Has* /.^/0c5"/ 
Book //'■■-' f^v 

Copyright N° 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



PSYCHOLOGY 

AS APPLIED TO 

EDUCATION 



PfWMj 



BY 



AGNUSSON, Ph.D. 



STATE NORMAL SCHOOL 
ST. CLOUD, MINNESOTA 




SILVER, BURDETT AND COMPANY 

BOSTON NEW YORK CHICAGO 



V 



3?" f? 



Copyright, 1913, by 
SILVER, BURDETT AND COMPANY 



©CU343495 



PREFACE 

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

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

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

iii 



iv Preface 

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

P. M. MAGNUSSON 

March 1, 1913 



PUBLISHERS' NOTE 

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



CONTENTS 

PART I 
ANALYTIC PSYCHOLOGY 

OHAPTXB FA.GK 

I. Introduction 3 

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

(A). The Intellect 

II. Sensation and the Senses 10 

Sensation Defined, 10. Classification of the Senses, 11. 
The Sense of Sight, 12. The Sense of Hearing, 14. The 
Sense of Touch, 15. The Muscular or Motor Sense, 16. 
The Sense of Smell, 16. The Sense of Taste, 16. The 
Temperature Sense, 16. The Organic Senses, 16. Weber's 
Law, 17. The Spatial Element, 19. The Pedagogy of Sen- 
sation, 19. Analysis of the Sensations, 20-21. 

III. Perception 24 

An Analysis of Perception, 25 . The Element from Past 
Experience, Apperception, 27. The Sensations as Factors 
in Perception, 29. The Training of Perception, 34. 

IV. Imagination 36 

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

V. Memoby 43 

The Physical Basis of Memory, 43. Analysis of Memory, 
44. Sense Classes of Memory, 45. The Two Kinds of 
Memory, 47. The Pedagogy of Memory, 50. 

▼ 



vi Contents 

CHAPTM FAGl 

VI. Conception and Judgment 58 

Concepts, their Formation and Application, 63. Class 
Concepts and Practical Concepts, 54. Symbol and Con- 
cept, 66. The Right Kind of Concepts, 58. The Logical 
Classes of Concepts, 59. Judgment, 60. 

VII. Reasoning 62 

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

VIII. How we Think : Attention 74 

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

IX. How we Think: Analysis and Comparison ... 87 
Function of Analysis and Comparison, 87. Pedagogy 
of Analysis and Comparison, 89. 

X. How we Think: Association, ob Synthesis ... 92 
Kinds of Association, 92. The Physical Basis of Asso- 
ciation, 94. Association an Aspect of Every Mental Ac- 
tivity, 96. The Organization of our Associations, 96. 



(B). The Motives and Feelings 

XI. Man as a Reacting Organism 98 

The Different Kinds of Stimuli, 98. Impulse Defined, 99. 
Gradation of Motives, 103. 

XII. Feelings, Impulses, and their Expression . . . 105 
The Relation of Feeling to Impulse, 106. Common Char- 
acteristics of Emotions and Impulses, 110. Expression 
of Impulses and Emotions, 111. 

XIII. Feelings and Impulses Classified 118 

Classification of Feelings and Impulses, 118. Discus- 
sion of Classification, 119. 



Contents vii 

CHAPTER PAGE 

XTV. The Control and Development op Certain Impulses 

and Emotions 127 

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

XV. Culture .144 

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

XVI. Habit 153 

The Physical Basis of Habit, 153. The Two Classes 
of Habits, 154. Function of Habit in the Economy of 
Life, 155. Laws of Habit, 156. Habit and Age, 160. 
Habits as Elements in Character, 161. 

XVII. Ideals, or Rational Interests 165 

Impulse as a Motive for Action, 166. A Higher Mo- 
tive for Action, Rational Interest, 168. 

XVH1. Our Selves . .172 

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

XIX. The Will . . .182 

Two Classes of Voluntary Action, 182. The Motor 
Process and the Voluntary Process, 184. General Con- 
spectus of the Active Side of Human Nature, 185. The 
Education of the Will, 187. 

XX The Creation op Ideals 190 

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

XXL Character 197 

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



vui Contents 

(C). Subconsciousness 

OHAPTEK PAGH 

XXII. The Subconscious Life 201 

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

(D). Child Study 

XXIII. Childhood . 220 

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

XXrV. Early Adolescence and Youth 238 

General Characteristics of Early Adolescence, 238. 
Adolescence the Time for Character Formation, 240. 
Teaching the Adolescent to know Himself, 243. Sum- 
mary of Adolescence, 245. Youth, 246. Contrast 
between Childhood and Youth, 246. Medievalism and 
the Ethics of Youth, 248. Comparison of Youth and 
Maturity, 250. The Sphere of Instruction for Youth, 
252. 

PART II 

PEDAGOGICAL APPLICATION OP PSYCHOLOGY 

XXV. The Art op Studying 256 

Eye, Ear, and Hand, 256. The Proper Attitude for 
Study, 258. Suggestions in Regard to the Notebook, 
261. 

XXVI. The Recitation 264 

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



Contents 



IX 



CHAPTER 

XXVII. 



PAGE 

274 



HOW TO TEACH SCIENCE, AND WHAT SCIENCE TO TEACH 

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

XXVHI. How to teach an Art 285 

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

XXIX. The Pedagogy of Technical Habits .... 300 
Physical Education, 300. How Writing should be 
Taught, 303. Manual Training, Sloyd, 304. Indus- 
trial Education, 305. Elementary Agriculture, 308. 
Domestic Economy, 311. Sewing, 311. Commercial 
Subjects, 312. 



XXX. Educational Eeorganization 

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



Appendix, The Nervous System 
Index 



314 



331 
339 



PART I 
PSYCHOLOGY 



CHAPTER I 

INTRODUCTION 

VALUE OF PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY TO THE EDUCATOR 

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

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

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

3 



4 Psychology as Applied to Education 

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

Thus it comes to pass that just as we have agricul- 
tural botany, industrial chemistry, and homiletic the- 
ology, we have developed an educational psychology. 
Here we leave ultimate questiomso^jnetagbp 1 " 111 ^!!*^ 
answered, just as we do in every otner practical science ; 
not because such questions should not be answered 
or cannot be answered, but because metaphysics is 
of theoretic interest only. Here we busy ourselves 
with the highways of the science, follow the beaten 
paths, and ignore the byways and the frontier; be- 
cause happily, as a rule, the useful is the obvious, and 
the commonplace is the most vital. And everywhere 
we look at questions primarily from the practical side. 
Our theoretic interest is only secondary. 

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

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

* See Appendix : The Nervous System. 



Introduction 5 

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

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

THE SUBJECT MATTER OF PSYCHOLOGY 

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

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

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



6 Psychology as Applied to Education 

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

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

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



Introduction 7 

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



THE THREE ASPECTS OF THE MIND 

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

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



8 Psychology as Applied to Education 

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

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



THE TRIANGLE OF EDUCATION 

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

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

ART 
Education 

of 
Activities 




Education / \ Education 

of A. A of 

Thought Feeling 



Introduction 9 

Exercises and Illustrations 

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

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

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

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

b. 6 X 6 = 36. 

c. Singing a hymn. 

4. Define the three aspects of the mind. 

5. Diagrams that show the importance of viewpoint: — 

The world as God knows it: 123456789 
The world as you (1) perceive it: 1 2 34-5 6789 

What the world is to 9: 12 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 
What 5 realizes of the world: i2345 678» 



(A). The Intellect 

CHAPTER II 
SENSATION AND THE SENSES 

SENSATION DEFINED 

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

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

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

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

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

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

10 



Sensation and the Senses 11 

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

CLASSIFICATION OF THE SENSES 

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

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

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

A. Special Senses. 

I. The major special senses : — 

1. The sense of sight. 

2. The sense of hearing. 

3. The sense of touch. 

4. The motor sense. 

II. The minor special senses : — 

1. The sense of smell. 

2. The sense of taste. 

3. The sense of temperature. 

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



12 



Psychology as Applied to Education 



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

THE SENSE OF SIGHT 

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

eye cavity, called 
the retina, and 
paints a small in- 
verted image of the 
scene before the 
eye. The retina 
(which means little 
net) is a network 
of nerve endings 
of the optic nerve. 
These end-organs 
of the optic nerve 
The rods are filled 
This substance 




'efina 



Optic 

Metre 



Diagram of a Section through the Eyeball 



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



Sensation and the Senses 



13 



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




Optic . 
ner're 

At fen Rectus 



Diagram showing the Eyes in Position in their Sockets 



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

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



14 



Psychology as Applied to Education 



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



THE SENSE OF HEARING 

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

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

Diagram showing Structure of the Ear neural event in 

In the lower figure the inner ear is shown nat- ,-, ■,-, , , 

ural size. In the upper figure the external ear is ine aUOltOry tract 

shown much too small relatively to the size of the of the COrteX acts 
internal structures. The oblique shading repre- . 

sents bone. A, nerve. &S a Stimulus tO 




Sensation and the Senses 15 

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

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

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

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

THE SENSE OF TOUCH 

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



16 Psychology as Applied to Education 

THE MUSCULAR OR MOTOR SENSE 

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

THE SENSE OF SMELL 

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

THE SENSE OF TASTE 

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

THE TEMPERATURE SENSE 

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

THE ORGANIC SENSES 

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



Sensation and the Senses 17 

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

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

WEBER'S LAW 

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



18 Psychology as Applied to Education 

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

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

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



Sensation and the Senses 19 

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

THE SPATIAL ELEMENT 

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

THE PEDAGOGY OF SENSATION 

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

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

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



20 



Psychology as Applied to Education 



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22 Psychology as Applied to Education 

Exercises 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



Sensation and the Senses 23 

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

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

12. Give examples of sensations and their stimuli. 

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



CHAPTER III 
PERCEPTION 

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

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

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

24 



Perception 25 

AN ANALYSIS OF PERCEPTION 

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

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

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

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



26 Psychology as Applied to Education 

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

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

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

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

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



Perception 27 

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

THE ELEMENT FROM PAST EXPERIENCE, APPERCEPTION 

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

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

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



28 Psychology as Applied to Education 

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

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

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



Perception 29 

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

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

THE SENSATIONS AS FACTORS IN PERCEPTION 

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

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



30 Psychology as Applied to Education 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



Perception 31 

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

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

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

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

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



32 Psychology as Applied to Education 

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

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

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

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



Perception 33 

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

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

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

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



34 Psychology as Applied to Education 

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

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

THE TRAINING OF PERCEPTION 

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

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

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



Perception 35 

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

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

Exercises 

i. In what respects are the following figures inapplicable? 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

10. Explain some illusion in your personal experience. 



CHAPTER IV 
IMAGINATION 

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

IMAGINATION AND PERCEPTION 

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

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

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

36 



Imagination 37 

KINDS OF IMAGINATION 

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

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

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

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

PRACTICAL VALUE OF IMAGINATION 

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



38 Psychology as Applied to Education 

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

THE TRAINING OF THE IMAGINATION 

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

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



Imagination 39 

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

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

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



40 Psychology as Applied to Education 

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

THE ABUSE OF THE IMAGINATION 

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

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

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



Imagination 41 

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

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

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



42 Psychology as Applied to Education 

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

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



CHAPTER V 

MEMORY 

THE PHYSICAL BASIS OF MEMORY 

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

43 



44 Psychology as Applied to Education 

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

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

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

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

ANALYSIS OF MEMORY 

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

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



Memory 45 

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

SENSE CLASSES OF MEMORY 

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

Visual Memory. — Visual memory is probably in 



46 Psychology as Applied to Education 

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

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

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



Memory 4.7 

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

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

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

THE TWO KINDS OP MEMORY 

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

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



48 Psychology as Applied to Education 

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

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

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



Memory 49 

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

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

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



50 Psychology as Applied to Education 

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

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

THE PEDAGOGY OF MEMORY 

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



Memory 51 

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

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



52 Psychology as Applied to Education 

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

Exercises 

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

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

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

4. How would you learn the multiplication table? 

5. How would you learn to spell ? 

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

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

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



CHAPTER VI 

CONCEPTION AND JUDGMENT 
CONCEPTS, THEIR FORMATION AND APPLICATION 

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

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

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

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

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

53 



54 Psychology as Applied to Education 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

CLASS CONCEPTS AND PRACTICAL CONCEPTS 

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



Conception and Judgment . 55 

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

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

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

However, in the system of human knowledge known 



56 Psychology as Applied to Education 

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

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

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

SYMBOL AND CONCEPT 

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

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



Conception and Judgment 57 

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

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

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

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

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



58 Psychology as Applied to Education 

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

THE RIGHT KIND OF CONCEPTS 

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



Conception and Judgment 59 

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

THE LOGICAL CLASSES OF CONCEPTS 

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

(a) Ideas of things, substantive concepts. 

(b) Ideas of events, motor concepts. 

(c) Ideas of qualities, attributive concepts. 

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

(e) Ideas of relation between two other concepts, 

relative concepts. 

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

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



60 Psychology as Applied to Education 

JUDGMENT 

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

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

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

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

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



Conception and Judgment 61 

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

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

Exercises 

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

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

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

4. Give an instance of mistaking symbol for meaning. 

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

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



CHAPTER VII 
REASONING 

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

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

So we have — 

Concept -f concept = judgment. 

Judgment + judgment = chain of reasoning. 

There are two kinds of reasoning, inductive and 
deductive. 

INDUCTIVE REASONING 

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

62 



Reasoning 63 

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

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

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

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

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

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



64 Psychology as Applied to Education 

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

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

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

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



Reasoning 65 

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

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

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



66 Psychology as Applied to Education 

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

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



Reasoning 67 

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

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

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

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



68 Psychology as Applied to Education 

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

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

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

DEDUCTIVE REASONING 

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

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

Water expands when it freezes. 

The liquid in this glass is water. 

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




Reasoning 69 

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



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



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

PEDAGOGY OF REASONING 

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



70 Psychology as Applied to Education 

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

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

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



Reasoning 71 

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

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

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

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

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



72 Psychology as Applied to Education 

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

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

SUMMARY OF STAGES OF MENTAL ACTIVITY 

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

A. The Fundamental Basal Stages 

Activity Product 

1. Perception Percept 

2. Memory Image 

3. Imagination Image 

B. The Complex Developed Stages 

Activity Product 

1. Conception Concept = a unity of notions, or 

attributes 

2. Judgment = explicit conception Judgment=a, union of two con- 

cepts to form a new concept 

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

union of judgments to form a 
new judgment 



Reasoning 73 

Exercises 

What is wrong in each of the three following problems ? 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



CHAPTER VIII 

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

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

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

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

Attention; 

Analysis and Comparison; 

Association, or Synthesis. 

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

MEANING OF TERM "ATTENTION" 

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

74 



How We Think: Attention 75 

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

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

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

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



76 Psychology as Applied to Education 

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





Concentrated Attention Diffused Attention 

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

CHARACTERISTICS OF ATTENTION 

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

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



How We Think : Attention 77 

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

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

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

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



78 Psychology as Applied to Education 

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

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

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

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

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



How We Think: Attention 79 

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

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

HOW THE MIND ACTS IN ATTENTION 

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

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

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



80 Psychology as Applied to Education 

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

KINDS OF ATTENTION 

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

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

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



How We Think : Attention 81 

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

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

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



82 Psychology as Applied to Education 

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

INTEREST 

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

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

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

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



How We Think: Attention 83 

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

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

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

THE PEDAGOGY OF ATTENTION 

Alternation of the Important and Unimportant. — 

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



84 Psychology as Applied to Education 

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

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

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

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



How We Think: Attention 85 

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

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

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

Exercises and Illustrations 

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

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



86 Psychology as Applied to Education 

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

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

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

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

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

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



CHAPTER IX 
HOW WE THINK: ANALYSIS AND COMPARISON 

FUNCTION OF ANALYSIS AND COMPARISON 

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

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

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

87 



88 Psychology as Applied to Education 

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

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

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



How We Think : Analysis and Comparison 89 

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

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

PEDAGOGY OF ANALYSIS AND COMPARISON 

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

(b) A corollary of the first rule is the following : — 
Exclude every factor and element from attention except 

the two under consideration. The minimum is two; 
we cannot think of only one unit of thought. There 
must be substance and attribute in the concept, sub- 
ject and predicate in the judgment, premises and con- 



90 Psychology as Applied to Education 

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

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

Exercises 

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

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

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

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



How We Think : Analysis and Comparison 91 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



CHAPTER X 

HOW WE THINK: ASSOCIATION, OR 
SYNTHESIS 

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

KINDS OF ASSOCIATION 

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

92 



How We Think : Association, or Synthesis 93 

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

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

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

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



94 Psychology as Applied to Education 

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

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

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

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

THE PHYSICAL BASIS OF ASSOCIATION 

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



How We Think : Association, or Synthesis 95 

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

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

ASSOCIATION AN ASPECT OF EVERY MENTAL ACTIVITY 

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



96 Psychology as Applied to Education 

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

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

THE ORGANIZATION OF OUR ASSOCIATIONS 

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

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

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



How We Think: Association, or Synthesis 97 

of valid arguments is the sure index of intellectual 
senility. 

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

Exercises 

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

2. Are odor memories useful and practical? Illustrate. 

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

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

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

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

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



(B). The Motives and Feelings 

CHAPTER XI 
MAN AS A REACTING ORGANISM 

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

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

THE DIFFERENT KINDS OF STIMULI 

A stimulus may be — 

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

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



Man as a Reacting Organism 99 

Stimuli may also be divided into — 

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

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

IMPULSE DEFINED 

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

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

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



100 Psychology as Applied to Education 

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

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

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

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



Man as a Reacting Organism 101 

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

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

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

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

The impulse is always accompanied by a feeling, 



102 Psychology as Applied to Education 

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

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

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

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



Man as a Reacting Organism 103 

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

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

GRADATION OF MOTIVES 

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

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

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

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

conscious purpose. 

2. Instincts. — Impulses without a conscious purpose. 

3. Subconscious impulses, or mental reactions. 



104 Psychology as Applied to Education 

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

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

Exercises 

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

2. Give examples of physical reaction. 

3. Give examples of instincts in human beings. 

4. Give examples of instincts in animals. 

5. Try to improve upon the classification of stimuli. 

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

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

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

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



CHAPTER XII 

FEELINGS, IMPULSES, AND THEIR 
EXPRESSION 

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

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

THE RELATION OF FEELING TO IMPULSE 

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

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

105 



106 Psychology as Applied to Education 

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

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

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

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



Feelings, Impulses, and Their Expression 107 

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

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



108 Psychology as Applied to Education 

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

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

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



Feelings, Impulses, and Their Expression 109 

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

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

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



110 Psychology as Applied to Education 

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

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

COMMON CHARACTERISTICS OF EMOTIONS AND 
IMPULSES 

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

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

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

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



Feelings, Impulses, and Their Expression 111 

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

EXPRESSION OF IMPULSES AND EMOTIONS 

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

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



112 Psychology as Applied to Education 

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

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

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

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



Feelings, Impulses, and Their Expression 113 

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

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

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

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



114 Psychology as Applied to Education 

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

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

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

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

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

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



Feelings, Impulses, and Their Expression 115 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



116 Psychology as Applied to Education 

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

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

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

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

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

Exercises 

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

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

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



Peelings, Impulses, and Their Expression 117 

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

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

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

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

5. Why is revenge always wrong? 

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

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

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



CHAPTER XIII 
FEELINGS AND IMPULSES CLASSIFIED 

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

The following classification of feelings and impulses 
is submitted : — 

CLASSIFICATION OF FEELINGS AND IMPULSES 

I. Bodily Feelings and Attendant Impulses. 

1. Appetites. 

2. Organic Feelings and Impulses. 

II. Emotions and Motives of Self-preservation. 

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

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

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

sions of self-preservation in the personal environment. 

III. Emotions and Motives of Self-expansion, or Progres- 
sive Self-realization. 
1. Motor emotions and interests. The desire for motor 
expression of one's self, by — 

(a) destroying, 

(b) owning, 

(c) constructing, etc. 

118 



Feelings and Impulses Classified 119 

2. The intellectual emotion and interest. The desire to 

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

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

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

4. Social emotions and motives 1 (desires, interests, impulses, 

instincts), such as — 

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

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

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

5. Moral emotions and motives. These are the social 

emotions and motives universalized. Love for and 
devotion to — 
(a) Purity, (6) honesty, (c) truth, (d) justice. 
ft. Religious emotions and motives. The instincts, de- 
sires, and emotions connected with our communion 
with the Supreme Being : awe, reverence, devotion, 
trust, faith, submission, the instinct and desire for 
worship. Strictly speaking, these are exalted social 
emotions and motives. 

DISCUSSION OF CLASSIFICATION 

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

1 We may also divide social emotions and motives into — 

(a) Self-centered: as, pride, shame, vanity, haughtiness, 
humility, desire for and joy in teaching, leading, in praise, honor. 

(b) Society-centered: as, love, sympathy, pity, contempt, 
respect, reverence, imitation, gregariousness, patriotism, loyalty, 

- . desire for and joy in discipleship, obedience. 



120 Psychology as Applied to Education 

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

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

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

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

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

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



Feelings and Impulses Classified 121 

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

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

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

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

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



122 Psychology as Applied to Education 

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

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

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



Feelings and Impulses Classified 123 

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

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

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

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



124 Psychology as Applied to Education 

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

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

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

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



Feelings and Impulses Classified 125 

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

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

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

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

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

Exercises 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



126 Psychology as Applied to Education 

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

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

10. To what emotions does Dickens prefer to appeal? 

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



CHAPTER XIV 

THE CONTROL AND DEVELOPMENT OF CER- 
TAIN IMPULSES AND EMOTIONS 

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

THE EMOTIONS OF SELF-PRESERVATION 

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

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

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

127 



128 Psychology as Applied to Education 

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

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

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

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

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



Control of Impulses and Emotions 129 

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

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

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

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



130 Psychology as Applied to Education 

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

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

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

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

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



Control of Impulses and Emotions 131 

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

Never punish a child when you are angry. 

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

Never make up your mind on anything while angry. 

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

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



132 Psychology as Applied to Education 

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

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

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

THE SOCIAL EMOTIONS AND INTERESTS 

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

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



Control of Impulses and Emotions 133 

suggestibility of consciousness. It is very strong in 
the gregarious animals as well as in man. 

Imitation is the chief teacher of children up to the 
age of five years, and remains an important impulse 
throughout life. Thus, speech is learned entirely by 
imitation. The child learning to talk will repeat dozens 
of times every new word it hears, for apparently no 
other reason than the desire to imitate. 

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

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

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



134 Psychology as Applied to Education 

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

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

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



Control of Impulses and Emotions 135 

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

FATIGUE AND INDUSTRY 

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

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

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



136 Psychology as Applied to Education 

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

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



Control of Impulses and Emotions 137 

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

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

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

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



138 Psychology as Applied to Education 

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

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

PERVERTED EMOTIONAL STATES 

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

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



Control of Impulses and Emotions 139 

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

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

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

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



140 Psychology as Applied to Education 

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

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

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

THE HYGIENE OF THE EMOTIONS 

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

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



Control of Impulses and Emotions 141 

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

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

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



142 Psychology as Applied to Education 

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

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

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

Exercises 

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

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

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

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

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

6. John is afraid of the dark. Once, at night, when half a mile 
from home, he thought he saw something white coming after 
him. He began to walk a little faster, because h3 was afraid. 
How did he end his adventure? Why? 

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



Control of Impulses and Emotions 143 

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

8. Give some device for encouraging industry in children. 

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

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



CHAPTER XV 
CULTURE 

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

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

THE INNER SIDE OF EXPERIENCE 

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

144 



Culture 145 

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

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

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

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



146 Psychology as Applied to Education 

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

THE NORM 

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

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

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

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



Culture 147 

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

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

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

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

AN ANALYSIS OF CULTURE 

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

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



148 Psychology as Applied to Education 

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

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

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



Culture 149 

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

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

MEANS OF ACQUIRING CULTURE 

Value of Interests outside of One's Vocation. — 

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



150 Psychology as Applied to Education 

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

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



Culture 151 

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

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



152 Psychology as Applied to Education 

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

Exercises 

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

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

3. What is aesthetic culture? 

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

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



CHAPTER XVI 
HABIT 

THE PHYSICAL BASIS OF HABIT 

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

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

153 



154 Psychology as Applied to Education 

THE TWO CLASSES OF HABITS 

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

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

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

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



Habit 155 

FUNCTION OF HABIT IN THE ECONOMY OF LIFE 

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

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

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

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

In man's almost boundless capacity for forming arti- 



156 Psychology as Applied to Education 

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

LAWS OF HABIT 

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

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

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

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



Habit 157 

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

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

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

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

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



158 Psychology as Applied to Education 

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

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

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

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



Habit 159 

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

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

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



160 Psychology as Applied to Education 

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

HABIT AND AGE 

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



Habit 161 

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

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

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

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

HABITS AS ELEMENTS IN CHARACTER 

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



162 Psychology as Applied to Education 

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

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

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



Habit 163 

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



164 Psychology as Applied to Education 

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

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

Exercises and Illustrations 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

8. Define : habit, custom. 



CHAPTER XVII 

IDEALS, OR RATIONAL INTERESTS 

IMPULSE AS A MOTIVE FOR ACTION 

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

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

165 



166 Psychology as Applied to Education 

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

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

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



Ideals, or Rational Interests 167 

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

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

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

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



168 Psychology as Applied to Education 

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

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

A HIGHER MOTIVE FOR ACTION, RATIONAL INTEREST 

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



Ideals, or Rational Interests 169 

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

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

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



170 Psychology as Applied to Education 

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

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

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

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



Ideals, or Rational Interests 171 

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

Exercises 

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

2. Eating dinner. 

3. Studying this lesson. 

4. Going to a reception. 

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

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

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

8. Washington as commander in the Revolutionary War. 

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

10. An army charging a fortified position. 

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

12. Training for a game. 



CHAPTER XVIII 
OUR SELVES 

OUR RATIONAL INTERESTS, IDEAL SELVES 

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

Another way of expressing the same truth is this : 
When man becomes explicitly rational, he gains the 
power of objectifying himself, i.e. of forming a dis- 
tinct notion of himself. Now, if he is worthy of his 
high dignity of rationality, he will cease to be controlled 
by whatever stimulus happens to be the strongest, 
he will cease to be controlled by his momentary im- 
pulses, he will take an inventory of his present powers 
and opportunities (his present self and environment) 
and construct an imaginary future self that he deems 
worthy of his best efforts. He will determine to real- 
ize this future self, and from that moment, this future 
self becomes the supreme motive from which all his 
rational activity springs. Such a future self, chosen 

172 



Our Selves 173 

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

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

OUR SYSTEM OF SELVES 

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

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



174 Psychology as Applied to Education 

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

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

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

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



Our Selves 175 

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

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

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

Place a sheet of paper over a magnet. Sprinkle some 
iron filings over the paper, and jar it slightly. The 
filings will arrange themselves in a starlike form around 
the magnetic center of force. Likewise we all rational- 
ize life more or less perfectly. All the activities of our 
lives that we succeed in rationalizing radiate from our 
self, or rather our system of selves. In fact, every- 
thing in the universe falls in fine and is evaluated by 



176 Psychology as Applied to Education 

our system of selves, our organized sphere of rational 
interests. Thus following, and modifying, James, we 
may say we have an individual self, a family self, a 
community self, a national self, a humanity self, and a 
religious self which includes an interest in all beings 
with God as the Supreme Being. 

Just here it is interesting to notice Professor James's 
theory of the " social " self that " a man has as many 
social selves as there are individuals who recognize him 
and carry an image of him in their minds." An enor- 
mous amount of our striving and worrying in this 
world is centered on our social selves. Many a man 
has ruined himself by extravagant display just because 
he could not bear to think that his social circle should 
image him as a man in straitened circumstances. 
Whenever we are ashamed or proud or vain or restive 
under criticism or happy with applause, it is some of 
our social selves that concern us. Carrying this idea a 
little further, we do not merely have individual social 
selves. All our larger selves have their social counter- 
parts. Countless opera heroes have proved the uni- 
versality of the sentiment, " I'll knock any one down 
who tries to besmirch my mother's honor." Such a 
sentiment always brings applause from the galleries. 
A derogatory remark on one's nationality awakens a 
quick response in defense of one's national social self. 

THE HISTORICAL EVOLUTION OF IDEALS 

In primitive society it was of utmost importance 
that the lower emotions and impulses be highly devel- 
oped. The strong, brutally aggressive fighter, who saw 
to it that his lair was supplied, was the successful in- 



Our Selves 177 

dividual then. Now such a person is an " undesirable 
citizen." 

In the very kindergarten class of society man must 
cease to be a fighter and become fraternal. The de- 
lightful directness of life is lost, that frank immediate- 
ness of action and stimulus that give such a charm to 
the life at the frontier and in the wilderness. Man must 
cease to rely on his fist and his sword and must instead 
go to court with his troubles. 

Militarism. — But even until this day the nations 
of the world as nations are in the fist-right state. 
Nations in war continue the appeal to brute force. So 
while fighting between individuals has been tabooed as 
very wicked, fighting as a soldier has been extolled to 
the skies as the greatest of the virtues. 

Militarism is rampant even in civilized lands for sev- 
eral reasons. First, because pugnacity, fighting courage, 
is the oldest and most deep-seated of our virtues, 
and hence, nothing makes a more universal appeal 
in all ages of life and to all classes of society. Second, 
governments and potentates depend finally for their 
existence on the fighting ability of their peoples. Fi- 
nally, demagogues find that humanity can be best 
" worked " from this side. 

Commercialism. — Just as primitive society favored 
the fighting instinct, so modern society favors the prop- 
erty impulses. " To him that hath shall be given," 
is our motto. Society now looks for industrial effi- 
ciency. Thus the big prizes in the world are mainly for 
the victors in the industrial competition. Rothschild, 
Vanderbilt, Rockefeller, Morgan, Krupp, Carnegie hold 
the center of the stage in the modern world. Hence 



178 Psychology as Applied to Education 

the property instincts and ideals are inordinately fa- 
vored by present society. Because the getting of 
daily bread is such a difficult business for a large por- 
tion of humanity, and occupies by far most of its 
active time and thought, the tendency is strong to 
make industrial efficiency the main requirement of our 
ideal, and the central element in character. 

The True Ideal. — But our better nature protests 
against this sordid view. Just merely keeping alive 
cannot possibly be the main and ultimate purpose of 
life. That would be reasoning in a very vicious and 
very narrow circle. Humanity is all the time evolving 
a broader and more unselfish sphere of interests. One 
who is adjusted to our advanced society, whose sphere 
of interests and sympathies include the whole world, 
who keeps the proper balance between his social and 
selfish interests, and who puts the emphasis on the 
higher things of the spirit, he has the true ideal. 

THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE IDEAL PERSONALITY 

The Choice and Renunciation of Selves. — In the 
language we have adopted here, we have unnumbered 
potential selves. Of these we must choose a compara- 
tively small number for realization. Thus, I have a 
holiday, and there are twenty tempting ways in which 
I may spend it. But I can spend it in only one way. 
If I go fishing, I cannot spend the day in the city or 
in visiting my uncle. Hence, my choosing fishing 
means denying myself nineteen pleasant holidays. A 
young man chooses his life work. He decides to be- 
come a lawyer. But in so doing he turns his back 
upon hundreds of occupations. He might have become 



Our Selves 179 

a physician, clergyman, artist, blacksmith, journalist, 
or sailor; but all these possibilities become impossi- 
bilities the moment he is committed to the lawyer's 
course. Thus a choice of an ideal, of a rational interest, 
involves limitation and negation. Only he who has 
courage to be ignorant of many things will ever be wise 
in one. The " jack of all trades " is ever the master 
of none. When accidents happen, the difficulty is 
that every one tries to do a dozen different things at 
once, and so nothing is done. It is the same in every 
situation in life. We must deny ourselves and re- 
nounce an infinite number of potential lines of action 
to become effective in one. 

