Wake up your mind
dke up your mind
101 ways to
develop creativeness
by
ALEX OSBORN
author of Your Creative Power
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS, NEW YORK
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS, LTD., LONDON
1952
COPYRIGHT, 1952, BY
ALEX F. OSBORN
Printed in the United States of America
Att rights reserved. No part of this book
may be reproduced in any form without
the permission of Charles Scribner's Sons.
Since this page cannot accommodate all
the copyright notices, the opposite page
constitutes an extension of the copyright
page.
COPYRIGHT SOURCES QUOTED
Adlear, Mortimer, How to Bead a Book, Simon and Schuster, New York,
1940.
Alger, Joseph, Get in There and Paint, T. Y. Crowell, New York, 1946.
Barton, Bruce, The Man Nobody Knows, The Bobbs-Merrill Company, New
York, 1925.
Baaer, Dr. William Waldo, Stop Annoying Your Children, The Bobbs-Mer-
rill Company, New York, 1947.
Broad%, Charles V, and Margaret E., Know Jour Real Abilities, Whitdesey
House, McGraw-Hill Book Co., 1948.
Burroughs, John, The Heart of Burroughs' Journals, edited by Clara Barrus,
Houghton Mfflin Co., Boston, 1928.
Churchill, Winston S., "Painting as a Pastime" from Amid These Storms,
Charles Scribner s Sons, New York, 1932,
Conant, James B., On Understanding Science, Yale University Press, New
Haven, 1941
Crawford, Robert P., TUnk for Yourself, McGraw-Hill Book Co,, Inc., New
Yodc, 1937.
Dimnet, Ernest, The Aft of Thinking, Simon and Schuster, New York, 1929.
Dunn, David, Try Giving Yourself Away, Updegraff Press, Scarsdale, 1947.
Hepner, Harry W., Psychology Applied to Life and Work, Prentice-HalL
Inc., New York, 1941.
Hunt, Peter, Peter Hunt's Workbook, Prentice-Hall, Inc., New York, 1945.
Kephart, Horace, Camping and Woodcraft, The Macmillan Company, New
York, 1947.
Liebman, Joshua Loth, Peace of Mind, Simon and Schuster, New York,
1946.
Link, Henry G., The Way to Security, Doubleday and Co., Inc., New York,
1951.
Magoun, F. Alexander, Love and Marriage, Harper and Bros,, New York,
1948.
Maugham, W. Somerset, A Writers Notebook, Doubleday and Co., loo,
New York, 1949.
Mearns, Hughes, Creative Power, Doubleday Doran, New York, 1929.
Mearns, Hughes, The Creative Adult, Doubleday Doran, New York, 1940.
Mencken, Henry Louis, The American Language, Alfred A. Knopf, New
York, 1945.
O'Connor, Johnson, Ideaphoria, Human Engineering Laboratory, Boston,
1945.
Overstreet, Harry Allen, The Mature Mind, W. W. Norton & Co., New York,
1949.
Overstreet, Harry Allen, Let Me Think, The Macmillan Company, New
York, 1940.
Paine, Albert Bigelow, Mark Twain, Harper & Bros., New York, 1912,
Peale, Norman Vincent, A Guide to Confident Living, Prentice-Hall, Incx,
New York, 1948.
Peale, Norman Vincent, You Can Win, Abingdon-<3okesbury, New Yosdc,
1938.
Reik, Theodor, Listening with the Third Ear, Farrar, Straus & Co., New
York, 1949.
Taylor, Robert Lewis, The Running Pianist, Doubleday and Co., Inc., New
York, 1950.
Terzian, Lawrence, How to Get the Job You Want, Grosset and Dunlap,
New York, 1950.
Wallas, Graham, The Aft of Thought, Harcourt, Brace & Co., New York,
1926.
Webster, Polly, How to Make Money at Home, Whittlesey House, McGraw-
Hill Book Co., Inc., New York, 1949.
Whitehead, Alfred North, The Aims of Education, The Macmillan Company,
New York, 1929.
Woolf, James D. and Charles B. Roth, How to Use Your Imagination to
Make Money, Whittlesey B^use, McGraw-Hill Book Co., Inc., New
York, 1948.
N
OOME CHURCHGOERS can't help but keep
a miming score on the mentality of their min-
isters. Thus, for many years, I have watched my
pastor's creative power grow from strength to
strength. He has built up his mind by exercising
it in creative waysexercising it more steadily,
more strenuously, than any other man I know,
He is a living proof that the
greater our creative activity, the
greater our creative ability. For
that reason, I honor this book by
dedicating it to my friend,
DR. ALBERT GEORGE BUTZER
WHAT THIS BOOK TRIES TO DO
BY THE AUTHOR
This book was not my idea. It was suggested by a great
editor who liked Jour Creative Power, and who urged me to
tackle this sequel as "a public service," Research librarians
have confirmed his belief that no other work has focused on
the phase of mental development which this covers.
No claim is made that this volume could turn a wheel-
wright into a playwright, or a chauffeur into an author, or a
waiter into an inventor. It purports only to help its readers
achieve greater happinessfor themselves and others not
through any Pollyanna magic, but through psychologically
sound measures.
The book tells what we can do to enliven our imagina-
tions, to the end that we can live our lives better and be surer
of a sunnier old age. Its premise is that the more creative we
try to be, .the more creative we become; and the more creative
we are, the more we can get out of life.
a * *
After first discussing some of the leisure-time activities
which can best develop our creativeness, the book deals with
our daily duties at work and at homeand seeks to show
that-
1. Every problem, personal or otherwise, is a creative
challenge.
2. By attacking our problems imaginatively, we can best
solve them.
3. By this and other such exercise, we can help keep our
creativity from growing weaker, and can even build it ever
stagger- all the way through life.
5 7 ^ OSBOBN
The Author of This Book
Samuel Hopkins Adams is one who goes all out for Ms
friends. In an introduction of Alex Osborn he once said:
"In his chosen profession of advertising, as financier, as
educator, as leader in charitable movements, as author, and,
more than all else, as what may be termed an applied thinker \
he has more than justified the hopes and expectations of an
army of friends."
Here are some high spots in Mr. Osborn's career:
Co-founder of Batten, Barton, Durstine & Osborn, ar
'advertising firm of 1,300 people.
Director of Marine Trust Company. Trustee of Westerr
Savings Bank Director of four manufacturing corporations
Former teacher. Trustee of Hamilton College, 1939-1946
Now Vk^Chairman of the Board, University of Buffalo.
Vice-President of Community Chests and Councils oj
America. Winner of National Red Feather Award of 1951
Director of United Defense Fund.
Contributor to Readers Digest and other periodicals
Author erf How To Think Up (McGraw-Hill) and You
Creative Power (Scribners).
CONTENTS
1. OUR GREATEST GIFT Is Easily Lost
Why imagination wanes . . . Our mental powers . .
Various forms of imagination . . . Do we half use our
brains? . . . Our divine spark . . . Psychology's strange
blind spot , , . Personal gains from creative development
2. ALL OF US Are Born with Creative Talent 11
Everyone is imaginative . . . Effort varies more than
talent does . . . Can women be as creative as men? . .
Age need not stunt creative growth . . . Examples among
oldsters.
3. SOFT ENVIRONMENT Saps Creativity 19
Our new philosophy versus creative growth . * . Senior-
ity "rights" . . . Must we be m need to keep creative?
. . . Competitive spurs . . * How urbanization under-
mines imagination . . . Effect of wars on creative health.
4 EDUCATION-Its "Appalling Neglect" 27
Imagination aH but ignored . . . The so-caHed reasons
. .; . The paradox of kindergartens . . . Futile attempts
tB teach creativity . . . Where should it be taught? . . .
Could ft be incoriK^
the stumbling blocks surmountable?
xu
5. EXERCISE-Can It Build Up Our Minds? 3'
Importance of practice ... To what extent can apti-
tudes be changed? . , . How exercise builds up intellec-
tual skills . . . Effect on personality : . . Effect on emo-
tional traits . . . Efficacy of creative exercise . . . Why
it can be fun.
6. LITTLE CHILDREN Can Spur Our Minds 4
The contagious age . . . How contact with children can
build us up creatively . . . Ingenuity worthy of emula-
tion . . . The right attitude for adults . . . The impor-
tance of participation . . . Childish questions . . "The
children's hour."
7. BEADING-How to Go At It Creatively E
"Reading maketh a full man" . . . Novels and mysteries
. . . Non-fiction books . . . Periodicals . , . Why it mat-
ters how we read . , . Why ministers' sons are outstand-
ing . . . Can we read too much?
a SEDENTARY GAMES Can Flex Imagination
Again it depends on how we go at it , . . Puzzle-solving
, . . Does cardplaying do more than amuse? . . . How
about word games? . . . Charades and other pantomimes
... Is checkers or chess the better exercise?
9. INDOOR SPORTS As Creative Exercises
%>eed versus cerebration . . , Can billiards build up
foagMatioQ? . , . What new ideas have done for
wrestling . . .Why boxing is in the doldrums . . . How
about bocfcey? . . . Other indoor sports,
10. OUTDOOR SPORTS As Creatiye Exercises
olf penalizes tMnfciBg . . . &anfe basebal players use
tiwsiriKSads . * . mx^boji calls for ^teategy . . . Analysis
of water sports ; . * Imagioative Istenaea , . Ingam-
ity in
xm
11. TRAVEL-How Can It Help Creativity? 97
It depends on how as well as where . . . Why solitary
places can inspire creative thinking . . . Even short
motor-trips need not be thinldess . . . Conventional
travel . . . Camping-as-we-tour . . . Working our way
. . . Going off the beaten paths.
12. HOBBIES-Which Ones Benefit Imagination? 107
Why we should choose . . . Does coEecting call for cre-
ativity? . . . Handcrafts versus other pastimes . . .
Feminine hobbies . . . "He-man" hobbies . . . Rural
avocations . . . How about pets?
13. FINE ARTS as Sources of Creative Training 117
Passivity versus creativity . . . Why doing art does us
good . . . Almost everyone can paint . . . ChurchuTs
advice on how to start , . . Let's blaze new trails with
our brushes . . . Creative hedges against old age.
14. WORD-PLAY Can Exercise Our Creative Wits 125
Thinking up pictures for words . . . Mental movies . . .
Synonym-hunting . . . Figures of speech . . . Slang
. . . Fun with puns and profit, too ... Ealfreaaing cour
versation . . . Public speaking.
15. WRITING Is Mental Wrestling At Its Best 135
AH writers were amateurs at first . . . How to start writ-
ing ... Versifying . . . Prize contests . . . Sources of
instruction . . . Beating our brains for basic ideas . . .
Rounding up material . . . How to take rejections.
16. CHANGING SHOES As a Bending Exercise 147
Imagination the essence of the Golden Rule . . . Imma-
ture adults . . . Creative tact . . . Foreseeing how not
to act . . . Practical jokes . . Seeing oarsdVes as others
see us.
xiv
17. "CASTING BREAD" Builds Creative Sinews 155
Imagination puts empathy into action . . . Unexpected
dividends . . . Courtesy as a creative outlet . . . Slap-
ping backs with sincerity . . . Christmas as a training
season . . . Packing surprise into year-round gifts . . .
Imagination in altruism.
18. PROBLEM SOLVING-Creativity at Its Best 165
Can idea-htmting be routined? . . . Setting up our tar-
gets . . . How questions can help . . . Catching "But-
terflies" . . . Creative concentration . . . Teaming up
otners KTHOP on ft i onve
la MABTTAL PROBLEMS Creatively Solved 179
Break-ups due to failure to imagine . . . Need for brief-
ing ... Minding our marital tongues . . . Counteract-
ing irritations . . . Ideas for endearment . . . Cement
for marriages . . . Averting divorce.
20. CHILD TRAINING Needs Creative Thinking 189
Democracy with discipline . . . Brightening the home
spirft . . . Simple but exciting parties . . . Where and
wlien to scold . . . Thinking can guide spanking . . .
Helping omr children to create . . . Calamitous prob-
lems.
2L HOME CHORES Creatively Attacked 199
Homes can be creative^ gyms . . Sliopjsmg with imagi-
nation .,'. . Greatire cpoldng ,'; > . Cleaning chores can
tefep us keen . 'v ^ Be^ariang|a^ ior cpmfort and safety
. ^ , Irorgfrwtf^fa / vm Home-made
fnventions.
XV
22. JOBS Are Opportunities for Use of Imagination 211
Brightening our work hours . . . Imagination in doctor-
ing ... In other professions . . . Ideas as keys to busi-
ness success . . . Creative salesmanship . . . Why some
employees stand still . . . Suggestions systems on the
march.
23. JOB-HUNTING Calls for Idea-Hunting 223
Rarity of creative approach . . . Setting our sights . . .
Seeking openings . . . Preparing for interviews . . .
The right references . . . Thinking up what to say ...
Visual presentation . . . Strategic follow-up.
24 HEALTH-How to Gird It with Imagination 233
Mind and body inseparable . . . Invalids as shining ex-
amples . . . The wisdom of occupational therapy . . .
The "ulcer" myth . . . Psychiatry's problem ... A
paradox of psychiatry ... A fallacy of psychiatry . . .
Creativity in treatment
25. HAPPINESS Can Be Buttressed by Imagination 245
Imagination can mar or cheer . . . Beating the blues
. . . Surmounting our fears . . . Outwitting worry . . .
Overcoming boredom . . . Sunny old age ... Retire-
ment into what?
26. CHAMCTER Depends on Creative Growth 257
The therapy of thanksgiving ... The wisdom of for-
giving . . . What we gain by giving . . , The power of
anticipation . . . Creativity as a key to character.
Wake up your mind
Chapter JL
OUR GREATEST GIFT -
why do we so neglect it?
Y ALL OF US are imaginative in our childhood*"
said Walt Disney. "But, as we grow older, we tend to
lose our power of imagination. Failure to flex our imaginative
muscles is as deplorable as breaking down our physical
strength through lack of proper exercise."
It is an accepted fact that nature endows nearly all of us
at birth with plenty of creative potential It is an obvious
fact that, as our years roll on, some of us grow creatively
richer, while others grow creatively poorer. This is mainly
because we lose what we don't use we build up that which
we exercise.
Loss of imagination can be even more deplorable than
loss of musculation. We can get along with less brawn in our
kter years. But to surmount the obstacles which age piles
on our paths we need more tiban seasoned judgment we
need a well-trained imagination, kept in the pink by creative
exercise afl the way through life.
Professor Hughes Meafns devoted his entire career to the
teaching of creativity. From 1926 to 1946 he headed the
Department of Creative Education at New York University*
Here's his summary:
"Creativity is life another heart No one has found the
source of its power, but ELO oae doubts tliat the source is
1
within us. It will keep us alive if we give it a chance to beat
for us. If we let it be stilled, there is then no more life. It
needs continual exercise. If we keep it going strong, it can
help us more and more to meet the needs of living."
Unfortunately, Professor Mearns blazed a one-man trail
which other educators have shunned. Even psychologists
have all but ignored creativity. The newly elected president
of the American Psychological Association recently stated:
"The neglect of this subject is appalling''
The italics are mine; but the words are those of Dr. J. P,
Guflford, head of psychology at the University of Southern
California.
2.
When we say, "Joe knows his own mind/' we merely
mean that he is fairly definite. If any of us fully knew his own
mind, he would know more than is known. Although scalpels
are cutting through much of our ignorance about our gray
matter, tie world is still in the dark as to what sparks our
thinking processes.
Electronic brains built out of metal and plastics can now
do almost everything human minds can do. To some extent
they can even perform feats of judgment. But, according to
Dr, Howard H. Aiken, head of Harvard's Computation
Laboratory, tiiese mechanized minds can never achieve that
highest type of human thinking creative imagination.
By and large, our mental powers are fourfold :
L Absorptive pot^er-the ability to observe, and to apply
attention*
2. Retenttae power tlie ability to meii^
3, Rm$omwg poto^-tibe ability to analyze and to judge.
4 Crseo^ ^ to visiialize, to foresee, and
to generate ideas.
In absoibiiig apd retaining, we mafce our mind #erve as a
sponge. In logical reasoaiitog md ift .cfl&tive wagining, we
make our
The thinking mind finds it easier to judge than to create.
Nearly all of our education tends to develop our critical
faculty. And our experience likewise builds up our judgment
"Shall I get up or turn over?" By deciding such questions
from morn to night we continually flex our judicial muscles.
And oddly enough, the more we exercise our judgment, the
less likely we are to exercise our imagination. By overuse of
our judicial power we may even tend to cramp our creative
power.
3.
As a term, imagination covers a field so wide and so hazy
that a leading educator has called it "an area which psy-
chologists fear to tread." For imagination takes many forms
some of them wild, some of them futile, some of them
creative.
The berserk varieties include hallucinations, obsessions
and other abnormalities which are beyond the scope of this
book.
The futile forms are fairly normal. They include sudh
meanderings as sleep-dreams and day-dreams, and some
harmful phases such as complexes, worry, and the blues. IE
these latter forms our emotions tend to make imaginatioii
work against us. However, to a worth-while degree^ we can
conquer such imaginings by means of creative thinking of
the kinds set forth in later chapters.
The photographic forms of imagination give us our poweu
of visual imagery by which our inind's eye can see even those
things which we have never seen.
Through speculative imagination we can evm plctee a
nonexistent mountain in Florida and can eyea cap it with
snow!
Through reproductive toaginatfem we can brattg back
many a scene frona the distant pst Look! I aa pow foccis
my imagination ctt nay boyfeooct and see a MMe $rl peering
at ifle over our faacfc^ Lfafe^ I ^
words she actually said to me on that faraway day: "If youTI
give me a bite of that apple, I'll give you a kiss." Thus imag-
ination can add audio as well as video to memory.
The third photographic form is structural visualization.
My friend Lairy Bell of Bell Aircraft can look at a flat blue-
print and see a new type of jet fighter streaking through the
sky. My daughter Kay can scan a dress pattern and see her-
self standing before her mirror in a brand-new costume of
her own making.
Now we come to the vicarious, anticipative, and creative
forms of imagination. Although the first two of these types
are not strictly creative, they can be used creatively.
Vicarious imagination serves as a bridge enables us to be
someone else. When a soap-opei^ listener pictures herself as
the glamorous girl friend of her radio Valentino, she thus
uses vicarious imaginationbut not creatively. However, by
putting herself in the shoes of a sick neighbor and thinking
up how to help her, she can make a creative use of vicarious
imagination.
When we let antidpative imagination poison our minds
with dire pictures of what may happen, we are far from
being creative. But when we make ourselves foresee the best,
while preparing for the worst, we make a creative use of
anticipative imagination.
The highest form of imagination is the truly creative.
Through this we seek new slants on old facts. We reach be-
ym*d the facts at hand in search of facts not yet known. Thus,
in this pliase of creativity, we use imagination as a search-
light We beam it hither and thither, into the known and
the unloaowiL Tfais we "discover?
Itfin, too, ej&ative imagtoation can serve us as a mixer.
Thus we tise it to combine kaown elements in order to pro-
cfetee the unkn0m. By dhangmg ^ we turn out
stfll more ielm$-4deas whiok o|faerwise would not come tti
Hms we Ira^ fee a new plot a new
, or a fetter way of living biir lives.
4.
In an early edition of Webster's Dictionary, imagination
was defined in part as "the will working on materials of
memory." And there can be no question but that effort has a
lot to do with creativity. The main reason our imaginations
tend to backslide is that we coddle our brains, instead of
beating them in search of ideas.
From a strictly physical standpoint, we have far more
gray matter than we could ever use, even if we worked our
minds to capacity. It is literally true that most of our brain
centers (such as those? which enable us to speak and to read)
are in duplicate. The stand-by twin remains idle until its
opposite number is injured or diseased. The spare can then
be trained to take over.
Louis Pasteur had a stroke which destroyed half his brainy
yet he made some of his greatest discoveries after that A
New Yorker underwent an operation in which the front left
third of his brain was removed. Later he took a test which
showed an extraordinarily high LQ. There are countless such
cases,
But we who have all our brains do we ever realty think
up to our capacities? Surely, we admit that Professor William
James of Harvard was right in saying: "Compared to what
we ought to be, we are only half awake. We are making use
of only a small part of our mental resources/*
George Bernard Shaw agreed witih James but, as usual^
dramatized his statement; TFew people think more than two
or three times a year, I have made an MtacnatiQaal reputa-
tion by thinjcing once or twice a week.**
Such thinking mainly refers to juclicial tibipMng analyz-
ing, comparing, concluding. When it conies to cretrtiae think-
iftg^-conscious effort to think: *jp want^ IdeasT^veft Shaw
cpeld not oxagg^rafee our i^um t*> pake fell tise <>
brains.
James D. Woolf was long a star in one of the toughest of
"idea professions" advertising. Out of those 30 years of his
came this conclusion: "My experience convinces me that
imagination is not a gift; it is an habitual way of using your
mind. Many times people have said to me, 1 can't think up
ideas I guess I was born without imagination/ My answer
to such confused individuals is always the same: 'How hard
do you try? Have you really made a determined effort over
a long period of time to train yourself to think creatively?' "
Too many of us look upon imagination as something that
will run itself like a stomach or other organ which works
automatically under the effortless guidance of the sympathe-
tic nervous system. Accordingly, we let our imagination push
us around. Unless we do something about pushing it around,
it will not only shortchange us, but will grow less and less
usable.
5.
All agree that imagination is the pristine power of the
human mind the divine spark which makes man "the para-
gon of animals," as Shakespeare put it
Civilization is the product of creative thinking, As Henry
J. Taylor has said, "Imagination lit every lamp in this coun-
try, produced every article we use, built every church, made
eveiy discovery, performed every act of kindness and prog-
ress, created more and better things for more people. It is the
priceless ingredient for a better day."
A Yale professor has estimated that thanks to the
machines which have been created by man the average per-
son now has available to him a work power equal to the
muscle power of 120 slaves.
That such progress can continue, Charles F. Kettering,
for one, feels certain: "Every time you tear a leaf off a
calendar you present a new place for new ideas and progress.
All along the future years is spaced new information. It
comes by inventions, by discoveries, and by research. We
can't stop this development because we know practically
notliing about anything. We have it all in front of us/'
When it comes to business, ideas are almost everything.
Their value can often exceed that of any asset on any finan-
cial statement.
Dr. S. L. Wells reported to the American Association of
Applied and Professional Psychologists the results of his
study of a high-salaried group of people in comparison with
a group of average salary. In four intelligence tests, these two
groups rated about equal in all respects except one creativ-
ity. Those who had climbed higher were the ones who could
think up more things to do and more ways of doing them. As
Montaigne wrote: "A strong imagination begetteth oppor-
tunity."
And when it comes to our personal affairs, nothing can
brighten our lives as much as a well-trained and well-
directed imagination. The very use of it can be an abiding
joy. Creative effort, said Eliel Saarinen, is the "inner drive
for inner satisfaction."
6.
Since time began, the masters of thought have paid
tribute to the creative power of man's mind. And yet, modern
psychology has thrown but little new light on the subject
Educators have tended to ignore it to treat creativity as if
it were a skeleton in the closet.
In charging education with ignoring creativity, Dr. J. P.
Guilford pointed out: "The evidences of neglect are so ob-
vious that I need not give proof. But the extent of the neglect
I had not realized until recently. To obtain a more tangible
idea of the situation, I examined the index of the Psycho-
logical Abstracts for each year since its origin. Of approxi-
mately 121,000 titles listed in the past 23 years, only 186
were indexed as definitely bearing on the subject of creativ-
8
ity. The topics under which such references are listed include
creativity, imagination, originality, thinking, and tests in
these areas. In other words, less than two-tenths of one per
cent of the books and articles indexed in the Abstracts for
approximately the past quarter century bear directly on this
subject"
In my favorite text on Applied Psychology, an 800-page
tome by Dr. George W. Crane, the index lists over 1,000
references. Twenty of these concern advertising. Eleven con-
cern sex. One each refers to fingernails, funerals, Clark Gable,
horseback riding, idiots, obesity, opium, pipe smoking, sour
grapes, and stuttering. But in that whole index of this great
text on applied psychology, there is no mention whatsoever
of creativity, or ideas, or imagination!
Even encyclopedias seem to pretend that there is no such
thing as imagination. My favorite reference work is The
Columbia Encyclopedia. I recently asked its editor why this
great tome omitted all reference to creativity. He explained
that his staff had made several stabs at writing suitable
pieces, but had failed to produce anything "informative
enough."
This "appalling neglect" cannot be due to any doubt as
to the existence of imagination or as to its importance. The
most reasonable explanation is that since the subject defies
statistical treatment, it is too tough to handle.
7.
It may matter but little to some of us that imagination is
the light that lit the world or that ideas can be the stepping-
stones to our success in business or in a profession. But it
must matter to all of us that, through active use of imagina-
tion, every one of us can get more out of life.
Even from the standpoint of personality, creativity can
do far more than cosmetics, or clothes, or manners. H. A.
Overstreet made this observation: "People who are creatively
alert are much more interesting than those who are not. They
seem almost to belong to a different species, or perhaps to a
higher level of evolution. They see not only what is but what
might be; and the power to see what might be is one of the
chief traits that distinguish human beings from one another."
As for getting along with oneself, our contentment
largely depends on whether we are creative or non-creative.
Especially in our earlier years, all of us possess a creative
urge. When this yen has too little outlet, frustration sets in;
and such frustration undermines happiness.
According to the findings of the Human Engineering
Laboratory, much of our restlessness arises from disuse of our
aptitudes. Our talents are constantly craving outlet; more
than that, they are constantly craving development. When
we dam them up, they torment us. Thus the cause of our dis-
content can often be traced to failure to exercise our creative
aptitudes. To paraphrase Ben Franklin: "To cease to think
creatively is but little different from ceasing to live."
Our global chaos can't help but mar the happiness of
every thinking person. To overcome gloom and worry, we
have to fight harder than ever. Religious faith can help keep
us at our best in this battle. But the right use of imagination
can help a lot, too a fact which later chapters will spell out
Professor D. K. Winebrenner summarized this philosophy
in these words: "We are all partly dead, for we do not use all
of our powers. He who creates most is he who lives the most
abundant life. The creative individual can be free in a prison
cell; but the unimaginative soul is a walking zombie in a
great unknown/*
Yes, the one overshadowing reason why we should keep
ourselves creatively alert is that in this way we can make our
lives more worthwhile to ourselves as well as to others. The
fact is that the lamp which lit the world can light our lives.
Chapter
A L L O F U S are born
with creative talent
ALL OF US are blessed with some degree of imagination.
-T3L. Even when it comes to art, creativity is no rarity,
"Everybody is original. Everybody can design if not
supremely, at least beautifully." So said Henry Wilson,
teacher of art teachers.
Imaginative power bears but little relationship to school-
ingas illustrated by the story about die Texas cattle raiser
who, on seeing an Illinois car approaching his home, dashed
to the kitchen and gasped to his houseboy:
"Rastus, a big packer from up North is comin* in. When I
was at Chicago, I boasted to him that we have a bull here
that races the Sunset Limited 25 miles across our ranch every
morning and always wins. The man wanted to see die critter,
so now he's here. YouVe got to handle him. I've gone away?
As his master dove through the back door, Rastus went
to the front and greeted the visitor with the explanation that
his boss had just left for New Orleans then to Jacksonville
and Atlanta then to New York then to Toronto then to
Cleveland and Cincinnati on the way to Chicago then to
St. Louis then to Denver then to Seattle then home, after
a visit in Hollywood.
"Wow! What a trip[ How long before heTl returnr
"Two days/*
11
12
"Two days! How's lie travelingin a jet plane?"
"No, sab/* replied Rastus. "He's ridin bareback-he's
ridin' on that f ast-runnin' bull of his/*
2.
Psychologists agree that imagination is a gift possessed
by all of us. The president of the American Psychological
Association recently said: "It is only a layman's idea that the
creative person is peculiarly gifted with a certain quality
that ordinary people do not have. Creative acts can be ex-
pected of almost all individuals."
We differ in creative drive far more than in creative
talent This disparity is apparent even in children. According
to Dean Ralph Horn, pupils fall into these three types:
"The Me-Toos: They want to be told what to think. Then
they recite it back to you.
"The Get-Alongs: These try to find out what the teachers
want, and do just enough work to earn C or D grades.
"The Problem-Solvers: These are the ones who like new
ideas, like to spring their ideas in class, and like to get credit
for them.**
To be a problem-solver we do not have to have the talent
of a genius such as Leonardo da Vinci. Called "the most
versatile human being who ever lived/' he gave birth to
thousands of brain children. Many of his ideas were 500
years ahead of his time. They included a self-driven car,
various gear combinations and roller bearings, air condition-
ing, excavating machines, hydraulic tools, airplanes, and
even a helicopter. He also created masterpieces of sculpture,
painting, music, and architecture.
We should not let a record like that stop us from trying
to be more creative in lesser ways. The least we should say
to ourselves is that if da Vinci could do that much, surely we
can put our creative talent to a greater use than we do.
La the words of Lord Macaulay, the imaginations of most
13
of us are like "the wings of an ostrich. They enable us to run,
though not to soar." But many of us don't even walk. We
either stand still creatively, or, worse than that, we slide
back from an imaginative childhood into a non-creative
adulthood.
"Talent is our affair,'' said Gustave Flaubert We can
shrivel it through disuse, or we can build it up by practicing
creativity by solving problems, by using our leisure in ways
that will exercise our imagination.
3.
A leading psychologist stated that women are inferior to
men in "musculation and imagination." I doubt whether this
is so. Scientific tests seem to indicate that women have it in
them to be as imaginative as men, perhaps more so.
To pose as an analyst of womankind, my only qualifica-
tions are six in number one wife, four daughters, and one
secretary. Their minds have long been under the microscope
of my hobby. And yet, I confess, they still are mysteries to
me.
When our first child came along, I said to my wife: It's a
cinch to bring up a daughter. With my Master's degree in
psychology, 111 be able to wind her round my little finger. 1 *
How wrong I was she proved to me when she was
about 10.
One evening I mildly reprimanded her, only to have her
stamp her feet and shriek, "I hate you!" With utmost kindli-
ness (put on, of course, to show off my superior wiH power)
I queried her as to why she hated me. Her reply was the
same each time, "Because I hate you" "because I hate you.**
The kindlier and quieter my tone, the more hysterical she
became until finally she was rolling on the floor in a tan-
trum. I still kept on asking, "Why do you hate me?"
At long last she blurted out, "I hate you because you're
so nicer
14
Despite my inability to comprehend the feminine mind, I
may be entitled to the observation that if we men were
honest with ourselves, we would recognize that we have no
corner on creativity. All we need do is to look into the every-
day activities of our womenfolk. Most housewives work their
own imaginations fax more than most husbands do. A man's
job is usually routine, while a woman at home is on her own
from dawn to dusk. Just think of the ingenuity she must put
into shopping, into planning meals, into prettying up the
garden, into rearranging the furniture, into getting her
youngsters to do this, and not to do that!
Just look at the female stars in the field of creativity
the Edna Ferbers, the Taylor Caldwells, and the countless
others. Many husbands have known firsthand how highly
creative a woman can beespecially the husbands in the
long and brilliant list of creative partnerships made up of
married couples.
Admittedly, the record of creative standouts is higher
among males than females, as Professor Harvey C. Lehman
of Ohio University has shown in his studies. But it is only
during the last few minutes of history that women have had
a chance to spread their creative wings. As Dr. Paul Popenoe
pointed out in his analysis of the psychological differences
between sexes, "These differences are acquired rather than
inborn, and are visibly diminishing as woman passes to a
wider lif e."
To the extent that mentality has been scientifically ana-
lyzed, the evidence proves that creative talent is fairly dis-
tributed between sexes. In fact, the Johnson O'Connor
Foundation has rated women 25 per cent more creative than
men.
If there be a difference between sexes, it is probably not
in the native talent; it is more likely due to the fact that
more men are confronted with more problems to which they
are forced to apply creative imagination. And, again, it is
that kind of exercise which makes for greater creativity.
15
4.
Most older people are less creative than younger people
and less creative than they themselves were in earlier years
as a result of the disuse of their imaginative muscles. Al-
though age inevitably saps physical prowess, no kw of
nature ordains that we must be mentally less creative as we
grow older. Physiologists tell us that we can keep on devel-
oping our imaginative muscles throughout life. We have it in
us to be just as creative at 80 as at 30, according to gerontol-
ogist Dr. George Lawton.
Memory necessarily fades with age, and so do other apti-
tudes. Our creative faculty is about the only inborn ability
that can defy Father Time. In this respect, "we are always
the same age inside," as Gertrude Stein said.
Those whose jobs are such as to challenge their imagina-
tions all day long find it easier to keep up their creativity.
By and large, "they hold up with aging very well/* accord-
ing to Dr. Lawton.
When starting their careers, most of our young people
have to perform routine work, and such work tends to dull
imagination. Unless they take on other ways to keep their
creative wits in trim, they may slip badly before reaching 30.
Those whose jobs remain of a routine nature all through life
are in ever direr need of creative exercise during their spare
time.
Our creative health in adult years is further threatened
by the pressures of life. "Introjection" is what psychologists
call this cramping effect Our jobs introject us; our families
introject us. Unless we do something to offset this blight,
"our creative spirit will retreat so far into the recesses of our
being that it may come out as seldom as the ground hog."
Then, too, we face a danger which H. A. Overstreet calls
"neophobia." This is the fear which makes oldsters shy away
from new ideas. When we hear that Old Man So-and-so
16
is going stale, it usually means that lie is suffering from "a
dying back of the brain/' a loss of creative energy, a paralysis
of imagination.
Overdevelopment of judicial judgment is another danger
of age. This often carries with it a blinding pride to the
effect, "I never make a mistake." Such vainglory tends to
blight imagination. Creative effort must always call for
guessing; and even the best of guessing cannot avoid error.
5.
Despite all those deterrents, there is plenty of proof that
creativity can defy the calendar. One overwhelming mass of
evidence is the exhaustive survey of "creative achievement
during old age" made by Professor Harvey C. Lehman. This
study covered notables who in their day had thought up
ideas of importance to the world. Of the 1,000 or more crea-
tive achievements listed by Professor Lehman, the median
age at which such creativity occurred was 74.
That significant finding fits in with the personal experience
of most of us. For example, a competitor of mine went into
"retirement" over 20 years ago. Since then, instead of going
to seed, he has sown the seed of many a successful venture
and of many a worthwhile public service. His name is James
Webb Young. At 65 he is more creative than ever. He states
most emphatically, **We can keep on growing creatively
stronger if we keep on striving to produce ideas."
As a young man I had the privilege of working personally
with Herbert N. Casson, and later with Charles F. Kettering
at times when each of them was in his forties. I then looked
upon them as ancients.
Kettering did most of his great inventive work long after
that Even today, at the age of 75, he is thinking up ideas
right and left. Among other things, he is now devoting to
cancer research the same lively imagination that produced
so many engineering innovations.
17
Herbert Casson of London is well over 80. For the last
SO years lie has published a successful magazine. He has
written over 35 books since passing his half -century mark.
Incidentally, B. C. Forbes recently published a 537-page
book of quotations "from the best minds of yesterday and
today/* The most quoted man of all time was Kettering; and
Casson ran a close second.
Those men had the advantage of working in creative
pursuits. On the other hand, many a person in non-creative
work has likewise kept creatively sharp through creative
exercise on the outside. One such is Wallace Stevens, now
over 70. For over eight hours every day he has devoted him-
self to a job which calls solely for analytic accuracy. Seeking
an outlet for creativity, he adopted the hobby of writing
verse at home. Winner of the Bollingen Prize in Poetry, his
new book of poems has caused an outstanding critic to rate
him as "the most finished poet of his age."
More and more older people are taking the hobby path to
creative alertness. The last Annual Hobby Show for Older
Persons in New York City comprised over 3,000 separate ex-
hibits. A New York newspaper editorially commented: "This
is another proof of the fact that man remains a youth so long
as ideas flower in his imagination and can be brought into
being by loving craftsmanship."
Another newspaper editor once said, "The function of
science is not to add more years to life but to add more life
to years." And the one best way in which we can help add
more life to our years is everlastingly to "practice the art of
creating," as recommended by H. A. Overstreet
Chapter
SOFT ENVIRONMENT makes
it hard to keep creative
ONE REASON WHY we now need to reach out for crea-
tive exercise is that our creative growth is inhibited by
the very climate in which we live. Sheer necessity forced our
forefathers to think up new and better ways of doing things.
To keep alive, they had to work their ingenuity overtime.
Our softer living numbs our sense of enterprise and deadens
our creative spirit
Although many blame the New Deal for killing the try-
hard spirit of yesteryear, its decadence began long before
F. D. R. took over. For example, it was over 40 years ago that
Newton D. Baker wrote his Decay of Self-Reliance. This told
of a young man who had asked the war secretary to help him
gain admission to Canada in order to trap fur-bearing ani-
mals near the Arctic Circle.
"I suppose you think I'm a little crazy, don't you?" asked
the young daredevil.
"I wish I could tell you what I really think about you,"
replied Mr. Baker. "I am wondering whether I do not see in
you the last survivor of the pioneer. I wonder whether you
are not, in fact, the last young man I shall ever see who is not
afraid of the dark and of hardship, and who wants to stand
on his own feet and force his own way by the vigor of his
own spirit and the strength of his own hands."
19
20
Even tie cynics will admit that it was the door-die
philosophy of our forebears which made America so mighty
mighty enough to help support countless foreigners and yet
enable 150 million Americans to live better than any people
in all history.
Thanks to the toil of scientists, our people now live
longer. Physically, we are fitter than ever to work hard and
thus keep America great But mentally we are less fit because
our minds are so much lazier. Our lethargy is ever aggravated
by overdoses of "take-it-easy" narcotics as peddled by those
who barter Utopian promises in exchange for votes.
We still boast of "free enterprise." But we tend to slur the
word enterprise it calls for too much effort and risk. And we
tend to glorify freem terms of our freedom to lean on gov-
ernmentin terms of our freedom to loaf on our jobs.
A friend of mine, Rob Roy MacLeod, makes a hobby of
history. He has outlined this pattern in the life-cycle of
nations: (1) Settlement or conquest, (2) Development of
extractive industry, (3) Development of manufacturing, (4)
Concentration of population, (5) Increase in tax burden,
(6) Diminishment of liberty, (7) Decay of national char-
acter, (8) Decline of the nation.
We have passed through the first three of those steps. As
to the fourth, 61 per cent of us now live in urban areas, and
history indicates that 50 per cent is the danger point
The fifth step of increased taxation is upon us. We now
use one-fourth of our national income to run our govern-
ment According to history, the safe maximum is 20 per cent
As to the sixth step, many of our best thinkers, such as Dr.
Henry C. Link, believe that we are fast forsaking true liberty
in favor of false security.
And what about the seventh step? Are we willing to work
as hard as our forebears? Are we as honest as they were?
Has our personal creativity kept pace with our technological
progress?
Henry J. Fuller worked his way through Worcester Tech,
21
where later he endowed an annual award for the origination
of "a useful product or device/' Winning ideas in the past
have included a bridge, a glider, a lathe, a temperature con-
trol, a safety device for a gun, and a shallow-diving outfit. In
recent years, interest in the award has sadly fallen off.
"Yankee boys are feeling the influence of living under a gov-
ernment where Poppa Knows Best and Poppa Will Provide."
That's Bruce Barton's explanation of this apathy.
There are many signs that Yankee ingenuity is on the wane
not because we are born with less creative talent, but be-
cause we no longer try hard enough to use the talent that
is in us.
2.
'* The "why try?" creed of so many of us is mirrored in a
parody of the 23rd Psalm recently published in The Memphis
Commercial Appeal. Here's the first line: "The State is my
shepherd, I shall not work; it maketh me to lie down on good
jobs."
That could be laughed off as the grousing of a cynical edi-
tor. But, unfortunately, comprehensive polls reveal that the
majority of our people no longer believe that hard work pays.
What caused this change? Partly our nation's prosperity
partly our series of wars partly our political paternalism
partly our parental attitudes.
Our grandfathers strove to make their sons rise early and
work kte. In our generation, most of us seek to feather-bed
our sons.
It used to be that the way to forge ahead was to push
harder than the other fellow. In many cases, seniority rights
now make it safe to coast
The fear of losing our jobs used to make us use our brawn
and brain to the utmost. Too many of us now lull ourselves
with the assurance, They can't fire me. And if I am laid off, I
can still get jobless pay while doing nothing."
22
The Bead of a firm of white-collar employees was asked
by a business consultant, "How many people have you here?"
"About 500," the employer answered.
"Suppose that tomorrow morning no customers should
call, no mail be delivered, no telephone or telegraph mes-
sages be receivedhow many of your people would be able
to keep themselves constructively busy?"
The employer was silent for a while. "I am sure of three,'*
he said finally, "and fairly sure of a fourth/*
The bigger the business gets, the more likely it is that
even the men in management will let their minds loaf. When
it comes to creative thinking, many an executive considers it
wiser not to advance ideas lest he be classed by his asso-
ciates as "screwy,"
Even among educators the "why try?** philosophy is
taking its toll The head of a midwestern university recently
lamented that seniority advancement is crippling the initia-
tive of teachers. "It is even getting so that some of those
whom we promote to full professorships virtually retire while
still on full salary."
Surely, these are damning indications that our very
climate is more and more inimical to creative effort
3.
As Mark Twain said, "Hunger is the handmaid of genius."
It is sad but true that fear of adversity does most to spur
creative effort
Compared to our own past, and compared to other peo-
ples, nearly all of us Americans live on Easy Street. With no
wolves at our doors, we tend to let our imaginations go to
rust. Prosperity also breeds an overcritical attitude causes
us to look down our noses at those who stick out their necks
with ideas. This attitude in turn tends to atrophy our own
imaginations.
La my f ather's day, the fear of a penniless old age drove
23
many to use their minds to the utmost. But now, those who
trustingly look forward to pensions tend to anesthetize their
spirit of effort.
From the standpoint of an individual's utilization of his
talents, a sense of security is often a hindrance. According to
William Feather, "Insecurity is the chief propulsive power in
the world." And this truth applies with double force to our
creativity.
4.
Group spirit used to encourage those who tried hard. The
go-getter was looked up to; the pace-setter was admired
Both are now condemned as anti-social Competitive spurs
have been becoming duller and duller.
A Reuter's dispatch recently told about a welder in Eng-
land who was fined by his union for working "too hard** in
order to earn more money for his family. His fellow workers
went even further and had him fired from his job, as a warn-
ing to others who might sin in the same way.
Many a merchant who used to be on his creative toes has
become flat-footed. Now that goods are scarcer than dollars,
salesmen who formerly used their ingenuity at every turn
now grow stale for want of creative exercise.
Even in athletics, competitive spirit is not what it was.
For example, the best boxers of today do not train as hard as
did the old-timers. Who ever heard of a present-day pugilist
climbing mountains for exercise? Jim Jeffries made a habit
of doing just that.
But Jeffries could keep most of what he earned in the
ring, while Joe Louis could never catch up with what he owed
his government. Higher and higher taxes are the arch dead-
eners of incentive in every line of endeavor.
When the Senate was debating the income tax in 1909, a
member declared that if Uncle Sam could take one per cent
of a citizen's income, he would take 10 per cent or even 50
24
per cent. To which Senator Borah responded angrily: "Such
talk is nonsense. The American people would never stand
for a tax of 50 per cent/' And now, the income tax rate of
some of us reaches as high as 94.5 per cent
Such incentive killers have made our climate far less
conducive to creative effort. This is all the more reason why
we as individuals should deliberately go out of our way to
take on creative exercise and thus keep our imaginations
a-humming-despite Hell and high taxes.
5.
It is likely that 70 per cent of us will be urban dwellers
within the near future.
Cities tend to sap imaginative strength in all except the
few who work in the arts and in creative phases of business
and science. Those in routine jobs practice ingenuity far less
than do their country cousins.
Rural life carries with it chores which tend to keep
people an their creative toes. A scientific light on this was
recently shed by a committee of educators who, with a grant
from the Carnegie Foundation, made a five-year survey to
determine the geographical origin and the economic back-
grounds of those who had made good as creative scientists.
In interpreting the committee's findings, Newsweek edi-
torially commented: "The conclusion is that creative re-
search is a grass-roots business. ... It thrives where mem-
ories of frontier days still linger. ... Its adherents come
chiefly from the economically lower middle class."
City dwellers have had less need to use their hands an J
heads to get things done. Most of us have been able to get
someone eke to fix our plumbing, or repair our car, whereas
most ruralites have taken such problems into their own
hands.
But this is no longer as true as it was a few years ago.
More and more people in the city are doing their own home
25
repairing, remodeling, and redecorating. There are two rea-
sons for this change. One is that it is harder to get that
handyman from around the corner to do odd jobs for us.
Most plumbers, for example, have enough big work so that
they prefer to pass up our little troubles. Many a city house-
holder is thus being forced to use his own ingenuity on his
leaky faucet. The other reason for this new trend is expense.
Small services which used to cost a pittance now cost too
much.
The fact that urban people are doing more and more of
their own home repairs is shown by the growing demand for
mechanical magazines and the so-called "shelter" books. The
circulation of the former group has gone up 230 per cent in
the past 10 years. Meanwhile, the shelter books have shown
a gain of 149 per cent.
6.
War and fears of war likewise tend to weaken us crea-
tively. The armed services train most of their members to do
as they are told rather than to think for themselves.
Then, too, war breeds anti-creative complexesa feeling
of "What's the use?" a worry that kills concentration and
maims effort The one exception to that rule is creative re-
search. The workers in this field are inspired and spurred by
what they do in wartime to hasten peace. Thus, during
World War II, our research laboratories turned out new
ideas as never before.
That record would not have been possible had those
scientists been working in the shadow of personal fear, as
were the Germans. Then, too, researchers need free rein,
and in this respect we may have a secret weapon as against
Russia. In the opinion of Dr. James B. Conant, Sovietized
science is doomed to fail for the reason that the Russians
impose a party line on research. They deny and ridicule free-
dom of enquiry. They have put an end to independent in-
26
ventors and amateur scientists. "For the short run, the Soviet
system can succeed/ 7 Dr. Conant said. "But for the long pull,
the verdict of history may well be otherwise."
Except for that kst point, this chapter has painted a
gloomy picture by way of showing how most of our environ-
mental influences are conspiring to stunt our creative growth.
Why stress these negatives? Because readers who care about
their creativity should recognize the obstacles should real-
ize that, more than ever before, they need to take on creative
exercises, consciously and constantly. Only thus can they
keep their imaginations in shape to win life's battles.
Chapter
EDUCATION could do more
to develop creativeness
SOME OF US college graduates have long wondered why
our schooling all but ignored our one most precious gift,
and we axe glad that more and more of our educational
leaders are likewise questioning our curricula. According to
Dr. Oliver Carmichael, an intensive search is under way for
a "missing link" a mysterious lack in our educational process.
He reports that "at no time in the history of the country has
there been such a stir about the ends and means of educa-
tion."
"The appalling neglect" of creativity could be one reason
for that ferment The accepted concept of Holism calls for
the development of "all aspects of the whole individual"
and yet our educators have seemed to treat imagination as
if it were a negligible faculty of the mind, despite over-
whelming evidence to the contrary.
Higher education may even tend to stifle creative think-
ing. College graduates should rate higher than non-college
people in scientific tests for creativity, but they don't. Dr.
J. P. Guilf ord reports that the most common complaint he
has heard concerning college graduates as researchers is that
"while they can do assigned tasks with a show of mastery of
the techniques they have learned, they are much too helpless
when called upon to solve problems where new paths are
27
28
demanded." A study by The Brooldngs Institution confirmed
this paradox.
The aims of education are to fill the mind, to drill the
mind, and to build character. A well-filled mind is certainly
essential to creativity, since facts are the wherewithal of
ideas. But grave danger lurks in our memory-stuffing. In his
The Aims of Education, Alfred North Whitehead warned:
"We must beware of what I call 'inert ideas' ideas that are
merely received into the mind without being utilized, or
tested, or thrown into fresh combinations." And yet nearly
every diploma is based on the intake and retention of rela-
tively dead data.
Even in posing "hypothetical" problems, too many
teachers consider them answered only when solved in strict
accordance with the text. An original solution, instead of
being rewarded, is often penalized.
In its aim to train the mind, education has concentrated
on building up judicial judgment strengthening the critical
faculty of the student. When this is carried to extreme it
tends to make the student less creative. For an overdevel-
oped discriminative faculty is a natural enemy of imagina-
tion.
The same is true of glorifying an "academic attitude." To
quote an educator: "Students gradually acquire a spirit of
mellow tolerance and scholarly insight, but lose the creative
impulse." The fact is that, while generating ideas, we have to
keep steamed up with almost irrational enthusiasm until we
verify, and find that we have misfired. According to Charles
Kettering, duds are the steppingstones by which we reach
worthwhile ideas.
Not only our would-be inventors, but all of us, could do
with more creative training while at school. Obviously, we
cannot count on education to. prepare our minds for all the
demands of later life. What we need most is that higher
order of resourcefulness which only a well-developed imag-
ination can supply.
29
2.
Educational tradition stresses critical intelligence, rather
than creative intelligence. "Can it be tested?" is one of the
questions that have held back the teaching of creativity.
Since Buckingham wrote Research for Teachers, educators
have increasingly leaned on statistics. This has led to glorifi-
cation of the accumulation of facts, and deprecation of the
generation of ideas.
Creativity necessarily lacks exactness. And yet it should
qualify, as the social sciences do, under the broad definition
of scientia as "organized knowledge" as opposed to the nar-
rower definition of science as "numerically organized knowl-
edge."
Some of our best educators feel that training in creativity
is incompatible with the inculcation of regular habits of
study. They erroneously regard effort and imagination as
irreconcilable, despite the fact that nearly all leading creativ-
ists will attest that effort is the core of origination. This edu-
cational misconception may stem from the fact that in a
creative process, there must be mysterious pauses periods of
so-called "incubation" in which "illumination" does its sub-
conscious work. A later chapter will explain how such lulls
are fructified by effort.
Another deterrent to the teaching of creativity is that "it
would take time away from other subjects. There are too
many courses as it is." This presents a real problem. For the
"proliferation" of courses which Flexner criticized has kept
growing ever greater.
But many of those subjects are of but superficial value,
whereas nothing could be more basic than training in crea-
tive thinking. If some of the fringe courses had to fall by the
wayside in order to make room for the study of
wouldn't that be a net gain?
