Mental and physical attributes :

relation between, 58-60
Mental life : co-operative study

of, 30-31 ; 44-45
Mental power : causes of defects

in, 59-60
„ „ : notes of, 125-

126

Mental stagnation, 178-181
Mental states, 46
Meredith, G. : on thought and

imagery, 351

„ „ : on training the
imagination, 417-
418

Metaphors, 453-455
Method in teaching : aim of,
279-281

„ „ : psychologi-

cal and logical, 26-27
Mill, J. S. : on meaning of

character, 467

„ „ : on scope of edu-

cation, 150-151
Millet's 'Angelus,' 337-338

502

INDEX

Milton : bad rhyme in, 450
„ : on music in education,

427
„ : on self-sufficiency, 140

Mind and body : development

of, 52-53
„ „ : relation of,

49-51
,, : close connexion with

brain, 53-54
Montaigne: on learning by rote,

370
„ : on stuffing the memory,

334

„ : on unity of life, 53
Morgan, Lloyd : on instinct and
experience, 179
„ : on instinct in

insects, 65
Motor defects, 62
Motor nerves, 55
Multiplication tables, 176
Murray, D. C. : on immediate

personal judgements, no
Music : educative effect of, 426-
427

National character : origin of, 102-

103

„ „ : signs of deca-

dence, 482-489

Natural development : relation
to teaching, 282-283 ; 297-
298
Nerve-circuits : organization of,

S5-58

Nerves : classification of, 55
Nervous system : general nature

of, 54-56

Nervous temperament, 118-120
Neurones : 54-55
Newman, J. H. : on ideas not con-
veyed by speech, 353
„ : on limitations of

definition, 407-408
„ : on reasoning in

life, 396-397

'Nickleby, Mrs.': rambling mem-
ory of, 323-324
Non-voluntary attention, 271
Number : origin of knowledge
of, 295

Observation : relation to know-
ledge, 295
„ : training of 298-

299

Obstinacy, 115-116
Original ideas, 437-438
Origination and imitation, 164-

167

* Othello ' : colour of, 403-406
„ : struggle of anger and

love, 83

Owen : on instinct in inanimate
objects, 67

Paradigms: learning of, 176
Parallel development of child and

race, 217-218
Parodies, 460-461
Paternal love, 87
Perception : process of, 299-303
„ : relation to con-

ception, 292-293 ;
296-297; 308-309
„ : training of, 303-

307
Percepts, simple : growth of, 283-

285
Perceptual knowledge : test of,

304
Personal differences innate, 108-

109
Pesta/ozzi : the psychologizing of

education, 23
Phlegmatic temperament, 112;

124
Physical activity : need of children

for, 51-52
Physical and mental attributes :

relation between, 58-60
Physical development : and social

class, 153

INDEX

503

Physical development : town and

country, 153-154
Pictorial art : interpretation of,

336-34-0
Pictures : use of in teaching, 358-

359
' Piers Plowman ' : alliteration in,

448

Plato : on influence of surround-
ings, 430

„ : on imitation and habit, 1 80
„ : on nature of imitation,

167

Play, 100
Pleasure : appeal to in schools,

185

Poets, 422-423
Pope : on hope, 419
„ : on women and character,

467
Practical ideals, 434"435; 436-

437
Practical interests : exaggeration

of, 201-202

„ ,, : in childhood,

202-205

„ „ : maybemedi-

ate, 205-206

,, ,, : relation to

emotional, 213

„ „ : relation to

intellectual, 199-201 ;

206 ; 207-210

„ „ : social form of,

202-203

Practical jokes, 458
Practical judgement, 291-292
Practical knowledge : delight of,

301-303

Practical temperament : nature of,
114-117

„ „ : neglected

in schools, 117-118
Prejudice, 392-393
Pride, 85

Primitive emotions : search for,
42

* Proceed from the concrete to

the abstract ', 296-297

* Proceed from the simple to the

complex', 283-284 ; 296-
297
Psychological ideas : universality

of, 8

Psychology : cannot evaluate ex-
periences, 23-24
„ : essential to success

in education, 4-5 ;
22-23 ; 28

Public opinion, 151-152
Pugnacity : manifestations of, 82
„ : relation to love, 88 ;