The Ideal Human Personality. — Our true purpose 
in life is the building of a noble human personality. 
The ideal personality is one whose rational interests 
have been organized into an ethically just and prac- 
tically useful system. 

In the nervous system the higher centers exercise 
an inhibitive power over the lower centers, and this 
indicates the proper scale and gradation of our im- 
pulses. Our lower animal self should be in subjection 
to our social and spiritual self. To attain this end, 
however, it is necessary to favor in every way possible 
these higher aspirations and interests of ours. For 
our lower nature is centuries older than our nobler 
impulses, and the tendency to a reversion to an earlier, 
cruder, and baser type is strong. It is the path of 
least resistance. In the training of the emotions and 
impulses, then, the proper gradation of values should 
be observed, and a balance be secured between the 
higher and the lower. The ideal character is not one 



180 Psychology as Applied to Education 

in which the higher impulses and feelings alone are 
developed, but one in which the whole individual is 
harmoniously developed with reference to our present 
civilization — one with well-developed lower impulses 
and feelings, but with these strictly subordinated and 
subjected to the higher. Philosophically we may say 
that our ideal should be to realize in thought, in feel- 
ing, and in action our unity with all mankind, with the 
universe, with the Divine Mind, and at the same time to 
realize our individuality. We should live in harmony 
with all creation ; but harmony does not mean a Bud- 
dhistic coalescence with the divisionless sea of being. 
Rather it means preserving and fostering our own in- 
dividuality, but only in harmony with the divine moral 
order of the universe. 

This ideal may be regarded as eternal and unchange- 
able. But mankind is developing. And as the indi- 
vidual and society change, the combinations and pro- 
portions in the elements of an ideal character change 
also. 

When a member of a savage tribe is brave and loyal 
to his tribe, and conforms to their notions of morality 
and religion, he has reached the highest form of char- 
acter possible in that stage. He may be a dirty savage, 
leading a life absolutely at variance with civilized 
standards of right living, but he is living true to the 
highest ideal possible to him. 

Thus the actual ideal which good men set before 
themselves is evolving through the ages and constantly 
approximating, in healthy ages, the absolute ideal in 
the Divine Mind. But it does not approach the divine 
ideal in a straight line. Rather may we say that the 



Our Selves 181 

course is that of an irregular spiral, always aiming at a 
point a good deal to one side of perfection, but on the 
whole higher than before. And the aberrations from 
the true course seem roughly to balance one another, 
so that what was lost by a tendency too much to the left 
in one age is balanced by an error to the right in another. 

Exercises 

i. Name the ten greatest Americans. How many of them 
gained their fame in war? 

2. Name ten characters from history (not American). How 
many of them are military men? 

3. If Richard the Lion-hearted had lived in our day, what of 
his fame and career ? 

4. How many of the present multimillionaires would have 
been heard from, if they had lived a thousand years ago ? 

5. If commercialism is favored by our age, why not adopt 
commercialism as our ideal ? 

6. Why keep any subject in the curriculum of the schools 
which does not pay in dollars and cents ? 

7. Draw a diagram illustrating our system of selves. 

8. Even as late as the sixteenth century, on many coasts of 
Europe, the inhabitants lured foreign ships on the rocks by false 
lights, in order to get goods from the wreck. These same people 
who did such dastardly deeds were fond fathers and fierce pa- 
triots. What was the matter with them psychologically? 

9. John cries if his brother is punished in school, but laughs 
and jeers if any other boy " catches it." Explain his selves. 

10. Show how we may make our choice too narrow as well as 
too wide, in the matter of selves. 

11. Give examples from history of persons who have chosen 
and realized remarkable selves, and state in the language of this 
book what these selves were. 

12. What is the difference between an impulse (an emotional 
interest) and a rational interest (an ideal) ? 

13. When you studied this lesson, were you actuated by emo- 
tional or rational interests? 



CHAPTER XIX 
THE WILL 

TWO CLASSES OF VOLUNTARY ACTION 

Two very different classes of action are spoken of as 
voluntary, (a) Ordinarily we have the power and time 
to inhibit our impulses. Hence when we allow an im- 
pulse to pass into an action, such an action is said to be 
voluntary. The following examples will give an idea 
of this class of voluntary actions. A finger itches ; I 
scratch it. At the table I am offered some food ; I eat 
it. People weep when sad and laugh when amused. 

The function of the will is wholly negative in these 
cases. We simply will nothing when we do such ac- 
tions. But when we refrain from doing them, we do 
exercise the will in inhibiting the impulse. 

(6) Actions done from rational interest, that is, 
actions controlled by an ideal, are voluntary actions 
in a higher sense. They are positively willed. Any- 
thing a person has " made up his mind "to do is truly 
a voluntary action. For here will power is pretty sure 
to be needed. 

Our ordinary use of the words wish and desire both 
as verbs and nouns cover both the meanings of desire 
proper and of ideals. This creates no end of confusion 
in psychological and philosophical reasoning. Thus, 
" I wish to study Greek " may mean that at the mo- 
ment of speaking I have a longing for this linguistic 

182 



The Will 183 

study ; or it may mean simply that I have concluded 
that it is best for me to study Greek, though at this 
particular moment I may not have any feeling one way 
or the other. " His greatest desire was constantly 
during his whole life for military honor," cannot mean 
that he was constantly conscious of a tension accom- 
panied by feeling towards deeds of " glory," and that 
this longing and feeling was always during his whole 
life strongest. He must have been hungry sometimes. 
He must have thought of something else sometimes. 
No person rightly out of an insane asylum is such a 
monomaniac as to have one emotion constantly during 
a whole lifetime. So what the sentence must mean is : 
His ideal was ever military glory ; that is, he had chosen 
military glory as that which was most desirable to him. 
In this work, we always mean by the term strongest 
desire the strongest pressure or tension in consciousness 
towards activity at any moment, irrespective of whether 
this happens to be that which we decide on the whole to 
be the best thing to do. 

The ideal when chosen as the desirable goal of action 
is usually and regularly accompanied by a strong 
desire (and then also, of course, feeling) . But when the 
feeling and the desire went out like a burnt-out match, 
the ideal remained as strong a motive as before. Usu- 
ally when the mind is rested and turns anew its atten- 
tion to its ideal, the old fire of desire flames up again 
with all its former heat. But when the desire and its 
feeling die down again, the ideal may be by the use of 
will power as effective as before. 

The Struggle between the Ideal and the Desire. — 
The fact that the ideal can be a constant motive inde- 



184 Psychology as Applied to Education 

pendent of the shifting and fitful winds of desire and 
feeling makes it possible to work on steadily, peacefully, 
and evenly towards a chosen goal in spite of the fact 
that impulses (desires) with their feeling are in a con- 
stant flux and sometimes entirely absent. 

The moral arena is here. This is the battle ground 
of will. The battle is ever between the ideal and the 
desire. The temptation is ever to follow the momen- 
tary desire, and all desires are ever " momentary " 
and nothing else, for a desire that does not exist this 
moment does not exist at all. The moral victory 
always consists in following the ideal chosen by con- 
templation. 

THE MOTOR PROCESS AND THE VOLUNTARY PROCESS 

The Motor Process. — The stream of thought is 
constantly passing out of subconsciousness in the 
fringe towards the center of attention and then out 
again into the fringe of subconsciousness. What par- 
ticular images and thoughts are to pass into this vortex 
depends, the will being absent, upon the impulses, 
habits, and desires. Using desire as a common name 
for the three, when the will is inactive, the strongest 
desire will always conquer ; that is, whatever image is 
in the center of attention will be expressed in action. 

Thus the motor process is this : Will being absent, 
the strongest desire determines the image in con- 
sciousness ; as soon as an image appears in conscious- 
ness, it is immediately acted out. Hence this is the 
psychic series : strongest desire — image — action. 

The Voluntary Process. — The will may change the 
psychic series fundamentally, (a) By an act of will we 



The Will 185 

may refuse to think on the subject of our strongest 
desires. We are not forced to allow the center of at- 
tention to rest upon the object of our strongest desire. 
The power of voluntary attention, then, is the essence 
of the " freedom of the will." Voluntary attention is 
the most expensive in nerve efforts of all the functions 
of the mind. 

(6) The will may inhibit the action that naturally 
follows the presence of an image in consciousness. This 
makes thought and imagination without action pos- 
sible. 

The voluntary process, then, is very simple. We 
simply imagine the act we will to do, and — that's all. 
The complex affair is not to act. A great deal of our 
training in character consists in learning to inhibit the 
action that naturally follows an image. What requires 
explanation is not our willing-to-do but our willing-not- 
to-do. There is where the fiat of the will occurs. In 
willing to do anything, we simply imagine the act and 
" let go." 

GENERAL CONSPECTUS OF THE ACTIVE SIDE OF HUMAN 

NATURE 

The body as a physiological organism functions by 
motor impulses in subconsciousness. Some of its pro- 
cesses, like breathing, may be at will brought into the 
voluntary sphere. The body is also protected by means 
of reflex actions of subconsciousness. 

Instinct (or blind impulse) is almost wholly respon- 
sible for the conduct of the young child. Instinct, or 
blind impulse, together with habit and desire, always 
continue to manage the greater portions of our lives 



186 Psychology as Applied to Education 

measured in time. Still very few of our conscious 
moments are out of the grasp of the will and our rational 
interests (ideals). This seeming contradiction is solved 
as follows : — 

When I awake in the morning, habit is usually suffi- 
cient to get me out of bed, perform the morning ablution, 
and dress. That is, no specific resolutions of the will 
are necessary. If I have routine work, there is small 
chance that anything but habit will be necessary to 
run me all day. Still I am under the control of my 
ideals, for, some time in the past, when I chose my 
business and habituated myself to my daily program, 
I did use will in conforming to my ideals. But suppose 
my day's work is not all cut out for me. Then I must 
decide what to do. Then will power is needed. It is 
a beautiful day, and I am fond of picnics. Of several 
attractive ways of spending the day, this is the most 
attractive. Hence this is my strongest desire. 1 Im- 
agination begins to picture all the steps preparatory to 
picnic going. But I am not sure that such a course is 
in line with my rational interests. So I inhibit the 
actions that regularly should follow these ideas. After 
some deliberation I decide that it is best that I should 
write this chapter instead. I choose the writing of this 
chapter as my ideal, my rational interest for the day. 
At first I have to use voluntary attention to pin myself 
down to the work. That is, I must by a sheer effort of 
the will keep the center of attention on my work. But 
soon I get interested in my work, forget sylvan attrac- 
tions, and my strongest desire at the moment is usually 
just what I am thinking about and doing. So that, 
1 See above, definition of strongest desire. 



The Will 187 

after all, only during a little fraction of the day have 
I been forcing myself to abstain from following my 
strongest desire. 

This is the universal rule. Normally we get inter- 
ested in our work after a few moments of voluntary 
attention, and as soon as we get interested in the work 
set us by our ideals, our desires and our ideals are in 
line and there is no conflict. 

Since no impulse or desire can last long if denied 
expression and attention, we align our desires with our 
ideals by keeping, through an act of will power, our 
attention on the course of action prescribed by our 
ideal. Restricted to that field, the right desire will 
arise in response to the only stimulus allowed, and nec- 
essarily pull in the same direction as our ideal. 

THE EDUCATION OF THE WILL 

Where Military Discipline Fails. — The proper edu- 
cation of the will presents the most difficult problem 
that teacher and parent have to solve. It is not a 
simple affair like the pedagogy of habit. That is 
where military discipline fails. The soldier, precise in 
his habits as a machine, is not famous for his will 
power. The discharged soldier will to the end of his 
days keep his soldierly bearing and address, and most 
of his orderly personal habits ; but for all that many a 
one becomes a moral wreck. 

The system of close supervision and military dis- 
cipline in schools is equally successful in teaching good 
habits and inadequate in training the will aright. Sup- 
pose a pupil is every moment of his waking hours under 
the watchful eyes of a custodian, suppose that his every 



188 Psychology as Applied to Education 

action is prescribed. That may provide for most ex- 
cellent habits, it may prescribe an exemplary life in 
every detail, and still in one respect it fails not only to 
provide training of the will, but absolutely prohibits 
any such training. 

Need of Allowing Freedom. — In order that the will 
may be trained, there must be freedom. But when 
there is freedom in which to exercise the will, there is 
of course also freedom to go wrong. Hence we are 
face to face with what seems like a contradiction. 

Still that contradiction can be solved. Begin by 
giving practically no liberty. The circle of liberty at 
first is merely a mathematical point. As children ad- 
vance in age and experience give them a little more 
freedom. If they prove worthy of this freedom, in- 
crease it; if it is not wisely used, let a part of the 
punishment be a decreased sphere of freedom. 

This can be applied in dozens of ways. Rules, regu- 
lations, and restrictions should diminish as the pupil 
advances in school. The pupil should more and more 
be trusted on his honor. He should have increasing 
responsibility. 

Parents should allow their children some money, with 
the suggestion that they spend it for some worthy end. 
They should be encouraged to save up their money for 
something worth while in the future. Let the boy 
save up money for a year for a bicycle. That means, 
give him a chance to earn enough for a wheel in a year ; 
but if he succumbs to the temptation of the soda foun- 
tain and spends his money on the fleeting pleasures of 
the day, let him bear the punishment of being without 
a bicycle. 



The Will 189 

Give Harry freedom to visit his friend and spend 
his half holiday as he pleases, provided he comes home 
at the hour set and behaves as he should while away ; 
but if he fails to meet these requirements, take away 
his freedom in this respect for a season. 

Parental restraint should be removed very gradually, 
so that when the young man or woman leaves the pro- 
tection of the parental roof, there is no appreciable 
increase in his freedom. There should be the corre- 
sponding increase in responsibility. Let the boy early 
keep his own clothing in shape and care for his own 
room. A little later, let him order his own clothes and 
pay for them from his own earnings. Doing the chores 
around the house has of old been the boy's portion, and 
there is good pedagogy in this arrangement. 

By all means foster the young person's appreciation 
of the importance of a strong will, and teach the dignity 
of the free and loyal person. 

Exercises 

Prove the following propositions : — 

i. The strongest desire is not always the motive we follow. 

2. It is hardest to keep the attention on our study the first 
few moments after some interesting diversion. 

3. Motive habits differ from instinct only in being acquired. 
Solve the following problems : — 

4. One youngster held a heavy ax edge downward over a 
block of wood. Another child put his hand under the ax and 
said, " I dare you to cut off my finger." What happened? 

5. Why is it so hard to do the right motions in the game, 
" Simon says, ' Thumbs up ' " ? 

6. How are ideals chosen ? 

7. Illustrate by characters from history what is meant by a 
strong will. 



CHAPTER XX 

THE CREATION OF IDEALS 

THE FAILURE OF ABSTRACT MORALITY 

We are saved by hero worship. Only by devotion 
to some person are our lives transformed from mere 
animalism to spirituality. 

The Man of Abstract " Principles." — There is a 
certain very respectable sort of character which is 
based on nothing but abstract formulas. Such a 
character is a clever counterfeit, and passes current 
the world over ; but when the real acid test is applied, 
he shows the baser metal. Take a narrow, stolid, 
cold soul to start with, one whose appetites and pas- 
sions are not very strong, and whose feelings are not 
very sensitive. Take, that is, one of these comfort- 
able little persons whose head has never bumped 
against the ceiling of environment, and give him a 
training that early fixes the grooves in his brain, so 
that his habits move like clockwork. Such a person 
will infallibly act according to conventional morality; 
but it is little more to his praise than correct time- 
keeping is to a watch. He is nothing but a machine. 
He acts as he does from mere habit. He has not soul 
enough to spoil. He does not lie or steal, because he 
has not the required moral courage or initiative. 

For long stretches of everyday life, such a character 

190 



The Creation of Ideals 191 

cannot be distinguished from the genuine article. 
But there are times that try men's souls. Then watch 
your man of " principle," whose principles are only a 
better sort of prejudices. He will not stand the test. 
He has no high and noble ideals. His morality is 
mere habit, and when justice demands that he shall 
leave his ruts he cannot obey. 

Faith is the only basis for ideals. There is no such 
thing as devotion to abstractions. No person is de- 
voted to " duty for duty's sake." We do not love 
Truth spelled with ever so big a capital. We love 
truthful persons. We are never the slaves of beauty, 
but we may be enthralled by the beautiful. What is 
mistaken for devotion to abstractions is often a mere 
set of habits. 

Abstract Moral Training Poor Pedagogy. — It is 
this failure of the human mind to be moved by abstrac- 
tions that gives rise to the problem of moral training 
in the school. Every now and then some well-meaning 
brother or sister rises up and demands that our schools 
teach morals. Texts on morals have been written, 
and Solonic legislatures have ordered that our teachers 
" shall teach honesty, truthfulness, chastity, industry," 
etc., to the end of the category. But it is difficult to see 
how text-and-recitation work in the virtues will improve 
the morality of our race. What is needed is life, not 
more knowledge ; moral energy, not commandments. 
These advocates of the teaching of rules ought to read 
Paul's dissertation on this subject. His assertion that 
the law is impotent to save from sin is as good psy- 
chology as it is theology. 

Of direct teaching of "morality" or ideals there 



192 Psychology as Applied to Education 

should be very little, if any. We all hate to be told 
to be good, for this is an insult to our common sense. 
Very few people, happily, need be told that industry, 
sobriety, mercy, justice, and the like are virtues ; and 
that the vices are bad. I say " happily," for if a per- 
son is so lacking in moral sense that it is not self-evi- 
dent to him that virtue is right and vice is wrong, a mere 
telling him that such is the case availeth not. He 
needs to feel that it is so. The trouble with the world 
is not the lack of knowledge of good and evil. What 
we need is the will and power to live lives consistent 
with our convictions. 

The inculcation of ideals should be incidental. 
When, in history or literature, or in the daily incidents 
of the school, a moral question comes up, the true 
teacher goes on record with no uncertain sound. He 
always takes the broad, sympathetic, but also immu- 
tably honest and just attitude towards every question 
involving a moral issue. And he takes it with warmth. 
He is enthusiastic for the cause of God and humanity. 
He will inoculate his pupils with the same enthusiasm. 
They will catch the contagion of his ideals. 

THE BEST METHOD OF MORAL INSTRUCTION 

Sympathy and Example. — How can we implant 
these ideals in our pupils ? How can we refine, broaden, 
and strengthen their ideals? Not by drill, not by 
increasing their knowledge, not by training their logi- 
cal faculties, not by the study of moral philosophy. 
There is but one way, that is by sympathy and ex- 
ample. Only a human heart ever moves vitally a 
human heart. The first requisite, then, for the teacher 



The Creation of Ideals 193 

who wishes to develop character, is to have a strong 
and sympathetic soul. He must have the ideals he 
wishes to develop in others. These ideals must be 
triumphant in his own life. High ideals count for 
nothing if the person is fitfully ruled by passions and 
appetites. This strong, ideal-ruled soul must also be 
sympathetic. Now and then we find a really good 
man who is constitutionally cold and distant, and who 
for this reason can never be an inspiration. Such per- 
sons should not become teachers. 

Every act is an influence for higher ideals when the 
soul is in possession of higher ideals and is faithful 
and sympathetic. Such a teacher cannot hide his 
light under a bushel. He may be forbidden to say 
one word on religion, he may never once in his teachings 
refer to the virtues, but he can no more help sowing 
and growing higher ideals in his pupils than the sun 
can help shining. Every look is a benediction ; every 
word is instinct with the higher life of the spirit that 
uttered it. The spirit in which he meets opposition, 
the attitude he manifests toward the vital questions 
of humanity, the interest he takes in the welfare of 
his pupils, are so many ways by which the nobility of 
the soul of the teacher stands forth and awakens no- 
bility in the pupils in response. 

The Need of Individual Work. — To awaken ideals 
for the higher life, individual work is the most fruit- 
ful. We cannot save men wholesale; it is a retail 
business. The soul of finer grain shrinks from laying 
bare its holy of holies in a crowd. If you want to get 
at the inmost being of your pupil, — and you do want 
this if you intend to help him to greater ideals, — you 



194 Psychology as Applied to Education 

must be alone with him. To administer properly this 
sacrament of soul communion, is not a grace given 
unto all teachers, and for some to attempt it were 
sacrilege ; but many can attain this art, and no attain- 
ment is greater. 

If I were a bishop about to ordain a class of men for 
the ministry, this is what I would say : Preach and 
pray and teach by all means whenever you have an 
opportunity ; but don't expect to save the world that 
way. Remember that the world is perishing for the 
want of individual work. There is probably not one 
person out of a thousand who is not longing, consciously 
or unconsciously, for some stronger and wiser soul with 
whom he might be intimate, and with whom he could 
share his hopes, his fears, his worries, and aspirations. 
But this intimate soul sharing is sacred work ; would 
to God that you were struck dead the moment you 
approach it with unclean hands ! Never do you need 
to feel the presence of God more clearly and more truly 
than when you have but one listener and you are com- 
muning with his inmost soul. 

The adolescent needs especially a confidential ad- 
viser and leader, not only in questions touching sexual 
subjects, but for the whole new realm of his increased 
spiritual life. Don't say that this is the duty of the 
parents. You know, as a matter of fact, most parents 
are not the confidants of their half-grown and grown 
children. Many are not fit to be anybody's confidants. 
Many more have an unconquerable aversion against 
intruding on the privacy of their children's inner life. 
Most important of all in this connection is to notice 
that with very many adolescents the persons they last 



The Creation of Ideals 195 

of all would make their confidants are their parents. 
They may love their parents immensely ; they may 
feel perfectly free and easy in their company — but 
to confide to them the inmost soul — no, they cannot. 
Honestly, now, wasn't that your experience? If you 
made a confidant of any one on the subject of your 
personal religion or love, was this confidant one of 
your parents ? 

THE CULTIVATION OF HIGH IDEALS 

And how may the "teacher best become this spiritual 
adviser and leader? Simply by embodying in his own 
life the ideals he wishes to develop in his pupils. 

Emphasize that which- is noble and refined in your 
nature. Be on the alert to give your higher self every 
opportunity for expression. 

Be true to your ideals. Do not let your life be a 
patchwork of devotion to what you deem noblest, and 
base surrender to appetite and desire. 

Be consistent. Don't, as Professor James says, try 
to run several conflicting selves at once. Take your 
ideals with you, and the same ideals, and live up 
to them when at home or abroad, at work and in 
vacation. 

Do. Never feel satisfied with mere feeling. Put 
every ideal into action at the earliest possible oppor- 
tunity ; and don't wait for the opportunity, but make 
it. The world is full of fine worthless fellows, who 
think entrancing thoughts and fairly gush with the 
noblest sentiments, who are so busy admiring their 
stock of ideals that they never get around to doing 
anything. 



196 Psychology as Applied to Education 

Seek the society and confidence of those whose ideals 
are higher than your own. Two coals burn better 
than one. 

Settle the religious question for yourself and live up 
to the settlement. This question of ideals is essentially 
a religious one, and indifference to religion is incom- 
patible with high and true ideals. 

Exercises 

i. Try to find a man in history who preached only an abstract 
moral philosophy whose moral influence has been equal to that 
of St. Bernard, St. Francis, or John Wesley. 

2. Think of some case in your own experience of some one 
who was saved by hero worship. 

3. Think of some one who was ruined by hero worship. 



CHAPTER XXI 
CHARACTER 

The supreme object of life is the formation of the 
right kind of character. Character is determined by 
the fixation of the motives. Hence a study of charac- 
ter is a review from the standpoint of morals of what 
we have studied about motives. 

ELEMENTS OF A WELL-DEVELOPED CHARACTER 

Self-control. — The virtue of the impulses is self- 
control. The person of good character is master of 
himself. In the huge welter of impulses and emotions, 
desires, inclinations, and instincts we have the power 
to choose some to be realized and leave others. The 
well-born and well-educated person has his desires, 
instincts, and appetites well balanced and proportioned. 
He follows the Greek motto, " Measure in all things." 

Systematized Habits. — The virtue of the habits 
is system. By all means, systematize life. Nothing 
adds to the efficiency of life more than well-ordered 
habits. The strong, well-developed character has a 
corps of efficient habits, thoroughly trained and or- 
ganized to do its bidding. 

But like most other good things, habits are good 
servants but poor masters. The person who is abso- 
lutely under the control of the habits of thought and 

197 



198 Psychology as Applied to Education 

action which he has adopted can make no progress, 
can accomplish no mental growth. 

Breadth and Refinement of Ideals. — The vir- 
tues of the ideals are several. The rational interests 
or ideals of a good character must be adequate, noble, 
and refined; and, to have all these characteristics, our 
ideals must be the product of a certain evolution. They 
ought to broaden with the years and add layer over 
layer of wider interests. One's ideal should be to live 
in true harmony with all conscious beings, and to fur- 
ther by one's life the true happiness of all persons. 
But it is not enough that our ideals be broad and un- 
selfish. They should also be noble and refined. The 
converted slave who prayed that his fellow men might 
have all the tobacco they wanted to smoke, was an 
unselfish and kind-hearted soul; but his conceptions 
of ideal humanity were not very lofty or refined. No 
mechanical and external graduated scale can be given 
for nobility of ideals, for the scale itself is growing. 
Our notions of what is refined differ even from those 
our fathers had. This is because the ethical ideal of 
every civilization is a living, growing affair. Every 
age approximates the perfect ideal, and the ethical 
progress consists in getting nearer to this highest 
ideal. Our faith is, therefore, that healthy, well- 
balanced persons in healthy, well-balanced ages and 
communities are continually approximating more and 
more nearly to the absolute ideal as it exists in the 
Divine Mind. 

Strength of Will. — The virtue of the will is strength. 
How strong should the will be? Strong enough to 
keep us true to our rational interests. The man of 



Character 199 

strong character follows his ideals, not his impulses 
or desires. An ideal may be defined as a chosen goal 
for action. The question of the freedom of the will 
is one that cannot be touched here; and the expres- 
sion " rational freedom " of the will is not always used 
with the same meaning; but when a person has con- 
quered his impulses and desires so perfectly that he 
always does what his reason tells him is best, despite 
his momentary passions and appetites, his will may be 
said to have acquired its rational freedom. He has 
ideals and is true to them. 

He who is rationally free has the same desires and 
instincts as other men, but he is not ruled by them. His 
ideals are supreme. Every voluntary act or thought 
of his is directed to the end he has chosen. This pre- 
supposes that he has chosen an end. His life is ra- 
tionalized. He has something to live for. He does 
not follow the direction of the push and pull of mo- 
mentary and ever shifting desire and instinct, but he 
controls indirectly even his desires, appetites, and pas- 
sions. He is indeed a free man ! 



SUMMARY 

The well-developed character, then, has the following 
attributes : — 

Impulses normal and natural, refined and under con- 
trol of the will. 

Habits of virtue, industry, work, order, and optimism 
perfectly formed ; but slavery to no habit. 

Emotions refined, sensitive, and strong, but under 
control of the will. 



200 Psychology as Applied to Education 

Ideals supreme over all, unselfish, adequate, true to 
the highest standards of our civilization and living; 
and hence growing and constantly approximating the 
absolute ideal. 

A Will that holds impulses, feelings, and habits sub- 
ordinate to the chosen ideals. 



(C). Subconsciousness 

CHAPTER XXII 

THE SUBCONSCIOUS LIFE 
THE FIELD OF CONSCIOUSNESS 

As we have already noticed there is a single force — 
consciousness — which is operative in the highest and 
lowest processes of the human organism. The fun- 
damental characteristic of consciousness, its power of 
concentration, we have studied at length under at- 
tention. We are vividly conscious, fully alive, to only 
one aspect of one topic of thought at once ; all the rest 
of the field of consciousness shades off rapidly from this 
central point of light into the penumbra and twilight of 
partial consciousness. This surrounding twilight of 
half thought is called subconsciousness, or, as it has 
been well named by Professor James, the " fringe " of 
thought. 

Thus we may arbitrarily divide the field of conscious- 
ness into clear consciousness and subconsciousness. 
In the same way we may recognize all degrees of sub- 
consciousness, from what is almost complete con- 
sciousness to the absolute night of unconsciousness. 
Although, for instance, we have no smallest inkling of 
consciousness in the action of the lymphatic glands, still 
they seem to be vitally and directly connected with our 

201 



202 Psychology as Applied to Education 

consciousness, so that it seems best to consider that such 
purely physiological functions share in consciousness, 
though so infinitesimally that we cannot directly recog- 
nize it. 

Characteristics of Subconsciousness. — All the vital 
functions, the whole physiological machinery, is oper- 
ated by our subconsciousness. The building and tear- 
ing down of cells, the secretion of the glands, digestion, 
respiration, the circulation of the blood — all are carried 
on by the subconscious vital force, which not only sup- 
plies the energy, but also furnishes the plan or model 
which then is incarnate in the flesh. This is deep down 
in subconsciousness, and nothing of it ever comes even 
into the partial twilight where conscious observation 
is possible. 

Many bodily functions come much higher up in con- 
sciousness. Thus, within certain limits, we can breathe 
or stop breathing as we please. Sneezing, hunger, 
thirst, fatigue, rise out of the subconscious gloom into 
clear consciousness and tell us of the condition of the 
bodily organs. But they are still in origin and control 
subconscious/ 

THE TENDENCY TO REACT 

Reaction to Stimuli. — All consciousness responds to 
stimulation. This, as we have seen, is one of its funda- 
mental characteristics, from the highest reason to the 
lowest subconscious vital force. It is responsive. 
Thus a lofty ideal stimulates the hero to action. A 
straw tickling the breast of the headless frog will be 
responded to by the brushing motion of a foreleg. The 
presence of a liquid in the mouth of a sleeping person 



The Subconscious Life 203 

will make him swallow. Lack of oxygen in the blood 
will produce a yawn. A doleful thought will make the 
tears start. The appreciation of the ludicrous will 
start a smile. A savory odor when one is hungry will 
make the mouth " water." A soft answer turneth away 
wrath. The small boy itches to spoil the dude's hat 
with a snowball. A difficult mathematical problem 
stimulates the thinker to try to solve it. 

Responsiveness to Suggestion. — Responsiveness to 
suggestion is really one type of reaction to stimulus, but 
it needs a special treatment. A fundamental charac- 
teristic of consciousness is its striving to make real 
whatever is presented to it ideally, that is, pictured to 
it. Consciousness is ever busy realizing the ideal. Thus 
when I wish to take my watch from my pocket to see 
what time it is, I simply imagine myself doing just this, 
then let myself go, and it is done. Hence, if a person 
does not restrain himself, he does whatever he imagines. 
A child telling a story invariably acts it out ; not be- 
cause it is anxious to make the story plain to its auditors, 
but simply because its imagination of these actions 
suggests them to the motor centers, and the dramatic 
rendering is the natural result. If we do not consciously 
inhibit the action, we beat time with foot or head to the 
music we hear, because the rhythm suggests these move- 
ments. Nervous people feel a strong impulse to throw 
themselves over precipices when standing on the brink. 
They cannot help imagining very forcibly how awful a 
tragedy it would be to fall over the precipice. This 
imagination of the act of the tragedy acts as a suggestion 
to the mind, and it has a strong impulse to make this 
image real. 



204 Psychology as Applied to Education 

All consciousness, whether clear or subconscious, 
responds to suggestion, but our clear consciousness has 
the power of inhibiting the response to suggestions, 
while our subconsciousness has not the power to inhibit 
this response. It will respond with fatalistic certainty 
to every suggestion that reaches it. Hence the impor- 
tance of guarding our subconsciousness from wrong sug- 
gestions. 

Subconscious Reactions. — Subconsciousness acts 
solely in response to stimulus and suggestion. The phys- 
iological machinery seems to be self-exciting. The 
lack of oxygen in the blood in the lungs stimulates the 
chest to expansion. Emptiness of the digestive organs 
produces hunger. A lesion stimulates the phagocytes 
to congregate. 