30
S.
Although there Is but little need for cultivation of imag-
ination at the pre-school level, kindergartens are creative
hotbeds. On the other hand, most elementary and secondary
schools pay almost no attention to creativity, except through
their art courses.
Most of us college graduates can recall hardly anything
in our courses that exercised our imaginations. On the other
hand, extra-curricular activities often tend to develop creativ-
ity. "The most valuable lessons I learned in college were out-
side the classroom." That was the conclusion which Henry L.
Stimson wrote into his autobiography. To which most grads
would say "amen,"
Why do prospective employers look with favor upon stu-
dents who have worked their way through school? Because
they have proved their determination? Yes. But also because
they have built up a better background of usable knowledge
and have developed more ingenuity.
A few colleges cultivate creative effort in students by
combining practical work programs with academic study. At
Antioch, for example, students alternate 10-week sequences
in classes with equal periods of employment in industry or
other business. During five undergraduate years, an Antioch
student will work for as many as seven or eight employers.
But even in this program, wouldn't it be better to assign tasks
of thinking up ideas while on the job, and thus make a merit
of the student's creative activity?
At Blackburn College, practical work is the order of each
day. Either by the cash they earn or by the labor they con-
tribute, the students finance 73 per cent of that institution's
operating budget What strenuous exercise both physical
and creative those Blackburn undergraduates must have re-
ceived from helping to build two dormitories, a gymnasium,
an administrative center, and a house for prexyl
31
4.
Efforts to establish courses in creativity Lave been few
and mostly futile. The fact is that no educational institution
has wholeheartedly undertaken such a project.
Although Hughes Mearns formed a Department of Crea-
tive Education at New York University and headed it from
1926 to 1946, this- was abandoned when he reached retire-
ment age. The explanation was that no one could be found to
fill his shoes.
When the University of Buffalo installed a course in
creative thinking it engendered such enthusiastic comment
from students that enrollment doubled at the second semes-
ter. But on the eve of the third semester, the instructor a
business executivehad to move to Detroit. After a frantic
effort to find an adequate replacement, the course was with-
drawn.
What the students said about that course reveals how
keenly they hunger for, and how deeply they appreciate, this
type of education. A woman who had served as a secretary
for 12 years testified that the course had inspired her to start
a dress shop of her own, and that she had made a go of it by
exercising her newly found ability to create ideas. A student
who had marital troubles testified that she had thought her
way out of her predicament, thanks to the training the course
provided.
The zeal of the students was attested by the distances
they traveled. Three of them made round trips of over 100
miles in order to attend each class. And the instructor invari-
ably found it hard to end each session so eager was the
group to keep on discussing how to generate more and better
ideas.
At Schenectady, General Electric has long offered imag-
inative training through its course in "creative engineering."
Between classes, the students are assigned to scientists who
32
have proved themselves exceptionally ingenious. As appren-
tices to these seniors, the young inventors-to-be learn by
doing, as well as by listening and observing.
The one college course in creative thinking which has
enjoyed the longest record of success is that which Professor
Robert P, Crawford conducts at the University of Nebraska.
The testimony of his graduates is consistently enthusiastic.
5.
Our creative growth tends to slow up in our teens. Any
higher education that fails to stimulate imagination faces the
danger of making "a straight-cut ditch out of a free, mean-
dering brook," as Thoreau warned. In liberal-arts courses,
the least that should be done is to make students conscious
of their ktent creative power, and acquaint them with some
of its known principles.
Professional schools, too, might well touch upon creativ-
ity. Students of business administration should be made to
realize that creative thinking is vital to the operation of any
successful enterprise. Countless case histories demonstrate
the role of imagination in industry and commerce. The study
of these could condition the minds of the students. The pos-
ing of specific problems could help them to sharpen their
own creative wits.
Schools of journalism could well stress creativity. In the
opinion of many publicists, they overemphasize techniques,
despite the fact that ideas are the vital ingredients of writing.
A. A. Applegate, head of journalism at Michigan State, re-
cently instituted "Think-Up Sessions.** He reports such
seminars to be highly productive,
Technological education shows a heartening trend toward
emphasis on imagination. More and more scientists concur in
Dr. James B. Conant's contention that "apart from thorough-
ness and accuracy, the essence of research of any kind is
imagination. 9 '
33
Admiral Luis de Florez gained fame as the prime devel-
oper of the Navy's Special Training Division during the last
war. Here's his testimony: "]ust as the habit does not make
the monk, neither does the certificate make the engineer.
Some spark of originality, some creative spirit, must be added
to technical training to achieve the result All the extraor-
dinary fruits of modern engineering, at our every hand, have
resulted from creative thinking based on original concepts,
using past experience and past accomplishments only as
guides/*
Most engineering colleges are now combining general
enlightenment with technical training. Their curricula call
for solutions of problems rather than memorization of data.
But as yet, no curriculum goes half as far to develop creativ-
ity as does the course conducted by General Electric.
And how about law schools? Nearly all legal lights attest
that resourcefulness wins more cases than does knowledge of
Blackstone. And theological schools even they might well
teach creativity. There can be no question but that the more
creative a pastor becomes, the better he can lead his flock.
The same is true of teachers' colleges. All educators agree
that the imaginative teacher is usually the better teacher.
6.
Far more creative thinking could be put into college
courses without adding a single subject Take history, for
example. If teachers would only show how ideas have made
history, they could teach that subject better, and could in-
cidentally stimulate the imagination of their students. Al-
though Worcester Tech conducts a course in the "History
of Ideas," its weakness is that it induces passive thinking of
a critical nature rather than active creativity.
History professors might even pose such problems as
"What would have happened if America had not been dis-
covered until the 19th century?" . . . "What would have
34
liappened if Hitler tad made peace with England?" . . .
''Would China have been less likely to stall a Korean armis-
tice if MacArthur had not been fired?" The brainstorming
of such problems would require original syntheses from
known facts and would thus provide creative exercise.
Most obviously, the teaching of psychology should in-
clude creativity. Students are now offered a bewildering
way of sub-courses, such as physiological, abnormal, applied,
educational, genetic, social, child, religious, and animal
psychology to name only a few. A sub-course in creative
imagination could do much to strengthen the students* ability
to grapple with problems of living.
Any course in creativity should call for active participa-
tion by students. The best sessions would be seminars-
workshops in which all present would strive to generate
ideas of their own, right then and there.
That type of learning is in line with the trend which we
non-educators applaud. We agree with Harold Rugg and
James Wendenhall of Columbia in their belief that educa-
tion should employ "every possible agency to stimulate the
active participation of the pupil/* According to these co-
authors, "The active school is replacing the listening school"
and this is a cheering prospect.
In every attempt at creative teaching, students should be
assigned outside projects of their own, Classroom discussion
does not do enough to activate the "type of thinking" which
Admiral de Florez advocates "The kind which must color
our work in later life and provide the basis for creative ac-
complishment* Nor does it promote "the exercise of mental
functions ia the manner in which they will be called upon to
perform in our life's work."
7.
An editor whose views are highly respected by teachers
agrees that education should pay more attention to creativ-
35
ity. But he wonders: "Can it be taught?** ... "Is there
enough substance to teach?" . . . "Are there teachers who
can teach it?"
To the extent that there is substance in the workings and
the powers of the human mind, there is plenty of teachable
substancefar more so than in philosophy, for instance. The
creative principles are known. Some techniques, although
empirical, are workable. But even greater than this peda-
gogical substance is the limitless subjective substance. For
if and when a student is "introduced" to his own creative
power, he will find his own mind to be an ever-widening
source of self-revelation.
As for who can teach creativity, Alfred North Whitehead
put his finger on this problem. "Imagination," he wrote, "is
a contagious disease. It cannot be measured by the yard, or
weighed by the pound, and then delivered to the students
by members of the faculty. It can only be communicated by
a faculty whose members themselves wear their learning
with imagination."
The problem of training teachers to teach creativity is a
real hurdle. But our country has never been stopped by such
obstacles. If there is an "appalling" need for the teaching of
creativity, we should be ingenious enough to find, and to
train, men and women who can teach it. If we wait until we
have teachers who are "creativists" relatively as skilled as
botanists or biologistswe shall never make a start. For how
can we gain enough experience to teach such teachers unless
we first make a serious stab at teaching creativity?
We should start now by setting up practical experiments
pilot plants in which we can learn what to teach and how
best to teach it. We need to develop a syllabus and a text-
book. And from the very beginning, we need a tentative
blueprint for a long-range program a comprehensive
plan which would include postgraduate training of edu-
cators who are able and eager to specialize in teaching
creativity.
36
Perhaps education may eventually help fill the gap caused
by the loss of those environmental influences which formerly
forced us to keep creatively strong. Meanwhile it behooves
all of us to take on creative exercises of our own, if we
cherish the imaginative vigor with which we were born.
Chapter O
EXERCISE can build up minds
as well as bodies
rriHE CHAPTER AFTER this will start spelling out the
JL creative exercises which are good for us, and enjoyable to-
boot. But since some may doubt the value of exercise, let's
first take a look at this question. "I get my exercise acting as
pallbearer to my friends who exercise." Although Chauncey
Depew said this with his tongue in his cheek, he was sin-
cerely skeptical.
llie other extreme is that "practice makes perfect," or as
Periander said in 590 B.C., "Practice is everything." Ralph
Waldo Emerson toned that down a bit, but still held that
"practice is nine-tenths.'*
All we claim here is that in our fight to keep and to build
up our creative power, exercise is more than half the
battle.
When it comes to physical skills, there can be no doubt
about the value of practice. For instance, I recently saw a
juggler keeping six balls in the air while standing on one foot,
poised on a tightrope 20 feet above a hard floor. Even a cat
couldn't do that without spending at least one of his lives on
practice.
Constant drill in physical skills can even defy superan-
nuation. Television recently featured a spirited performance
of clog dancing by Billy Hess, 76 years old and still going
38
strong. If lie had not kept up Ms practice, his feet would have
lost their timing long since.
Likewise in golf. A friend who won a championsMp in his
20's now finds it hard to break 100. Another friend, Johnny
Smith, never Mt a golf ball until he was 40; but at 66 he can
shoot in the low 7Q's. He will tell you that practice made him
the low scorer that he is.
At the age of 19, Willie Hoppe won his first billiard
championship. At 63 he is still unbeatable. In the past 50
years he put in more than 70,000 hours of practice, and he
still practices four hours every day.
One great good of exercise is that it makes the use of our
strengths more spontaneous in an emergency. I found this
out to my delight one rainy night last winter. Leaving my
New York office on that black evening, I made sure that the
light was with me before crossing Madison Avenue.
Halfway across, a truck came zooming toward me. I had
no choice. If I stopped, I was done for. If I kept going, I
might escape death. So I dashed. I never got off to a faster
start, even while on my college track team.
The fender of the truck struck my coattail as I brushed
by. Standing breathless on the curb, I thanked my lucky stars
that I had always kept my legs in shape through constant
exercise.
Without warning, life has a way of plunging us into crises
that call for creative agilityjust as that near-miss called for
physical agility. If we keep our mental muscles supple, we
are more likely to think creatively enough, and fast enough,
to meet such emergencies.
2.
Was James Russell Lowell right when he proclaimed,
"Exer dse is good for the muscles of the mind?" Discussing
this issue, Dr. L. L. Thurstone of the University of CMcago
recently said:
39
"One of the most common questions about primary abil-
ities is whether they can be trained; the answer is in the
affirmative." He went on to state that although the more
gifted naturally profit more from practice than the less gifted,
everybody can improve his mental skills through exercise.
As a rule a person low in creative talent would never catch
up with a more gifted colleague, even if both had equal exer-
cise. On the other hand, some of us get off to slower starts
our talents are late in flowering. Many a slow-starter has
risen to creative heights, even after 40.
Teachers know from experience that there are slow-
burners as well as boy wonders and that even the kind of
talent a pupil may develop is often unpredictable. One edu-
cator confessed that a boy he had labeled as clumsy turned
out to be a speed artist in major-league baseball; a lad he had
classed as cowardly later won a medal for courage; a kss who
"wasted her time" doodling eventually distinguished herself
as a painter; a petty pilferer grew to be the treasurer of a
university; a blasphemer became a man of God. Yes, we can
change; and exercise can do much to direct and empower our
transformations.
Scientific testers have fixed upon 17 "known aptitudes* of
which 12 are entirely mental and five are partly physical The
traits of tonal memory, pitch discrimination, and eye domi-
nance, are so inborn that they cannot be acquired. All 14 of
the other aptitudes, however, can be developed by practice.
3.
When it comes to specific skills of the mind, the good of
exercise has been quite conclusively proved* As Dr. Albert
Edward Wiggam has pointed out, "By practicing mental
arithmetic 20 minutes a day for 20 days, adults can more than
double their ability to calculate. By the same token, creative
exercise can regain for us much of the imaginative power we
have lost through neglect"
40
As to the effect of exercise on memory, Dr. Donald Laird
has proved that we can almost double our power of recall.
Robert H. Nutt, who has trained the memories of over 60,000
people, has this to say: "In all my 14 years of teaching, I have
met very few individuals who possess a naturally good
memory/' Bruno Furst claims that it's no accident that Jim
Farley can greet thousands of people by name, or that John
Kieran can carry in his head a veritable encyclopedia of
information. "You, too, can be a Farley, a Kieran/' in Furst's
opinion, "if you're willing to go to the same trouble. Anyone
who wishes to acquire a reliable memory should devote from
15 minutes to half an hour daily to mental setting-up exer-
cises.**
I have often been awed by the memory of waiters in the
Colonial Room of the Hotel Roosevelt, where I have break-
fasted hundreds of times. After I had absented myself from
there for over three years, headwaiter Henry May welcomed
me back early one winter morning with' this greeting*: "Good
morning, Mr. Osborn. Would you like the same as usual-
double orange juice, half a grapefruit, bacon and eggs, dry
toast, and coffee?"
"Yes,* said I, "and what a marvelous memory you have!"
Thank you," replied Henry. Then he added: "Oh, yes,
you like your bacon medium but slightly scorched on the
edges, don't you?"
Bill Feather remarked on this mastery of memory as built
up by constant practice: "A cab driver did a short drive for
me, and when I paid him off, he remarked that he hadn't had
me as a passenger for three years. He named the location of
the spot where he had driven me. It was a dwelling in a
respectable neighborhood, thank you. 3 *
Adolf Hitler practiced like mad to outshine all of his
cohorts in the ability to remember. When a field commander
complained that he could not hold a certain sector, Der
Fuehrer demanded that he recite all details as to ordnance,
ammunition, vehicles, planes, and manpower on his battle-
41
front When the general hesitated, Hitler rattled off the pre-
cise statistics and then scolded him for his stupidity.
Exercise can certainly put life into memory. And it can
do likewise for creative imagination.
4.
A basic difference in personality is that some of us are
objective and others are subjective some think outwardly,
and in terms of others; others think inwardly, in terms of
themselves.
The human engineers seem to feel that creativity more
often goes with subjectivity than with objectivity. This is
probably so in most cases; but still there is no reason to be-
lieve that if we are subjective at 20, we have to remain that
way the rest of our lives. By the right kind of exercise, we
can make ourselves more creative, and yet grow less and less
subjective. I have seen living proofs of how men have
changed their abilities and their personalities in just that
way.
Without doubt a survey of countless disciples of Dale
Carnegie would factually demonstrate that, through his
coaching and their own efforts, they have done much to
slough off subjectivity and take on objectivity.
5.
Even distinctly emotional traits can be changed by exer-
cise. The more we practice kindness, the kinder we become.
By practicing good cheer we become cheerier ourselves. And
we certainly can develop spiritual power by exercises such
as saying prayers, reading the Bible, and going to church.
AJS proof that exercise can likewise build up will power,
there are countless cases in the records of Alcoholics Anon-
ymous. And the many of us who have read Henry Morton
Robinson's The Cardinal will know how practice can put
steel into a man's backbone.
42
Even a sense of tumor can be developed by training. The
University of Florida tried out a course to prove that this
was so. It worked; and that course is now a permanent part
of that institution's curriculum.
By practice we can even make ourselves more modest
or more immodest. Through my years of intimate association
with Alexander Woollcott I observed firsthand how he
changed himself in this respect. In an even more spectacular
way, George Bernard Shaw did the same. After Shaw's
death, his friend Bertrand Russell reported:
"When I first knew him (1896) his shyness was still
obvious. He came to my flat on one occasion to read a new
play of his to about 20 friends. He was pale and trembling
with stage fright, in spite of the audience being so small and
well-disposed." Just think what a change G.B.S. wrought in
himself! By practicing his barbed wit, he supplanted humil-
ity with arrogance.
As John Powers, Harry Conover, and other charm trainers
have demonstrated, even enthusiasm can be developed by
exercise. Elmer Wheeler has added further proof through his
teaching of salesmanship. And so has many a football coach.
In his Try Giving Yourself Away, David Dunn showed how,
even in those to whom it does not come naturally, enthu-
siasm can be cultivated.
6.
As to what exercise can do for imagination, let* s go back
to where we started and realize that our creativity tends to
ebb early in life unless we do something to keep it flowing.
Let's accept the truth laid down by Edward Gibbon: "All
that is human must retrograde if it does not advance/'
If there is any doubt about the value of creative exercise,
the question should be, not whether exercise can keep us
from slipping creatively, but whether it can make us imag-
inatively stronger and stronger,
43
To this latter end we must admit that the more stren-
uously we go at it, the better. When Shakespeare referred
to "the rich advantage of good exercise," he indicated that
practice varies in degrees of value. Best of all, of course, is
actual doing the actual combining of effort with imagina-
tion. Thus creative power can be retained or regained and
"it can actually be stimulated into growth," to use the words
of H. A. Overstreet.
But to go from strength to strength we need, in addition
to practice, some knowledge of how our creative mind works.
For that reason another chapter will outline what is generally
believed to be the modus operandi of creativity. The need of
such understanding was recently brought out by Dr. Guil-
ford: "I believe that much can be done to encourage the
development of creativity. This development might be in the
nature of actual strengthening of the functions involved or it
might mean the better utilization of what resources the indi-
vidual possesses, or both. In any case, a knowledge of the
functions is important"
Those in non-creative jobs have to face the problem of
summoning up enough effort to keep imagination in training.
Many a man would willingly take on herculean measures to
save his hair, and yet would torn his back on such creative
exercises as would help save him from mental baldness.
William James urged: "Keep the faculty of effort alive in
you by a little gratuitous exercise every day." And what bet-
ter way to practice effort than to practice creativity? By
picking a problem and pitting our mind against it, we in-
vigorate our will. For, as Edmund Burke said, "He that
wrestles with us strengthens our nerves and sharpens our
skill. Our antagonist is our helper."
7.
Although the best of creative exercise calls for effort,
even that can be fun as we will see when we scan the differ-
44
ent forms of exercise. For one thing, most of these activities
provide a change; and a change is often pleasurable, as
Winston Churchill pointed out in his Painting As a Pastime:
"It is no use saying to the tired "mental muscles' if one
may coin such an expression 1 will give you a good rest/ 1
will go for a long walk/ or 1 will lie down and think of noth-
ing/ The mind keeps busy just the same. If it has been worry-
ing, it goes on worrying. It is only when new cells are called
into activity, when new stars become the lords of the ascend-
ant, that relief, repose, refreshment are afforded/'
The recreative effect of creative effort was also pointed
up by Gardner Hunting: "Human beings find less rest in
idleness titan in a change of occupation. If you seoff at the
idea, just try it Instead of collapsing in an easy chair, try
tackling your hobby. Or write that neglected letter, or help
Johnny to build that radio receiving set. Activity especially
creative activity is far better recreation than loafing."
# * *
Up to this point we have tried to prove that: (1) Imag-
ination is important (2) All of us possess this gift (3) It
tends to wane with adulthood. (4) We cannot count on edu-
cation or environment to keep it strong. (5) Exercise can
help us not only to retain this talent, but also to build it up.
So now we come to scores of ways in which we can put
imagination through its paces to our everlasting benefit, and
to our concurrent enjoyment
Chapter O
LITTLE CHILDREN can help
enliven our imagination
UTF I DIDN'T have to bring up children, I could do some-
JL thing to improve my mind." Let's not say that. Let's
realize, instead, that we can do a lot for our mentalities by
being with children, and by caring for children if wfe go at
it creatively.
In my experience, children between four and 12 pro-
vide us with the most worthwhile creative thinking. Their
minds churn with curiosity as well as imagery. Their make-
believe and their ingenuity can help make our creative blood
run red.
Teen-agers, on the other hand, are less likely to be crea-
tively radiant. Not all of them, of course. But, by and large,
we adults can do more to brighten our imagination by bask-
ing in the sunshine of minds not yet beclouded by adoles-
cence.
2.
Merely being with children can tone up our creativity.
Dr. Albert G. Butzer cites his call on a couple expecting a
new arrival. Their two-year-old informed him that the new
baby would arrive by., air from Tenafly, where the family
formerly lived, and tiiat the plane would circle over the
46
house and deposit the baby on the front lawn. THe carried
me along on that flight," rekted Dr. Butzer. "He gave my
imagination a real lift/*
A newspaper woman, Jean Rindge, claims that her imag-
ination is kept alert by her three-year-old son, who has a
fictional buddy named "Wow." Asked to describe Wow, he
said: "Wow is like a light. He looks like a chicken. He smiles
at your legs."
The unexpected interests of little ones tend to lift our
minds out of ruts. A week after a young father had shown
his little son the World's Fair at New York, he asked
the boy what he liked best of what he saw. Said the boy:
"The horse made of prunes and the picture of the sick
monkey." Similarly, after I had given my 10-year-old son a
day in New York visiting Ripley's Odditorium and introduc-
ing hfm to Ripley himself, then taking him to a broadcast in
Radio City and blowing him to a lobster dinner on Broadway
I asked him at bedtime what had impressed him most Said
he, "That view of Venus we had for 10 cents through the big
telescope on 42nd Street."
A young associate of mine, Ted Higinbotham, told me
about his little girl: "She had an invisible friend around our
summer cottage. He is named Ignac. If we say, ^Where's
IgnacF she says: 'Outside.* When we ask, "What is Ignac
doing nowF her answers are always different depending on
whether at that moment Ignac is a dog, a boy, a monkey, a
turkey, or some other creature.*
Similarly, a little boy next door to us has a lion named
Bobo living in his hedge. We have lots of fun keeping our
cocker spaniel safe from Bobo. And my own little son used
to have an imaginary friend named Dr. Renschler. Often at
table, when the conversation dulled, he would quote Dr.
Renschler; then he would go off into gales of laughter, and
take us with him.
A mother on our street prides herself on her imagination;
but she is no match for her little ones. On each evening during
47
the week before last Christmas, she had her eight-year-old
son and five-year-old daughter enact a scene from the Nativity
story the boy playing Joseph; the girl, Mary. On Christmas
Eve the lad came in wearing his Hopalong Cassidy outfit. In
the middle of the play he whipped out his six-shooter, "made
like" shots, then yelled: "Okay, Mary! I got Herod."
Sometimes these flights of fancy are puzzling. A friend of
mine found that his Waring Blendor had come to be the
motor of a Russian plane to his three-year-old, and that the
outdoor swing had become a Russian jet in which she could
zoom despite the fact that her folks had never talked about
Russia in her presence. And then, when her father asked her
if she wouldn't rather ride in an American plane, she an-
swered: "Forty-five." This was the code she had invented to
mean "I don't know/'
3.
The downright ingenuity of youngsters can set a creative
pace for us elders. One evening my nine-year-old grandson
surprised me with this one: "Doesn't everybody think all the
time?" I tried to explain that real thinking is not just letting
one's mind meander, but means applying oneself to a prob-
lem and purposively thinking through a solution. That night
at bedtime, he called me. "Look," he said. "I broke two of
my lead soldiers. Here's how I mended them." Then he
showed me how he had fixed them with Scotch tape a use
the manufacturer had never thought of.
When Grace Manney asked our staff to test pie against
pie, I turned over my two sample mixes to my oldest daugh-
ter. She baked the two pies and marked each whole one with
an A and a B for identification. But her nine-year-old Teddy
insisted that not only the pies, but each cut, should be identi-
fied. So, using toothpicks for poles and colored paper for
pennants, he made flags which marked each piece of pie as
either A or B,
48
Adults whose professions constantly expose them to chil-
dren offer living proof that grown-ups can grow in imagina-
tion as a result of working with little ones. Nearly all the
pediatricians I have known have been unusually bright of
mind, partially because of that fact. Teachers of kindergart-
ners and of lower grades are likewise creative to an excep-
tional degree. Aptitude testers report that 58 per cent of them
rate A in imagination an extraordinarily high rating com-
pared to other occupational groups. This is one of many proofs
that contact with the young tends to keep our imaginations
young.
4.
To get the most creative help from children, we must meet
them more than halfway; we must let ourselves go; we must
throw dignity to the winds. Little ones have often referred to
me as "silly"; and I have taken this as a compliment. I am
gkd that they like to play with meto make me prance
around on all fours and pretend that I am a horse to make me
do other didoes which other adults might deem beneath
their dignity.
Proudly I confess that I have not "put away childish
things" that I like to get in tune with childish moods. Be-
cause I am that way, I believe that I have profited creatively
from my juvenile contacts. And how I have loved it!
I know many other fathers who feel the same way. One
of them is a next-door neighbor, one of the nation's legal
lights. Many a summer evening, sitting on my front lawn, I
have eavesdropped on this mature man as he dined with his
eight-year-old, his four-year-old, and his wife.
Such silliness! He chimes in with his little ones as they
let their fancies fly. He even leads them into flights of fantasy
more childish than their own. And never a chiding word from
his wife. She understands. She had been a brilliant teacher
in a truly progressive school before she married this sup-
posedly starchy member of the bar.
49
And I understand. So much so that when the Senate, in
June 1951, confirmed Robert Millonzi as U. S. Security Ex-
change Commissioner, I felt sure that one reason for his selec-
tion was that he combines creative power with his legal
knowledge and that his little ones had helped a lot to keep
that imagination of .his in the pink.
Luckily, present-day fathers are less afraid to unbend than
were their forebears. But even in former days there were nota-
ble exceptions, as illustrated by an unpublished story told
to me by a personal friend of mine, Edward Michael, now
101 years of age. His own eyes saw Abraham Lincoln unbend
so far as to play leapfrog after his election as President of
the United States.
On that Sunday in 1861 Lincoln was on his way to Wash-
ington to be inaugurated. He was bowed down by the heavi-
est problem that had ever confronted a Presidentthe seces-
sion of the South had begun the day before. He and Mrs.
Lincoln went to church that morning, leaving young Michael
and young Todd Lincoln at play in the hotel attic. On return-
ing from worship, Father Abe went upstairs to see what the
lads were up to. He found them playing leapfrog and joined
in the game himself.
Dignity in its finest sense was personified by Christ And
yet He could always commune with children. As Bruce Bar-
ton wrote in The Man Nobody Knows: 'Wherever He went
the children flocked. . . . They swarmed around, climbing
on His knees, tugging at His garments, smiling up into His
eyes, begging to hear more of His stories. ... It was all
highly improper and wasteful in the eyes of His disciples.
With bustling efficiency they hastened to remind Him that
He had important appointments. They even tried to push the
eager mothers back/*
But Jesus would have none of it "Suffer little children to
come unto Me!" He commanded. And He added one of those
sayings which should make so clear the message of His gospel
"They are the very essence of the Kingdom of Heaven. Unless
50
you become like them you shall in no wise enter in." Like
diem-like little children laughing, unaffected, trusting, curi-
ous and imaginative.
5.
Whether we are bored or stimulated by children largely
determines the creative good they do us. Our attitude must
never be condescending. Dr. Rudolf Flesch warns : "If you try
to talk down to children, they will quickly find you out and
shut you up. But if you can take the anchor off your adult
imaginationwhat a wonderful realm you enter with
them!"
E. J. Hardy denounced as "stupid" the saying that "little
people should be seen and not heard/' We should even in-
dulge their whims, according to James Barrie. He believed
that "Genius is the power to be a boy again at will/' When
the statue of Peter Pan was erected in London, he contrived
to have it done at night so that the little ones might think it
had been put up by the fairies.
Above all, we must be careful not to cramp a child's crea-
tive spontaneity. Too many adults exert a petrifying influence
upon the young. Many a teacher has seen the intrusion of an
alien adult suddenly transform groups of children from highly
intelligent artists into clumsy stupids.
How to tell foolishness from genius is a challenge to our
grown-up judgment A little boy may be fooling with tools
and wire. Should we order him to stop and start practicing
his piano lesson? If so, we may be snuffing the flame of a
potential Edison. The puniest effort of a child to try his crea-
tive wings should be praised rather than censured if we
recognize the truth that imagination is mankind's most
precious gift
But we need do more than merely encourage our little
ones if they are to do us the most creative good. We need to
take Dart with them. We need to play tcith them. The Na-
51
tional Recreation Association has recently launched a nation-
wide program for teaching parents to do just that.
Many teachers have devised play ideas for tots. Caroline
Horowitz has thought up 80 such. So far so good. But we
parents can get more creative exercise by thinking up play
ideas of our own. To avoid sending his little son to dancing
school, Carl Ewald, the author, collaborated with him in
inventing original dances. Among the many was a warrior
dance, a spear dance, a mitten dance and a comic dance
dramatizing their mutual distaste for licorice. Both the boy
and his dad had fun; and both profited creatively.
An Army captain and his eight-year-old daughter thought
up a game called "Face Talk," a secret language in which
they acted out each letter by a special grimace. It was so
secretive that they could play it without detection, even
under the noses of family and friends. What a comradeship
that engendered! And what creative exercise it was for both
father and child to think up a game like that!
Let's pretend, or, rather, let's co-pretend as does my
stately neighbor with her young Steve. The other evening,
while taking a walk, he first noticed their shadows and then
started jumping on hers. She jumped on his and they glee-
fully kept this up until both of their shadows climbed up a
telegraph pole and vanished. Steve was then ready to go
home and right to bed.
My young associate Earl Obermeyer uses his imagina-
tion at home when dining with his four-year-old Marilyn.
They pretend they are eating out at his club. They talk across
tables to other members and to some of her own little friends.
Just another game, another form of participation good fun
and good creative exercise for parent and child.
6.
Let them ask questions, all they want. "*What makes knots
in wood?" 'Why is a raindrop roundr "What holds the stars
52
up?" These questions cultivate curiosity and thereby aid the
imagination of both the askers and the answerers.
Sometimes the queries are unanswerable posers, such as
the one with which a little boy stumped me while we drove
through the country. "What are those strings for?*' he asked,
pointing to the ropes hanging over a railroad track at either
side of a bridge. I explained that if a man were standing on
top of a freight car, the ropes would warn him in time to
duck before he was knocked off by the viaduct. "Who thought
that up?" he demanded. I didn't know then, and I have yet to
find out.
Curiosity is an important adjunct to creativity, but effort
is its essence. Therefore, to keep our imaginative muscles in
trim we must do more than just jog along with our children.
We must put in some creative exertion of our own. For in-
stance, instead of reading stories to our young, why not make
them up?
Dr. Charles Lutwidge Dodgson transformed himself into
the famous Lewis Carroll of Alice in Wonderland by think-
ing up tales to tell his little friends. In similar fashion, a young
associate of mine has been growing creatively stronger by
making up stories for his three children. He has created a cast
of characters in the animal kingdom which undergo adven-
tures far more exciting than could be found in any child's
book he could buy.
Still another young associate of mine enthralls his young-
est at bedtime with stories based on incidents from her own
experiences. Sometimes he even improvises going-to-bed
tunes and lyrics, such as, "This is the way I get undressed, get
undressed, get undressed," and so on. This gets the child hap-
pily tucked in, and it helps sharpen his own creative wits.
Another young father induces his three-year-old to down
her cereal by making a game of it Each spoonful is part of a
freight train first, the engine, then the coal tender, then the
horse car. The last spoonful is the caboose. If a gobbet is still
left, that's "the switchman's lantern."
53
Thinking up ways to outwit our children is likewise good
creative practice. One pair of parents have made a culprit of
the kitchen clock. They are not to blame when they have to
issue orders. The tyrant is that cruel old clock which insists
on calling time for this or that.
The same couple teach orderliness by pretending stupid-
ity. When their only child balks at putting her toys away, they
make believe that they are her little brother and sister trying
to "help" her, but clumsily putting each plaything into the
wrong place. That arouses the child to see to it that every-
thing is back where it should be.
7.
To get the optimum tonic out of contact with youngsters
it is often best to take on one child at a time. An uncle who
often entertained both of his nephews on week ends never
realized how much the boys could mean to him until he
started to have each one come alone, on alternate visits. Try
it yourself. Take a small boy on a tramp through the woods.
Be a boy with him and you will find your imagination will
glow all the way.
Then, too, there is a certain part of the day when a child
can best give wings to your mind. It is the going-to-bed
time the mystic period described by Longfellow as "the
Children's Hour." It is an event no parent should ever
miss.
One young couple told me how their three-year-old
daughter rises to heights of fancy at bedtime. The father
reports this dialogue as typical of almost every evening:
<c What are you going to dream about tonight?"
"Monkeys."
"What will the monkeys be doing?"
"Sitting in a tree, talkin* to me."
"What will they talk to you about?"
"Harry, Bobby, Marcy, Kathy, Ellen, Peter, Donnie,
54
Davie, Jane and Linda" (naming her little cousins, always in
the same order).
After months of that same rigmarole, she added a new
touch: "Daddy, hold my hand and come with me to see the
monkeys/ 9 So now her father has to take her hand in his
before she goes to sleep; and, in the morning, he has to tell
her what the two of them did with the monkeys during the
night.
Monkeydoodle? Perhaps. But that young man is growing
creatively stronger week by week. I know, because he is one
of our creative staff. And his nightly communion with that
little girl is helping him to keep his imagination in high gear.
A little boy sprung these lines on his mother at bedtime:
"Do you know what the stars are for? They're the lights which
God hangs out so I won't be afraid of the dark."
The radiance of such imaginings can't fail to brighten
our minds. At the same time, by actively exercising our cre-
ative faculties in thinking up ideas for amusing and training
our young, we can do a lot for our creative souls.
So, tomorrow, when you open the door of that beloved
bedroom, you might well greet your little one in these words:
"Good morning, teacherl"
Chapter 4
READING- how to go at it
creatively
S FRANCIS BACON declared, "Reading maketh a full
man." It supplies bread for imagination to feed on, and
bones for it to chew upon. But to get the most out of this
pastime, we should pick and choose what to read.
If we were to peruse every word of every Sunday edition
of The New York Times, we could spend every waking minute
of our lives doing only thatand creatively die in the mean-
time. We must be selective; and a good test as to what to read
might well be this simple question: "How good an exercise
for my creative mind will this provide?"
2.
Amazingly few people read books. Columbia University
recently found that only 52 per cent of us adults ever open
one after we leave school. At the opposite pole is the literary
glutton who told Haldeman- Julius that he had read 189 books
in as many days.
Our imaginations are whetted by the right kind of fiction,
such as that written by Dickens, Dumas, Conrad, and Kipling.
Most of the lesser novels, however, prove but little more than
vicarious escapes.
The better mysteries can give us good creative workouts
56
especially if we read them as if we were participants rather
than spectators. On this point, here's the comment of Julian
Trivers, a department-store executive in Atlanta: "I stop as
soon as the clues are in hand, and then try to think out Vho
done it* I believe that the reason why so many successful
thinkers enjoy detective stories is that they like to think up
the pay-off in advance. When we consciotisly try to do that,
we can't help but flex our imaginative muscles."
Children's books are rich in imagination. A child's reader
entitled Pages of Adventure is a gold mine of creativity. And
did you ever treat your imagination to that uproarious little
classic, Over A Million Cats? Kipling's juvenile stories can
likewise give us a mental glow, especially when we read them
aloud to little ones.
A short story is short mainly because it leaves so much
to imagination. A young friend of mine named Halbak sold
his first short story to a national magazine. "When it was pub-
lished," he told me, "I asked the editor why my final para-
graph had been deleted, and he explained: 'You were just
spelling it out Leave something for the reader to do. Make
them use their own imaginations/ "
1 To gain the most creative exercise from a short story we
might well try to outwit the author by reading the first half,
then thinking up and writing down oiir own outline for the
latter half. Or let's take a masterpiece by O. Henry and read
it almost through. Let's stop at that point and jot down as
many different denouements as we can invent. By thus emu-
lating O. Henry's snap-the-whip endings we can provide our
imaginations with sprinting practice.
3.
"The most rewarding form of reading is biography," in the
judgment of Harry Emerson Fosdick. Aiiy life worth publish-
ing can't fail to reveal an inspiring record of ideation.
Dr. Albert G. Butzer believes in the Bible as a source of
57
creative development for those who read it right: "Take the
opening chapter, for example. To read this as prose is to miss
its magnificence. We should read it as poetry, letting our
imaginations linger over one verse after another*
"Or take the incidents in the life of Jesus stilling the
storm on the Sea of Galilee, holding little children in His
arms, praying in Gethsemane, dying on the cross. Many such
events in Christ's life can come alive to us in all their original
vividness if we read of them with our imaginations as well
as with our eyes."
William Lyon Phelps likewise recommended Bible-read-
ing. Said he: "I thoroughly believe in a university education
for men and women, but I believe a knowledge of the Bible
without a college course is more valuable than a college
course without the Bible."
During my 30 years of partnership with Bruce Barton, I
have often wondered how much of his high creativity came
from the way he reads his Bible. In his preface to The Man
Nobody Knows, he explained how he read about Jesus "as
though He were a new historical character, about whom I
had never heard anything at all" Thus Bruce Barton puts
imagination into all his reading.
Certain books on thinking can contribute to our creative
development. The list of books in the front of this volume
mentions some of the works which can enlighten our under-
standing and enliven our imagination.
4.
As to periodicals, newspapers carry many features that
can quicken our creative spirit. And the fresh facts they
convey are rich in creative ore. Middlebury College recog-
nizes this truth. A daughter of mine attending there is now
reading a newspaper (other than comics) for the first time
in her life. A subscription to The New "York Times is included
in her tuition fees.
58
Among the general periodicals, The Readers Digest is
recommended by Walt Disney in these words: "Your imagi-
nation may be creaky or timid or dwarfed or frozen at the
joints. The Readers Digest can serve as a gymnasium for its
training." Another periodical I find similarly stimulating is a
little non-profit magazine called Guideposts.
Travel magazines like National Geographic and Holiday
help fill the fuel tanks of our imagination. Women's magazines
not only do that for their readers but often run articles which
inspire creative effort.
Periodicals like Popular Science provide a creative atmos-
phere, and serve as showcases for new ideas. The fact that
these innovations have been thought up by average people
tends to give readers more confidence in their own inventive
ability.
Certain features in certain magazines are strictly creative,
such as that in The American Magazine entitled "Why Don't
They?" This presents ideas thought up by ordinary house-
wives and husbands. Best of all is a feature in The Saturday
Evening Post called "What Would You Have Done?" This sets
forth a practical problem and a specific solution. For exam-
ple, here's one recently contributed by H. N. Broyles:
"While contemplating a rush inventory in a large ware-
house, I found myself faced, with the job of counting some
thousands of coal buckets. These buckets covered an area
equal to several large rooms, and were piled in stacks of 24
buckets each. If the stacks had been arranged in regular rows,
the task would have been fairly simple. As it was, the stacks
were pushed together in an irregular mass.
*lt was impossible to walk over the buckets to count the
stacks, and there wasn't quite enough time to rehandle and
restack them for counting. Yet I got die merchandise counted
in about half an hour without touching a single bucket. Can
you guess the method I used?"
It would do our imaginative muscles no good to read the
solution before first trying to crack the nut with our own
59
teeth. That's why I make a habit of writing down as many
alternative solutions as I can think up in 15 minutes. And
then I pick out the best of these before looking up the
answer.
What was the most likely idea I arrived at in the case set
forth above? My plan was to procure a long bamboo pole and
a pile of 50 full-page sheets from old newspapersthen, while
standing on a ladder, I would impale a page on the end of my
rod and stick it over the top of each stack then I would
count up how many sheets I had thus used, and so would
arrive at the total tally.
Broyle's own solution was a far better idea: "I got a
camera and flash bulb and mounted a tall ladder. From the
top I took a picture of the massed buckets. Two prints of the
picture were made, and these were given to two clerks. They
carefully counted the stacks in the picture, using a sharp
pencil to dot each stack as it was counted. When the two
counts tallied, we knew we had the correct figure."
About 1700 trade journals cover practically all lines of
human activity. They feature new and better methods of
making things or performing services. Many of these periodi-
cals do much to stimulate imagination.
Variety is the weekly bible of those who work in movies,
broadcasting, television, music and in the theatre. It teems
with ideas thought up by people who practice creativity day
and night. Its very language rubs the reader's imagination
with a coarse towel. "Aqua Follies Sock 110,000 in Seattle."
That was the headline on this capsule dispatch: ^Seattle's
unique Aqua Theatre, seating 5,243, got its initiation
Aug. 11-20 with 'Aqua Follies/ Sellouts for night perform-
ances were the rule, with some standees, for a smash
$110,000. House was scaled from $3.50."
It may even be that the reading of advertisements can be
good for imagination. Each ad is crammed with the best
creative thinking of several craftsmen. Many of these an-
nouncements set forth the newest ideas of our most inventive
60
scientists. By reading about their triumplis we tend to spur
our own creative spirit
5.
Too many of us let our minds serve solely as sponges
while reading, Instead of such passivity, Elliott Dunlap
Smith of Yale lias urged active effort enough energy to
"exercise our power of creative thought"
George Bernard Shaw went so far as to write his own
outline of each book he was about to read before he even
opened it. After finishing the volume he would compare his
own version with that of the author and would usually
decide that G.B.S. had won.
During the long, long trial of Communist leaders. Judge
Harold R. Medina devoted his week ends to reading. As to
how he reads, here's what Jack Alexander reported: "He
would read Dickens for a while. Characteristically, this ad-
venture was thorough and methodical. He started it off by
reading a biography of Dickens. On reaching a mention of
one of the novels, he would set the biography aside long
enough to read the novel, then return to the biography until
another novel was mentioned."
In How to Read a Book, Mortimer Adler distinguishes
between information and enlightenment as results of read-
inga distinction that determines the extent to which read-
ing can foster creative imagination. To gain enlightenment
we must think as we read. Thus more ideas "come to us"
from reading. Often they are sparked by passages wholly
unrelated to the creative thought we generate.
According to Adler, the art of reading "includes all the
same skills that are involved in the art of discovery; keenness
of observation, readily available memory, range of imagina-
tion, and, of course, a reason trained in analysis and
reflection."
In Fritz KunkeFs book on the implications of the Gospel
61
according to Saint Matthew, Kunkel holds that there are two
ways of reading the Bible or any other book the "static**
way, and the "dynamic" way. The dynamic way calls for
putting ourselves into what we read, and thus exercising
imagination.
Reading provides far better creative exercise when we
make notes as we go. For one thing, this induces more energy
on our part. In Albert Bigelow Paine's life of Mark Twain the
biographer wrote; "On the table by him, and on his bed, and
on the billiard-room shelves, he kept the books he read most
All, or nearly all, had annotations spontaneously uttered
marginal notes, title prefatories, or concluding comments.
They were the books he had read again and again, and it
was seldom that he had not had something to say with each
fresh reading,"
Every book provides plenty of blank flyleaves on which
we can do as Bruce Barton does. What's that? Simply this
when we come to a stirring passage, we can stop and make a
note of its gist and the number of the page. Thus we can
create an index of our own.
Then, too, if we go at it right, we will think up many ideas
of our own as we read. It is quite as important for us to record
these brain-children of ours as to list the author's gems.
6.
Ministers* sons represent far less than one per cent of our
population, and yet, in Whds Who in America, nearly 10 per
cent of those listed were sons of clergymen. England has far
more lawyers than clergymen; and yet, in England's Whos
Who, sons of clergymen outnumber sons of lawyers two to
one; and they outnumber doctors* sons by three to one.
Similar ratios held true among our great men of the past.
Ministers* sons included statesmen like Wilson, Hughes,
Cleveland, Clay, Buchanan and Arthur; financiers like Har-
riman and Cecil Rhodes; scientists like Agassiz, Jenner, Lin-
62
naeus, and Morse of Atlantic Cable fame; artists like Rey-
nolds; architects like Sir Christopher Wren; authors like
Tennyson, Ben Jonson, Cowper, Goldsmith, Coleridge, Addi-
son, Matthew Arnold and Emerson.
The record of clergymen's sons reflects their knowledge
and their higher ability to think. Then, too, the fact that
pastors are usually hard put financially may tend to invest
their sons with greater drive. Moreover, many of these boys
came from non-urban areas, where they filled their creative
fuel tanks with firsthand experiences in their youths.
But over and above all that is the fact thatmore so than
in other family circles children brought up in pastoral homes
are exposed to good literature. They early acquire a lifelong
habit of the right kind of reading.
To create a new sermon each week, a minister has to dig
hard he has to mine ideas out of his reading or risk losing
his flock. Thus he sets an example for his sons. The fact that
so many of them grow up to excel in creative ability is evi-
dence of the way we can train imagination by reading what
we should, the way we should.
e
7.
But of course we can read too much just as we can
drink too much water, or bask too long in the sunshine.
According to Alfred North Whitehead, "Great readers who
exclude other activities are not distinguished by subtlety of
brain. They tend to be timid conventional thinkers. No doubt
this is partly due to their excessive knowledge outrunning
their powers of thought; but it is partly due to the lack of
brain-stimulus from the productive activities of hand or
voice."
Especially when we are on a long creative quest, such as
a research project, we can suffocate our own ideas with over-
reading. Schopenhauer warned against this danger, and so
Wallas. Kettering has always urged his creative
63
associates to spend more time in trying to think up hypothe-
ses than in sopping up too many facts from books especially
from textbooks.
By and large, however, reading is most helpful to imagi-
nation, and mainly because, through reading, we can store up
food for creative thinking. Hughes Mearns summed this up:
"The right sort of reading is rich in vitamins. Those who have
been deprived of its energizing units may suffer later dangers
in abbreviated lives. We must in honesty admit, however,
that many are able to thrive upon its near substitute, a rich
reading of experience; but that requires a much longer
process."
All of which adds up to the fact that, if we invest our
reading with imaginative effort, and if we select what to read
on the basis of its creative nourishment, we can do much to
build up the most precious of our mental gifts.
Chapter O
SEDENTARY GAMES can
bring imagination into play
ELMO CALKINS compiled a list of 250
JLJ different kinds of sedentary games. On analysis, only
about 50 of these entail creative effort Luckily, the ones that
exercise our minds are the best fun.
Much depends on how we play. In chess, for instance, we
can either be "book players," and make all moves from
memory or we can make each move a creative adventure, as
does a scientist who is one of the best chess players I know.
"Instead of playing chess by rote," he told me, *1 continually
try to think up new and dashing ways to gain my goals. This
makes the game more fun and better mental exercise."
Mark Twain applied an impish imagination to his billiard-
playing by continually thinking up new and ludicrous ways
to play that staid old game. We don't have to go berserk
to derive creative exercise from such pastimes, but a lot does
depend on how imaginatively we go at them.
2.
Does puzzle-solving do more than amuse? Thomas Edi-
son's answer to that question would be a decided yes. Accord-
ing to his son Charles, his father definitely believed in this
pastime as creative exercise.
65
66
More people do crosswords than any other kind of puzzle;
and yet surprisingly few even look at them. Readership sur-
veys of newspapers show that only six per cent of their
readers ever glance at the crossword feature; whereas 90 per
cent scan the picture page. Most women look at obituaries
(twice as many women as men). The comics get a big play
from both sexes and all ages. Almost at the bottom of the list
of features come the crosswords.
We can combine creative practice with relaxation by solv-
ing such puzzles, especially examples as tough as those in
the Sunday edition of the New York Times. To unriddle them,
we must work our minds backward and forward. But mainly,
we must work our minds; and that, of itself, tones up our
creative fiber.
What's another way of saying "stared down"? In the first
place, is it active? Or is it passive? Is it in the past tense? Was,
or is, someone doing the staring? Or is someone, or something,
being stared at?
We know that there are seven letters in the word, or
words. We cast our minds hither and thither. We think of
"ogle"; but that doesn't fit. We try to visualize a person in the
act of staring down. We begin to feel that the answer is not
in our own vocabulary and that therefore there is nothing in
our memories which we can dig up by way of the answer.
We send our minds down one blind alley after another,
and then again we try to visualize a person in the act of
staring. Ah, the eyesl Of course that must be the key. From
that we try to Build a word around eye a word entirely new
to us. You have probably arrived at the answer long before
this out-eyed.
What's a five-letter word for California? It can't be sunny,
because the fourth letter is S. You whip your mind hither
and thither now in search of Spanish roots then in search
of slang along the line of "Frisco." You keep on beating your
brains. And finally, with an absurd degree of satisfaction, you
hit upon the answer Coast. In winning that tussle with
67
the puzzler you have well exercised your imaginative
muscles.
For more strenuous creative training, try the Double
Crostics, which a woman, Elizabeth Kingsley, originated
and exclusively produces. She rightly claims: "Mere knowl-
edge alone cannot solve my Double Crostics. I construct them
so that they require creative thinking above all else." Double
Crostic fans have included many of our most creative nota-
blesKenneth Roberts, Christopher Morley, Elmer Rice, and
Rupert Hughes, to mention only four. A publisher remarked,
"When you solve one of Mrs. Kingsley's puzzles, every milli-
meter of your gray matter is glowingthe way a gymnast's
muscles glow after a workout."
In doing crosswords and Double Crostics, even if we have
known the word we seek, the act of bringing it out of our
memory induces mental effort. If the wanted word is beyond
our ken, the act of trying to guess what it is entails a creative
process. We must synthesize certain clues to sleuth out the
answer. Out of the thin air, we must pick one alternative
after another until we hit upon the right one.
We benefit also because such efforts tend to improve our
vocabulary. According to human engineers, the number of
words we know is a significant measure of our leadership
ability. Tests have proved that those in high pkces uniformly
excel in their knowledge of words. Whether this be the cause
of their success, or merely a coincidental result of their
experience on the way up, is an open question.