89

„ : value of, 83-84
Puns : 458-459
Purpose : characteristic mark of

humanity, 32-33
„ : growth of, 37-38
,, : relation to attention,

234-235; 252-254;
259-263

„ : relation to habituation,
179-180 ; 182-183

Questioning on mental life, 47-
48 ; 218-219

Race differences : educational

bearings of, 107
Race : distinctions of, 101-103
Ranke : on influence of master

spirits, 479-480
„ : on power of attention
of Queen Christina,
262
„ : on public opinion, 151-

152

Raphael: imitation of, 163-164
Rational direction of life, 32-33 ;

36-37

Reading aloud and reading for
meaning, 359-362
„ „ of poetry, 451-

453

504

INDEX

Reading aloud : perception in,

„ and criticism, 397-398
„ for meaning : assimila-

tion in, 357-358
„ for meaning : mistakes

in» 355-357
„ for meaning : nature of,

354;358-359
„ for meaning : process,

354-355

Reasoning in life, 396-397
Reason : place of in child life,

7
Recall of acquired knowledge,

368-375
„ of personal experiences,

315-3.28

„ : suggestion in, 373-374
Recognition : analysis of, 286-

289

Recollection, 374-375
Reflex actions, 56
Reickel: on value of handwork,

203-205
Reid, Archdall : on excellence in

teaching, 390

,, : on heredity and

surroundings, 103-104

„ : on training and

intelligence, 385
Relations : empty without facts,

.296 .
Religious ideal : 433

Religious instruction, 434
Responsibility and goodness of

work, 431

Results : material and mental, 315
Reverie : analyses of, 244-248
Rhyme : 449-45°
Rhythm : 450-451
Ribot : on courage and imagina-

tion, 81
„ : on moral insensibility,

108-109

„ : on nature of character,
467-468

Ribot : on primitive men, 218
„ : on weakness and fear,

81

Rochefoucault : maxim from, 458
Roger of Wendower : passage from,

398

Rousseau : conception of educa-
tion, 14 ; 21

„ : on agents of educa-
tion, 150
„ : on study of children,

13

Routine in life, 35-36

Ruskin : on individual differences,

107

„ : on nature and nurture,
109-1 10

Sanguine temperament, 1 14
Savage religious dances, 336
Schematic nature of memory of

past life, 316-317
Schoolmasters : attitude towards

psychology, 1-5
„ : knowledge of

pupils, 3-4

Schools and art, 429 ; 438-440
Science : teaching of, 3 1 3-3 1 5 ;

389-39°

Scott : parodied, 461
Self-abasement, 84-86
Self-assertion, 84-86
Self-evaluation, 86
Self-knowledge : acquirement of,

30-46
„ „ : necessity for, 17-

19
Sensations as origin of knowledge,

141-143

Sense-organs : defects in, 60-62
Sensory nerves, 55
Sentimentalism, 119
Sevigne", Mme. de : dislike of

abstract reasoning, 1 29
Sex : differences of, 127-135
„ : „ and educa-

tion, 135-137

INDEX

505

Sex : instinct of, 88-90
Shelley: example of imagery, 447
„ : examples of metaphor,

454

„ : on unconscious sugges-
tion, 249

„ : simile from, 457
Shakespeare : on adventures, 100
„ : Seven Ages of Man,

112-113

„ : similes from, 456
„ : struggle of anger

love, 83
'Sherhck Holmes' : acquirements

of, 216

„ : analysis of

train of reverie, 245-246
Similarity : unconscious operation

of, 31°

Similes, 454; 455-457
Skilful activity : delight of, 301-

303

Skill : acquirement of, 33-34
„ and habituation ; 169-171
„ in living, 376-377
Smith, J. and S. : parodies from,