External or physical stimulus, that is, stimulus from 
other material agents not of the organism itself, has 
great influence on the subconscious mind. To this 
belong all the effects of drugs, food, heat, cold, wounds, 
and, in general, the contact with the rest of the universe. 

But a vast and undefined region is yet left for sug- 
gestion. Subconsciousness takes its orders regularly 
from above, from clear consciousness. Every state of 
clear consciousness acts as a suggestion to subconscious- 
ness. All that we consciously think, feel, and do sifts 
down to the subconscious and colors it. Our subcon- 
sciousness is constantly saturated with the suggestion 
derived from our conscious life. 

Cumulative Effect of Suggestion. — Merely thinking 
once, " I will soon die," will not kill you. But repeating 
this thought day after day, hour after hour, allowing it 
to depress your spirits and influence your conscious 



The Subconscious Life 205 

actions, this will surely be very detrimental to your 
health, and may shorten your life. 

The subconscious mind is the repository for the prod- 
ucts of the conscious activity of the mind. Every 
thought, every feeling, every act leaves its impression 
on our minds. Each individual mental event leaves 
behind itself an influence, light and fragile as a gossamer 
thread, but still a filament that tends to bind us faster 
to some conviction, attitude, character, morality, or 
immorality. But though the influence of each act of 
the mind may be frail as a spider's web, the united 
power of a long-continued course of action becomes 
strong as iron bands. We are daily hammering out our 
own character and destiny, and though we are every 
minute free to act as we choose, the accumulated result 
leads us whithersoever it will. It has become a Fate. 

THE STREAM OF THOUGHT 

From out the mysterious depths of the subconscious 
there wells up constantly into our full consciousness a 
spring of thoughts, feelings, and impulses, colored al- 
ready by our dominant mood. The nature of this 
stream of emotions, aspirations, appetites, and moods 
is determined by the nature of our subconsciousness. 
And this subconsciousness is, in its turn, determined by 
the sum total of the suggestions we have sunk into it 
from our conscious mental life. 

This stream, then, that takes its rise from this spring 
from subconsciousness flows across the brief field of 
clear consciousness to be again lost in the deepening 
shades of subconsciousness. Here it acts as a sugges- 
tion for the future to the subconscious. 



206 Psychology as Applied to Education 

Character of this Stream of Thought dependent on 
Ourselves. — If this stream were an affair of fate so 
that we could in nowise change its nature, then this 
whole study were interesting, perhaps, but certainly 
impractical. But we can change the nature of the 
stream of thought and feeling in full consciousness. 
By using our voluntary attention we can suppress any 
thought at will, and substitute another for it. We 
cannot directly change our feelings, but we can suppress 
the expression of the undesirable feelings, and then they 
will soon vanish, and we can cultivate and emphasize 
the expression of virile, optimistic feelings, and thereby 
strengthen such feelings. Thus the right suggestions 
will be given to the subconscious, and in time the waters 
from its spring will be sweet. 

EFFECT OF SUBCONSCIOUS LIFE UPON HEALTH AND 
CHARACTER 

The suggestions of our conscious life to our subcon- 
sciousness make or ruin health and character. "Asa 
man thinketh, so is he," comes very near being an ab- 
solute scientific truth. He who thinks, acts, and feels 
health, vigor, triumph, and harmony will be healthy, 
vigorous, successful, happy. Causes external to him 
may sometimes mar the perfection of this result, but he 
is certainly always much happier, healthier, and more 
successful than he would have been if he had given re- 
pining, regret, and dejection a place in his life. Con- 
versely, it is almost certain that timorous, cowardly 
souls who always fear that sorrow, sickness, and dis- 
aster are to overtake them, who always look on the dark 
side of life, will be in poor health, be unfortunate in 



The Subconscious Life 207 

their work, and, in general, be failures. It shall be unto 
thee according to thy faith. 

Many, however, object to this view. Many a famous 
worrier, they contend, enjoys good health and a long 
life, and often misfortune overtakes us where we cer- 
tainly had never invited it by expecting it. 

In answer, it may be pointed out that much of the 
worry of the professional worrier is only skin deep and 
covers a soul that at bottom is quite optimistic and 
confident of the future. Then it is to be noticed that 
nature is patient and long-suffering in this department 
as well as in all others. It is wonderful what amount 
of abuse human nature will stand before it is ruined. 
Then it should not be forgotten, that this theory does 
not try to explain everything by suggestion. In order 
to break one's leg in a railway accident, it is not at all 
necessary or even possible to have brought it on by 
autosuggestion. 

The subconscious does not understand a negative. The 
suggestion to the subconsciousness is furnished by the 
image before the mind. To imagine something undesir- 
able, and then say to one's self, " I will not do that," 
does not destroy the evil suggestion. As far as sugges- 
tion goes, it is just as bad to think, " I have not con- 
sumption," as to think, " I have consumption," for 
the mental image is the same in both cases. Of course, 
the grammatical form does not matter; the image in 
the mind is the only important affair. This image 
should always be cheerful, optimistic, tonic. 

Effect of the Morbid. — The mind finds an unhealthy 
enjoyment in reveling in the details of crime and suffer- 
ing. Hence, detailed accounts of murders, executions, 



208 Psychology as Applied to Education 

accidents, misfortunes, and other horrors are a promi- 
nent feature in the daily press. Children love ghost 
stories, and silly nurses' tales of the bogey man are lis- 
tened to with horrified interest. A friend of mine tells 
me that in his childhood he used to sit on the edge of 
the bed and listen to ghost stories until he was afraid 
the ghost might come in the dark under the bed and grab 
his legs. But he could not choose but hear. This 
kind of suggestion to the subconscious is very harmful, 
especially to the young. 

Effect of the Indecent. — Young people, especially 
boys, are tempted to indulge in stories, thoughts, and 
fancies that border more or less closely on the indecent. 
They should remember that the soul, especially its 
subconscious phase, is like a sheet of white paper, and 
that every base suggestion is like a rub by a grimy hand 
on this paper. There are soul erasers, happily, and the 
marks may be rubbed out, but the unsullied purity of 
the days before the grime, cannot be restored. The 
soul, like the paper, retains some trace of the soil. 

Protection against Evil Suggestions. — We should 
shun all imagination of evil and wrong, for thus by evil 
thoughts and wrong ideas we store up iniquity for 
ourselves in subconsciousness. Here, however, we run 
up against a practical difficulty. It is impossible to do 
one's duty in this world without witnessing, knowing, 
and thinking about much that is evil, ugly, and sad. 
The teacher must hear and read libraries of bad gram- 
mar and illogical thought. The doctor spends his time 
with sickness and death. The lawyer deals with 
wrongs of all kinds, and gets very familiar with the 
seamy side of life. Besides, every intelligent person 



The Subconscious Life 209 

must know something about history and contemporary 
life, and how full is not this with ignorance, vice, and 
crime ? 

In solution of this problem, this may be said : First, 
an antidote should be taken against this necessary evil. 
Let the teacher read some classical literature every day, 
to take the taint of school compositions out of his 
system. Let the doctor, the lawyer, and the business 
man choose some line of ideal pursuit as far as possible 
away from the prosaic side of their callings, and devote 
some time every day" to this line of work, to act as an 
antidote to the carking cares, the souring or fossilizing 
influences of their business upon their subconscious- 
nesses. Literature, some university extension study, 
gardening, amateur photography, painting, music, the 
study of birds through an opera glass, are some sugges- 
tions of such ideal occupations. Thus Stedman was a 
banker and a poet, and Gladstone was a statesman, a 
Homeric scholar, and a theologian. 

But the most important thing to remember about 
our undesirable experiences is that to a very great 
extent the impression that they will make upon the 
subconscious self depends upon our own attitude. A 
duck may be in the water all day, and still never a 
drop touches the skin protected by feathers. Likewise, 
if we do not with morbid sympathy fondle the evil and 
the untoward that necessarily meet us in life, very 
little will penetrate to our deeper self. The teacher 
thinks vividly of the right forms when he corrects ex- 
ercises. Hence these, upon which he puts his sym- 
pathetic emphasis, get recorded in subconsciousness 
and not the wrong forms which he is correcting. The 



210 Psychology as Applied to Education 

doctor ought to picture with emotional vigor the condi- 
tion in which he wishes his patients, in beauty, health, 
strength. The man of affairs should ever have vividly 
before his mind's eye his ideal human character, and 
his ideal of business, so that this ideal is daily the most 
real element of his experience, and daily fills his sub- 
consciousness more completely. 

When you have to think of yourself as sick or as being 
in danger of becoming ill, always do this with as little 
emotion as possible. Let the thought stay in the 
superficial, rational part of your mind. Think of it 
as you would a problem in chess, — without any feel- 
ing. And think, in any manner, as little as possible of 
sickness. When ill, imagine as vividly as possible the 
condition you wish to be in. Think of the health 
which you should have, not disease which you actually 
but accidentally and irrationally have. These cheer- 
ful, optimistic, health-inspiring thoughts and feelings 
will direct the subconscious self into the right channel. 
You will thus convince the subconscious self that you 
have a right to be well and that you have the power 
to get well, yes, that it is a sin to be ill. 

The Correct Attitude of Mind. — Do not capitulate 
to the sordid. This is a brave, grand universe, just as 
near paradise as we think it. In a very fundamental 
sense we make our own world. Almost every person 
lives in his youth for a while in Arcadia. He has ideals. 
He is filled with noble aspirations. He bubbles over 
with ambition. Life is supremely worth while: this 
is his daily mood. 

This is the correct attitude in which to five. This 
atmosphere of enthusiasm, optimism, ambition, aspira- 



The Subconscious Life 211 

tion, and hope should constantly surround us. This is 
the true fountain of youth. And this fountain may be 
made perpetual. One of the saddest heresies of life is 
the prevalent belief that it is necessary, nay, desirable, 
to lose the buoyancy of youth soon after the teens are 
past, or at least when the thirties are over. I fear that 
it is true that most middle-aged and elderly people 
plod through life. They just do — their — duty — 
every — day without joy, without sorrow, without look- 
ing forward to anything better than a little rest or rec- 
reation now and then. They take no delight in their 
work. In the morning they greet the new day with a 
sigh of resignation, and they welcome the end of the 
workday with another sigh of relief. They are down at 
the three-square-meals-a-day and daily-stint-of-work 
basis of life. If they are weak, they look fagged; 
if they are sensitive, they look frazzled ; if blunt, they 
look apathetic and woodeny ; if strong, they look prosy 
and sordid. 

This should not be so ! This is the wrong attitude 
towards life. Its cause is very natural. Life's duties 
overwhelm us. We become weary under the " eternal 
grind." From sheer inertia we slip into the plodding 
attitude. At once a current of suggestion sets in to the 
subconscious : " The world is mean, sordid, shabby, 
tiresome, burdensome ; let us plod on since we have to." 
Soon we are confirmed in this attitude. 

Cultivate an optimistic spirit. Have faith in your- 
self. Measured one way, you are infinite, divine. As 
long as you act in harmony with the universe, you are 
invincible. There is a wealth of truth in Sam W. 
Foss's poem where he lets a " lunkhead " relate how he 



212 Psychology as Applied to Education 

and other " lunkheads " grew up together " like 
cornstalks in the same hill," but that while the 
relator is still an undistinguished countryman, some 
of his comrades have reached the highest pinnacles 
of success. 

"For I stayed home and rassled in the cornfiel' like a chump, 
Coz I knew I was a lunkhead and a lummox and a gump; 
But if on'y I hadn't known it, like them other fellers there, 
To-day I might be settin' in the presidential chair. 
We all are lunkheads — don't git mad — an' lummoxes an' 

gawks ; 
But us poor chaps who know we be — we walk in humble 

walks. 
So I say to all good lunkheads, Keep your own selves in the 

dark; 
Don't own or reckernize the fact, an' you will make yer mark." 

SUGGESTIVE POWER OF THOUGHTS AND FEELINGS OF 

OTHERS 

Expressed Thoughts and Feelings. — The expressed 
thoughts and feelings of others act as suggestions upon 
our subconsciousness. When we listen to speech, we 
picture in our minds what is said. Every image in our 
consciousness becomes a suggestion to the subconscious. 
So this is only another form of autosuggestion. Phy- 
sicians and nurses experience a horrible wear and tear 
from constantly witnessing misery and pain. In self- 
defense, the mind builds up a sort of wall or protection 
against these constant suggestions of pessimism. People 
that see a great deal of misery become, as we say, 
hardened to it. This, however, is an expensive way of 
defense, for this is the same process of " sordidifying " 
which we have just condemned. 



The Subconscious Life 213 

Unexpressed Thoughts and Feelings. — Whether 
or not the unexpressed thoughts and feelings of other 
persons influence subconsciousness is at present a 
debatable borderland in psychology. There is, how- 
ever, a mass of evidence which seems to lend itself 
most naturally to such an interpretation. Most 
people believe that by looking intently at the back of 
a person and wishing hard that he may turn around 
we may get him to do so. " Absent treatment " is 
given by various schools of mental healing, and there 
the thoughts and volitions of a person not in the pres- 
ence of the sick person are supposed to effect a cure. 
Until a comparatively recent period it was a crime 
(treason) in England " to imagine the death of the 
king." To be sure, this had to be something more 
than mere imagining, but the historical essence of the 
crime lay in the belief that such imagining had a baleful 
influence on the king's health. The witch of old used 
to make images of wax of the persons she wished to 
harm and then maltreat these images as she wished the 
real persons to be treated. As the image wasted away, 
the person represented was supposed to waste away. 
Believers in the occult hold that every person has a 
spiritual " atmosphere " about himself, and that all 
who come within his influence are more or less affected 
by it. 

If there be such an extrasensual exchange of influ- 
ence between minds, it is probable that proximity in 
space facilitates its transmission. But the space re- 
lation is by no means the most important. Positive, 
aggressive, self-contained characters are in less danger 
of being disturbed by such influence, and even when 



214 Psychology as Applied to Education 

they seek it, they will probably find it hard to get a 
clear conscious experience. But the subconscious in- 
fluence is still there. The negative, the passive, the 
hypersensitive, the neurotic, the plastic minds are 
more likely to be consciously the recipients of such 
influence. This does not mean, however, that the 
ability to be conscious of such influence must neces- 
sarily mean mental disease or imperfection of char- 
acter. 

The Spiritual Atmosphere. — That we are constantly 
in spiritual company is the doctrine of all religions. 
To complement this theory we might add that if we 
believe in a spirit existence at all as distinct from the 
body, we cannot suppose the mind to be limited by 
space. There is a communion of sinners as well as of 
saints, even while in the body, according to this theory. 
All lovers and mothers believe or try to believe that 
though thousands of miles away from their beloved, 
still they are with them in spirit, actually influencing, 
comforting, leading, and being led by them. Accord- 
ing to this faith, which we all try to hold to some extent 
at least in every great crisis of life, we are always in 
the company of our spiritual relations. Those who 
are dear to us are always near us in the most essential 
sense in the world. 

This doctrine on a grand scale is put beautifully 
and powerfully by Lowell in his " Present Crisis " : — 

When a deed is done for freedom, through the broad earth's 

acting breast 
Runs a thrill of joy prophetic, trembling on from east to west; 
And the slave, where'er he cowers, feels the soul within him 

climb 



The Subconscious Life 215 

To the awful verge of manhood, as the energy sublime 

Of a century bursts full-blossomed on the thorny stem of time. 

Through the walls of hut and palace shoots the instantaneous 

throe, 
When the travail of the Ages wrings earth's system to and fro; 
At the birth of each new Era, with a recognizing start, 
Nation wildly looks at nation, standing with mute lips apart, 
And glad Truth's yet mightier man-child leaps beneath the 

Future's heart. 

So the Evil's triumph sendeth, with a terror and a chill, 
Under continent to continent, the sense of coming ill, 
And the slave where'er he cowers, feels his sympathies with God 
In hot tear drops ebbing earthward, to be drunk up by the sod, 
Till a corpse crows round unburied, delving in the nobler clod. 

For mankind are one in spirit, and an instinct bears along, 
Round the earth's electric circle, the swift flash of right or 

wrong ; 
Whether conscious or unconscious, yet Humanity's vast frame 
Through its ocean-sundered fibers feels the gush of joy or 

shame, — 
In the gain or loss of one race all the rest have equal claim. 

This doctrine teaches emphatically that soul com- 
munes with soul even without and beyond the use of 
the senses; and that hence the importance of a deed 
is not measured by its effect in the sense world. 

This theory makes the complexion of our secret 
thinking and brooding literally terribly important. 
Our thoughts, moods, and imaginings, if base and 
morbid, will sink us into low and wicked spiritual 
company, and from this company we shall constantly 
receive debasing suggestions which will fill our sub- 
consciousness with filth and wickedness. But if we 
keep our souls in lofty spiritual regions, if we dwell in 



216 Psychology as Applied to Education 

the Upper Room, if we think, feel, imagine, and enjoy 
those things that are pure and wholesome, our souls 
shall even now enjoy heavenly company, and from this 
cloud of noble spirit companions we shall constantly 
receive suggestions that strengthen us against tempta- 
tion, guide us in doubt, hearten us in dismay, and give 
us victory in our battles. Conversely, an unexpressed 
thought, if evil, will make the path of virtue and life 
harder to walk for every human being ; while if good 
and noble, it will to some extent elevate the whole 
human race. 

SUMMARY 

Practical Conclusions about Subconsciousness. — 
That part of our being of which we are conscious is 
only a very small part of us. In cases of sudden refor- 
mation it is still fearfully possible that the subcon- 
scious mind is pursuing the downward road, however 
respectable the conscious life may be. Every act, 
every thought, every emotion adds something to our 
subconscious self, and thus our subconscious life rep- 
resents the accumulated momentum of our past. 
Our subconscious life gives depth and body to our 
conscious thoughts and emotions. It is, therefore, 
impossible for one who has lived a thoughtless and 
frivolous life to feel very deeply or think very power- 
fully on any subject on any occasion, even when he is 
stirred to the bottom of his being. He is shallow, that's 
why. To him who secretly dallies with filthy thoughts 
it becomes impossible to keep a single subject in his 
mental possession unsullied. He who is an oppor- 
tunist in the trifles of daily life, who is insincere habitu- 



The Subconscious life 217 

ally in small things, will find that he has no fund of 
moral courage to draw from even when at some crisis 
in his life he earnestly desires to play the man. The 
yellow streak in character does not come down upon 
the unfortunate one, like the potato blight, in a night. 
Silently and imperceptibly flake after flake of the yellow 
rust fastened itself upon the soul as the result of infin- 
itesimal cowardices, petty insincerities, trifles of indul- 
gence, and traces of selfishness. In short, fife is one 
and inseparable. It .has a fatal integrity. We cannot 
serve God and mammon. 

Our subconscious self connects with the whole uni- 
verse of being. To speak in theological language, we 
can draw upon the strength and power of God through 
faith. Deep down in the foundation of our being we 
are one with the great Consciousness of the world. 
That is why we have an exhaustless spring to dip 
from, and that is why " all things are possible for him 
that believeth." 

The Proper Attitude towards Life. — Our subcon- 
sciousness is the bar of soft iron, surrounded by the 
induction coil. Our conscious life is the current of 
electricity that induces (suggests) magnetism to the 
bar and makes it capable of attracting by magnetic 
force. Here the similarity ceases, for while there is 
but one kind of electricity, there are many kinds of sug- 
gestion. The nature of that current of conscious life 
lived, so to speak, on the outside of us in the induction 
coil, determines the nature of our inner subconscious 
life, out of which are the issues of life as to health of 
both body and soul. It becomes, then, supremely 
important that we have the right attitude toward life, 



218 Psychology as Applied to Education 

for it is this attitude that acts as a suggestion to our 
subconsciousness. 

Our attitude should be that of optimism, hope, of a 
triumphant, forward-march mood. Our imagination 
should constantly be filled with bright, happy, har- 
monious images. We should resolutely shut the door 
to fear, distrust, moody brooding on what might have 
been, as well as all morbid thoughts of the details of 
crime and disaster and misery. Anger, hate, and 
jealousy should be resolutely banished. Every sen- 
sible person must take the possibility of failure into 
account when he is planning any course of action. But 
when once our course of action is determined uvon, we 
should never dwell further upon the possibility of 
failure. No ignoble, impure, or sordid thought should 
ever be harbored. 

The Physical Attitude. — Our mental attitude is in- 
timately dependent on the position and condition of 
the body. We should therefore keep the body in the 
position which expresses the thoughts and feelings 
recommended above. One little phrase of two words 
gives the essence of all that belongs to a correct bodily 
carriage. It is: Chest up. Unless there is very good 
reason for it, it is impossible to feel downhearted and 
dejected with the " chest up." Brisk, vigorous move- 
ments and lungs well filled with oxygen are also im- 
portant. This is an almost perfect and complete rule 
of physical carriage. Express as vigorously as possible 
by the body, its action and carriage, a tonic, virile, 
and healthy frame of mind. 

Pedagogical Observations. — The schoolroom should 
be permeated by a brisk, breezy, tonic mental atmos- 



The Subconscious Life 219 

phere. Teachers and pupils should find joy in their 
work. Nothing morbid or depressing should be found 
in books for children. In teaching physiology and 
hygiene, the healthy and normal conditions and func- 
tions of the body should be dwelt on, not the abnormal 
and diseased. 

In Conclusion. — " Finally, brethren, whatsoever 
things are true, whatsoever things are honest, what- 
soever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, 
whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are 
of good report ; if there be any virtue, and if there 
be any praise, think on these things." Phil, iv : 8. 

Exercises 

i. What is the effect on subconsciousness of much reading of 
trashy novels? 

2. What is the effect of constant association, as in an asylum, 
with the insane and with imbeciles ? 

3. What is the value of starting the day with a deeply felt 
devotional exercise? 

4. What should you think of just before you fall asleep? 

5. What effect did the fine specimens of the arts of architec- 
ture and sculpture have upon the children who grew up in classi- 
cal Athens ? 

6. Draw a diagram representing the relation of the conscious 
mind and the subconscious mind. 

7. Illustrate by some character from history the unconscious 
tuition of war. 



(D). Child Study 

CHAPTER XXIII 
CHILDHOOD 

VALUE OF CHILD STUDY TO THE TEACHER 

Man is a living organism, not a mechanism. Mechan- 
isms are built from without; organisms grow from 
within. Therefore, to get a living knowledge of an 
organism, one must know its history. We do not know 
the oak until we know how it develops from the acorn. 
We do not understand a nation until we are acquainted 
with its history. For the same reason, if we are to 
understand the mind, human nature, we must study 
its growth. Since man is a living organism, a study 
of the history of the individual's development is 
essential to a true perspective of psychology. 

Child Study. — The study of the evolution of the human 
individual is, therefore, the necessary foundation of all 
valid pedagogy. But of all the voluminous writings 
of educators and investigators on this subject, what is 
of value for our purpose can be summarized in a few 
pages. In the two following chapters, we shall try to 
place before the reader as tersely and succinctly as 
possible a few of the results of child study which are 
most applicable to this discussion. 

220 



Childhood 221 

THE PERIODS IN THE EVOLUTION OF THE MIND 

There are four well-marked periods in the evolution 
of the human individual : childhood, early adolescence, 
youth, and maturity. 

Of these the first is the subject of this chapter. 
This may be subdivided into two periods. 

THE TWO AGES OF CHILDHOOD 

About the age of eight or nine, when children cut 
their permanent teeth, there is a time of rather rapid 
change which separates childhood quite definitely into 
two divisions, which we may call early and later child- 
hood. 

In early childhood perhaps the most striking char- 
acteristic of children is their timidity, and well it is 
that nature has thus guarded them; for they are 
surrounded by danger on all sides, with which their 
weakness and ignorance is far from able to cope. A 
prominent intellectual peculiarity of this period is the 
frequent inability to distinguish reality from imagina- 
tion. Very often the reputation of children for fibbing 
is entirely undeserved. They are simply unable to 
distinguish the products of their imagination from the 
percepts of the senses. Thus many children have 
imaginary playmates to whom they get as attached as 
to real flesh-and-blood comrades. 

In later childhood these characteristics are lost, and 
the love for adventure and braggadocio becomes very 
apparent in boys, a characteristic which has caused 
this period to be called the " Big Injun " period. 
With girls the homing and maternal instincts begin to 



222 Psychology as Applied to Education 

be manifest at this time. The period from about ten 
to fourteen years is a period of slow growth. As little 
energy is spent in growing, the child can spend all his 
vitality for " current expenses." Hence he is now 
capable of doing hard work without injury. This is 
the drill period in education. Now let him get the 
main part of the mechanical element in school work. 

THE CHILD NOT A MINIATURE OF THE ADULT 

Primers used to contain material of interest to 
grown people, put into simple language. If poly- 
syllables were avoided, it was thought that children 
certainly would thrive on an exposition of the English 
constitution, the theory of the atonement, or manners 
at the table. But child study has taught us that the 
child has a mental life altogether his own. If we wish 
to influence it, we must first know it. 

Child World the World of the Senses. — The world 
as it exists to the child is largely the concrete, tangible 
world of the senses. One step beyond the senses is all 
the wise teacher of children will venture. Objects, 
models, pictures, vivid descriptions — stop there. If 
you venture farther away from the actual, you will 
leave your juvenile charge behind. 

HOW CHILDREN THINK 

Our past experience is our thinking tool. Just as a 
gardener digs with a spade, so the thinker thinks with 
his past knowledge. 

The Child's Small Store of Associations. — Children 
have not experienced much, and hence have only a very 
small store of knowledge to draw upon. For this 



Childhood 223 

reason, their thoughts differ from those of the adult. 
For example, you and a child of six meet a funeral 
procession. As soon as the scene stimulates your 
senses, up spring your very complex and powerful asso- 
ciations relating to funerals and take charge of your 
mind. Some personal bereavement perchance presents 
itself; pictures and emotions you have acquired by 
reading of death and the grave awake within you. 
Your theories concerning death and the life beyond 
come back to you. Religious sentiments and thoughts 
give color and tone to the whole. 

And the child? Why, bless his heart, that funny 
black carriage with plumes and glass sides, in the 
midst of such a line of vehicles, reminds him of the 
aquarium in last summer's circus parade. 

Hence, before the teacher can teach his class to do 
better thinking, he must know how they think now, 
and before he can know how they think now, he must 
know the children's minds. 

The Three Kinds of Thinking. — To understand 
how children think we must begin quite a distance 
back. 

The diagram on page 224 is a representation of the in- 
tellectual universe. At the materialistic end, or rather, 
bottom, we have facts — events, objects, things. These 
are combined, subsumed, under laws or principles that 
express their essence, their meaning. These laws again 
are united under higher, more universal principles, 
until, as we believe, the lines of the whole universe 
converge to one point. Now, thinking consists in 
climbing these intellectual ladders; either up from 
fact to law, or down from law to fact. 



224 Psychology as Applied 10 Education 



The Universal 



Law or 



Principle 




But it must not be forgotten that this " climbing " 
is a complex performance in which both the habits of 
ancestry and the spontaneous creative elements sup- 
plied by the individual " climber " are ever present. 

There are two ways of thinking, explicitly and im- 
plicitly. Examples of these two methods are given 
below. Which is your way? 

(a) "I have eaten several Bartlett pears. They aro 
all excellent. Hence I infer the law : All Bartlett 
pears are excellent. This is a Bartlett pear. It must 
be excellent." 

(b) "I have eaten several Bartlett pears, and liked 
them. Hence, tins being a Bartlett pear, I guess it 
must be good." 

For cases like the above, I use the second way every 
time. It is shorter, and it is satisfactory. It differs 
from the first in apparently leaving out all reference to 
a law and in jumping directly from one fact to another. 
In reality, however, we do have a glimmer of the law, 
even in the second process. But the reference is im- 
plicit. We do think of the law, but we do not con- 
sciously abstract it from the facts in which we see it 
exemplified. 

Most of our thinking is of this class. In our daily 



Childhood 225 

life our mind skips nimbly from fact to fact, and passes 
through the intervening law without alighting on it. 
In practical thinking, the mind's eye is riveted on 
things, facts, and has not time to focus itself on the 
principles that it employs. 

The next higher grade of thinking is scientific think- 
ing. When the botanist classifies plants ; when the stu- 
dent of plant ecology sees and formulates the relation 
that exists between insects and flowers, or between hu- 
midity and f oliage surface ; when the student of political 
economy discovers the essence of free government or the 
economist speaks of the principle of free competition: 
then these thinkers have laws and principles explicitly 
in their minds. This may be called scientific thinking, 
or explicit reasoning. 

There is a still higher phase of thinking. When the 
mind seeks fundamental truth, the great unifying prin- 
ciples that explain all laws, it Is engaged in philosophic 
thought. Very few people are capable of this kind of 
thinking. 

We have, then, three kinds of thinking : — 

(a) Common thinking, which consists in reasoning 
from fact to fact without formulating the principle or 
law upon which the reasoning depends. 

(6) Scientific thinking, in which laws, principles, 
and relations are thought out explicitly. 

(c) Philosophic thinking, in which the mind seeks 
fundamental, unifying principles. 

Children's Thinking Unscientific. — Normally, chil- 
dren do not think out laws, principles, and relations 
explicitly. Ideas and images never tarry long before 
the child's mental vision. There is a change of scene on 



226 Psychology as Applied to Education 

the stage of thought every few seconds. Naturally 
they use exclusively the first kind of thinking. Formal 
abstractions, generalizations, and deductions are anti- 
natural to the child. Definitions committed to memory 
are to him not definitions at all ; they are but husks, 
shells, and are correspondingly unpalatable and indi- 
gestible. 

Hence formal grammar and the science of arithmetic 
have no place in the first six or seven grades of our 
schools. This will be more thoroughly discussed later. 
We shall now restrict ourselves to the answering of a 
few current objections. 

The first objectors are the preternaturally bright 
teachers. "Why," these object, " I can make children 
comprehend the reason for every rule in arithmetic, 
and I know they are interested and like it." 

I would answer: So they do — for the moment. 
Why? Because, with your marvelous social powers, 
you have hypnotized the children into doing what is 
not healthful or natural for them to do. Still, they 
seldom like the subject, even then. They like you and 
your bright, breezy ways, not the subject. Then, notice 
how quickly they lose what they get in your training ! 
Healthy children have a happy faculty for shedding 
abnormal accomplishments. 

Next comes the young trained thinker. " But, sir," 
he objects, " is not all education artificial ? We want 
the child to develop more completely and faster than 
he would naturally if left without schooling." True, 
but this artificial stimulation should not be antinatural. 
And so, to require children to do scientific thinking, 
to learn definitions, to use and state universal prin- 



Childhood 227 

ciples, to have laws and relations explicitly in mind 
when reasoning, is at best a waste of time and energy 
on the part of both teacher and pupil, and is often a 
source of serious injury to the growing mind. 

THE CHILD'S IMPULSIVE AND EMOTIONAL LIFE 

Child swayed by Present Impulse. — Holmes some- 
where says sarcastically that the Indian of the novel is 
" merely a bundle of instincts on legs." This is the 
literal truth when said of children. Throughout 
childhood the impulse of the moment is by far the 
greatest factor in determining action. Ignorance of this 
truth is responsible for much injustice. In nine cases 
out of ten, your bad boy never planned his wicked 
prank at all. The opportunity offered itself; the 
impulse seized him ; it was done : there is the whole 
story. Of course, plans and deliberations become more 
frequent and more extended as the child grows older; 
the boy of twelve years schemes more than the child 
of two ; but still, characters like Peck's "Bad Boy " 
are a libel on childhood. Real boys are not so long- 
headed. Equally impossible is the creation of the 
imagination that did duty as the Good Little Boy of 
the Sunday-school book. Observe, I do not assert 
that the wickedness or holiness per se of these characters 
is impossible in children, but I do claim that the 
grown-up premeditation and speculation attributed 
to these characters is impossible in normal childhood. 
At the bottom of all true understanding of childhood 
there must be a recognition of the simple, unpre- 
meditated, spontaneous nature of the child's mental 
life. 