"Is it cheating when you look it up in the dictionary?** a
little boy asked me while I was doing a crossword puzzle;
and that brings up a question. Do such puzzles do us more
good when we try to solve them without benefit of reference
books? I think so. Although we can gain a wider knowledge
by looking up this and that, by thus leaning on reference
books we tend to take the edge off the creative exercise which
puzzles can provide.
Elizabeth Eongsley, for one, would probably challenge
68
that contention. I once told her that, on a train between New
York and Wilmington, I had completely worked out one of
her Double Crostics without benefit of books. Her sweet
reply indicated that she felt she had fallen down in creating
a puzzle as easy to solve as all that.
As a most strenuous creative exercise, just try to create a
crossword puzzle on your own. Having concocted a few my-
self, I can testify that to make up a really good one calls for
more creative power than I have as yet achieved. Every year
brings more and more new lands of crossword puzzles, and
more ways of presenting them. Just try thinking up still
another new way, if you don't mind taxing your imagination
to the limit.
To give your creative mind an even more strenuous work-
out, try creating and deciphering codes. As a pastime, this
dark science of secret communication is as old as Egypt.
Civilians who make a hobby of cryptograms not only exercise
their creativity to the limit, but also train themselves for
heroic service in our nation's defense. When war comes, these
volunteers are given life-and-death responsibilities almost
overnight
Organizations of such cryptographers have sprung up all
over America. In Boston, they are called "Yankee Puzzlers";
in Rochester, "Genesee Owls"; in Fall River, "Bed Warmers."
Of about 20 of these groups, the largest is the New York
Cryptographers Society, most of whose members are gradu-
ates of the course which Hunter College gives in this brain-
racking hobby. Last year, over 800 people signed up for those
classes, but only 25 finished a fact that may prove this
creative exercise to be too drastic for most of us humans to
undertake.
3.
Well, let's relax a minute and talk about something easier,
like card-playing. A friend of mine called this pastime "the
69
last resort of feeble minds." Although he smiled when he said
that, he seriously charges that in playing card games, we are
tempted to take the attitude <c What's the use of trying? It's all
in the deal." He also holds that the rules are so rigid that they
clip the creative wings of the players.
Although card-playing does offer too little creative exer-
cise, plenty of ingenuity has been put into thinking up more
and more kinds of games. The varieties of poker are endless.
There are 41 different kinds of rummy, including Canasta.
Vernon Quinn devised 50 card games especially for children.
There are over 100 brands of solitaire. These serve well as
time-killers, but that's about all that can be said for them.
Rummy provides a wishy-washy workout As I write this, I
hold in my hand the score sheet of a series of gin games I
played with a friend of mine one Saturday afternoon at our
golf club when the rain kept us off the course. This record
shows that he won 48 times, and I won six times. I feel sure
that the cards had quite a lot to do with my debacle. While he
was shuffling for his 20th victory, my mind wandered to the
question of creative exercise, and I thought to myself: "The
only way I can use my imagination during this ordeal is to
think of the many other ways in which I am lucky," Thus I
kept myself from bemoaning the way the cards were running
against me.
Although many of my friends play Canasta, I regard this
mainly as a test of the aptitude which human engineers call
"finger dexterity." True, it does make us push our brain cells
around a shade more actively than does rummybut far too
gently and far too rigidly, in line with the rules.
Some hold that poker is an imaginative pastime. John
McDonald has called it "a contest of strategies." And he
adds: "The mark of good poker-playing is deception." To fool
one's cronies in a game in which they are equally versed un-
doubtedly does call imagination into pky to some degree.
But that is only a slight factor, compared to the run of the
cards and the use of judgment
70
Contract bridge is probably a better wit-sharpener. But
mainly it calls for analytical judgment plus a knowledge of
proved techniques. Miles Robertson, President of Oneida
Community, has awed me with his ability to see through the
hands of the other three playersalmost as if their cards were
made of glass. Such magic does entail some imagination.
Another man I play with is Duncan MacLeod, likewise a
manufacturer. He shows his power of imagination by his un-
canny ability to foresee all tricks. His friends josh him about
his habit of throwing his cards face-up on the table before
they are played out and then announcing: "We are down
two" ... or ... "We have all the rest" ... or whatever
the result might be. Strangers sometimes challenge him; but
when they review the hands they find the outcome to be
exactly as Dune had foreseen after only a few of the tricks
had been played.
The sad fact is that imaginative playing is usually at a
penalty, even in bridge. We risk undermining our partner's
skill when we depart from the conventions in the slightest
degree. When we think up radical tactics, we tend to mislead
him and thus tend to lead our team to downfall.
4.
Of the 35 parlor pastimes which provide entertainment
and mental exercise for small groups, the best known is "20
Questions/' This game forces the questioners to push their
minds around in search of alternatives; and to that extent it
exercises their creativity. The others, however, are called
upon for almost no mental effort
A brain-stretcher based on verbiage is called "Inky Pinky."
In this, you have to think up a rhymed equivalent for a simple,
statement. For example, an answer to "five-cent cucumber*
could be "nickel pickle." This game can be so simple as to
become insipid; or it can be stretched in ways that strain our
imaginative muscles. One way to toughen it is by limiting
71
answers to words of not less than three syllables. Thus, "a
Communist descended from an ape" becomes an "evolution-
ary revolutionary."
At lunch with four of our young writers, I marveled at the
way they inky-pinkied each other. One of them asked,
"Could you give me a dark hint?" Another quickly replied,
"You mean a clandestine suggestion?" The third came back
with "How about a drunken Indian?" The answer turned out
to be a "hiccupy Chicopee." Later they outlawed rhyming
words of less than four syllables. Thus, "a panic on a plane"
became "a Constellation consternation" and "a profitable
bedding plant" became a "satisfactory mattress-factory."
All that may sound a bit childish; but creative people take
to this pastime and believe that it does something to sharpen
their creative wits. One group that frequently plays this
game includes a psychiatrist, a radio announcer, an artist and
an editor. In our Cleveland office, our creative people fre-
quently have to travel by car to Canton and Akron. En route
back home they nearly always play Inky Pinky. Thus they
shorten the trip and hone their thinking took
Another game along the same line was introduced in
June 1950 by Vogue and is called "Clich6." The editors an-
nounced it as "a handy pastime requiring no equipment other
than a few old chestnuts, an occasional red herring, and a
free-wheeling imagination." This is a game where puns are at
a premium. You think of a worn-out expression and then,
without disclosing that theme, you illustrate it with a far-
fetched anecdote of your own invention. The others then
have to guess what tide by way of a dich6 would best fit your
yarn.
Vogue outlined 10 techniques which you can employ in
this game. Here's an example of the "embroidery" method:
"A scientist conducting I.Q. tests among animals found a
young deer that was most cooperative and did very well
indeed. Then one day an imported alcoholic beverage of high
proof was added to the deer's drinking water by a prankish
72
bystander with rather interesting results. After several swigs,
the deer, in its impassioned desire to be even more coopera-
tive, almost overwhelmed the scientist with solicitous affec-
tion."
Of course you have already worked out the answer to that;
and you may not like it What is it? "Absinthe makes the hart
grow fonder."
5.
Healthful creative exercise can be had from parlor games
based on acting things out. If bluffing at poker calls for an
ounce of imagination, pantomime calls for pounds.
Unlike "20 Questions/' which activates no one except the
questioner, charades not only challenge the ingenuity of
those who enact them, but also stimulate the viewers to try
hard to imagine the meaning of each gesture and facial ex-
pression. This is especially true of the improved version of
charades now called "The Game/*
A still newer version might well be called "Picturades." In
this, the visualization is done by drawing, instead of by act-
ing. A master of ceremonies writes down a short list of titles
or sayings. The rest of the group is divided into teams of three
or four players. The master of ceremonies secretly communi-
cates the first phrase to one member in each group. This
person then goes to work with pad and pencil and draws
pictures designed to enable his teammates quickly to guess
the given phrase. The team which first comes up with the
right answer wins that inning.
Amateur theatricals supply good creative exercise to those
who do the acting and to those who put on the production.
In a Junior League Show kst winter I saw some amazing acts
which had been created by people who had never known
that they could create. Young mothers composed the music
as well as wrote the words for topical songs that were almost
worthy of Broadway. A daughter of mine had charge of the
73
props; and what ingenuity she used in order to make a dime
do the work of a dollar!
Our family spent a Thanksgiving with the Frank Hatches
near Boston. On our arrival there that afternoon, after a
decent interval of politeness, our host told us that we would
have to sing or do something for our dinner. He announced
that, in that living room at five o'clock, a vaudeville show
would start, and that each of us would meanwhile have to
write an act which we, ourselves, would have to put on.
He was kind enough to prime our pumps, however. To
my wife and oldest daughter he assigned "a skit in a five-
and-ten store.** He signed up my son for "a burlesque on a
college cheer-leader." As my topic he handed me: "Martin,
Barton and Fish,"
Then, singly or by teams, we all went to work to prepare
our acts. Did I say "work"? Every one of us had more fun
than a barrel of kittens. And when the show went on, we
waxed uproariouswe split our sides as we watched each
other stumble through his or her freshly created and unre-
hearsed production.
The male Hatches, father and son, climaxed the show
with a series of newly born songs about us guests, with the
two of them doing the singing and the piano-playing in duet
I would like to say that their music as well as their words were
original; but of course the ditties had to be parodies. Lest
Frank take umbrage at this disclosure, I will whisper to the
reader that he has composed the music of several popular
songs a pastime which is but one of about a dozen of his
creative hobbies.
6.
Such games as dominoes and backgammon bring imagina-
tion into pky but not to the extent that chess and checkers
do. As between these latter two games if it hadn't been for
George Wales I might be advising my readers: "If you're
74
going to play checkers, play chess instead. Chess is a better
creative exercise."
George Wales is a friend of mine who built a fortune out
of his mechanical inventions. As one of his "Tiandcraft"
hobbies, he handles his own earth-moving, bricklaying, and
carpentry on his 150-acre estate. His chief avocation is
checkers. Solely to house this hobby he rents the entire 22nd
floor of an office building. He there employs a full-time staff
which has amassed the world's largest checker library, valued
at $250,000.
One of his researchers does nothing but clip articles from
foreign newspapers of the last two centuries. For example,
here is a historic bit that she dug up from a newspaper pub-
lished in Newcastle, England, on October 11, 1873: "The
British Museum exhibits a checkerboard invented in Egypt
and said to be 6000 years old. Whist was invented for the
amusement of an insane king; chess and draughts (checkers)
are known to exercise a beneficial effect in certain cases of
dementia."
George Wales maintains that nothing can exercise our
creative muscles the way checkers can. He recently told me:
"With all of my practice as an inventor, I find that checkers
can call for more imagination than any machine I ever
created. There are so many possible moves in checkers that if
every human being in the world were to make one move
every five minutes, it would take a thousand years to make
them all"
Wales holds that Edgar Allan Poe best summarized the
superiority of checkers over chess. "In chess, where the
pieces have different and bizarre motions, what is complex
is taken for what is profound. In checkers, any advantage
gained by either party is gained by superior acumen.'*
George Wales divides his time between his checker office
and his factory, where he produces the machines he origi-
nated. He claims that the effort he devotes to creating and
solving checker problems makes hnn a more prolific inventor.
75
Paradoxically, he admits that his checker-playing is the hard-
est kind of mental labor, and yet he finds that it relaxes him
enables him to tackle his factory problems with a fresher
mind.
Wales owns patents on about 25 checker-playing devices.
One of these is called "Train the Brain." The checkers are
magnetized and the board is of metal. It is about as high and
wide as this book. The back of the board accommodates
movable cards, each showing a "puzzler" -a set-up such as
would come toward the end of a game. First you move the
reds, then the blacks, in an effort to beat the blacks. Unlike
solitaire, you can play this lying down. And, unlike solitaire,
your success depends not on a lucky shuffle but on your in-
genuity. But Mr. Wales is kindly. If you finally have to give
up, you can find the winning series of moves on the back of
the card.
George Wales* contagion got me. For the first time since I
grew up I tried this ancient game once again, but made the
mistake of taking on a teen-ager who could really play, I
finally got a draw in our third contest. ""Want to play an-
otherF' he asked. "No, thanks," I replied. T have to get back
to work." What I did was to return to my labors on this book
you are now reading. I had not told the lad the whole truth
those three games had tired my mind to a point where I
sought literary effort as a relief.
Chess or checkers either can be good practice, if we go
at them wholeheartedly. If we play at them unimaginatively,
we might almost as well twiddle our thumbs a truth which
applies equally to every kind of pastime.
Chapter 9
INDOOR SPORTS as sources
of creative exercise
QO MUCH FOR sit-down games. Now let's look over the
O pastimes which, bring our bodies into play; and let's see
to what extent these games and sports call for imagination.
The first great invention of man was the wheel. Close
cousin to that is the ball, around which most of our sports
have been devised.
"Games played with a ball stamp, no character on the
mind," according to Thomas Jefferson. As opposed to that,
we have the saying, attributed to Lord Wellington, that the
battle of Waterloo was won "on the playing fields of Eton."
As mind-developers, most of such games fall short because
they call for too much speed to permit of deliberate cerebra-
tion. This point is illustrated by the story Mac Davis tells
about Yogi Berra, hard-hitting catcher of the Yankees:
Yogi was swinging at the first pitch, whether high or low
or wide. His manager bellowed at him: "Try to think before
you cut at the ball" On his next time up, Yogi watched three
perfect pitches sail by him, and the umpire yelled, "You're
outl" Back in the dugout, Yogi mumbled: "I don't get it How
can a guy think and hit at the same time?"
Yogi was right In a series of scientific demonstrations,
William W. Harper has proved how much time it takes to
cerebrate. He was called in on a case where a driver claimed
77
78
that lie liad applied his brakes within "a thousandth of a
second" after first seeing the pedestrian whom he had run
over and killed. In court, Harper brought forth a piece of
pipe eight inches long; he asked the opposing lawyer to put
his hand flat against the bottom, and to withdraw it as fast as
he could. Harper then dropped a marble through the hole,
and it hit the lawyer's hand before he could pull it away.
Since this fall took one-fifth of a second it proved that no
mind could think fast enough to put on brakes within any-
thing like "one-thousandth of a second/*
Since our speediest reflexes are as slow as that, it is obvious
that in fast-moving contests we can count only on instinct
There just isn't time for creative thinking in the heat of
battle.
2.
Which offers better mental exercise billiards or pool? I
say billiards, by all means. During many a winter I wasted
my Saturday afternoons driving balls into pockets. Recently,
I took up billiards. I find that both games yield physical exer-
cise by way of walking, but that billiards calls for far more
creative thinking than does pool
The simplest form is "straight-rail/* in which you try to
make your cue ball hit first one and then the other ball, no
matter how. Even that calls for imaginative effort. But "three-
ctishioir billiards? Wow! In this you have to make your cue
ball hit at least three side-rails in the course of hitting the
two other balls. Sometimes you cannot make your point with-
out hitting four or five cushions en route. To visualize each
shot in advance, you must use imagination akin to that which
an architect puts into dre. r up a new building.
The proficiency of older t& t billiards is another proof
that, although age may faa, rjter faculties, it need not
shrivel imagination at least not the kind of visual thinking-
ahead that billiards calls for. Two of the most skillful billiard
79
players I know are Henry Boiler, age 92, and General Louis
Babcock, age 82.
Mark Twain kept up his billiards until shortly before he
died at the age of 75. He often spent as much as nine hours
a day at his table. His favorite opponent was Albert Bigelow
Paine, who later wrote: "He followed the endless track
around the table with the light step of youth. At three or
four in the morning he would urge one more game and would
taunt me for my weariness." Here is how Paine spent Twain's
71st birthday with him: "We played billiards all day. He in-
vented a new game for the occasion, originating new rules at
almost every shot/*
Judge Medina recently went at billiards with character-
istic zeal. He chose the game because of its mental challenge,
He installed a table in his home, took lessons, practices con-
tinually, and keeps copious notes of what he learns from
week to week. He hopes that after five years of such study
and practice he will be able to play well.
The game of billiards is recommended. As a relaxation, it
refreshes our minds. As a mental exercise, it calls upon imag-
ination for every shot
3.
Now let's look at some sports in which only a few indulge
but which many watch. Wrestling, for instance, may be worth
a mention because of its spectacular rise in popularity due
mainly to the many new ideas that have been thought up by
promoters, and by wrestlers and their managers.
Never since the gladiators made Rome ring with cheers
from the Colisseum has so much color been put into any sport
color by way of lurid costumes, and color by way of out-
landish dramatics.
Gorgeous George became a wrestling champion in the
anomalous guise of a dandy, with his gentleman's gentleman
spraying the ring with disinfectant and spraying him with
80
perfume. He dresses in the finery of a Cleopatra. Of his 90
robes, all designed by himself, one is caped with genuine
ermine.
Chief Don Eagle puts on an act in honor of his Indian
ancestry. His father serves as his second. Both wear tribal
feathers as they enter the ring.
Crowds that dislike aristocracy pack the arenas to see
Lord Blears, accompanied by his manager, a British captain
with a monocle. Another favorite is a commoner, Don Marlin,
who appears barefoot, clad in frayed trousers, carrying his
suckling pig, Clementine. The fans cheer when he nurses
Clementine out of a bottle.
New and surprising ideas have been put into the antics
as well as into the accessories. Almost every mayhem expert
has a lethal trick, supposedly of his own invention. Farmer
Marlin's "Mule Kick" is a roof raiser. The throngs never tire
of the endless variations on the noble technique of lifting
one's opponent into the air, landing him on top of the ropes,
and then tangling his legs hopelessly between the strands.
Best-liked of all are the "accidents" which force the
referee into the act "iirrintentjonar antics such as leap-
frogging over his shoulders in order to land head first into the
stomach of one's opponent, or falling on the referee, and
pinning him down by "mistake."
Wrestling is not recommended as a creative exercise. But,
regardless of how we esteem or condemn the sport, we must
admit that its box-office success is a tribute to the power of
new ideas.
4.
Boxing has been in the doldrums, partly because, since
the Marquess of Queensberry's time, no new ideas have en-
livened this sport
The boxers themselves must move too fast to think crea-
tively during their bouts. But they can do with imagination
81
in conceiving their plans of battle. Two of our greatest
champions were not "naturals" Jim Corbett and Gene
Tunney. Each, went to the top by using his head
Corbett dethroned John L. Sullivan by means of a boxing
stratagem he had thought up. "It was entirely new for that
day/* he reported in his autobiography. He feared what
might happen if he were cornered by the savage Sullivan,
"So," he said, "I made up my mind to let him corner me while
I was still fresh. Then I could find out what he would try to do
when he got me there."
During the first two rounds, Jim let the champ back him
into corner after corner. Then, in the third round, when
cornered once again, "I loosed a left hand for his face with
all the power I had." That was exactly as Jim had planned.
It spelled the end of the great John L., who worshipped
brawn and scoffed at brains.
Some pugilists do put imagination into their generalship;
but we spectators who enjoy watching a prizefight, either on
television or at the arena, might just as well watch cats on
our backyard fence for all the creative exercise that pugilism
affords us.
5.
Sports announcers tell me that the toughest game to
broadcast is hockey, because of its breakneck speed, which
likewise makes creative cerebration aU but impossible for the
players.
Creative thinking goes with hockey, as it does with box-
ing, mainly in master-minding. The ex-pkyers who serve as
managers usually sink or rise according to their ability to
think up maneuvers.
During the game, however, a contestant may sometimes
bring his imagination into play, as did King Clancy in the
story reported by Tony Wurzer. Eddie Shore and his Boston
Bruins were five goals ahead of Toronto. Clancy figured that
82
his Maple Leafs could win if they could get Shore off the ice.
When he drew a minor penalty and started toward the pen-
alty box, Clancy grabbed him and yelled:
'"You gonna let that bum get away with a raw decision
like that? I saw it all, sure, and that referee is blind. Even if
you're on the opposition, I can't stand this unfairness. I can't/'
Shore bit. He savagely whipped the puck at the referee,
and drew a 10-minute misconduct penalty. By the time he
got back, the Leafs had scored enough goals to win.
An associate of mine, Tax Cumings, played goalie for
Harvard a generation ago. He was then highly creative, and
has kept growing more so ever since. Part of his success in
keeping enemy pucks out of Harvard's net was due to his
ideas. One of bis new wrinkles had to do with his equipment
When a puck bangs against a goalie's shinguards, it often
rebounds to where an opposing player can slash it into the
net "How can I keep the puck from bouncing back?" That
was the problem Cumings gave himself. He finally devised a
plan by which he attached wet sponges to the front of his
shinguards, and they did the trick. It was not until years
later that other goalies caught on to this goal-saving gadget
Hockey provides us spectators with relaxation and also
quickens our spirit. On leaving a Canadian arena after watch-
ing a hard-fought game, I usually feel a step-up in my sense
of drive. Such a surge of effort is good for creativity. But only
in this minor way does hockey qualify as a developer of
magmatioa for us who merely look on.
6.
As for other indoor sports, the one that calls for utmost
speed of mind and body is fencing. Here, too, the action is too
fast to allow for any real thinking. To a slightly lesser degree,
this is also true of handball, badminton, squash and tennis.
Bowling abounds in sociability and provides healthful
recreation. Its popularity has grown so great that, according
83
to recent estimates, there are now over 17,000,000 Americans
who bowl regularly each season. The game ranks low as
creative exercise, not because it is too fast for cogitation, but
because its technique narrows down almost solely to hitting
the right pin in the right spot
Basketball embraces far more people, both as players and
as spectators, than most of us realize. As for the participants,
here again the sport is so fast that instinct must take the
place of cerebration. The coaches and the captains, however,
have to think out the tactics in advance; to them the game is
therefore a real creative challenge. The good to the specta-
tors is about the same as in hockey-watching,
All in all, indoor sports do but little to develop creativity.
Personally, I like them; and -I don't consider them as entirely
wasteful of my time because, in between spurts of creative
effort, I need such relaxation in order to let incubation get in
its licks as explained in a kter chapter.
Chapter 10
OUTDOOR SPORTS- can they
provide creative exercise?
OUTDOOR SPORTS TEND to bring our minds more or
less into play, depending upon how creatively we go
at them. This is illustrated by that beloved and accursed game
called golf.
"The less you think, the better you play." Several pros
have so advised me. For them, and for others who may have
absorbed a natural swing early in life, thinHessness and ef-
fortlessness are undoubtedly indicated. But as for us hackers
who started when our hair began to grey we would dub even
worse than we do if we did not "think" our way through
every shot from address to finish. Such "thinking," however,
is non-creativeit merely puts memory to a speed test.
The place for imaginative effort is not on the course but
on the practice tee. Here you can get more bodily exercise
in far less time, and you can get creative exercise as well.
All my friends berate me because I practice far more than
I play. My defense is that my practice is mainly experimenta-
tion. Unlike Judge Medina, who repeats the same swing for
hours at a time, I try a new and different form on almost
every shot always hoping that it may lead to the discovery
of a simpler, surer way to play golf.
Of late, my scientific son-in-law has discouraged me by
pointing out the almost infinite number of changes that can
85
86
be made in stance, grip, tempo, sequence and all that. He
estimates that these permutations and combinations permit
of about 10 million different swings. I fear I may not live
long enough to cry "Eureka!"
My pseudo knowledge has irritated many a great golfer.
I believe myself to be the only pupil ever fired by a pro for
insubordination. During a lesson, the famous Ernie Jones
growled at me for the 15th time: "I told you to swing it"
"Which way?" I asked.
"There is only one way to swing? he retorted.
"Okay, Mr. Jones," I peeved, "you just watch while I
show you 31 different ways of swinging a club."
But he would have none of my demonstration. With dig-
nity and determination he announced: "Your lesson is over.
And I never want to see you again."
Creative thinking in personal relations can help make golf
more fun. As a result of some luck I found myself opposed to
the club champion for last year's title. I knew he would beat
me. It was only a question of how soon.
I played better than I knew how; so it was not until the
15th hole that George Weimert finished me off. After sinking
his putt for that birdie, he expected me to shake his hand;
but, instead, I handed him a sealed envelope. He opened it,
and read this letteraddressed to him and signed by me:
"You are a worthy champion. I was just plain lucky to get
into the semi-finals against you. I would rather be put out by
you than anybody I can think of. Hearty congratulations!"
Another use for imagination is to think up gentle ways to
offset discourtesy, as when a friend of mine found himself
matched against a golfer who unnerved opponents by stand-
ing endlessly over his ball before hitting. For that match, my
friend took along a book which he opened and read each
time Ms opponent began to get ready to prepare to condi-
tion himself to start swinging.
We derive walking exercise, but no thinking exercise,
froca watching golf, A slight exception is when the gallery is
87
huge, as at the Masters* Tournament Then the spectators
stretch their ingenuity to the limit trying to think up how to
get as near as they can to their favorite player without being
beaned by his backswing.
2.
Gus H. Baseballfan mainly pays to see his favorite player
lift the sphere over the fence with the bases loaded. Most
spectators resemble the girl who joined her date late at the
ball park. The Scoreboard showed that both teams were
scoreless at the end of the eighth. She exclaimed: "Oh goody I
We haven't missed anythingl"
Although baseball offers little or no creative exercise to
spectators, it does call for creative thinking by the players.
Unlike other sports in which the action is almost continuous,
ball games are mainly made up of intervals between innings,
between batters, between pitches. These lulls allow time for
conscious thinking ahead.
And the problem continually changes with variable
factors, such as: who's at bat, who's on base and where, what
inning it is, what the score is, how many are out, and what
the count is on the batter. In addition to the versatile think-
ing each of these situations calls for, baseball continually
challenges its players to bat up something different by way of
new ideas.
Creative imagination on the part of the batter often pays
off. In a Cleveland-Detroit game, Hal Newhauser handcuffed
Cleveland's Al Rosen with inside pitches his first three times
at bat. Rosen came up again with men on base. Hal's first
two pitches cut the inside corner. Then, just as Newhauser
hurled the third, Rosen took one full step back and belted the
ball for a double. He had foreseen that another inside pitch
was coining and had figured how to meet it solidly.
Before each toss, a pitcher has to think of a score of alter-
natives. "How about that runner? . . Can I pick him off
88
with that lead or should I just leisurely chase him back?"
. . . "What if this batter bunts?" . . . "If the ball comes my
way, shall I throw it to second or to first?" . . . "Shall I pitch
that floater the catcher's calling for, or should I shake off
his sign?" All that, and more, calls for thinking ahead, as well
as for choosing the right alternative.
Infielders likewise have to foresee a dozen contingencies.
And the outfielders? They just catch the ball on the fly or on
the bounce, and then throw it in on the run? Ty Cobb was
not content with that routine. Several times each season, the
runner on second would be lured into a sense of false security
through being ignored by the second baseman and the short-
stop. Suddenly the pitcher would snap the throw to Ty Cobb,
who had sneaked in from the outfield to cover second. And
the fans were treated to the unusual spectacle of a runner
being tagged out in the infield by an outfielder.
The catcher must use his imagination the most. He has to
think up an endless list of alternatives before he squats. The
over-all team strategy revolves around him. In addition, he
receives and rekys most of the signals from the bench. A
smart catcher gives the manager the equivalent of a playing
coach in the field and he is treasured above rubies.
The creative training a catcher receives usually pays off in
later life, as evidenced by the long list of catchers who have
stood out as big-league managers. One Cornelius McGilli-
cuddythe beloved "Connie Mack" of the Athletics deserves
first mention. Others include John "Muggsy" McGraw, Ray
Schalk, Frank Leroy Chance, Roger Bresnahan, Bill Kelleher,
Fred Mitchell, Mickey Cochrane, Steve O'Neill and Paul
Richards.
Richards became th outstanding baseball manager of
1951 by puffing his Sox up from the cellar. "What makes
Richards great?** asked sports writer Cy Kritzer. And he
answered: "Richards has the daring imagination to throw the
book away when circumstances invite it He has no regard
for tradition that says you can't move a pitcher over to play
89
third base while you bring in a lefthander to pitch to one
batter. He won his laurels as a World Series catcher mainly
through his resourcefulness. His never-tiring efforts to think
up new and better tactics are the main secret of his man-
agerial success."
Ray Schalk was another heady catcher I observed first-
hand. In the old days, when a throw to first went wild, the
runner always kept going, Schalk thought up how to stop
that As soon as the ball was hit fair, he actually raced the
runner to first base. All catchers have since adopted that
tactic. Last year, big Luke Easter of Cleveland learned it
the hard way. He was miming to first The throw went wild.
He took two steps toward second, only to discover that the
catcher had backed up the play and had him cold.
Ball players are continually challenged to think up new
wrinkles. Bob Feller's pick-off play at second base in a recent
World Series was so smart and so smooth that even the
umpire missed it as movies of the play proved afterward.
Lou Boudreau, according to Taylor Spink of The Sporting
News, originated the anti-Williams shift on July 14, 1946, at
Boston. Ted Williams had been hitting hard and often
always to the right. When he next came to bat, Lou Boudreau
packed all Cleveland infielders between second and first,
moved his center fielder into right field, and posted his left
fielder behind shortstop. This strategy stopped Williams.
Some new wrinkles are not quite cricket. One such was
the antic thought up by Eddie Stanky. Playing second, he
was directly in line with the batter's vision; so he just jumped
up and down and waved his arms while the pitcher threw.
There was no rule against this defensive tactic. It worked
such havoc that Commissioner Happy Chandler finally asked
Stanky to cease and desist
Much of the modern equipment was originated not by
manufacturers, but by players. Roger Bresnahan introduced
shinguards for catchers in 1907. Fred Thayer originated the
mask in 1875.
90
And the psychological quirks that have been thought up
by players! Ernie Bonham carried an iron sphere, so that
the baseball would feel lighter when he pitched. Ty Cobb
initiated the custom of swinging three bats before going to
the plate, thus making his own warclub seem like a tooth-
pick. And he practiced with weights in his shoes to strengthen
his legs.
All in all, the "ivory** of baseball players could well be
emulated by the hordes of us who merely watch and crea-
tively go to seed in the ball park.
3.
In high school I played football fiendishly. But at college,
I weighed only 120; so the best I could do was to become
varsity manager. My love for the game has kept me actively
interested ever since.
As an ardent spectator I have used my imagination to
anticipate each play. My usual companions have been boys,
including my son. And how I would show off for them!
Whenever I guessed the next play right, I preened myself
a-plenty.
When my son and his friends were about 10 we went to
a crucial game. All through the first half, I vocally master-
minded the home team from my seat of vantage high up in
the grandstand. Then, early in the second half, when I pre-
dicted a quick kick, a young man in front of us looked around
and politely said, "No, this is going to be a forward pass."
He turned out to be right; and my six juvenile guests enjoyed
my humiliation. This indignity went on and on. Each time
I would prophesy, he would turn around and correct me
with devastating accuracy.
When the game ended, I put my hand on his shoulder and
asked, "Are you one of the coaching staff t 9 "No/" he replied,
*T)ut I quarterbacked Purdue last year, and we played ex-
actly the same system." My boy companions are now mar-
91
ried men; but they still look back and laugh at my red
face.
Gridiron players use the same kind of catch-as-catch-can
thinking as do boxers, wrestlers or tennis players. Since soccer
is not run on signals, each player is even more on his own
than in football.
Alan Ward, Jr., plays in the line, and he claims that even
linesmen must use vicarious imagination: "I plan to meet the
other guy where I figure Td come through if I were in his
shoes. If I'm wrong too much of the time, IT1 spend the
season on the bench.**
The quarterback must call upon his creative imagination
every minute his team is on the offensive. His reasoning may
be largely intuitive; but, even while walking back to his
huddle, a good quarterback must apply hard creative think-
ing as to what play to call for next.
This fact is recognized by sports writers. Often you see
quarterbacks described the way Ray Ryan described Don
Holland: "His play-calling was daring and imaginative.'*
In pro football, however, a quarterback is likely to find
his coach doing much of his creative thinking for him. For
instance, Paul Brown, mentor of the world champions, is
known to call 90 per cent of Cleveland's plays. After almost
every scrimmage he sends in a new guard with instructions
for the quarterback.
Football coaches reach creative heights, not only in plan-
ning basic strategies and in calling individual plays, but in
the way they set their teams on fire. Of the many stories
which illustrate this point I like best the one about Knute
Rockne. Notre Dame was waging its annual battle against
the Army, and getting pushed all over the field. At half time,
the Irish braced themselves in the locker room for Rockne's
tirade. Five, ten, fifteen minutes went by, but no Rockne.
Then, with two minutes to go, the Rock stuck his head in the
door, looked at his players with a wry smile and said, "Let* s
go, girls" Notre Dame won the game in the second half.
92
So many coaches have risen to heights of mental achieve-
ment in later life that I venture the opinion that the time they
spent in coaching proved to be a post-graduate course in
creative thinking. Rockne was one example. Herman Hick-
man of Yale is another. And then I always think of Harold
Tenney. He played for Princeton and then coached for sev-
eral years. He became a banker; he had a lot to do with the
creation of a great group of banks in New York State known
as Marine Midland. He was also in on the birth of Reming-
ton Rand and other big companies.
Yes, football does provide creative scrimmage for the
players particularly the quarterback and for the coaches;
but for us spectators, about all it does for our heads is to
expose them to colds.
4.
As for water sports: swimming calls for a minimum of
creativity. Water polo is analogous to basketball. Rowing,
for most of the oarsmen, is mainly a matter of endurance and
brawn. But, here again, the coach finds creative challenge in
his job even in rowing. John Collyer, president of B. F.
Goodrich, is known as a giant both in judgment and in ingen-
uity. He pulled a never-to-be-forgotten oar at Cornell, and
stayed on as coach. His experience in that job undoubtedly
helped build up his brain power.
When we come to boating, Guy Lombardo tells me ' that
it takes resourcefulness to win motorboat races the way he
does. Such contests call for strategy, of course. However, the
main use of imagination seems to be in designing the craft,
and in devising ways to soup up the motors.
Sailing entails no creative exertion when the water is
smooth and the breeze is light. But this pastime can be im-
portant to creativity because it lends itself so well to medita-
tion. Einstein is said to find that leisurely sailing definitely
induces creative contemplation.
93
In sailing races, the skipper faces an intense creative chal-
lenge. Of course, instinct plays a big part; but even during a
race there is time for deliberate cerebration time enough to
think up in advance whether, and at what time, to take the
next tack, and all that. Herbert L. Stone has put his finger on
this power of anticipation as a vital factor in successful yacht
racing.
As editor of Yachting, Mr. Stone also stresses the use of
imagination in the development of new and more efficient
rigs for yachts in line with airplane-wing innovations. W. P.
Carl of New York is a pioneer in "sails without masts/' His
experiments in this field are a model of imaginative thinking,
5.
Ollie Howard, who broadcasts each week about angling,
has this to say: "Many of the uninitiated think of fishermen as
stupids with nothing in mind except 'How many fish can I
catch?' On the contrary, more creative imagination is used in
fishing than in any other sport. From the Stone Age, when
survival itself depended on the imagination of primitive man,
to this modern day of self-appointed Izaak Waltons, success
in the pursuit of fish has depended on the ability of the angler
to use his creative wits/*
Here again vicarious imagination is called for at every
turn, even as to how to hold the line and when to give it a
jerk. Dale Casto, on a deep-sea fishing expedition, was catch-
ing no fish; yet the man next to him was pulling them in hand
over fist. "How come?" asked Dale, and his neighbor replied:
"When you fish, you have to think like a fish* You have to
put yourself in the fish's shoes."
Vicarious imagination is also needed to pick out the spot
to fish. Alan Ward tells me: "When I go fishing I'm con-
tinually figuring what I'd do if I were a fish. I know that
Canadian, bass prefer cold water. So during a long calm hot
spell I look for them where it's deep. That's where I'd be if
94
I were a fist. And that's where they are. When a storm churns
up the lake and makes the surface cold, I fish on top/*
The matter of bait also calls for imagination. For years the
famous bonefish, in Florida waters, was thought to be allergic
to flies. Then, a few years ago, an "ignorant" fly-caster
thought up a technique which proved the opposite. The
bonefish are now rising to flies the way they have probably
been willing to do since time began.
A rich field for ideation is thinking up new kinds of bait.
A friend of mine makes all his own lures. Tin cans, shoe-
horns, tablespoons and thimbles stimulate him to wilder and
wilder creations.
Tying flies is a creative hobby. In spite of the fact that
fish are supposed to be color-blind, one addict devised over
100 colored concoctions. At his death his widow gave his
collection to an old fishing buddy. But he never even tries
those flies, because he prefers to develop new and better
inventions of his own.
Ingenuity is also called for in thinking up fish-tempting
substitutes. For instance, those who wade Catherine Creek
for trout were set back on their heels when the New York
State Conservation Department outlawed the use of trout
eggs as bait Imagination rushed to the rescue. Gum drops
were cut up and rolled into tiny balls to simulate trout eggs.
Vaseline was chilled and formed into globules. Then a die-
hard devised a small mesh sack, holding a score of tapioca
balls, cooked to the right consistency and dyed to a pinkish-
yellow with Mercurochrome. This worked like a charm To-
day Catherine Creek rainbows are falling for tapioca, and
trout fishermen have erected a mythical monument to the
power of man's imagination.
Fish can smell in more ways than one. They use their
noses in search of food. So now perfume is catching fish
galore A Knoxville fisherman named Davis thought it up
Ha crib it -Doodle OiT You put it on your lure or bait*
K. S. Thomas used two lines with the same worms on both.
95
But he perfumed line A with Doodle Oil and left line B odor-
less. Line A brought in a huge mess of big fish. Line B never
got a nibble.
6.
Some of my closest friends would rather hunt titan eat. I
never realized how many of us feel this passion until a
Detroiter told me that on the first day of deer hunting, over
400,000 men took to the woods in Michigan more armed
men in this one state than we had in Korea during that same
fan of 1950.
My creative friends in the shooting fraternity assure me
that hunting challenges imagination to the limit. My main in-
formant was my late colleague Stan Irvin. To prove that
hunting is a battle of wits with alert opponents," lie told me
about a deer hunt in the mountains when the ground was
covered with snow. His party of 10 regularly divided itself
into six drivers and four watchers. For two days they made
two drives daily. Examination of the snow after their sorties
showed fresh deer tracks, both to the right and left of where
they had stalked. The deer were simply turning, circling by
them, and returning to their original beds. The men then
thought up the idea of hiding downwind, to catch the beasts
on their way back. This maneuver yielded a couple of shots,
both misses.
After several such days, the deer seemed to have left the
area. Again the men put their heads together and tried to
outthink the dumb animals. Their best hunch was that the
deer had gone into open country. So they embarked in a
limousine and started to cruise. Sure enough, they found a
contented buck leisurely moving through a bushy meadow.
Two minutes later, they were sure of their venison dinner.
"That was the only time on our trip that we out-thought the
deer," said Stan.
My friends tell me that pheasants probably tax the
96
hunter's ingenuity more than any other game bird. You watch
them head down a corn row, and then discover to your
amazement that they have back-tracked and come out of the
field behind you. Both the dogs and their masters are often
outwitted by these allegedly slow-thinking, slow-moving
fowl.
Lots of creative thinking and craftsmanship go into de-
coys, especially decoys for duck and geese. One instance of
ingenuity along this line had its setting near James Bay
where the North Country meets the Arctic. That's where
geese have their breeding grounds. In the fall this silent land
of the midnight sun begins to hum, then chatter, and then
vibrate with the drumming wings and the hoarse cries of
myriads of geese just before they take off for the South.
That's when sportsmen from all over the world congregate at
Moose Factory, obsessed with bagging their share of these
birds.
The hunters have to fly there by plane. Weight is a major
problem, so they can't bring decoys; and wildfowl hunting
without decoys is futile. "How can these geese be lured?"
That was the problem, ^nd an Indian thought up the solu-
tion. He dug clay from a pit, covered the top of each clod
with tissue paper, and inserted a stick at one end to look like
a neck and a head. Even the smartest of the geese were fooled
by these crude impersonations of their cousins.
As for aH games and sports-sedentary or active-indoors
or outdoors-we should chose the ones which challenge our
creativity. And we should go at them with gusto and imag-
ination. Thus even pky can help us build up our minds.
Chapter J.JL
TRAVEL- in what ways can it
help creativity?
WE AMERICANS are on the move more than ever. The
tourist trade is already one of our four largest industries
and is still rising.
When Thoreau claimed to have "traveled a good deal in
Concord," he meant, of course, that within a few acres he
had observed much and had imagined more. In a more literal
way another man, a century later, "traveled a good deal
in Concord/' This was Harry Dooley, who spent several
years as spieler on a sight-seeing bus covering the same
locale.
From that start, Dooley built up the Gray Line Sight-
Seeing Companies, which conduct tours in so many of our
cities that their fares now total over $50,000,000 a year.
On escorted tours like those, the sight-seers enrich and
enliven their minds. They go because they seek the kind of
knowledge that feeds imagination, Their appetites make for
good ingestion. "For always roaming with a hungry heart,
much have I seen and known.** So wrote Tennyson.
There is a carry-over value in almost any kind of travel.
The high spots linger long in our memories and strengthen
our power of associationso much so that, years later, we
may give birth to an idea that would not have come to us
had we not gone somewhere and seen something.
97
98
2.
Solitude in the high places has been recommended by
many creative thinkers. Dr. Norman Vincent Peale holds that
for creative meditation "there is nothing like peace-drenched
mountains with their deep, sun-bathed, pensive valleys. . . .
Here our minds clear, and our ability to think creatively re-
turns."
Jesus Christ, when confronted with His direst problem,
"withdrew into the hills alone."
Winston Churchill recommends a similar solitude, but
not for mere meditation, and not necessarily in the uplands.
His advice is: "Go to a peaceful spot, and stay there long
enough to paint some canvases. . . . Every country where
the sun shines, and every district in it, has a theme of its own.
. . * Even if you cannot portray it as you see it, you feel it,
you know it, and you admire it forever/'
3.
Even our short motor trips can yield creative exercises,
if we so will. Those little tours with our children on Sunday
afternoons can be turned into creative pastimes, as has been
proved by the Rindges of Silverlee Farm. When they take
these drives, they play a game in which they try to describe
what they see not in terms of literal description, but rather
by association.
"Freddie, what does that valley make you think of?'*
"Well, Mother, it reminds me of the quilt on Tommy's
bed the way the fields are laid out."
"It's like our colored blocks, side by side," pipes up seven-
year old Johnny.
A white-puffed cloudy day is a source of endless imagining
for the Rindges-full of Indian chiefs, buffalo, birds and
fish. A sunset becomes "a strawberry soda, turning finally
to chocolate."
99
When they are driving in states where license plates carry
two letters such as in EM-722, here's a game another pair of
parents play with their two youngsters: They take turns
working out a name for each plate on each passing car a
name which might fit its owner. So EM-722 might be "Evin-
rude Morkle," XY-659 might be "Xavier Yclept/' and so on-
the loonier the better.
"The only fault we find with that game," said the father,
"is that it's so hard to stop. I keep on inventing names to
myself every time I see a car until I almost go crazy. If I saw
FFV, I'd probably yell out: Teterans of Foreign Vars.' "
Even when motoring on business we can use our minds
creatively. Personally, I drive with a yellow pad alongside
me, and I often stop and make notes. More than that, I fre-
quently assign to myself a creative problem which I energeti-
cally brainstorm as I drive. I can't do this in city traffic, of
course; but on long stretches it is safe. And it surprisingly
shortens the trip.
More and more men who motor on business are carrying
dictating machines in their cars mainly for after-hours use.
One man I know pulls up alongside the road now and then
and dictates a memo on the spot
When driven by a chauffeur, you can really step up your
mental B..P.M. en route. One executive who travels many
miles between home and office has installed in his car a
hinged table at which he labors as if he were at his desk. In
winter, a lamp illuminates his work on his way home. He has
asked me not to divulge his name, but his creative record is
nationally recognized.
4.
It is strange how few people ever seem to be doing any-
thing on planes or trains. Nearly everybody seems to be
idling. Vice-President Alben Barkley is typical. When asked
what he did on long trips he replied: "I have no set way to
100
spend my time on a train. I like to talk and relax with friends
I see, or with some person who recognizes me/'
Planes and trains are good places to think things up.
Many an inventor, while traveling, has landed ideas he had
sought in vain in his laboratory. At least a dozen chapters of
this book were thought up and roughed out on my trips be-
tween our offices.
Asked about her literary work, Cornelia Otis Skinner re-
plied: "When I actually do most of my writing is during a
theatrical tour, and the place is in either a train or a hotel.
Give me a long journey and the closed door of a bedroom or
compartment, and I can turn out reams of staff. Nor do I
depend upon the cellular privacy of Mr. Pullman's swankier
accommodations. I can write with ease in a day coach and
I have even learned how to decipher the hieroglyphics pro-
duced by the roadbed of the Long Island."
But you don't have to be a professional writer to get more
out of traveling by using your pen as you go. One of our
office girls reported this:
"While on a trip to the Canadian Rockies last summer, I
made memos as we went along on trains, on planes, on buses.
Every night I transcribed these into my diary. My girl friends
often said they couldn't see anything to write about; but the
more I wrote, the more of interest I could see. I also found
time to take snapshots, and chose each view with a particular
friend or relative in mind."
My partner, Bruce Barton, circled the globe many years
ago. He kept a diary, not only of his experiences, but also
of the ideas he thought up each day. This record has greatly
enhanced the carry-over value of that trip. Even within the
last few months I have seen him pick up that diary and pluck
from it some thought of his for use in the weekly editorials
which he writes for more than 50 newspapers throughout the
country.
" You can even compose music while traveling. Meyerbeer,
who dreamed up most of his operas on trains, claimed that
101
the clickety-clack of the wheels inspired him, And according
to Robert Lewis Taylor, the famous pianist Percy Grainger,
as he rides the rails from recital to recital, "does a lot of his
composing on trains. He sings and hums and whistles to
clarify things in his mind." Such creative activity would be
mildly noteworthy if done in a Pullman. But Grainger always
rides in day coaches, where concentration is well-nigh im-
possible, and where singing, humming and whistling would
attract a jibing crowd of fellow passengers.
A woman I know, about to spend 10 hours in a day coach
with her two young sons, dreaded the way they would bom-
bard her with: "Mother, what will I do nowF* So she told
them at the start: "Here are two pads and pencils. Write
down everything that you can think up to do on a train ride.
I will give you a dime for each good idea you list" As a result,
she paid her 10-year-old $2.30 and her seven-year-old $1.20.
I have seen the 35 ideas they thought up. Some of them are
worth putting into pamphlets for distribution on trains.
5.
A type of travel which forces imagination into play at
every turn is the kind advocated by Episcopalian Bishop
Edward R. Welles. His wife and he, kst summer, took their
four children on a camp-as-you-go trip to Alaska. La discuss-
ing that experience, Mrs. Welles remarked: 'The more you
depend upon yourself, the better able you are to think up
ideas. That is one reason the Bishop and I chose to travel
with our family the way we do to out-of-the-way places and
in a rough-it-as-we-go manner. We believe that this kind of
travel has helped develop imaginative strength, not only in
our children, but "also in us parents. And luckily so, because
we adults are far more in need of such creative stimulation
than are our young."
In Alaska, the 13-year-old daughter, finding no sodas
along the road, was content to feast on canned peas covered
102
with tomato soup. "Why don't you cook like this at home?"
she asked her mother.
When the Bishop's wife was stricken with mumps, she
almost enjoyed her quarantine. She told me: "It was thrilling
to lie on a mattress in our station wagon and revel in the
ever-changing beauty of the Canadian Rockies across the
aqua blue of Muncho Lake."
She had taken along a folding chair and an easel; but
after her first try at doing a canvas on the Alcan, she found
painting from the driver's seat the best way to outwit the
mosquitoes. Her daughter sometimes sat on the hood of the
car to do her water colors.
Late one summer afternoon, at our cottage in Canada, we
welcomed a station wagon crammed with two parents, six
children, and equipment for a transcontinental tour. The
family was that of Professor Kenneth Sherk, he being on his
sabbatical leave from Smith College. They were on their way
to Alaska and Hawaii all eight of them, with the youngest
hardly old enough to toddle.
A year kter I quizzed Mrs. Sherk about that trip. "It
certainly is true that a terrific amount of creative power is
generated during a travel expedition like that," she told me.
"Our team of eight soon got so skillful that we could turn a
good shade tree into a home-complete with kitchen, bedroom
and pkyground-in 30 minutes flat."
^ Instead of playing with toys, the little ones became road
builders and village planners. Out of sand or clay they con-
structed Diamond Heads and volcanoes. The trees they
sketched were palms and redwoods, instead of the maples
they always drew back home.
^ One child had had a few piano lessons but had never
tried to write any music of his own. "One evening, a moose
stamping into the dusky woods of Idaho inspired him to sit
down and compose a piece," reported his mother.
"As for Mother," said Mrs. Sherk, "I learned many new
arts. For instance, after having dragged an unwieldy vacuum
103
cleaner around our home for many years, I had to discover
how to sweep with a broom."
What schoolrooms of ingenuity those covered wagons of
a century ago must have been! That source of creativity can
now be somewhat recaptured by the kind of travel which the
Bishop and the Professor provided for their families. And as
welders of family ties, what other experiences could hold a
candle to such expeditions?
6.
When we work our way as we travel, we cannot fail to
exercise imagination. I saw the effect of this on a young
man who, after three years in the Army, decided to rub war
out of his memory by traveling on his wits. He had funds to
go de luxe, but he chose instead to hitchhike his way across
the country.
In Nebraska he joined up with a circus as an electrician.
His experience for that job was nil. But he quickly picked up
the little knowledge needed, and he stuck it out, on one-
night stands, throughout the summer. He went back to col-
lege with his mind packed with firsthand experiences a rich
store of fuel for his imagination to draw upon as long as he
lives.
Personally, I like to run out of money when on the road.
Some of my most memorable experiences have come from
finding my purse empty, with a long distance to go. In my
twenties I learned, one evening, that I had to see Sir Wilfred
Laurier in Montreal the next day. I was in Toronto at the
time and knew of no one from whom I could borrow. I
boarded the train and arrived at Montreal, While there I
succeeded in raising enough funds to pay back the conductor
of the Toronto-Montreal Express, and thus recover my gold
watch.
Vagabonding has made many a man far more creative
than he otherwise would have been. One outstanding example
104
of this was Eugene O'Neill. He worked Ms way all over South
America and across the Atlantic. Thus, by the time he was
24, he had stored up a mountain of rich ore, out of which his
imagination could refine the gold with which his plays are
laden.