461

Social class and bodily develop-
ment, 153

Social psychology, 21-22
Soundness of judgement, 376-

378 .
Space : origin of . knowledge of,

294
Speech : interpretation of, 345-

3.5°

„ : unit of, 344-345
Spencer, H. : on expression of

anger, 82

Spoilt children, 1 1 6
Spontaneous attention, 271
Springs of action in background

of consciousness, 147-148
Stagnation : mental, 178-181
Step/ten, J. K. : pun by, 459
Stephen, Leslie : on social fore-
sight, 32

Stubbr. passage horn Select Char ten,

399

Study of mental life : co-opera-
tion in, 30-31 ; 44-45
„ of psychology : real and

verbal, 1-3 ; 29-31
Stupidity : cultivation of, 386 ;
390-392; 410-411
„ : innate, 385
„ : nature of, 385-386 ;

411
Subject-matter of instruction

needs revision, 220-221
Suggestion, 160-163
Surprise, 95-96
Surroundings: influence of, 103-

105 ; 149-150
Sympathy, 100

Taking for granted, 289-292
Taste : communication of, 446
„ : influence of fashion on,

444-446
Teachers' knowledge of their

pupils, 3-4; 219-220
Teaching : aim of, 10

„ : relation to natural
development, 282-
283; 297-298
Technical terms in psychology,

i
Temperament : apathetic, 123-

I25

„ : contemplative or

intellectual, 120-123

„ : emotional or

nervous, 118-120

„ : practical, 114-

118

„ : volatile or sang-

uine, 114

Temperaments : empirical nature
of classification, 114
„ : Galen's classi-

fication, III-II2
„ : physiological

basis, 113-114

506

INDEX

Temperaments : sequence of, 112-

"3

Tender emotion, 86-88
Tennyson : alliteration in, 448
„ : example of description,

349

„ : example of metaphor,

454
„ : on human progress,

169

„ : similes from, 455
Testimony : conflict of, 393 ;

401-402

„ : defects of, 400-402
Thorndyke : on potentialities of
organization of nervous
system, 58

Thirst and hunger, 76-77
Thought and imagery, 351-

353

„ and precise language,

407-410
Time : apprehension of, 364-

365

„ : origin of knowledge of,

295

* Times' : on decadence of national
character, 482-484

„ : on development of steam-
ships, 200-201

„ : on fiction and knowledge,
4I5-4I6

„ : on mechanical amuse-
ments, 487-488

„ : on reciting poetry, 451-

453

„ : on taste and fashion, 444 ;

446
„ : on vulgar curiosity, 93-

95

Tone-deafness, 62
Tone of class and school, 158
Town life and country life, 153-

155 ; 427-428
Travellers' tales : criticism of,

402
Truth : ideal of, 435-436

Unconscious imitation, 165-166
Understanding of mental life of

another, 17-19
Universality of psychological ideas,

Vanity, 85

Visualization not universal, 44
Vitality and mental power, 59
Volatile temperament, 114
Volitional or voluntary attention,

272-273
Voltaire : on self-love, 87

Waldstein : on agents of recall,

249-250
Wallace : on nature of instinct,

66
Ward, J. : on range of attention,

269

Well-balanced minds, 25-26
White, Gilbert : on variation of

instincts, 66

White, 5. £.: on delight in skilful
activity, 302-303

„ : on trained observa-
tion of deer, 299-
301
Williams : on neglected ideals,

462

* Windy Day ' : child's composi-
tion on, 442-443
Woman : mental nature of, 1 30-

I3i

Wonder, 95-96
Words : dangers in use of, 309-

310 ; 311-312
„ : loose use of, 407-410
Wordsworth : on influence of

nature, 428
„ : on isolation of town

life, 155
„ : on materialism of

the age, 485
„ : parodied, 461
„ : similes from, 456
Work and responsibility, 431

INDEX

507

Work : ideal of, 43 1
Wotton : on self-mastery, 471
Writing: acquirement of, 172-

176
Wundt : on human instincts, 41

Wundt : on instinct and intelli-
gence, 76
„ : on mental life, 46

Youth : interests in, 231-233

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