228 Psychology as Applied to Education 

Futility of Threats or Promises of Reward. — Since to 
the child there is but a rudimentary past and practically 
no future, the memory of past suffering and the hope of 
future reward are equally powerless in the presence of a 
strong present temptation. 

The teacher or parent who expatiates in the summer 
on the coming glory of the Christmas tree wonders 
why his young hearers are not enthusiastic. To him, 
Christmas six months hence is as real as the present 
Fourth of July. Not so to the child. Things six 
months in the future have to him only a very shadowy 
existence, if any at all. We have all had the " Be- 
a - good - boy-and- you-may-one-day-become- president ' ' 
maxim repeated to us in our juvenile days. Did it, as 
was intended, inspire us to untiring energy and de- 
votion to work? Scarcely. The next cool swimming- 
hole had a million times more persuasion in it ; and in 
just about a second and a half it had washed away 
every vestige of presidential ambition. Early one 
spring, while frost was still in the ground, I found a 
number of boys wading in a marsh. I asked the boys if 
their mothers allowed such trifling with health. One 
boy told me that he " expected he would get a whipping 
when he came home." But coming home was still a 
long way into the future; and wading was such fun. 
No normal child was very long kept from doing what he 
really wanted to do by the most dire threats of " lick- 
ing," " thrashing," or " skinning." Promises of reward 
are equally futile, if they are not to be fulfilled in the 
immediate future. 

It follows that punishments, too, are less effective 
with children than with adults as deterrents from 



Childhood 229 

crime. However, the actual infliction of punishment is 
much more effective than the most vivid description of 
reward or punishment to come. 

It follows that the government of children should 
consist chiefly in so arranging their environment that 
they are stimulated and tempted to do right, while 
they are restrained from doing wrong mainly by having 
temptations removed and by having their lives filled 
to the brim with activity in useful or at least harmless 
directions. As long as teachers and environments are 
imperfect, however, punishments will probably be 
more or less necessary. But threats and promises of 
reward far in the future are nearly always ineffective. 

Children not Sentimental. — We older people like to 
feel miserable at times. We like to moisten the eyes 
with a pathetic story. Children do not. When 
moved by pity or compassion, they are pained, and 
they do not like being pained. 

Normal children seldom expatiate on their feelings 
and emotions, even when these are pleasant. This 
can easily be deduced from the foregoing, but we reach 
the same conclusion from direct observation of children. 
If not taught to do so, they seldom speak of kind 
mamma, dear sister, the beauties of sunset, or the 
pleasures of friendship. Their minds are riveted on 
the facts, and, though they enjoy the by-play of 
emotions, they think of them only implicitly. 

CHILDREN'S INTERESTS AND HOW TO APPEAL TO THEM 

Predominance of the Motor Element. — Nothing is 
likely to interest children long unless it contains a 
strong motor element. We are all motor-minded ; that 



230 Psychqlogy as Applied to Education 

is, motor images are a very important part of the mental 
images of every one ; but in children the motor element 
seems to predominate. " Still life " does not interest 
them. The successful teacher will find something for 
his pupil to do with hands and feet, and not merely 
something to listen to, or contemplate. Closely con- 
nected with this characteristic is the dramatic instinct. 
Strength of the Dramatic Instinct in Children. — The 
dramatic idea — make-believe — is a very complex 
idea. Still, even brute creation is in possession of 
it. Two kittens engage in a mock fight. Oh, how 
they chew each other up, — apparently, — but they are 
very careful that teeth and claws do not penetrate 
the skin. It certainly appears as if they understand 
and enjoy to make-believe that they are and do what 
they are not and do not. Children at a very early age 
show that they have mastered this very complex idea 
of make-believe. Many of their most beloved games 
consist in playing that they are " grown ups " ; they 
play school, and church, and " company." Many a 
fond parent has elaborately kept up the fiction of a 
Santa Claus and innocently thought the child " be- 
lieved " in " Santy," when as a matter of fact the child 
was fully aware of the mythical character of the Christ- 
mas saint, but was so perfect an actor that he deceived 
even his parents. It is entirely unnecessary for parents 
and teachers to tell myths and fairy tales to children 
as truth, for children will enjoy these stories fully as 
much if they know they are fiction. To the adult, 
truth is more interesting than fiction, but to the child 
the zest of make-believe is so rich that it fully counter- 
balances the lack of reality. 



Childhood 231 

A small boy about four years of age very much 
enjoyed " surprises " at the table. Some delicacy, 
supposedly unknown to the rest, was covered with a 
napkin and when the family was assembled at the 
table, he removed the napkin. Then all were supposed 
to clap their hands in joy and surprise. For a long time 
they had oranges pretty regularly for breakfast, but 
although he knew all were aware that there were 
oranges under the napkin, he would cry " surprise " 
and dramatically snatch the napkin away. " You 
must clap your hands," he admonished any one who 
failed to play surprised. At another time he came in 
with a cane in his hand. His mother said, " Oh, 
Howard, where did you get that cane? " This struck 
him as an uncommonly good play, so he said, " Now 
I'll go out again, and when I come back, you must clap 
your hands, and say : ' Oh, Howard, where did you get 
that cane ? ' " 

Children's Fondness for Repetition. — Children like 
repetition much more than do their elders. In the 
case just given Howard repeated his appearances and 
demands for his mother's recognition and repetition 
of the formula, " Why, Howard, where did you get that 
cane?" until his mother was thoroughly tired of it. 
When a story is told to a child, in nine cases out of ten, 
he will say, " Tell it again " ; and he will repeat this 
request for the same story until his narrator is ex- 
hausted. Dramatic plays, like London Bridge, will 
be repeated again and again and again for whole hours, 
without " change of bill." This is a very convenient 
characteristic in children for the teachers, for it makes 
drill work far less tedious to the pupils. It shows also 



232 Psychology as Applied to Education 

the wisdom of constant repetition of a few cardinal 
ideas, expressions, and principles. This is not drudgery 
to the child. This dynamic interest of the child should 
be utilized in teaching. Drill on the multiplication table 
may be made a pastime. 

Imitativeness. — Imitation is a very prominent im- 
pulse in children, even more than with their elders. 
This is both conscious and unconscious. The child 
must have a pencil of just the same color as his brother's 
and must whistle when he whistles, but he will also 
unconsciously imitate the grimaces and limp of a com- 
rade. From this it is evident how sensitive a child's 
soul is to its environment. Butter takes a taint from 
the odors in the refrigerator no quicker than do children's 
minds from any taint in the spiritual atmosphere. This 
is closely connected with the mystic power of suggestion. 

Suggestion has a terrific force with children. This is 
why it is usually so futile to forbid a child to do any- 
thing without at the same time removing the immediate 
temptation. " Don't lick the iron fence to-day, Bobby. 
It is so cold your tongue would freeze fast," said mother, 
as Bobby stood with his mouth half an inch from the 
the fence. The next minute Bobby was screaming with 
a half of a square inch of tongue adhering to the iron. 

THE ETHICS OF CHILDHOOD AND OF ANTIQUITY 

Primitive Morality of Children. — The moral aspect 
of the child's evolution depends, of course, wholly upon 
the development of the ideal. The moral standards 
held by children are not unlike those of primitive 
society. The study of children reveals that few chil- 
dren before ten years of age have admiration, worthy 



Childhood 233 

of the name, for honor, truthfulness, courage, and mercy. 
Be not misled by the fact that the child will try to 
make his conscience correspond to Sunday-school 
models. He may even have quite clear intellectual 
conceptions of the moral law, and be ready and able to 
apply it to any given case. This morality is, however, 
wholly an exotic. 

Strength and Cunning. — Boys brag of how many 
other "fellows" they can "lick" with impunity, not 
of the odds they dare to take in a fight. They are very 
indignant at a " cheat," but usually only when their 
side gets cheated. Boys boast of their muscular 
strength or mental cunning, not of bravery. " I'm not 
afraid of going into the river, because I can swim," is 
an example. The fact that Siegfried was invulnerable 
reduces the grown man's admiration for the hero, for 
what valor does the warrior show who knows that he 
cannot be wounded? But to the child Siegfried with 
the charmed " coat " was a greater man than Siegfried 
without it. There is a peculiar tendency to join the 
stronger side. In schools where no pupils over fourteen 
years of age are found, and where the teacher makes no 
conscious effort in that direction, there is seldom a 
" code of honor " ; pupils feel entirely free to " tattle " 
to the teacher. They do not consider it unmanly to 
cry at the least provocation. Nor do they recognize 
mercy as a virtue worth the having. The vikings of 
the North or Izdubar's heroes in Chaldea were simply 
overgrown boys, and the boy of to-day exhibits the 
same cruelty, or rather indifference to the sufferings of 
others, in his exultant pursuit of some terrified squirrel. 
Strength and cunning were and are — in the case of chil- 



234 Psychology as Applied to Education 

dren — almost the only virtues recognized, with one 
possible exception. Boys do hate a thief. 

Honesty. — Historically the law of property was the 
first moral law evolved, and for good reasons. The 
institution of property (industrial society) was, together 
with the family, the first institution evolved. The first 
truly human relation after those of the family that 
becomes explicit in man is the relation of owner to 
property. With the masses " thief " and " convict " are 
often synonymous terms. Even in the writings of 
Hume we find that " justice " means right in property 
relations only. " Honesty " to this day simply means 
absence of thievish proclivities. 

Loyalty. — We find, also, in children and barbarians 
the rudiments of the virtue of loyalty. Children think, 
at least under favorable circumstances, that it is 
mean to desert their recognized leader. Instinctively 
they are loyal to their parents, but even here a gleam 
of explicit opinion that one ought to stand by one's 
father and mother at all times may sometimes be dis- 
coverable. 

Piety is an early virtue. The barbarian and the 
child find it easy to believe in a supreme Master and 
Father and to recognize their duty of obedience. 

Thus honesty, loyalty, and piety put in their appear- 
ance, rising, as it seems, from the realm of instinct. The 
child recognizes the personalities of master and God 
much earlier and more clearly than those of himself 
and his playmates. Thus, paradoxical as it may seem, 
it is nevertheless true that the child can earlier com- 
prehend by an act of " moral judgment " the duties of 
worship, of obedience to God, and of submission and 



Childhood 235 

service to a person in authority than the duties of 
charity of neighbor to neighbor or of the respect that 
the individual owes to himself. The great fault of 
nine tenths of our attempted moral instruction is that 
it ignores this order of evolution of self-consciousness 
and proceeds on the notion that, of course, the child has 
the clearest notion of his own personality. 

Hence, " virtues " recognized by the child and by 
primitive man are: physical strength; cunning; and 
the rudiments of honesty, loyalty, and piety. 

Tabu Morality. — On such a system of morality as 
that described, only savagery can exist. But we do 
not want our children to be unqualified savages. In 
spite of the fact that it is natural, we do not desire 
scalping and cannibalism in the nursery. In its slow 
upward strivings, the race has also found that this 
primitive morality does not suffice. Hence an artifi- 
cial complement has been added to it very early in the 
evolution of society. This may be conveniently called 
tabu morality. 

Thus every tribe that has ever amounted to anything 
has put certain restrictions on man which are wholly 
without reason as far as the individual who obeys them 
is concerned. In general, among primitive peoples to 
kill a stranger is allowable, even laudable; but if the 
stranger is under one's roof and has partaken of one's 
salt, his life is sacred. Per se, to He shows one's acute- 
ness, and even the gods of the mythologies lied; but 
it must not, in India, be done under a particular species 
of tree. The malefactor is safe in the temple, however 
black his crime ; to hurt him there would be sacrilege. 

Thus antique society imposed many obligations upon 



236 Psychology as Applied to Education 

the individual, which, so far as the individual was con- 
cerned, were obeyed without the slightest notion why 
this was right and that was wrong, and in all but an 
infinitesimal fraction of the whole number of instances, 
without the least attempt or desire on the part of the 
individual to know any reason why. 

Such tabu morality must be established for the child 
by teacher and parents. It is a great mistake to at- 
tempt to make explicit every moral reason why to the 
child. It cannot be done. Instead of wearying him 
by moral disquisitions on truth, kindness, justice, and 
mercy, just tell him that he must not do this, that, or 
the other false, cruel, or unjust deed. The child, if he 
trusts you, will construe himself the most gruesome 
notion of the badness of the forbidden thing, and will 
hate and detest it with all his heart. Thus the average 
child has no rational basis whatever for holding that 
a lie is wicked; he cannot have. In fact, many an 
adult cannot get it by reasoning. But if his trusted 
grown-up friends tell him that lying is despicable, he 
will believe them implicitly, and will come to feel in 
his very bones that lying is contemptible. 

The true order in morals as well as in every other 
art is first do and then know. 

SUMMARY 

In early childhood the nervous and muscular systems 
are too immature to make training in accuracy and com- 
plexity of motor and sense operations profitable or even 
safe. The age of later childhood is the age for drill and 
memory work. 

Children live in the present. Their associations are 



Childhood 237 

narrow and limited, and, normally, they do not formulate 
any general principles in their thinking. They think 
rapidly but not scientifically ; and therefore all abstract 
reasoning more than one step removed from the con- 
crete has no place in elementary schools. Children 
have only rudimentary notions of a past and a future, 
but are mainly guided by the present impulse. Hence, 
threats are wasted on children. Rewards, if in the 
distant future, are equally powerless. Children are 
unemotional and unsentimental. They are full of the 
motor and dramatic instincts, understand and enjoy 
fiction, like repetition, and are governed by imitation 
and suggestion much more than are their elders. 

The ethics of childhood is very much like that of 
primitive man, and an adaptation of the ancient tabu 
morality is the most effective method of developing, for 
the child, a standard of right and wrong. 



CHAPTER XXIV 
EARLY ADOLESCENCE AND YOUTH 

Early adolescence is the name given to the period of 
change from childhood to manhood or womanhood. 
Its determining physiological event is the development 
into full functioning of the sexual organs ; but this is 
by no means all. Every nook and corner of the whole 
being, mental and physical, is affected. It is a verita- 
ble rebirth. 

From birth to adolescence the rate of growth is 
constantly decreasing. In fact, often for two or three 
years just before adolescence, growth almost entirely 
ceases. Even the most superficial observer must have 
noticed how of a sudden the child who has almost 
ceased developing starts growing again, and changes 
more in a month than before in a year. This is the out- 
ward mark of adolescence. 

GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS OF EARLY ADOLESCENCE 

Before discussing the characteristics of adolescence, 
let me premise this warning. The adolescent is very 
variable; no single statement can be made which is 
true of all adolescents. I have seen many cases in 
which the adolescent did not manifest a single char- 
acteristic mentioned below. In fact every adolescent 
must be studied individually to get useful results. 

238 



Early Adolescence and Youth 239 

What is given below is, however, in the great majority 
of cases true. 

The Adolescent's Lack of Energy. — The adolescent 
is lazy, or has at least the reputation for being so. 
No wonder ! All his energies go to the building up 
of " the new, improved, and vastly enlarged plant " 
which is to take the place of the physical system of 
childhood. He has very little energy left to put into 
the running of it. Hence the adolescent scholar should 
have his program lightened. Treat him as a con- 
valescent. 

The Unsettled State of the Nervous System. — The 
adolescent is fidgety and unreliable, likely to go off at 
any moment in the most inexplicable way. He will 
cry or get offended for nothing at all. He changes his 
mind twenty times a day. One moment he plays and 
romps as a child in perfect abandon ; the next moment 
he is ashamed of himself and tries in his awkward way 
to act grown up. His habits, even his morals, are 
unsettled, however steady a child he may have been. 
The reason for all this is not far to seek. The physical 
basis of habit and morals we now believe to be the 
make-up of the nervous system. But in the great 
change from child to man or woman, the nervous system 
is redeveloping, so no wonder if many of the old chan- 
nels and threads get mixed. Deal gently with him, 
then. He is, in a sense, a baby again, and is not re- 
sponsible for his actions. 

Adolescence an Awkward, Self-conscious Period. — 
Because the period of early adolescence is the beginning 
of youth, the adolescent finds himself possessed by new 
emotions and impulses. They are strange and in- 



240 Psychology as Applied to Education 

convenient to him. He does not know how to handle 
them. His new length of limb, his head's elevation 
above the floor, the new cut of his clothes, the Mister 
and the Miss make him feel uncomfortable. He feels 
as if he had been mislaid with no chance of being found. 
Then everybody is in the habit of staring at him. The 
second sentence every one addresses to him is, " You 
are growing, aren't you ? Why, you are quite a little 
man ! " 

Let us take pity on the young martyr. Don't compel 
him to speak " pieces." Keep him out of the public 
glare as much as possible. Don't show him that you 
notice his growth any more than you would tell a 
woman that you notice that her hair is turning gray. 
Let him get used to his new life as mercifully as pos- 
sible. 

ADOLESCENCE THE TIME FOR CHARACTER FORMATION 

" The hand that rocks the cradle rules the world " 
may be a very fine sentiment, but it is absolutely false. 
The first twelve years of a child's life count for com- 
paratively little in the formation of character. The 
period from thirteen to sixteen is immeasurably more 
important in giving the ethical trend to the mind than 
all the years of childhood. As we have just seen in the 
preceding chapter, the child is incapable of more than 
a very rudimentary moral development. The child's 
world of thought, emotion, and action is too contracted 
to form any safe basis for the development of a charac- 
ter that will withstand the temptations of manhood. 
From many of the strongest temptations, such as the 
sexual, the child is practically exempt. As to explicit, 



Early Adolescence and Youth 241 

intelligent, religious, moral, and social opinions, the child 
simply hasn't any. 

The Fixation of Certain Habits. — It is true that a 
great deal of character consists in habit, and many 
habits may be formed for life in childhood. But in the 
great revolution of mind and body, known as adoles- 
cence, the habits of childhood lose some of their com- 
pelling force, and in all normal cases it is possible to re- 
shape the whole habit system of the adolescent. The 
habit that becomes fixed earliest is probably that of 
pronunciation. The pronunciation of a child of five 
years is usually as perfect in every shade of dialect and 
in every linguistic peculiarity as that of a man of fifty. 
But still, in nine cases out of ten, an adolescent can 
learn to speak a language without the least foreign 
accent. 

Hence it is safe to say that moral, religious, and social 
habits can be formed and must be fixed after the begin- 
ning of adolescence, and that social, moral, and religious 
beliefs, codes, ideals, and standard of values must be 
formed after childhood is at an end. 

This truth has been recognized by religious society 
in all ages. Almost every heathen cult of every age 
imposed and imposes some solemn ordeal for the adoles- 
cent, intended to fit him for the larger duties of adult 
life. Christian churches have placed confirmation at or 
near this time. The immersionists do not, as a rule, 
allow the rite of baptism at any earlier period. 

The Right Kind of Teacher for Adolescents. — 
Adolescence, then, is the age of character formation, 
and in spite of the high pedagogical authority they 
quote in their favor, it seems to us evident that those 



242 Psychology as Applied to Education 

are wrong who claim that the kindergarten and the 
primary grades are the most important periods of 
education. 

Character is largely propagated by contagion. The 
noble heart, the strong will, the refined sensibilities, 
the pure soul alone can instill nobility, strength, refine- 
ment, and purity into other minds. 

Persons with ideal characters are not exactly plen- 
tiful, even in the teacher's profession; and hence if 
I were a city superintendent, I should choose among 
my teachers the most perfect specimens of manhood 
and womanhood, mental, moral, social, and physical, 
for the classes made up of early adolescents. This 
would mean the eighth grade and the first two years 
of the high school. I should not care half so much in 
these grades for scholarship as for character. But what 
is a "good character"? How should it be chosen? 
First, don't mistake stupidity and moral cowardice for 
virtue. This is a most common mistake. Often your 
man of limited intelligence is likely to be more correct 
according to the models of conventionality than your 
genius. Do not choose for a teacher of adolescents a 
character which is chiefly remarkable for the evil that 
is left out of it. Whatever you do, choose a dynamic 
intelligence, one that dares and does. Choose a leader 
among men, a person with initiative, with personal 
magnetism, one whom the pupils will trust, look up to, 
and follow. Choose him for the good that is in him, 
not for the bad that is out of him. Don't expect to 
find a faultless person. Choose a person so much 
bigger than his faults that he can afford to have 
them. 



Early Adolescence and Youth 243 

TEACHING THE ADOLESCENT TO KNOW HIMSELF 

To be plain, — and it is silly to be anything else, — 
teach the pupil the facts about his sexual organs. I 
know how hard it is to do this, how every person with 
delicate sensibilities " hates " to obtrude himself upon 
the sacred personal reserve of another individual. But 
if for a moment the veil were lifted and we could see 
the millions of victims of sexual ignorance, the count- 
less young lives blighted, the numberless stars and suns 
of talent and genius dimmed and darkened just for the 
lack of a little elementary knowledge of the laws of the 
springs of life ; yea, if we knew but a tithe of this, we 
should esteem it base cowardice to allow our pupils 
to grow up without a proper knowledge of them- 
selves. 

You cannot overestimate the ignorance on this 
subject. An excellent teacher, in whose judgment I 
have absolute confidence, asserts that in a teachers' 
training school, where she spoke on this subject to some 
eighty teachers, there were several who had not the 
faintest conception of the most elementary facts about 
themselves. Thus we leave each generation to solve for 
itself the most vital and delicate mystery of life. 

Dangers against which the Adolescent should be 
Protected. — Who will teach them if we don't ? Very 
likely the vilest dregs of human society. Have you 
considered what that means? You cannot protect 
your son or daughter from such tuition. Many an 
attractive young person of the same sex as your child, 
and with whom you never think of forbidding com- 
munication, is inwardly filled with "dead men's bones, 



244 Psychology as Applied to Education 

and of all uncleanness." He or she will make an in- 
timate of your child and communicate this inward 
filth. 

Modern civilization has added two other ghouls to 
the list of fiends on the track of the adolescent — the 
patent medicine vender and the " renowned specialist 
in private diseases." They want as many patients as 
possible. So it is in their interest to make as many 
people as possible think they need treatment. Hence 
the most innocent and ordinary trifles are minutely 
described and heralded forth as " certain symptoms " 
and " awful danger signals " of some loathsome and 
dangerous disease. 

Untold agonies are suffered by timid and modest 
young people who, though sound as church bells, have 
fallen victims to these medical sharks. All the vic- 
tim's little savings, pocket money, and pin money is 
spent for " free private medical advice " and medicines 
sent by mail " in plain wrappers." One part of their 
promise they fulfill. They keep the whole thing secret 
enough. Trust them for that, the vampires! Add 
to the unnecessary worry and expense the amount of 
useless or harmful drugs taken by the victims, and we 
have an inkling of the magnitude of the evil ! 

Methods of Instruction. — Against these dangers 
teachers and parents are in duty bound to protect their 
charges. The necessary information can be given in 
three ways : — 

(a) By private interview with each pupil alone. 

(6) By class instruction to a class composed of one 
sex only. 

(c) By the reading of books written for this purpose. 



Early Adolescence and Youth 245 

The last way is the easiest for all concerned. But 
never put a book of this description into the hands of 
a pupil until you know it is right in letter and in spirit. 
Investigate the statements of the book and verify them 
by good medical authority before you give it to your 
pupil. If, as is most likely, you find no book perfectly 
satisfactory, annotate the least objectionable one in 
such a way that the pupils are thoroughly safeguarded 
against falling into any dangerous error. 

As a rule, the best results are obtained if the book 
method is supplemented by the class method. For 
instruction, there is nothing equal to the living voice. 
Very few people are able to get a " saving knowledge " 
of any subject from books alone without the living 
teacher. Hence a few class meetings, with a chance to 
ask questions by both pupils and teacher, is generally 
desirable. 

Now. and then you will find pupils whose peculiar 
character and environment are such that more is needed. 
Then the private interview is the duty of the teacher. 

SUMMARY OF ADOLESCENCE 

The adolescent is a very variable creature, and here 
it is more necessary than anywhere else in school life 
to study the individual and treat him according to 
his idiosyncracies. 

Some adolescents retain the care-free, light-hearted 
child spirit till they are six feet tall ; and thus change 
without any embarrassment from childhood to manhood. 

Others fall naturally into the manners of grown people 
while they are yet children. They, of course, know 
nothing of the gawky age. 



246 Psychology as Applied to Education 

Children are no more attracted to the opposite sex 
than to their own; but in the nature of things, the 
adolescent, as a rule, begins to feel drawn to the op- 
posite sex. But instances are not uncommon where 
adolescents do not care more for the other sex than 
children do. This liking for the opposite sex is often 
manifested by the show of unspeakable contempt which 
boys affect for girls at this age, and the aversion for boys 
manifested by the girls. 

Early adolescence is a veritable second birth, and a 
birth into a higher life than childhood. It is the in- 
troduction to the true golden age — youth. 

YOUTH 

Youth is the true golden age of life. Childhood is 
not. Child life is too narrow, too near the animal stage 
of existence to be worthy of the extravagant praise 
bestowed upon it by the retrospective poet. Here it 
is indeed true that "'tis distance lends enchantment 
to the view." But in youth the spirit sweeps through 
the whole vast range of human interests ; and to the 
zest that comes from wide interests, strong emotions, 
and new-found power is added the joy of novelty, and 
of unknown possibilities, the bliss of the " first time." 

CONTRAST BETWEEN CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH 

The Child, a Materialist; the Youth, an Idealist. — 
As we have seen, the child is unsentimental. Youth 
builds castles in Spain, loves the mystic and super- 
natural, delights in daydreams and sentiment. 

The Child, Self-centered; the Youth, Social. — The 
child is necessarily narrow in his sympathies. He is 



Early Adolescence and Youth 247 

interested in the welfare of but few persons outside of 
the immediate family circle. " Lord, save me and my 
wife, my son John and his wife," is a sentiment that 
children find perfectly natural. As the child's imagina- 
tion is weak, he cannot " put himself in the other fel- 
low's place," and hence often appears hard-hearted and 
cruel. Not so youth. This is the age when we over- 
flow with tenderness, pity, and sympathy. The child 
can scarcely be said to have a social world at all. Youth 
is the very time of all times for comradeship, fellowship, 
social pleasures, love, and, above all, friendship. He 
who had no intimate friend in his youth is not likely to 
be worth much. How we do trust humankind in those 
noble days ! How we do enjoy the society of our kind ! 
Youth is the age for reformers and martyrs, for hero- 
ism and self-sacrifice, for loyalty and discipleship. 

The Child, Utilitarian; the Youth, Esthetic. — The 
child's first question about an object is, " What is it 
for? " By this the child means : In what way can we 
get bread, butter, or amusement out of it ? Even when 
drawing or painting, children do not desire primarily 
to make pretty things. A child's highest ambition is 
to make something that is " good for something," i.e. 
useful. But for youth, beauty is one of the great con- 
cerns of life. The child-girl cares comparatively little 
how she " looks." The maiden in her teens finds this 
a topic of absorbing interest. No normal child cares 
for classic poetry ; no normal youth but tries to write 
it. The child likes stories of adventure, not because he 
admires bravery, for he does not to any enthusiastic 
extent; but because he idolizes success. The youth 
is enamored of tales of romance and mystery, for they 



248 Psychology as Applied to Education 

feed his sentimental nature. He loves courage, chiv- 
alry, and magnanimity for their own sake, and not 
simply for the power to gain the victory. 

MEDIEVALISM AND THE ETHICS OF YOUTH 

Adolescence and early youth correspond to the 
Middle Ages in history. There is in both the same re- 
ligious fervor, the same enthusiasm for the " things 
beyond." The same tendency to romanticism and 
mysticism, asceticism and chivalry is noticeable in both. 
The teacher in treating the adolescent should constantly 
remember that he is handling a denizen of the medieval 
world. 

Nowhere is this more important than when the eth- 
ical concepts of the pupil form a factor in the problem. 

The moral code of youth is almost the exact oppo- 
site of that of childhood. The emphasis is placed on 
the social or " altruistic " virtues, and mere brute 
force and cunning are held in contempt. The moral 
sense is in this period liable to certain diseases, and 
against these the parent and teacher should always be 
on guard. 

Mental Diseases of Youth. — Morbidity. — There is 
in all of us a certain appetite for grewsome imaginings. 
In youth this can easily develop into a disease, luring 
the unfortunate victim to poison his mind with that 
literature found in novels and newspapers which deals 
with the loathsome details of crime. 

Asceticism. — Society in its medieval stage, and the 
individual in early youth, have a tendency to accept 
the belief that there is moral merit in mere suffering. 
" Be sure," said a devotee of this doctrine, " that what 



Early Adolescence and Youth 249 

is repulsive to you is pleasing to God." This morbid 
view is responsible for much misery among young 
people of more contemplative disposition. 

Abstract Altruism and Concrete Selfishness. — This 
is perhaps the most common disease of character among 
the young. Pious Lulu wants to be a missionary and 
dreams of sacrificing her lifetime, her energy, and beauty 
in teaching " black little lambs " in Africa. But she 
cuffs and scolds her little brother who prefers play to 
waiting on her. Many young girls aspire to work in 
the slums or to devote" themselves to the emancipation 
of woman ; but it never occurs to them to find out if 
Sally in the kitchen is overworked or to help Sally's 
brothers or sisters out of their abject poverty. 

The Cure. — The cure is the same as that which 
the Lord gave the world for medievalism : work. 
The discovery of a New World, which had to be ex- 
plored, conquered, settled, and quarreled about; the 
increased industrial activity of Europe ; the invention 
of printing and the coincident intellectual revival; 
religious and political quarrels : all these things gave 
Europe enough to do, so that she found it impossible 
to go on any longer with morbid mopings. 

Let us apply the same cure to the morbid, over- 
wrought, sentimentalizing youth. Keep him occupied. 
A little drudgery will not hurt him. Mechanical 
drudgery only is, however, far from sufficient. Above 
all, give him work that calls out his constructive and 
combative propensities. A small dose of athletic com- 
petitive games is not bad. But constructive work, such 
as gardening, sloyd, actual work on the farm and in 
the shop, teaching, and the study of subjects that re- 



250 Psychology as Applied to Education 

quire a great deal of concentration, form the best anti- 
dote. Sunny, simple, and sincere home life gives the 
atmosphere in which these morbid bacteria do not 
long thrive. 

But let all elder leaders of the young heed this 
solemn warning : Do not mistake the vital idealism of 
youth for morbid sentimentality ! Very often when we 
think we discover silly sentimentality in medieval life 
and in youth, the mistake is not theirs, but ours. The 
sordid prose of mature life and modern civilization is 
as frightful a failure in reaching life's ideal as is the 
overwrought poetry of medievalism and youth. 

COMPARISON OF YOUTH AND MATURITY 

If men lived ideal lives, maturity would be a larger, 
stronger, and freer youth. But men do not always 
live ideal lives. In many of us the divine fire of youth 
is succeeded by the cold, calculating spirit that we have 
misnamed practical. I recall a case in point. O, the 
lavish majesty of his youth ! What grace, what poetry 
was there, what breadth of view, what charity for all 
mankind, what courage in every just cause ! But he 
grew a year older every year, married, had children, 
likewise political ambitions ; succeeded with both, 
became a statesman, a pillar of society, a deacon of 
the church, and a millionaire. Oh, yes — yes — he 
had marvelous success, had this man — but at what 
cost ? At fifty, he was a man without ideals — illu- 
sions of youth, he called them. His life was sordid 
prose, mere ledger accounts. In politics he had com- 
promised with his conscience and the devil Expediency 
until, to save his soul, he could not tell his conscience 



Early Adolescence and Youth 251 

from expediency. Still he was what the world calls a 
man of " sterling character," and was held up as a 
model to the young men of the state. All that was 
really human in him in his mature life were the funda- 
mental impulses connected with family life — his love 
and devotion to his wife and children. All else had 
dried up in the fervent heat of a " practical " life. 

It need not be so. All the enthusiasm of youth can 
be kept, even under the snow of old age. All that we 
must of necessity lose with age is the youthful physical 
frame and that delicious shuddering expectancy with 
which inexperience greets the first experiences of adult 
life ; and these are more than counterbalanced by the 
widening of the intellectual horizon and the deepening 
of our whole nature which ought to be the result of an 
enlarged experience. 