7.
Excursions into outlandish places stretch imagination to
the limit. I saw the result of such travel on my friend Daniel
Streeter. When he retired as a manufacturer, he explored
parts of the world where few white men had ever been.
After several years of that, he settled down as an author-r
and as a citizen whose creative leadership will long be re-
membered by his community.
Lowell Thomas is another who has built up his imagina-
tion by meanderings off the beaten paths. His most sensa-
tional trip was to forbidden Tibet with his son. The book
which Lowell, Jr., wrote about that can't fail to stir the
reader's imagination. Just think what those firsthand experi-
ences must have done to strengthen the imaginative muscles
of the Thomases!
The whole world was in suspense after Lowell, Sr., was
smashed up on the way out of Tibet I thought to myself at
the time, 'Well, that probably means the end of this man's
travels.* But no! A few months later I wrote him and asked
him how he was getting along. Here is part of his reply: Tve
been up to Alaska doing a little skiing, mountain-climbing,
and crevasse-jumping, on the great Juneau icecap." And
Lowell is well over 50.
Even traveling in the wilderness-as in the Canadian
woods-can provide plenty of creative exercise. It raises
problems which must be solved right then and there by one's
own ingenuity. Many such cases of inventiveness are recited
in Horace Kephart's Camping and Woodcraft. Here's a
sample:
105
'The toothache, scourge of the wilderness, Mr. A. W.
North cured in a novel way. With a thread and a sheet of
writing paper he made a cornucopia, the open end of which
he placed flat upon a dish. He then set fire to the upper end
of the cornucopia, whereupon the burning paper generated
a drop of yellow liquid. This liquid it is extremely bitterhe
applied, with a toothpick and cotton, to the cavity; and the
toothache perished amid the howls of the possessor of the
tooth."
Whether our travel be "out of this world," or into the
suburbs, it does add to our experience; thus it adds to the
knowledge out of which imagination can generate ideas. It
also steps up our automatic power of association. Travel
likewise tends to open our minds, and thus, too, makes for
ideation.
As a creative exercise its value depends upon whether it
is the kind of travel which forces us to use ingenuity, and it
also depends upon how we travel whether we just go
through the motions, or whether we put imagination into play
all along the way.
Chapter
H O B B I E S - which ones should
we ride for creative exercise?
SAID SIR WILLIAM OSLER: "No man is really happy or
safe without a hobby, and it makes precious little differ-
ence what the outside interest may be." But it does make a
difference. Hobbies definitely vary in the degree of creative
exercise they offer. Surely we should choose the ones which
not only keep us happy, but which also help build up our
minds.
What good does it do our imagination for us to make a
fetish of super-accuracy with a rifle? One of many such
hobbyists is D. A. Bobbins, of Rixford, Pennsylvania. He has
practiced to a point of being able, from 100 yards away, to
pump 80 successive shots into a circle smaller than a quarter.
Or how creatively helpful can it be to practice perfection-
ism and patience as did Lee Fowler, Jr., of Highland Mills,
New York, who spent four years building a replica of his
grandfather's home out of 9000 toothpicks?
Any such single hobby may narrow rather than develop
our minds. That's why A. .Edward Newton recommends:
"Get a pair of hobbyhorses that can safely be ridden in op-
posite directions/' Many of our creative giants of literature
have kept stables of such steeds, Victor Hugo not only made
furniture; he also invented furniture. He not only painted
pictures, but delighted in turning a blob of ink, while still
107
108
wet, into a fascinating design. One of these rapid-fire crea-
tions of Ms is a black spider in a web, with infinitesimal
demons crawling up the strands.
The all-time high in hobbies was depicted by Moss Hart
and George Kaufman in You Cant Take It With You. Mother
is writing a drama she started eight years before; one daugh-
ter is painting "The Discus Thrower"; another is making a
mask of Eleanor Roosevelt. Other hobbies in the play in-
clude snake-collecting, stamp-collecting, toe-dancing, print-
ing, dart-throwing, concocting confections, making fireworks
in the cellar, and building a miniature model of a transatlantic
power plant
In actual life, many of our stage people are hard-riding
hobbyists. Galina Talva, of CoH Me Madam, carves statuettes
out of soap while waiting backstage. Dancer William
Weslow, of the same show, draws exotic birds. Naomi Rior-
dan's hobby is sketching other members of The Country Girl
cast Brik Tone, of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, creates masks
and figurines. Dell Parker composes song lyrics instead of
twiddling her pretty fingers.
In vocational guidance, aptitude-testers give weight to a
person's hobbies. And rightly, because such interests can
indicate the kinds of work most likely to be congenial. In the
advertising business, we try to pick people of creative po-
tentiality; and we often find the hobbies of an applicant to
be most revealing.
2.
Out of the 400 hobbies listed by Earnest Elmo Calkins,
more than half have to do with acquiring, rather than creat-
ing. Most of these collecting hobbies tend to build knowledge
and train judgment, rather than to stimulate imagination.
For instance, scouring a beach for shells does call for some
knowledge; and as a bending exercise, it is a healthful hobby.
But as a creative exercise, shelling rates low.
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On the other hand, collectirg autographs can call for re-
sourcefulness. Some celebrated signatures are easy to acquire.
Bing Crosby, for example, has set up a system which makes
his autograph automatically available. In contrast, I saw
several people try in vain to persuade Babe Ruth to sign their
programs at an all-star game, where, for his first time, he was
out of uniform. It would have taken superhuman resource-
fulness to secure his autograph while he sat in his box-seat on
that dismal day.
A high-school sophomore in Washington strains his in-
genuity tracking down athletic stars in hotels. Some of his
quarries regard him as a pest, while others like his initiative
so much that they invite him to stop and chat. Another young
friend of mine writes individual letters designed to get
under the skin of the notables. I saw the one he wrote to the
Duke of Windsor, and it was a masterpiece. Can you imagine
any better creative practice than this boy derives from that
hobby?
To think up a new collecting hobby is a creative triumph.
Joseph Nathan Kane did just that with illustrious success.
Starting 25 years ago to gather authentic "firsts," he discovered
that, in many cases, originations had been wrongly credited.
He proved that Fulton did not invent the first steamboat, that
Remington was not the father of the typewriter, and that the
Wright Brothers were not the first to fly a heavier-than-air
machine. Kane's hobby has since become a business which
yields him about $25,000 a year. As often happens, his avo-
cation became his vocation.
Dorothy Blake also thought up a collecting hobby of her
own one which lifts her "out of the dark-blue dumps caused
by reading the headlines of assorted kinds of villainy that
seem to be roaming the world/' Her hobby is poking through
newspapers for news about Tdndly people who have gone
out of their way to lend a hand and spread a little extra hap-
piness around." Her collections strengthen faith in the human
race.
110
By and large, handcrafts provide creative exercise to a
greater degree than collecting. There seems to be a reciprocal
influence between brain activity and manual activity of the
right kind. According to Alfred North Whitehead, "The dis-
use of handcraf t is a contributory cause to the brain-lethargy
of aristocracies.' 9
That principle helps to explain my admiration for my
young friend Ted Hengerer, whose forebears owned huge
stores. When Ted came out of World War II he decided to be
a neighborhood baker. Ever since, he has made most of his
wares with his own hands. Meanwhile he has developed an
ever brighter personality, enlivened by a mind that sparks
ideas. I quizzed him about combining headwork with hand-
work He mused, **Well, it never occurred to me before, but
I guess I do do some of my best thinking while kneading
dough."
Handcrafts do more for us creatively if and when we
think up the designs as well as carry them out. This is true of
basket-making, embossing, wood-carving, metal working,
modeling, and a score of other such crafts. Turning scrap into
something useful or ornamental likewise challenges creativ-
ity. A recent book by Evelyn Glantz shows 401 worthwhile
objects she has produced from odd pieces of wood, paper,
doth, bottles, boxes, and other pieces of junk.
Peter Hunt has inspired many of us to take on the
hobby of remodeling secondhand furniture. He offers these
pointers: The first step is to disregard an object's original
use. Approach it with a blithe spirit and an adventurous eye.
Take it apart, change its proportions, reassemble it into
something quite different, paint and decorate it as you wish
youTl end up with a piece that would grace any home and
youTl have tie time of your life doing it"
With the guidance of Hunt's Workbook, anyone can
Ill
"make something out of nothing/* and in so doing can find a
happy and profitable outlet for creative energy.
We can vigorously exercise imagination by trying to think
up new things to create with our hands. A follower of Peter
Hunt devised an article so popular that she now makes it by
the dozen. It's a piece of wood in the shape of a Yale key
about a foot high. Equipped with hooks to hold keys, each
hook is labeled to identify each key.
Recently I walked through the glassmaking department
of General Electric's chief research laboratory during the
lunch hour. A young man was at "work" making a ship model
out of glass. That's his hobby. What a stiff training for his
imagination to think up his designs and then, at every turn,
to invent ways to make sails and spars and ropes out of
molten silical
Handwork is a basic principle of occupational therapy. If
this be of a creative type, it tends not only to calm the nerves,
but also to bring about a glow of self-realization. The value
of handcraft as a healthful pleasure has often been stressed
by Peter Hunt. "The happiest people," he claims, "are those
who make things with their hands.** And usually, through
such recreation, they are helping to make themselves more
creative.
4.
Some manual hobbies are supposedly for men, and others
for women. But the sexes will not stay put. For example, Miss
Elizabeth Armstrong rides sidesaddle the ladylike hobby of
weaving; but she also straddles male hobbies such as metal
working and toolmaking.
And it was a man who took up home tailoring when his
baby caught cold from kicking off her bedclothes. This
feminine handcraft of his resulted in a new sleep-suit that
led to a new manufacturing success. His "Sleepy-Bye"
garments are now sold everywhere.
112
When you think up something new to make, you intensify
the creative value of any handcraft, even sewing-as when a
wife solved a problem arising from the fact that her husband
brought home too many dead deer each fall. She hit upon
the idea of making gloves out of the hides. This annual hobby
of hers takes headwork as well as handwork. And it removes
a source of friction between her and her hunter husband.
More women engage in knitting than in any other hand-
craft. I often envy this occupation; it induces the kind of
tranquillity that invites the muses. And it can activate crea-
tivity if the knitter tries to think up new designs and new
techniques as did Ethel Goetz Evans. She made a career out
of knitting. The ideas she originated became the basis of
lucrative books. In the last war she served as official designer
of knit goods for the armed forces. President Franklin Delano
Roosevelt was one for whom she personally created exclusive
sweaters.
5.
Now for a few of the he-man hobbies so hard to ride that
they provide creative exercise. For instance, a young friend
of mine puts his savings into automobiles of ancient vintage.
But he does more than collect them. He devotes his Saturdays
to devising ways to make the old wrecks run. Were he
trained in mechanical engineering, this hobby would call for
acquired knowledge rather than for imagination; but with no
technical background, he has to solve each puzzle from
scratdbu
Charles lettering's hobby is research. After he retired
from General Motors he started a one-man lab in his cellar.
Now over 20 helpers come to work with hf each day in his
home at Dayton.
William Stout, one of Henry Ford's original engineers,
directs three research laboratories in Dearborn, Michigan;
and also in his home, he conducts what he calls his "screwball
shop." For his grandson he turns out playthings such as
113
cannon that shoot Ping-pong balls. And lie wrestles with
highly scientific problems, such as a way to revolutionize
flightan idea so radical that lie keeps it secret lest he be
laughed at.
No wife would applaud such uses of her home; nor would
she clap her hands over the enterprise of Andrew C. Hecken-
kamp. He has flooded his basement, not for swimming, but
for experimenting with pearl-growing. He digs up mollusks
from a nearby river, sticks sand-like particles into their flesh,
and leaves them in the cellar until they froth at the mouth
and gradually build up pearls. He has had enough success
with this hobby to warrant his hope that his cellar may turn
out to be a mint.
Ralph Lee of General Motors is a man of many hobbies.
He flies his own plane and his own glider. He has invented
instruments for air navigation. He plays the pipe organ and
the piano; he has composed accepted music. His etchings
have been acclaimed by critics. But his outstanding avocation
is casting metal.
For that pastime he has built, next to his home, a small
but complete foundry, forge, and pattern shop. Here he
spends his spare time producing castings, some as heavy as
75 pounds. Always trying to discover new and better ways
to turn them out, he puts his creative best into this hobby.
Thus he keeps building up his imaginative muscles, his physi-
cal sinews and his spirits.
6.
One dark winter morning, the villagers around Concord,
New Hampshire, were awakened by bloodthirsty barkings.
The dogs were trying to stop a stranger from forcing his way
to back-stoop after back-stoop. This intruder was my friend
Bayard Pope.
In New York City he strains his ingenuity every weekday
helping to manage a huge group of banks. On week ends he
114
runs his New Hampshire farm, well stocked with Ayrshires.
While there he always wears work clothes because "so many
unexpected things happen that you have to make a jack-of-
all-trades out of yourself at the drop of a hat"
Late one afternoon, his man on the farm was rushed to
the hospital, leaving nobody to milk the cows-nobody to
deliver the milk to the 200 retail customers. And so, at three
the next morning, it was Mr. Pope, the white-haired banker,
who drove his truck out into the night to cover the route. In
the pitch dark he found it tough to decipher where to deliver
his bottles and how many. But his worst problem during
those dark hours before dawn was to convince dog after dog
that he was a milkman and not a marauder.
Many city men find farms to be creative challenges as
well as sources of recreation. Some even run rural mills as
hobbies. One such is Daniel B. Niederlander. A constructor
of modern factories and skyscrapers, he spends his spare
hours in the distant past as an old-time miller. For this pas-
time, he bought a mill which was first built in 1810. He
brought century-old millstones from France. He re-dammed
the creek to provide the power. He spends part of his week
ends turning out old-fashioned flour for his friends. He tells
me that this hobby of his is a continual challenge to his in-
genuity.
A most spectacular large-scale hobby is the "North Pole
Village* in the Adirondack Mountains. This idea was born
less than four years ago when Julian Reiss, about to retire
from business, was asked by his little daughter, "What would
it be like to visit Santa's workshop, Daddy?" He made up a
story for her right on the spot This ignited an idea which
grew into a burning ambition. So he bought a tract of wilder-
ness and turned it into a gay village made up of a dozen
brightly colored houses, toymakers' shops, an iron forge, a
glass-blowing establishment and a pottery-all centered
around a lovely little home where a white-bearded Santa and
his wife sit on the porch and greet the visitors.
115
The center of attraction is the "North Pole/' a huge obelisk
of real ice. To keep this frozen despite the summer sun, Mr.
Reiss has installed a mammoth refrigerating plant.
The village is alive with bears and goats and deer. The
100 attendants are disguised as gnomes and elves. Over 300,-
000 people visit there each year. Admission is free; but there
is an exit fee of 80^. Children under 10 and over 90, however,
can come and go without charge.
7.
When we merely collect petswhether they are fish or
birds or snakes or cats or dogs or what nots we train our
imaginations but slightly. If, however, we stuff. them, we
engage in highly creative handcraf t. For taxidermy requires
a rare combination of skills such as sketching, painting, sculp-
ture, model making, wax-working and woodworking.
The training of animals can provide more or less creative
exercise less if we go at it "by the book/' more if we pit our
own ingenuity against each problem the pet thrusts upon us.
Dog-training., for example, can be routined on the principles
of reward and punishment, in accordance with the 14 rules
set forth by Will Judy in his Training the Dog.
An associate of mine, Joe Archbald, raised beagles in his
cellar. Mrs. A. objected to their yelping during the night. So
Joe thought up a solution. He put his pups in a box under the
clothes chute. Then he ran a rope from his bed down through
the chute, and tied a hammer to the nether end so that it
rested on top of the packing case.
"Woof 1 Woof!" would go the little beagles. Joe, two floors
above, would turn over in his bed, tug the rope, and "Bangl
Bang!" would go the hammer on the pups' roof. Archbald
would then dash downstairs, spank the pups, and yell "Nol
No!" in a devastating voice.
After a few such nights, Joe could just bang the hammer
and stay abed the pups would expect his arrival and keep
116
quiet This simple idea enabled Joe to train Ms beagles and
also to restore marital harmony.
As one who believes in adapting ideas to new uses, I
borrowed Joe's strategy in an effort to reform my 10-month-
old grandson, who was visiting us for the summer. Night after
night, his angry bawls would awaken us. We tried everything
the chfld-training books told us to do; and nothing worked.
So, one night after our umpteenth conference around the
child's crib, I blurted, 'This calls for a new idea. Leave this to
me."
The next day I strung a cord from my bed, three rooms
away, to a point right above the child's crib; and there I
appended a sleigh bell. When he bawled, I tugged the string;
the bell tinkled, and the child stopped crying. But soon he
started up louder than ever. He quickly fell in love with the
sound; he learned that, by crying, he could jingle the bell
at will This project is listed in Osborn's Creative "Triumphs"
as Flop No. 397.
* *
The net of it is that although nearly all hobbies are worth
while, some provide more creative exercise than others-and
the more imagination we put into these, the more mental
good they can do us.
Chapter
FINE ARTS as sources
of creative training
THE FINE arts call for imagination for "bringing some-
thing into existence," as Aristotle put it. This is true
of music, sculpture, painting, and even aesthetic danc-
ing.
Such activities can help nurture our creativity and under-
gird our happiness. They can even help integrate our charac-
ters, according to Arne W. Randall, of the U. S. Office of
Education: "Art experiences are necessary to the develop-
ment of a well-balanced individual/*
The creative good we get out of an art depends, of course,
on how we go at it. For example, when we passively listen
to music we may set a mood for imagination; but when
we are trying to compose, we actively exercise our creativ-
ity.
More and more amateurs are writing music. One of these
is Eugene McQuade, a New York lawyer. While commuting,
he often spends his time on the train trying to work up new
scores. Another friend who composes is Lee Hastings Bristol,
Jr. His middle name should be Versatility. For example, he
can create and put on impersonations like a Cornelia Otis
Skinner, and he can play the organ so well that hean ama-
teurwas recently invited to preside at the keyboard of the
Cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris,
117
118
2.
Millions of us practice graphic arts, especially photog-
raphy. This mainly calls for technical knowledge and judg-
ment; hardly any of us ever put imaginative effort into our
picture-taking.
Movie-making should be a creative workout for us ama-
teurs; and yet most of us, including yours truly, are too prone
to photograph whatever happens to come in our path. Were
we to try deliberately to think up our subjects, our scenarios,
and our captions, we could derive far more creative exercise
from this hobby.
Painting and drawing can't fail to put imagination
through its paces. We have to think creatively at every step
from conception to completion. Sometimes an artist has to
dream up the whole scene-as did Leonardo da Vinci when
he imagined Christ and His twelve Apostles sitting at a
table. To paint that picture da Vinci had to create, out of his
mind, their dress, their features and the board at which they
were convened,
Eveiy stroke of brush, pen, or pencil tends to turn on
that automatic power of ours called association of ideas.
Eugene Speicher likened painting to playing with electricity.
"Touch one part of the canvas," he said, "and something im-
mediately happens to some other part. Part must be played
against part until the whole acquires a state of living bal-
ance,
You may have seen at the Hotel Roosevelt in New York
a dynamic executive named Paul Chatelain. I have often ad-
imred his resourcefulness-he can run a gigantic function as
^noothly as if it were tea for two instead of an eight-course
banquet for 1000. You ought to see his paintings
A 7 P^f^ chance 1 S< he told me. "I believe that
*T2 ^ ve *** at my easei have dojQe a ^ to buna
up the land of imagination I need in order to think up fast
119
the right solutions to the unpredictable problems which con-
front me day and night."
3.
Picture-painting, always a pastime of youth, has become
a hobby of maturity. Harassed by the world's ills, many old-
sters have found their best escapes to be landscapes. Winston
Churchill recommends this hobby as "a mental exercise" and
as an exciting satisfaction. In his Painting As a Pastime he
wrote:
"To have reached the age of forty without ever handling
a brush or fiddling with a pencil, to have regarded with
mature eye the painting of pictures of any kind as a mystery,
to have stood agape before the chalk of the pavement artist,
and then suddenly to find oneself plunged in the middle of a
new and intense form of interest and action with paints and
palettes and canvases, and not to be discouraged by results,
is an astonishing and enriching experience.**
Anyone who can draw at all can paint; but it's safer to
tackle oils than water colors. The latter have to be right the
first time; the former can be worked over and over and over
again.
In my first attempt I tried to depict our Christmas tree,
with my grandson's teddy-bear sitting on a table. After two
hours of effort, the evergreen looked like a bunch of aspara-
gus and the animal looked like an over-sized potato. If I had
been using water colors, that daub would probably have
been my last. But, because I was working in oils, I could
cover up my mistakes. I redid and redid that canvas until
finally it became so good that the little boy's mother decided
to frame it and hang it in his room. ( The fact that she was my
daughter in no way biased Her judgment, of course.)
My second masterpiece was an oil of my residence. To
block this in, I sat across the street in my car on a zero day
and sketched a rough layout Three days later I crossed the
120
street again and compared my painting with my house only
to find that I had put two extra windows in the attic. Thanks
to working in oils, this was easily corrected.
When I showed my first botches to a professional artist
and asked him about taking lessons, he counseled: "Keep
going on your own. If you take lessons you will expect too
much of yourself, and youTl be less happy with what you
paint Then, too, the less you know about techniques, the
more youTl have to blaze your own trails. And that will be
fun"
'Most of the daubsters I know didn't start till after 50. One
of these is John Oishei, employer of some 6000 people, in-
ventor of windshield wipers and other such devices. Without
instruction, he became quite skillful. Then he took some
lessons, and his latest work is almost worthy of an art gallery.
An oil painting of a skyline recently exhibited in New
York was done by Zelig Tapper, who started to paint at the
age of 71. Afflicted by cataracts, his sight is so impaired that
he has to work with his right eye less than one inch away
from the canvas. He began to paint only three years ago; and
yet the works of this aged watchmaker are already acclaimed
by critics. He is a male prototype of Anna Mary Robertson,
who began painting at the age of 78 and is now known to
multitudes as Grandma Moses.
Even if we have too little talent or courage to attempt
portraits or landscapes, we can do folk art. "This," says Peter
Hunt, "is the handcraft of people all over the world who
naturally and without training in any of the fine arts discover
an outlet for the innate desire to create and beautify things.
Usually their work is fine because they love doing
it;
4.
Many would-be Whistlers Just never can get started. One
emotional block is what Joseph Alger has called "the unwar-
121
ranted aura of awe which surrounds oil painting." In Ms
book, Get In There and Paint, he proves that "anybody can
do it"
Many start but soon quit, because they aim too high at
first. Early attempts at portraits are often suicidal. It takes a
real artist to make John Doe look like John Doe; but almost
any of us can make a hill look like a hill, a house look like a
house, and a tree look like a tree. Alger recommends a ketch-
up bottle as an ideal starter.
We would-be painters should not look down on homely
subjects, any more than did Rembrandt. Recently in New
York, Lester Gaba, a sculptor, exhibited 15 paintings of vege-
tables. So many people crowded to see these that the queue
was half a block long.
Some artists sneer at using photographs as aids to paint-
ing. We novices should ignore that prejudice. Most of us are
so busy that we can paint only at home and at night. It's no
mean achievement to take a tiny snapshot and transmute it
into a canvas three feet wide, with all the coloring coming
out of one's imagination.
One of New York's best portrait painters never asks any
subjects to "sit w for him. He takes colored photographs and
from these paints a composite. Norman Rockwell never hesi-
tates to work from photos he has personally posed. Why, then,
should we tyros try to limp along without crutches legiti-
mately within our reach?
When all is said and done, the big thing is to make a start
So let's take a leaf out of Churchill's book: "Having bought
the colors, an easel, and a canvas, the next step was to begin.
But what a step to take! The palette gleamed with beads of
color; fair and white rose the canvas; the empty brush hung
poised, heavy with destiny, irresolute in the air. My hand
seemed arrested by a silent veto. But after all the sky on this
occasion was unquestionably blue, and a pale blue at that
There could be no doubt that blue paint mixed with white
should be put on the top part of the canvas. One really does
122
not need to have had an artist's training to see that It is a
starting-point open to all"
5.
To get the most creative good out of painting, we should
steel ourselves against slavishness. Always we should keep
our minds crackling with "What else?" "How else?" "What
if?" For one thing, let's specifically try to think up ways to
dramatize our portrayals.
Maurice Collette, a business executive, recently had a
one-man exhibition at an exclusive gallery on 57th Street,
New York. The hit he made was largely due to the imagina-
tion he had put into making each picture tell a story. One of
his paintings depicted a farm scene. The ground was covered
with snow; the setting sun looked cold. The center of interest
was the farmer, driving his team of horses homeward. In
actual size he was about as big as the end of a match. But you
could almost see him shiver; and the slump of his posture
told you how hard he had been working.
Even in redecorating furniture, we should try to drama-
tize. **Why not let the decorations tell a little story, no matter
how remotely?" asks Peter Hunt. "It is all very weU to have
a little man and a little woman standing side by side, framed
in a garland of hearts and flowers and birds. . . . But if the
same little man is handing the same little woman a heart or
a flower, and the owner's initials are painted above them or
woven into place in the encircling garland, then a little per-
sonalized story is the result*
What a creative feat it is to picturize drab factsl Our hats
are off to the cartoonists who do this every day.
The baseball standings show that the Brooklyn Dodgers
are 10 games ahead. The date is August first, 1951. How can
we turn these pale statistics into a .colorful picture in black
and white?
One cartoonist did this with a pen-and-ink drawing of an
123
unshaved ball-player lolling in an exclusive club, bemoaning
his lack of worthy foes, but recalling how in 1942 he had
been thrown out of that charmed circle after being just as
far in the lead on that same datehow he and his fellow
"Bums" had muffed the pennant in the home stretch nine
years before.
We might even try to be original in our techniques. In-
stead of slavishly doing as taught, it is more fun and better
creative exercise when we think up our own ways of doing
this or that. I sought falling snow as the setting of a portrait
of my grandson. What to do to put some flakes out front and
others in the background? Any teacher could probably have
told me that secret. But what a kick I got out of finding out
for myself! Then, too, on a landscape I tried to show a fore-
ground of waist-high reeds, but they persisted in looking like
short grass. I solved that by scratching vertical lines into the
wet paint. What with? A golf tee.
6.
Those whose duties call for ideas still feel the need of
other creative activities. Lilly Dache, the designer, is one of
these. "Because I so thoroughly believe that imagination can
be developed through exercise, I try to help my creativity in
fashion by expressing myself in other forms, such as paint-
ing." Don Herold believes likewise. One of his favorite say-
ings is, "Minds need rotating as well as crops."
It is not only fun to shift from hobby to hobby, but the
more hobbies we ride, the more versatile we become. And
the better we can build our hedges against old age.
Now that our span of life is so much longer, more and
more old people will have to face the problem of leisure. In
New York City alone there are already more than 500,000
people over 65, Whether they live out their lives instead of
dying out their lives will depend to some extent on their
creative activities.
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A neighbor of mine, long since retired, dropped in one
Saturday afternoon while I was at my easel. He asked me
some questions. Then, almost with tears in his eyes, he said,
"Oh, what I would give to have a hobby like that!" Business
was 'his only interest He can't even read any more. He is
sick of going to ball games. He has nothing to look forward
to. If he had started to paint before too late, how much
sunnier his twilight might have been!
In contrast, Peter Hunt cites his own father, who took up
painting at 60. He started on a piece of cloth torn out of an
old sheet tacked to a frame dug out of a scrap heap. From
then on, he painted nearly every day, all day long. He died
at 64. Those four years, according to his son, "were the most
gratifying and buoyant he ever had."
Our nation needs more creative hobbies like painting.
Working hours have been cut to the point where free time
can pose a problem even to those still in their prime. As
inventive science takes over more and more of man's work,
what will our people do with their ever greater leisure? Too
many will just sit and hear or watch other people. How much
better if they were to do something themselves something
like painting which could help make them more content,
more kindly, more creative.
Chapter
WORD PLAY can exercise our
creative wits
TETS NOW LOOK into creative exercises of a rhetorical
JL-J type. But let's not drop pictures quite yet; for the verbal
and tlte visual often belong together. A picture can be worth
1000 words; by the same token, the more graphic our words,
the better.
Most of us ad-makers try first to think up the idea, and
then the illustration tasks which call for much more creative
effort than the writing of the text. Even when we're handed
the words and asked to dream up illustrations, we have to
turn creative somersaults.
For example, every Monday morning two of my associates
receive a list of those songs which have scored highest in
national popularity during the previous week the songs
which are to be televised on "Your Hit Parade" the following
Saturday night.
Even with nearly 100 craftsmen working like mad to
create that show, six days are hardly enough. That's why
each Monday these men must toil far into the night. In the
fewest possible hours they must lay the foundation for that
week's program by thinking up the right picture for every
sentence, every phrase yes, almost every wordin every one
of those lyrics. Until these ideas are in hand, the many other
craftsmen cannot start on their specialized tasks.
125
126
Those two thinker-uppers perform that herculean feat
regularly, week in and week out. What an example they set
for the rest of us! They prove how much, much more creative
power we could generate if we drove ourselves as they do.
We might tear a leaf out of their book by tackling some-
thing comparable but far less hectic. How? By creating a
rebus. Let's pick a paragraph, and then try to think up a
picture for every salient word. Although this can be fun, it's a
tough enough assignment to give any imagination a good
workout.
2.
We activate our visual imagination even less when view-
ing television than when listening to radio. Some radio stars
actually help their listeners to ''see" as they hear. Jack Benny
is outstanding in his ability to do just that by means of his
words, his inflections, and his timing. This bit typifies that
skill:
Jack: "Take my hair, for instance."
(Pause. Here the listener thinks of a wig.)
Jack: "Put that back."
(Pause. Here, the listener visualizes wig in stooge's hand. )
Jack: Therel"
(PauseHere, the listener "sees" the wig being put back
cm Jack's head.)
Jack: "Not so far over on one side."
(At this point, the listener laughs at how ludicrous Jack
must look.)
* * Just as others can prompt us to visualize, so we can lead
ourselves to exercise imagination by consciously running
pictures through our own minds. Even tiny children can do
this. My minister, in a talk to a class of four-year-olds, bade
them close their eyes. A minute later, he asked them what
they had seen while their eyes were shut "Nothing" . . .
127
"Not a thingf . . . "Everything was dark." All the answers
were in that same vein all except one: "I saw what I was
thinking about/'
That from a four-year-old child was remarkable. But we
grown-ups should know that we can make ourselves see what
we will to see, even if we are blind. So let's make some slides
for ourselves. Let's start with one word-an abstraction like
opportunity. What symbols for that can we light up in our
minds? A ladder, a stairway, a hill with the sun bursting over
the horizon the face of Lincoln or of Edison or of one of the
many immigrants who have risen to fame in our country
these are but a few of the pictures we could create.
Or how about making a mental movie of the 23rd Psalm?
'The Lord is my Shepherd." ( Clearly we can see that bearded
herder with his sheep.) "He maketh me to lie down in green
pastures." (Vividly we can view those verdant acres on that
hillside. ) "He Iea4eth me beside the still waters." (You never
saw a pool more placid. And just look at those key clouds
mirrored on its surface. )
Some psychiatrists believe that this psalm as thus pictur-
ized can serve as a mental therapy. Such use of visual imag-
ination most certainly can serve as a creative exercise.
3.
Let's go a-hunting for synonyms. Let's send our imagina-
tion in search of terser and brighter ways to say our say.
Whatever we do to think up alternatives of any kind is always
good creative practice!
Strangely enough, nearly all of our dim polysyllables were
glowing phrases back in their original Latin and Greek. Take
acumen. To us moderns, this word lights up no image. But
to the Romans, the word acumen painted a picture of needle-
sharpness.
It is not always true that the shorter the word the better.
Abraham Lincoln was a master of terseness; and yet in his
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Gettysburg speech of 271 words lie used 71 polysyllables. No
short word could take the place of dedicate.
Nor is it always true that the fewer words the better.
"Sorry enough to quit/' Doesn't that hit harder than "re-
pentant"? The New 'York Times called a book "intelligent,
realistic, eloquent/' Although most lawyers lean toward
labored words, Justice Owen Roberts said of the same book,
"It strikes a telling blow for straight thinking/' He used over
twice as many words as The Times-, but he penned a picture.
Synonym-hunting may sound like deadly calisthenics; but
we can make this exercise exciting by turning it into a game.
For example, a mixed group of all ages tried one evening to
think up ways of saying "superficial." We hit upon 27 syn-
onyms other than those listed in our thesaurus. One of the
graphic words we thought up was "horseback." A "horseback
survey" certainly paints more of a picture than does a
"cursory survey."
That kind of game also makes a good twosome, My asso-
ciates Dale Casto and Carl Davis set out jointly to think up
synonyms for acumen. They knew that a professor and I had
thought up 38; so Dale and Carl were bent on beating that
mark. They won. In three hours (on a train) they listed 72
words, phrases and figures of speech meaning acumen 34
more than Professor Arnold Verduin and I had been able to
dream up in the hour we had spent on the same project.
"No one who does not expend a good deal of care upon
points of synonyms can write well," declared H. W. Fowler,
co-adapter of The Concise Oxford Dictionary. He urges that
we develop "the power of calling up the various names under
which the idea we have to express can go. Everyone has this
power to some degree. Everyone can develop this gift through
exercise."
4.
It makes a good stretching exercise to try to stretch syn-
onyms into figures of speech. These can be as simple as those
129
-which a group of us thought up: "As superficial as a Bikini
bathing suit" , . . "As superficial as a cat's hath/' Or, they
can include an ironic twist, as when Dorothy Parker likened
superficiality to "running the gamut from a to b." In his book,
Teaching to Think, Julius Boraas strongly recommended as a
creative exercise any such effort to think up figures of speech.
Some of my daughter's friends make a foursome of that
activity. Occasionally, before starting their bridge, one of
them reads aloud from the page in The Readers Digest
called "Quips." TTien each of the four thinks up and
writes down at least three possible entries. Here are a few
examples none of them good enough to make the Digest,
but all good enough to make the game interesting: "One
cross we bear is being cross with each other" . . . "The most
common of chronic complaints is complaining" . . . "Blessed
are they whose children do not wline as they dine" . . .
"When fools get tight, their morals get loose" , . . "Liquor
turns some souls into heels/*
5.
H. L. Mencken recommended that, for creative exercise,
we take a crack at coining slang. Any such expression, to
catch hold, must be imaginative; usually it paints a picture in
a flash.
Slang often becomes literature. "Filthy lucre" came up
from the gutter into the New Testament (Timothy III, 3).
"By the skin of my teeth." That sounds like slang, but it is a
classis figure of speech. (See Job XIX, 20.)
Authors who otherwise shun slang often put it into the
mouths of their characters. Thus Thomas Mann in describing
Artur Rubinstein's piano-playing quoted a teen-age young-
ster as exclaiming, "Boy! He plays from the socks up!"
The line between slang and figurative speech is as
shadowy as a spider's thread. And Father Time often rubs out
that boundary as H. L. Mencken proved in The American
Language.
130
There is a constant movement of slang terms into
accepted usage," he wrote. "The verb-phrase to hold up is
now perfectly good American, but so recently as 1901 the late
Brander Matthews was sneering at it as slang. In the same
way other verb phrases, e.g., to cave in, to fill the bill, and to
fly off the handle., once viewed askance, have gradually
worked their way to a relatively high level of the standard
speech. On some indeterminate tomorrow to stick up and to
take for a ride may follow them."
Slang is wrongly supposed to sprout by accident from
lowbrows and collegians. According to Mencken, most of it
*is coined in the sweat of the brow." It comes from creativity
at work.
So let's not be ashamed to emulate Ring Lardner. To
think up slang is almost as respectable and just as good exer-
cise as to think up figures of speech.
6.
The man who ate the first oyster needed less courage than
I show here in speaking well of punning. The fact is that puns
can serve as crossbars on which we can chin ourselves
creatively.
Many of our literary lights have lauded this pastime.
James Boswell claimed that "A good pun may be admitted
among the excellencies of lively conversation." Charles Lamb
went even further: "A pun is a noble thing per se. It fills the
mind It is as perfect as a sonnet; better."
Edgar Allan Poe put his finger on one reason why so many
of us are thumbs-down on puns. Said he: "Those who most
dislike them are those least able to utter them." About 100
years later Oscar Levant innocently paraphrased Poe by
wisecracking: "The pun is the lowest form of humor-when
you don't think of it first"
One just criticism of puns was brought out by Sydney
Smith 150 years ago: "Puns are the wit of words. The wit of
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words is miserably inferior to the wit o ideas.** Puns do fall
short in that they depend too much on verbiage and too little
upon imagery. For this reason, jokes based on word-play are
seldom as funny as those based on humorous situations.
Puns are less likely to be pooh-poohed when used as a
natural part of a message. A New York friend of mine never
dares play upon words while at home lest his children boo
him down. Last December his daughter at college wrote him,
"When I get home for Christmas vacation, I want to take
a gander at South Pacific. Will you get me a ticket?" To
which the father replied by wire: "No tickets available at any
of the usual sources; so I am seeking a new source for your
gander/' Strangely enough she showed that telegram to her
schoolmates with gleeful pride.
Those least in need of creative exercise are most likely to
sharpen their wits on puns. Bennett Cerf is one of these; and
he likes to collect pearls dropped by friends of his whom he
calls pun-dits. Here are three of Cerf s favorites:
"At the conclusion of a brief discourse by Clifton Fadiman
on the life of an old Turkish despot, John Gunther asked, 'Are
you shah of your facts?' Fadiman snapped back, 'Sultanly/
"Five-year-old Wylie O'Hara upon being introduced to a
patched-up little girl from Montgomery began warbling,
'She Came from Alabamy with a Band-Aid on Her Knee/
"A publisher who had lost his shirt on a succession of
unsuccessful first novels complained, Tm suffering heavily
from new-writus/ **
Throughout my life I have been blessed with friends with
whom I could pun congenially. For example, in my early
'teens at Hamilton College I frequently engaged in this kind
of mental sword-play with my classmate Alexander Wooll-
cott He was a master punster. I remember many of his
double cracks. For example:
On a frigid morning we were walking up a steep hill. The
sidewalk was packed solid with snow, but a bright sun made
it sticky. Suddenly he slipped, having stepped on a shaded
132
spot He stopped, looked up at the tree, and exclaimed, "That
must be a slippery elm."
A bit later, when he stepped on a similar shadow, I asked
him, "Why didn't you slip that time?" Looking skyward he
quickly retorted, "That must be an ash."
The usual pun is played upon a single word. It is more fun
and better exercise to think up doubles, as Dizzy Dean did
(consciously or otherwise) when he was told that his radio
listeners were critical of his syntax. Diz exploded, "Sin tax?
You don't mean to tell me they're putting a tax on that, too?"
Triple puns are even harder and quite rare. Here's one
that Bill Feather liked well enough to call to my attention:
"E. W. Hornung, brother-in-law of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
(creator of Sherlock Holmes), had this to say about his rela-
tive's hero: Though he might be more humble, there's no
police like Holmes.' "
If you agree that punning is good exercise for one's imagi-
nation, my suggestion is that you pick a pun-loving pal and
take him on long walks. While thus engaged, the two of you
can play upon words with less embarrassment and more
enjoyment
7.
We can creatively thrive on conversation, but it must be
of the right kind. The usual "I-hear-the-Smiths-are-separat-
ingf type of chit-chat can't even massage our minds.
Spirited discussions of worth-while subjects help in two
ways. They enrich our memories with material which nur-
tures our imaginations, and they make us think creatively.
Even as we speak, we have to plan what to say later on. And
we have to imagine in advance what our companion is about
to say. Such catch-as-catch-can exercise helps develop our
creativity.
Our forebears sharpened their wits by arguing issues. We
too often let columnists and commentators make up our
133
minds, with the result that the practice of debating of "dis-
agreeing agreeably" no longer spurs our ingenuity.
Radio and especially television have done much to kill
conversation. Contract bridge likewise uses up many hours
which otherwise might be spent in profitable talk.
But, again, those least in need of creative exercise still
cross verbal swords. For example, one morning I asked my
partner, Bruce Barton, what kind of time he had had the night
before. I knew he had dined and spent the evening with
Grandand Rice and with Burton Peek, head of Deere & Com-
pany. Bruce's reply went something like this:
"I didn't get to bed till almost three this morning. If I told
you what I did dining those nine hours you wouldn't be-
lieve me."
"What did you do?"
*1 just sat all that time with that sports columnist and that
manufacturer of manure spreaders while we discussed Shake-
speare."
8.
Public speaking can be a potent exercise; it forces our
creative minds to go all out, in preparation and delivery. No
saying was ever truer than that spoken by Erasmus: "By
speaking men learn to speak."
My friend Richard E. Borden was once a tongue-tied pro-
fessor. He disciplined himself into becoming a speaker; and
by practice he grew to be one of the nation's platform stars.
He will tell you, as he told me, that in driving himself to that
end he developed himself creatively to the point where sev-
eral manufacturers were glad to pay him highly for his con-
sultive services.
Dale Carnegie might well tell those who take his speaking
courses that, in addition to learning to talk on their feet, they
are also strengthening their creative wings. They most cer-
tainly are training themselves to put forth effort, and effort is
the motor of imagination.
134
Formal debate is likewise a strenuous exercise. This cer-
tainly calls for the utmost in catch-as-catch-can creativity.
The very preparation strains imagination because, for one
thing, no debater can win unless he first puts himself into his
opponent's shoes and anticipates the arguments he will have
to rebut
On that point, here's what my minister, Dr. Butzer, told
me out of his own experience: "In college debating we always
had to prepare both sides of every question. In triangular
debates, each of the three colleges would have a negative and
an affirmative team to oppose its rivals. To prepare for
these contests our own two teams would hold several pre-
liminary debates between them. Many of us felt that these
efforts provided us with more creative training than anything
in our curriculum.**
Dr. Butzer went on to remark that in his opinion the
high creativity of Abraham Lincoln was at least partially due
to his early practice in forensic dueling.
* * *
Public speaking and public debating are probably beyond
the opportunity and the power of many of us. But all of us
can dream up pictures, can hunt for synonyms, can think up
figures of speech. And through such rhetorical exercises, we
can lift our minds to higher creativity.
Chapter JLt>
WRITING is mental wrestling
at its best
WHEN WE WRITE we have to grapple, not only with
words, but also with theme, sequence and syntax. With-
out doubt we can derive plenty of creative exercise from
pushing a pen.
Scientific tests regard "facility in writing^ as a basic index
of creative aptitude. Arnold Bennett insisted that "the exer-
cise of writing is an indispensable part of any genuine effort
towards mental efficiency." Nancy Osgood, N.B.C. commen-
tator, recently said to me: "I know of no better way to
strengthen one's creative muscles than to sit down each day
and write for an hour or so."
A young nephew of mine asked me how much a joke sells
for, and I said the price varies from a dollar to $100.
"I'm going to write a $100 joke," he remarked.
"When are you going to start practicing?" I asked.
"Why do I need practice?" he bridled.
To encourage him, I offered him a dollar if he would write
ten jokes for me.
"What! Only a dime apiece? Nix!"
That lad believes in practice when it comes to sport; but
like many grown-ups, he doesn't appreciate the importance
of practicing writing.
And then there is the fallacy about our needing to be
135
136
"born" writers in order to write. The truth is that every author
was once an amateur. Matthew Arnold, a plodding school
inspector, suddenly found himself hailed as a man of letters.
Anthony Hope was a barrister named Hawkins. Joseph
Conrad sailed before the mast for 16 years before he discov-
ered he was a novelist. Conan Doyle, a physician, created
Sherlock Holmes as a hobby. A. J. Cronin was likewise a
family doctor, and so was Oliver Wendell Holmes. Charles
Lamb clerked in India House, and started writing to over-
come his boredom. Stephen Leacock taught at McGill Uni-
versity for many years before he found that his quill could
tickle us. Longfellow was a language teacher. Anthony Trol-
lope was a postal inspector. Herman Melville was an obscure
customs official for 20 years before Moby Dick made hini
famous.
As Laurence Sterne stated nearly 200 years ago, writing is
but a different name for conversation. If we can talk, we can
write, provided only that we strive hard enough.
2.
Even if we never try to write professionally, there are
many forms of amateur effort on which to sharpen our cre-
ative wits. Even letter-writing can provide helpful training
if we go at it right
A young associate of mine consciously reaches for ideas
to enliven his correspondence. Instead of dashing off a routine
recital of trivia he goes at each letter as if he were writing an
article. Even such exercise can help keep us on our crea-
tive toes.
Why not try that? Or better yet, how about illuminating
your words with pictures? See what you can do to illustrate
your next epistle to that little friend or relative of yours. It
will mean a lot more to the youngster, and it will be far better
exercise for' you. President Theodore Roosevelt continually
practiced that kind of double-barreled creativity.
137
Almost every family could well publish its own private
periodical. My old city editor, Mark Daly, now retired, keeps
his mind toned up by typing out a family newspaper once a
week for his children, grandchildren and friends. When some
of my young kin first went away to college, we ran a family
newspaper called Scriblets. I was the editor; but to every
issue, each of the home-staying youngsters had to contribute.
This was mighty good practice for them as they later
realized.
Or how about writing a book for fun? Betty Miller, a
bank clerk, makes a hobby of doing a volume on each sum-
mer's sojourn. Her 10 books are salted with humor as well as
filled with descriptions and pictures. "My friends tell me they
can relive each trip with me," she told me with well-placed
pride.
When your living-room table gets piled with Christmas
greetings, aren't you amazed (as I am) that the stand-outs are
those few which your friends have created on their own? For
many years I have made it a practice to originate our family's
holiday greetings. Nut that I am, I usually begin in January
to file away ideas for our next Christmas card.
There are many other opportunities for amateur effort
One of my young friends practices by writing his own gag
lines for magazine cartoons and sometimes tops the caption
chosen by the editors. Another tears a picture from a maga-
zine and writes a short story around it A woman who is
easily irritated by radio commercials occasionally rewrites
one the way she would like to hear it
An industrial engineer who had never written "anything*
attended a course in creativity at the University of Buffalo*
His instructor, Robert Anderson, asked him to write a story
for children. I saw the manuscript which Boyd Payne turned
out It's a tale about a chicken a Cinderella story entitled
"Chickendrella." The scene is Coop Town. The main charac-
ters are Flossie Feathers and Brewster Rooster, who live on
Cockscomb Avenue. It's a story that would delight any child.
138
It helps prove that nearly all of us have it in us to write-even
though we have never written, and have never thought we
could.
3.
How about taking a swing at rhyming, for fun and for
exercise? Of aH forms of versifying, the one that calls for the
toughest of mental gymnastics is probably the limerick.
The alleged father of the limerick was Edward Lear, the
author of "The Owl and the Pussycat." Present-day addicts
charge, however, that he avoided the hardest part of limerick-
writing by making his first line serve also as the last line,
e.g.: "There was an old man of Tobago. . . . That naughty
old man of Tobago."
A different last line is a "must" in most good limericks, and
the best last lines are usually O. Henry-ish. Such "stoppers"
can be phrases which illustrate unexpected pictures, or they
can be puns as complicated as tins:
There was a young lady named Banker
Who slept as the ship rolled at anchor
She awoke with dismay
As she heard the mate say
"Let's haul up the top sheet and spankerl"
You can start a limerick with a malapropism, or an unusual
rhyme, or a weird use of a word. Some of the best limericks
are rhymed retellings of stories. Some are adaptations of old
limericks. But we amateurs should try to adhere to the tradi-
tional form.
Let's emulate Oliver Herford, who made a hobby of
Bmeridk-writing. Let's play hide-and-seek with rhymes. To do
this we must send imagination up alley after alley in search
of ideas that will click and of words that will sound alike.
Road work like that surely tends to flex our creative muscles.
139
4.
Ralph Satterlee recommends participation in prize con-
tests. "For 20 years before I became a professional writer/* he
told me, "I strengthened my imaginative muscles by con-
tinually taking stabs at all types of competitions. I was one of
the winners in over 550 of these contests, and my cash prizes
averaged over $1000 a year."
He has urged schools to use such contests as class assign-
ments. At Woodbury College, in cooperation with Professor
Phelps Gates, he persuaded 500 students to enter a local
department-store competition. They won 11 prizes, including
all the top money. "The students were enthused," reported
Satterlee, "and their imagination was fired. They did better
work in their studies, and popped more ideas/*
For similar practice swings, why not contribute short
pieces to magazines? Several periodicals issue standing invi-
tations. The Saturday Evening Post offers $100 for anecdotes
usable in "The Perfect Squelch," and also offers $100 for a
problem-and-solution that can be used in "What Would You
Have Done?"
The Readers Digest offers $100 for pieces good enough
for "Life in These United States" and $10 for sayings that
can qualify as quips.
Similarly, The American Magazine makes three standing
offers; The New Yorker makes five, and Parents' Magazine,
two. Family Circle and The Progressive Farmer are among
the other periodicals which invite amateurs to try their hand.
Let's take advantage of these offers. Any such attempt is
fun, improves our writing, and vigorously exercises our
imagination.
5.
Recent surveys tell us that nearly 2,500,000 Americans are
trying to write for money, and this is just about the toughest
of all creative exercises.
140
Many of those would-be writers will hope for too much
too soon, and will fall by the wayside-stopped by discourage-
ment But many others will make out well over the long run,
according to A. S. Burack, editor of The Writer. He estimates:
"For every person who hits the jackpot in writing and
achieves big money and fame, there are at least 30 or 40 who
make comfortable incomes or supplement their earnings by
writing a few hours a day."
In Polly Webster's How To Make Money At Home, editor
Burack has a chapter which comprehensively covers the field
of writing, and which can help guide us as to what kind of
literature to tackle whether factual, as for feature articles
and non-fiction books or fictional, as for short stories and
novels. That chapter also covers humor, plays, and poetry.
Plenty of how-to books are available on any type of writ-
ing effort The Writer publishes a list of 36 such works. Quite
a few universities offer worth-while instruction, and there are
correspondence courses which successfully teach techniques.
Some of the so-called Writers' Conferences are closed to
all except professionals; but quite a few (including the out-
standing Bread Loaf Workshop at Middlebury) are open to
"auditors," to amateurs who wish to spend their summer vaca-
tions at such sessions. Every year The Saturday Review of
Literature publishes a directory of these workshops.