But, alas! it is yet true in many cases, that the 
individual, as he advances in years, becomes more 
sordid, hard-hearted, and narrow-minded. 

Psychologically, the process of growing old consists 
in getting confirmed in a set of habits. This is at 
once the strength and weakness of maturity. Our 
habits are the grooves in which our minds run, the rails 
along which a much greater speed can be maintained 
than on a road without rails. The mind works faster, 
better, more easily, and more efficiently in these ruts 
than out of them. Thus maturity, with its established 
system of habits, can do more work, and can do it more 
easily and more gracefully, than youth which is with- 
out these habits. 

But the locomotive which runs so well on its rails 
is perfectly helpless when off them. The whole wide 



252 Psychology as Applied to Education 

world that is unrailed is not for the locomotive. Like- 
wise, as the ruts of habit deepen in our minds, we, as 
a rule, find it harder and harder to get out of these 
ruts. This refers not to ethical and technical habits 
alone, but to intellectual as well. Youth is open to 
conviction; the person of middle age has his beliefs 
fixed. Harvey, the discoverer of the circulation of the 
blood, said that he could make no man over forty 
believe in his discovery. Almost all converts and 
proselytes are young. 

THE SPHERE OF INSTRUCTION FOR YOUTH 

Instruction in Science. — Youth is the time to learn 
to think scientifically. Not that it is natural for youth 
to be scientific. Far from it! Most young people are 
perfectly content to go on in the same slipshod rule-of- 
thumb manner of thought that served them so well in 
childhood. But youth can be scientific if it tries. It 
is no longer antinatural to think principles, laws, and 
relations explicitly. Hence youth should begin the 
study of science — not only natural science, but social 
and linguistic science as well. By science we mean 
here the systematized laws (concepts) that constitute 
the essence of the facts of the universe. Just as truly 
as it is false pedagogy to require definitions of children, 
just as certainly is it bad teaching to neglect to demand 
definitions and the exact statement of principles of 
youth. The logical why, the scientific how, should be 
the main theme in the education of youth. 
. JZsthetic and Ethical Instruction. — Youth is also 
the time for aesthetic education, and for the crowning 
of the work of ethical education. 



PART II 

PEDAGOGICAL APPLICATION 
OF PSYCHOLOGY 



CHAPTER XXV 
THE ART OF STUDYING 

EYE, EAR, AND HAND 

Put down in black and white, it is a truism, but never- 
theless it needs constant repetition, that the eye, ear, 
and hand of the student should be in condition to do 
the work required of them. 

The Eye. — Every teacher should know that his 
pupils can see their work. Nearsightedness and astig- 
matism are the two most frequent imperfections that 
escape the teacher's observation. Every teacher should 
learn the simple tests by which the presence of these 
imperfections can be discovered. 

The Ear. — Deafness is so easily discovered by tests 
that any person with common sense can invent, that 
there is no excuse for the fact that in a large per cent 
of our schools there are pupils who are thought and 
even called dull by the teacher, when the real truth is 
that they do not hear sufficiently well to understand 
all that is said. 

The Hand. — The hand of the young child is seldom 
ready for the work imposed upon it by our present 
system of education. The child is not ready to write 
and draw except with arm movements until his eighth 
or tenth year. To determine when the child is fit to 
begin to use pen and pencil does not require technical 

255 



256 Psychology as Applied to Education 

skill; only observation and moral courage to obey 
common sense when convinced that our time-honored 
practice is wrong. 

Visualizers, Audiles, and Motiles. — The mind deals 
in symbols. There is no such thing as " pure " thought ; 
every idea is shadowed forth to the mind itself by the 
image of something visible, audible, or tangible. Only 
through these images is thought communicated from 
one person to another. The same thought has several 
sets of images as its representatives. Thus piano may 
be represented in the mind by the visual image of a 
piano, by its sound, or even by the image of the motion 
in playing it. So, in reading a description of an his- 
torical scene, we see, hear, and do it in imagination. 
Some chiefly see the scene in imagination; these are 
the visualizers. Others find their auditory images 
strongest and most reliable for memorizing. These 
are called audiles. Finally, many find that their 
appreciation and grasp of the situation depend almost 
exclusively on a mental imitation of the motor element 
of the scene. These are of the motor type, or motiles. 

Eye Training at the Expense of Ear Training. — Some 
minds learn best through the eye, others through the 
ear. The eye-minded pupil should spend some time 
daily in training his neglected sense of hearing, but at 
the same time it is wise for him, when he is after 
results, to use his eyes chiefly. Likewise, mutatis 
mutandis, should be the course of the ear-minded. 

Our present system of education trains the eye at 
the expense of the ear. We gain almost all our knowl- 
edge through silent reading or through visual obser- 
vation or experiments. The result is that our ears are 



The Art of Studying 257 

left in pristine ignorance. Few people, nowadays, 
gain any knowledge worth having from speeches, 
lectures, and sermons. When we have heard a speaker 
on some subject, and are interested, we hie ourselves 
home to " read up on it " ; for we don't know " the 
first thing about it " yet. An ancient scholastic super- 
stition makes professors still lecture, but their students 
do not listen to learn, but to scribble off the words as 
completely as possible. To get at the thought of the 
lecture, they afterwards burn the midnight oil and 
" bone " over the crabbed notes so as to get the knowl- 
edge through the eyes. 

That the neglect of hearing as a knowledge-gathering 
sense is an evil needs no proof. To make its full im- 
pression upon us, truth should come to the soul through 
every avenue. The full grasp of a truth is not obtained 
until hearing furnishes its part in the circuit of compre- 
hension. 

As remedies, the following are suggested. Students 
should be encouraged to read aloud whenever and 
wherever possible. When two students occupy the 
same room and have the same lessons, it is a good 
plan for one student to read, and the other to listen to 
the lesson. The listening student should not have his 
book open; thus he gains doubly in discipline; his 
ears are trained, and he acquires the valuable habit of 
holding his mind responsible for the retention of that 
which has been presented to it only once. When read- 
ing from a book, one often lets his attention wander 
because he knows that if he should miss anything, he 
can easily glance back and pick it up. As a result 
his attention is slovenly, and he has no definite grasp 



258 Psychology as Applied to Education 

of anything; but in listening to something, he knows 
that it is now or never, and his attention will act accord- 
ingly. This habit of close attention is really in the end 
the cheapest for the amount of work it will accomplish. 
Importance of the Motor Element. — Until he has 
observed himself scientifically, almost every one is 
ignorant of the great importance of the motor element 
in his imagination. The motor element is strengthened 
by actual imitation. Hence the device employed in 
the Gouin method of learning languages : When pos- 
sible, act out the expression while saying it. Thus, 
when saying in the new language, " I open the door," 
open a door. Then, as you close the door, say, " I 
close the door." You will find that this makes your 
practice more than doubly effective. Dramatic repre- 
sentations by the pupils, however slight, aid greatly 
in the study of history. After a pupil has once acted 
out an historical character, that character lives for him. 
This is one of the reasons why experimenting in natural 
science produces so much more vital knowledge than 
that derived from books. This is also one of the rea- 
sons for putting sloyd in the front rank as a means of 
education. 

THE PROPER ATTITUDE FOR STUDY 

The Right Mood. — Teach your pupils to make work, 
not play, of their study. They should train themselves 
to have definite times for study and to buckle down on 
the minute, and keep buckled down to business as long 
as the study period lasts. Teach them to disregard 
their " moods " altogether in this matter, and to mind 
their " tenses " (times) ; and they will soon find that 



The Art of Studying 259 

the proper attitude will come of its own accord; for 
it is true that the emotional state does make a great 
difference in the fruitfulness of our efforts. The pupil 
should be in physical and mental comfort and in sym- 
pathy with his study. Any excess of feeling is likely 
to decrease his logical acuteness; but this should not 
be interpreted to mean that he must not feel strongly 
when the subject so requires. 

The Critical Attitude. — The attitude of the student 
is all-important. In receiving information he should 
be critical and independent and take nothing for 
granted until it has justified itself to his sense of ra- 
tionality. That is, he should never for any chain of 
reasoning take the author's say-so. He should always 
run through the logical process from premises to con- 
clusion and satisfy himself that it is correct. At the 
same time he should learn to have the receptive atti- 
tude. After having studied a piece of literature criti- 
cally, he should not stop, but read it again, surrendering 
himself to its charms, and attending to its emotional 
interests. 

Sympathy. — Wherever the human element enters, 
his attitude should be sympathetic. No person, age, 
or race can be understood by us until we have sympa- 
thized with them in weal and woe. 

In studying the French Revolution, the pupil should 
sympathize in turn with the miserable peasants, the 
brilliant political philosophers, the brave reformers, the 
refined emigres, the splendid nobility, the unfortunate 
king and queen, and all the unhappy victims of that 
awful political hurricane. Sympathy with all that is 
truly human in every partaker in the great drama im- 



260 Psychology as Applied to Education 

plies necessarily righteous indignation and passionate 
condemnation of all that is vicious, low, and brutal. 
Thus, in the above example, the students should fully 
realize the selfishness of the nobility, the weakness of the 
king, and the brutality of the reformers. Our boys 
do not understand the War of the Revolution until 
they see the English side of it as well as the American, 
until they realize that it was inevitable for most good 
and wise men on the British side, like Samuel Johnson, 
to regard the American patriots as rebels. The broad, 
warm, intensely human spirit who rejoices, suffers, 
lives with the characters he describes, is the ideal his- 
torian and the ideal student. 

Intellectual Courage. — The grit to launch out, to 
take the initiative, to venture a decided posito, lies at 
the very heart of successful thinking. Suppose it is 
a problem in algebra. The mental coward is not dar- 
ing and reckless enough in his invention of hypotheses 
for a solution. He dares not take for granted that his 
mind will and must keep a great number of conditions 
clear and distinct and in the very center of its atten- 
tion. When black mystery surrounds him, he gives 
it up secretly to himself from the beginning, and feels 
sure he is to be defeated. And so he is, of course. 

The grim determination that the edge of one's mind 
shall not turn, that whatever betides and whatever the 
cost, one will solve the mystery, this is an essential of 
successful thinking. Self-reliance, courage, integrity of 
purpose mark the clear thinker. 

Fixing Facts. — Though we cannot diminish the 
amount of repetition necessary to fasten irrationalized 
facts in the mechanical memory, we can make the 



The Art of Studying 261 

process more or less pleasant. Thus, the best way of 
getting the facts of history does not consist in reading 
over and over again a small manual. The better way 
is to read several extensive accounts of the events in 
question. The constant recurrence of the same facts 
in different connections will fix them in memory quite 
as quickly as mechanical drill on the contents of a 
small book. 

In learning a science the student should strive 
to reach as high a - degree of the following attri- 
butes as possible in his thought : vividness, clearness, 
distinctness, comprehensiveness. Imitate Abraham 
Lincoln, who said that when he studied he was never 
satisfied until he had bounded the new truth north, 
south, east, and west. As a rule, we are too easy on 
our imaginations. Put color, detail, and life into 
your everyday thinking. 

SUGGESTIONS IN REGARD TO THE NOTEBOOK 

The Abuse of the Notebook. — Nine tenths of the 
notebooks of students are a decided detriment to their 
owners. They have spoiled the memories of this gen- 
eration. The notebook works its saddest havoc in 
the higher institutions of learning where it is a part 
of a greater evil — the traditional university lecture. 
It is fairly safe to assert that as a rule what a student 
puts down in his notebook during a lecture he does not 
put down in his memory. Professor J. E. Erdmann in 
his " History of Philosophy " sums up the whole situ- 
ation in a sentence when he says, quoting Schleier- 
macher, " A professor who dictates sentences for his 
students to take down in reality claims for himself 



262 Psychology as Applied to Education 

the privilege of ignoring the discovery of printing." 
The lecture which the students are expected to write 
down word for word has to-day no excuse for being. 

The lecture has its place, however, but only the 
lecture that the pupils are expected to hear when it is 
delivered. When the pupil listens, he should have his 
whole soul in his ears ; if he is scribbling for dear life 
to get down the lecturer's words on paper, a part of his 
mind is running down and out at his pencil point, and 
we have the undesirable condition known as divided 
attention. The result is that at the end of the lecture 
the pupil has no clear and connected conception of 
what the lecturer said, but rushes home to guess what 
his scrawls in the notebook mean. That this is a de- 
cided waste of mental energy ought to be plain. 

How to use the Notebook. — At the lecture or reci- 
tation the pupil should attend to what is said with his 
undivided powers. He should take no notes. The 
only permissible exception is the jotting down of names 
and dates that cannot be remembered. When the 
recitation is over, and the pupil is back at his desk, he 
should proceed to make an entry in his notebook of 
the lesson or lecture, as follows : — 

First, he should make a very brief systematic out- 
line of the subject, to occupy a separate place in the 
book, or, better still, be put in a book of its own. This 
outline should be the pupil's outline. The teacher or 
the text may give an outline, and this may be used as 
a basis for the pupil's outline, but the pupil should not 
be satisfied until he has introduced some " improve- 
ments" in the outline. He has not perfectly assim- 
ilated the thought of teacher and text, or he has not 



The Art of Studying 263 

maintained the critical attitude as he should have 
done, if he cannot suggest what to him seem improve- 
ments. The pupil should also put in his notebook any 
information gained in class or from lectures that cannot 
readily be found in texts and that is of sufficient value 
to be remembered; also any valuable new point of 
view, or new insight, he has gained ; and finally his own 
views, especially when they differ from those generally 
accepted. 

A Few Rules. — Make your notes as brief and pithy 
as possible. Half a dozen lines on each subject a day 
is usually enough. Write nothing in your notebook 
that you do not expect to read over and over again in 
the future. Leave every other page blank for future 
notes. Date every entry. Thus your notebook will 
become a record of the evolution of your mind. 

Exercise 

z. Are you predominantly a visualizer or an audile ? 

2. Listen to a paragraph read by some one else, and then sum- 
marize its contents ; then read another paragraph of about the same 
length and difficulty, and summarize its contents. Which sense, 
sight or hearing, gave you the best results ? 

3. Have you ever heard of notebooks being bequeathed for years 
from class to class in a school ? How much benefit does a pupil 
get from copying another's notes ? 

4. Did you ever hear of any one who was converted in religion, 
politics, or anything else by means of a debate ? In what attitude 
is the mind of the debater towards the propositions of the other 
side? 



CHAPTER XXVI 

THE RECITATION 

THE PURPOSES OF THE RECITATION 

The purposes of a recitation are : — 

(a) To test the pupil's faithfulness and success in 
acquiring and assimilating the lesson. 

(6) To drill on the memory and art element of the 
lesson. 

(c) To teach the pupil to think rationally. 

(d) To help him gain culture. 

(e) To prepare for the study of the next lesson. 

In and through and above it all, the true teacher 
seeks to create the right ideals in his pupils, but as 
this is a constant element in all true teaching, and the 
all-important element, it is not coordinate with the 
specific purposes of the recitation and is not mentioned 
as such. 

THE TEST 

As a rule, the test should be incidental. While the 
teacher directs the energies of the class toward the 
realization of the other purposes, it will generally 
become manifest whether the pupils have been faithful 
in their efforts to study the lesson. 

At times, however, it becomes necessary to reveal the 
poor student definitely and swiftly both to the teacher 

264 



The Recitation 265 

and to himself. Then it is best to ask a question which 
is capable of a brief, definite answer easily derived from 
the lesson. If the pupil suffers from laziness or confu- 
sion of ideas, make this very plain to him. Show him 
the imperfections of his answer, generally by pointed 
questions. Here " leading questions " are not out of 
order. If lack of application is the cause of the failure, 
let it be apparent. At times it may be best to inform 
the pupil briefly and brutally, " You have not studied 
this lesson," and ignore him for the rest of the recita- 
tion. But some pupils develop a beautiful resignation 
under this treatment, and will bob up cheerfully, 
recitation after recitation, with an " I don't know," 
and sit down with a complacent sigh as if now that 
worry were over. Some teachers inform such a pupil 
regularly that he ought to study his lesson, that he 
cannot expect to pass, and that it is a " shame." 
To all of which the pupil agrees by a deprecatory stoop 
in his shoulders and a downcast glance ; but a second 
afterward he is as happy as the best of them. Scold- 
ings run off his soul like water off the back of a goose. 
The proper treatment in this case is a little judicious 
"grilling." Don't let the habitually ill-prepared pupil 
get off with an " I don't know." Ply him with other 
questions, and let him repeat his formula till he gets 
tired of it. Give him the book, point out the passage, 
and let him read the paragraph referred to. Then 
when he closes the book, open the battery of ques- 
tions on him again. If one or two doses of this 
treatment do not cure him, harsher methods may be 
necessary. Too much time may easily be spent in 
mere testing. 



266 Psychology as Applied to Education 

DRILL 

Necessity for Drill. — Every subject contains a 
certain element that must simply be memorized. In 
some subjects, like arithmetic, there are certain pro- 
cesses, a certain mental technique, to be acquired. 
Others, again, like manual training and the experi- 
mental sciences, require certain manual skill. This is 
the art element in education. (Art here has no aesthetic 
connotation.) These are the habit studies. These 
can be acquired only by that repetition which is gen- 
erally known as drill. 

Much of this drill should be gained by the pupil 
when preparing the lesson ; but in all work below the 
high school, drill of the technical element should con- 
sume a generous share of the recitation time. Let us 
adopt in a measure the practical methods of the fathers ! 
There is but one way of acquiring the technique of 
civilization, and that is the method of the old school, 
— drill, and drill in the class under the eye of the 
teacher. 

Methods of Drill at the Recitation. — The whole 
class should be kept busy throughout the recitation 
period of drill, and the teacher should be able to dis- 
cover an error in the pupil's work the instant it is made. 

In mathematics the whole class may be put to black- 
board work. Rapid and accurate computation and 
correct and neat statements should be required. 
After the pupil has thus told what he has done in written 
mathematical language, he may be required to spend 
some little time in telling the same tale in oral mathe- 
matical language. The rest of the class should act as 



The Recitation 267 

critics. In this explaining of problems, the tendency- 
is always to require too much of the pupil. Too often 
the teacher will require the ten-year-old child to reason 
as explicitly as he himself reasons. 

If spelling is taught as a separate subject, the written 
recitation on tablet or blackboard is the best form. 
As a change and recreation, the oral recitation may be 
introduced. 

History and geography require less drill work than 
most subjects. Frequent brief chronological sum- 
maries, written by the pupils on the blackboard, are a 
useful drill in history. If mistakes are made, the pupils 
should correct them, not simply be made cognizant of 
them. Gazeteer work and map drawing are useful 
for the same purpose in the geography class. Free- 
hand drawing of maps, first from copy and then from 
memory, is the only kind of map drawing that is not 
a waste of time and energy in the grades. For seat 
work the tablet is excellent, but the recitation drill 
should be conducted at the blackboard. 

Every word the pupil speaks is a drill in oral language. 
The general rule is : Correct every mistake in language 
as soon as made, and see that the pupil repeats the 
correct form. There are exceptions to this rule, the 
occasions for which the tactful teacher will easily 
discover. 

The written language work of the recitation should 
generally be blackboard work. It should be criticised 
either by another pupil or by the teacher, and should 
invariably be corrected by the pupil himself. Mis- 
spelled words should be rewritten correctly several 
times. 



268 Psychology as Applied to Education 

TRAINING IN THOUGHT 

Though drill is important, it is by no means all- 
sufficient. The pupils should also learn to think. 
This mere drill cannot teach. The characteristics 
of successful thought may be catalogued as follows : 
interest, vividness, clearness, distinction, and organi- 
zation. 

Interest. — Keep on the pupil's plane. Let the pupil 
do the thinking and talking ; don't talk to him and at 
him all the time. Connect his lessons with his daily 
life. Be a comrade to your pupils. Shed the solemn 
Prince-Albert-coat air. Cultivate a sunny disposition 
and invite smiles and even laughter to sojourn with 
you in the scholastic shades. 

Vividness. — Demand and give details. This gives 
life and color to history and geography. If practicable, 
bring the thing itself; but if the thing itself should 
happen to be a volcano, bring a model or, if this is 
impracticable, a picture. A colored picture is better 
than one in black and white. 

Clearness and Definiteness. — Almost invariably 
the thought of the pupil is dim and indefinite. The 
greatest service the teacher can do for the improvement 
of the thinking of his pupils is in clarification. This 
should be done at the recitation by judicious question- 
ing. When a pupil has caught a truth by the hind 
legs, don't become cheaply sarcastic over the undig- 
nified appearance he and his truth make. Show your 
gratitude for what he has done, but make it plain that 
improvements are desirable, and indicate by question 
or remark the direction in which improvement is needed. 



The Recitation 269 

Keep this thought clearly before your mind : It is 
not sufficient that the teacher think clearly. This is 
often forgotten. Some teachers get into the habit of 
furbishing up the vague answers of their pupils into 
logical exactness, and then passing on to another 
question. The class easily falls into the habit of letting 
the teacher do the thinking. This practice has given 
rise to the rule : Never repeat and improve the answer 
of a pupil. Let the pupils themselves do the improving. 

This rule may, however, become a pedagogical heresy, 
based on the false notion that there is something dis- 
honorable in all thinking that is not wholly original. 
By all means furnish the clear and exact thought and 
expression yourself if you cannot readily get it from the 
class; but be sure that the class thinks the thought 
after you. Don't ask them to repeat your statement. 
A mere repetition signifies nothing, for it may be done 
without understanding the thought in the least; but 
ask the next question so that an answer to it will in- 
volve a clear conception of the thought that went before. 

For example, the teacher has just made plain to the 
pupil that Simon de Montfort's parliament of 1265, 
though the first parliament in which the Commons 
were represented, was not a legal parliament, because 
summoned by a revolutionary leader; and that the 
complete parliament consists of King, Lords, and 
Commons. His next question may be, " Why was the 
parliament of 1295 a legal parliament? " If the pupil 
answers, " Because the King summoned it in the cus- 
tomary fashion," he is right; but if he answers, as a 
loose thinker is likely to do, " Because it consisted of 
King, Lords, and Commons," he shows that he did 



270 Psychology as Applied to Education 

not follow the thought of the previous discussion. 
Equally wrong would it be for him to answer the 
question, "What made this parliament complete?" 
by " Because it was legally summoned." 

The formal lecture has no place in the grades or the 
high school. The teacher, in giving information and 
leading the thinking of his class, will find the conver- 
sational method best. 

Devices for securing Clearness of Thought. — Here 
are a few devices that have proved useful in secur- 
ing clearness and exactness of thought. Ask the 
pupils to describe a character or an event by one word. 
Let all that wish present candidate words, and then 
let the class and the teacher decide. A recitation on 
some topic expressed in one simple sentence is a useful 
variation of the above. When, as often happens, the 
beginning and end oi a pupil's answer do not fit to- 
gether, and the pupil does not readily note the error, 
send him to the blackboard to write it out. A written 
imperfection is more easily discovered than an oral. 

Organization. — The organic connection of every 
idea with other ideas should always be emphasized. 
This is the truth of correlation. Oral and blackboard 
summaries and outlines should often be called for. 
A useful exercise is the Logical Chain. This consists 
in giving the chain of effect and cause for as long a 
distance as possible. For example : malaria — parasite 
in the blood corpuscle — mosquitoes — stagnant water. 

TRAINING IN CULTURE 

The teacher and the class should not spend all their 
time in the critical, analytical frame of mind that comes 



The Recitation 271 

naturally with intense intellectual work; the sympa- 
thetic, synthetic mood should be invited when literary 
beauty is at hand. Let the class read at times for pure 
enjoyment, and don't worry about the " purpose of 
the author " or the logic of the argument. 

THE ART OF QUESTIONING 

The teacher's questions should be definite. One 
answer and only one should fit each question. 

Leading questions are bad under all ordinary con- 
ditions of the recitation. Rarely, however, occasions 
may arise when a leading question will straighten out 
a bewildered pupil better than direct information. 

Questions that may be answered by yes or no are 
generally inadvisable because they narrow down the 
pupil's necessity for thinking to its smallest extent. 
They also encourage guessing. The pupil is right one 
chance out of two, — a luring gambling proposition. 

The question that offers alternatives is objectionable 
on the same grounds. Often, however, an alternative 
question is the only natural one to ask. Then ask it, 
but tack on a why or a how to compel the pupil to give 
the reasons for his choice. 

The topical recitation is to be preferred to the ques- 
tion method, as soon as the pupils are ready for it. 
It gives training in consecutive thinking. 

The " Answer in Complete Sentences " Fallacy. — 
To require the pupil to answer in a complete sentence 
is often an absurdity. Pupils and teachers are human 
beings, and schools are on the surface of this planet. 
The same laws of grammar, logic, rhetoric, and good 
sense hold inside of the walls of the schoolroom as 



272 Psychology as Applied to Education 

outside. Good taste and the laws of language require 
that no effort should be wasted. The complete-sen- 
tence answer is generally a clumsy and unwarranted 
waste of words. Let your pupil answer you just as 
you would expect a cultured person outside of school 
to answer the same question. When you suspect that 
the brevity of the answer hides imperfection of compre- 
hension, it may sometimes be well to ask a pupil to 
fill out the ellipsis ; but such occasions are exceptions, 
even if frequent. 

The following anecdote is better than an argument. 
Institute conductor A believed that every answer in 
the schoolroom should be made in a complete sentence. 
B dared to question the absoluteness of this rule. A de- 
clared dogmatically that there are no exceptions. A 
little while later, when it was £'s turn to speak, he asked 
A what time it was. A, off his guard, answered, " Ten 
o'clock." Back came the crushing query, " Why 
didn't you answer in a complete sentence?" This 
would have finished any ordinary mortal, but A was 
not an ordinary mortal. He did not know when he 
was beaten, so he began a long argument in favor of 
the complete answer. B listened patiently until A 
had exhausted his eloquence. Then, as if to sum it 
up, B said, " So then, if I understand you, you hold that 
the answer should always be a complete sentence?" 
" Always," shouted A with emphasis. 

THE PUPILS AS CRITICS 

Some teachers fear their dignity would be impaired 
if they allowed the pupils to criticise the teacher's 
opinions. This is false pride, and such dignity never 



The Recitation 273 

did either them or their pupils any good. By its 
very nature, truth is no respecter of persons, and as 
truth-seekers we are not in the right attitude until all 
superstitious regard for person and position is obliter- 
ated. The teacher should recognize his own fallibility 
and always welcome any respectful objection from the 
pupils. 

Many teachers object to allowing the pupils to criti- 
cise one another. It is feared that this may breed 
faultfinding and bitterness between pupils. This ob- 
jection is based on a misconception. Truth and false- 
hood are universal, and not our individual property. 
Every pupil should recognize that it is not John and 
Mary that are up for discussion, but the truth or false- 
hood of John's or Mary's opinion. Children will 
easily learn to conduct such a discussion in a perfectly 
impersonal manner. 

This is the only method of keeping all the pupils 
busy in every recitation. Make each pupil responsible 
for the correctness of every other pupil's recitation. 
As a rule as soon as a pupil's recitation on any topic 
is finished, every pupil who does not agree should 
raise his hand immediately, and should be given a 
chance to state his criticisms. 

Exercises 

1. Criticise this class recitation question: George, who was the 
second president of the United States ? 

2. In almost every class there are some pupils who are much 
slower and others who are much quicker than the average in their 
thinking. Give some devices by which the slow ones may share in 
the recitation and the rapid ones may still be kept busy. 



CHAPTER XXVII 

HOW TO TEACH SCIENCE AND WHAT SCIENCE 
TO TEACH* 

THE DOUBLE OBJECT OF SCIENTIFIC STUDY 

The double object of all scientific study is to put the 
pupil into possession of (a) a trained attention, that is, 
skill in thinking, and (6) a well-chosen and well-organ- 
ized store of knowledge. 

Training in Attention, or the Skill of Thinking. — 
More or less exact and happy synonyms for the power 
of attention are concentration of mind, logical faculty, 
ability to reason. Like all other skill, it can be acquired 
only by practice. The constant aim of the pupil 
should be to attain to a higher and higher degree of 
concentrated attention. As he grows in ability to 
concentrate he will find that his powers of analysis and 
synthesis increase and that his ideas become clearer, 
more definite, and more vivid. 

Educated attention has the following characteristics : 

It produces clear ideas. The subdivisions and 
organization of the idea are plainly marked out for the 
mind. 

It produces distinct ideas. Each idea is definitely 

* The word science is here used in its broad meaning, as denoting 
all classified knowledge. 

274 



How to Teach Science 275 

marked off from all other ideas, and its connections 
with other ideas are defined. 

It produces vivid ideas. There is no mist, incomplete- 
ness, or elusiveness about the conceptions of the edu- 
cated mind, except when it attempts problems which 
he on the border of the unknowable. 

We may, perhaps, here distinguish two kinds of 
thought : critical and constructive. Our schools drill 
almost exclusively on critical thought. The object 
of the thinker in school exercises is nearly always to 
discover the thought that some one else has had before 
him. Thus, the object of the scientist is to discover 
the thought in nature, " to think God's thoughts after 
him." In history the object of the student is to dis- 
cover the thoughts of " the men of old." The student 
of literature seeks to discover the thoughts of the author. 
The student of mathematics seeks for the thought- 
relations already in the problems. This we may call 
critical thought, and of it there is an abundance in our 
schools. 

Constructive thought is, however, rarely met with 
in the school, but is in great demand in real life. The 
farmer in planning his work, the engineer in building 
a bridge, the politician in laying his wires, do not simply 
discover " the thought in the thing," but they must 
build thought-complexes to meet special demands. 

The following school exercises give training in con- 
structive thought : composition, the invention of prob- 
lems in mathematics, discussions of what " might have 
been " in history, and all sloyd work, but especially 
where the pupil is allowed to invent his model. 

All exercises to strengthen attention should follow 



276 Psychology as Applied to Education 

the laws of attention. The work must accommodate 
itself to the pulses of attention, and should make such 
a demand on the pupil's energy that the maximum 
amount of work can be secured before fatigue sets in. 
The work should as far as possible be directly and 
pleasantly interesting to the pupil. 

The Acquirement of a Store of Knowledge. — The 
mechanic does not bore with a saw nor file with a 
hammer. Our store of knowledge furnishes our tools 
for thought. We cannot judge horses by our knowledge 
of Latin grammar ; nor will our familiarity with French 
help us very much in understanding a German address. 
Hence, whenever we offer a pupil a particle of knowl- 
edge, we should first make sure that this bit of knowl- 
edge will be of use to him in acquiring other knowledge 
of which he stands in need. While gaining an educa- 
tion it is the pupil's business to prepare for complete 
living by acquiring tools for every great department of 
knowledge. He should waste no time on worthless 
knowledge, that is, knowledge that is neither useful 
in itself, nor introductory in the most practical way 
to useful knowledge. This condemns at once the one- 
sided grammatical training of the old classical course. 
Nor does the old-fashioned teaching of history fare 
any better. In the life of the ordinary or even extraor- 
dinary American, of what use is the knowledge of 
the details and dates of the Peloponnesian war or the 
intrigues of the court of Louis XIV? 

THE PLACE OF SCIENCE IN THE SCHOOL CURRICULUM 

Age and Stage. — It is a truism that the work of the 
pupil should be suited to his mental development, yet 



How to Teach Science 277 

no law of teaching needs more repetition, for in our 
anxiety to do much, we almost universally give the 
pupil work that is from one to ten years in advance 
of his ability. 

The following seems to us a fair division of the field 
for education in the sciences. (Note that the art, the 
technique of civilization, is not in question at all at 
this point.) The emphasis should fall on the substan- 
tive side of the universe. The knowledge of man and 
nature should get the lion's share of the time. This 
means social science and natural science. Some atten- 
tion should, however, be paid to the formal side of 
the world of knowledge. Mathematics and language 
should receive a share, but a smaller share than the 
substantive sciences. 

Classification of the Sciences. — We may group the 
sciences as follows : — 

(a) The natural sciences, which treat of the real, or substantial, 
side of nature, or the external universe. 

(6) Mathematics, which treats of the formal side of nature, or 
the external universe, and includes the sciences of time and space. 

(c) The social sciences (including history) and psychology, 
which treat of man as an individual and as a member of society, 
that is, of spirit (or of consciousness, or of the inner universe) on 
the real or substantial side. 

(d) Logic and the sciences of language (philology, grammar, 
etc.), which treat of the formal aspect of the same subject. 

(e) Philosophy, the science of sciences, which deals with the 
postulates of the other sciences. 

THE NATURAL SCIENCES 

The purpose of instruction for children and youth 
in the natural sciences is to give the pupil (a) some 



278 Psychology as Applied to Education 

" practically " useful knowledge, as, for example, of 
hygiene ; but mainly (b) a broadened intellectual hori- 
zon, the true scientific viewpoint, and the modern 
attitude toward natural phenomena. He will not 
fancy that a comet predicts war, that grain must be 
sown during a certain phase of the moon, or that the 
" humors " (liquids) of the body determine character. 

Outline of a Course in the Natural Sciences 

For Children : — 
Nature Study 
(The elements of all the natural sciences taught concretely 
in connection with Geography and Hygiene, many ex- 
periments, mainly performed by the teacher) 

For the High School : — 

At least one Biological Science in addition to Physiology 
Physics 

(Mainly descriptive, only slightly mathematical) 
Chemistry 
Physiography 

Value of School Laboratory Work. — It is scarcely 
necessary to insist on the laboratory, as its importance 
is conceded on every hand. But the reason for the 
laboratory in the high school may need statement. 

Why do we perform experiments at all? Because 
a vivid, clear, and complete conception of any scien- 
tific truth is the great desideratum in all teaching of 
science, since no repetition of dim and confused con- 
ceptions will ever result in a clear mental grasp ; and 
because a vivid and complete conception is never 
reached so expeditiously and certainly as by handling 
the thing itself. He who has burned a watch spring 



How to Teach Science 279 

in oxygen has a living knowledge of oxygen that no 
textbook statement can give. A whiff of hydrogen 
sulphide will identify that gas for you to all eternity. 
Rigging up and running an amateur telegraph line is 
an easier and surer way of understanding the telegraph 
than listening to learned lectures. 

Just as in the pedagogy of art the great word is 
repetition, so in the teaching of science the important 
principle is a clear N and distinct conception; and our 
chief means for acquiring a clear and distinct concep- 
tion is experimenting, handling the thing itself. 

MATHEMATICS 

Purpose. — The practical use of arithmetic is very 
great, although it has been exaggerated and over- 
emphasized in our schools. But as a discipline in habits 
of exact, clear, and definite thought and expression, 
the study of mathematics is unexcelled. Every class 
in mathematics is hence also a class in language and 
logic. 

Outline of a Course in Mathematics 

For Children: — 

Number Study and Inventional Geometry 
(Much drill in the art of arithmetic (see Ch. XXVIII), 
and a very little of the science of arithmetic) 

For the High School : — 
Elementary Algebra as the simpler science, first, then: 
Scientific Arithmetic 
Geometry 
Higher Algebra 
Trigonometry 



280 Psychology as Applied to Education 

THE SOCIAL SCIENCES 

Purpose. — To know men and society, this expresses 
the purpose the pupil should have in studying history 
and the other social sciences. Herbert Spencer ob- 
serves that history as philosophy-teaching by example 
is a failure. Every sect and creed in religion, every 
form of government, every social vagary, has appealed 
to history for its justification. Able and brilliant men 
defend protection by the " teachings of history," but 
equally able and brilliant men use the same history to 
prove that free trade alone is rational. 

It is true. We should not look to history for a dog- 
matic statement of any social theory. But he who has 
studied history aright has become better acquainted 
with men. He knows their foibles and weaknesses, 
their ideals and aspirations. Given the circumstances, 
he knows what they are likely to do. Tell him their 
deeds, and the conditions under which they were com- 
mitted, and he will tell you their motives. Because 
he knows Caesar and Socrates, Shakespeare and Glad- 
stone, the Athenian citizens, the Roman gladiators, 
the American pioneers, the German scholars, and the 
medieval monks, he knows his next-door neighbor 
better, and makes a better neighbor. Then, how it 
widens his intellectual horizon ! How much richer, 
nobler, and more worth while is the world possessed by 
him who is acquainted with the great drama of man, 
than the petty and narrow circle of thought that im- 
prisons him who is ignorant of history ! 

Nor is this all. Man as a man, as an individual, 
does not exhaust history. It also — and indeed that 



How to Teach Science 281 

is its greatest work — acquaints us with society, the 
institutions of civilization. Organized society, what 
a mighty thought ! Ail that makes us better than the 
beasts of the field is included in this word. All the 
divinity of man is there. It is indeed no small thing 
to get acquainted with the social, the institutional life 
of man. The true study of history is the only source 
of inspiration for intelligent philanthropy and rational 
patriotism. Only this makes us truly human, or hu- 
mane. And in spite of the strictures of Herbert Spen- 
cer, the true study of history does save us from many a 
social heresy. It is safe to say that three fourths of the 
social nostrums proclaimed by cranks, charlatans, and 
pot-hunting politicians never gain any adherents from 
those who have studied history to some purpose. 

Outline of a Course in the Social Sciences 

For Children : — 
History 
(This should be taught incidentally by stories told to the 
pupils by the teacher, by supplementary reading, and 
literature. The material should be mainly biographical, 
and should not be confined to American history. In the 
seventh and eighth grades, the use of textbooks may 
profitably be begun. Civics may be taught incidentally. 
Let it connect with the daily life and surroundings of the 
pupil.) 
Ethics 

(Every lesson in school, the personality of the teacher, and 
the whole institution of the school should be and can be 
an efficient course in this subject.) 
Good Manners 

(These are also best taught indirectly. But in this subject, 
individual instruction as occasion offers is also needed.) 



282 Psychology as Applied to Education 

For the High School : — 

Ancient and Medieval History 

(A short course) 
History of Modern Europe 
(This course should be twice as long as the preceding, and 
emphasis should be placed on the history since the French 
Revolution.) 
American History 

(This should come last of the historical studies, to insure 
ripeness of mind in the pupil.) 
Civics, or Politics 
Psychology 
Economics 
Ethics and Law 

(It is questionable whether it is wise to have separate classes 
in ethics, law, and psychology. Sometimes it may be pos- 
sible to find a place in the high school curriculum for one 
or two of them; but usually we must be satisfied with 
teaching them incidentally.) 

THE SCIENCES OF LANGUAGE 

Again we must repeat the warning : scientific thought 
is not for children. And of all science, none is less 
suited for children than linguistic science. The subject 
matter is so abstract, so formal, so elusive, and so far 
removed from the regions of the child's natural habits 
of thought that he has normally no interest in it. 

However, if care is taken to make the work concrete, 
if all abstract reasoning and definitions are shunned, 
a very little of the elements of linguistic science may be 
profitably taught to children. The interest, to be sure, 
must be artificial and not natural, but there is no reason 
to believe that all artificial interest is harmful. The 
great danger is, however, that time may be taken away 
from more suitable subjects. Hence, just as we have 



How to Teach Science 283 

nature study and number study and historical study 
(social study), we may also have language study for 
children. 

Here are some suggested topics, with the warning 
that any great extension of the field is dangerous : — 
Sentence, subject, predicate, direct object, parts of 
speech, the paragraph, some figures of speech, different 
classes of style, rhyme and rhythm, vowel and con- 
sonant. 

The art of language is quite another matter, and will 
be discussed in the next chapter. Every class should 
be a class in language. Childhood is the time for ac- 
quiring the art of language. 

Outline of a Course in the Sciences of Language 

For Children : — 

The Art of Language in every grade and recitation (See Ch. 

XXVIII.) 
A very little of the Science of Language, Grammar 
(Taught as concretely as possible) 

For the High School : — 
Etymology 

Grammar (Of several languages) 
Rhetoric 

THE TEACHER AND THE PUPIL 

The Teacher's Duty. — In teaching any science, make 
everything as plain as possible. Put no artificial ob- 
stacle in the path of the pupil. No gymnasium exer- 
cises in thinking need be invented. There is enough 
productive mental toil to give the pupil all the exercise 
he needs. But be sure that the pupil thinks. Let the 
pupil tell the part of the subject that he knows and 
what he can infer of the yet unknown. 



284 Psychology as Applied to Education 

Get acquainted with the extent and organization of 
your pupil's store of knowledge. That is, find out what 
he knows and from what corner he looks on the world. 
Only then can you tell what mental food is good for 
him. 

Demand the best of your pupil : the clearest ideas, 
the widest grasp of relations, the vividest conceptions 
of which he is capable. 

The Pupil's Duty. — No one can think for a pupil. 
The teacher should think before him, but the teacher 
cannot think for him. In history, for example, he 
ought to find many whys and wherefores not developed 
in the text. He ought to find reasons for disagreeing 
with the text at times. In natural science his obser- 
vation and reasoning ought to find much more than is 
set down in his textbooks. The teacher should require 
this independent work of the pupils and stimulate it 
by appropriate questions and demands. Mere worry- 
bobbing and guessing bees, however, are of no value ; 
but on the contrary a waste of time and energy. 

Exercises 

i. Up to the present time how much of the geography that you 
studied in school has been of practical use to you ? 

2. After the teacher has explained a point in algebra, how can 
he find out if the pupil followed him and did his own thinking? 
In history ? In botany ? 

Criticise the following method : 

3. Teacher, concluding an exposition: "That is so; isn't it?" 
Vigorous nods by class. 

4. How would you teach the multiplication table? 



CHAPTER XXVIII 
HOW TO TEACH AN ART 

A FALLACY OF EDUCATIONAL THEORY 

There is an educational fallacy, and a most deep- 
seated one, upon which much of the practical school 
work of to-day rests. This fallacy is : We must first 
know before we can do. We mistakenly suppose that 
the logical order is : first, a clear intellectual view of the 
whole subject, its whys and wherefores, its relations, 
reasons, and causes ; then, a practical ability to do, to 
make, to produce that which we thoroughly understand. 
Furthermore, it is assumed that if the intellectual view 
is perfect, the practical ability is as good as acquired. 

The opposite is in most cases the truth. First do 
and then know. The illustrations are innumerable. We 
breathe long before we know why we do so. If we didn't, 
we should never find out the necessity of it. We eat 
before we study the physiology of nutrition ; we walk 
before we know the mechanics of the lever or the physics 
of stable equilibrium ; we talk before we know gram- 
mar; we speak the truth and abhor a He before we 
know any theory of ethics to justify such behavior; 
we see before we know anything of the mechanics of 
the eye or the science of optics. 

On the other hand, the great military theorist may be 
a very poor general ; one may know the whole science 
of music and not be able to sing or play ; a knowledge of 

235 



286 Psychology as Applied to Education 

physics will never teach a person to ride a bicycle ; one 
may know Latin grammar and not know Latin; an 
expert in psychology, pedagogy, methods, and the his- 
tory of education may still be an abominably poor 
teacher. 

There is no intention of denying that in most cases 
the knowledge of the science is of value in acquiring 
the art. Other things being equal, he who knows the 
theory of education ought to be a better teacher than 
he who does not. In some cases, it may even be ab- 
solutely necessary to know a little of the science before 
the art can be attained at all. 

But this is asserted with all possible emphasis : 
The knowledge of the science never gives skill in the 
corresponding art. The only way to learn an art is to 
practice that art itself. Fit faber fabricando. 

Perfection in an art is attainable only by much rep- 
etition. The only way to learn the multiplication 
table is to repeat the multiplication table. The one 
method of learning division is to divide. If that does 
not help, divide some more. After you know enough of 
the " science " of division to know how to proceed, the 
only thing that will make you a better divider is to 
divide. Don't waste time reading about division. A 
deeper insight into the science of division will not help 
one whit in making you a rapid or accurate divider. 
If you don't know a solitary reason why you do as you 
do in division, this does not matter as far as your 
quotients are concerned. 

The only way to learn French is to speak and read 
French. A slight smattering of grammar aids you in 
translation; but do not delude yourself by thinking 



How to Teach an Art 287 

that the study of French grammar has taught you 
French. You have to repeat every French word just 
about so many times before you know it; and every 
phrase or expression must be given the same treatment, 
even if you know every word of which it is composed. 
Repetition, and repetition only, will put you in pos- 
session of a new language. Reading about French in 
another language will never bring you one step nearer 
your goal. 

The correct order is : first, the language, then its 
grammar; first, computation (the four elementary 
" rules "), the art of arithmetic, then the science of 
arithmetic; first, literature, then the philosophy and 
history of literature; first, practice in composition, 
then the science of rhetoric; first, the art of rational 
thinking, then logic, the science of thinking. I have no 
wish to deny that often it is best to sandwich art and 
science in the learning. Thus, there is no heresy in 
mixing grammar and language practice. 

EDUCATION IN SCIENCE AND IN ART CONTRASTED 

Education into Consciousness. — Education in a 
science is education into consciousness; education in 
an art is education out of consciousness. The first 
assertion needs no elucidation. A boy is educated in 
botany when his mind is enriched with botanical con- 
cepts, and the symptom that his education " takes " 
is that now he has fuller, richer, and truer ideas of the 
plant world than he had before. When he thinks of a 
gentian or a clover blossom, he has much more in his 
consciousness than he who is ignorant of the science of 
botany. 



288 Psychology as Applied to Education 

Education out of Consciousness. — But in reference 
to an art, the exact opposite obtains. When a beginner 
tortures a piano, her head is full of notes and flats and 
sharps and fingers and keys and " one-two-three " and 
pedals and expression and touch. When a master 
plays, his consciousness is free from all this. He thinks 
only of the music he wishes to produce, and the brain 
grooves do the rest. If we have to think how to spell 
a word, we don't know how to spell it. We never think 
of the forms of letters when we write ; but the child 
beginning to learn is painfully conscious of every curve. 
The experienced accountant glances up a column of 
figures and has the sum with scarcely any thinking; 
while the novice expends much cogitation on the same 
operation. 

When an art is perfectly known, it is performed 
mechanically, that is, without any conscious direction 
from the mind. Hence we progress in our education 
in an art in proportion as we perform its operations 
with less and less thought. The more of a " thought- 
less, parrot-like performance " an art becomes, the more 
completely it is mastered. 

But the sum and substance, the alpha and omega, 
the core and essence, of all education in the arts, is 
repetition, practice, drill, doing the thing itself over and 
over again. 

THE PLACE OF THE CULTURE AND ARTS OF CIVILIZA- 
TION IN THE SCHOOL CURRICULUM 

All that is taught is either an art or a science 
or both. As the method of teaching an art is 
radically different from that of teaching a science, it 



How to Teach an Art 289 

is worth while to distinguish carefully between arts 
and sciences. 

The arts that should be taught to children and 
youths may be classified as follows : — 

Intellectual Arts 

Computation (the art of arithmetic) 

Spelling (strictly one of the language arts) 

The Business Arts (bookkeeping, typewriting, and shorthand) 

The Mechanical Memory Elements in all subjects 

Arts that are in about the same degree Intellectual and /Esthetic 
Languages 
Composition 
Literature 
The Dramatic Arts 

/Esthetic Arts 

Drawing and Painting 
Sculpture and Other Plastic Arts 
Music 

Moral and Social Arts 
Training in Moral Habits 
Training in Good Manners 

Manual and Other Physical Arts 
Penmanship 
Manual Training 
Elementary Agriculture 
Domestic Economy 
Physical Training 
Athletics 

THE INTELLECTUAL ARTS 

The art of computation in arithmetic and the me 
chanical memory element in other subjects have already 
been touched upon in this chapter ; and brief mention 
will be made of the business arts in the next. A few 



290 Psychology as Applied to Education 

remarks on the teaching of spelling, however, may not 
be amiss at this point. 

Spelling. — Use no rules ; English spelling is too 
irrational to be benefited by rules. Besides, the art of 
spelling as an art, is not a science. An art is not learned 
by learning the corresponding science. 

Spelling ought chiefly to be learned incidentally. 
Every lesson is a spelling lesson. In history and geog- 
raphy every new word arrived at should be spelled as 
well as pronounced by the pupil. Much written work 
should be required of pupils, and every written exercise 
is at the same time a spelling exercise. Many teachers 
have this practice : They correct the pupil's papers, and 
return them to him, and that is the end of it. This is a 
mistake. The pupil should be required to rewrite the 
exercise correctly. Sometimes it may be too much to 
require the pupil to rewrite the whole exercise ; but the 
mistakes should all be corrected by the pupil. 

English spelling is so difficult and our school condi- 
tions so far from ideal, that as yet the spelling class is 
generally a necessity. Just how much or how little is 
necessary in each school, each teacher must decide for 
himself. That writing is the most effective way of 
studying and reciting spelling is self-evident, since our 
practical use of spelling comes only in writing. Still, 
for the sake of variety, an occasional oral recitation 
may be tolerated. 

THE INTELLECTUAL AND ESTHETIC ARTS 

Language. — Language is, so to speak, the atmos- 
phere of our intellectual and aesthetic world. Its 
importance can hardly be overestimated. English, our 



How to Teach an Art 291 

national language, is the indispensable subject of in- 
struction in our schools. No innovator has yet pro- 
posed its removal from the curriculum, which in 
itself is high testimony to its importance. Every class 
in the school should be a class in the art of using the 
English language. 

Other languages should not be neglected, but they are. 
The United States and England are the only enlightened 
nations in the world in which a speaking knowledge of 
at least two languages is not common among cultured 
people. The finest, most volatile, most evanescent 
element of culture is preserved in its language. This 
is the element that cannot be translated, and it is also 
the most precious element because it so exquisitely 
expresses the inmost soul. The " natural method " is 
the only method of teaching language that is scien- 
tifically defensible. 

Literature. — Literature is the greatest of all the 
fine arts, and in spite of the prominent position it oc- 
cupies in almost every school curriculum, it has not yet 
achieved the place in the schools to which it is entitled. 

There is now a body of real, classic literature for 
children, and it is increased every year. But in our 
schools we still have too much of the " Horses-can-run " 
reading material. 

Oratory, or spoken literature, though not as lasting 
as letters, has a power and charm wholly its own, which 
is well worth the seeking. 

Some Remarks on the Pedagogy of Literature. — 
Teachers should not shoot over the heads of pupils. 
Girls in short dresses are often fed on Milton's " Para- 
dise Lost," and boys whose thoughts center on the foot- 



292 Psychology as Applied to Education 

ball ground, are bidden to seek solace for their aspiring 
souls in Browning. Such great masterpieces had better 
be unread than presented at that early stage of the 
pupil's education. Feed babes on milk! 

Some teachers seem to think that the study of lit- 
erature consists in finding the author infallible, and 
praising him for anything and everything. A slight 
adaptation of the well-known " sermon " on " Old 
Mother Hubbard " illustrates this method. " ' To get 
the poor dog a bone.' Ah, the pathetic simplicity 
of that epithet poor! What a sensitive, humane soul 
our author must have had, to feel so deeply and express 
so exquisitely his sympathy with the lower creation! 
How this word of four letters puts the whole scene 
before us, as it were, in a nutshell ; so much better than 
whole sermons could have done. And notice the 
author's self-restraint. While his heart was breaking 
for that ' poor dog ' — ah, the perfection of that expres- 
sion ! — he does not allow his sense of artistic propor- 
tion to be dimmed, but limits himself with heroic self- 
restraint to one adjective. Less perfect authors would 
— etc." Depend on it, the pupils see through this 
unconscious insincerity. 

A piece of literature is a thought complex, and as such 
must be studied as other thought subjects; but it is 
also a work of art, and as such it is the expression of the 
whole of the human soul in one of its moods, or emotions. 
It is not the expression of the emotion simply, it is the 
expression of the whole person as affected or dominated 
by that emotion. Like every work of art, it must be 
studied synthetically. 

Here is where much teaching of literature fails. It 



How to Teach an Art 293 

is analysis from beginning to end. One or two dramas 
of Shakespeare ground into grammatical fragments, 
half a dozen other representative selections from as 
many authors, all reduced to literary macadam — this 
is often called " a liberal course in English literature ! " 
Paragraphs, sentences, words are mercilessly cut to 
pieces. There are notes and dissertations on a semi- 
colon or a syllable. All sorts of extraneous erudition 
is introduced, such as, mythology, archaeology, and bio- 
graphical gossip. All of this is well enough in its place. 
This analytical study is the due of literature as a scien- 
tific subj ect . But after the analytical study is completed, 
the unit of literature should be studied as a whole, as a 
work of art. It should not only be understood, it should 
be enjoyed. Thus, it will produce not only learning, 
but culture. 

Elementary study of literature should be extensive 
rather than intensive. One Madonna of the masters 
may contain more than your pupil of painting can ever 
get on the canvas, but that is no reason why the student 
should copy that Madonna to the end of his days. For 
the high school, one thoughtful reading of a literary 
masterpiece with just enough impedimenta of explana- 
tory notes to make the meaning complete and clear 
is all that is necessary and valuable. 

A Few Rules for Teachers of Literature. — Be sure 
that the literature selected is not above the ability and 
interest of your pupils. 

Let them read much. In the high school, twenty 
pages a day is rather too little than too much. 

Avoid all pedantry and trifling in notes and discus- 
sion. Aim at giving the pupils a clear conception of 



294 Psychology as Applied to Education 

the purpose of the author. Waste no time on by- 
paths. 

To make literature a culture study, do not stop after 
having studied it analytically. When a selection has 
been thus studied, then is the time to read it for pure 
enjoyment. 

Study modern authors first, and when the pupils are 
more mature, you can venture with them to literature 
of ages that differ much from our own in thought and 
feeling. 

Composition. — Composition is an important ele- 
ment in a literary education. It is the art of producing 
literature, and should be studied by the average student 
for two reasons : (a) for its value as a practical art, to 
express thought and feeling in the ordinary business of 
life ; and (6) for its value as a fine art, to express lit- 
erary beauty. This, however, not for the purpose of 
producing immortal works of art, but to acquire the 
ability to enjoy literature. 

Dramatic Art. — Dramatic art may be considered a 
sort of climax of the fine arts. As an art in the narrower 
sense of the word, it has no place in any but professional 
education ; but for its cultural value every school should 
teach it. That is, we should teach our pupils how to 
enjoy and understand dramatic representations. 

THE .ESTHETIC ARTS 

America has been notoriously tardy in aesthetic 
development. The great maj ority of us never spend one 
serious moment in the pursuit of the beautiful. When 
we get rich and decide to acquire culture with our new 
social position, we go to Europe, buy paintings war- 



How to Teach an Art 295 

ranted to be genuine, and think we have a love for the 
fine arts. We yawn through Italian operas of which we 
understand neither the words nor the music, just to 
show that we are aesthetic. (But when we really want 
fun, we go to a football contest or a minstrel show.) 

A few of us take this matter seriously — very seri- 
ously. We try to force the plant of taste by hothouse 
methods. Thoroughly distrusting ourselves, we dare 
not have an aesthetic opinion of our own, but meekly 
subscribe to what the authorities tell us is beautiful. 

Drawing and Painting. — Though children, and par- 
ticularly boys, have only a very rudimentary apprecia- 
tion of the beautiful, still they can begin early to acquire 
the manual, vocal, and sense skill — the art — neces- 
sary to bring beauty into their lives. A child can profit- 
ably begin to learn to draw two or three years earlier 
than he learns to read and write. The pupil should be 
allowed to color his drawings from the first. Painting 
is not sacred to adults. Children ought early to be 
taught to see colors ; and painting is the best method 
of teaching colors. They should not be required to 
draw and paint unless they have something to draw 
and paint, and some reason for picturing it. When they 
reproduce stories, they should illustrate them. When 
they study a plant or an animal, they should draw it. 
They will be delighted to illustrate their reading les- 
sons. 

In this, as in every other art, exactness should not be 
required of children. Children have a right to be in- 
exact, to blunder, to make daubs and scrawls. But the 
teacher should require constant progress toward exact- 
ness. In order to do this intelligently, it is necessary 



296 Psychology as Applied to Education 

for the teacher to know the exact attainment of 
each pupil ; for what would be commendable progress 
in one may be mere carelessness and listlessness in 
another. 

Music. — The time to teach the elements of both 
instrumental and vocal music is childhood, and the 
place should be the public schools. Very few people 
are unable to learn to sing, if drill is begun in 
childhood. 

The Fine Arts as Culture. — The technique of draw- 
ing, painting, modeling, and music should be taught to 
some degree in our schools ; but the emphasis should be 
placed on the culture element. The pupil should be 
trained to appreciate and enjoy the beautiful in these 
forms of art. 

As culture the fine arts have a wider mission than as 
art. Few can become artists in music, painting, sculp- 
ture, or acting, but all should learn to appreciate and 
enjoy art. 

In music practically nothing has been done in our 
schools to teach appreciation. Many graduates from 
conservatories do not enjoy the very compositions they 
are playing, but become animated automatons who 
enjoy only their own mastery of the technique. But 
appreciation of music can be taught. Tell the learner 
what to listen for. Sandwich music and explanation. 
Give the theory and the mechanics of different musical 
compositions, play them in sections, with explanations 
between, and finish by playing the whole selection. 

Children should early be taught to appreciate paint- 
ing and sculpture. The mood of the artist, his peculiar 
social and intellectual environment, and his purpose 



How to Teach an Art 297 

should be clearly before the pupil. Thus, to under- 
stand Greek art, let us look at the frieze of the Par- 
thenon. Cast away your theological, philosophical, 
and social speculations, and look at it as the Greeks did, 
as the spectacle of the perfect animal. Then you 
will begin to understand the poetry of motion, the joy 
of full, free, and healthy muscularity, the intoxication 
of oxygenized blood in cool, exulting limb, and crisp- 
pulsing heart. 

Good Taste. — We have no name for that fine art 
which clings closer to the individual than any other, 
and which more definitely than anything else stamps its 
possessor as cultured. We mean the display of good 
taste in dress, home, and everyday surroundings. But 
to impart this culture is one of the great objects of 
education. This art is learned by imitation, mostly un- 
conscious. 

SOCIAL CULTURE 

Not long ago the scholar was supposed to be a recluse 
from society. This was not good either for the scholar 
or for society. A very important art is this of getting 
along with the minimum of friction and the maximum 
of enjoyment with our fellow men. Perhaps it is not 
a school study. Perhaps it is best " picked up " as 
occasion offers. Certainly very few, if any, set lessons 
should be given on this subject in our schools. But we 
should preach by our practice. 

Social culture cannot be acquired by reading about 
it, talking about it, or speculating about it. Culture 
is an art, and like every other art it comes only by prac- 
tice, drill, and tireless though tiresome repetition. 



298 Psychology as Applied to Education 

Outline of a Course in the Arts for Elementary Schools 

Computation 

(Accuracy and reasonable speed in addition, subtraction, 
multiplication, and division of integers and fractions) 

The English Language 
(Speaking, reading, spelling, and composition) 

One or More Languages in addition to English 
(Taught by the natural method, mainly orally) 

Literature 

(That the child can and should appreciate) 

Music 

(Singing, note reading, and the rudiments of the art of play- 
ing some musical instrument) 

Drawing, Painting, and Clay-modeling 

Penmanship 

Manual Training 

(In woodwork [sloyd]) 

Elementary Agriculture 

Domestic Economy 
(For girls) 

Physical Culture 

Training in Manners and Morals 

Outline of a Course in the Arts for the High Schools 

English Language and Literature 

Two at least of the following : — 
German Language and Literature 
French Language and Literature 
Other Modern Languages and Literature 
Latin Language and Literature 
Greek Language and Literature 



How to Teach an Art 299 

Music 

(With the emphasis on learning to appreciate music) 

Drawing and Painting 
(To teach the pupil to understand and enjoy art) 

Manual Training 

Elementary Agriculture 

Domestic Economy 
(For girls) 

Bookkeeping and Typewriting 

Physical Culture 

Athletics 

(Including outdoor sports) 

Social Culture 

Moral Training 

Exercises 

1. What portion of the time you devote to the study of Latin 
is spent in studying Latin, and what portion to studying about 
Latin ? 

2. Should a pupil-teacher study methods first or do practice- 
teaching first ? 

3. Why is it not wise to call the attention of a class to a mis- 
spelled word on the blackboard ? 

4. Name an English classic suitable for use in the first grade ; in 
the fifth grade ; in the eighth grade. 

5. Would you teach your pupils to sing first by note or by rote ? 



CHAPTER XXIX 

THE PEDAGOGY OF TECHNICAL HABITS 

Since the downfall of Greek civilization, the right of 
hands and feet to an education has not been recognized 
by society until our day. That the whole body has a 
right to training, to civilization, is so self-evident that 
it should need no defense. 

PHYSICAL EDUCATION 

The Neglect of Physical Education in the Past. — 
It is disturbing to think that until our day, and yet to 
a great extent, for that matter, learned minds were 
allowed to sojourn in perfectly uncultured, almost 
imbecile, bodies. The professor, or doctor of divinity 
of fifty years ago, had, stuck into his long coat, a skele- 
ton with appurtenances that barely knew how to exist. 
It was an idiot's body. He could walk after a fashion, 
and push food into his mouth in some way, and tie a 
cravat — and that was all. 

Well, why not ? These men had specialized in other 
kinds of culture. They had not time to educate the 
muscles. Had not they as good right to be ignorant 
of skating and whittling as the mechanic to be ignorant 
of the Odes of Horace ? 

The Value of Physical Education. — Let us see what 
they lost. First, they sacrificed health. A certain 

300 



The Pedagogy of Technical Habits 301 

amount of exercise and oxygen are necessary for the 
health of the human system. It is, of course, possible 
to get exercise and air without systematic training of 
the muscles ; but there is no reason why we should not 
kill two birds with one stone. 

Furthermore, it is impossible to think perfectly 
without trained and experienced muscles; for one 
thinks with his whole body. When you imagine viv- 
idly an army charging, there is a distinct sensation of 
marching in your legs. Now, if you have never 
marched and don't know how to march, the twitching 
in your members will bear very little resemblance to 
the real experience. You cannot imagine a charging 
army and get life into your thoughts. " Stem the tide " 
means very little to him who has not forced a skiff 
against a brisk current. The boy who has sawed, 
planed, and whittled oak, can appreciate what is meant 
by " heart of oak " better than he to whom oak is just 
three letters of the alphabet. The human being is a 
unit. Other things being equal, he who can shoot 
straight can think straighter than he who is a poor 
marksman. 

Physiologically, we really do not train the hand by 
manual training, but the nerve centers that control 
the hand. Psychologically, skill, even of the fingers 
and toes, resides not in the body but in the mind. The 
investigations of physiological psychology have shown 
that in all probability the same event takes place in the 
brain when we think of an action as when we actually 
do it. The only difference is that in the former case 
the neural current is inhibited before it reaches the 
muscles. Hence thought is abortive action. From 



302 Psychology as Applied to Education 

this it is plain that the mind is not fully educated until 
it is in a trained body. 

To those pupils who later in life join the ranks of 
manual workers, whether skilled or unskilled, the edu- 
cation of the muscles is plainly of the greatest practical 
value. The highest educational reason for muscular 
education is, however, simply this : Education should 
be a development of all the powers of man. Educa- 
tion should put us in possession of our whole being ; 
and to do this we must be able to use our muscles with 
skill. 

Athletics and Physical Culture. — Athletic skill ought 
to be a part of every education. Every one should be 
taught marching, running, jumping, swimming, skat- 
ing, wheeling, boxing, fencing, rowing, the principal 
athletic games, and the simpler forms of apparatus 
gymnastics. 

The wrong spirit dominates our athletics. All we 
are concerned about is to beat somebody. Hence only 
those with unusual talents in this direction give much 
attention to gymnastics. Again, as long as we can do 
certain feats successfully, we care little how we do them. 
Ease, grace, and command of the muscles should be our 
first aim. Each person's purpose in athletics should be 
to gain dominion over himself, not primarily " to 
beat the other fellow." 