One way to learn about techniques is recommended by
Charles and Margaret Broadley, and this is to review pub-
lished writings of the kind which we would attempt. By
reading such work analytically, and then writing a review,
we can do much to teach ourselves.
Nearly all writers agree that we should try to write only
about that which we know best William More advised:
"Don't try to look up subjects for writing. The best subjects
are already in your mind." Sir Philip Sidney admonished like-
wise: * *Fooir said my muse to me look in ihy heart and
write/"
Again, tie command is to get going. Any subject is better
141
than no subject. The versatile author and editor J. P. McEvoy
tells his children not even to worry about techniques, but to
go ahead and write: "You'll never learn to drive a car by
memorizing the names of the parts and drawing a diagram
of the chassis. You learn to drive well by driving. You learn
to write well by writing."
Many who want to write never do so because they are
"too busy/' Such people can't possibly have less time than
Dr. William Carlos Williams. Day and night he calls on
patients in a New Jersey community of industrial laborers.
And yet this busy physician has gained fame as a poet and
as author of countless short stories.
Several of my friends can write well enough to sell their
wares; but when I talk to them about doing something for
publication they panic. They rightly fear that the first piece
they submit will be turned down by editors. They don't
realize that these trial heats provide the practice which could
turn them into stars.
Another road block is our queer quirk about "waiting for
the mood." My boyhood home was near Fordham, where
Edgar Allan Poe had lived. Local legend had it that he wrote
only when it rained. Later I learned that he had once re-
marked that he seemed to write better on rainy days but that
he did some writing every day, rain or shine. I don't wait for
moods," said Pearl Buck. Tou accomplish nothing if you do
that. Your mind must know it has got to get down to work."
6.
If little girls are made of sugar and spice and all things
nice, what is writing made of? What eke but ideas? The
words are important, but only to clothe our thoughts.
The first big task is to think up the big idea. "To produce a
mighty book you must produce a mighty theme," said Her-
man Melville.
It was the idea that made a classic of Charles Lamb's
142
Dissertation on Koast Pig. A pigsty went up in flames. A
Chinese swineherd raked the embers with his hand, licked his
fingers, and found the taste delicious. This led to an epidemic
of pigsty-burning until someone found that pig could be
toothsome even if roasted on a tame fire, instead of on a
flaming pigsty. Lamb's theme was a simple switcheroo. And
yet it gave birth to a masterpiece.
Plotting can never be a cut-and-dried technique it must
always call for utmost creativity. Lloyd Eric Reeve, who
teaches magazine-writing at the University of California, told
his students: "Our technique of plotting, if it can be dignified
by such a term, should probably be called just the 'Technique
of Supposing/" And what is "supposing" but casting our
minds hither and thither, forward and backward, in search of
alternatives in search of "what-ifs" and "what-elses" in
search of all kinds of ideas?
Many believe the greatest advertisement ever written was
the one Hamilton Watch published under the title: "To
Peggy For Marrying Me in the First Place/ 7 This first ran
in 1940 was repeated in '41, '48, *49 and '50. It was broadcast,
and it was televised. Acclaimed in thousands of letters from
the public, it won the highest of all awards.
I happen to know the man who wrote that ad. He agrees
that it was his basic idea that made it the hit it was. For days
and days, early in 1940, he tried and tried to think up an idea
for a Christmas appeal. All-told he wrote down and sketched
out over 50 approaches for that one little piece of less than
150 words.
To bag a basic idea like that we have to send our imagina-
tion up hill, down dale, and all over the horizon. Although
there can be no set technique for this, O. Henry did have a
little knack. When he was asked how to write a short story he
snapped back, "Just think up the ending and then write your
story up to it/* But O. Henry was one for putting his imagina-
tion on forced draft when need be. One day he simply had
to do a story or starve. He thought up the pay-off and then he
143
drove himself into thinking up the whole plot. Thus, within
three hours, he created The Gift of the Magi.
7.
The material which serves an author best is that which he
has gathered along the road of life, W. Somerset Maugham's
notebooks occupy 15 thick volumes and cover a period of
57 years. They make no attempt to record his daily
doings.
"I meant my notebooks to be a storehouse of materials for
future use, and nothing else," he explains. And later: "I have
never claimed to create anything out of nothing; I have al-
ways needed an incident or a character as a starting point,
but I have exercised imagination, invention, and a sense of
the dramatic to make it something of my own."
Frank H. Bennett, who began his fiction-writing while
teaching music at Nebraska College, says of his files that he
built them up by adding one or more ideas each day. "After
writing hundreds of yarns over a period of years, I still have
something to write about/' That, to a writer, is money in
the bank!
Bennett points out that ideas abound wherever one hap-
pens to be. He urges: "Glance at a newspaper or a magazine,
listen to people talk, look at the things about you. Do these,
and an inexhaustible horde of ideas will come to you from
all sides like showers of meteors. But like meteors, they are
fleeting and soon gone if not jotted down."
According to Dale Carnegie, perseverance in writing is
what brings out one's creative best. He once spent three years
composing three books, and then tossed all his manuscripts
into the wastebasket He devoted more than two years to
writing How to Stop Worrying and Start Living. He told me,
"At the end of six months of effort, that book still didn't
march. But I kept painfully on. Finally, the book emerged
after endless rewriting."
144
In the olden days, when leisure time hung heavier on
peoples hands, a Dickens or a Thackeray could ignore brev-
ity. But now, with the automobile taking us away from home,
and with radio and television taking our time while at home,
every writer is called upon to simplify and to condense. "If
you have nothing to say, try to say it briefly/* That old saw
might well be changed to: "No matter how much you have
to say, say it in the fewest possible words/'
By the way, this book you are reading was first written in
three times as many words as now printed. I can testify that
my battle against verbosity cost me at least 350 extra hours
of creative toil
John Burroughs pointed out in his Journals, "I often think
of Lincoln's and Everett's speeches at Gettysburg; one of
them has become a classic; of the other not a word has sur-
vived in the popular mind." The reasons were that Lincoln's
speech sparkled with ideas and that in three minutes he said
more than Everett said in two hours a fact which the latter
was kind enough to concede.
8.
If we are to grow creatively, we must gird ourselves
against discouragement, a danger that lurks in trying to write
for money. We need to use imagination to keep ourselves
from giving up too soon.
The odds are mathematically against our selling whatever
we may write for publication. We can better our chances by
determining where our output is most likely to be wanted.
One way to find out is through the comprehensive guide
called The Writers Market, by Ruth A. Jones and Aron M.
Matihieu. This sets forth the facts concerning 2500 publica-
tionstheir editorial requirement, rates of pay, style rules
and preferred word lengths. In each case the information is
given in the editor's own words.
Ralph EL Major, Jr., an editor of Coronet, urges free-
145
lancers to "sell the idea." He recommends that the contributor
first submit an outline of his or her proposed manuscript
If you can steel yourself against rejection, it is sometimes
well to aim high. A little postage will get your manuscript
back to you and enable you to send it to a lesser publication.
I once submitted to The Readers Digest a piece which was
politely turned down. I then sold it to The Christian Herald.
Four years later the same article was published by a metro-
politan newspaper in a full page.
A clash with a taxi driver nettled me into writing an arti-
cle for Printers Ink, which I knew from long experience
would probably pay $25 for it. At the last minute, however,
I bravely decided to submit it to The Readers Digest instead.
Almost by return mail a check for $1000 fell into my hands.
Over the long run the chances of adequate compensation
are so slight that it is better for us semi-pros to make a side-
line of our writing, and do it mainly for fun and for creative
practice. Samuel Coleridge advised every literary man to
keep at some other gainful occupation, and Oliver Wendell
Holmes concurred.
Some highly successful authors still stick to their regular
jobs. Ed Streeter, who wrote Dere Mabel and The Father of
the Bride, was a pal of mine when we were cub reporters.
He early became a banker. And he still continues as vice-
president of a New York trust company, despite the fact that
his writings are in demand and at high prices.
If we use our imagination, rejections need not cause dejec-
tion. For one thing, we can put ourselves in the shoes of the
greatest authors and realize how they kept going under a
barrage of turndowns. W. Somerset Maugham began writing
when he was 18; but 10 years elapsed before he could sell
enough to make his keep.
Exactly 83 of Ben Ames Williams* manuscripts were
rejected during his first four years of literary effort He kept
at his regular job until his manuscripts brought him an ade-
quate income. Since then he has devoted all his working time
146
to writing fiction. "I like to write," lie told me. "I like it so
well that IVe written some 1200 things intended for publi-
cation, of which only about 500 have been published/*
Many of my friends are desolate over failing to sell their
contributions to The Readers Digest. They wouldn't feel so
sad if they realized their competition. Some 60 editors con-
stantly comb other publications for material suitable for
reprint. Over 30,000 Digest readers send in contributions
each month.
It's too bad that hardly any of us take rejections as humor-
ously as did Mort Horowitz, who writes for The Saturday
Evening Post. He once sent a romantic piece to a love maga-
zine, but its lady editor turned him down, saying: "Your
stories don't pick me up and swing me along/* This struck
Horowitz so funny that he shipped her a trapeze.
00*
Let's start writing and keep at it with a well-founded faith
that the more we write the better writers we will become-
and that through such practice we are sure to develop our
creative power in an all-round way.
Chapter 16
CHANGING SHOES can be
a good bending exercise
THE NEXT FEW chapters will deal with human relations
and how we can get along more happily by exercising
imagination in such ways as applying the principle laid down
in these words: "Therefore all things whatsoever ye would
that men should do to you, do ye even so to them."
This golden rule can do most to lessen suffering and to
heighten happiness. But, without imagination, it won't work.
For we cannot do unto others as we would be done by, unless
we mentally put ourselves into their shoes. A sine qua non
of enlightened selfishness is vicarious imagination.
In frontier days the Omaha Indians taught their young
braves this prayer: "Great Spirit, help me never to judge
another until I have walked two weeks in his moccasins.**
Thus we should change shoes with our fellow humans.
But we can even put ourselves into horseshoes, as did Tolstoy.
He and Turgenev were walking down a rural lane when they
saw an old nag standing alone in the field. Tolstoy crawled
through the fence, went over to the horse, put his hand on the
animal's neck and spoke to him. Said Turgenev later: "He
talked with such sympathy and understanding that Tolstoy
at one time must have been a horse."
We can even change shoes with a cow. Ralph Waldo
Emerson and his son were trying to push a calf into the barn.
147
148
The philosopher shoved the beast from behind; young Emer-
son pulled her from the front "Both of us were making the
same mistake/' said Emerson. "We were thinking only about
what we wanted. We forgot what the calf wanted. So the calf
stiffened its legs and the more we pushed, the more it
resisted."
A witness to that intellectual contest was a young farm
girL She used her imagination. Into the calf s mouth she stuck
her finger. The calf sucked it, and willingly let herself be
led into the barn.
The fact that changing shoes can flex our creative muscles
was recognized by John Erskine: "The body travels more
easily than the mind, and until we have limbered up our
imagination we continue to think as though we had stayed
home. We have not really budged a step until we take up
residence in someone else's point of view/*
2.
How hard it is to teach teen-agers the wisdom of chang-
ing shoesl This was brought home to me one Saturday after-
noon while listening to the radio with a boy of 14. The news
flashes told of devastating gales all over the East a hurricane
in Florida, a blinding blizzard in Jersey, a tidal wave along
the Long Island coast. At mid-afternoon the announcer
boomed: "The wires now coming in show that the death toll
is already over 100 and still mounting." At this my young
friend yelped: "Gee, I wish we could have that storm here!"
But grown-ups likewise lack a sense of other-ness, espe-
cially when in a mob. Jim Corbett wrote that after knocking
out John L. Sullivan he was disgusted with the crowd: 'It
struck me as sad to see all those thousands who had given him
such a wonderful ovation when he entered the ring turning
their ovation to me as soon as he was down and out."
One explanation may be that a mob takes its spirit from
the least mature among those present from unthinking adults
149
who have never developed that quality of mind which Harry
Overstreet calls "social imagination."
s.
Tact calls for active imagination. One use of it is to break
the ice, to put the other fellow at ease but not quite as Will
Rogers once did at the White House. After standing in line at
a presidential reception, he finally reached Calvin Coolidge
and whispered: "My name is Will Rogers. What's yours?"
Saint Paul in his speech at Mars Hill quickly won his anti-
Christian audience by saying that he, too, worshiped an
"unknown" God. Time and time again, Christ used superb
imagination in making contact with strangers. For example,
on the shores of a lake one day He saw two fishermen whom
He sought as disciples. They were busy with their nets and
talking their trade. To have broken in on them with a plea
that they turn to preaching might have invited their snarls.
"Come with me/* said Jesus, "and I will make you fishers
of men."
"Fishers" was a word that hit home. It helped win them.
Another example was the ice-breaking tact of Mark Twain
in his negotiation with General Grant The ex-president was
dying and broke. Twain felt sure he could make a fortune for
him if he could persuade him to write his memoirs. The old
soldier was frigid until Twain remarked: "General, I'm quite
embarrassed. Are you?"
Dr. Norman Vincent Peale tells about his experience as a
reporter in a midwest city where he had to gouge news out
of a police sergeant "It was like bearding a lion in his den to
talk with him," says Dr. Peale. "I found he had a little grand-
daughter, however, and soon realized she was his weakness.
One night I surprised him by saying, 'How is that nice little
granddaughter of yours?* He melted like snow in the spring-
time and became a fast friend." Thus by using imagination
we can often turn ice into the milk of kindness.
150
We can even use imagination to give the other fellow a
better time. One afternoon at the Augusta National Golf
Club, Ed Dudley, the pro, told me that General Omar Bradley
was visiting a nearby Army hospital and would like a game of
golf. I lined up two of my friends. None of us knew the
General. At dinner that night we figured that he was tired
of being asked about war, and veterans, and Russia. So we
put ourselves into his boots and conceived a plan of conversa-
tion for the next day.
The Chief of Staff joined us at luncheon and we talked of
nothing except golf courses we had played. During our 18
holes that afternoon none of us mentioned anything that had
to do with his responsibilities. After the game we sat around
for an hour and discussed holes-in-one. Each of us, including
the General, had at least one entertaining story to tell about
such miracles.
Six months later I met General Bradley for the second
time in our lives. He immediately remembered me and re-
marked: "That afternoon we had at Augusta National was
certainly a lot of fun."
My brother Russell used his imagination to give waiters a
better time. Whereas most of us glue our eyes to our menus
and talk over our shoulders at the person serving us, my
brother would always turn in his chair, face the waiter, and
say: cc What would you order if you were I?" Thus he'd put
himself into the waiter's shoes, and induce the waiter to put
himself into the shoes of the guest. The result? The waiter
enjoyed his work the more, and my brother enjoyed better
food and cheerier service.
4.
Those are some of the positive ways of using vicarious
imagination. Now for a few negatives, mainly by way of fore-
seeing what not to do or say,
Far too many enmities are caused by failure to imagine
151
how the other fellow will react. For example, in a Chinese
city the English colony maintained an ostentatious clubhouse,
in the front of which a sign shouted: "No Chinamen or dogs
allowed." The newspaperman who recently told me about
that went on to remark: "The white man is through in Asia;
it can be largely blamed on that kind of tactlessness."
My partner Bruce Barton is blessed with a deeper sense
of sympathy than any man I ever knew. But even he some-
times fails to put himself in the other fellow's shoesespe-
cially if they are golf shoes. Why? Because of over-concentra-
tion on his game.
One evening we arrived at a golf course too late to acquire
caddies. So we decided to play out of one bag his bag with
me as the beast of burden.
The course was hilly and the 14 clubs weighed a ton.
Coming to the last hole, the steepest grade of all, we were
climbing hard when Bruce remarked, "I could have played
better if I had had a caddy to tell me what club to use." I
just panted and withheld comment. He added, "I wouldn't
have looked up so much if I'd had a caddy to watch where
my ball was going/*
The hill was getting steeper and the bag heavier. At last
I spoke up: "I agree with you, Bruce, that it's nice to have a
caddy to tell you what club to use, and to watch your ball
but I just thought up another reason why it's nice to have
a caddy/*
"What's that?" asked Bruce.
"To carry your damn golfbag!" I replied with a wither-
ing smile.
When we say, "Think twice before yon speak," we mean
not only to weigh what we are about to say, but also to
imagine how our remark will be taken. Most of the discour-
tesies which cause unhappiness are due to our failure to
do that.
According to George Gallup, our nation's three main
peeves are: (1) Honking horns in front of houses. (2) Eating
152
popcorn in movies. (3) Coughing and sneezing in public. All
these annoyances are due to die offenders' failure to put them-
selves into the shoes of their friends and neighbors.
A clubmate of mine whose plant employs 4000 men was
blocked at an underpass by a traffic jam on a snowy evening
when he was driving home from work. Irked by his long wait,
he started to pull out of line and attempt a detour. A loud
voice stopped him. It was that of one of his own employees
at the wheel of his company's truck. The driver was yelling
at him, Take it easy, buddy, lots of overtime tonight/* If
that lad were at all ambitious he might well take on some
shoe-changing exercises.
Harvard University recently made a study of why people
lose their jobs. This showed that only 34 per cent are let out
because of inability to do their work, whereas 66 per cent are
fired for failure in human relations for inability to put them-
selves in the other fellow's shoes for failure to use their
imaginations.
5.
Some derive imaginative exercise from devising practical
jokes; but too seldom do these pranksters foresee the harm
they may do their victims.
Richard J. Peabody has made a study of pranks, both
innocent and pernicious. He favorably cites the case of the
architect who set out to reform his alcoholic friends. As part
of his home, he constructed an "upside down" room, with
flooring nailed to the ceiling and with chairs and tables
fastened to that. Into that delirious chamber, sleeping drunks
were carried; when they awoke, they felt inclined to think
well of the W.C.T.U.
As a" despicable example, Mr. Peabody tells about the
"joker* who, during the kst World War, published want ads
begging cat owners to turn in their pets at a specified Post
Office on the plea that mousers were needed to kill rats in
153
camps of American prisoners in Germany. Over 5000 patriotic
cat owners were thus hoaxed.
Isn't it strange that anyone with enough imagination to
invent that hocus-pocus would fail to forefeel the pangs of
those defrauded cat lovers would fail to think twice before
setting that trap?
6.
A major use of imagination is to see ourselves as others
see us. Many a person has run into a dead-end because of
failure to do just that One outstanding case I observed first-
hand was that of a man who was blindly obsessed with his
own omniscience. By all the logic of seniority he should ulti-
mately have headed the great manufacturing company in
which he had worked hard for 30 years. But he was passed
over when the president died, and an outsider was hired
instead.
"Have you ever seen a man throw his weight around and
try to make you feel small?'* asked Henry J. Taylor. "If so,
don't get angry. Pity that person. He has no imagination."
Taylor cited a minor executive who, when promoted,
promptly developed a big head. When his associates sensed
this, they no longer tried to help him. His progress was
stopped.
Most of our "boy wonders" rise to the heights too soon, get
dizzy, and fall back. Adulation blinds them so that they fail
to see themselves as others see them. On the other hand, "slow
burners" who plod through their early years and blossom at
mid-life they have to watch their step all the way. They
form the habit of seeing themselves in a truer light, and of
putting themselves into the shoes of all with whom they work.
Women readers won't like this, but they might ask them-
selves : "Do I see myself as others see me or only as my mirror
shows me?" For instance, do girls who pile on too much lip-
154
stick ever wonder how they look to men? That* s a mild hint
compared to Robert Ruark's tirade:
'"Each year, when the mistletoe season sneaks closer, I find
somehow that the old man's heart isn't in it. Time was when
you could snatch a bundle of dry goods up in your arms, plas-
ter your lips on hers, and feel mildly exhilarated, as though
you had just snatched a kiss from a woman. No more. Any
time I purloin a peck in a dark parlor, I am kissing no woman.
I feel I am kissing Batten, Barton, Durstine & Osborn. . . t
It kills my romantic yen to think that I am going to
chew through a half inch of Cherry, Cinnamon Stick, Bar-
berry, Apple Red, Turkey Red, Raspberry, Pimento or Red
Burgundy."
There's hardly a waking minute when we are not called
upon to use imagination vicariously. By constantly trying to
change shoes we can grow creatively. But for a more active
exercise instead of passively applying the golden rule we
might make ourselves "go over to the other side/' as the next
chapter will explain.
Chapter x 7
"CASTING BREAD" can flex
our creative sinews
BY PUTTING THE golden rule into action, we practice
what psychology calls empathy "the imaginative pro-
jection of one's own consciousness into another being." This
should call for thinking up things to do for the other fellow
and doing them, thus bringing into play not merely vicarious
imagination but also creativity.
Even tying the other fellow's shoelace can be good exer-
cise. And such services can be fun, as Fred B. Barton con-
tinually proves. Before visiting a friend's home he thinks up
some little favor he can perform while there. On a recent
stay at our house with his own screwdriver and can of oil-
he put to right about a dozen of our squeaky and wobbly
doorknobs and locks. Another friend, Fred Waring, heals so
many little ills that he is known as "Doc." His specialty is
removing cinders from eyes an operation he performs with
a handkerchief and matchstick.
Such trivia, of course, serve merely to make our relations
more pleasant. When applied to more serious ends, however,
little acts empowered by empathy and persistently carried
on can almost move mountains as James Keller proved in
his book about the Christophers, You Can Change the
World
155
156
David Dunn, in Try Giving Yourself Away, quotes a New
Englander as saying: "It takes courage to give a small portion
of yourself in lieu of some obviously valuable article. But a
lively imagination made it possible for me to perceive a great
many ways in which I might 'spend myself/ instead of the
cash I lacked."
Dunn points out how such spending usually turns out to
be investing "provided you give away with no thought of
reward." Nor should we expect immediate dividends. "Cast
thy bread upon the waters; for thou shalt find it after many
days." And this often means many months or even years.
As I look back over my own life, I can testify that almost
every good break in my career came from trying to tie some-
one else's shoelace. Oh, how I wish I could convince young
cynics that he who serves unselfishly gets further in the long
run. The healthier our imagination, the surer we are to sense
this truth.
s.
Courtesy can be a vacuous thank-you or a conscious
course of action. My friend Harry Lehman, head of a large
company, advocates "Courtesy Always." He continually urges
his supervisors to give a helping hand to new workers, to
welcome back warmly those who have been away and ill, to
extend hearty congratulations for jobs well done.
"No matter how busy we are, we owe it to ourselves and
to those with whom we work to make certain that courtesy is
a first order of business at all times." This is Harry's creed,
and he personally practices it with all his might
Ben Duffy, who went from office boy to president of our
company, is another exemplar. He insists that all his associates
show the same courtesy to salesmen and job-seekers as to
paying clients. He believes, as Emerson did, that "Life is not
so short but that there is always time for courtesy/*
A large store recently put on an employee contest with
television sets as prizes for courtesy, the customers electing
the winners. This did much to inspire the store's staff to think
creatively on how to "pass over unto" the other side of the
counter.
Why not conduct a contest for customers, with the store's
employees as the judges? There is certainly room for more
courtesy on the part of the public toward salespeople. Recent
surveys have shown up the three main ways in which we
shoppers act boorishly: (1) We fail to express appreciation
for extra effort. (2) We take our personal peeves out on the
salespeople. (3) We insist on being waited upon out of turn.
My youngest daughter recently made me feel proud. She
knitted a sweater, and turned it over to a woman for block-
inga woman who worked all day and, for added income,
blocked sweaters at night. My teen-ager not only paid her
regular charge, but wrote a note of appreciation. That
woman talked of that act of courtesy for weeks and weeks.
Active courtesy, even when conventional, can help keep
our imaginations aglow. But to think up extra and unusual
ways to express appreciation that can be creative exercise of
a high order.
4.
Said George Matthew Adams: "He who praises another
enriches himself far more than he enriches the one praised."
And from the standpoint of creative exercise, when we go
out of the way to praise when we try to think up surprising
ways to do so we help tone up our imaginative muscles.
If bosses would only put on their subordinates' shoes, they
would be more inclined toward laudation. Thank heavens,
some companies believe in this to the point of systematically
slapping associates on the back. My hat is off to General Mills
158
and its Vice-president Samuel Gale, who officially pins a rose
on some member of his staff almost every day.
If we parents want to develop creative power in our chil-
dren, we should seek opportunities to praise them for what-
ever they do along creative lines. In my case, I still recall
how, as a little boy, my father inspired me by raving about
a gadget I had invented and had tried to make with my own
hands.
% But it's not too easy to praise, as Dorothy Blake pointed
out: "We often seem so self-conscious and fearful in express-
ing words of praise or affection so afraid that we might be
called sentimental or gushing that we hold in tight reserve
the pieces of our minds that could do a world of good in
human relations."
While walking home one evening, I was fascinated by a
window display in a flower shop. So I went in and asked who
had created that gem. The florist pointed to a young man at
work potting plants. I went over to him and said: "Wow!
that's a wonderful window. I understand that you did it. I
stopped in to congratulate you." He glared at me. He seemed
sure I was trying to sell him a brass brick. I felt like turning
on my heel, but I stopped and finally convinced him of my
sincerity.
A slap in the face in exchange for a slap on the back is
such a rare exception that it should not discourage us. What
we really ought to do would be to give ourselves a daily .stint
of thinking up something to praise, and in some unexpected
way. Just trying to hit upon such an idea every day would be
good creative practice.
5.
Christmas is a training season for the game of thinking up.
To choose the right gifts, we not only must change shoes with
those to whom we give, but must conjure up countless al-
ternatives.
159
Let's try to think up something surprisingly unexpected
as well as pat, as did Mrs. Harry Payne when choosing a
Christmas present for her husband. She knew that, with all
his abilities, he lacked self-confidence. So her gift to Harry
was a course in public speaking.
Instead of presenting that to him in a conventional way,
she arranged that on Christmas morning Harry would find
among his presents a personal letter from Dale Carnegie,
announcing that Mrs. Payne had bought the course for him.
Dale's pen-written postscript said: "I will look forward to
seeing you on January 11.*
That it is not the money but the imagination which makes
a gift is especially true when it comes to our little ones. I
know of one tot who, on Christmas morning, received a $100
train, including a locomotive with a bell that rang and a stack
that smoked. He passed that by and dashed avidly toward
two other gifts he had espied under the treea make-believe
electric razor and a mechanical grasshopper that cost a
quarter.
Another five-year-old child, deep in expensive gifts on
Christmas morning, gleefully opened one after another to the
delight of his doting parents. Suddenly he stopped, looked
up at his dad and asked, "What happened to that rubber ball
on a string I got for my birthday? I want that."
Shopping calls for judgment and imagination. An ex-
treme case in point was confessed to me by my friend George
Eager, promotion manager of The Bulletin in Philadelphia.
Last Christmas he sought a suit of pajamas for his wife.
Pressed for time, he went to Wanamaker's, only to find the
store too packed with women for him to get attention. So he
thought up a crazy stunt. He whispered to a saleswoman, "I
want your help in picking out a suit of pajamas for a beauti-
ful girl not for my wife." That whisper turned the trick.
When we make our own Christmas gifts, we exercise
imagination far more than when we buy them. Mrs. Esther
de Forest told me that the presents which she and her chil-
160
dren give to some 20 people every year are designed by her
and hand-made in every case. What a creative hothouse her
home must be!
Thinking up tokens to take the place of gifts can likewise
tax imagination. Short of cash one year, Ernestine Evans con-
ceived the plan of giving I.O.U/s for Christmas. One note
promised "one party" to a couple who lived in a hotel. To a
friend still in Vassar her I.O.U. read: "Do you want my flat
for a week end in February? You can bring three of your
friends. I shall be away, and the refrigerator will be
full"
A 12-year-old boy in our neighborhood has been saving
up for a man-size sailboat. He needs about $1000 more. His
seven-year-old brother pondered this problem last Christmas.
All on his own he thought up an appropriate gift a rope,
with which his big brother could tie his yacht to the dock.
This is the kind of ingenuity that makes a creative calisthenic
out of Christmas.
Even municipalities can think up little gifts surprising
enough to make them seem big. During the week before
Christmas, those who violated the parking laws of East
Orange, New Jersey, received a greeting instead of a police
ticket a cordial note saying that the patrolman on duty had
inserted a nickel in the parking meter. The message ended:
"Come always to East Orange. Merry Christmas/'
6.
How about gifts at other times? How about stretching our
imaginations to put surprise into them? How about a new
twist in timing, for instance?
Lieutenant Guy Hairston, Jr., had completed 106 jet
missions over Korea had won nine medals for bravery. He
had hoped to be home by Christmas, but he arrived on
February 10. He came to a house decorated with holly and
mistletoe-into a living room radiant with a lighted Christinas
161
tree. While his father and mother looked on, he sat on the
floor beside a mechanical Santa Glaus which played Jingle
Bells, and opened his "Christmas" gifts. After the flier re-
turned to Korea, a reporter asked his parents what their
neighbors thought about their changing the date of Christ-
mas. "Everyone thought we were crazy/* the Hairstons
laughed. "But he liked it"
Even gifts of flowers can be timed imaginatively. My
friend Birge Kinne sends flowers after a funeral usually on
a Sunday, a week or so later. I saw a note the widow of an
old pal sent to him:
"You know, of course, that Joe was buried last Wednes-
day. Today is Sunday and it is my toughest day. I couldn't
imagine who was ringing the doorbell this morning. It turned
out to be the florist's son, with that lovely bouquet from you.
I went to church. It was terrible to sit in our pew without
Joe. When I came back I dreaded coming into the house, but
I made it and what a difference it meant to have those two
dozen roses of yours smiling at me from the top of our
piano.'*
Going-away presents are likewise a challenge to imagina-
tion. My daughter Joan and her husband were about to
drive their young children from Buffalo to Tennessee to show
them to their grandmother. As they pulled out of their garage
that morning, Mrs. William Oliver stopped them and gave
them a big paper bag containing 12 packages one to be
opened each morning for the four-year-old, and one to be
opened each morning for the two-year-old, while en route.
Can you imagine anything else that could have meant so
much to that mother on that trip?
When we fail to put imagination into our gifts, we can fall
flat on our faces, as I did some years ago when a young woman
on our staff became engaged to a wealthy client of ours*
Thinking of what my own daughters might like, I bought her
an electric sewing machine. "You ought to know," she angrily
told me, "that I have been making my own living and my
162
own dresses all my life, and that when I get married I will
never sew another stitch. The last thing I want is a sewing
machine."
In contrast, I cite a Japanese whom General MacArthur
and many others regarded as the "Grand Old Man of Japan,"
Aisaku Hayashi by name. A Christian, he wanted his race to
emulate Americans. So when my last book came out, he spent
12 months translating it for his people.
A year later I dined at the home of J. P. McEvoy, who
had just returned from Japan, and he handed me a package
he had brought from Tokyo a present for me from Mr.
Hayashi. And what a present! a kakemono. With it, a long-
hand letter explained: "Please accept this with my best wishes
as a memento from my country. This hanging scroll was
painted for me in 1910 by Koson Mochizuki. Chinese writing
on the side may roughly be rendered: 'Day's Long Mountains
Peaceful' *
Even continuing programs of giving can be thought up.
Mrs. Walter Monday of Mt Washington, Ohio, worked up
a gift exchange. Here's her story: "A friend and I live a great
distance from each other. As we have been friends from child-
hood, we are familiar with each other's tastes; so we each
keep a "special gift' shopping bag, with the other's name
labeled on it, hanging in our respective closets. Into this bag
go recipes the other might like, toys, pieces of clothing out-
grown by one's own children but suitable for the other's,
premium coupons the other is saving, new pieces to be added
to the other's hobby collections, magazines with articles of
particular interest Thus periodically we exchange shopping
bags as eagerly as children exchange gifts on Christmas."
It has been my good luck to be the recipient of surprises
on my birthday. Each year, for 30 years, I received from
Alexander Woollcott on May 24 an out-of-the-ordinary greet-
ing. The one I remember best was a cable he sent me from
China, saying: "I am the only elephant in Asia who never
forgets."
163
Another friend who comes through with an idea each year
to enliven my birthday is Girard Hammond. With a surpris-
ingly appropriate present, he always includes a note on the
stationery of a company for which we both worked in 1926
a firm whose name was changed in 1928, I hope I live long
enough for him to use up on me the stock of obsolete letter-
heads he has hoarded.
7.
The ultimate in shoe-changing calls for taking ourselves
out of our well-heeled shoes and putting ourselves into the
broken shoes of the less fortunate. This calls for the utmost in
empathy.
Charity means love rather than handouts. Free doughnuts
and coffee were not what built the Salvation Army into the
hearts of millions, Its real appeal has been its feeling for the
underdog, as summed up in the slogan coined by Bruce
Barton: "A man may be down but never out"
Putting oneself into the shoes of the less fortunate is the
secret of Alcoholics Anonymous. What a shining example of
altruism this organization is and what a tribute to man's
power of imagination.
Over the years, all the medicines, religions, and "cures"
had succeeded in rehabilitating less than four per cent of the
alcoholics. But, by changing places with other victims, A.A.
members are putting on their feet for good about 50 per cent
of those who seek their help.
To drop a dime into a blind man's cup calls for far less
imagination than to pay something toward the support of an
institution which is helping blind people in real ways, such as
teaching them new trades. When asked to give to that Blind
Institute, not directly, but through our Community Chest, we
need to think even more creatively to foresee what would
happen to all the chest-financed causes if we all failed to do
our part to foresee the chaos which might come to our com-
164
munity if it liad no federated fund, and if every cause cam-
paigned for its own financial needs.
Personal excursions in do-goodery can sometimes fall flat
for lack of facts to guide us as Clarence Davis and I found
out one Christmas many years ago. Led solely by impulse, we
delivered a huge basket of fruit to the home of a woman who
was rumored to be in want. We rang the doorbell. She opened
the door. We sweetly told her of our mission. She angrily told
us off, and slammed the door in our faces.
Some personal benevolences, however, can be quite
sound. One such was thought up by a schoolteacher, Mrs.
Muriel Soule. Her new plan started with Cyril, a seemingly
bright pupil, but listless. Mrs. Soule found the facts: His
mother was a widow and worked nights as a telephone oper-
ator. The boy took care of his brother of six and his sister of
four.
Cyril's overcoat was threadbare. Mrs. Soule told him: "Ask
your mother if she would let me give you a wanner coat
Explain to her that as a teacher I have friends whose boys
have outgrown their clothes." A grateful "yes" came back to
Mrs* Soule; and thus she set herself up as a one-woman cloth-
ing exchange not only for the needy boys and girls in her
class, but for their little brothers and sisters as well.
It's relatively easy for any of us to put ourselves into
others* shoes, or even to practice empathy. The extent to
which we do so depends upon our intelligence, upon our
will, and upon a somewhat simple use of imagination by way
of thinking up what-elses, how-elses and other such alterna-
tives.
Being about to consider tougher creative tasks, let us now
scan the mental procedure applicable to pr o&fems-problems
which require a more thorough search for solutions.
Chapter O
PROBLEM SOLVING-
the best of all creative exercises
SINCE THE NEXT few chapters will deal with problems,
at home and on the job, let's now consider how creativity
works when thoroughly applied.
Although physical facts axe easier to nail down than
psychic facts, nobody yet knows exactly how babies are
born. No wonder, then, that we are still at sea as to exactly
how ideas are born. Perhaps neither of these mystic processes
will ever be fully comprehended.
About 50 years ago, Henri Poincar6 set forth the mental
processes of mathematical creation. He could do that quite
precisely, compared to what anyone can do in regard to non-
mathematical problems for the reason that Poincare dealt
with elements which were tangible and constant, rather than
intangible and variable.
The more I study and practice creativity, the surer I feel
that its process is necessarily a stop-and-go, a catch-as-catch-
can, a ring-around-the-rosie; and the more I doubt whether
it can ever be "exact" enough to rate as scientific. The most
we can honestly say is that it usually includes some or all of
these phases:
1. Orientation: Picking out and pointing up the problem.
2. Preparation: Gathering material relevant to the prob-
lem.
3. Analysis: Breaking down the relevant material*
165
166
4. Hypothesis: Piling up alternatives by way of tentative
ideas.
5. Incubation: Letting up in order to invite illumination.
6. Synthesis: Putting the pieces together.
7. Verification: Judging the resultant ideas.
In actual practice, we can follow no such one-two-three
sequence. We may start our guessing even while preparing.
Analysis may lead us straight to the solution. After incuba-
tion, We may again go digging for facts which, at the start,
we did not know we needed. And, of course, we might bring
verification to bear on our hypotheses, thus to cull our "wild
stabs" and proceed with only the likeliest.
All along the way we must change pace. We push and
then coast, and then push. By driving our conscious minds in
search, of additional facts and hypotheses, we develop a
psychic force a concentration of thought and feeling strong
enough to accelerate our automatic pump of association, and
make it well up still more ideas. Thus through strenuous
effort we indirectly induce "idle" illumination.
The ideal mind is that which can create as well as evalu-
atecan even judge its own brain-children. Criticism goes
with idea-production, but only if kept in its place. If pre-
mature, it tends to deaden our creative drive. By and large,
judgment should be stalled until we reach the stage of verifi-
cation.
2.
Preparation, normally the first step in a creative process,
calls for two kinds of knowledge that which we have pre-
viously stored and that which we gather anew to bear upon
our creative problem.
Memory serves as a supply tank. The octane of its fuel
depends on how we have taken it in. Whatever we have
gained by active striving and firsthand experience is far
richer than that which we store through idle spectating, list-
less reading, and empty chatter.
167
It takes imagination to think up just what new knowledge
to seek; and we can often guide our research better if we first
think up hypotheses. Moreover, in our very digging for data
we often unearth ideas.
Then, of course, we should analyze our relevant material
And in picking our data to pieces we should look for factors
of similarity, for these may reveal a pattern and lead us to a
framework.
We must also analyze the problem itself. As Charles F.
Kettering explained, "The process of research is to pull the
problem apart into its different elements, a great many of
which you already know about. When you get it pulled apart,
you can work on the things you don't know about"
Questions can be keys to the right kind of analysis. For
instance, if asked to dream up a new outside sign for our
church, we might start by writing down headings like these:
Purpose? Location? Design? Material? Illumination? Letter-
ing? Erection? Under each of these we might spell out sub-
questions. For example as to purpose, should it be: 1. To re-
mind parishioners of services? 2. To attract visitors? 3* To
build goodwill?
All told we would thus list about 30 points which would
clarify our objective, indicate data to be sought, and help us
get further faster with our creative thinking.
More complex problems should be broken down into
their components in order that we.may aim at simpler targets.
For example: If upset over her husband's morals, a wife
would face the basic problem of "How can I make him a bet-
ter man?" But that covers too much ground for creative
attack. She might better start by making a list of influences
which corrupt him., and another list of influences which
might reform him. She could then single out her targets, such
as: "How can I get him to attend church with me?"
According to Warren W. Coxe, New York State's Director
of Educational Research, "We need far more work on analysis
of problems than on collection of data. We need not only to
168
analyze the problems, but to arrive at some hypothesis as to
what the solution may be, even before we gather our data."
3.
When piling up hypotheses, we should go the limit. Obvi-
ously, the more ideas we accumulate, the better our chance
of hitting upon the right ones. Quantity may thus insure
quality, as was brought out by Dr. J. P. Guilf ord, President
of the American Psychological Association: "The person who
is capable of producing a large number of ideas per unit of
time, other things being equal, has a greater chance of hav-
ing significant ideas."
By asking ourselves "else" questions we can pile up
quantities of ore by way of hypotheses, out of which we can
refine gold in the form of solutions. "What-else" "where-
else,* "wherhelsQ" "how-else" "who-else" "why-else -all
these "elses" are helpful. And so are the "what-ifs." By fore-
seeing contingencies, we can add to our "elses."
When we hunt hypotheses we should ride our minds afar
a fact illustrated by an experience related to me by a New
York doctor of high standing. As a young practitioner, he
treated a patient for yellow Jaundice over a period of three
years. He failed-not through lack of medical knowledge but
through paucity of hypotheses. He overlooked the possibility
that his patient might be a Chinese, which, in fact, was what
he turned out to be.
Here are a few guides to the kinds of self-interrogation
which can lead to ideas:
Put; to other uses? New ways to use as is? Other uses if
modified?
Adapt? What else is like this? What other idea does this
suggest? Does past offer parallel? What could I copy? Whom
could I emulate?
Modify? New twist? Change meaning, color, motion,
sound, odor, form, shape? Other changes?
169
Magnify? What to add? More time? Greater frequency?
Stronger? Higher? Longer? Thicker? Extra value? Plus in-
gredient? Duplicate? Multiply? Exaggerate?
Minify? What to subtract? Smaller? Condensed? Minia-
ture? Lower? Shorter? Lighter? Omit? Streamline? Split up?
Understate?
Substitute? Who else instead? What else instead? Other
ingredient? Other material? Other process? Other power?
Other place? Other approach? Other tone of voice?
Re-arrange? Interchange components? Other pattern?
Other layout? Other sequence? Transpose cause and effect?
Change pace? Change schedule?
Reverse? Transpose positive and negative? How about
opposites? Turn it backward? Turn it upside down? Reverse
roles? Change shoes? Turn tables? Turn other cheek?
Combine? How about a blend, an alloy, an assortment,
an ensemble? Combine units? Combine purposes? Combine
appeals? Combine ideas?
Quite a few people now use that list for priming their
mental pumps. A manufacturer privately printed 375 copies
for his supervisory associates to keep on top of their desks.
Bonnie Driscoll told me how she had applieid that same self-
quiz:
"About to produce a Fashion Show at the Waldorf
Astoria, I tried in vain for nearly a month to line up the
needed ideas. Then I started to ask myself that list of ques-
tions. Within two hours I had 28 ideas 28 in two hours after
three weeks of no ideas at all."
It goes without saying that hunting for hypotheses is an
exercise which can do much to make us more creative.
4.
To open our minds to stray ideas we occasionally ease up
and make way for that phase of the creative process which
is known as incubation, the mystic quality of which has im-
170
pressed many authors. Some of them refer to it as "illumina-
tion^ others as "inspiration." E. D. Hutchinson described
it as "the phenomenon of insight/' Theodor Reik called it
listening with the third ear." Don Herold dubbed it "the fine
art of beneficial floating.'*
Henry James made much of the "deep well of unconscious
cerebration," Emerson took time out each day for "meditating
quietly before brooks." Shakespeare called incubation "the
spell in which imagination bodies forth the forms of things
unknown." Somerset Maugham wrote, "Reverie is the ground-
work of creative imagination."
Even science recognizes the value of incubation's flashes.
Dr. Walter B. Cannon of Harvard, after 40 years in physio-
logical research, wrote in his *foook entitled The Role of
Hunches: "From the years of my youth, the unearned assist-
ance of sudden and unpredicted insight has been common."
He investigated the creative habits of 232 high-standing
chemists and found that over a third of them gave credit to
hunches.
The mystery of incubation is partly explained by our
power of association, which automatically links words or ideas
with other words or ideas. Ancient Greece gave us the three
kws which govern this phenomenon: contiguity, similarity,
and contrast.
We should allow plenty of time for incubation, and
should let ourselves loose even playfully so. In describing
his periods of illumination, Mark Twain wrote: "I use the
meridians of longitude and parallels of latitude for a seine,
and drag the Atlantic Ocean for whales. I scratch my head
with the lightning and purr myself to sleep with the thunder."
At other times, however, we might purposely run our
reveries. Tom Dreier, conservative New Englander, once told
me: "Before going to see a prospect I have sat in a chair
and imagined my way through the sales problem from tibe
first contact to a successful finish." Guided imagining thus
helped him win clients,
171
As the story goes, Raphael, employed to paint a picture on
a chapel wall, annoyed the monks of the monastery by idling
for three whole days, just gazing at the blank space. But
Raphael knew that such "lolling" helped him open the win-
dows of his mind for what Masefield later called "butterflies,"
a term for stray ideas.
Beardsley Ruml, the "national idea man," locks himself
up for at least an hour a day and does nothing but muse. He
describes this kind of brown study as "a state of dispersed
attention." Incidentally, he ardently believes in man's ability
to turn on his creative faucet at will. While a professor at
Chicago University, he once challenged President Robert
Hutchins with: "If you can't give me a new idea in the next
15 minutes, you're fired."
Even inspiration can be courted, and one way to do this
is to take a walk. Since the days of Thoreau, hiking has often
helped to woo ideas.
After a Thanksgiving dinner at the home of my daughter
in Syracuse, I took a stroll in the rain. The community struck
me as a cross-section of America. Out of that thought came
the idea of establishing a consumer-research panel of 1000
families in that city, an insignificant inspiration which turned
out to be a fruitful idea for my company.
We can even let our imagination work while motoring.
So hopeful am I that good ideas may come floating through
my car windows, I drive with a yellow pad alongside me. Per-
haps I should be arrested for this; but the reverse happened
on my way home one evening.
A cop barked: "Pull over!"
"You've got me!" I winced. "My only excuse for passing
that stop sign is that I was talking to Tommy Loughran at the
time."
"Don't try to kid me! You're alone. What do you mean,
you were talking to our old light-heavyweight champion?"
I explained: "Last night I went with him to a studio
where lie had a spot on television. Just as I was turning that
172
corner I was telling Tommy about an idea I had just cooked
up for a half -hour show of his own,"
The officer believed me. Tommy was an old hero of his.
So off I went scot-free.
Sleep often helps us to hatch out ideas. Jack Lacy, na-
tionally known sales trainer, told me that just before his bed-
time he concentrates on something he has been trying to work
out during the day. "By doing this, I often find myself waking
up in the night with some clear and good ideas/*
"Soak!" That's Don Herold's prescription for creative in-
cubation. He claims that we can never think up as well in
showers as in tubs. Joseph Conrad habitually took to his bath
for his spells of illumination. On the other hand, Shelley
found that by floating paper boats in his tub he could best
court his muse.
Shaving is a proverbial inducer of ideas. Composer
Brahms, however, claimed that his best musical flashes came
to hfrn. while shining his shoes.
Whitney Williams made a study of what Hollywood
writers do for inspiration. Script-writer Herbert Baker turns
to the piano and improvises while waiting for new ideas to
come his way. Dorothy Kingsley meditates in a church across
the street from her studio. Mildred Gordon, who co-authors
with her husband, woos her muse by going out and buying
a new hat "Her spouse sometimes figures it would be cheaper
if she were to abandon writing entirely, since she rapidly is
building up a chapeau inventory which makes Hedda Hop-
per's pale into insignificance," Whitney Williams wrote.
Edward Streeter believes that incubation needs nudging.
He told me: "The stream of ideas flows continuously during
aH our waking hours, and along this stream priceless ideas
are passing. The thing to do is to try to catch them as they
go by. We should make a rough note of every idea just as
soon as it occurs to us, regardless of where we are. Somehow
or other the very doing of this seems to stimulate kindred
ideas."
173
A most ingenious method of memo-making is used by a
New York lawyer. He always carries a pack of government
postcards, addressed to himself. Whenever an idea hits him
whether on the subway or in the bathroom he jots it down
on one of the cards and sticks it in the mail.
As to other phases of the creative process, synthesis puts
together the pieces of the puzzle. If we prepare adequately,
set our aim correctly, and marshall enough hypotheses, syn-
thesis may come at any stage even during incubation.
Verification calls for realism. As Luigi Galvani warned,
"It is easy to deceive oneself into believing that he has found
just that which he had set out to discover/*
When applying our own judgment we might well analyze
our solution by setting down on paper all of its pros and cons.
And, of course, we should also enlist the judgment of others.
The surest method of verification, however, is to put our
ideas to test. And to think up the best way to test is a creative
exercise of itself.
5.
The creative process calls for intellectual effort, or emo-
tional drive, or both. When impassioned by hunger, fear, hate
or love, our fervor is self-starting and automatic. Normally,
however, we must gird our creativity with determination.
Writers recognize as "rhythms of creativity'* the ups and
downs of their power to produce. Since each person's talent
is the same from day to day, those cycles must be solely
cycles of energy a fact which helps prove how dependent
upon our drive our creativity can be.
Effort even has its place in association of ideas, according
to Dorothy Sayers. She put these words into the mouth of
her Lord Peter Wimsey: "If ever you want to commit a
murder, the thing you've got to do is prevent people from
associatin' their ideas. Most people don't associate anythin*
their ideas just roll about like so many dry peas on a tray,
makin* a lot of noise and goin' nowhere; but once you begptn
174
lettin* 'em string their peas into a necklace, it's goin* to be
strong enough to hang you, what?"
That kind of stringing together is what Graham Wallas
hailed as "correlation." This calls for scanning the little ideas
which well up into our minds and scrutinizing them for like-
nesses. By such conscious thinking we can supplement the
automatic power of our associationism.
The wife of a lawyer friend of mine was prone to nag him
for just sitting and thinking during the evening. "Why don't
you do something?* was her wail. After he had won his most
lucrative case, he gently chided her: "I hope you can under-
stand now that when I am sitting here of an evening, and
seem to be daydreaming, I am really doing my hardest and
most profitable work."
To run our reveries instead of letting our reveries run us
is not so easy, as an authoress I know found out: "I once tried
to keep trade of the things my mind touched upon when left
to its own devices while I ironed one shirt. I lost count. My
mind roamed like a drunkard and got nowhere. I have to
lasso, hog-tie, and sit on my thought-processes to get anything
out of my mental meandering. I believe that exercises in
imagination should include exercises in concentration itself ."
Said Emerson: The hardest task in the world is to think."
Jefferson Machamer went further in a cartoon of his which
showed one teen-ager saying to another, "I bet I waste two
or three hours a day just thinking, and Tm going to cut it out."
A Swiss meticulously recorded his 80 years, and calculated
that he had spent 26 years in bed, and 21 years at labor. Eat-
ing took him six years. He was angry nearly six years. He
wasted more than five years waiting for tardy people. Shav-
ing occupied 228 days, scolding his children took 26 days,
tying his neckties 18 days, blowing his nose 13 days, lighting
his pipe 12 days. He laughed for only 46 hours in all his life.
He recorded no time spent on thinking, in all those 80 years.
General Lauris Norstad is rated by many as the creative
brain of our Air Force. Justice Felix Frankfurter chided him:
175
"You are just another executive. If you were a success you
would devote only three or four hours a day to being an
executive and the rest of the time to thinking."
A simple device by which to get going creatively is to set
a time and place. My author friends tell me that they find it
best to collar themselves at a set hour each day and chain
themselves to their typewriters.
But we need a pay-off as well as a date. So, let's set dead-
lines. Let's give LO.U/s. By committing ourselves in that way
we tend to add emotional drive to our creative effort
Quotas can also help us stretch our imaginations. Suppose
we set ourselves a stint of only 10 ideas. Having thought those
up, we are apt to find ourselves in stride, and likely to run on
to many more ideas. We can nudge that kind of momentum
by using a pair of wonderful gadgets, commonly known as
pencil and pad.
6.
Another way to induce creative drive is to team up. Col-
laboration tends to keep us on our imaginative toes, and also
to spur our automatic power of association. On this latter
point, Thomas Carlyle said: "The lightning-spark of thought,
generated in the solitary mind, awakens its likeness in another
mind." This contagion between mentalities has been called
"chain reaction" by Dr. Albert Butzer.
Yes, two heads are better than one for creative thinking.
Many of our most brilliant discoveries have come from mar-
ried couples working together, and from the teaming up of
men with men, and women with women.
One of the shortcomings of business is its failure to take
advantage of the fact that even groups can think creatively.
Although nearly every company has conferences galore, most
of these sessions put a premium on judicial thinking, and ac-
cordingly penalize creative thinking.
Strictly creative conferences have proved highly produc-
176
tive in countless cases. In such brainstorming huddles a prob-
lem is posed, and all present are urged to come up with
ideas for its solution nothing but ideas, even the zaniest
The only thing barred is criticism. Verification is deferred
until after imagination has had its full fling.
A bridge group or church group might well devote an oc-
casional evening to that kind of idea practice. David Beetle
is president of an outing club. He and his fellow officers had
always thought up the plans for excursions. "This year/' he
told me, "we sliced up our membership into 10 committees,
and got each group to think up ideas. This has worked out
sweU. We have more and better plans than ever before. And
what fun these 10 committees have had not to mention the
good they got out of limbering up their imaginations/'
A girls' school, about to celebrate its centennial, selected
my wife to head a planning committee. She invited its mem-
bers to lunch and asked them to spend an hour thinking up
together. They developed over 100 ideas. That evening, two
of the women 'phoned Mrs. Osborn to report still other sug-
gestions.
Mrs. Colin Douglas, of New York City, has started a
Matties Anonymous." Under her leadership, groups of peo-
ple weighing upward of 200 have been organized to discuss
causes of obesity, and to think up ways to reduce.
A Chicago lawyer named Samuel Starr, veteran of over
8000 divorce cases, has established "Divorcees Anonymous"
a panel of divorcees brought together to think with him on
how to steer couples away from marital rocks. These 100 con-
ferees, because of their own experience, can often suggest
workable plans for reconciliation before too late. According
to the Chicago Daily News, this creative clinic has been
salvaging marriages at the rate of more than one a day.
Those women are doing something for their troubled
sisters, and at the same time building up their minds. By
thinking creatively in a group, they vigorously exercise their
imaginations.
177
7.
Since creative thinking calls for emotional drive, it should
be kept free from emotional blocks such as timidity. This
handicap sometimes stems from false dignity the fear of
looking foolish. More often its cause is honest skepticism as
to one's ability to think up anything worth while. Here is
where we should heed Shakespeare's warning: "Our doubts
are traitors, and make us lose die good we oft might win, by
fearing to attempt."
Akin to timidity is failure-phobia the dread of venturing
and losing. In the arena of ideas, we have to laugh off our
knockdowns we have to turn our knockouts into come-
backs.
Another block is perfectionism a virtue which when car-
ried to excess can hamstring imagination. All of us have to
beware of this because creative energies thrive on self-en-
couragement and whatever we do to discourage ourselves
blights our creativity by killing our effort.
What positive things can we do to condition ourselves
creatively? First of all, let's open our minds, let's make our-
selves mentally outreaching. Let's encourage our curiosity
and even try to activate it to the limit
And let's cultivate audacity as well as curiosity. Let's
steel ourselves to risk ridicule. Said Robert Louis Stevenson,
"Give me the young man who has brains enough to make a
fool of himself.''
Professional inventor Dr. C. W. Fuller recommends hitch-
ing one's imagination to a star. "Enthusiasm," said he, "is the
fuel which fires the imagination; and enthusiasm rises highest
when we make the sky the limit. We should let our imagina-
tion run riot then gradually harness it to an idea which seems
worthwhile, working from the general to the specific. In this
way, creative thinking becomes fascinating and develops a
pleasant habit which grows and grows with use."
Chapter 19
MARITAL PROBLEMS-
let's tackle them creatively
MARRIAGE IS a creative challenge. As Ian Maclaren
pointed out, "we sin against our dearest, not because we
do not love, but because we do not imagine"
America's marital record shows that two out of three mat-
ings last a lifetime. On the other hand, Dr. Clifford R. Adams
made a 10-year study and found that only 17 per cent of mar-
ried people are really happy with each other. The content-
ment of the other 83 per cent could certainly be improved by
more creative thinking.
Two people dear to me wrecked their lives through failure
to put themselves into each other's shoes. When the husband
was stricken with arthritis, the exuberantly healthy wife let
her imagination lapse to the point where she even ridiculed
his sufferings.
Years later the divorced husband told me: "After a night
of agony I arose one morning to find that I could not stand
on my feet. I was sitting on my bed, painfully trying to pull
on my shoes when she came into my room. She laughed at
my plight. That tore itl"
"Kiss-and-make-up" may work fine at first but often later
runs up against the law of diminishing returns. A far better
rule is to loss and think up think up ways of avoiding the
clashes which would otherwise call for making up. That kind
179
180
of imaginative exercise helps us not only to safeguard our
happiness, but also to build up our minds.
2.
A recent song-hit, "Use Your Imagination/* features the
theme: "Every day will be a perfect dream/' meaning mar-
riage. Such sophistry misguides many boys and girls who,
having observed their own parents, should know that mar-
riage can never be all nectar and caviar. If our youngsters
used their imaginations, they would project that knowledge
into a truer picture of what their own marriage would be
like.
One of the fallacies was recently pointed out by psycholo-
gist Laurence Gould: "The idea that there is just one 'right
person' for you is romantic nonsense. Its actual basis is
childish." Robertson Davies added: "Love, like ice cream, is
a beautiful thing, but nobody should regard it as adequate
provision for a long and adventurous journey.**
The first year is fraught with danger. During courtship we
warp our imaginations we see each other through rose-col-
ored glasses. Then we start living together and realism sets
in. Said marriage counselor Jacques Bacal: "I wish every
newly married couple could realize that conflict during the
first year of marriage is the rule, not the exception/'
Another authority on marriage, Dr. David R. Mace, has
urged: "We must kill the lie that marriage is a kind of emo-
tional Turkish bath in which two people recline in blissful
ease and let the world go by. Marriage does offer the joys
and fulfillments we yearn for, but these come as the reward
of work** And what is meant by "work"? What else could it
mean except working our minds creatively to keep clear of
the rocks which threaten every marital cruise? And such
thinking calls for effort. Every bride and groom should
know, in advance, this truth as set down by E. H. Young:
"Loving people is easy-but living with them isn*t/*
181
All thinkers will agree with Dr. Clifford R. Adams that
couples need more briefing before they near the altar. "Nearly
all jobs require training/' he wrote. "Special instruction or
practical experience and sometimes both is essential for
achievement in almost all fields. Yet for the one occupation
which sooner or later becomes the career of almost all
women that of housewifethere are no formal standards
of proficiency whatever . . . nor are men much better pre-
pared for their jobs as husbands."
More and more is being done to train people in marriage.
For example, my minister coaches each young couple to
expect the first year's clashes. He goes further he tells them
that by putting their creative heads together they can even
outwit fate.
Chicago's Catholic churches offer a four-session course in
marital preparation called "Pre-Cana Conference." These
briefings cover practical problems such as money, food, and
physical matters; but they major on the psychological aspects
of marriage.
French Quebec is served by over 100 high schools called
"Ecoles Menageres" which prepare girls for vocations, and
especially for wifehood. The French natives refer to these
institutions as "the schools of happy marriage.**
In the United States, Stephens College leads all others in
marital education. Less than one in 20 of its graduates has
been divorced, as against the national record of one in three.
Dr. Lloyd W. Rowland, director of Louisiana's Society
of Mental Health, is trying to teach "teeners" to learn about
love before they leap. The backbone of his campaign is a
series of superb pamphlets distributed to high-school girls
and boys throughout that State.
Marriage counseling clinics are on the march, with Rich-
mond, Virginia, in the van. Through that community's clinic,
betrothed people are trained to tackle their marital job, and
married people are shown how to unsnarl themselves. From
two to six interviews are usually enough to put such couples
182
back on the road to happiness. This service is largely sup-
ported by the Richmond Community Chest
All such training might well pay more attention to the
part that imagination can play in making our marriages pros-
per. Outsiders can help with their counsel, but there can be
no surer way to solve our day-to-day problems than for us
husbands and wives to use our creative minds. Only thus can
we foresee friction, generate ideas to prevent strife, think up
ways to restore amity, and set a positive course towards con-
sistent serenity.
3.
The minding of our marital tongues is a creative problem,
and a serious one. The Reverend John A. O'Brien of Notre
Dame has frequently stressed the fact that many marriages
are wrecked on verbal rocks. As counselor to couples he has
often saved them from divorce by having them kneel and
promise that, from then on, they will think twice before they
speak once.
The problem is one of listening as well as talking, I asked
a waiter at a New York hotel whether he wore his hearing
aid at home. "Yes," he said, "so I can make nay wife think I'm
listening when it's shut off."
A young husband sank into his favorite chair after his
evening meal to read his newspaper. Having washed the
dishes, his wife of six months sat down opposite him, pulled
out her knitting, and remarked:
"I went to see the doctor today."
He kept on reading. At long last, he abruptly looked up
and genially replied:
"Oh, you did? How is for
Timing is of vital importance. A daily crisis in married
life is the husband's homecoming. Bogged down by a day of
boring housework it is natural for a wife to start complaining
the minute her knight crosses the threshold. If she would but
183
exercise her imagination, she would favor herself by saving
her lamentations until later.
A wife met her husband at the airport with the family
car. Before he had a chance to ask about his dog, she blurted:
"Brutus was out all last night. Early this morning he awak-
ened me with the worst howling I ever heard. YouVe got to
get rid of him/'
The man defended the old dog on the ground that lie
probably had found some girl friends. That made matters
worse. All evening she kept blaming hirn for his dog's noc-
turnal sprees. Finally she arose from her favorite armchair
and said, "I'm going to bed; aren't you?"
"No," he replied, Tin going out with Brutus. Well be
back in the morning.**
Husbands, however, are even more culpable at home-
coming. Seldom do they ask, "What have you been doing
today?" or more specifically: "How did that cake come out
that you were going to bake?" If the husband has had a good
day he is apt to boast. If he has had a bad day, he's too apt
to sulk
How easily such irritations could be avoided if we only
gave a little advance thought as to what to talk about! To
think up congenial topics might take a little effort, but might
do much to foster marital harmony.
4.
Jacques Bacal reports that the big fact he learned from
his years of counseling is that most marital shipwreck? are
caused by "barnacles" "by the accumulation of day-by-day
irritations." One wife who made a success of her marriage
told this story:
"As I look back over a glowingly successful marriage, I
find that our happiness is mostly a matter of small personal
adjustments. One of the first things I noted was that my
husband left the cap off the toothpaste. That was a small
184
enough thong, but it irritated me and I explained it to him.
He now screws the cap on so tight that I have a hard time
getting it off. This little adjustment is a symbol of other big
adjustments which have made our life together a gallant and
humorous one."
But a warning word is seldom sufficient One happily
married wife fretted over her husband's habit of putting his
ashes into the saucer of his coffee cup. She had often chided
him for this, but to no avail. Finally, she attacked the prob-
lem creatively and thought up a solution. At each meal she
placed not one, but three, ashtrays in front of her husband.
This pleasantly put an end to that vexation.
Similarly, William Feather reported: "I have done all I
could to reduce domestic bickering. One contribution early
in my married life was the purchase and delivery of two
copies of our morning newspaper. Under this plan the stay-
at-home had her paper, and the go-away-to-business had
his."
And my partner, Bruce Barton, early adopted the plan
of having his first-of-the-month salary check sent to his wife,
and his middle-of-the-month check sent to him. Thus he
eliminated any possible controversy about money. His feeling
is that "a good marriage can stand wide differences of opinion
on BIG things far better than the perpetual repetition of
petty annoyances."
Getting along with relatives can likewise tax imagination.
A New England woman took her mother-in-law into her
home. The old lady's continued questioning got on her nerves.
But she kept the peace while she thought up an antidote.
TFrom now on," she announced to her in-law, "whenever you
ask me about our private affairs, I will either lie to you or
give you a nonsensical answer. Which would you prefer?"
Luckily, the old lady had a sense of humor, so nonsense won.
The strategy worked. The daughter-in-law recently re-
ported, "The sillier my answer is, fie more fun we get out of
it-both of us."
185
Frontal attacks are seldom good tactics. When a husband
bellows at his plump wife, "if you don't stop stuffing yourself
you're going to look like an oversized sow/' that kind of
browbeating usually results in nothing but resentment. By
contrast, Dr. Gayelord Hauser tells this story about how im-
agination can work wonders:
"A good husband helped his wife reduce by buying her a
beautiful and expensive dress in the size she wore when he
first fell in love with her. The dress hung in her wardrobe,
waiting, a goal to be attained. The result was magical/*
Whereas nagging tends to turn molehills into mountains,
imagination can often do away with marital irritations. By
brainstorming our "barnacles" with questions such as "How
else?" '"What else?" "When else?", we can enliven our crea-
tive minds and lengthen our honeymoons.
5.
A mother I know threw out these challenges to a group
of young women: "Could you take that cold plunge to close
the bedroom window? Could you make sure the clean towels
are ready on his rack? Could you get his breakfast on the
table in time and with the coffee steaming? Could you put a
pie-crust on yesterday's meat and potatoes instead of serving
fatigued leftovers? Could you think up the right questions to
unlock the story of his business day?"
Then, too, just think of the many positive ways in which
we men could brainstorm our husbandly duties. There's no
end to the domestic benevolences we could think up and
perform if we only tried hard enoughl
Any of us husbands could easily contrive countless acts
of endearment along conventional lines; but we need to
stretch our imaginations to think up extra touches, such as
that illustrated by the story told by David Dunn about the
elderly gentleman who goes out to his garden every summer
morning, picks a single bloom of whatever is in flower, and
186
takes it to Ms invalid wife. "The smile on her face as he pre-
sents it to her, and her exclamation of pleasure, are so genuine
that an outsider would assume this was the first such attention
she had ever received; yet the little ceremony is thirty sum-
mers old."
6.
Those are some of the little ideas which can cement
marital relations. As for big ideas, all marriage counselors
agree that little children do most to keep couples in harmony.
Franklin P. Jones put an ironic twist on that fact: "Children
often hold a marriage together by keeping their parents too
busy to quarrel with each other."
Metropolitan Life probably makes more studies of family
relations than all other probers put together. Louis I Dublin,
Metropolitan's vice-president in charge of statistics, con-
cludes: "Children cement family ties, and the earlier they
come the better."
More and more psychologists believe that church-going
is another big idea for making marriages last While on the
faculty of M.I.T., Alexander Magoun wrote a book entitled
Love and Marriage. After 355 pages of scientific discussion,
he concluded: "Every material problem is a spiritual problem.
We should seek a better religion for better human relations
within the family, exactly as we seek better physical things
for better physical comfort in the home."
A man whom we will call John, after seven years of in-
compatability, broke with his wife whom we'll call Barbara.
He happened upon the minister who had married them. They
had never been to church since the wedding day. After sev-
eral sessions with this minister, John persuaded Barbara to
come back to him. And he thought up a way to ceremonialize
their reunion. He arranged with that minister to marry them
again, just as though they had never been wed.
Dr. John A. O'Brien telk about the father who thought
187
up a way to dramatize the need of changing shoes. Among
their wedding presents, his son and his bride came across a
pair of old brogues and a pair of evening slippers. They recog-
nized them as their own old worn-out shoes. With these was
an envelope containing a check and the following letter ad-
dressed to the groom:
"With this money please buy new shoes in which you and
your wife can tread the path of married life. In the beginning,
marriage, like these new shoes, can be a tight fit and may
pinch. But as the days, weeks and years pass, you will find
that your marriage grows more satisfying, more perfect and
as comfortable as the worn old shoes. I wish you both a
pleasant journey. Your loving father."
Thus can imagination make its point without the taint of
preachment.
7.
Marriage counselors might well emulate the imagination
of Judge Thomas Cunningham, who presides at the Domestic
Relations Court in Los Angeles. In almost every case that
comes before him he seeks an idea for reconciliation and
usually finds one. Here's his testimony:
"I stayed up nights trying to figure out some way to halt
this growing tide of breakups. I was amazed at the trivial
things that started arguments which ended in divorce. For
instance, one man's chief complaint against his wife had been
that she didn't make soup often enough, and a young woman
sued for divorce because her husband made a 'clicking noise*
with his false teeth."
Part IV of the Supreme Court of Erie County, N. Y., is
known as the "Heartbreak Court," where over 2500 local
couples have tried to sever their ties. The judge works like a
master mechanic. He seeks ways to repair the trouble spots,
and save the marriage. To dramatize the gravity of breakups
he has hung a lone picture on the forward wall of his court-
188
room. It portrays a small, barefoot boy, poorly dressed, kneel-
ing beside his bed and praying:
"Dear Lord, please make Mama and Papa stop fightin'
because it's hard to take sides when you love them both, an'
besides, I'm ashamed to face the other kids/*
Any man or woman in marital trouble can think up ways
to offset unhappiness and thus give marriage more time to
mend itself. For instance, a husband became infatuated with
a younger woman, and his wife was about to start divorce
proceedings, when a friend of hers suggested that she take
on new interests which might sublimate her distress. She
listed 23 activities, out of which she chose the writing of
poetry. This gave her a creative outlet which kept her going
until her husband regained his senses.
Another woman on the verge of divorce made a parallel
analysis of the pros and cons. This decided her against going
to Reno. Instead, she worked up a list of alternatives, out of
which she built a program of what she called "continued
treatment" a program of things for her to do both at home
and outside. Through these creative efforts she vastly im-
proved her marital relations.
Timing is a key to continuing marriage. And lapse of time
heals many a rift, as Nina Wilcox Putnam pointed out in her
personal story:
"Many times during the past twenty-three years my hus-
band and I have faced down almost every conceivable
ground for divorce. . . , Always one or both of us have
taken time out for reflection, with the result that a better,
stronger relationship has sprung from the ashes of our anger.
I believe that in any marriage time is 'of the essence.* "
The use of time as a tool is but one of many ideas for
solving marital problems. Imagination is not only "of the
essence" but can be the key to successful marriage.
Chapter 20
CHILD TRAINING calls for
creative thinking
TOSHUA LOTH LIEBMAN, author of Peace of Mind,
J wrote this warning when he was Hearing his end:
"We must have in the home a system of "checks and
balances' which will avoid, on the one hand, the extreme of
tyranny whereby the father plays the role of dictator, or
the mother stars as the omnipotent leading lady. At the other
extreme, our family democracy should avoid the anarchy in
which there are no laws, rules, responsibilities or disciplines.
Sons and daughters cannot develop their full potentialities
either in tyranny or anarchy /*
Tyranny can be unimaginative; but a democracy which
combines discipline with freedom cannot exist without bene-
fit of creative thinking at every turn.
We need to change shoes with our children, and to see
ourselves as they see us. We should do our best to foresee
trouble and nip it in the bud. We must think up solutions
of unpreventable problems. We even have to anticipate filial
strategies, and practice what J. P. McEvoy has called "the
art of out-foxing our children."
That all calls for active use of imagination. As Dr. W. W.
Bauer said in his book Stop Annoying Jour Children: "Being
a good parent means working at it/* And what better way to
work at it than to work our imaginations?
189
190
2.
According to Dr. William C. Menninger, "the best thing
parents can do is to teach their children how to love/' We
should certainly do our utmost to achieve congeniality in the
family circle, and to fight off friction. And yet a father I knew
estranged his little son by taunting him continually. For
instance, night after night at the dinner table the big man
would ask tie little boy, "Are you still the dumbest in your
class?" If that father could only have foreseen the tragic
result of his humorless razzing if only he had used enough
imagination to put himself into his little boy's shoes!
By contrast, a Chicago newspaperman, George B. Ander-
son, used his creative head and devised for his family a "fun"
plan a long-range program through which he and his wife
and children have achieved a rollicking comradery. "I don't
know of any family where parents and children are as close
to each other as they are," a friend of theirs told me.
A big word in the lexicon of youth is play. If we can
think up ways to make games of filial duties we can substi-
tute congeniality for conflict. Forcing a child to take a noon-
day rest is a frequent cause of friction. One mother I know
solved this by thinking up a game to play with her little
Susie. The mother lies down with her child and together they
run movies through their heads, but with their eyes closed.
When Susie's mother told me about that I asked her what
their latest scenario was like. Here it is:
"We are at the beach. We are playing on the sand. Look
at those gulls out there. What a noise they are making. Oh
my! One of them just dove down and grabbed a poor little
fish. Look, Mommy, see that freighter out there so far away.
It's got a long black tail only the tail is pointing up toward
the sky, and instead of having just one curl it has lots of
curls. Oh look! Part of the tail just came off, and it's floating
over toward that white cloud." ... At about this point,
Susie happily departed for dreamland.
191
Thinking up games to enliven chores can work well even
with older children. At dinner's end, each night, a wise old
friend of mine pulls out a deck of cards and deals poker hands
to his three grown-up children. The winner is excused for
that evening, while the other two jovially clear the table and
do the dishes.
Another father has pitted his two big boys against each
other in a friendly contest: One is "captain'* of the cellar;
the other is "captain" of the garage. Their dad inspects both
domains every Saturday, and presents a token of victory to
that week's winner.
Another challenge to imagination is to think up simple
amusements. A young father faced the problem of keeping
his son from loafing at the drugstore around the corner. He
solved this very simply by installing a basketball net on
his garage.
What to do to add fun to meals is well worth thinking
up even if it's only nonsense. A banker friend of mine pur-
posely makes himself the butt of his children's laughter.
Recently his wife told him during dinner: "Your spectacles
are dirty/* Silently, he took them off, sprinkled salt and pep-
per on the lenses, rubbed them with his napkin, placed his
specs back upon his nose and pompously resumed eating.
The more we can brighten the home spirit, the better our
family relations will be. And by trying to think up ways to
that end, we parents can help develop our creativeness.
3.
An imaginative twist can make simple parties more ex-
citing than if elaborate and expensive. The right kind of
high jinks can even help solve chid problems, as was demon-
strated in a neighborhood which had become infested with
gun-toting "cowboys" and "cowgirls" aged from three to
seven.
Four of those swashbucklers were children of Mrs. Wil-
192
Ham Vaughan, wife of a former ace in the F.B.L She decided
something should be done about the neighborhood "crime
wave." "We ought to show our kids that real cowboys do
more than just shoot," said Mrs. Vaughan to my daughter.
"Let's see what we can think up."
On the next Saturday morning, their children marched
up and down carrying placards announcing a backyard rodeo
for that afternoon. The invitation stipulated, "Wear cowboy
gear but bring no guns/' The rodeo consisted of 12 events of
which these four were typical:
Lasso the Steer; The props for this were a clothes-tree,
and a lasso made from Mrs. Vaughan's clothes-line. One kid
did succeed in throwing the noose over the hook, but all the
others failed.
Bronco Busting: Here the horses were tricycles, and the
"wild mustang" was a placid-faced clown of inflated rubber,
about four feet tall. The children took turns each riding
at breakneck speed on his three-wheeled steed, then leaping
onto the bronco and "rasseling" him to the earth.
Target Practice: The "guns" were little catapults, and the
bullets were Ping-pong balls. A few kids hit the bull's-eye in
the target painted on Mr. Vaughan's discarded shirt. But,
on the whole, they found their aim far less deadly than when
racing around the streets killing hombres right and left.
Grand Leap: The props for this were a ladder and a crib
mattress. The older children were allowed to climb as high
as they dared, as long as they jumped down from there.
Strangely enough, the bully of the gang lost his nerve at
the third rung.
That party gave the kids an exciting afternoon; and it
gave them pause made them wonder whether their shooting
arms made them such big shots after all. And the planning of
the occasion gave Mrs. Vaughan's creative mind a good
workout. The entire afternoon for the 16 children cost only
two quarts of apple juice, two boxes of crackers, and a few
ounces of imagination.
193
The problem of how to keep children out of mischief on
Halloween was solved by residents of Clarendon Place who
put their heads together and worked up a street party. A
parade of over 60 costumed children started at six in the
evening. A committee awarded prizes for the best get-ups.
After that came a picnic supper with hot dogs, ham-
burgers and ice cream. The older children were then organ-
ized into groups for square-dancing, while the younger ones
were entertained by movies. This simple plan proved so suc-
cessful that it is now an annual affair.
Since treasure hunts have fallen into conventional pat-
terns, why not think up new twists? A neighbor did this for
her daughter's birthday party at the beach. She planted sur-
prise packages in the sand and marked each spot with a
different flower. Then she gave each of her little guests a
duplicate bud. I never saw such hilarity as when those 20
tots were running up and down the beach, each trying to
find a blossom which would match the one he or she held
in hand.
Or 3 how about a switcheroo? How about not only revers-
ing the roles but even reversing the sexes? One mother did
this when she thought up a "Scrambled Party/' She had the
girls come dressed as boys, and the boys dressed as girls.
The merriment consisted of the males doing the things that
females usually do, and vice versa, For one stunt she gave
the girls cosmetics and had them make up the boys. Another
event was a needle-threading contest for the young men.
So we're going to have a party for our children? Let's
think up ways to make it different. Or better yet, let's team
up with our young and jointly generate ideas. Such a session
is sure to be fun and is likely to lead to new thoughts which
can make that next party less elaborate, less expensive, and
yet more memorable.
194
4.
Even discipline calls for imagination. There are ways to
scold and ways not to scold. Before reprimanding we might
well consider alternatives such as "Where else?" and "When
else?" Curtain lectures make more of a dent when well-
timed. It usually pays to wait until emotions have ebbed.
And it is well to set the scene. For instance, parents can often
get further with their children while walking with them
than when towering over them at home.
How to dramatize a child's shortcoming is ever a creative
challenge. A Mrs. C. G. Habley of Sherman Oaks, California,
told me how one father uses his imagination along that line.
Whenever his son fails to polish his own shoes, the father
shines just one shoe of each of the boy's pairs. Surely that's
a far better idea than nagging!
A lawyer friend of mine had boys of 10 and 12 who quar-
reled all through the Christmas Holidays. For New Year's
he bought each of them a surprise present. But before re-
ceiving this, each son had to sign an agreement which their
father had drawn up. This stipulated the different ways in
which the boy had irritated his brother, and ended with a
promise that he would turn over a new leaf for the new year.
The dad made a ceremony of the signing of these formidable
documents, with the mother inking in her signature as
witness.
In parental problems the idea we seek may sometimes be
found in the realm of turning the tables. A young couple
conceived a plan along this line to break their little ones of
the habit of invading the living room after they had been put
to bed upstairs. The next night when the two tots appeared
in their nighties they were ignored. The mother turned to
her husband and said, 'Well, I think it's time to go to bed."
The parents arose, turned off the lights and went upstairs.
You can imagine how well that little idea worked.
195
When we imaginatively discipline our children we help
insure the desired result with less danger to amity than when
we bawl them out. And by trying to think up these strategies
we parents not only tend to keep our homes happier but
also to keep our imaginations wider awake.
5.
If we cannot spare the rod, we can at least think up
better ways to spank. As in scolding, it is better if we pick
the right tune and place instead of letting our ire tell us
when and where.
Even a bit of drama may pay off. One of Canada's legal
lights has three little boys; and ever since they could be
expected to know right from wrong their father has taken
care of the spanking duties. But for each such session he
always puts on a garment which he wears at no other time
a wild and woolly sport coat. When a boy needs punishment
he says, "Well, I guess I'll have to go upstairs and put on my
spanking jacket." That helps make his whacks more telling.
We also need imagination to make the punishment fit the
crime to deal out penalties which the child will deem fair.
The Dale Castos do this by changing places. They sit down
with their son and carefully discuss the issue. Then they put
it up to him to decide what the punishment should be. At one
session, the penalty he chose was such that his father found
himself saying: "Son, we think you're being too hard on your-
self. Instead of not playing ball for a whole week, we think
a two-day layoff will be penalty enough."
In contrast, Dr. W. W. Bauer told about a little boy who
was late for lunch. "The mother flew at him in a fury, berated
>ri as a little beast and then forced him to eat his food all
of it." After she went out, the boy vomited. That night the
parents could not find him. At midnight the police called to
report that they had caught the tot trying to hitch-hike out
of town.
196
Here's what his mother should have done, according to
Dr. Bauer: "When lunchtime came and Joe did not appear,
she should have eaten her lunch and cleared it away. Then
when Joe arrived she should have told him to get his own
lunch and to clear up afterward. This would have fitted his
offense and would have taught him that it didn't pay to be
late for meals/'
6.
We parents can bring up our own creative power by
trying to bring out the creative best in our offspring. For
one thing, we can set an example. When I discussed this
with Mrs. William Gerber she told me:
"Thank goodness I was fortunate enough to have parents
with wide-awake imaginations. One incident comes to mind:
When I was about 12, my hair was like a mop. One morning
I could find neither barrette nor bobby pin to keep it out of
my eyes. I flew into a tantrum. Finally my father suggested
I use large safety pins. In desperation I did, and they worked.
I learned then not only to use my imagination but to dare
to be different."
When our children are too young to do things for them-
selves, it is well to have them watch our creative efforts.
Peter Hunt recommends that, in the presence of our little
ones, we make gay things for their playroom. Thus we can
fan their creative spark and incidentally give them a good
time.
And it can be fun for Daddy, too. When my first daughter
was a little girl, I decided to build her a doll-house. We spent
evening after evening together in our cellar while I impro-
vised and carpentered. I shudder now to think how ambitious
a project that was! Who ever heard of a doll-house com-
pletely covered with shingles no bigger than thumb-nails?
Better still, let's have our children join with us in creative
effort as soon as they are old enough. A dear friend of mine
encourages his little son's imagination by swapping stories
with him original tales that have to be made up on the spot
He told me: "When I used to make up yarns for my kids, all
they did was listen. Then I hit on the idea of bargaining.
Now I say to my child, It isn't fair for me to make up all the
stories, so here's what we'll doI'll tell you two stories for
every one you tell to me/ *
Most youngsters like to take things apart but seldom try
to put them back together. I know a father who lets his son
pull machines to pieces and then teams up with him in re-
assembling them. Another friend of mine built a four-
bedroom summer cottage with no helpers other than his
sons, aged 10 and 12. In their workshop that dad and
his boys produce almost everything from sailboats to der-
ricks.
Sometimes, however, we might better induce our children
to tackle something creative on their own than to collaborate
with them too much. For when we try to do our children's
thinking for them we tend to pauperize their minds. When-
ever a child of Mrs. Jean Rindlaub gets restless and whines,
"What is there for me to do?" Mrs. Rindlaub's answer is
always something like this:
"Come on, Anne get a pad of paper, take a pencil and
write down all the things you might like to do. Til bet you
could think up at least 25. And you'll find that just by writing
down that list you'll have lots of fun."
Department store executive Julian Trivers likewise be-
lieves in making his youngsters think up. One evening at
dinner he unwrapped a mysterious wooden box with a slot
in it. He then told his five children about suggestion systems
such as are used in about 6000 businesses, and he announced
that each child was to think up ideas for the family good
and stick them in that box. He then described the entrancing
prizes which would be awarded at the end of each month for
the best suggestions. The Trivers system didn't create any
earth-rocking ideas; but it did help teach the five Triverettes
198
that they were blessed with minds which were meant for
creative use.
7.
Those are some of the everyday ways in which we parents
might well use more imagination. But an older child may
sometimes bring home a problem so calamitous that we must
either solve it in time, or risk ruining the life of our son or
daughter, not to mention our own lives. In such crises our
creativity may be our main hope.
When a son commits a crime such as driving without a
license and maiming somebody, I know of no -greater chal-
lenge to a father's creative power than to see his son through
that kind of Hell and to salvage him.
When a child makes a tragic mistake in mating, the
parents are faced with a task that taxes their minds beyond
anything else in their lives. In one such case where a Cali-
fornia girl eloped with a rotter, her father spent the best
part of three months trying to think up how to undo her
error. Success finally came through his brainstorming the
"who-elses?" He hit upon the idea of hiring a lawyer who had
been trained in the F.B.L, and who knew how to dig up the
records which finally proved the male gold-digger to be a
bigamist
In such crises we can either let our emotions strangle our
mentalities, or we can recognize our problems to be the
creative challenges that they are, and attack them as such.
Thus we can at least try to think through to happier endings.
Chapter
HOME CHORES less humdrum
when creatively attacked
LFRED TOOMBS took over his wife's housekeeping
duties in order to prove to her how easy it was to run
their home. After the first day he realized why Mother Nature
had saved women from beards "no housewife could possibly
find time to shave.'* At the end of a week he concluded:
"Housekeeping is the toughest job IVe ever tackled. It
requires use of all the known muscles/*
Including the imaginative muscles I For if a woman goes
at it right, she can use her home as a gym wherein to exercise
her creativity and be a better housekeeper to boot.
The fact is that the domestic duties of most wives call for
more imaginative effort than do the cut-and-dried jobs of their
husbands. "What can I make out of these left-overs?" . . .
"How can I get Johnny to bed on time?" . . . "Whom can
we find to sit for us this Saturday evening?" On such ques-
tions many a woman can, and does, whet her creative wits-
day in and day out, from sunrise to lights-out.
In addition to that kind of mental activity, domestic chores
should encourage the incubation of ideas. When alone in a
quiet home manually going through motions which have
become second nature a woman can meditate as well as she
could in an ivory tower. By directing her musing toward a
specific goal, rather than letting it run hog-wild, a home-
199
200
keeper can think up solutions to family problems, and inci-
dentally help keep her imagination in trim by so doing.
2.
Shopping certainly calls for agile thinking; and the leaner
the purse the more imagination it takes. A husband may look
upon meat-buying, for example, as a simple routine; but when
he sits down to a goulash as tasty as tenderloin but costing far
less, he should thank his lucky stars that his wife has used her
imagination instead of his dollars.
Any woman who creatively attacks the almost daily task
of food buying is helping to keep her mind imaginative. She
must look ahead and think up alternatives beyond the obvi-
ous, every time she plans a meal. One of the ablest house-
wives I know spoke thus to a group of women:
"Are your meals attractive in color? In taste? Are they
nutritious and balanced? Why not try something new instead
of serving the same old things day after day? Shop at your
food store as if every meal were to be a party. Use your crea-
tive imagination in your meal-planning and you'll find your-
self blessed."
A woman doctor, otherwise unable to induce her five-
year-old daughter to eat enough food, finally asked the child
personally to plan the family's suppers for a whole week. This
strategy worked like magic. Surprisingly enough the child's
menus called for fewer of the costly meats than she had
usually demanded.
By stretching her imagination a woman can stretch her
dollars when shopping for clothes. And it is well if she fore-
sees how she will look to others in what she buys. A Southern
girl, Bonnie Driscoll, came to New York to produce fashion
shows. She soon realized that Eastern women looked differ-
ent. So, when selecting a dress, she asked herself, "How would
I feel if I were wearing this costume and should happen to
bump into the Duchess of Windsor?"
201
"The chances of my meeting the Duchess of Windsor were
about one in a million," she told me, "but the mental hoop I
put my mind through by imagining that crisis saved me from
taking on many a 'dog. 9 And, believe it or not, I kter did
bump into the Duchess of Windsorl"
3.
Cooking! Who ever heard of a good cook not using plenty
of ingenuity?
Sometimes, however, a wife may misuse her imagination
in regard to her cooking duties by thinking of herself as an
ugly drudge sweating over a hot stove. She should see herself
as her mates sees her; for every right-minded husband would
agree with Thomas Wolfe: "There is no spectacle on earth
more appealing than that of a beautiful woman in the act of
cooking dinner for someone she loves."
Many famous writers, actors, and painters practice the
culinary art. They recognize cooking as a truly creative exer-
cise. Almost every dish calls for thinking up some way to
make it tempting. And there is no limit to the recipes we
can invent
A highly trained member of the Betty Crocker staff
pointed out to me that when her associates were putting
together the new Betty Crocker Cookbook, they were amazed
to find how many of the best recipes had been contributed by
amateurs. That's why the book is so filled with credits to
people who are truly creative but who probably don't know
that they are.
Cooking calls for the usual idea-begetting questions, such
as "What else?" and "How else?", and also for other questions
such as "What other shape?" Mrs. Maynard F. Soule, of New
Hampshire, is one of many who have thought up new forms
for old foods. When her son Danny was about to celebrate his
seventh birthday, she made him a cake in the shape of a
train. She pushed back the top layer of one section so that it
202
would slant like a locomotive, frosted its top and sides, and
then mounted on top of that a smokestack made of "Life-
savers." The headlight was a bright red candy. The boxcar
was frosted yellow and the caboose red. For the wheels on
the engine and on the cars, she used round chocolate cook-
ies.
In culinary creativity the choice of ingredients is bound-
less. For example, Mrs. Clayton Andrews, of Clinton, Ne-
braska, has created a Rose Petal Jam. Her recipe starts like
this: "Gather fresh rose blossoms in early morning. Cut away
the base and heel of each flower; wash and drain well. To
each cup of petals add one cup of water and one cup of
sugar. Boil until sugar hardens on a wooden spoon. Add a few
drops of lemon juice," etc.
And listen to Margaret Broadley: "The best mince pie I
ever ate was made by a conservative New England woman,
all of whose recipes came out of her head. She gave the final
fillip to that famous mince pie of hers with a handful of
coffee grounds."
In thinking up what to cook and how to cook it in think-
ing up new ingredients and new shapes in every aspect,
cooking can challenge imagination; and when tackled crea-
atively it can serve to enliven our minds.
4.
We can help keep ourselves keen by thinking up better
ways to keep things dean. Even dusting can do with a bit
of imagination.
Dishwashing? There's always another and a better way;
and there's a creative plus to this chore which we men should
recognize. We know that our ideas pop best while we are
shaving. The same absence of distraction, soothing, sound of
running water (and, yes, the heat) likewise tend to help us
cook up ideas while doing dishes. Personally, I have helped at
the kitchen sink several evenings a week throughout my
2U3
married life. I know from experience that many an idea for
which I had been groping during the day has come to me
while scraping a plate or polishing a goblet.
Whitney Williams reports that one of Hollywood's top
scripters, stumped for ideas, takes out the family vacuum
cleaner and cleans rugs all over the house. This chore relaxes
his imaginative muscles flexes his mind so that he can go
back to his creative chores with renewed power.
Laundry work? Even this offers women an opportunity to
exercise imagination. An authoress told me: "I can do my
best creative thinking while ironing. Any activity which keeps
the eyes occupied in one spot, while leaving tie mind rela-
tively free, is a distinct aid to mental concentration. In a
way it is like fixing the eyes on a single light, as is done in
hypnosis/*
And laundering is beset with little problems which chal-
lenge imagination. For instance, a New Jersey woman loved
loopy hooked rugs but detested the marks which clothespins
left on them. So she "thought up the new stunt of sewing a
four-inch piece of muslin on each side before she put them
in the tub.
Bed making seems like a cut-and-dried activity; but even
this can be creatively attacked, as was proved by a Buffalo
woman. She figured that the average housewife annually
walks four miles and spends 25 hours just making one bed;
so she thought up a way to cut the distance to a little over a
mile and cut the time to 16 hours per year. Here's her one-trip
bedmaking plan:
"Start at the head, smooth and tuck in one corner com-
pletely, from bottom sheet to bedspread. Move to the foot
on the same side, tuck in that corner and work across the
footboard. Now move up the opposite side, from bottom
corner to top." This does away with detouring from head to
foot and side to side just one circuit and the bed is made.
Outwitting pests is often a poser to homekeepers. When
bugs are immune to the usual poisons, what to do?
204
At a summer home in Canada, our hostess thought up an
anti-insect campaign and put on a "Catch-the-Ant" contest
while we were visiting there. In her kitchen she had hung up
a colored Scoreboard on which she had listed the seven
members of her family, including Sleepy, the long-eared
beagle. Pencilled check-marks recorded how many ants each
contestant captured each day. Before we left, the mother had
68 ants to her credit; her son Teddy had 53; while Sleepy
had just two. There was even some suspicion that Sleepy had
had an assist from Teddy.
5.
We can also think creatively on how to make our homes
safer and more livable. A neighbor recommends a "Comfort
Tour" on which a housewife would ask herself: "What could
I do to this room to make it cosier?" . . . "Are the ashtrays
near the chairs?" . . . "Are pillows where they're needed?"
. . . "Are there footstools for short people?" . . . "Are
magazines and books in easy reach?" . . . "Are the lights of
the right height and rightly placed?" Thus, room by room, a
homefceeper could devise ways to enhance comfort.
A man and wife could think up at least one new idea a
week to make their home more livable. Most of these im-
provements would be trivial, but they might hit upon some-
thing novel, as did Mrs. Anna Schisler. Her kitchen table,
sink, and counters varied too much in height; so she bought
an old piano stool and painted it white. By raising or lower-
ing this she can now sit down to her work at just the right
leveL
In the home of a friend I noticed that the side of the
Frigidaire served as a bulletin board. How? Simply by using
magnetized disks to hold pieces of paper against the refrig-
erator's steel wall. The array included shopping lists, memos
of appointments, and even clippings of cartoons that might
amuse the family*
Sometimes an idea for greater convenience calls for an
alteration, like the one thought up by a New York woman
whose family harmony was marred by a towel problem. She
had her husband construct a linen closet between the bath-
room and the bedroom, with an opening into each room. The
door to the bath is of glass and handy to the tub. By this
simple idea she made sure that towels are always within
reach, even when the bathroom is occupied.
Good ideas can be so simple that they sound almost silly.
A Mrs. Mewhinney was tired of pulling the wrong rope to
close or open her Venetian blinds; so she thought up the
little stunt of tying a tiny piece of colored ribbon to the cord
that closes the blinds. Even her little children know that
when they want to open them, they pull the ribbonless cord.
Accident prevention is likewise a challenge to imagina-
tion. We might well make periodic "Safety Tours" to check
up on wiring, on scatter rugs, on floor wax, on the strength of
our stepladders, and on whatever might court accident or
fire.
The main point is to anticipate. When we notice a pair of
shoes on the stairway we should foresee a loved one tumbling
down the steps head-first. When we see a carving knife left
within easy reach of a child we should look ahead to what
that might mean. When we see piles of newspapers in the
cellar, we should fore-hear a fire engine sirening down the
street toward our house.
6.
How about a Beauty Tour? On this round, we should ask
ourselves: "What could I do to make this room more attrac-
tive?" . . . "What junk could I eliminate?" . . . "Should I
rearrange the furniture?" . , . "Should I get that picture
refrained?" . . . "Could I add a spot of color?"
Rearrangement calls for countless alternatives. We can
avoid lugging heavy pieces from here to there and back again
206
if we use our creative heads the way one woman did. She
simply drew a map of each room on the scale of one foot to an
inch. Then she cut out proportionate bits of colored paper
to represent each piece of furniture. By moving these about
with her fingers she could arrive at new lay-outs while sitting
at her desk. The same idea could be used in furnishing a
bare room.
An even better scheme was thought up by Paul Mac-
Alister, who created a "Plan-a-Room" kit which contains 75
miniatures of furniture, cut to scale out of plain wood. By
painting each of these little pieces, we can use them to visu-
alize color schemes as well as arrangements.
When it comes to planting, the sky's the limit as demon-
strated by a woman living in a Park Avenue penthouse. She
yearned for the country; so she created a diminutive farm
right at her lofty doorstep. Instead of the usual flowers and
shrubs, she planted tomatoes, corn, radishes, eggplant, berry
bushes, and even little apple trees in yellow tubs. Some of her
chairs are made out of cider barrels, and stools out of 10-
gallon milk cans. The dining table is a huge wooden horse-
shoe which once adorned a blacksmith's shop in Maine.
Tables made from hobbyhorses hold magazines and ashtrays
and books. Wooden decoys serve as footstools.
Accessories for home beautification call for plenty of
imagination. One woman, instead of covering her flowerpots,
has merely polished them. Even window shades need not be
drab, as was proved by a Philadelphia housewife who painted
the inside of her shades in the colors which would add to the
charm of each room.
We can use imagination in thinking up the size, character,
color and framing of pictures. And in this phase of home
beautification, ideas can take the place of dollars. Mrs.,
Edward Cart needed something to brighten up the plain
green walls of her apartment and conceived the scheme of
using a scenic fabric based on paintings by Grandma Moses.
207
Out of this cloth she cut single pictures, and framed each of
them with neat black wood.
7.
Many a useful invention has been created by a home-
maker who, in going about her housework, has run into a
little problem which has spurred her into thinking up a
worthwhile gadget. For instance, a Louisiana woman could
not wash bottles as clean as she thought they should be; so
she invented a special brush with a twist in the handle so
that it could be expanded after insertion in a bottle, thus
making it easier to clean both the bottom and the sides. Like-
wise, a Pennsylvania woman, incensed at the fumes which
belched from her furnace each time it was stoked, devised a
coal shovel with enough perforations to screen out the fine
dust which caused the gaseous odors.
My friend Chandler Wells, a leading insurance specialist,
was doing some painting at home and found that he couldn't
keep his brush from messing the outside of the can; so he
invented and patented a disk which fits the top of almost any
container and prevents dripping.
Mrs. Dorothy Rodgers, wife of the famous Rodgers of
Rodgers and Hammerstein, deplored the fact that although
nearly every other home-cleaning chore had been improved,
housewives still had to scour toilet bowls with brushes which,
in turn, had to be cleaned, and even then were unsightly if
not genny. So she thought up a toilet mop with a disposable
head which could be released and flushed away after it had
done its job.
The holder is a forceps-like handle of crystal-clear styrene
plastic. Into the end of this the housewife slips a paper
envelope containing a cellulose pad and impregnated with a
detergent. She just swishes this around the bowl and then
flicks it off by opening the handle. The pad goes down the
208
drain, the toilet bowl sparkles, and the cost is less in the long
run than former methods entailed. Called "J onn y Mop/' this
new device is being made and marketed by the Personal
Products Corporation.
Miss Lee Brower, private secretary to one of my asso-
ciates, makes a hobby of dressmaking during her leisure
hours at home. She likes frequent changes of costume and
loves buttons. She put her mind to changing garb by chang-
ing buttons, and came up with an idea good enough to be
patented interchangeable buttons which, through color and
shape, can transform an office dress into a dining-out gown in
less time than it takes to powder a nose.
Even baby-sitting can lend itself to creative effort. This
claim of mine was challenged by one of my married daugh-
ters. She and her husband wanted to attend a dance one
Saturday. On Friday evening she seductively approached
me: "Daddy, we can't find anybody to sit for us tomorrow
night Why don't you do it as an experiment to prove that
baby-sitting can be as creatively productive as you say it
can be?"
"Okay, 111 do it at the rate of $10 an hour not to be paid
by you, but by someone else/' I recklessly boasted.
Luckily I had 24 hours in which to think up that eve-
ning's project a piece for Sales Management Magazine. I
wrote this during the three and a half hours in which I baby-
sat, and sent it to the editor with a demand for $35. Ray Bill
accepted it and wrote me as follows:
^ou certainly get the gold crown as a high-priced baby-
sitter. We are happy to remit the amount specified, with the
understanding that you can use this $35 for any purpose you
desire, including the hiring of a substitute baby-sitter the
next time your daughter tries to rope you in/*
That triumph puffed me up. But my pride was punctured
when I read about 81-year-old Mrs. Fannie G. Smith, of
Springfield, Massachusetts, who baby-sits about three nights
a week. Does she twiddle her thumbs while doing so? No.
209
She invents new designs far mittens. She has scores of
original patterns to her credit as a result of combining crea-
tivity with custodianship.
Homekeeping is less humdrum when looked upon as a
series of creative challenges. The more imagination a woman
puts into her domestic arts, the better she succeeds; and by
striving to think creatively she can't help but keep herself
mentally more alert, and therefore more attractive, as the
years go on.
Chapter
JOBS are opportunities
for use of imagination
^TFTE CAN NOT ONLY get ahead faster by applying imag-
W iiiation to our jobs but can help brighten our working
hours. The more self-expression we put into our toil, the more
self-realization we get out of it.
Being a railroad cop could be boring except during times
of trouble; but T. M. Brown, lieutenant of police on the Erie
Railroad, found a way to enliven his peaceable hours by
starring as a magician.
Too many children were losing their lives on the Erie
tracks. As an offset to this problem Lieutenant Brown
thought up an educational entertainment designed to sell
safety a traveling show of magic, with him as the Houdini.
School principals all along the line were glad to book his
program for their assemblies; and no child could hear it and
see it without thinking twice before trespassing again on
Erie's right of way. Within one year, the death rate was cut
in two.
The job of cutting children's hair could be a drudgery,
but my friend Charlie has turned his barbershop into a
barrel of fun for himself and for his juvenile patrons. Three
generations of children have insisted that their parents take
them there for their haircuts. Why? Because Charlie fas-
cinates them with his home-made monkey tales. Stuffed
211
212
monkeys adorn Ms shop, and lie pretends that his basement
is full of live monkeys (which nobody can ever see "because
they're too bashful'')
2.
All professions call for creative imaginations. It is the very
essence of science, according to Dr. James B. Conant.
In his economic classic, The Wealth of Nations, Adam
Smith told this story: "In the first steam-engines, a boy was
constantly employed to open and shut alternatively the com-
munication between the boiler and the cylinder, according
as the position either ascended or descended. One of those
boys observed that by tying a string from the handle of the
valve which opened this communication, to another part of
the machine, the valve would open and shut without his
assistance. 7 * Thus an historic improvement came from the
imagination of an untrained mind. The annals of inventions
abound with similar cases.