The most beautiful object in the whole world is the 
human body. But the human body is most beautiful 
when in beautiful motion.' Even a plain person with 
grace of movement becomes a thing of beauty. The 
art of good carriage, of graceful pose, of becoming move- 
ments, may be called physical culture. We habitually 



The Pedagogy of Technical Habits 303 

underestimate its value. It is our duty to be healthy, 
strong, and skillful ; and it is just as much our duty to 
be graceful. 

HOW WRITING SHOULD BE TAUGHT 

The results of child study show that civilization 
forces writing upon children at too early an age. Be- 
fore eight or ten years, the child's muscles and fingers 
are not sufficiently developed to hold comfortably so 
small an object as a pen and to make so exact a figure 
as a letter of ordinary script. Nor are the eyes ready 
to distinguish such minute objects as those of the 
" copy " of the ordinary writing book. 

If our school system were fully rationalized, there 
would be no need of teaching babes under eight years 
the art of writing. But as it now is, a teacher who is 
in the system cannot do altogether as she pleases. She 
must teach reading and writing to the first and second 
grade. If, then, writing must be taught, the best 
thing to do is to make it mainly a blackboard exercise 
and require beginners to make large letters, even on 
paper. 

The ideal teacher in the ideal school would teach 
writing only incidentally. She would never have a 
class just in writing. When her pupils had anything 
to say and she or they preferred not to use oral lan- 
guage, they would write. Whether this writing were 
geography or history or letters, the pupils would take 
pains to put it in their best hand, and the teacher would 
be there to direct the exercise and give instruction in 
the art. But we are a long way from the ideal yet. As 
our school programs are arranged at present, there 



304 Psychology as Applied to Education 

would often be absolutely no chance to give any 
instruction in the art of writing, if there were no 
special period set apart for it. Still, copy-book writing 
should be made a very subordinate subject in the 
course. 

The main things for the teacher to remember in 
reference to writing are the following: — 

Never allow the pupil to write in any other hand than 
his best. 

The characteristics of good handwriting in the order 
of their desirability are : legibility, rapidity, beauty. 
There is a long distance between each of these. 

The position of the body in writing should be such 
that it can be maintained by an adult for ten hours a 
day without injury and discomfort. 

We shall not enter into the merits of the dispute 
between the " verticals " and the " slants." Suffice 
it to say that the war has brought out in strong relief 
these three principles : rounded forms are more legible 
than elongated forms ; beauty is secondary to legibility ; 
and the simplest form of a letter is the best, as every 
flourish or embellishment decreases legibility. 

MANUAL TRAINING, SLOYD 

The last word on manual training as pedagogical 
material has already been said by Professor 0. Solomon 
of Naas, Sweden. We can do nothing better than to 
sum up his conclusions here. 

The aim of manual training in children's schools 
should be to help to furnish a well-rounded, all-sided 
culture, not to teach any particular trade. The sloyd 
teacher should aim at developing a cultured human 



The Pedagogy of Technical Habits 305 

being and not primarily the ability to make shoes, 
bricks, or furniture. 

How the Pupil should be Taught. — The children 
should have a natural interest in their work. Hence 
manual training should not consist in going through 
unproductive exercises with tools, as for example plan- 
ing a smooth surface, boring holes, sawing off boards 
square ; but the pupils should from the very first make 
something useful. What a pupil makes should become 
his property. 

The ornamental should be subordinated to the useful. 
We shall never have true art until we recognize that 
the true function of art is to beautify the useful. When 
a people is truly artistic, its kitchen utensils and every- 
day garments are beautiful and none the less useful. 
So, as a rule, children should be restricted to what is 
useful in their sloyd work ; but they should be taught 
to make the useful as beautiful as possible. 

The teacher should not do the least bit of the pupil's 
work for him. If the pupil needs direction, the teacher 
should not touch the tool and material of the student, 
but should take another tool and another piece of ma- 
terial and give the necessary sample of work. 

It is doubtful if pupils' work ever should be placed 
on exhibition. The work, not the products, is what is of 
pedagogical value ; very often the most finished product 
is the result of the most vicious pedagogical work. 

INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION 

Childhood not the Time for Technical Training. — 
Draw the sharpest line possible between sloyd (manual 
training) and industrial education (instruction in the 



306 Psychology as Applied to Education 

trades). It is the acme of false pedagogy to teach a 
trade to a child. Every consideration is against it. 
In most cases it is impossible to tell for what trade a 
child has the greatest aptitude. The muscles and the 
nerve centers of the child are not sufficiently developed 
to admit of such exactness of movements as are neces- 
sary for the highest workmanship in most trades. More 
than that, it is well established that training which 
forces a high degree of technical skill prematurely upon 
a child is distinctly injurious to him, retarding com- 
plete physical development. 

But the weightiest reason against teaching trades to 
children is that childhood should be sacred to the full 
and symmetrical development of the whole human being. 
Primarily, the teacher's duty is not to raise lawyers, 
physicians, tailors, barbers, and paper hangers. His 
duty is to develop men. It is inexpressibly sad to hear 
the sordid standard of " earning capacity " made the 
standard of education. Not long ago I heard a very 
prominent politician speak on this subject, and after 
saying that the school should train for life, in the same 
breath he gave as a synonym : " Any school study 
which does not help the pupil in making a living is 
useless." Now, with all deference to the high source 
from which this sentiment came, he could not well 
have expressed a more vicious heresy. He assumed 
that the whole duty of man is to earn money. If it is, 
let us tear down our school walls, and send our children 
to the mills. 

Let us cease a moment from our money madness. 
The chief end of man is not the weekly reception of a 
fat pay envelope, correspondence-school advertisements 



The Pedagogy of Technical Habits 307 

notwithstanding. The chief end of man is to live the 
noblest, richest human life possible. For this he wants 
spirit, mind, and body as highly and as symmetrically 
developed as possible, and harmoniously adjusted to 
his environment. Childhood and at least the early 
teens are not too long a period for this all-sided develop- 
ment. 

But even according to the sordid standard of wage- 
earning capacity, the wise course is to postpone tech- 
nical education and instruction in the trades until 
childhood and adolescence are passed. There is no 
better basis for the production of mechanic or craftsman 
than a healthy and symmetrically developed individual. 
The wide-awake boy who has found himself and who 
has himself under perfect control will in a year become 
a vastly superior workman to the lopsided and mentally 
dwarfed individual who has been trained in a trade 
since childhood. 

Occupations for life cannot safely be chosen for 
children. If the choice made by or for them while 
they were children had been final, the lives of our great 
men would have been very different. Linnaeus, the 
world's greatest botanist, would have been a shoemaker, 
Washington a sailor, and Jim, the ragman, would have 
been President of the United States. If boys chose 
for themselves, the world would soon consist only of 
sailors, policemen, and chauffeurs — with a flying- 
machine operator thrown in — or blown in — here 
and there. 

The Right Kind of Industrial Education. — But for 
all this, we need industrial training in the grades. 
Sloyd in wood and metals, elementary agriculture, and 



308 Psychology as Applied to Education 

domestic economy should be taught in every elementary 
school that has the funds for it. 

Education may be denned as adjustment to environ- 
ment. The child should be so adjusted to his environ- 
ment — the world of nature and the world of man — 
that he can live the richest and most harmonious life. 
There is no objection to vocational teaching, whenever 
this can be done without diminishing the central purpose 
of the school. In other words, whenever the so-called 
practical subjects really educate in the broad and true 
sense and not merely train for some occupation, there 
is no better subject for our schools than these same 
practical subjects. 

The main object, then, of industrial or vocational 
education is to make the school a part of the living, 
throbbing life of the present and not allow it to remain 
an artificial and detached world of its own. Education, 
even elementary education, should not be a side show, 
but should be right in the main tent of life. 

ELEMENTARY AGRICULTURE 

The traditional school curriculum has connected 
beautifully and naturally with city life, especially with 
sedentary occupations. The country, with all its wonder 
and beauty, has been left a terra incognita to the student. 
The educated farmer has lived a double life. While 
he has known something of the siege of Troy, he has 
been sublimely ignorant of the wonderful epic of natural 
forces continually going on upon his farm. He may 
have known something of chemistry and botany, but 
it is a safe wager that not once a month did he meet 
any of his book-and-laboratory science in field and 



The Pedagogy of Technical Habits 309 

stable. On school subjects he was modern, scientific, 
progressive; but he ran his farm by rote, and was 
content to travel on as a farmer in the rut of his fore- 
fathers. 

Now, this is all wrong. Education should adjust the 
child fully as much to country life as to city life, since 
nearly two thirds of us (in the United States) still 
live in the country. What we need is a course that 
trains for country life, and connects naturally with life 
in the open, in close contact with the soil and nature. 
This rural education should open the eyes and the 
heart of the pupil to the beauties and opportunities 
of country life. It should make him an acquaintance 
and a friend of the animals of the barnyard and the 
plants of the cultivated field. It should teach him to 
find himself, get command of himself, in free, vigorous 
outdoor occupations. The school in the country should 
be itself a bit of country life in natural and intimate 
connection with its environment; not, as is now so 
often the case, a bit of city life that is mislaid in alien 
surroundings. 

Agriculture for the City Child. — And if in spite of 
this alluring introduction to the charms of country life 
the country boy goes to the city as he sometimes must, 
he will have no reason to regret his rural training. Sed- 
entary life is after all a violently unnatural form of 
existence ; and now we are pretty well agreed that no 
one should attempt such a life without long and frequent 
visits and vacations spent in the country. His rural 
education will teach the city man what to do with his 
sojourns in the country. Now, it is often pathetic to 
see how alien the country is to the city-bred person. 



310 Psychology as Applied to Education 

Watch a company of city people on an outing near one 
of the beautiful Minnesota lakes on a glorious day in 
June, with the fish biting and the water just right for 
swimming. What do they do? Guess! Why, they 
sit all day in a stuffy little summer cottage, playing 
cards. They have no rural education. This is why I 
never could see any sense in restricting a course in 
rural education to rural districts. The city child needs 
it just as much. By all means, when possible, have such 
courses in the cities as well as in the country. 

Agriculture for Girls as well as for Boys. — It is 
customary to add that these courses in agriculture are 
for boys only. Here is another place where the old 
heresy crops out. The idea is that since the girl is 
not to work in the fields after she is grown, it would 
be a waste for her to study agriculture. Let us get 
rid of this notion that in teaching what is called agri- 
culture in the grades we are teaching a trade. We are 
not. The girl needs an introduction to country life 
as well as the boy. Our attention is often called to the 
fact that no class is more frequently represented in 
the insane asylums than the farmer's wife. Why? 
She lives in an alien world in which she has no interest, 
that means nothing to her. Intellectual and emotional 
starvation is what is the matter with her. By all means, 
educate the girls as well as the boys in your agriculture 
classes to appreciate rural life. 

Teach agriculture by all means. Teach it to all your 
pupils, both girls and boys, to the future lawyer and 
banker, no less than to the future farmer. The science 
of agriculture is simply botany, zoology, mineralogy, 
chemistry, physics, and geography viewed from their 



The Pedagogy of Technical Habits 311 

most interesting side ; for it is the side that is in closest 
relation to us, that pertains to us, touches us. Hence 
the agricultural part of these sciences is precisely the 
most educative portion, for it can be assimilated into 
the lives of the pupils. The art of agriculture should 
be practiced in all schools that have facilities for it; 
for next to wood sloyd no industrial employment 
gives more varied and healthful exercise, and is more 
suited to the needs and abilities of children. As the 
object is not to teach the trade of farming, there is 
nothing lost but much gained by having the future 
banker and factory hand raise beans and graft apple 
trees. 

DOMESTIC ECONOMY 

Cooking and the care of a house are also subjects 
which have a great educational value. As the great 
majority of women are destined to perform such work 
in later life, the utilitarian argument applies here as 
nowhere else. Instruction in cooking ought to tend 
towards raising the health average of the race in a double 
measure; it should provide healthful physical exer- 
cise, and also improve the hygienic character of our 
meals. Domestic economy should teach the pupils 
that the world of the sciences and the books is precisely 
the same world as that of the saucepan and the broom. 

SEWING 

Sewing has not as much to recommend it as a school 
exercise as cooking. As a fine art, it comes nearer to 
being inspired by vanity than any other (including 
under sewing, embroidery and lace making). If our 
girls should go to their graves ignorant of the gentle 



312 Psychology as Applied to Education 

art of taking certain stitches and doing certain kinds 
of crochet work, neither they nor the world would be 
very much the worse. The elements of sewing can be 
taught by most mothers ; and for that matter, its rudi- 
ments can be " picked up " by any intelligent girl. 
There is evidence that even the bachelor will qualify upon 
proper provocation. Worst of all, sewing is a monot- 
onous and unhygienic occupation. There is no appre- 
ciable muscular exercise in hand sewing; and the constant 
temptation is to assume a stooping posture, very detri- 
mental to the health of the lungs. As it is a sedentary 
occupation besides, it is worthless as a corrective of 
the sedentary nature of book work. Still, dressmak- 
ing is an important art, and of great practical value to 
most women ; and if a place can be found for it in our 
crowded curriculum, it is certainly a valuable addition ; 
but care should be taken to prevent unhygienic effects. 

COMMERCIAL SUBJECTS 

Many subjects of commercial education can defend 
their place in a high school course. Bookkeeping is as 
educative as cube root or percentage. Typewriting 
and shorthand have nowadays a fairly universal use- 
fulness. 

Our schools, then, will be distinctly enriched by the 
addition of agriculture, sloyd, domestic economy, and 
a commercial course. These subjects will be practi- 
cally useful to some of the pupils in after life and educa- 
tive to them all. Best of all, the introduction of these 
subjects will make the school a part of the life of the 
community and of that larger life into which the pupil 
is soon to enter. 



The Pedagogy of Technical Habits 313 



Exercises 

i. Distinguish between the following: manual training, in- 
dustrial education in trades, technical education, gymnastics, 
athletics, calisthenics. 

2. How can school athletics be made to contribute to raising 
the physical development of every student instead of giving 
abnormally great development to a few students in a few lines 
of physical development only ? 

3. How would you teach a pupil to appreciate to the full the 
motor element in literature ? 

4. "What should be the aim of physical culture? 

5. Outline a course in the arts of agriculture and horticulture 
for a country elementary school ; for a city school. 

6. How could a course in the art of cooking be made to solve 
the problem of a midday meal for the pupils while at school ? 

7. Illustrate from literature the old and the new conception 
of the physical development of the scholar. 

8. Outline a course in sloyd (manual training), agriculture, 
domestic economy, and physical education for the grades and 
high school. 



CHAPTER XXX 
EDUCATIONAL REORGANIZATION 

In the past the schools have been the citadel of con- 
servatism. The schoolmaster and the professor ate 
the bread of the government or were pensioners of 
the privileged classes, and it behooved them to cham- 
pion tradition and vested interests. 

But times have changed. Progress is in the air, 
and in no profession is the innovator more honored than 
in ours. Most of our late educational reformers, 
however, exhaust themselves in denouncing what we 
have. One of the notable exceptions is Dr. Maria 
Montessori of Rome. The wonderful results she has 
obtained have attracted the attention of educators to 
such an extent that her methods are now being tested 
in almost every civilized country. 

THE MONTESSORI METHOD 

It is impossible to study the work of Dr. Maria 
Montessori without recognizing her genius and her 
magnetic personality. The greatest thing in the Mon- 
tessori movement is Dr. Maria Montessori herself. 

The basic principle of this method is the best estab- 
lished conclusion of modern psychology: Man is 
primarily an organism that reacts to stimuli. Hence 
the first business of the nascent human organism is 

314 



Educational Reorganization 315 

learning to use its senses (which receive stimuli) and 
to coordinate its motor reactions. That is, sense train- 
ing and motor training come first and foremost in human 
education. 

The tactile and motor senses are primary. Develop 
them first ; and train eye and ear only in closest depend- 
ence upon them. The world as we see it is built up 
on the framework of the world as we have handled it 
with our hands. Therefore, if we have not handled 
and touched things sufficiently, our perceptual world, 
vision included, is uncertain and unsound. A solid 
is primarily something that can be handled. A sur- 
face is in origin a touch sensation. Hence let the child 
touch, handle, and make things first, and thus get a 
vital acquaintance with them, and then afterwards 
recognize them by sight and hearing alone. The pupil 
should study the world with his fingers and hands first, 
next and secondarily with his eyes and ears. This is 
the true pedagogical order, and on this psychological 
basis Dr. Montessori has built her system. 

Sense Training. — A large part of the sense-training 
apparatus consists of blocks of geometric forms that 
fit exactly into a series of holes. Some of the exercises 
consist in fitting these insets into their proper places. 
Bobbins with colored yarn are also to be arranged 
according to color and shade. Most of this work can 
be done without the intervention of the " directress," 
as the teacher is called. 

As typical of the work of the directress, we may cite 
the teaching of the names of colors. She shows the 
red yarn and says, " This is red." Then a contrasting 
color, as blue, and says, " This is blue," and so on. 



316 Psychology as Applied to Education 

Then the exercise is reversed. The child is asked, 
" What color is this? " and if he answers correctly, the 
directress goes on with her questions ; but as soon as 
the child makes a mistake, the teacher " smiles " and 
drops the exercise without correcting the error, — 
this on the theory that a correction would be quite as 
likely to fasten the error in memory. The Montessori 
method was first devised for defective children, and in 
their education this last rule is probably valid. But 
it can scarcely be doubted that with normal children 
immediate and direct correction of errors by the teacher 
is the most economical method. 

For children who come from the poverty-stricken 
tenements of the great cities, as the majority of the 
children in the Montessori Children's Houses do come, 
and even for the city child from the middle-class home, 
these apparatus exercises are a great improvement on 
his former touchable and graspable universe. For 
" Hands off " is the melancholy motto of the city child's 
world. A Montessori Children's House is a paradise 
for the touch-hungry city child ; but it is questionable 
whether it has much to offer the country child in sense 
training. 

Motor Training. — The other half of this earliest 
education is motor training, — exercises to establish 
muscular coordination, or, to be more exact, coordina- 
tion of reaction paths in the nerve centers. Every 
Montessori exercise involves motor activity, but some 
are especially designed for motor training. Among 
these we find the ancient art of pottery, in this case a 
glorified mud-pie baking and modeling in clay, includ- 
ing the making and use of bricks. 



Educational Reorganization 317 

The children are taught to be self-dependent and self- 
sufficient in their personal routine at a surprisingly early 
age. They wash and dress themselves and keep their 
belongings and the school utensils in order. To do 
this they are given lessons by means of a special appa- 
ratus in lacing and buttoning shoes and clothes. They 
are also taught to set the table and serve meals, — this 
both as social education and as sense and motor train- 
ing. Four-year-olds do this work perfectly. 

Social Education. — Politeness and good manners 
are insisted upon everywhere. Easy, graceful motions, 
proper carriage of the body, and clear, modulated voices 
are results achieved at a very early age. 

In self-help, manners, and deportment we find the 
most beautiful work of the system. Dr. Montessori 
has demonstrated that even before the age of five years 
a normal child can and ought to dress himself and 
conduct himself at the table with the same propriety 
as a grown-up. 

Exaggeration of the Value of Early Training. — 
Dr. Montessori puts a tremendous value on early sense 
and motor training. For example, she expresses the 
conviction that naughtiness of children consists mainly 
in imperfect motor development, and says it is a 
well-known fact that a foreign language cannot be 
perfectly acquired, nor a patois or dialect entirely 
eradicated after the seventh year. This latter conten- 
tion is demonstrably false. Any time before adoles- 
cence a normal individual can acquire a new language or 
dialect perfectly. 

One can hardly escape the conclusion that Dr. Mon- 
tessori's argument confuses two radically different 



318 Psychology as Applied to Education 

stages in sense training. The training of the sense 
organs themselves, to be wholly successful, must occur 
in early infancy. Happily, few adults have deficient 
sense organs because of insufficient exercise in infancy. 
The apperceptive training of perception (which is what 
the Montessori system provides), while possible and 
profitable both earlier and later, has its most remunera- 
tive period of training in later childhood (from eight to 
fifteen years of age). 

The fundamental motor reactions must be learned 
and coordinated in early childhood. Normally, we 
establish during our first three years the ideomotor 
associations for every elementary motion we are ever 
to make. The earlier we study a language, the more 
easily we acquire it. 

But there is danger of overtraining not fully devel- 
oped muscles. Fine and exact coordination of move- 
ments may stunt the growth of the system. Many of 
the Montessori exercises are suspiciously complex 
and refined for immature bodies ; and it would be 
rash indeed to assert that such training cannot be 
harmful. 

Practical and Dynamic Interests. — The young child 
(the child under seven years, approximately) is ruled 
by two classes of interests, which we may here call 
the practical and the dynamic. The first class he 
has in common with us all. He engages in certain 
activities because he wants the results. He hunts the 
squirrel because he wants the squirrel. He harnesses the 
dog because he wants the dog to pull his sled. But he has 
another interest that is almost atrophied in the adult, — 
interest in an activity for the activity's own sake. He 



Educational Reorganization 319 

runs and shouts and whistles just because it is fun to 
run and shout and whistle. He is interested in almost 
any exercise of his motor powers. Hence a purpose- 
less exercise, like fitting cylinders into holes, may be 
exceedingly interesting to him. 

When we perform an action with interest in the result, 
we do not care to repeat. The interest in the action 
is gone when the purpose is gained. Hence drill is 
tedious to the older student. But as the child may be 
interested in the activity itself, it follows that within 
the limits of fatigue, repeating the exercise repeats 
the enjoyment. The result is that children are easily 
and naturally interested in any exercise of which they 
are capable. The interest is enhanced if the exercise 
is rhythmic ; and generally, its difficulty is the measure 
of its interest. 

Whence it follows that the artificiality and purpose- 
lessness of most of the exercises of the Montessori 
system cannot be urged per se as defects. 

But two is twice one. It is better to unite the prac- 
tical and dynamic interests wherever possible. Such 
is nature's way. Spontaneously, naturally, the child's 
efforts are in most cases first practical, and only after 
skill has been won for practical purposes are the 
motions repeated for dynamic pleasure. The child 
struggles to talk because he wants to say something, 
but when he has mastered a word, a phrase, or a sound, 
he loves to repeat it dozens of times for the mere 
dynamic pleasure of using his vocal organs and of hear- 
ing himself speak. 

Hence the more the educative exercises can be con- 
nected with the practical interests of childhood, the 



320 Psychology as Applied to Education 

better. In this respect the Montessori system is cer- 
tainly far from the ideal. 

Teaching Reading and Writing. — The Montessori 
system comes to its technical zenith in teaching reading 
and writing. 

When the children have played with insets until the 
geometric solids are familiar to them, metal circles, 
triangles, and the like, with a button in the middle of 
each for lifting, are supplied. By drawing around 
these, the pupil gets plane figures, and his attention 
is called to lines and angles. He shades and colors 
these figures, and thus learns to see and feel plane 
figures. 

Next he is given an alphabet of sandpaper letters. 
These he studies by touch, then traces. While touch- 
ing, tracing, and handling these letters he learns to call 
them by the sounds they represent. Then he builds 
and recognizes words. Sentences and phrases come of 
their own accord next; but still, as Dr. Montessori 
observes, he has not used written language, for he has 
never tried to express his own thoughts by that means. 
But some day he explodes into written language. He 
is surprised that he can write and read. 

The advantage of this system, upon which the author 
seems to put the emphasis, is that the children learn 
written language without knowing it and without any 
conscious effort. They grow into reading and writing 
just as they acquire teeth or freckles or anything else 
natural and inevitable. 

For a practically phonetic language like the Italian, 
the technique of this system is perfect. Derived from 
the method used for feeble-minded children, it is so 



Educational Reorganization 321 

arranged that written language is attained with the 
smallest possible expenditure of mentality. The normal 
child cannot avoid the trap. It is inevitable. The 
least wriggle of his soul will start him sliding on the 
inclined plane towards writing and reading. 

But is the whole of this process, with all its compli- 
cated details so laborious for the teacher and so hard 
if not impossible of application to large classes, neces- 
sary for the normal child ? Can he not take a steeper 
grade? 

In contrasting her system with the ordinary one used 
in the Italian public schools, Dr. Montessori intimates 
that their method is wearisome and slow. Perhaps it 
is. But in a good American primary grade learning 
to read is enjoyed by the pupils, and they learn to 
read soon enough. In fact, as to speed in the mastery 
of written language, I doubt if the Montessori system 
can equal the Ward method or that of the " Progressive 
Road to Reading." 

Certainly, let children learn to read as soon as they 
desire it, even if only three or four years old. But do 
not imagine that it is of any great advantage to the 
child to know this art so early. Very little practical 
use of it is possible until after his eighth year. 

However, the consummate art of Dr. Montessori's 
method of teaching graphic language repays study both 
from the viewpoint of psychology and pedagogy; 
and poor indeed is the teacher who cannot get sug- 
gestions for the improvement of his own method from 
a critical study of this technical masterpiece. 

No Literature. — Literature has no place in the Mon- 
tessori system. Myths, folklore, and fairy tales are 



322 Psychology as Applied to Education 

banished. It seems as if the spirit of the drab, prac- 
tical common sense of modern industrialism had so 
permeated the modern Italian philosopher's system 
that she finds no place for what is not matter-of-fact. 
Her claim that the literary element, from Mother Goose 
up, tends to confuse and bewilder the child can scarcely 
be established. It is unnecessary to criticise this point, 
for we are not likely to impoverish our primary edu- 
cation by following her example. 

Spontaneous Self-direction of the Child. — That 
all which does not come from the spontaneous activity 
of the child is of evil, is to Dr. Montessori not simply 
a doctrine but an axiom which she never tires of repeat- 
ing and never tries to prove. She has indeed reduced 
this to an absurdity. To follow her theory consistently 
she should substitute a wax figure for the directress, 
because a wax figure could do nothing so much more 
gracefully than a mortal. 

Now, how is the illusion produced that in this sys- 
tem the child's actions are all spontaneous, self-directed 
and the result of his own initiative ? 

First, by exercises that must either be done right or 
not at all (Nothing but the right inset will fit its 
place) ; then, by limiting a child to doing a certain 
exercise or doing nothing ; and finally, by making all 
exercises appeal to the dynamic interest of the child. 

But plainly, in all this the child is led, if not by the 
nose or the hand, still by just as unmistakable direc- 
tion as if the teacher had put the information and 
command into a spoken sentence. 

Nor is it certain that by concealing the purpose (as 
is done in teaching reading) the pupil's sum total of 



Educational Reorganization 323 

pleasure is increased. There is also joy in anticipation, 
and I am inclined to think that such " linked sweetness 
long drawn out " totals more than the spasm of joyous 
surprise. 

The Silent Directress. — As we have seen, to be 
perfectly consistent with its theory, the Montessori 
system does not admit of a teacher at all. Since 
every direction by another is an infringement of self- 
direction on the part of the child, there is no place for 
even a monosyllabic directress. But here we must 
prefer Dr. Montessori's practice to her theory. The 
true function of the teacher is to stimulate and direct 
the intellectual, emotional, and motor activities of the 
pupil. Perhaps the most common mistake of the inept 
teacher is that of doing the work for the pupil instead 
of merely directing the activities of the pupil. The 
voluble teacher is particularly in danger of thus failing. 
But teaching is by no means such a simple business 
that it varies in excellence always in inverse propor- 
tion to the number of words used. In fact, it depends 
not at all on how much but entirely on what, and when 
the teacher speaks. The vital question is: Do the 
pupils react normally ? If they do, they will develop 
normally. The teacher's business, whether he does it 
by few or many words, is to furnish the appropriate 
stimuli and directions. Whether the stimuli and direc- 
tions consist in a self-explanatory apparatus or in the 
words of the teacher matters not; that stimulus and 
those directions are best which most economically and 
naturally secure the desired reactions from the child. 

The Government of Children. — In practice the 
Children's Houses are distinctly institutions of social 



324 Psychology as Applied to Education 

education ; but the theory is an unqualified individual- 
ism. Theoretically, the child is not to be governed. 
There must be no imperative mood, no compulsion; 
the child is never to be coerced. Over and over again 
Dr. Montessori insists that the child should be reared 
in " liberty," and not only does she not qualify this 
principle, but she asserts that if only complete liberty 
is given, all problems of government and discipline will 
solve themselves. 

Let us advert a moment to fundamentals. Man is a 
social animal. One half at least of the educational 
program is to fit children for their place in human 
society. The fundamental lesson in this connection 
is that of obedience. Children should find out, and 
they should find out early, that the universe was not 
constructed primarily to satisfy their whims. Class 
work has this inestimable benefit that it teaches the 
individual that he has a larger self, — the social self. 
Obedience to the common will by following a common 
program is another of those blessed "tyrannies" of the 
schools. Man is an individual, and he is a social being. 
Neither of these should be sacrificed. He should be 
a strong individual and also a wholly socialized 
being. 

There are three possible relations between society 
and the individual, (a) First, they may be in enmity. 
This means tyranny or anarchy. This was the con- 
dition in the old English boarding schools, as we see it in 
"Tom Brown at Rugby" and Kipling's "Stalky and 
Co." The best to be hoped for was a truce. The two 
belligerent powers might at best view each other 
with respect; and certain laws of war were observed. 



Educational Reorganization 325 

(b) The second relation is that of compromise. The 
individual and society have each their separate spheres, 
and neither must infringe on that of the other. This 
seems to be Dr. Montessori's creed, as it was that of 
Rousseau and the majority of the pre-Revolutionary 
French philosophers. But this gives only a dead 
mechanical view of human relations, (c) The third 
relation obtains when the individual can find his 
highest development, and his only true freedom in lov- 
ing harmony and loyal obedience to society. By 
subordinating himself to the school, the pupil loses 
nothing ; he gains everything. He is not to give up his 
own will, nor even, finally, to limit it. He is to find his 
own true will in the common harmonious will of the 
institution. 

A fine example of unconscious humor is found in 
Dr. Montessori's sweeping declaration of the liberty 
of the pupil to follow his own initiative unhampered 
by teachers and rules, followed a few pages farther on 
by a detailed program of a day's work. Evidently if 
John wants to play with insets when the rest are serv- 
ing dinner, he — but here either the program or the 
principle will be fractured. 

The discipline in the Children's Houses must be, 
after all, just what we have had for a generation in our 
best American schools. There is compulsion and 
restraint, but the vast majority of pupils are very 
seldom conscious of either. The child must act not 
as he will but as the school wills ; but school fife and 
child nature are so well harmonized that the pupil is 
simply obeying his own better self. There are practi- 
cally no punishments in the old sense. How much 



326 Psychology as Applied to Education 

corporal punishment is meted out in the primary grades 
in the United States ? 

THE BOY SCOUT MOVEMENT 

From Froebel to Montessori the emphasis has been 
placed on the education of early childhood. Compara- 
tively little has been done for the most critical period 
of development, early adolescence. And yet for char- 
acter and culture, for individual development, and social 
progress the education received during the last years 
of childhood and the first of adolescence, from about the 
twelfth to the eighteenth year, is worth more than all 
that came before and all that can be given afterwards. 

Character is a by-product of our self-directed ac- 
tivity. It can be produced in no other way. The 
modern boy and girl moving along the smooth and 
narrow channel of school and home life have not much 
chance for asserting their moral individuality. All 
is foreordained. But in General Baden-Powell's Boy 
Scout movement the boy is trained in self-reliance, 
individuality, courage, initiative, and moral fiber at 
the same time that he is trained in loyalty, obedience, 
and the spirit of comradeship. In my opinion this is 
the finest school for character yet devised. The wood 
lore and field lore, the training in camp life and in what 
to do in cases of emergency and accident are also 
invaluable. 