The practice of medicine is a continual challenge to
imagination. In diagnosis, a doctor must conceive all pos-
sible alternatives. Although he can now lean upon instruments
and testing procedures which the creative minds of others
have devised, he cannot diagnose well unless he forces him-
self to think up plenty of hypotheses. And when it comes to
treatment, here, again, he cannot go solely by book, but must
apply his knowledge imaginatively.
Creativity helps explain the brilliancy of surgical progress.
For example, instead of the sponge so often left in wounds
after operations, we now have "vanishing sponges" a new
kind of cellulose which can be sewed up inside incisions and
forgotten.
For further example, Dr. George N. Papanicolaou has
thought up new "smear tests" to detect cancer. One of his
problems was to obtain scrapings from the stomach. For this
purpose he created a long thin tube of two channels leading
213
to a soft balloon covered with delicate tassels. The patient
swallows the balloon, which is then inflated inside the stom-
ach and gently rubbed against the stomach wall. When de-
flated and taken out, the specimens absorbed by the little
tassels are then tested.
On every call a physician needs to turn on his vicarious
imagination to put himself into his patient's shoes. The
therapeutic value of this is dramatized in a story about the
son of Lord Halifax. A veteran of World War II and a double
amputee, he was asked to buck up a legless veteran who was
too despondent to help rehabilitate himself. Some weeks later
the head of the hospital told Halifax that the veteran was
well on his way to recovery. "How did you do so much to
restore his spirits ?" the doctor asked. "That's easy to under-
stand," said Halifax. "He saw that I was in his shoes!"
Doctors who serve children need especially to use imag-
ination in their patient relations. As a newspaperman in my
early days in Buffalo I heard a lot about a Doctor Borzilleri,
who was the idol of that city's large and highly respected
Italian colony. The other day I met his daughter, now the
wife of a Marine colonel I happened to tell her about Charlie
the barber.
"Why," she said, "when my dad was a young practitioner,
he had a non-existent animal, too. It was a dog with its tail in
front. Whenever he had to treat a sick child, he would dis-
tract its attention by telling about this strange pet. Too often
the child would insist on seeing the animal, and as a result
my mother had to buy scores of toy dogs, cut off their tails,
and sew them on their noses."
Dr. Lee L. Mulcahy, of Batavia, New York, has reduced
children's dread of dentistry by means of a locomotive in his
waiting room. It is a fascinating replica of the famed 1885
engine of the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe. Tiny tots sit on
the tender with their feet in the cab, and ring the bell and
work the gadgets. A little idea like that can do a lot to attract
trade and lighten labor.
214
3.
How about pastors? Can you imagine the creative effort
they must put into preparing a new sermon each week? Then,
too, a successful minister has to use his ingenuity in raising
money, in planning programs, in pleasing his flock and in
countless other ways.
As to lawyers, a legal light remarked to me: "Give me a
young graduate who has had only fair marks in school but
has shown that he can think creatively, and I will make a
better lawyer out of him than if he were an unimaginative
valedictorian.'*
Lawyers certainly have to think up strategies, and to fore-
see what their adversaries will contend. And what a stren-
uous challenge to creativity a jury can bel
Professional artists? Imagination is the essence of their
craft but they also can use imagination in their client rela-
tions. A prominent painter, after 40 years of portraiture,
boasted to a young colleague: *Tve never had a complaint
from a subject!" When asked his secret he replied: "I always
put myself in the model's shoes; I imagine how he would like
to look and then I paint him that way!"
When recently I went to Jean Raeburn to be photo-
graphed, I could quickly see why he is going places as a
portrayer of hard-to-take men. For example, instead of say-
ing, "Smile," he suggests: "Now think of something pleasant."
The result is a natural twinkle, instead of an artificial smirk.
Professional politicians have long followed conventional
patterns in their campaigning; but Thomas Dewey had to
think up something new to win the governorship of New
York State in 1950. The odds were overwhelmingly against
him; and yet overnight he reversed the tide by using a new
medium in a brand-new way. All day long and all evening,
he appeared before his vast television audience, extempo-
raneously answering questions that came in from voters all
215
over the state. Many of those who heard and saw him mar-
veled at his grasp of public problems and decided to change
their ballots in his favor.
In the military profession, the strategies and tactics are
everything; and they depend upon creative thinking. A mili-
tary leader must also put himself into his enemies* boots.
During the nip-and-tuck of the African campaign. General
Montgomery kept on the wall of his mobile headquarters a
photo of General Rommel. When asked why, Monty replied:
"So I can look at his picture and keep pondering, *What
would I do if I were he?' *
In that same vein, Douglas Southall Freeman tells about
General Robert E. Lee's reaction to the replacement of Mc-
Clellan by Burnside as general of the enemy forces. The news
was received by Lee with mixed feelings. He was sorry that
his old associate of the Mexican War was no longer to oppose
him. "We always understood each other so well," he said to
Longstreet "I fear they may continue to make these changes
till they find someone whom I don't understand."
If a business is to survive in a competitive economy its
managers must likewise put themselves into the shoes of their
rivals. The relatively recent upsurge in market research has
been largely due to the desire of business heads to get a
better line on their competitors, to put themselves into the
shoes of their prospects, and to see themselves as the public
sees them. Such factual findings are usually useful to the
degree that they are imaginatively interpreted translated
into ideas and into action.
Many a business has grown great through the kind of
creative thinking which Thomas Lipton exemplified. Starting
as a little butcher in Glasgow, Scotland, he made himself
stand out by wearing white overalls, immaculately starched.
He startled his thrifty neighborhood by illuminating his store
216
each night by gas. His signboard was a jumbo ham made out
of wood and swiveled so that it would swing with the
wind,
To cover a wider range, Lipton scrubbed up two fat
porkers, decorated them with colored ribbons, and led them
through Glasgow's streets with this legend painted on their
sides: 'We're going to Lipton's, the best shop in town for
Irish bacon."
As he opened more shops he thought up more and bigger
stunts. His masterpiece was the largest cheese in the world.
This was paraded through the city during early December.
Then, just before Christmas, he filled it with gold pieces.
When it was finally cut up on Christmas Eve, the excitement
ran as high as at the Irish Sweepstakes.
Food-selling may call for imagination, but how about
banking? Until I became a bank director, I always felt that
the success of a financial institution depended almost wholly
on judicial judgment. But now I know that even in the grant-
ing of large loans, a banker who can think creatively will win
out against an unimaginative competitor.
Then, too, unexpected exigencies in the banking business
often call for quick-thinking ingenuity. My associate Alan
Ward tells how his father once stopped a group of newly
arrived Italians from making a run on his rural bank. One of
these immigrants had seen the only local manufacturer with-
drawing his weekly payroll in cash and had immediately
started the rumor that the tycoons were "taking their money
out of the bank." The Italian housewives rushed in to demand
their families' funds. President Ward happened to know that
they carried their money in the ample tops of their stockings,
so he ordered his tellers to pay them in silver dollars. While
the ladies milled around in bafflement over how to carry
away so much heavy metal, Mr. Ward rounded up a leader
of the Italian community who addressed the women in their
native tongue and ended the stampede.
Rudyard Kipling's epic poem The "Mary Gloster" told
217
about an old shipbuilder named McCullougli who had
started at scratch and had become the leader in his line. On
his deathbed he proclaimed that his success was due to the
fact that, although his competitors could copy all of his
innovations, "they couldn't copy my mind. And I left 'em
sweating and stealing, a year and a half behind."
Kipling thus dramatized the fact that the importance o
ideas in business cannot be exaggerated,
5.
Aptitude testers maintain that the two traits most needed
for success in selling are an objective personality and creative
imagination.
A salesman is like a football player in that he must be
both a good carrier-out of plays as planned by the home office
and a smart broken-field runner on his own. In his catch-as-
catch-can grapples with prospects, he must think up one little
idea after another. These are the tactics of selling. The strat-
egy of selling is the planning the creative planning which
we do in advance of an interview.
After a long drive I reached my hotel in Rochester one
night at about nine. I had previously made a date with myself
to devote an hour before retirement to thinking up how to
persuade my prospect the next day. During the evening I
piled up and jotted down ideas. My next morning's interview
succeeded, largely because of the creative thinking I had
done the night before. That victory happened to be a turning-
point in my business career.
A vice-president in charge of purchases told me about a
salesman who had long called on him without landing a
single order. "He never got discouraged. Each time I turned
him down, he'd just smile and say he'd try it again. Eventu-
ally I found myself giving him over $100,000 worth of busi-
ness a year. What won me over? It was his habit of giving
me an idea each time he called/'
218
If a man on the road keeps Ids imagination awake he can
capture ideas that can help his home office. For example,
G. Cullen Thomas, General Mills Vice-president and Direc-
tor of Product Control, reported this case:
"One of our salesmen sent us some partially-baked dinner
rolls that he had picked up at a small bakeshop in Florida.
They were blond, almost white in color, anything but ap-
petizing. But when we reheated them to complete their bake,
we had delicious, hot rolls with a delightful home-made
flavor. We immediately secured the rights to this simple
process and turned it over to our research and technical per-
sonnel for further experimental study. About eight weeks
later, we were able to present to the baking industry the
revolutionary 'Brown *n* Serve' bakery products that have
since won their way into millions of American homes."
Thus an imaginatively alert salesman can be a long arm
of his company's creative research.
In days of old many an employee was pushed ahead by
relatives who owned the business or by bankers who loaned
to it; but that royal road is a rarity nowadays. In nearly every
case the man who now rises toward the top is propelled by
two forces: (1) His superiors want to pull him up to work
with them because they need his help. (2) His immediate
associates want to shove him up because they believe in him
and like him. If he lacks creative energy his superiors won't
covet him. If he lacks vicarious imagination his associates
won't cotton to Kirn.
It's a rare employee who can envision his firm's need for
economy. A company president who is personally open-
handed recently complained to me: "During the course of
the year I have hundreds of requests from our people for this
or that expenditure, but hardly anyone ever comes to me with
a suggestion as to how we could save money." Just think how
219
favorably one of his young men could make himself stand
out by thinking up some money-saving ideasl
It strains imagination but little to think up ways to find
things out; and yet the failure to do just that has held back
many an employee. A Sears, Roebuck executive recently re-
marked to me: "We take on the brightest minds we can find,
but too often our new employees are helpless when called
upon for something beyond their routine. They seem to have
no inkling as to how to go about looking up this or that"
Thus many a boss hungers for more ingenuity on the part of
his people.
Carl E. Holmes, business consultant, believes that most
employees stand still because of their creative shortcomings.
"God gave us imagination/* says Mr. Holmes, "and imagina-
tion can be the most potent force in our lives, yet few use it
constructively. . . . Knowledge is a good thing, industry is a
good thing, but imagination is a miracle worker."
Some 6000 American companies operate suggestions
systems through which their 20,000,000 employees are urged
to submit ideas for the good of the business and are well re-
warded for acceptable suggestions. This movement is our
nation's only major effort designed to keep our people on
their creative toes.
Said Henry Ford II: "We Americans are becoming more
and more a nation of employees. Four out of five people
today work for somebody else. The job of distributing man-
agement is one of the special problems of our times/' That
fact alone justifies the millions which employers are annually
investing in suggestions systems.
And there's another reason, according to Harry J. Richey
of the National Biscuit Company: "A suggestions system
offers the last means of direct communication between top
management and the man on the production line a way to
220
recognize and develop leadership. National Biscuit makes the
bulk of its promotions from those who offer suggestions/*
An executive of the Eastman Kodak Company points out
still another virtue of suggestions systems: "In these programs
both the employee and the company have much to gain and
nothing to lose. The fundamental basis is therefore friendly.
Improved labor relations obviously result, to the benefit of
both.
Suggestions systems are growing ever greater. In just one
year the amount paid to Eastman Kodak employees for their
ideas increased by $28,000 to a new high of $191,000. A total
of 9711 suggestions were adopted, a gain of 1100 over the
previous year. In one Kodak plant, last year, four individuals
submitted more than 50 ideas each.
In 1951 the General Electric Company paid to employees
for their ideas an average of over $40,000 a month.
The size of award depends upon the value of the sugges-
tion. Cash prizes range upward from five dollars to small
fortunes. Many companies have paid $5000 or more for one
idea. Last year's suggestion champion was Charles Zamiska,
who received over $28,000 for devising a better way to handle
cores in the casting department of the Cleveland Graphite
Bronze Company. That sum represented 25 per cent of the
resultant savings during the first six months.
The average cost of installing and operating suggestions
systems runs about $5 per year per employee. Processing
costs range from $2 to $15 per suggestion. It has been esti-
mated that American businesses are investing nearly $100,-
000,000 a year in these programs. Surveys show that 27.6 per
cent of the ideas suggested are worth accepting and awarding.
But it takes ideas to get ideas; and unless enough crea-
tive imagination is put into running a suggestions system it
is likely to fail For example, in a Bendix division some 2500
employees were so apathetic that they submitted a total of
only four suggestions a week. The system was brought back
to life by showmanship. Instead of drab suggestions boxes,
221
"Idea Banks" with "tellers* windows" were installed all over
the plant. Blinking signs beckoned the workers. The sugges-
tion blanks became "deposit slips," and the acknowledge
forms became "bank statements." The committee in charge
of awards became the "Board of Directors of the Idea Bank."
Within two months the inflow of suggestions from those
Bendix employees increased 30-fold.
The success of suggestions systems proves that almost any
of us can think up more ideas on our jobs. And it is well-nigh
axiomatic that whether we be employees, employers or pro-
fessional people the more imagination we put into our work,
the more we prosper. And isn't it just as obvious that by
trying to think up more and more ideas, we healthily exercise
our imaginative muscles and thus develop our creativeness?
Chapter
JOB HUNTING calls for strenuous
idea-hunting
A FAMOUS EMPLOYER URGED that this book include
a chapter on how to go about getting a job,
"In my experience," he said, "not one applicant in 500
uses any imagination in applying for a position. Anyone who
suggested ideas of possible use to his prospective employer
would stand out and be almost sure to get preference even
though his suggestions were unusable."
That kind of creative thinking may be beyond the energy
of some of us; but all of us can at least use our vicarious
imagination while job-hunting. Instead of putting ourselves
into the employer's shoes, too many of us ask him to put
himself into ours. This all-too-common fault was recently
deplored by the personnel manager of a large corpora-
tion:
"Many young men applying to me for jobs these days
open their conversations by asking, *What is your pension
plan?' . . . Tf I am discharged will I receive severance
pay?' After a few minutes of that sort of talk I interrupt to
ask, *What quality or talent have you demonstrated that
makes you think you could help our company earn more
money?* At this query, most applicants 'fold their tents like
the Aarabs/ and as silently steal away/'
For 15 years, Sidney Edlund, former head of Lifesavers,
223
224
Incorporated, lias made it his hobby to teach people how to
go after new jobs. His basic principles are these:
1. Offer a service instead of asking for a position.
2. Appeal to the self-interest of your prospective em-
ployer.
S. Be specific as to the job you want, and as to your
qualifications.
4. Be different, and still be sincere.
All these principles call for thinking ahead, or thinking
creatively, or both. Even in the matter of our personal ap-
pearance, we might well look into the mirror of imagination
before looking for a job. And to be "different" to lift our-
selves above lie other applicants we need to generate ideas
before we knock on employers' doors.
2.
We also need imagination to help us set our job-seeking
sights. Our first question might well be: "In what vocations
would I be most likely to succeed?" Let's jot down all lines
that seem at all likely. Having done that, let's use some check-
lists. Let's run through the classified section of the telephone
directory and scan the 200 or so different lines listed there.
Then let's go to the library and look over some of the "career"
books. Let's talk to some experienced friend and seek his
guidance. But let's not make him do our creative thinking
for us~let's show him our list of likely lines and ask only for
his judgment
Walter Hoving, of department store fame, estimates that
of the 400,000 college graduates looking for jobs each year,
only a few think creatively about what to try to do and where
to find the right job. "I am constantly staggered," said he,
"by this passive waiting for someone else to do the thinking
that they should do for themselves."
In choosing our most likely alternatives, we might well
project our imaginations into the future by asking ourselves
225
questions such as: "Is the business on the rise?" (Think of
those who went to work for traction companies a decade or
so ago, and how little chance they have had, ) "Will the line
be more or less depression-proof?" (If we want to design
yachts, the first slump in business may find us with empty
drawing-boards.)
And there are many other such thinking-ahead questions.
For example, in my early days I was getting along fast in a
family-owned manufacturing business. When the proprietor
became the father of a son I forced myself to look 25 years
ahead, and I foresaw that that baby would eventually head
that business. That's how I got out of bed making and into
advertising.
The question of questions, however, has to do with our
aptitudes. If we are round pegs we should look for round
holes. To that end we should do plenty of realistic thinking
on our own; and we might well seek vocational guidance.
For many years I watched a boy grow up, confident that
eventually he would work in the appliance business which
his father owned. After a hitch in the Navy, the young man
found himself wondering whether he should become a mer-
chant after all. So he went to a vocational counselor, Dr.
Edward S. Jones, psychologist at the University of Buffalo.
Aptitude tests indicated that young Alexander Cordes should
become a lawyer. He finished his studies with flying colors,
was snapped up by a leading law firm, and within one year
was asked also to serve as part-time instructor in his law
school.
3.
Knowing which vocations we might best explore, we next
need to seek openings; and imagination can help a lot in this
hunt
As an example of ingenuity, I like the true story about the
young Clevelander who read a "blind" advertisement of just
226
the newspaper job lie wanted; but the ad stated only that
the opening was in Ohio. He realized that there would be
hordes of applicants, and he determined to stand out from
the mass. So he secured the names of the managing editors
of all the dailies in the state, and wrote letters to each of
them. He hit the right man at the right time and landed the
job. Two other editors also made him offers.
In writing letters of application we should see ourselves
through the eyes of the person addressed. Since nobody
wants a slovenly employee, even our spelling is important
A member of the Procter and Gamble personnel department
analyzed 500 letters from applicants and found that 82 per
cent of them were marred by misspellings.
Instead of individual letters, a job-seeking broadside may
be radicated. Robert A. Canyock, about to graduate from
Syracuse University, sought a career near his home town. To
a list of 170 possible employers, he mailed a folder which was
so persuasive that it brought him 32 invitations for inter-
views. Likewise, Leon Turner, while still a student at Saint
Louis University, created a photo-offset brochure which he
mailed to 58 companies. A dozen of them replied that they
had openings of the kind he was seeking.
A young friend of mine in Missouri was doing well in a
municipal job but wanted to get into business as an assistant
to a top executive. He prepared a list of industries for which
he would like to work, secured tie names of the head men
and sent them a multigraphed presentation. I have seen this
mailing piece; it is an enviable example of creative imag-
ination. Incidentally it led him to exactly the job he
wanted.
Another model of creativity was the miniature newspaper
put out by William M. Wood, Jr., just before he graduated
from the Missouri University School of Journalism. One article
told about his scholastic record; another about his Naval
service. Another piece related his experience, which included
selling want ads for a newspaper; clerking in a grocery store;
227
laboring in a jewelry factory, in a cannery and on a farm.
No wonder he had his pick of 20 offers!
We should be "different" and still be "sincere," as Sidney
Edlund advocated. Carl Spier showed me how that principle
had been violated by an aspiring ad writer who applied as
follows:
"I like fat, buttery words; such as ooze, turpitude, gluti-
nous, toady. I like solemn, angular, creaky words; such as
strait-laced, cantankerous, pecunious, valedictory. I like
spurious, gold-plated, black-is-white words; such as gentle-
folk, mortician, free-lancer, mistress, ... I like wormy,
squirmy, mealy words; such as crawl, blubber, squeal, drip.
I like sniggly, chuckling words; such as cowlick, gurgle, bub-
ble and burp. I like words. May I have a few with you?*
Although that got Carl's attention it left him cold.
4.
After a few years in business for myself, I found myself
desperately in need of a right-hand man. James H. Rand, Jr.,
was then starting his little shop which has since grown into
Remington Rand, Incorporated. I asked Mr. Rand if he knew
of anybody who could team up with me. "Yes," he said, "the
other day a salesman came in to see me. I don't remember
his name, but I remember that he was from Belmont, New
York. You ought to talk to him. He had the cleanest shave
I ever saw."
That perfection in appearance led me to track the man
down. He turned out to be Clarence L. Davis, and just the
associate I sought. He became my partner and is now a senior
vice-president of our company.
That true story illustrates why we should look our best
In every way when calling on a prospective employer. Like-
wise, while at his desk we should deport ourselves punctili-
ously. Dale G. Casto, who has hired many people, advocates
also that applicants should call alone. On this point he says,
228
"Pull all the strings you can to line up a good interview for
yourself but under no circumstances take your father, uncle,
or friend with you, even if they want to go. To be shep-
herded makes you look weak and uncertain of yourself/'
Times without number, young people have 'phoned or
written to me something like this: "I want to come to see you
and ask you about the advertising game." That very question
marks the applicant as weak in imaginative energy. In the
first place he fails to envision that, when at my office, I am
too busy to stop and explain rudiments which anyone could
easily learn at the library. Then, too, his query reveals that
he has done nothing to appraise his possible value to us, let
alone to do any planning for the interview which he requests.
Some employers send representatives to colleges in search
of promising young men. An undergraduate friend of mine
wanted to work for one of these firms. So he spent four week
ends interviewing the company's dealers and competitive
dealers. When the representative arrived, he was amazed to
find out how much this young man knew about that business.
Those two are now at work in the same department.
The higher you aim, the more creative your preparation
must be. About a year ago a man who now makes over
$25,000 a year decided to go after a better job. He picked the
company he wanted to join. He subscribed to all the trade
papers in that line of business, and bought all the books that
bore on that company's problems. On Saturdays he called on
its dealers. After four months of such preparation, he wrote
a short note to the head of the company, enclosed an idea for
overcoming dealer indifference, and asked for an interview.
His plan was turned down; but the officials were so im-
pressed with his grasp of their problems that they offered
Mm the post he had sought.
5.
As part of our preparation for interviews, we should line
up the right references. For example, our minister can well
229
attest to our character, but the prospective employer may
discount his appraisal of our abilities. On the other hand, the
hirer will usually give weight to the words of other execu-
tives.
If we go at it creatively enough we can probably sleuth
out some mutual friends. If the employer looks over our refer-
ences and sees the name of an intimate, he will react favor-
ably; because he knows that he can telephone that person
and be sure of an honest answer.
Experience, however, carries far more weight than refer-
ences. If we were to go all out in creative preparation we
would see to it that we trained ourselves in advance to make
an employer eager for our services.
The late Stanley P. Irvin always wanted to become a
journalist. As a farm lad in Illinois, he foresaw that ultimately
when seeking a job he would be asked what his experience
had been. While attending high school he had to go by train
each day from his little village to the county seat where a
weekly newspaper was published. He persuaded the editor
to let him act as correspondent to cover the other side of the
county. Thus during his high school years Stan learned first-
hand how to nose out news and how to write it interestingly.
Eventually he went to Chicago and landed on the paper of
his choice.
6.
A job-seeking interview is a selling interview; and as such
it calls for the same type of creative thinking in advance as
was described in the last chapter.
In planning our strategy we should ask ourselves all kinds
of questions, including plenty of "What-ifs?" For the better
we foresee contingencies, the better we can meet them. Thus
prepared we can more readily answer questions which other-
wise might cause us to say the wrong things, or make us seem
slow-minded.
230
If the employer says, "You need more experience," about
the worst remark a job-seeker can make is: "Well, how can I
get it if somebody doesn't hire me?" It would be far better
to say, Tin serious about working for you some day. What
kind of experience would fit me best for your business?" If
the job-seeker then follows his advice, he can go back to him
from time to time, report progress, and make progress with
him.
Above all, let's go idea-hunting in advance of an interview
and think up extras we can offer. Lawrence Terzian in How
to Get the Job You Want strongly urges this: "Be prepared
to show the employer exactly how he can benefit from your
services beyond the arbitrary requirements he may have set
up, and you will present services he will want to buy. It will
be, to him, like making a purchase of a new car. Most cars
run, but some, or perhaps one alone, may have added quali-
tiesthe 'extras' you want."
7.
So much for the oral phases of our interview. The visual
part of our presentation can be just as vital. The United
States Navy has proved that people absorb up to 35 per cent
more when an appeal is made to the eyes as well as to the
ears, and that they retain what they thus learn 55 per cent
longer.
Let's not expect the employer to memorize our face and
our life story. He sees so many applicants that he will soon
forget us unless we leave him something tangible to remem-
ber us by. Even so little as a snapshot and a neatly typed
summary of our biography will be helpful and especially so
if and when he later discusses us with his associates.
Our visual presentation should be as graphic as possible.
A Harvard Business School graduate, after 14 years of suc-
cessful experience, was applying for a still bigger job. He
realized that the conventional summary would make too little
231
a dent. So lie drew a pictorial chart which visualized his long
experience. This not only intensified the employer's attention,
but made him covet the applicant's creative power.
A portfolio complete with samples of work can be a most
effective form of presentation. For one thing, this convinces
the prospective employer that we are both ingenious and
industrious.
A portfolio scores even better when tailor-made to fit the
prospect. For example, just after World War II we were
taking back 160 of our own people from the armed services
and were therefore seeking no new employees. At that very
time a young man came to see me and I hired him on the spot
Why? Because he had completed so many missions over
Germany and had been decorated so much? No. It was be-
cause he had taken three months to study our business and
its needs, had thought up just how he could be of most use
to us, and had prepared a portfolio especiaDy for that one
interview with us a job of work which proved to me that he
was highly creative and in no way allergic to effort
/^
/ 5.
In planning an interview, we might well think up how to
keep the door open should we fail on that first call. Back-
tracking is almost always necessary in making an important
sale; and job-seeking calls for the same kind of selling.
The planning of our follow-up campaign entails still more
creative thinking. Points that came out during our first inter-
view can serve as guides, and can indicate pertinent data
which we might weU gather for further presentation.
The ideal follow-up is a crop of new ideas. When we go
back to the employer with more suggestions for the good of
his business, we will probably find him eager for our creative
thinking, and may find him desirous of our services.
A successful friend of mine, in search of his first job,
applied at Macy's. He was flatly told that there were too
232
many applicants ahead of him. Beaten but unbowed., he
walked through the store; then he telephoned the personnel
director.
"I want a job," he said, "and Tve just spent several hours
in the store looking for places where I could help. I have
listed 10 spots where I think I could be useful right this
minute. May I come up and tell you where they are?" Well,
you guessed it; he got the interview, and was soon a Macy
trainee.
George R. Keith was a lawyer who retired at 40. As a
creative hobby he conducted a system of finding openings
for unemployed people at no expense to them. Over a span
of 30 years he contrived ways to help over 80,000 job-seekers.
By developing ingenious methods of smoking out opportu-
nities, he was able to find more jobs than people to fill them
even during depressions. He thus proved in a big way that
those who use enough creative imagination can usually
secure the kind of employment they seek, in slumps as well
as in booms.
Chapter 24
HEALTH- how to gird it
with imagination
"ivr OST OF THE TIME we ^^ we ' re sick ' it>s aU
if 1 mind/' wrote Thomas Wolfe. This may not be 100
per cent so; but substantially it's the truth.
Much depends on whether we use or misuse our imagina-
tions. Creative thinking can help keep us healthy. And mal-
adjustments caused by unwholesome imaginings can often be
set right again through creative use of our minds.
Dr. George Crile, the famous surgeon, held that 75 per
cent of all sickness is due to tension. Tension is often caused
by frustration. Frustration is often caused by failure to over-
come our problems. When we master our problems through
creative thinking we help defeat frustration and thereby help
defeat tension.
Since body and mind are interdependent, it follows that
whatever we do to improve our mental health should help
our physical health. Thus almost every malady whether
mental or physical or both presents a creative challenge; and
the right use of imagination can be of therapeutic value in
nearly every case.
2.
When I visit the workshops of Goodwill Industries, I am
torn by two emotions, a feeling of uplift and a sense of shame
234
shame that so few of us who visit there can measure up to
the self-mastery of those disabled people. I marvel at the
brightness of their spirit, just as I have often marveled at how
many cripples, like Steinmetz, have become creative titans.
The other night I sat and talked with two young women,
both of them cruelly crippled. Both of them make their way
around New York by themselves, even though, in a normal
sense, they are unable to walk. Both of them turn out creative
work of high quality and in great quantity. One of them is
Betsey Barton, author of books and magazine articles; and
the other is Peggy Weiss, editor of a national magazine.
Neither one of these young women had shown more than
average talent in her childhood. Each had acquired creative
ability through an effort to be creative as an offset to her fate.
According to what they both told me, this strenuous exercise
of their imaginations had enabled them to keep both their
minds and their bodies in better health than they could other-
wise possibly be.
Many a time I have seen H. Katherine Smith walking the
avenue, alone except for her Seeing-Eye dog. Although she
cannot see, her mind continually visualizes people to write
about. She turns out many a feature article, and most of these
result from her personal visits to famous persons. Recently
she and her dog went to France where she interviewed Gen-
eral Eisenhower. Miss Smith will attest that her creativity
has helped her mental health.
If and when we are invalided by age, we will be lucky if
our imaginations are still aglow. Dr. Albert G. Butzer told me
about a call he made on an old woman who had been con-
fined to her room for many years. On her walls she had pasted
colored pictures of God's great out-of-doors. In the course of
the conversation she said to Dr. Butzer, "Yesterday I was just
about at my wits' end. Then I looked at those pictures of
Arizona and the Grand Canyon. I imagined I was traveling
through that country and soon found myself calm, quiet, and
cheerful again."
235
Many invalids and cripples are living proof of what we
can do with our mindshow by continually striving to be
more creative we can make ourselves more and more creative
and how by doing this, we can actually help our health.
3.
Although cripples thrive on creative effort, some of the
Tarzans in creative crafts claim that "ulcers are the wound
stripes" of their professions. As one who has spent 35 years
in die hectic pursuit of advertising, I hold no brief for that
theory. I agree with Robley Feland one of the most creative
of our craft who, after 40 years of success as a copy-writer,
rendered this verdict: "The occupational disease of advertis-
ing men is not ulcers but self-pity/*
The prevalence of the ulcer myth is appalling, For exam-
ple, Robert C. Ruark wrote about a young man who had just
been elected to a vice-presidency in his advertising agency
and Ruark remarked: "His firm decided that a youngster who
was spending several million dollars a year for clients might
just as well have a title to go with his ulcers."
In most cases it is not the creative effort which causes
nervous indigestion, but the pressure. Some of this is inevi-
table. Radio and television, for example, are naturally fraught
with nerve-racking crises, as I know from personal experi-
ence.
In my early days I was in charge of a network show for
General Electric emanating from Niagara Falls, We had
Graham McNamee on the Rainbow Bridge announcing from
a booth we had constructed there. We had one brass band oil
the American side and another in Canada. Under the Falls
we had Phillips Carlin ready to let the listeners hear the roar
of Niagara.
Right in the middle of the broadcast, McNamee's smooth
script was suddenly deranged by an intruder, the notorious
Red HilL He had outwitted the police guard, had climbeS
236
into the booth on the bridge, and had shouted into the micro-
phone: "Tell them about me, Graham, tell them about me\
Tell them about my going over the Falls in a barrel. Tell them
about the bodies I've puled out of the Whirlpool. Tell them
about me. 9 "
On that hot summer night I started shivering and could
not stop. I had to spend the next few days in bed to heal my
nerves.
An avoidable drain to our health is pressure caused by our
trying to do too much too fast. This usually results from
failure to plan ahead and to allow for enough hours. If we
apply enough imagination to the sound conduct of our lives
we can be far healthier hammering out ideas than driving
taxicabs.
Many "creative'* ulcers are caused not by working too
hard, but by playing too hard. Some advertising craftsmen
have been tempted to entertain too muchsometimes for
self -entertainment. This abuse, however, is on the wane. For
one thing, the good-fellow-well-met technique no longer
works with worthwhile clients.
The advertisers themselves are taking an ever stronger
stand against entertainment. One morning the head of a
large company walked into our office and offered us his
million-dollar account, on just one condition: that none of his
people would ever be entertained by any of our people and
vice versa.
According to Dr. Sidney A. Portis, an authority on gastro-
enterology, four out of five peptic ulcer cases are caused by
emotional disturbances, and not by mental exertion. One
emotional disturbance which creative people could avoid is
living beyond their means. When they fall into this trap it
is usually because they fail to exercise their imaginations in
regard to their personal living. By using the same headwork
on their private affairs as they use on their jobs, they could
probably avoid the ulcerating effect of failing to make ends
meet
237
For many years I worked with William H. Johns. No ad-
vertising man ever put in more creative exertion over the
years than he; and yet at the age of 70 1 saw him eating pork
chops and fried potatoes and feeling bully all the time. The
same holds true of the most creative men in other lines. For
example, my friend Samuel Hopkins Adams is still hustling
around and working full-tilt at the age of 80,
No, it is not creative effort that causes ulcers or any other
illness. It is more likely to be lack of creative thinkingfail-
ure to apply our imaginations to the problem of how to work
hard and yet keep well.
4.
Occupational therapy was well known to ancient Greece.
Isn't it strange that our nation went without it until the first
World War? Its success since then has piled up proof that
effortespecially creative effort can be helpful to health.
Glenn W. Leighbody has personally watched thousands
of crippled and disabled people in their struggle toward self-
rehabilitation; here's what he concludes: "For the physically
handicapped person, work is so important that, without it,
other remedial efforts often fail. Exertion usually does much
to restore physical and mental health. And the more creative
the work, the more therapeutic it is."
Occupational therapy can work wonders even in diseases,
according to Dr. L. Maxwell LocMe: "It has been our experi-
ence with many patients who are suffering with arthritis that
some type of work is essential to convalescence. Also, those
people who have residual deformities are much happier if
they can do some kind of creative work."
Minor mental ills are often spasms of emotion which
cause the mind to grab hold of something unwholesome. "In
such cases/* said Winston Churchill, "one can insinuate some-
thing else into its convulsive grasp. And if this something else
is rightly chosen if it is really attended by the illumination
238
of another field of interest-gradually, and often quite swiftly,
the old undue grip relaxes and the process of recuperation
and repair begins."
Harry Overstreet echoed the same truth: "He that loses
himself in a piece of work that is worth doing finds the kind
of life that is wholesomely human." All of us who read The
Mature Mind will recognize that this statement of Over-
street's referred to work of a creative nature.
It is cheering that of late there has been a trend toward
more and more creativity in occupational therapy. A men-
tally sick person may well be started on straightening crooked
nails to induce in him a sense of achievement, no matter how
trivial. But as that patient improves, the projects which are
mentally more difficult will do more good. Creative feats of
any kind will generate the mental glows that mean so much
to health.
5.
With all of psychiatry's merits it is the most criticized of
all professions. One reason may be that we expect too much.
Psychiatry is still a young science, and in the strictest sense it
is more of an art than a science. For one thing it must deal
with the variables of the human mind, and often with the
most elusive phase of our mental make-up, imagination. For
the usual psychiatric case stems from imagination gone hay-
wire.
Dr. Theodor Reik, himself a personal friend and disciple
of Freud, gives hope in his book, Listening with the Third
Ear, that psychiatry will outgrow most of its failings. A short-
coming which he scathingly criticizes is his profession's yen
for pseudo-scientific mumbo-jumbo, which he calls "psycho-
analese." One irritating term in the Freudian lexicon is
"Oedipus complex"; defined as "a son's desire to murder his
father in order to marry his mother."
Dr. Andrew Salter, in attacking the theory that sex under-
239
lies everything, cites this ludicrous example: "Mrs. Smith
enjoyed a tap-dancing course at nine years of age, not be-
cause she liked to show off, but because she was sexually
frustrated. Now Mrs. Smith likes to watch television because
it reminds her of the time she peeked through a transom."
A more serious criticism was voiced by Dr. Carney Landis
of Columbia University. When asked by the Rockefeller
Foundation to undergo a full psychoanalysis and analyze Its
worth, he quizzed the doctor as to the effect of his technique
on a completely normal person. The analyst admitted that it
might possibly cause neurosis in such a case. A prominent
psychiatrist named Frederic Wertham went even further: *1
have reluctantly come to the conclusion that eight out of ten
orthodox psychoanalyses are more harmful than helpful."
Psychoanalysis calls for digging up the past, whereas it
often may be better to forget than to recall. Tmmanuel Kant
had a servant named Lumpke who was a source of mental dis-
turbance to him. Finally he discharged the man, and put on
his desk a sign which read, "Remember to forget Lumpke."
Dr. Alan Gregg of the Rockefeller Foundation criticizes
"the obsessive search for causes" and urges psychiatrists "to
find the meaning of the symptom rather than to find the
causes." Thus he puts his finger on the profession's need for
more reliance on creative imagination and less on analysis.
6.
A paradox of psychoanalysis is that most mental patients
are abnormally subjective, and yet psychoanalysis may tend
to intensify their subjectivity.
That potential fault has been recognized by a group of
psychiatrists in Chicago. They are implementing their
therapy with efforts to make their patients more extrovert-
to have them change their conduct in their relationships with
people to the end* that they will act more objectively, and in
so doing help root out their introversion.
240
Another positive measure which is gaining ground in
psychiatry is religion. Under the leadership of Dr. Karl A.
Menninger, more and more doctors are prescribing this
therapy, "Psychiatrists would be blind to ignore the good
that spiritual devotion can do," proclaims Dr. Menninger.
And in his newest book, The Way to Security, Dr. Henry
Link reports: In my work of psychological counseling I have
sent hundreds of deluded people to the pastor or to some
church as the best solution for their problems/*
In England an outstanding psychiatrist, Dr. J. A. Hatfield,
recently said this: "Speaking as a student of psychotherapy,
who as such has no concern with theology, I am convinced
that the Christian religion is one of the most valuable and
potent influences for producing that harmony and peace of
mind and that confidence of soul which is needed to bring
health and power to a large proportion of nervous pa-
tients."
The gerontologists who specialize in mental troubles of
older people are setting an example for other psychiatrists in
that they are guiding their patients to adopt positive meas-
uresto do things to take on creative activities which will
help prevent misuse of imagination, and will provide a sense
of well-being.
7.
A danger inherent in psychiatry is its tendency to make us
lean too much. Although patients should have confidence in
their mentors, when tie mentally sick put themselves like
putty into the hands of others they may thereby aggravate
their ills.
Branch Rickey once told me about a pitcher whom he
took to a psychiatrist. As a result of the interview the young
man found out so many things wrong about his past and
about his attitudes that he was able to builcl up for himself a
tasty group of additional alibis. He got plenty of explanation
241
as to why lie was the way lie was, but no help as to how to
make himself the man he should be.
Most athletic coaches would prescribe for that young man
a swift kick in the pants. His early success had softened him.
He had learned to lean on his coaches; and now he could lean
on the psychiatrist and the things the psychiatrist told him.
He never did make the grade again as a big-leaguer.
When psychiatrists recommend religion, this implies that
we should lean on God; but leaning on God always carries
with it an obligation to do something for oneself. Take
prayer, for example. "Believers admit no limits to what the
power of prayer can do," said Fulton Oursler, "and even
skeptics who study the results with an open mind become
impressed with the potency of faith. But a man has to meet
his Maker half-way; prayer is not a one-way street."
More and more psychiatrists are in agreement with Car-
lyle's statement: "Work is the grand cure for all the maladies
and miseries that ever beset mankind." As the profession
gives more weight to the therapy of self-driven effort, it will
give ever greater weight to creative effort. Most of all, it
will try "to evoke a patient's unused or undiscovered poten-
tialities," as advocated by Dr. Alan Gregg of the Rockefeller
Foundation.
8.
Whether our ills be physical or mental, we should recog-
nize them as creative problems and act accordingly. Our sug-
gestions can often help a doctor in his diagnosis and even in
his treatment
Causes of illness can bafHe the ablest physician unless we
think creatively with him. A physical problem may trace
back to a mental problem and a mental problem may trace
back to almost anything, including a vocational problem.
Dr. William J. Reilly tells about a young newspaperman
whose health went bad. He loved to write, but he hated his
242
work. His doctor and lie together unearthed the reason he
couldn't stand the competitive pace of reporting. By turning
to teaching, and writing books on the side, he regained his
health.
Johnson O'Connor tells about a nervous wreck who was
engaged in a scientific pursuit which called for the utmost
accuracy. Aptitude tests rated him strong in creative imagina-
tion and in objectivity. He became a salesman and found his
new calling so congenial that his nerves soon healed them-
selves.
A young man I knew developed boils. The family physi-
cian blamed allergies. The dermatologist suspected wool and
ruled out all woolen clothing. But the boils raged on; until
finally he went to a doctor wise enough to ask: "Have you
any idea what's causing these boils of yours?" The young man
then disclosed a secret worry which was based on wrong
imagining. The doctor set him straight, the patient stopped
worrying, the boils disappeared. If that young man had
thought creatively in the first place, he could have escaped
that ordeal.
The possible measures of therapy are so endless that only
through the use of creative imagination can a medical mind
hit upon a cure. The answer may be as simple as exercise.
Dr. Leslie B. Hohman of Johns Hopkins reported the case
of an Arizona woman who lost 20 pounds in a short period,
developed insomnia, was treated for incipient tuberculosis,
and was suspected in turn of heart disease and even cancer.
Her outstanding symptom was her emotional disturbance.
According to Dr. Hohman the main prescription which
brought her back to health was horseback riding.
The one therapy which we laymen might well suggest to
our doctors and to ourselves is that of creative exTercise. In
most cases we can help mend our minds and bodies by ener-
getically using our imaginations in constructive ways and in
243
line with realities. Thus we can help keep ourselves happier;
and happiness is always an aid to health. Moreover, by thus
exercising our imaginations we can do much to step up our
creative power.
Chapter
H A P P I N E S S can be buttressed
by imagination
ALTHOUGH HEALTH MAY be "the groundwork of all
-L*- happiness," as Leigh Hunt has said, the most rugged of
us can be unhappy. Frequently the cause is a faulty per-
spective; in such cases the cure can often be the energetic
use of imagination of the right kind and in the right way.
The problem of keeping cheerful cuts through all eco-
nomic lines. Dr. Norman Vincent Peale, who has dealt with
both the rich and the ragged, believes that contentment is
less likely to be the property of the wealthy than of those in
modest circumstances. "In my interview work," he reported,
1 find more personality disorganization among the favored
class than among the common run of folk/' And Dr. Henry
van Dyke expressed a similar belief: "Happiness is inward,
and not outward; and so it does not depend on what we
have, but on what we are/*
What we are depends on what we do whether, for ex-
ample, we let imagination work against us or make it work
for us. In the words of Margaret Broadley: "A directed and
usefully employed creative imagination offers a chance for a
deeply satisfying life through the release of creative forces.
But imagination must be guided. Left to itself, it can play
hob with its possessor."
If we look at it right, even pain can have its good points.
245
246
Sometimes it is a helpful warning of a malady which we
might otherwise ignore until too late. When pain is of a
known cause, we can minimize its hurt as when faced with
oral surgery we can make ourselves think, "What if this were
my eye instead of my tooth?" And almost always we can
project our imagination to the time when our pain will have
passed.
Although some realists may look down upon such ra-
tionalizing, the fact is that we still would be in the dark ages
were it not for wishful thinking. Without it most of the
achievements of mankind would never have been started.
And in our personal lives, the seeing-is-believing attitude
can harm us. Unless we let imagination help us to see, we
improverish our souls we become victims of the anemia
described by Samuel Hoffenstein:
Little by little we subtract faith and fallacy from fact,
The illusory from the true, and starve upon the residue.
2.
Even the strongest spirits are prone to sag. Karl Men-
ninger described President Lincoln's depressions as so deep
that, during one period, "it was necessary to watch him every
hour of the day and night. At one time it was considered ad-
visable to remove all knives, scissors, and other instruments
with which he might have taken his life."
There were real reasons for Lincoln's melancholy. On the
other hand, the blues that beset most of us are seldom due
to crushing causes. These spells can often be prevented, or
relieved by the right use of creative imagination.
In general, our normal depressions are of two typesthe
fairly chronic and the kind that* s here today and gone to-
morrow. Dr. Donald A. Laird's theory is that blues are due
to emotional cycles. A more understandable principle is that
of action and reaction. Elation often brings depression in its
247
train. Madame Chiang Kai-shek pointed this out when she
told how, after her religion had lifted her to new heights, her
spirits then sank. "I was plunged into dark despair," she said.
"A terrible depression settled on me."
Although Monday blues come in weekly cycles they are
due to physical habits rather than to emotional causes, ac-
cording to George Ross Wells: "On Sunday, most persons
eat, work, and sleep according to an entirely different pro-
gram than the usual one. The organism is thereby thrown
slightly out of gear, and the mild disorder is partly mani-
fested in the unpleasant conviction on the next day that
nothing is worth while."
When spirits sag from such causes they usually bounce
back. The more chronic cases, however, need our creative
help. These are often due to a physical or mental disorder.
Colitis, for example, has caused many a long siege of de-
spondency. Among the mental causes, emotional disturbances
and dire forebodings predominate. Self-pity is often a com-
plication if not a contributory cause.
At my request a professor friend of mine asked members
of his class to write what they did to beat the blues. One
frank young man handed in this report over his signature:
"When I feel depressed I use one of these methods to revive
myself: (1) I cut class and go to a show in the middle of
an afternoon; or (2) I go out and buy myself a hat I don't
need, or a dozen neckties; or (3) I get stinking drunk."
Dale Carnegie's suggestion for killing gloom is that we
sit down and imagine we have lost everything we hold
precious family, house, job and health. Thus we generate
the very bluest of thoughts. Then we pound home to our-
selves, "But that's not so! I haven't lost any of them! I can
be happy because I still have them!"
Instead of just musing, we might even write up our case.
The chances are it won't look so gruesome on paperit may
even look ridiculous enough to make us laugh at ourselves.
And the very fact of that writing effort may produce an
248
emotional release may open the gate for some creative
thinking on our own.
When our depression stems from a mistake we have made,
we might well call to mind that everybody errs. We might
even laugh off our boners as Fiorello LaGuardia did. "When
I make a mistake it's a big one," he once said by way of
self -cheer.
We can sometimes overcome gloom by changing shoes-
such as listening to someone else's troubles. Or we might
think up places to go to a show, to a concert, to the home
of a friend, or to church. "Lots of people take their troubles
to church and leave them there.'*
Even in his youth Abraham Lincoln was subject to de-
pression. In such a state, he called on his friends the Speeds,
and Mrs. Speed gave him a Bible which she recommended
as a remedy for despondency. Later he wrote to her daughter:
"Tell your mother I doubt not that it is really as she says,
the best cure for the blues."
Or we might take on some physical exercise and, best of
all, some creative exercise as I proved to myself one morn-
ing when an untoward incident sent my spirits into a tail-
spin. It was important that I get myself back into the right
mood for a conference that afternoon at which I was due to
preside. So I hit upon the plan of going to lunch alone and
tackling a crazy creative project.
A few weeks before, Grantland Rice and I had been talk-
ing about a silly idea of mine for a piece of verse. So at the
Hotel Statler that noon, on the back of the menu, I scribbled
seven quatrains on that theme. The people at nearby tables
probably wondered what asylum I was from. But I had fun;
and I returned to the office in good spirit
Just keeping busy can do a lot either to prevent or cure
depressions. "I never knu a man trubbled with melankolly,
who had plenty to dew, and did it" Those were the words
which Henry Wheeler Shaw put into the mouth of Josh
Billings nearly a century ago. Hobbies, as well as work, can
249
be bulwarks against blues. And the more creative they are
the better they make us feel.
Then, too, when we know we are in for something that
can't be avoided it may help if we steer our imagination into
it head-on. For instance, during my third fevered day of
flu, I said to my wife: "If this runs true to form I will be all
over it by next Monday and then I'll be depressed for two
days/' A week later I was back at work but almost as low as
a dachshund. I would have been even more dispirited had I
not projected my imagination had I not conditioned myself
against that mental slump.
8.
A popular song proclaims: "You may be as brave as you
make believe you are." This, of course, is an exaggeration;
but it is quite true that, just as unbridled imagination may
cause fear, creative imagination can generate courage.
According to Erich Fromm, "Rational anxiety due to the
awareness of realistic dangers operates in the service of self-
preservation; it is an indispensable and healthy part of our
psychic organization. The absence of fear is a sign of either
lack of imagination and intelligence, or a lack in one's will
to live."
There are big fears and little fears, justifiable fears and
unfounded fears. If the dread is big and real, it can best be
met with faithbasic faith, such as the fact that day has never
yet failed to dawn. "Courage is fear that has said its prayers."
Saint Paul was famed for his triumphs over fear. His
courage was contagious. When shipwrecked, he gave Ms
crew a fight talk: "But now I exhort you to be of good cheer."
That such a ringing call could exert a powerful influence is
easy to understand. Although Saint Paul was small of stature,
he stood on the deck of that storm-tossed ship like a colossus.
His brand of faith generates the kind of courage which can
conquer panic.
250
Another way we can use creative imagination to offset
fear is to think up all possible alternatives. A classic example
of this technique was demonstrated in Franz Werfel's play,
Jacobowsky and the Colonel Their Polish regiment had just
lost 3000 of its men trying to keep the Germans out of Paris.
Jacobowsky, seeing an old lady about to faint from fright,
grips her arm and says to her:
"Courage, Madame. My poor mother, wise woman that
she was, always used to say that no matter what happens in
life there are always two possibilities. It is true. For example,
right now it is a dark moment and yet even now there are
two possibilities. The Germans either they'll come to Paris,
or they'll jump to England. If they don't come to Paris, that's
good. But if they should come to Paris, again there are two
possibilities. Either we succeed in escaping, or we don't suc-
ceed. If we succeed, that's good, but if we don't there are
always two possibilities. The Germans, either they'll put us
in a good concentration camp or in a bad concentration
camp. If in a good concentration camp, that's good, but if
they put us in a bad concentration camp, there are still
two . . ."
In that situation the ground for fear was real. Most
anxiety, however, is mainly of our own imagining. For ex-
ample, fear of the unknown is the oldest obsession of man-
kind. And we even manufacture fear out of things we know
about like the little girl who, when summoned by her
mother, exclaimed: "Oh, Mama, you disturbed mel I was just
getting frightened about our new car and now I can't re-
member why."
One foolish fear is that which grips us when we lie awake
against our will We magnify insomnia as a disease which
will destroy us. Thus we misuse our imagination whereas,
by thinking creatively, we could combat this fear, and might
even induce sleep.
Maxine Davis wrote: *The old-fashioned trick of counting
sheep has been replaced by a new one, invented by psycholo-
251
gists: 'free association/ The insomniac is told to think of one
object and then leap rapidly to the next thing it suggests. For
example, if the word 'nuts' occurs to him, he may say T^eech-
nuts/ That reminds him of "tree/ which reminds him of
'shade/ and so on. He should never pause to consider any of
these subjects. In a short time, he probably will fall asleep."
Thus, by putting into gear the automatic part of imagina-
tion, we can drive ourselves to slumberland.
4.
The wise men of yesterday tried to warn us against worry.
Said Thomas Jefferson, "Tranquillity of mind depends much
upon ourselves and greatly on due reflection. How much
pain have cost us the evils which have never happened!"
A century later, another president, James A. Garfield, ob-
served: "I have had many troubles in my life, but the worst
of them never came/'
One way to allay worry is to attack it creatively to run
one's mind into channels where sailing is smoother. For in-
stance, when our anxiety is caused by a plethora of bad
news, we can make our minds reach out for good tidings.
And there is plenty of such, as was proved in the Saturday
Review of Literature by Joseph M. Grant, who had assembled
scores of beneficent items which had been hidden in the
newspapers of the recent past. One of these was the fact that
the nation is now the healthiest in its history. Another was
that in the last elections, more citizens went to the polls than
ever before in a non-presidenial election. And so it went,
page after page.
We can push anxiety out of our minds by pushing some-
thing creative into them. Winston Churchill was never more
worried than during the second half of 1915. As First Lord
of the Admiralty he had plenty to keep his mind off the hor-
rible things that were happening. But, having gone from that
exciting post, he had too much time to brood. "I had long
252
hours of utterly unwonted leisure in which to contemplate
the frightful unfolding of the war. At a moment when every
fiber of my being was inflamed to action, I was forced to
remain a spectator of the tragedy, placed cruelly in a front
seat. And then it was that the Muse of Painting came to my
rescue."
But even better than such hobbies are the more strenuous
imaginative exercises-such as energetically tackling causes
of our worry and thinking our way through to serenity.
5.
% In his Road to a Richer Life, Walter Pitkin wrote: "Bore-
dom is an insidious disease. It plagues millions, kills some,
drives others mad, and is overcome only by strong minds/'
The reason why so many shut-ins seem so far from for-
lorn was explained by Washington Irving: "It is the divine
attribute of the imagination that it is irrepressible, uncon-
finable; that when the real world is shut out, it can create a
world for itself, and with necromantic power can conjure up
glorious shapes and forms, and brilliant visions to make soli-
tude populous, and irradiate the gloom of a dungeon."
Far too many cases of loneliness are due to idleness tc
"being fed up" with things, "A wise man is never less alone
than when he is alone," wrote Swift two centuries ago. Anc
there is nothing wiser than to keep creatively busy. When w(
do this we can at least enjoy the companionship of our minds
"A mind is never a better companion than when it is busj
with a new idea," wrote H. A. Overstreet. "We are happilj
engaged when we try to turn an old situation we do not quite
like, into a new one that . we can like better. There is som<
place to go with a mind like that, just as surely as there i
some place to go with a good friend."
A Britisher recently came up with these three question
as tests of an educated man: "Can you entertain a new idea?
253
. . . "Can you entertain another person? 3 ' . , , "Can you
entertain yourself?'*
When we try to entertain ourselves through the usual
forms of escape, we invite further boredom. A far better way
is to exercise our creativity as Henry J. Taylor has done. As a
result of his inventive effort, he acquired a fortune while still
young. If he had idled from then on he probably would have
.become bored to death. Instead, he took on new forms of
creative effort, and by practice became an internationally
known writer. In a recent network broadcast he urged:
"Be workers, for the daily work is the daily bread. But
also be dreamers, seers of visions, makers of plans, believers
in greater possibilities more and better things for more
people. Cling to your imagination to the power of planning
and hoping and believing, the power to defeat dullness and
stagnation."
6.
Age too often brings in its wake both loneliness and
boredom. But, at sunset, we can make our Hves far more
livable if we accept the philosophy of Logan Pearsall Smith:
"Let Youth be the time for adventures of the body, and make
Age the time for triumphs of the mind."
Unless we keep imagination alive, we might better die
than retire. The loneliest man I know is a banker who quit
work after 50 years of glorifying cold figures and discounting
ideas. The only use he makes of his imagination is to dream
up ailments for himself. He thinks he thinks; but his mind
dwells on the past. And that's not thinkmg-that's just letting
one's memory run around in a squirrel cage.
How old is old? Some people are old at 30, others are
youthful at 80. A lifelong friend of mine who had risen to
the top of his field wrote me on a recent birthday: "How do
you like being 60? Neither do L* This shocked me, because
254
it found me feeling quite happy. Why? Partly because I was
trying harder than ever before to be more creative and in
more different ways.
If we used our imaginations well enough we would fore-
see the day when our labors would end and boredom might
set in; and early in life we would devise ways to brighten our
journey down the other side of the hill. Such a program
would most certainly call for the development of our creative-
ness by taking on activities which could help keep our minds
awake throughout life.
Dr. Walter C. McKain, Jr., Associate Professor of Rural
Sociology at the University of Connecticut, studied many
an old couple. His conclusion was that the happiest among
them were those who, while young, developed a variety of
interests not connected with their work. Dr. McKain strongly
advises that we lay foundations for our retirement during
our early years. "If a person knows he must retire some day/ 3
Dr. McKain says, "he should take an inventory of his inter-
ests and hobbies and determine whether or not they will be
sufficient to keep him happy."
Jean Eindlaub, who was chosen as "The Advertising
Woman of 1951," told a group of grown-up girls: "I've seer
many women of over 40 who have lost their grip, lost theii
hope, lost their capacity to have fun and to laugh at them-
selves. And I've seen many others who are still growing
gloriously in their middle age. The time to make the decision
as to which kind of woman to be is not when your hair has
begun to gray, but right now when you're still young."
Stephen Cole gave a case-history of a woman who, al
60, was so bored that she was actually sick. In his conclu-
sion he says that if she had started early enough "in arts and
hobbies and other forms of creation she would have beer
different. Painting would have saved her. So might writing
poetry. If she had thrown her energies into any of these
things she would have been an ever-growing woman. Instead
she died, but was not buried, before she was 40."
255
There can be no doubt that Voltaire spoke the truth in
saying: "Creative effort keeps boredom at bay." And this
applies to the young as well as the old.
7.
A helpful use of the imagination in regard to age is to
acquire proper perspective. William Lyon Phelps stressed
this when he wrote:
"As we advance in years we really grow happier, if we
live intelligently. To Hve abundantly is like climbing a
mountain or a tower. To say that youth is happier than ma-
turity is like saying that the view from the bottom of the
tower is better than the view from the top. As we ascend, the
range of our views widens immensely; the horizon is pushed
farther away. Finally, as we reach the summit, it is as if we
had the world at our feet"
Many who could retire prefer to take on new worlds for
their creative minds to conquer. Clarence Birdseye is one
of them. He recently reported: "In my own case, life has been
an exciting adventure since my earliest remembrance, and
today, at 64, I am having just as much fun as I ever did.
I am never bored, because I am always prying into some-
thing or other which fascinates me."
Others follow the plan facetiously recommended by Wil-
liam Feather: "What I want is the privilege of retiring until
I feel like working again. It might not take long, boss." One
couple who did just that were the Jarvises, of Hamilton,
Ontario. Ernest Jarvis had made a success in the chemical
field, and finally became president of a big company in
Niagara Falls. His wife served as his secretary. He sold out
for a million and retired at 50. "We had nothing to do,"
Jarvis said later. "We went to 77 ball games the first Summer.
We were bored stiff/' Finally they went back to work for the
company which had bought them out. They have been hav-
ing the time of their lives ever since.
256
That the boredom of retirement can be averted by crea-
tive thinking has been proved by a group of pensioners who
had been turned out to pasture in Wilmington, Delaware.
Instead of lying down and chewing their cuds, these oldsters
are having a romping good time getting their teeth into the
problems of small businesses in need of big-time guidance.
The man who thought up this idea is Maurice Du Pont Lee.
And it is he who heads this unique organization called "Con-
sulting and Advisory Services, Inc." By creatively attacking
problem after problem, these old-timers are keeping their
brain-cells alive and their spirits up.
Those of us who keep on trying to be creative are sure
to become more and more creative. Thus we build up our
resources for happiness, even to the point where our winters
of discontent may never come.
Chapter 26
CHARACTER can grow with
creative development
TONALLY, LETS CONSIDER a few positive ways in
J- which we can use imagination not only to build cheer but
to build character. There are two kinds of giving which can
help us toward both goals: (1) Thanksgiving; (2) Forgiv-
ing.
At a Thanksgiving assembly, our Sunday School Superin-
tendent asked the pupils to stand up and tell why they were
grateful. "I am thankful for my mother and daddy," was the
typical answer of the older children. The Superintendent
tried to ignore the curly-hair five-year-old who kept her hand
held high. Finally he felt forced to ask her, "Well, little girl,
what have you to be thankful for?" To which my daughter
replied: "I'm thankful for baked bananas."
To me that story is more significant than amusing. I have
seen that little girl grow into a mother. She still practices
gratitude, and she agrees that this is one reason why she seems
happier than most young parents who have to take care of
three little children, two kittens and a cocker spaniel with
no full-time help.
The therapy of giving thanks is based on a sound psy-
chological principle. As Walter Pitkin wrote: "Every shift of
attention is a shift of tensions. Every shift of tensions breaks
down (more or less) the bad effects of the previous tension
257
258
hence it is good. The most effective way of shifting attention
is to shift attitudes."
The "attitude of gratitude" is strongly recommended by
Dr. Norman Vincent Peale. In his Guide to Confident Living
he wrote: "Students of the dynamic power of thought are
realizing the tremendous value of the practice of thanks-
giving in making people happier." He then goes on to point
out that we can test this for ourselves. When we arise in the
morning and say things like "What a terrible night I had/ 7
we are licked for that day before we start. On the other
hand, if our first remarks are by way of gratitude for our
blessings we are likely to feel better all day long and to act
better toward others.
In his religio-psychiatric clinic at the Marble Collegiate
Church, Dr. Peale continually prescribes the technique of
thanksgiving. He suggests an average of three prayers a day
one in which the suppliants ask for something, the other two
in which they express gratitude. "This is a technique we have
seen revolutionize the lives of hundreds of gloomy, dis-
couraged, ineffective people," reports Dr. Peale.
Another way to practice thanksgiving is to list the many
blessings we enjoy such as the fact that we have a hand
with which to write, that we live in the United States and
not under a totalitarian tyranny. The list will be convincingly
long if we think hard enough.
Having read my last book, a stranger wrote me in long-
hand that he was 36 years old, "married to a fine wife, father
of two swell boys, and owner of a successful business."
Despite all that, said he, "I remain discontented and seem to
have no peace of mind." He asked me for my advice and
here's what I wrote him;
**You are a fortunate person. Less than one in 1000 can
boast of a business of his own. Then, too, yours is an ideal
family. Therefore, the first thing you should do is to count
your blessings."
Nearly all of us, if we think creatively, will feel like get-
ting down on our knees whenever we inventory our fortunes.
Such thanksgiving makes for the right kind of humility
which, in turn, makes for the right kind of character.
2.
To turn the other cheek this, too, calls for imagination.
In my early days I wrote an article for a trade magazine
and received a small check in return. The piece appeared
under the name of an assistant editor as its author. At first I
was mad; but then I figured that he had done me no real
damagethat by falling for that temptation he had harmed
himself far more than me. Thus, I rose above my anger.
To forgive, we must put ourselves into the shoes of those
who wrong us. And we must turn our imagination upon our-
selves and realize that if we were they we would want to be
forgiven.
Many a son leaves home to sow his wild oats and later
asks to be taken back. If his parents let their emotions hold
sway they may lose him forever. But if they tackle his home-
coming as a creative problem, they will realize that the best
hope, both for him and for them, is to greet him with a
forgiving welcome.
Only through use of our imaginations can we foresee the
harm we do by not forgiving foresee the sundered relation-
ships which not even time can mend foresee the damage we
do to our own characters by keeping our grudges stewing.
3.
The gains from giving are great For one thing we make
ourselves more wanted. Another emolument is that we like
ourselves better. The importance of such self-esteem has been
stressed by psychiatrist Dr. Alexander Reid Martin: Tf
260
people had a healthy love of themselves instead of carrying
hidden burdens of self -contempt, our psychiatric case-load
would be cut in half/'
Those who give of themselves grow more attractive.
"There is no beautifier like the wish to scatter joy/' wrote
William Driver. And James ML Barrie likewise held that bene-
faction makes us radiant: "Those who bring sunshine to the
lives of others cannot keep it from themselves/*
It takes imagination to realize that we can enrich our
lives by giving. When we sense this truth and live it we
attain a trait that helps make our characters shine.
4.
"The hours we pass with happy prospects in view/* said
Oliver Goldsmith, "are more pleasing than those crowned
with fruition/' We all know that this is true; yet few of us
know that we can multiply such hours through conscious use
of imagination. Sometimes, through creative expectancy, we
can even look forward to something we want to come true
and make it come true.
Ofttimes it is unwise to let imagination have too free a
rein; but we unduly rob ourselves if we keep our minds from
projecting pictures of good things ahead. Ralph Waldo Emer-
son approved of this pleasure when he said: "I find the gayest
castles in the air that were ever piled, far better for comfort
and for use than the dungeons that are daily dug and cav-
erned out by grumbling, discontented people/'
Bruce Barton once did an editorial about creative ex-
pectancy. "It is snowing outside," he wrote. "The sky is
leaden; no birds sing. The winter wind howls. And I have
been lying on my back, reading a seed catalogue, and laugh-
ing to myself at poor old Winter. I know positively that I
have him beaten. I have even marked down on my calendar
the date in April when I shall celebrate my victory by my
annual triumphal march." And then he goes on to tell how,
stretched out on his city sofa on that February evening, he
revels in the sunshine and other glories of Spring-thanks to
the power of his anticipative imagination.
In business, most of those who rise to the heights are
carried upward by their creative expectancy, E. M. Statler
was such a man. When he built his little inn outside the Pan
American Exposition grounds in Buffalo in 1900, he had in
view a chain of great hotels. Over 30 years ago he said to me,
"There will even be a Statler Hotel some day out on the
Pacific Coast." The new edifice just erected in Los Angeles
was probably even then in his imagination.
Mary McLeod Bethune started her Negro college on a
dump in Florida with only a little cabin, a few drygoods
boxes, and five pupils. When she asked James M. Gamble, of
Procter and Gamble, to be a trustee he replied: "What do
you want me to be a trustee of?"
"I want you to be the trustee of the thing I have in mind
to create." The great Bethune-Cookman College of today is
a monument to the creative expectancy which she then
expressed.
5.
The right kind of character is marked by a true sense of
values. How do we develop this trait? By judgment by
comparing this against that? Yes, but also by imagination.
Otherwise, we would give too much weight to the immediate
and the obvious. Only by foreseeing the ultimate can we
acquire a true perspective.
Hell's fire was formerly a mental picture which helped
deter many of us from committing sin. The fact that the devil
is no longer looming so, vividly in our mind's eye may help
explain the rise of crime. When tempted, we may be unable
to bring brimstone to our nostrils, but we can at least put
262
ourselves into the shoes of others who have paid too high a
price for their transgressions. We can even visualize them in
their prison garb.
If we make a list of our good traits and our bad traits, we
can readily see how, by the right use of imagination, we can
fortify our virtues and cut down on our faults.
We are born selfish. We develop enlightenment by envi-
sioning the blind alleys into which egoism may take us. We
are born greedy. We overcome our rapacity by foreseeing
how our overreaching may defeat itself.
Most of us are lazy by nature. We overcome indolence
largely by visualizing where it will lead us. We develop a
sense of responsibility by imagining how we would like it if
others shirked their duties, as well as by weighing the con-
sequences to us of our own slacking.
We are born intolerant, We develop magnanimity through
putting ourselves into the other fellow's shoes, and hoping
that he will put himself into ours.
We are born arrogant. We develop humility by seeing
ourselves as others see us and by otherwise developing a
sense of values.
Even faith itself is a product of our creative minds. As
Henry J. Taylor said: "Our imagination is the key to rever-
ence, the bridge in our daily union with God." Or as Bishop
Austin Pardue said, "Through imagination we can lift our-
selves above our egos and make Christ more a part of us/*
The core of personality is character, and personality, in
turn, largely depends on what we do with our minds.
"Not every person may become a personage/* wrote Wil-
liam Lyon Phelps, "but every person may become a person-
ality." To achieve that goal, however, we must keep our
minds awake we must see to it that our characters mature
in the creative ways which Harry Overstreet prescribed.
We will then be doing our best by ourselves, and perhaps
may be helping mankind. For as Hughes Mearns wrote, "The
development of one's creative self is the open door to a wise
263
and peaceful life, and if widely employed may even be the
hope of a tortured world/'
Creative imagination the lamp that lit the world can
light our lives. God grant that likewise it may re-light our
worldl
INDEX
"Academic attitude/' 28
Adams, Dr. Clifford R,, 179, 181
Adams, George Matthew, 157
Adams, Samuel Hopkins, 237
Adler, Mortimer, 60
Adversity, a spur to creativity, 22
Advertising, an "idea profession,"
6
Aiken, Dr. Howard H., 2
Aims of Education, The, by Al-
fred North Whitehead, 28
Alcoholics Anonymous, 41, 163
Alexander, Jack, 60
Alger, Joseph, 120, 121
Mice in Wonderland by Lewis
Carroll, 52
American Association of Applied
and Professional Psycholo-
gists, 7
American Language, The, by H.
L. Mencken, 129
American Magazine, The, 58, 139
American Psychological Associa-
tion, 2, 12, 168
Anderson, George B., 190
Anderson, Robert, 137
Andrews, Mrs. Clayton, 202
Animals, training of, 115
Annual Hobby Show for Older
Persons, 17
Antioch College, 30
Applegate, A. A., 32
Application, letters of, 226, 227
Aptitudes, disuse of, 9
Archbald, Joe, 115
Aristotle, 117
Armstrong, Elizabeth, 111
Arnold, Matthew, 61, 136
Arts, fine, aid to creativity:
musical composition, 117
painting, 118-124
Association, power of, 170
Associationism, 174
Atlantic Cable, 61
Attitude, overcritical, 22, 23
Augusta National Golf Club, 150
Babcock, General Louis, 79
Bacal, Jacques, 180, 183
Bacon, Francis, 55
Baker, Herbert, 172
Baker, Newton D., 19
Baldness, mental, 43
Berkley, Alben, 99
Barrie, James M., 50, 260
Barton, Betsey, 234
Barton, Bruce:
on apathy of young men, 21
"change shoes" exercise, 151
on charity, 163
conversation as a creative exer-
cise, 133
on creative expectancy, 260
and creative reading, 61
on marriage, 184
The Man Nobody Knows, 49,
57
travel as a creative exercise,
100
Barton, Fred B., 155
Batten, Barton, Durstine & Os-
born, Inc., 154
Bauer, Dr. W, W., 189, 195, 196
"Bed Warmers," 68
Beetle, David, 176
Bell Aircraft, 4
265
266
Bell, Larry, 4
Bennett, Arnold, 135
Bennett, Frank H., 143
Benny, Jack, 126
Berra, Yogi, 77
Bethune-Cookman College, 261
Bethune, Mary McLeod, 261
Betty Crocker Cookbook, 201
Bill Ray, 208
Billings, Josh, 248
Birdseye, Clarence, 255
Blackburn College, 30
Blake, Dorothy, 109, 158
Blears, Lord, 80
Blocks, emotional, 177
Blues, the, 3, 246-249
Boiler, Henry, 79
Bollingen Prize in Poetry, 17
Bonham, Ernie, 90
Books, shelter, 25
Boraas, Julius, 129
Borah, Senator, 24
Borden, Richard E., 133
Boredom, 252, 253, 254
Bomlleri, Dr., 213
Boston Bruins, 81
Boswell, James, 130
Boudreau, Lou, 89
Bradley, General Omar, 150
Brahms, 172
Brain centers, 5
Brains, electronic, 2
Bread Loaf Workshop, 140
Bresnahan, Roger, 88, 89
Bristol, Lee Hastings, Jr., 117
Broadley, Charles, 140
Broadley, Margaret, 140, 202, 245
Brookings Institute, The, 28
Brower, Lee, 208
"Brown 'n Serve" products, 218
Brown, Paul, 91
Brown, T. M., 211
Broyles, H. N., 58
Buck, Pearl, 141
Buckingham, Burdette Ross, 29
Buffalo, University of, 31, 137,
225
Bull, story of fast-running, 11
Bulletin, The, 159
Burack, A. S., 140
Burke, Edmund, 43
Burnside, General, 215
Burroughs, John, 144
Butzer, Dr. Albert G., 45, 56, 134,
175, 234
Caldwell, Taylor, 14
California, University of, 142
Calkins, Earnest Elmo, 65, 108
Call Me Madam, 108
Camping and Woodcraft by Hor-
ace Kephart, 104
Canasta, 69
Cannon, Dr. Walter B., 170
Canyock, Robert A., 226
Cardinal, The, by Henry Morton
Robinson, 41
Carl, W. P., 93
Carlin, Phillips, 235
Carlyle, Thomas, 175, 241
Carmichael, Dr. Oliver, 27
Carnegie, Dale, 41, 133, 143, 159,
247
Carnegie Foundation, 24
Carroll, Lewis, 52
Cart, Mrs. Edward, 206
Cartoonists, 122, 123
Casson, Herbert N., 16, 17
Casto, Dale G., 93, 128, 195, 227
Cerf, Bennett, 131
Chance, Frank Leroy, 88
Chandler, Happy, 89
Charity, 163, 164
Charlie, the barber, 211, 212, 213
Chatelain, Paul, 118
Check-lists, 224
Chiang Kai-shek, Madame, 247
Chicago Daily News, 176
Chicago, University of, 38
Children:
creative spontaneity of, 50
ingenuity of, 47
stimulators of creative thinking,
45 ff.
"Children's Hour, The," 53
Christian Herald, The, 145
Christophers, the, 155
Churchill, Winston:
"Painting as a Pastime," 44, 98,
119, 121, 237, 251, 252
Civilization, a product of creative
thinking, 6
Clancy, King, 81, 82
Clergymen, sons of, 61, 62
Cleveland Graphite Bronze Com-
pany, 220
"Cliche"," 71
Cobb, Ty, 88, 90
Cochrane, Mickey, 88
Cole, Stephen, 254
Coleridge, Samuel, 145
Collaboration, an aid ta creativity,
175, 176
Collette, Maurice, 122
Collyer, John, 92
Columbia Encyclopedia, The, 8
Columbia University, 34, 55, 239
Competitive spirit, 23
Complexes, 3
Conant, Dr. James B., 25, 26, 32,
212
Concise Oocford Dictionary, The,
128
Congeniality, family, 190
Connecticut, University of, 254
Conover, Harry, 42
Conrad, Joseph, 55, 136, 172
"Consulting and Advisory Serv-
ices, Inc./' 256
Contest, employee courtesy, 157
Contract bridge, 70
Conversation, 132, 133
Coolidge, Calvin, 149
Corbett, Jim, 81, 148
Cordes, Alexander, 225
Coronet, 144
Country Girl, The, 108
Courtesy, 156
Coxe, Warren W., 167
Crane, Dr. George W., 8
Crawford, Professor Robert P., 32
267
Creative exercise, 1
Creative potential, 1
Creativity:
courses in, 31 ff.
definition of, 1
in elementary and secondary
schools, 30
lack of in education, 7
phases of, 165-173
Crile, Dr. George, 233
Cronin, A. J., 136
Crosby, Bing, 109
Cumings, Tax, 82
Cunningham, Judge Thomas, 187
Curiosity, 52
Dache", Lilly, 123
Daly, Mark, 137
Davies, Robertson, 180
Davis, Carl, 128
Davis, Clarence L., 164, 227
Davis, Mac, 77
Davis, Maxine, 250
Day-dreams, 3
Dean, Dizzy, 132
Debate, formal, 134
Decay of Self-Reliance by Newton
Baker, 19
Deere and Company, 133
Depew, Chauncey, 37
Dere Mabel by Ed Streeter, 145
Dewey, Thomas, 214, 215
Dickens, Charles, 55, 60
Discipline, imagination in, 194-
196
Discouragement, writers', 144, 145
Disney, Walt, 1, 58
Dissertation on Roast Pig by
Charles Lamb, 142
"Divorcees Anonymous,'* 176
Dodgson, Dr. Charles Lutwidge,
see Carroll, Lewis
Domestic Relations Court of Los
Angeles, 187
"Doodle Oil," 94, 95
Dooley, Harry, 97
Douglas, Mrs. Colin, 176
268
Doyle, Sir Arthur Conan, 132, 136
Dreier, Tom, 170
DriscoU, Bonnie, 169, 200
Drive, creative, 12
Driver, William, 260
Dublin, Louis L, 186
Dudley, Ed, 150
Duffy, Ben, 156
Dumas, Alexandre, 55
Dunn, David, 42, 156, 185
Duties, filial, make games o, 190,
191
Eager, George, 159
Eagle, Chief Don, 80
Easter, Luke, 89
Eastman Kodak Company, 220
Edison, Charles, 65
Edison, Thomas, 65
Edlund, Sidney, 223, 227
Education:
aims of, 28
and creative thinking, 27
lack of creativity in, 7, 8
Effort, creative, 7, 16, 196, 197
Effort, intellectual, 173
Einstein, Albert, 92
Eisenhower, General Dwight D.,
234
Emerson, Ralph Waldo:
"changing shoes," 147
on courtesy, 157
and creative expectancy, 260
and meditation, 170
on practice, 37
son of clergyman, 61
on thinking, 174
Empathy, 155
Erasmus, 133
Erskine, John, 148
Evans, Ernestine, 160
Evans, Ethel Goetz, 112
Everett, Edward, 144
Ewald, Carl, 51
Exercise:
creative, therapeutic value of,
241-243
mental, 39 ff.
physical, 37, 38
Expectancy, creative, 260, 261
"Face Talk," 51
Faculty, creative, 15
Fadiman, Clifton, 131
Family Circle, 139
Farley, James, 40
Farms, creative challenge of,
114
Father of the Bride, The, by Ed-
ward Streeter, 145
"Fatties Anonymous/* 176
Fear, 249-250
Feather, William, 23, 40, 132,
184, 255
Feland, Robley, 235
FeUer, Bob, 89
Ferber, Edna, 14
Flaubert, Gustave, 13
Flesch, Dr. Rudolf, 50
Flexner, Abraham, 29
Florez, Admiral Luis de, 32, 33
Florida, University of, 42
Forbes, B. C., 17
Ford, Henry, H, 219
Forest, Mrs. Esther de, 159
Fosdick, Harry Emerson, 56
Fowler, Lee, Jr., 107
Fowler, H. W., 128
Frankfurter, Justice Felix, 174
Franklin, Benjamin, 9
Free association, 251
"Free enterprise," 20
Freeman, Douglas Southall, 215
Fromm, Erich, 249
Fuller, Dr. C. W., 177
Fuller, Henry J., 20
Fulton, Robert, 109
Furst, Bruno, 40
Gaba, Lester, 121
Gale, Samuel, 158
Gallup, George, 151
Galvani, Luigi, 173
Gamble, James M., 261
Games, sedentary:
card playing, 68, 69
checkers, 74, 75
chess, 73-75
crossword puzzles, 65, 66
cryptograms, 68
Double Crostics, 67, 68
parlor pastimes, 70-72
Garfield, James A., 251
Gates, Professor Phelps, 139
General Electric Company, 81,
33, 235
General Mills Company, 157, 218
General Motors Corporation, 113
"Genesee Owls/' 68
Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, 108
George, Gorgeous, 79, 80
Gerber, Mrs, William, 196
Get-alongs, the, 12
Get In There and Paint by Joseph
Alger, 121
"Gettysburg Address," 128, 144
Gibbon, Edward, 42
Gift of the Magi, The, by O.
Henry, 143
Giving, kinds of, 257, 258, 259,
260
Glantz, Evelyn, 110
Goldsmith, Oliver, 61, 260
Goodrich, B. F, Company, 92
Goodwill Industries, 233
Gordon, Mildred, 172
Gould, Laurence, 180
Grainger, Percy, 101
Grant, Joseph M., 251
Grant, General U. S., 149
Gray Line Sightseeing Company,
97
Gregg, Dr. Alan, 239, 241
Group spirit, 23
Growth, creative, 32
Guidance, vocational, 108, 225
Guide to Confident Living by Dr.
Norman Vincent Peale, 258
Guilford, Dr. J. P., 2, 7, 27, 43,
168
Gunther, John, 131
269
Habley, Mrs. C. G., 194
Hairston, Lieutenant Guy, Jr.,
160, 161
Halbak, friend of Alex Osborn, 56
Haldeman-Julius, 55
Halifax, Lord, son of, 213
Hallucinations, 3
Hamilton College, 131
Hamilton Watch Company, 142
Hammond, Girard, 163
Happiness, 245
Hardy, E. J., 50
Harper, William W., 77, 78
Hart, Moss, 108
Harvard Business School, 230
Harvard Computation Labora-
tory, 2
Harvard University, 82, 152
Hatch, Frank, 73
HatBeld, Dr. J. A., 240
Hauser, Dr. Gayelord, 185
Hayashi, Aisaku, 162
Heart of Burroughs' Journals,
The, edited by Clara Barrus,
144
"Heartbreak Court," 187
Heckenkamp, Andrew C., 113
Hengerer, Ted, 110
Henry, O., 56, 142
Herford, Oliver, 138
Herold, Don, 123, 170, 172
Hess, Billy, 37
Hickman, Herman, 92
Higinbotham, Ted, 46
HiS, Red, 235
"History of Ideas,** course in, 33
Hitler, Adolf, 34, 40
Hobbies:
collecting, 109
handcraft, 110
he-man, 112, 113
Hoffenstein, Samuel, 246
Hohman, Dr. Leslie B., 242
Holiday, 58
Holism, accepted concept of, 27
Holland, Don, 91
Holmes, Carl E^ 219
270
Holmes, OHver Wendell, 136,
145
Hope, Anthony, 136
Hoppe, Willie, 38
Hopper, Hedda, 172
Horn, Dean Ralph, 12
Hornung, E. W., 132
Horowitz, Caroline, 51
Horowitz, Mort, 146
Housekeeping:
beautify home, 205, 206
cleaning, 202, 203
cooking, 201, 202
creative challenge of, 199, 200
inventions, 207
safety in homes, 204, 205
shopping, 200
Hoving, Walter, 224
Howard, OUie, 93
How to Get the Job Yow Want by
Lawrence Terzian, 230
How to Make Money at Home by
Polly Webster, 140
How to Read a Book by Mortimer
Adler, 60
How to Stop Worrying and Start
Living by Dale Carnegie,
143
Hughes, Charles Evans, 61
Hughes, Rupert, 67
Hugo, Victor, 107
Human Engineering Laboratory,
9
Humor, sense of, development of,
41
Hunt, Leigh, 245
Hunt, Peter, 110, 111, 120, 122,
196
Hunt, Peter, father of, 124
Hunter College, 68
Hunting, Gardner, 44
Hutchens, Robert, 171
Hutchinson, E. D., 170
Ideas:
association of, 118
basic, 142
self-interrogation an aid to, 168,
169
"Ignac," 46
His, physical and mental, 241, 242
Imagery, visual, 3
Imagination:
active use of, 8
aided by exercise, 42-44
anticipative, 4
of children, 45-47
creative, 2, 4
in industry and commerce, 32
loss of, 1
motor of, 133
reproductive, 3
"social," 149
speculative, 3
vicarious, 4, 93, 147 ff., 213
visual, 126, 127
well-trained, 7
Income tax, 24
Influences, environmental, 26
"Inky Pinky," 70, 71
Insecurity, 23
Intelligence:
creative, 29
critical, 29
Interview, job-seeking, 229, 230,
231, 232
Irvin, Stanley P., 95, 229
Irving, Washington, 252
Jacobowsky and the Colonel by
Franz Werfel, 250
James, Henry, 170
James, William, 5, 43
Jarvis, Ernest, 255
}efferson, Thomas, 77, 251
effries, Jim, 23
Jesus Christ, 49, 50, 57, 98, 149
Job-hunting, basic principles of,
224
Job-seeking, imagination in, 224r-
232
Jobs, a challenge to imagination,
211 ff.
Johns, William H., 237
Jokes, practical, 152, 153
"ones, Dr. Edward S., 225
ones, Ernie, 86
ones, Franklin P., 186
ones, Ruth A., 144
'Jonny Mop/' 208
Judgment, judicial:
building up, 28
overdevelopment of, 16
Judy, Will, 115
Kane, Joseph Nathan, 109
Kant, Immanuel, 239
Kaufman, George, 108
Keith, George R., 232
KeUeher, Bffl, 88
Keller, James, 155
Kephart, Horace, 104
Kettering, Charles F.:
cancer research, 16
on duds, 28
hobby of, 112
most quoted man, 17
on new ideas and progress, 6
on over-reading, 62
on process of research, 167
Kieran, John, 40
Kingsley, Dorothy, 172
Kingsley, Elizabeth, 67
Kinne, Birge, 161
Kipling, Rudyard, 55, 56, 216,
217
Kritzer, Cy, 88
Kunkel, Fritz, 60
Lacy, Jack, 172
La Guardia, Fiorella, 248
Laird, Dr. Donald A., 40, 246
Lamb, Charles, 130, 136, 141
Landis, Dr. Carney, 239
Lardner, Ring, 130
Laurier, Sir Wilfred, 103
Lawton, Dr. George, 15
Leacock, Stephen, 136
Lear, Edward, 138
Lee, Maurice Du Pont, 256
Lee, Ralph, 113
271
Lee, General Robert E., 215
Lehman, Harry, 156
Lehman, Professor Harvey C., 14,
16
Leighbody, Glenn W., 237
Lethargy, American, 20
Levant, Oscar, 130
Liebman, Joshua Loth, 189
Lifesavers, Incorporated, 223
Lincoln, Abraham:
and his children, 49
creativity of, 134
"Gettysburg Address" 127, 144
mental depression of, 246, 248
Link, Dr. Henry C., 20, 240
Lipton, Thomas, 215, 216
Listening With The Third Ear by
Dr. Theodor Reik, 238
Lockie, Dr. L. Maxwell, 237
Lombardo, Guy, 92
Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth,
53, 136
Longstreet, General, 215
Loughran, Tommy, 171, 172
Louis, Joe, 23
Louisiana Society of Mental
Health, 181
Love and Marriage by Alexander
Magoun, 186
Lowell, James Russell, 38
Lumpke, servant to Immanuel
Kant, 239
MacAlister, Paul, 206
MacArthur, General Douglas, 34,
162
McClellan, General, 215
McDonald, John, 69
McEvoy, J. P., 141, 162, 189
McGill University, 136
McGillicuddy, Cornelius, see
Mack, Connie
McGraw, John "Muggsy," 88
McKain, Dr. Walter C., Jr.,
254
MacLeod, Duncan, 70
MacLeod, Rob Roy, 20
272
McNamee, Graham, 235
McQuade, Eugene, 117
Macaulay, Lord, 13
Mace, Dr. David R., 180
Machamer, Jefferson, 174
Mack, Connie, 88
Maclaren, Ian, 179
Macy, R. H., 231, 232
Magoun, Alexander, 186
Major, Ralph H., Jr., 144
Man Nobody Knows, The, by
Bruce Barton, 49, 57
Mann, Thomas, 129
Manney, Grace, 47
Marble Collegiate Church, 258
Marine Midland Bank, 92
Marital preparation, courses in,
181, 182
Marlin, Dan, 80
Marriage, a creative challenge,
179 ff.
Mars Hill, 149
Martin, Dr. Alexander Reid, 259
"Mary Gloster, The," by Rudyard
Kipling, 216, 217
Masefield, John, 171
Masters' Tournament, 87
Mathieu, Aron M., 144
Matthews, Brander, 130
Mature Mind, The, by Henry
Overstreet, 238
Maugham, W. Somerset, 143,
145, 170
May, Henry, 40
Mearns, Professor Hughes, 1, 2,
31, 63, 262
Medicine, a challenge to imagina-
tion, 212
Medina, Judge H. R., 60, 79, 85
Melville, Herman, 136, 141
Memory:
exercise of, 40
step in creative process, 166
Memphis Commercial Appeal,
The, 21
Mencken, H. L., 129, 130
Menninger, Dr. Karl A., 240, 246
Menninger, Dr. William C., 190
Me-Toos, the, 12
Metropolitan Life Insurance Com-
pany, 186
Mewhinney, Mrs., 205
Meyerbeer, Giacomo, 100
Michael, Edward, 49
Michigan State College, 32
Middlebury College, 57, 140
MiUer, Betty, 137
Millonzi, Robert, 49
Mind, thinking, 3
Missouri University School of
Journalism, 226T
Mitchell, Fred, 88
Moby Dick by Herman Melville,
136
Mochizuki, Koson, 162
Monday, Mrs. Walter, 162
Montaigne, 7
Montgomery, General, 215
More, William, 140
Morley, Christopher, 67
Moses, Grandma, 120, 206
Mulcahy, Dr. Lee L., 213
Muscles, judicial, 3
National Biscuit Company, 219,
220
National Geographic, 58
National Recreation Association,
The, 51
Nations, life-cycle of, 20, 21
Navy's Special Training Division,
33
Nebraska College, 143
Nebraska, University of, 32
"Neophobia," 15
Newhauser, Hal, 87
Newton, A. Edward, 107
New York Cryptographers Soci-
ety, 68
New York State Director of Edu-
cational Research, 167
New York Times, The, 55, 57, 66,
128
New York University, Department
of Creative Education, 1, 31
New Yorker, The, 139
Niederlander, Daniel B., 114
Norstad, General Lauris, 174
North, A. W., 105
North Pole Village, 114, 115
Note taking, 61
Nutt, Robert H., 40
Obermeyer, Earl, 51
Obermeyer, Marilyn, 51
Objectivity, 41
O'Brien, Reverend John A., 182,
186
O'Connor, Johnson, 242
O'Connor, Johnson, Foundation,
14
Oedipus complex, 238
O'Hara, Wylie, 131
Ohio University, 14
Oishei, John, 120
Old age:
creative achievement in, 16 ff.
creativity threatened in, 15
imagination in, 253-255
Oliver, Mrs. William, 161
Omaha Indians, 147
Oneida Community, 70
O'Neill, Eugene, 104
O'Neill, .Steve, 88
Origination, core of, 29
Osborn, Mrs. Alex, 176
Osborn, Russell, 150
Osgood, Nancy, 135
Osier, Sir William, 107
Other-ness, sense of, 148
Oursler, Fulton, 241
Over a Million Cats, 56
Over-reading, 62
Overstreet, H. A.:
on creating, 17
on creative power, 43
maturing one's character, 262
on "neophpbia," 15
on new ideas, 252
on personality, 8
273
on "social imagination," 149
The Mature Mind, 238
Pages of Adventure, 56
Paine, Albert Bigelow, 61, 79
"Painting As a Pastime" by Wins-
ton Churchill, 44, 98, 119,
121, 237, 251, 252
Papanicolaou, Dr. George N., 212
Pardue, Bishop Austin, 262
Parents' Magazine, 139
Parker, Dell, 108
Parker, Dorothy, 129
Parties, children's, 192, 193
Pasteur, Louis, 5
Paul, Saint, 149, 249
Payne, Boyd, 137
Payne, Mrs. Harry, 159
Peabody, Richard J., 152
Peace of Mind by Joshua Loth
Liebman, 189
Peale, Dr. Norman Vincent, 98,
149, 245, 258
Peek, Burton, 133
Peeves, Nation's three main, 151,
152
Periander, 37
Personal Products Corporation,
208
Peter Hunt's Workbook by Peter
Hunt, 110
Peter Pan, statue of, 50
Phelps, William Lyon, 57, 255,
262
Pilot plants, 35
Pitkin, Walter, 252, 257
"Plan-a-Room" kit, 206
Play ideas, parent and child, 50,
Plotting, 142
Poe, Edgar Allan, 74, 130, 141
Poincar4 Henri, 165
Poker, 69
Pope, Bayard, 113, 114
Popenoe, Dr. Paul, 14
Popular Science, 58
Portis, Dr. Sidney A, 236
274
Power:
absorptive, 2
creative, 2
imaginative, 11
mental, 2
reasoning, 2
retentive, 2
work, 6
Powers, John, 42
Practice, 37
Praise, 157, 158
Printer's Ink, 145
Problem-solvers, the, 12
Process, lack in educational, 27
Procter and Gamble Company,
226, 261
Progressive Farmer, The, 139
Psychiatry:
criticized, 238, 239
danger in, 240
religion in, 240, 241
Psychoanalysis, 239
Psychological Abstracts, 7, 8
Public speaking, 133
Punning, 130, 131, 132
Putnam, Nina Wilcox, 188
Queensbury, Marquis of, 80
Quinn, Vernon, 69
Raeburn, Jean, 214
Rand, James H., Jr., 227
Randall, Arne W., 117
Raphael, 171
Reader's Digest, The, 58, 129,
139, 145, 146
Reading:
advertisements, 59
the Bible, 56, 57
biography, 56
books on thinking, 57
children's books, 56
dynamic, 61
mysteries, 55, 56
periodicals and newspapers, 57,
58
selective, 55
short stories, 56
static, 61
trade journals, 59
Reeve, Lloyd Eric, 142
Reik, Dr. Theodor, 170, 238
Reilly, Dr. William J., 241
Reiss, Julian, 114, 115
Remington, "inventor" of type-
writer, 109
Remington Rand Incorporated,
92 227
"Renschler, Dr.," 46
Research:
creative, 25
essence of, 32
"Research for Teachers by Burdette
Ross Buckingham, 29
Rice, Elmer, 67
Rice, Grantland, 133, 248
Richards, Paul, 88, 89
Richey, Harry J., 219
Rickey, Branch, 240
Rindge family, 98, 99
Rindge, Jean, 46
Rindlaub, Mrs. Jean, 197, 254
Riordan, Naomi, 108
Ripley, Robert, 46
Ripley's Odditorium, 46
Road to a Richer Life by Walter
Pitkin, 252
Robbins, D. A., 107
Roberts, Kenneth, 67
Roberts, Justice Owen, 128
Robertson, Anna Mary, 120
Robertson, Miles, 70
Robinson, Henry Morton, 41
Rockefeller Foundation, 239, 241
Rockne, Knute, 91, 92
Rockwell, Norman, 121
Rodgers, Mrs. Dorothy, 207
Rogers, Will, 149
Role of Hunches, The, by Dr.
Walter B. Cannon, 170
Ronjmel, Field Marshall, 215
Roosevelt, Franklin D., 19, 112
Roosevelt, Hotel, 40, 118
Roosevelt, Theodore, 136
Rose Petal Jam, 202
Rosen, Al, 87
Rowland, Dr. Lloyd W., 181
Ruark, Robert, 154, 235
Rubinstein, Artur, 129
Rugg, Harold, 34
Rural, Beardsley, 171
Rummy, 69
Running Pianist, The, by Robert
Lewis Taylor, 101
Rural life, 24
Russell, Bertrand, 42
Ruth, Babe, 109
Ryan, Ray, 91
Saarinen, Eliel, 7
Saint Louis University, 226
Sales Management Magazine, 208
Salter, Dr. Andrew, 238
Satterlee, Ralph, 139
Saturday Evening Post, The, 58,
139, 146
Saturday Review of Literature,
The, 140, 251
Sayers, Dorothy, 173
Schalk, Ray, 88, 89
Schisler, Mrs. Anna, 204
Schopenhauer, Arthur, 62
Science, Sovietized, 25, 26
Selling, 217
Shakespeare, William, 6, 43, 170,
177
Shaw, George Bernard, 5, 42, 60
Shaw, Henry Wheeler, 248
Shelley, Percy Bysshe, 172
Sherk, Professor Kenneth, 102
Shopping, judgment and imagina-
tion in, 159, 160
Shore, Eddie, 81
Sidney, Sir Philip, 140
Skinner, Cornelia Otis, 100
Slang, coining, 129, 130
Sleep-dreams, 3
"Sleepy-Bye" garments, 111
Smith, Adam, 212
Smith College, 102
Smith, Elliott Dunlap, 60
275
Smith, Mrs. Fannie G., 208
Smith, H. Katherine, 234
Smith, Johnny, 38
Smith, Logan Pearsall, 253
Smith, Sydney, 130
Soft living, 19
Solitude, 98
Soule, Mrs. Maynard F., 201
Soul6, Mrs. Muriel, 164
South Pacific, 131
Southern California, University
of, 2
Speech, figures of, 128, 129
Speeds, friends of Abraham Lin-
coln, 248
Speicher, Eugene, 118
Spier, Carl, 227
Spink, Taylor, 89
Sporting News, The, 89
Sports, indoor:
basketball, 83
billiards, 78, 79
bowling, 82
boxing, 80, 81
fencing, 82
hockey, 81, 82
wrestling, 79, 80
Sports, outdoor:
baseball, 87-90
fishing, 93, 94
football, 90-92
golf, 85-87
hunting, 95, 96
water, 92, 93
Stanky, Eddie, 89
Starr, Samuel, 176
Statler, E. M., 261
Stein, Gertrude, 15
Steinmetz, Charles, 234
Stephens College, 181
Sterne, Laurence, 136
Stevens, Wallace, 17
Stevenson, Robert Louis, 177
Stimson, Henry L., 30
Stone, Herbert, 93
Stop Annoying Your Children by
Dr. W. W. Bauer, 189
276
Stout, William, 112
Streeter, Daniel, 104
Streeter, Edward, 145, 172
Subjectivity, 41
Suggestions systems, 219-221
Sufiivan, John L., 81, 148
Supposing, technique of, 142
Swift, Jonathan, 252
Synonyms, 127, 128
Syracuse University, 226
Tact, 149
Talent, creative, 12, 13
Talva, Galina, 108
Taylor, Henry J., 6, 153, 253, 262
Taylor, Robert Lewis, 101
Teachers, training to teach cre-
ativity, 35
Teaching to Think by Julius
Boraas, 129
Techniques, originality in our,
123
Tenney, Harold, 92
Tennyson, Alfred Lord, 61, 97
Tepper, Zelig, 120
Terzian, Lawrence, 230
Thayer, Fred, 89
Theatricals, amateur, 72
Therapy, occupational, 237, 238
"Think-Up Sessions/' 32
Thinking, creative, 3, 5
Thomas, G. Cullen, 218
Thomas, Lowell, 104
Thomas, Lowell, Jr., 104
Thomas, R. S., 94
Thoreau, Henry, 32, 97, 171
Thurstone, Dr. L. L., 38
Timing, 182, 188
Tolstoy, Leo, 147
Tone, Brik, 108
Toombs, Alfred, 199
Toronto Maple Leafs, 82
Training the Dog by Will Tudv
115 J y
Travel, an aid to creative think-
ing, 97
Trivers, Julian, 56, 197, 198
Trollope, Anthony, 136
Try Giving Yourself Away by
David Dunn, 42, 156
Tunney, Gene, 81
Turgenev, Ivan, 147
Turner, Leon, 226
Twain, Mark:
on adversity, 22
billiard-playing, 65, 79
and General Grant, 149
on his periods of illumination.
170
reading habits of, 61
"Twenty Questions," 70, 72
Twenty-Third Psalm, 127: parody
4 21
Ulcer myth, 235-237
United States Office of Education,
117
United States Security Exchange
Commissioner, 49
Urban life, 24
Urge, creative, 9
Values, true sense of, 261-263
Van Dyke, Dr. Henry, 245
Variety, 59
Vaughan, Mrs. William, 192
Verduin, Professor Arnold, 128
Vinci, Leonardo da, 12, 118
Visualization, structural, 4
Vocational guidance, 108
Vogue, 71
Voltaire, 255
Wales, George, 73, 74, 75
Walks, Graham, 62, 174
War, fears of, 25
Ward, Alan, 93, 216
Ward, Alan, Jr., 91
Waring Blendor, 47
Waring, Fred, 155
Way to Security, The, by Dr.
Henry Link, 240
Wealth of Nations, The, by Adam
Smith, 212
Webster, Polly, 140
Weimert, George, 86
Weiss, Peggy, 234
Welles, Bishop Edward R., 101,
102
Wellington, Lord, 77
WeUs, Chandler, 207
Wells, George Ross, 247
Wells, Dr. S. L., 7
Wendenhall, James, 34
Werfel, Franz, 250
Wertham, Frederic, 239
Weslow, William, 108
Wheeler, Elmer, 42
Whitehead, Alfred North, 28, 35,
62, 110
Who's Who in America, 61
Who's Who in England, 61
"Why try," creed of, 21, 22
Wiggam, Dr. Albert Edward, 39
Williams, Ben Ames, 145
Williams, Ted, 89
Williams, Whitney, 172, 203
Williams, Dr. William Carlos,
141
Will power, strengthening of by
exercise, 41
Wilson, Henry, 11
Wimsey, Lord Peter, 173, 174
Windshield wiper, inventor of,
120
Windsor, Duke of, 109
Windsor, Dutchess of, 200, 201
Winebrenner, Professor D. K., 9
277
Wolfe, Thomas, 201, 233
Women, imaginative powers of,
13 ff.
Wood, William M., Jr., 226
Woodbury College, 139
Woolf, James D., 6
Woollcott, Alexander, 42, 131,
132, 162
Worcester Tech, 21, 33
Worry, 3, 251, 252
Wright Brothers, 109
Writer, The, 140
Writers' Conferences, 140
Writer s Market, The, by Ruth A.
Jones and Aron M, Mathieu,
144
Writer's Notebook, A, by W. Som-
erset Maugham, 143
Writing, types of, 135
Wurzer, Tony, 81
Jachting, 93
Yale University, 60
"Yankee Puzzlers," 68
Can Change the World by
James Keller, 155
Can't Take It With you by
Moss Hart and George Kauf-
man, 108
Young, E. H., 180
Young, James Webb, 16
"Your Hit Parade," 125, 126
Zamiska, Charles, 220