The Boy Scout movement supplements precisely the 
cardinal defect of the school-room-and-school-book 
education. Here is direct contact with nature, motor 
education, initiative, a field for the exercise of moral 
responsibility and self-reliance. 



Educational Reorganization 327 

The organization of the Camp Fire Girls, — the 
feminine branch of the movement, — is not so far 
advanced, but has the same promise. 

The problem of this movement is how to weave it 
into our social fabric and how to establish it in harmony 
and cooperation with the rest of our educational sys- 
tem. Here is constructive work worth doing. 

THE REORGANIZATION OF THE CURRICULUM 

The Education of Infants. — Since the country has 
so many good things that the city lacks, such as fresh 
air and plenty of space, some one has sapiently asked, 
"Why not build the city in the country?" Allow 
me to reverse that proposition. Why not import a 
bit of children's country into the city? But I am 
forestalled. It has already been done. The modern 
playground, scientifically equipped and managed, is 
just such a bit of children's country, and needs only to 
be enriched and enlarged to be ideal. Let us call this 
enriched playground the Children's Estate. Let us 
add domestic animals, as cows, ponies, burros, sheep, 
goats, cats, dogs, and chickens. It should contain a 
piece of wild woodland where the child can absorb 
wood lore with oxygen. Let each child have a plot 
of arable ground for flowers and edible vegetables, 
which he may plant and care for under the direction of 
the teacher. There should be an orchard in which 
the children may roam. On this estate let the 
children spend most of their time in play, spon- 
taneous except for the supervision and direction of 
the teacher. 

A part of the time should be spent in kindergarten 



328 Psychology as Applied to Education 

exercises. These can be much enriched by the addi- 
tion of Montessori exercises. The training in self- 
help, domestic usefulness, and polite behavior should 
be adopted wholesale from the Montessori system. 
As much of this kindergarten work as possible should 
be carried on out of doors when the weather permits. 
Note that some of this is work and not play. The 
cultivation of the garden, the setting of the table, 
dressing, washing one's self, are work, though a well- 
trained child will find as much enjoyment in them as 
in play. 

Elementary Education. — We should learn from the 
Montessori system that since our primary and funda- 
mental functions are motor, the greater part of the 
waking hours of the child should be employed in motor 
reactions. Our elementary schools have been too 
bookish. Manual training, domestic economy, agri- 
culture, horticulture, wood lore, athletic and gymnastic 
exercises must have a larger place in children's life in 
the future than they have had in the past. 

I should like to turn the grade-and-high-school 
curriculum upside down. Later childhood is the time 
for acquiring the story element of history and the 
external facts of science. In childhood we should 
become acquainted with Abraham and Alexander, 
Marco Polo and Lincoln, with African elephants and 
Hindu temples, with chemical reactions and the 
physical properties of matter. Later childhood is also 
the time for acquiring the art element (skill, the me- 
chanical memory element) of learning, as languages, 
spelling, drawing, elements of playing musical instru- 
ments, arithmetical computation and the memorizing 



Educational Reorganization 329 

of names and dates, personal deportment and social 
etiquette; in short, what may be called the tech- 
nique of civilization. 

The bookish part of elementary education would 
appear thus : — 

(a) Several languages (at least one more than the 
mother tongue; the study of these should have been 
begun in the kindergarten age), literature as advanced 
as the children can, understand, not in homeopathic 
doses, but read in quantities with very little critical 
study and explanation. 

(6) Volumes and volumes of objective history of 
every race and age, history rich in story and anecdote, 
and mostly in the form of biography; also geography 
and sociography in the form of books of travel and 
adventure. 

(c) The elements of all the natural sciences studied 
in laboratory, nature, and from books, the emphasis 
placed on a first-hand acquaintance with nature, and 
practically no time spent upon recondite scientific 
laws and classifications. 

(d) The technique of civilization including reading, 
writing, spelling, and the art of computation in arith- 
metic. 

Grammar and scientific arithmetic, definitions, and 
the scientific systematization of knowledge should be 
left for the high school. 

Secondary Education. — With the main part of the 
fact side of the sciences and the memory side of lan- 
guages acquired in the grades, the high school pupil 
could devote his book time to strictly scientific study. 
This is the time for scientific study of the elements of 



330 Psychology as Applied to Education 

language, literature, mathematics, physical sciences, 
biology, history, and the other social sciences. 

Summary. — Early childhood (up to seven years) 
is the time for sensory and motor organization and 
coordination. 

Later childhood (seven to fifteen years) is the time 
for motor training in the technique of civilization and 
the objective, descriptive study of our environment. 

Youth is the time for scientific organization of 
knowledge, and the preliminary vocational training. 

THE FUNCTION OF EDUCATION 

Slowly and painfully with many a blunder, man has 
worked his way upward from primitive barbarism to 
his present state of culture. Through all the long 
process it has been the function of the parent and the 
teacher to transmit the treasure of civilization from 
generation to generation. 

Yet even the highest civilization leaves much to be 
desired. Above and far ahead gleams our ideal. 
Would we reach it we must avidly accumulate, and with 
miserly care hoard the treasures of the human mind, 
the spiritual estate of human society. And it is the 
high duty of every educator to transmit this spiritual 
patrimony undiminished and untarnished. 



APPENDIX 



THE NERVOUS SYSTEM 

By means of the nervous system the mind controls the body 
and receives (through the end-organs of the senses) its knowl- 
edge of the material world. 

The student of this book should have a fair knowledge of 
the physiology of the nervous system. This appendix is not 
intended as a substitute for such knowledge, but is meant to 
give a brief summary of the subject from the psychologist's 
standpoint. 

TISSUES OF THE NERVOUS SYSTEM 

The nervous system is 
made up of structures 
called neurons. A neuron 
consists of a nerve cell with 
its nucleus and tiny fila- 
ments or nerve fibers which 
extend from the cell body. 

Wherein the functions of 
the cell body and its fibers 
are different, is a matter of 
some uncertainty. Both 
are sensitive to stimulation 
and both possess conductil- 
ity. The cell body is known 
to possess, in addition, nu- 
tritive capacities, and is 
thought to have the power to enforce or inhibit impulses received 
and even to be capable of automatic action. 

831 




Three Nebve Cells 



332 



Appendix 



Cerebrum 



Medulla 



THE CENTRAL SYSTEM 

The central nervous system consists of two great clusters of 
nerve centers known as the brain, and the spinal cord. 

The Brain. — The brain consists of the cerebrum, or the 
hemispheres which fill the greater part of the cavity of the 

skull, and the cerebel- 
lum, which lies behind 
and below the cere- 
brum. 

The Cerebrum. — 
The cerebrum is di- 
vided into a left and 
a right hemisphere. 
These hemispheres are 
united by a band of 
white matter at the 
bottom of the divid- 
ing cleft. The cere- 
brum is in form 
surprisingly like the 
kernel of an English 
walnut. Its surface, 
like the walnut's, is a 
series of convolutions. Deeper fissures divide each hemisphere 
into four lobes — frontal, temporal, parietal, and occipital. The 
deepest fissures are those of Rolando and Sylvius. 

The tissues of the cerebrum are of two kinds. The outside, 
or cortex, is gray matter, between jelly and porridge in consist- 
ency, and beneath this is white stringy matter. The greater 
part of the gray matter is made up of nerve cells, while the white 
matter consists of nerve fibers, which, as we have seen, are out- 
growths from the nerve cells. 

The function of the gray matter, whether in the cortex, spinal 
cord, or other nerve center, is to generate and switch nerve 
currents. These masses of gray matter have the functions of the 
batteries in a telegraph line and of the switches in a railroad 
yard. Neural energy seems to be generated here, and here 




Cerebellum 



The Human Brain 

Shown from the side with the cerebrum and 
cerebellum separated from each other. 



Appendix 



333 



Olfadorq 



Cerebrum 
s 



sensory currents are changed into motor currents, and motor 
currents are sent from one nerve fiber to another. 

When a current of neural energy passes through gray matter, 
it leaves some kind of path behind. We do not know in the 
least what is the nature of this path except that it becomes 
easier for the next neural current in the gray matter to travel 
through the path of its predecessor than to pass where no cur- 
rent has gone before. 
For every time that a 
path is traveled it 
becomes easier of 
travel for currents. 
This forms the physi- 
cal basis - for habit, 
memory, and associa- 
tion. 

These neural paths 
may be likened to a 
path through a forest, 
or to the channels 
of water in a delta. 
For every animal that 
passes over the path 
it becomes more defi- 
nite and deeper. But 
if it is left unused, it 
will finally be over- 
grown and obliterated. 
In fact, it is always becoming effaced, and it must have a cer- 
tain amount of use to be kept in existence. This plasticity 
of the nervous system is greatest in childhood and then gradually 
decreases throughout life, until in extreme old age it sometimes 
vanishes almost completely. Hence in childhood we learn 
easily and forget easily, and in old age we may find it impossible 
to acquire anything new, while our old memories are as intact 
as ever. 

Certain portions of the cortex, or gray matter, of the cerebrum 
are supposed to be connected with certain sense organs from 




Crura , 
Cerebri 

Pons 
Varolii 



Cerebellum 
jpinalCord 

The Brain as seen from Below 
The cranial nerves are numbered. 



Medulla 



334 Appendix 

which they receive stimuli. The visual, auditory, olfactory, and 
tactual centers are quite clearly determined; the visual centers 
in the occipital lobes, the auditory in that portion of the cortex 
a little above and behind the ear, the olfactory probably in the 
median lower parts of the temporal lobes, and the tactual 
along the fissure of Rolando. The centers for taste are not so 
exactly located, but are thought to be near the olfactory centers. 
A large group of the cells of the cortex known as the region of 
Rolando, because near the fissure of Rolando, is thought to be 
in connection with the voluntary muscles. If a portion of this 
region is injured, as by the pressure of a blood clot, a sliver of 
bone, or a foreign substance that has penetrated to it, the 
muscle which has its nerve centers in the injured region becomes 
paralyzed. 

There are also supposed to be in the cortex of the cerebrum, 
association centers, whose function is to unite the various sensory 
centers. 

So interrelated are the sensory centers of the cerebrum, that 
the loss of the use of one center produces disturbances in other 
centers. For instance, the destruction of the auditory centers 
would result not only in a loss of one's power to hear or to 
remember what had previously been heard, but even in loss of 
power to speak, provided the person so injured used auditory 
images in formulating his speech. This crippled condition of a 
sensory center is called aphasia. 

The tissues of the gray matter are constantly wearing out 
and being replaced. There is evidently an immaterial pattern 
and force that fits into place according to its own laws the 
particles of matter as they come and go. And not only is the 
organic structure of the brain maintained, but the neural paths 
are also reproduced and perpetuated. 

Our clear consciousness is connected only with the neural 
events of the cerebrum, it ic serted. The other nerve centers 
are connected with subconsciousness. And with many functions 
of even the cerebrum our mind is only subconsciously connected. 

The Cerebellum. — The cerebellum, like the cerebrum, is 
made up of gray and white matter. Little is known concern- 
ing the functions of this organ, but it is thought to be a 



Appendix 



335 



coordinating center, regulating the currents started in the cere- 
brum, so that the complicated movements necessary to the body in 
its various activities may be performed in an orderly manner. 
The cerebellum is also thought to serve as a relay station to 
strengthen the messages sent out by the cerebrum. 

The Medulla Oblongata. — An enlarged portion of the spinal 
cord just below the cerebellum, called the medulla oblongata, 
is often spoken of as a coordinate part of the nervous system 
with the brain and the spinal cord. The tissues of the medulla 



i'Posterior Root 




Nerve 

Cells 
or 
Grau 
N flatter 

' Anterior Root 
A Cross Section op the Spinal Cord 

The white mattar is really filled with nerve fibers, but in the figure these are 
shown at only one point. 

consist of a complex mixture of nerve fibers and nerve cells. 
Through the fibers, messages are transmitted from the brain 
down to the spinal cord and in the opposite direction. The 
cells of the medulla are connected with the control of the respira- 
tory and circulatory organs. 

The Spinal Cord. — In the spinal cord the arrangement of the 
gray matter and white matter is the reverse of that shown in 
the brain, the white matter being on the outside and the gray 
matter within. A cross section will show the gray matter in 
the form of a capital H. Two projections point inward and two 



336 



Appendix 



point outward. They are called the anterior and posterior 

projections respectively. 

A very important function of the spinal cord is its power to 

produce reflex action; that is, 
action in immediate response to 
sensory stimulation without the 
direction of the cerebrum. In- 
stances of such action are sneez- 
ing, the twitching of the foot 
when something tickles it, or an 
involuntary shiver when a cold 
draft is felt. 

Through the spinal cord im- 
pulses pass upward and down- 
ward from the brain to the sense 
organs and muscles and from the 
sense organs and muscles to the 
brain. 



THE PERIPHERAL NERVOUS 
SYSTEM 




\J*usc/e 

Diagram illustrating a Simple 
Reflex Action 

The impulse from the sense organ 
passes in over the nerve fiber, d, 
and may pass up to the brain 
over a-c. But a part may be 
switched off through e down the 
fiber / to the muscle, causing it 
to contract without the aid of 
the brain. 



The central nervous system 
communicates with the rest of 
the body by means of a series of 
nerves and nerve endings known 
as the peripheral nervous system. 

There are two groups of these 
nerves — the cranial nerves, which 
carry messages to and from the 
brain without entering the spinal 
cord, and the spinal nerves. 

The cranial nerves, of which 



there are twelve pairs, have con- 
trol of the muscles of the face and carry impulses communicated 
to them by the nose, the eye, the ear, and the tongue. 

The spinal nerves branch out from the spinal cord, thirty-one 
on each side. Each nerve has two roots, one arising from the 



Appendix 337 

posterior projection of the gray matter, and called the posterior 
root, the other arising from the anterior projection and called 
the anterior root. 

By experiment, it has been ascertained that the function of 
the posterior root is to bear to the spinal cord sensory impulses 
coming from the various parts of the body ; while the anterior 
roots are concerned with the motor impulses, which are sent out 
by the brain or spinal cord to the muscles. 

The nerves which have to do with incoming or sensory im- 
pulses are called afferent, nerves ; those which have to do with 
outgoing or motor impulses are called efferent nerves. 

THE SYMPATHETIC SYSTEM OF NERVES 

In addition to the central and peripheral nervous systems, 
there is a series of nerve cells and nerve fibers to which has been 
given the name of the sympathetic system. 

This system consists of two strands of nerve tissue, which 
are found within the cavity of the body, one on each side of the 
spinal cord. Each strand of nerve tissue is connected with 
each of the spinal nerves on its side of the cord by a mass of 
nerve cells. 

The sympathetic system has not the power to originate im- 
pulses, but can take up impulses communicated to it by the 
spinal nerves from the brain and spinal cord. 

The nerves of this system are thought to have to do with the 
functions of several of the large organs of the body, such as 
regulating the action of the blood vessels in the abdominal 
region, and controlling the secretions of the liver. 

As a rule, the impulses which are carried by the sympathetic 
system are not under the control of the will . 

THE FUNCTION OF THE NERVOUS SYSTEM 

The function of the nervous system is to convert stimuli 
into motor reactions. The end-organs of the sensory nerves in 
the different sense organs pick up stimuli for each sense of its 
peculiar kind. The neural current excited in the nerve, often 
first passing through several inferior centers, finally lands in 



338 Appendix 

the cortex of the brain in the region appropriate to that sense. 
Then, if not inhibited by consciousness, a counter current is 
started which travels out from the brain to some muscle and 
causes a motor reaction. The motor reaction is specific for 
each variety of stimuli, and is fixed by instinct unless modified 
by habit. 

In man and the higher animals consciousness can at any time 
step in and inhibit, delay, or change the kind of motor response. 

As we have seen, it is not necessary in all cases for the sensory 
current to go all the way to the cortex to produce a motor 
reaction. In habitual actions, and in the fundamental instincts, 
it seems that a motor current is started from the spinal cord 
as soon as the sensory current arrives there. 



INDEX 



abstract altruism, 249. 

abstract principles, the man of, 
190. 

abstraction, 53. 

acquired impulse, 155. 

active side of human nature, 185. 

adolescence, early, chapter 
XXIV, p. 238; dangers of 
sexual ignorance, 243 ; general 
characteristics, 238 ; moral 
training of, 191 ; right kind 
of teacher for, 241 ; summary 
of, 245; time for acquiring 
moral habits, 162; time for 
character development, 240; 
time for fixation of habit, 241 ; 
unsettled, 239. 

adventure, love of, 121. 

aesthetic education, 144. 

aesthetic emotions and interests, 
123. 

agriculture, 308. 

analysis and comparison, chapter 
IX, p. 87; functions of, 87; 
limit of area of, 89 ; pedagogy 
of, 89. 

anger, 127; cure for, 131; ex- 
pression of, 130. 

animal nature under control, 
148. 

"answer in complete sentences," 
fallacy, 271. 

antinatural, the, 147. 



apperceiving mass, 27. 

apperception, 27; example of, 
25 ; process of, 26. 

a priori knowledge, 66. 

arrested development, 174. 

art, how to teach an, chapter 
XXVIII, p. 285 ; of question- 
ing, 271 ; of studying, chapter 
XXV, p. 255. 

arts, aesthetic, 294; courses in, 
298; intellectual, 289; of 
civilization, 288. 

asceticism, 248. 

aspects of the mind, 7. 

association, or synthesis, chap- 
ter X, p. 92 ; logical, 92 ; me- 
chanical, 93. 

athletics, 302. 

attendant bodily feelings, 120. 

attention, chapter VIII, p. 74; 
characteristics of, 76; invol- 
untary, 80; pedagogy of, 83; 
periods of, 78; spontaneous, 
80; voluntary, 80. 

attitude, critical, 259; proper, 
for study, 258; sympathetic, 
259 ; towards life, 210. 

audiles, 256. 

authority, 65. 

axioms, 65. 



balance of mind, 148. 
baric sense, 30. 



339 



340 



Index 



bookkeeping, 312. 

boy scout movement, 326. 

building air castles, 40. 

camp fire girls, 327. 

carriage of the body, 218. 

causation, 66. 

character, chapter XXI, p. 197. 

child, the, a materialist, 246 ; 
not sentimental, 229; self- 
centered, 246; small store of 
associations of, 222; swayed 
by present impulse, 227 ; util- 
itarian, 247 ; world of, 222. 

child study, 220. 

childhood, chapter XXIII, p. 220; 
ages of, two, 221 ; not the 
time for technical training, 
305; summary of, 236. 

children, admiration of strength 
and cunning in, 233; dy- 
namic interests, 318; estates 
for, 327; fondness for repeti- 
tion of, 231 ; imitativeness, 232 ; 
impulsive and emotional life, 
227 ; interests and how to ap- 
peal to them, 229; primitive 
morality, 232; small store of 
associations, 222 ; suggesti- 
bility, 232. 

classification of feelings and im- 
pulses, chapter XIII, p. 118. 

clearness and definiteness, 268. 

closing exercises, value of, 85. 

color, 13. 

color blindness, 14. 

commercialism, 177. 

commercial subjects, 312. 

comparison, how it aids analysis, 
88. 

composition, 294. 



concept, class, or scientific, 54; 
evolution of, 54 ; logical classes 
of, 59; practical, 54; and 
symbol, 56; without symbol 
impossible, 56. 

conception and judgment, chap- 
ter VI, p. 53. 

consciousness, clear, or complete, 
75; diagram, 76; field of, 6; 
fringe of, 75. 

constructive thought, 275. 

contrast of thought and feeling, 
145. 

control and development of cer- 
tain impulses and emotions, 
chapter XIV, p. 127. 

cortex of brain, 44. 

courage, 121, 127. 

critical attitude, 259. 

critical thought, 275. 

critical period in habit formation, 
158. 

cruelty to animals, 134, 175. 

cultivation of ideals, 195. 

culture, chapter XV, p. 144; 
analysis of, 147; in one's 
vocation, 149; in study of 
Latin and Greek, 150, 151 ; 
means of acquiring, 149 ; place 
in curriculum, 288 ; social, 297. 

day dreaming, 40. 

definitions, logical form of, 56. 

desire, 100, 165, 182 ; and ideal 
differentiated, 182 ; for knowl- 
edge, 122 ; the strongest, 183. 

domestic economy, 311. 

dramatic art, 294. 

dramatic instinct in children, 230. 

drawing and painting, 295. 

drill, value of, 51, 



Index 



341 



ear, the, 255. 

education, American ideal of, 
151 ; function of, 8, 19, 34 ; into 
consciousness, 287; out of 
consciousness, 288. 

educational reorganization, chap- 
ter XXX, p. 314. 

emotions, classified, 118; short- 
lived and variable, 1 10 ; stand- 
ard of, 146. 

exactness in practice, 159. 

exceptions, 158. 

experience as a source of knowl- 
edge, 62. 

expression of impulses and emo- 
tions, 111. 

extension, as element in sensa- 
tion, 19 ; of concepts, 54. 

eye, the, 255; training of, at 
expense of the ear, 256. 

faith, 66, 207. 

fashion, 147. 

fatigue, 135. 

fear, 121, 127; physiological 
effects of, 128 ; suppression of 
expression, 129. 

feeling, 10, 105. 

feelings, impulses and their ex- 
pression, chapter XII, p. 105. 

feelings and impulses, fluctua- 
tion of, 167; pedagogy of, 
145; relations of, 105. 

fine arts, 144. 

flavors, 16. 

form, 30. 

formal grammar not for children, 
226. 

Foss, Sam, quoted, 211. 

freedom, need of allowing, 188. 

future self, 172. 



generalization, 53 ; too hasty, 90. 
good taste, 146, 147, 297. 
government, school, 323. 
Greek and Latin, study of, 150, 

151. 
grief, 140. 
growing old, 250. 

habit, chapter XVT, p. 153; 

element in character, 161; 

function of, 155; laws, 156; 

moral, 162; motive, 154; 

pedagogy of, 156; personal, 

162; servant not master, 

163 ; technical, 154. 
hand, the, 255. 
hearing, 14; space relations of, 

33. 
hedonism, 106. 
hero worship, 190. 
honesty, intellectual, 71; in 

children, 234. 
human nature, 4; periods in 

evolution of, 221. 
hygiene of emotions, 140. 

ideal, effective without emotion, 
183; development of, 180; 
struggle with desire, 183. 

ideal human personality, 179. 

idealism, lack of, in mature life, 
250. 

ideals, 168, 172, 178 ; contrasted 
with desires, 169 ff. ; creation 
of, chapter XX, p. 190; his- 
torical evolution of, 176; 
incidental inculcation of, 192; 
or rational interests, chapter 
XVII, p. 165; primitive, 176, 
180 ; result of choice, 170. 

ideas as stimuli, 165. 



342 



Index 



illusion, example of, 28. 

imagination, chapter IV, p. 36; 
and perception, 36 ; dissipation 
of, 41 ; kinds, 37 ; practical 
value of, 37; trained for ac- 
curacy, 38; enrichment, 39; 
used for recreation, 40. 

imitation, 132. 

impulse, 10, 99 ; contrasted with 
ideals, 169 ff . ; dependent on 
stimuli, 166; intermittent in 
nature, 167 ; to construct, 121 ; 
to defend, 121, 127; to de- 
stroy, 121 ; to flee or hide, 
127; to own, 122; to work, 
137. 

impulses, gradation of, 103 ; how 
to control, 112; pedagogy of, 
116; shortlived, 110; sub- 
conscious, 102. 

indecent, effect of the, 208. 

induction, 63. 

industrial education, 305 ff . 

industrial efficiency, 177. 

inhibition, 99, 179. 

inner side of experience, the, 144. 

instinct, 100, 165, 185; and de- 
sire differentiated, 102. 

integrity of intellect, 67. 

intellectual courage, 260. 

intellectual emotions and motives 
122. 

intension of concept, 54. 

interest, 268; center of, 175; 
how to awaken, 83 ; in others, 
173 ; laws of, 82. 

interests of childhood, 318. 

judgment, 60 ; kinds of, 60 ; pred- 
icate of, event concept, 60; 
subject of, space concept, 60. 



knowledge based on faith, 65. 

language as part of curriculum, 

290; learning a, 258; the 

sciences of, 282. 
law, principle, 67. 
laws, of association, 93 ff . ; of 

attention, 76 ff . ; of habit, 156 ; 

of interest, 82 ff . 
lecturing by professors, 257. 
light, sensation of, 13. 
literature, 291 ff. 
living and making a living, 306. 
love, 133 ; of humanity, 174. 
Lowell, James Russell, quoted, 

214. 
loyalty, 234, 325; to ideals, 

195. 

major special senses, 11. 

man as a reacting organism, 
chapter XI, p. 98, 4, 314. 

manual training, 304. 

mathematics, course in, 279; 
study of, 279. 

meaning, 53. 

mechanical element in education, 
161. 

memorizing, in studying history, 
261. 

memory, chapter V, p. 43 
analysis of, 44; auditory, 46 
gustatory, 47; logical, 47 
mechanical, 49; motor, 46 
olfactory, 47; physical basis 
of, 43; recognition in, 44; 
reproduction in, 44; sense 
classes of, 45 ; tactile, 46 ; the 
pedagogy of, 50 ; visual, 45. 

militarism, 177. 

military discipline, 187. 



Index 



343 



minor special senses, 11. 

Montessgri method, 314 ; Chil- 
dren's Houses, 316 ; exaggera- 
tion of sense training in, 317 ; 
motor training in, 316; no 
literature in, 321 ; sense train- 
ing in, 315 ; social education 
in, 317 ; spontaneous self -direc- 
tion, 322 ; teaching of reading 
and writing by, 320; the 
government of children in, 
323 ; the silent directress, 323. 

moral battleground, 184. 

moral interests, 124. 

moral training, 191. 

morality, teaching of, 191 ff. 

morbid, effect of the, 207. 

morbidity, 139, 248. 

motiles, 256. 

motive habits, 154. 

motives, 106; gradation and 
classification of, 103; lower, 
to be subordinated, 114 ff. 

motor element, 229, 258. 

motor emotions and interests, 
121. 

motor process, 184. 

motor sense, 16, 315. 

muscular sense, 16. 

music, 296. 

natural sciences, 277 ff. 

newspaper reading, 41. 

noise, 15. 

notebook, suggestions in regard 

to, 261. 
novel reading, 40. 

obedience to common will, 324. 
occipital lobes, 12. 
odors, 16. 



optimism, 211. 
organic functions, 103. 
organic sensations, 17. 
organization of associations, 96. 

patent medicine vender, 244. 

pathetip, the, 140. 

paths in nerve centers, 153. 

patriotism, 174. 

perception, chapter III, p. 24; 
analysis of, 25; disease of 
civilization affecting, 34; fac- 
tors in, 26; gustatory, 33; 
memory as element in, 26 ff . ; 
motor, 29 ; of distance, 32 ff . ; 
of duration, 32 ; of effort, 30 ; 
of form or extension, 30; of 
space, 29; of surface, 30; of 
temperature, 33; of third 
dimension, 31 ; olfactory, 33 ; 
organic, 34 ; past experience as 
element in, 27; relation to 
sensation, 29; tactile, -29; 
training of , 34 ; visual, 30.- 

perverted emotions, 138. 

physical basis, of association, 
94; of habit, 153; of memory, 
43. 

physical culture, 302. 

physical education, 300. 

piety, 234. 

pitch, 15. 

plodding through life, 211. 

practical and dynamic interests, 
318. 

primary senses, 315. 

"Progressive Road to Reading" 
series, 321. 

psychology, value of study of, to 
educator, 3. 

public spirit, 174. 



344 



Index 



questioning, art of, 271. 

rational interests, 168, 170, 182 ; 
as ideal selves, 172 ; sphere of, 
173. 

react, the tendency to, 202. 

reactions, to stimuli, 98 ; specific, 
108; subconscious, 202, 204. 

reasoning, chapter VII, p. 62; 
deductive, 68; inductive, 62; 
pedagogy of, 69. 

recitation, chapter XXVI, p. 264 ; 
drill in, 266 ; in history, 267 ; 
in mathematics, 266; in oral 
language, 267; in spelling, 
267 ; in written language, 267 ; 
pupils as critics in, 272; pur- 
poses of, 264 ; the logical chain, 
270; the test in, 264; topi- 
cal, 270; training in culture 
in, 270; training in thought 
in, 268 ft*. 

reflex action, 102. 

religious emotions and interests, 
125. 

remorse, 139. 

reorganization of curriculum, 
327; of education of infants, 
327 ; of elementary education, 
328; of secondary education, 
329 ; summary of, 330. 

repetition, 156. 

representative image, 57. 

responsiveness to suggestion, 203. 

science, how to teach, chapter 
XXVII, p. 274 ; of arithmetic 
not for children, 226. 

sciences, classification of, 277; 
course in, 278; double object 
of, 274; of languages, 282; 



place in school curriculum, 
276; pupil's duty in studying, 
284; teacher's duty in teach- 
ing, 283; value of laboratory 
work to understanding of, 278. 

self-centered emotions and inter- 
ests, 119. 

self-control, 115, 197. 

selfishness, 133. 

self-preservation, 120, 127. 

self-realization, 120. 

selves, choice and renunciation 
of, 178; our, chapter XVIII, 
p. 172 ; social, 176 ; system of, 
173. 

sensation and the senses, chapter 
II, p. 10 ; analysis of, 20 ff. ; 
pedagogy of, 19; the organic, 
17; the spatial element of, 
19. 

sense, motor or muscular, 16; 
of hearing, 14; of sight, 12; 
of smell, 16; of taste, 16; of 
touch, 15 ; of temperature, 16. 

senses, classification of, 11; or- 
ganic, 11, 16; special, 11. 

sensitiveness, 147. 

sentimentality, 138. 

sewing, 311. 

sex, method of teaching facts 
concerning, 244. 

shorthand, 312. 

skill in thinking, 274. 

sloyd, 304. 

social culture, 297. 

social emotions and interests, 
123, 132. 

social sciences, 280; purpose of 
studying, 280. 

sound, 15. 

sowing wild oats, 162. 



Index 



345 



space element in sensations, 19. 

space senses, 32. 

spelling, 290. 

spiritual atmosphere, 214. 

standard of emotional life, 146. 

stimuli, 98, 165. 

store of knowledge, 276. 

stream of thought, 205. 

subconscious life, chapter XXII, 
p. 201; effect of, on health, 
206. 

subconscious motor impulses, 
185. 

subconscious reactions, 102. 

subconsciousness, 201 ; charac- 
teristics of, 202; does not 
understand a negative, 207; 
our control of, 206 ; pedagogi- 
cal observations concerning, 
218 ; repository for products of 
conscious activity, 205; sum- 
mary of, 216-219. 

suggestions, cumulative effect of, 
204; from other's thoughts, 
212; protection against evil, 
208; responsiveness to, 203; 
should be positive, 207. 

syllogism, the, 68. 

symbol and concept, 56. 

sympathy, 71, 133, 259. 

tabu morality, 235. 

teaching, old and new compared, 

51. 
technical habits, 154; pedagogy 

of, chapter XXIX, p. 300. 



13 



telepathy, 213. 

thinking, children's, 222; com- 
mon, 225 ; is helped by physi- 
cal culture, 301; philosophic, 
225; scientific, 225. 

thought contrasted with feelings, 
7; original, 71. 

time for the hardest work, 84. 

time senses, 32. 

tire points, 135. 

tone, 15. 

triangle of education, the, 8. 

typewriting, 312. 

unity of the human being, 5. 
universal motive, 106. 

visual sensations, 13. 
visualizers, 256. 
vividness, 268. 
voluntary action, 182. 
voluntary process, 184. 

Ward method, 321. 

Weber's law, 17. 

will, chapter XIX, p. 182 ; func- 
tion of, 182 ; training of, 187 ; 
works by inhibition, 185. 

willing a negative process, 185. 

work, 258. 

writing, 303. 

youth, chapter XXIV, p. 238; 
aesthetic, 247; an idealist, 
246; ethics of, 248; mental 
diseases of, 248; social, 246; 
sphere of instruction for, 252. 



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